Tag Archives: sustainable

Sustainable Energy in Developing Nations Rewarded

Sustainability is really neat, so it’s nice to see that the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy exist and they recently awarded some top-notch and innovative projects happening in the developing world. The winners receive a cash prize to continue their great work.

Projects ranged from solar-powered home systems and mini-hydropower plants for remote villages, to food waste and dung biogas plants for urban areas.

One of the first-prize winners, the Beijing Shenzhou Daxu Bio-energy Technology Company from China, has developed a new biomass stove that burns agricultural waste and wood instead of coal.

Solar Powered Condo in Japan

Solar Condo!

Japan’s first solar power condo is on the market and it looks pretty funky. The Grandia Solare has solar panels on its roof that power the complex.

This is what Japan for SUstainability has to say:

Shibaura Group estimates that the system will reduce carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to the amount absorbed by approximately 4,200 cedar trees, and will save as much as 1,200 18-liter containers of petroleum.

Via: TreeHugger

Ontario Goes Solar

After recently banning old light bulbs, the province of Ontario has permitted a Californian company permission to build a rather large solar power facility.

The Ontario government has approved a California company’s plan to build North America’s largest photovoltaic solar farm, the provincial energy ministry announced Thursday.

OptiSolar Farms Canada Inc. of Arthur, Ont. — a subsidiary of California-based OptiSolar Inc. — will install more than one million solar panels at four farms outside Sarnia, Ont., providing the province with 40 megawatts of power by 2010. Ontario Energy Minister Dwight Duncan said that’s enough to power 6,000 homes.

Urban Farming NYC Style

In the city of the future will be cows, and grass, and clean air! Urban farming is not a new idea as there are already plenty of community gardens in urban centers. The scale that is being suggested by a professor at Columbia University has not been tried before – farming in skyscrapers.

Imagine a cluster of 30-story towers on Governors Island or in Hudson Yards producing fruit, vegetables, and grains while also generating clean energy and purifying wastewater. Roughly 150 such buildings, Despommier estimates, could feed the entire city of New York for a year. Using current green building systems, a vertical farm could be self-sustaining and even produce a net output of clean water and energy.

Via TreeHugger

Island to be Sustainably Powered

The Spanish government has announced that one of the Canary Islands is going to have all of its energy generated in a sustainable way.

El Hierro will rely on a combination of hydroelectricity and wind power to generate its electricity. “El Hierro will be the first island in the world totally supplied by renewable energy,” the ministry said. The technology associated with this task includes a system involving two reservoirs to power hydroelectric stations, a wind farm and a pumping system.