Tag: UK

Oscar the Grouch gets dream home

Everyone’s gotta have a dream. If you were Oscar you’d likely want something like this.

Last year’s trash could become next year’s model home, thanks to the invention of a new type of construction material made entirely from waste products.

“Bitublocks,” created by engineer John Forth of the University of Leeds in England, are composed of recycled glass, sewage sludge, incinerator ash, the by-products of metal purification and pulverized fuel ash from power stations.

“Bitublocks use up to 100 percent waste materials and avoid sending them to landfill, which is quite unheard of in the building industry,” Forth said. …

… Plans also are now under way to develop a “Vegeblock” using waste vegetable oil.

Britian Banshes Bad Air

Great news from merry ol’ England. They have introduced legislation that will set legally binding limits on CO2 emissions by 2020 and then lower limits by 2050.

Under the Climate Change Bill, carbon dioxide emissions must be cut by at least 60 percent by 2050. It also sets a legally-binding interim target for carbon cuts of 26 to 32 percent by 2020. Failure to meet targets could land the government in court says environment minister David Milliband who is behind the draft.

Organization to Help Green PCs

The Green Advisory Service has set out to help PC firms do less environmental damage. In the UK a PC left on overnight can cost upwards of £53 in electricity. The cost of running a PC is not cheap for the pocketbook or for the environment and this is what the Green Advisory Service will help change.

“Organisations are increasingly focused on their environmental profile and are beginning to recognise the reputation and cost advantages of a green approach,” said Heidi-Lynn Mitchell, product services director for Computacenter.

This is partly thanks to a major European Union directive – The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive (WEEE).”

Large English Windfarm

from the BBC

The BBC is reporting that the UK government has agreed to allow two huge windfarms to be built off the eastern coast.

“The £1.5bn London Array scheme will have 341 turbines rising from the sea about 12 miles (20km) off the Kent and Essex coasts, as well as five offshore substations and four meteorological masts.

The government said both schemes would make “a significant contribution to the aim of a five-fold increase in the UK’s renewable energy resource by 2020”.

Kids Can Divde by Zero

A professor in the UK has come up with a new number (really it’s a non-number-number) that means we no longer have to divide by zero. Instead, zero is replaced with “nullity,” which is nothing times infinity.

“The theory of nullity is set to make all kinds of sums possible that, previously, scientists and computers couldn’t work around.

“We’ve just solved a problem that hasn’t been solved for twelve hundred years – and it’s that easy,” proclaims Dr Anderson having demonstrated his solution on a whiteboard at Highdown School, in Emmer Green.”