the sustainable dance club project

frickin awesome! harnessing the energy of the dancefloor-
"The Sustainable Dance Club incorporates innovations in the field of sustainable design and applied techniques with social responsibilities in attractive club surroundings. The electricity generating dance floor will generate electricity from the movements of dancing people. This human powered floor is now being developed in cooperation with the Technical University in Delft and will most likely be the projects’ piece de la résistance."
"You only have to imagine the amount of energy, warmth and humidity that a club crowd produces on such an evening to see the great potential."


sustainabledanceclub.com

handheld windpower?

" It’s not quite nanotechnology, but these inches-long windmills can generate small amounts of electric energy to power a variety of low-voltage applications. Since they’re made entirely of plastic, they cost just dollars to manufacture, offering potential for many uses including battery recharging, lighting in remote areas, and wireless sensors."
physorg.com

richard branson offers 20 million dollars to find cure for global warming

yup. sir richard branson, ceo of virgin group (virgin reords, virgin galactic, virgin airlines etc. etc. etc.) announced a 20 million dollar prize to solve the global warming crisis. he got the idea from his participation in the "x-prize", the 10 mil. contest to put a privately owned ship in space, and a chat with al gore. perhaps this is to offset his guilt over all the rocketfuel his virgin galactic fleet is gonna burn once they go live... although who cares why hes doin it, what a great idea. nothin like a cool 20 mil to stir the imagination, huh?
full story here- news.independent.co.uk

bottled water resource study

sustainable engineer Pablo Päster did a study to figure out the resources necessary to manufacture and transport one bottle of fiji water, the countries second most popular bottled water brand. the reults are staggering.

the manufacture and transport of a single one kilogram bottle
consumed
>26.88 kilograms of water (7.1 gallons)
>.849 Kilograms of fossil fuel (one litre or .26 gal)
and created
>562 grams of Greenhouse Gases (1.2 pounds).
niiice.

link to the study

treecycling

recycle your christmas trees. most christmas trees take 10 years or so to grow to size, just to provide a week or two of christmas cheer, and then get tossed out with the trash. most cities now have recycling programs to turn those trees into mulch or other resources. this service provides the contact info and adresses for businesses and recycling programs in your area.

locations near you-earth911.org

ecosphere ecosystems

this is kinda cool, a great teaching aid for understanding ecosystems.
" The Original EcoSphere® is the world's first totally enclosed ecosystem - a complete, self-contained and self-sustaining miniature world encased in glass."
"Unlike an aquarium, this little world is a closed ecological system. Light gets in, but nothing else - no food, no water, no nutrients. Everything must be recycled. Just like the Earth. In our larger world, we also - plants and animals and microorganisms - live off each other, breathe and eat each other's wastes, depend on one another. "

eco-sphere.com

store wars

join cuke skywalker, obi wan cannoli, tofu d2, c3peanuts, and the rest of the organic rebellion as they battle against darth tater and the dark side of "the farm"....funny, clever and remarkably well done star wars parody about organic foods from a few years ago. definitely a classic for the ages. "search your peelings, cuke." heheheh.

dr. octagon environmental p.s.a.

kool kieth, a.k.a. dr. octagon does an environmental public service announcement called trees are dyin.
creative and clever as usual.
link

new solar power breakthrough

from the u.s. department of energy website:

New World Record Achieved in Solar Cell Technology
New Solar Cell Breaks the “40 Percent Efficient” Sunlight-to-Electricity Barrier

U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Alexander Karsner today announced that with DOE funding, a concentrator solar cell produced by Boeing-Spectrolab has recently achieved a world-record conversion efficiency of 40.7 percent, establishing a new milestone in sunlight-to-electricity performance. ... making solar electricity a more cost-competitive and integral part of our nation’s energy mix.
"Reaching this milestone heralds a great achievement for the Department of Energy and for solar energy engineering worldwide,”
Attaining a 40 percent efficient concentrating solar cell means having another technology pathway for producing cost-effective solar electricity. Almost all of today’s solar cell modules do not concentrate sunlight but use only what the sun produces naturally, what researchers call “one sun insolation,” which achieves an efficiency of 12 to 18 percent. However, by using an optical concentrator, sunlight intensity can be increased, squeezing more electricity out of a single solar cell.

UPDATE- so i just wanted to add, in plain english, what this means. the argument against solar power being a viable alternative has always been that it wasnt economically feasible, and the return just wasnt enough to warrant fully investing in solar. that argument has just been squashed, or at least squished. this just goes towards proving that with a little time, and investment of resources and brain power, there is far greater potential to alternative power sources than we presently know.
3 cheers for the greening of science and technology. we may yet find a way to survive ourselves!!1

link to full story