Monthly Archives: May 2007

City Likes to Blow

Toronto is looking to green their buildings, and what better place to start than city hall?

Putting small wind turbines on the roof at city hall was one of several ideas presented yesterday to reduce the building’s $3 million annual energy bill.

“Personally, I think it’s a really neat way of increasing the renewable energy footprint for the city hall,” consultant Paul Leitch told about 50 experts meeting yesterday to ponder ways of greening the 42-year-old twin towers.

Leitch said it would cost about $125,000 to install six of the devices – three on each tower – to produce enough electricity to power about nine homes.

Thanks, Lindsay!

Mmmmmm……house

Last time I talked about Mushroom houses was when I watched cartoons. Ok, ok I still watch cartoons. Point is I never thought about using mushrooms to make my home. On the other hand, Eben Bayer a soon to be graduate from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is trying to do it. Using mushroom spores Eben has developed a process to add insulation value and possibly even strong “growable” homes. According to CCNews,Mushroom Paper

“A dual major in mechanical engineering and product design and innovation, Bayer has developed an environmentally friendly organic insulation. The patented combination of water, flour, minerals, and mushroom spores could replace conventional foam insulations, which are expensive to produce and harmful to the environment.

“The insulation is created by pouring a mixture of insulating particles, hydrogen peroxide, starch, and water into a panel mold,” Bayer says. “Mushroom cells are then injected into the mold, where they digest the starch producing a tightly meshed network of insulating particles and mycelium. The end result is an organic composite board that has a competitive R-Value – a measurement of resistance to heat flow – and can serve as a firewall.”

Another Good Use for Beer

In Australia these days scientists and Foster’s beer producers are finding other ways to use beer, or what’s left of it.  The waste water from the beer has recently been used to make a fuel cell. 

“The fuel cell is essentially a battery in which bacteria consume water-soluble brewing waste such as sugar, starch and alcohol.”  The byproduct is clean water!

What will people discover next?

You can check out the story at the CBC.

Europeans Love Bikes

Every time I’m riding my bike and get stuck behind a smog producing death machine I fantasize about biking in cities like Amsterdam. Compared to North American cities they are already revolutionary in the way they promote cycling, and now some European cities are pedaling harder!

Copenhagen and Amsterdam have a cycling rate of 30% and 40% of their population commuting to work on bikes. This is good news itself, what’s better is that they are looking to encourage more cycling by increasing the cycling infrastructure that exists.

The rest of Europe is paying close attention. Officials from London, Munich and Zurich (plus a handful from the U.S.) have visited Amsterdam’s transportation department for advice on developing bicycle-friendly infrastructure and policies. Norway aims to raise bicycle traffic to at least 8% of all travel by 2015—double its current level—while Sweden hopes to move from 12% to 16% by 2010. This summer, Paris will put thousands of low-cost rental bikes throughout the city to cut traffic, reduce pollution and improve parking.

The city of Copenhagen plans to double its spending on biking infrastructure over the next three years, and Denmark is about to unveil a plan to increase spending on bike lanes on 2,000 kilometers, or 1,240 miles, of roads. Amsterdam is undertaking an ambitious capital-improvement program that includes building a 10,000-bike parking garage at the main train station—construction is expected to start by the end of next year. The city is also trying to boost public transportation usage, and plans to soon enforce stricter car-parking fines and increase parking fees to discourage people from driving.