Things Are Good » Technology

Using Trees To Provide Clean Water.

Dan Harrison — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:11:28 +0000

It turns out that trees can do more than just provide power! The Moringa tree, which grows in Africa, India, South East Asia, and Central and South America, is drought resistant and capable of producing cooking and lighting oil, soil fertilizer, and nutritious food. In addition, it has be recently publicized that the seeds can reduce the bacteria count in previously untreated water by 90.00 – 99.99%! Although the process can be quite involved, it still has the potential to allow people to have unrestrained access to clean water.

Read a bit more at Gizmag.com, or read the entire article as published in Current Protocols in Microbiology.

Renewable Energy in China is Booming

Adam Clare — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:55:59 +0000

When most people think of China and energy coal generally comes to mind, indeed China is the world’s biggest user of coal for energy. That may not change anytime soon but what the Chinese government is doing now is expanding their renewable power and becoming the world’s largest exporter of renewable technology. We can all benefit from increased use of renewable energy even if it just offsets new coal power plants from being built.

China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the country is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants.

These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.
…
China’s top leaders are intensely focused on energy policy: on Wednesday, the government announced the creation of a National Energy Commission composed of cabinet ministers as a “superministry” led by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao himself.

Regulators have set mandates for power generation companies to use more renewable energy. Generous subsidies for consumers to install their own solar panels or solar water heaters have produced flurries of activity on rooftops across China.

Mobile Tech Makes Donating Insanely Easy

David Fono — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 18:40:07 +0000

It’s the giving time of year, and MobHappy has a short writeup on new technology that allows people to donate to charities, simply by sending a text. This is a great advancement, because it shortens the gap between intention and action where a lot of charitable dollars are lost.

Today, mGive works with over 200 charities, enabling mobile users to donate money quickly and easily via shortcode. And it’s been successful: one campaign, featuring Alicia Keys and conducted during the American Idol TV show saw 90,000 donors raise $450,000 in just minutes. Donors have given about $1.5 million via mobile so far in the US; this exceeds the first year of online donations, and those now amount to some $18 billion per year.

Unfortunately the service is currently only available to our US friends.

Read the rest of the article

DIY Glasses for the Poor

David Fono — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:28:36 +0000

Something like 6 percent of the North American population wears glasses. If you’re amongst these four-eyes, you probably appreciate your local optometrist, who makes your vision possible. Unfortunately, people in developing countries don’t get to have a local optometrist — and that means no glasses. Happily, an inventor has just created glasses that people can adjust themselves, obviating the need for prescriptions and experts. And he’s getting them out to the people who need them.

The implications of bringing glasses within the reach of poor communities are enormous, says the scientist. Literacy rates improve hugely, fishermen are able to mend their nets, women to weave clothing. During an early field trial, funded by the British government, in Ghana, Silver met a man called Henry Adjei-Mensah, whose sight had deteriorated with age, as all human sight does, and who had been forced to retire as a tailor because he could no longer see to thread the needle of his sewing machine. “So he retires. He was about 35. He could have worked for at least another 20 years. We put these specs on him, and he smiled, and threaded his needle, and sped up with this sewing machine. He can work now. He can see.”

Collaborate for a Clean Energy Revolution

Adam Clare — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:04:00 +0000

Business Week has a short editorial on why collaboration is needed for future sustainable economic growth. Essentially, in order to make the future a better place we ought to share our knowledge – sounds good to me!

“The key to our prosperity in the 21st century lies in our ability to nurture our intellectual capital in science and engineering” to produce “breakthroughs on energy,” Energy Dept. chief Chu said earlier this year, as we did with semiconductors, computers, and biotech. But entrepreneurs hoping to capitalize on this international nurturing—even those with killer IP—face a ticking clock and fierce competition. As VantagePoint Venture Partners CEO and Managing Partner Alan Salzman told us recently, “In a world that’s innovating quickly, the life cycle of IP is short.”

A Simple Buoy That Pumps Water

Adam Clare — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:26:51 +0000

Pumping water into filtrations plants and reservoirs is not really an exciting topic, except when someone invents something that’s so simple that it seems that it should exist. A British inventor has created a pump that uses only wave power that is a self-cleaning device that essentially pumps water for free.

Dubbed ‘Searaser’, it consists of what looks like a navigation buoy, but is in fact a simple arrangement of ballast and floats connected by a piston. As a wave passes the device, the float is lifted, raising the piston and compressing water. The float sinks back down on the tail of the wave on to a second float, compressing water again on the downstroke.

What is particularly clever about Searaser, however, is its simplicity. Where most marine energy devices have sealed, lubricated innards and complex electronics, Searaser is lubricated entirely by seawater, has no electronic components and is even self-cleaning. Smith describes it as ‘Third-World mechanics’, but this belies the sophistication of the concept.

‘The beauty of it is that we’re only making a pump, and bringing water ashore,’ he explains. ‘All the other technology needed to generate the electricity already exists.’

Greenpeace’s Tissue Guide on Your Phone

Adam Clare — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:59:27 +0000

The USA branch of Greenpeace have turned their Recycled Tissue and Toilet Paper Guide and turned it into an iPhone app. I hope that other Greenpeace regions do the same thing as I find myself carrying my iPhone around but carrying around an extra booklet all the time can get really annoying. If you’re in Canada, you can download the guide as PDF here.

The Guide makes it quick and easy to find out which brands of facial tissues, toilet paper, paper towels, and napkins are truly green and which should be avoided. Our experts have carefully evaluated over 100 brands and recommended those that: contain 100% overall recycled content; contain at least 50% post-consumer recycled content; and are bleached without toxic chlorine compounds.
When you’re doing your grocery shopping or just stopping by the corner store to grab a roll of toilet paper, make an informed decision as both a consumer and someone concerned about the world’s ancient forests.

GPS Directions Help Save the Environment

Adam Clare — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:37:52 +0000

One of the largest makers of consumer GPS devices has commissioned a study on fuel consumption in cars that have GPS devices and cars that lack the feature. The conclusion is that having a device that informs drivers about traffic can lower emissions. Of course, if you can avoid taking a car you should do so.

In a three pronged study which evaluated drivers without a navigation system, drivers with a navigation system, and drivers with a navigation system that included traffic, the results revealed that drivers using navigation devices 1) drove shorter distances and 2) spent less time driving. Conducted in two metropolitan areas of Germany – Dusseldorf and Munich – the study also showed that drivers with navigation devices had a 12% increase in fuel efficiency, as measured by liters of fuel consumed per 100 kms. Fuel consumption among those drivers using navigation fell from 8.3 to 7.3 l/100kms.
This increase in fuel economy translates to an estimated .91 tons (metric) decrease in carbon dioxide emissions every year per driver, or a 24% decrease over the amount that the average non-navigation user emits per year. Stated in terms of grams/km the reduction equates to 25 g/km per car. And with an annualized decrease in driving of nearly 2500 fewer kilometers per driver, 1.19 million tires would also be saved from disposal in Germany due to the decrease in wear and tear.