renewable

House of the Future

- Agasel 1 Comment

Students at the University of Nottingham are moving into a new, futuristic house.  This three-storey home is being built as an example to the world on how people can cut carbon dioxide emissions.  Over a period of 20 years, students will live in the house and monitor heat, light, and water consumption.  The goal of the experiment is to cut CO2 emissions by 60 percent.univhouse.jpg

The house features an earth-air heat exchanger for heat; a grey water management system to reuse shower water for the toilet; a rainwater-harvesting system to collect water for the washing machine, shower and gardens; solar heating; and a ventilation / heat recovery system.

Mike Hinman of Stoneguard, the company building the house, states, “This building is, quite simply, 44 years ahead of its time.”

Put Your Leftovers in Your Car

- Adam Clare

wow!It seems like that neat engine, which is powered by trash, in that car from Back to the Future is almost real! Researchers at UC Davis have found a way to turn leftovers from meals into biogas that can be used to generate electricity or make fuel. That in itself is not revolutionary, what is though, is that they found an effective (cheap) way to do this on a large scale.

The machine will use leftovers from restaurants to make energy, thus making it also a waster-diversion program to boot.

“The Biogas Energy Project is the first large-scale demonstration in the United States of a new technology developed in the past eight years by Ruihong Zhang, a UC Davis professor of biological and agricultural engineering. The technology, called an “anaerobic phased solids digester,” has been licensed from the university and adapted for commercial use by Onsite Power Systems Inc.”

Google Goes Gaga for Solar

- Adam Clare

solared Google is going to power it’s corporate headquarters using solar power! The installation at the Googleplex will generate a total capacity of 1.6 megawatts which is “enough to supply 1,000 average California homes.”

The Googleplex has a lot of space on its roof it looks like. This is a great thing for any corporation to consider doing. I believe that Google is actually quite concerned about the amount of power an average PC uses because of the cost. Maybe this is their solution since computer makers are dropping the ball.

Window-Powered Buildings

- Adam Clare

glass A company, XsunX, is producing some really enlightening technologies. They envision buildings that produce their own energy through solar power, they imagine a future where the very glass you are looking through is also powering your computer.

Glass as solar panels, this just makes sense. Office towers need power during the day, which is conveniently when the sun is up. I hope that this company makes these products inexpensive.

“XsunX is also developing an opaque solar cell that is so thin and flexible that it can be integrated into other building materials, such as roofing and siding. The possibilities are virtually endless.”

World Cup Scores!

- Adam Clare

The World Cup has scored a green goal! Sorry, I couldn’t resist such cheesy writing. Seriously though, the World Cup organizers in Germany have surpassed their own goal of making the event have a small ecological footprint as possible. One thing they wanted to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that normally would have been released for such a large event by encouraging bike riding and riding public transit. They did more too!

“There are water-free urinals, overflow limiters on the wash-basins and electricity-saving measures, which are all things that save resources but go virtually unnoticed. The fans also don’t get to see the solar panels on the stadiums, which is a shame.”

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