Oil is spilling at a rate of 5,000 barrels a day into the Gulf of Mexico. The oil slick covers an area of nearly 4,000 sq. miles and growing. It is shaping up to be one of the worst man-made disasters to ever strike the planet. To put the leak in perspective, 5,000 barrels a day is 0.00026% of the U.S.’s daily oil consumption. We “spill” the remaining 99.99974% of that oil into the atmosphere each day.
We’ve seen mega-turbines before — but never one with an output of 10MW, and certainly not one that floats!
When completed, the world’s largest turbine will stand at roughly 533 feet with a rotor diameter of 475 feet. At three times more powerful than current turbines, it will be able to power over 2,000 homes. From Treehugger,
It will be built by the Norwegian company Sway and tested first on land in Oeygarden, southwestern Norway. Unlike most offshore wind projects where turbines rest on the seafloor, Sway turbines float. This means further offshore development where winds are stronger and more consistent.
The floating tower is a pole filled with ballast beneath the water creating low center of gravity. Anchored to the seabed with a single pipe and a suction anchor, it can tilt 5-8°, and turn around with the wind.
It’s expected that the prototype will cost close to $70 million and be completed sometime in 2011.
We love raucous festivals like Burning Man and music jamborees like Bonaroo, but we’ve never heard of one that combines the spirit of these events with the mission to actually accomplish something. Like building a build a micro wind turbine farm.
Such is the idea behind “Villages in the Sky: DIY World Change” — a a family-friendly renewable energy and sustainability celebration located in the Ozarks and scheduled for June 2010. Unlike gatherings that strive to leave things the way they were before anyone arrived, Villages in the Sky is looking to take advantage of crowd sourcing to create a better place than existed before. Participants will help build a micro wind turbine farm and bio-mass systems as well as giant play structures (zip lines, tree houses, ropes courses, etc). The entire event is internally cash free event which promotes a volunteer ethic and strangers working cooperatively for a shared goal. In fact, the main goal is to leave behind the beginnings of a locally self sufficient eco-village. Perhaps even one inspired by the Ewoks. From the website,
“Villages in the Sky is about more than wind mills and climate change. It is a full celebration of the element of air. Everything from paper airplane contests, to bubble blowing, to frisbees, to zip lines, to tree house villages complete with connecting bridges are being considered and encouraged.”
The VIS site is a 40 acre portion of the over 1000 acres owned by host East Wind Community in the Ozark mountains of south western Missouri. In other words, bring your GPS.
Right now, the event organizers are looking for help with funding and currently are in the hunt a $5K grant over at Brighter Planet. You can check out more details on the proposed plans — and help vote them through here!
2010 will most likely go down as the year electric cars were (once again) made available to the public through Big Auto. Both Nissan and Chevy have plans to release the Leaf and Volt respectively — and both focus on getting energy from being plugged in. (Although the Volt can charge its battery utilizing its small “range-extender engine”, but then what’s the point of having an electric car?)
If you’ve got the deep pockets for one, the most conventional way of charging the vehicle will be to simply plug it into an ordinary wall socket. Charging a Nissan Leaf would take up to 16 hours, and charging a Volt would take eight. If you’re in a hurry, however, the best thing to have on-hand in the garage is a “quick charger” — which pushes a much more considerable amount of juice to your car. Instead of 8 hours, you can now have a fully charged Volt in under 2.5 hours.
Unfortunately, having a quick charger installed in your garage is not something just anyone can do. From CNN Money,
“The equipment has to be fully approved, installed by a competent professional, and in most cases, a city or state inspector will have to approve it all.”
In some instances, users had to jump through hoops that amounted to a month or more of waiting for the right installer/inspector to visit their home. “But the broader market of car buyers are likely to be turned off by any additional hassles”, said Charlie Vogelheim, executive editor of Intellichoice.com to CNN. “They all become detriments to making the sale,” he said. “That’s the type of thing that slows it down going into the mainstream.”
Companies like Nissan and Chevy are attempting to alleviate such potential issues by working with city and state governments now — so that later in 2010, when new customers attempt to order quick chargers and get them inspected, they’re not met with blank stares. As Sebastian Blanco, editor of Autobloggreen added, “Little setbacks will not be enough to hold back the tide of people who really want these cars.”
Dell has just put the finishing touches on its latest green addition to the company’s corporate headquarters in Round Rock, Texas. Called a “solar grove”, the solar-powered parking lot not only produced carbon-free energy for the building, but is also ready to power plug-in vehicles — should any Dell employee currently be lucky enough to have one. From AutoBlogGreen,
The Solar Trees®, located in the Dell employee parking lot, will simultaneously shade 50 parking spaces and generate clean electricity directly from the sun. In an example of Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology, the solar arrays also incorporate two Envision Solar CleanCharge™ solar charging stations utilizing Coulomb ChargPoint™ for Electric Vehicles (EVs) and Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs). Photos can be viewed here. “Dell’s commitment to environmental sustainability is a beacon to organizations worldwide. We’re proud our Solar Trees® and CleanCharge™ solar charging stations can help serve as visible symbols of their environmental stewardship. The future of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles has arrived and our experience in solar innovation has allowed us to lead the market in the development of solar charging stations,” said Robert Noble, CEO & Chairman of Envision Solar.
The Solar Grove is expected to produce more than 130kW of clean energy. Check out the full press release here.
In what’s sure to give inane homeowner’s associations across suburbia hope, Dow Chemical on Monday announced a massive push into the solar shingle business – with a roll-out of their new integrated solar cells expected around 2011. Jetson Green delves into the benefits saying, “The POWERHOUSE Solar Shingle is made with CIGS photovoltaic cells in a proprietary shingle design. Roofing contractors won’t need any particular knowledge of solar array installations, and installations should be quick because conventional roofing shingles and Solar Shingles can be applied at the same time.”
Dow loaded their press release with some pie-in-the-sky numbers saying that they expect the solar shingle industry to potentially reach $5 billion by 2015, and $10 billion by 2020. Obviously, while not as efficient as their panel brethren, homeowners may find the aesthetics much more appealing. If costs can come down, perhaps Dow’s numbers might be on target. Then again, we’ve been dreaming about a solar suburbia for awhile now — and in the current economic shitstorm — such hopes might need to be delayed. Read up more on Dow’s announcement here.
Looking like something out of a science-fiction movie, the concept for a proposed algae farm and vertical garden on the outside of an old Boston historical building is drawing some big attention.
The pods, which are prefabricated and designed to be interlocking, contain algae-incubators on the inside and plants on the outside. The architects for the project would use the old Filene’s Basement site in Boston’s Downtown Crossing as a temporary home for research and biofuel production. The city planners, meanwhile, would have plenty of time to work through the red tape of zoning, financial, and legal webs for any permanent ideas. From the article,
The pods, which are used as incubators for growing algae for biofuel, can be configured in several ways depending on the needs of a given site. Individual pods can also be rented out by researchers for algae-based projects, according to Howeler Yoon. The spaces that form between the attached pods allow for planting and creating a vertical garden.
What do you think? Would you want something like this in your city? I think it’s a pretty wild project that might give us a glimpse of permanent vertical gardens in buildings years from now. For others, however, such a radical shift in architecture might be less than pleasing. Still, better to take advantage of something just sitting there, right?
We’ve seen plenty of solar-charger accessories for mobile phones and other gadgets, but this is the first one that appears to attach seamlessly. Created by product design firm MotionTouch for a company called Powcell, this solar-powered sleeve slides onto the back of a mobile phone handset and uses light to charge the unit. From the release,
The large solar panel provides the greatest surface area for light-capture and maximises the sleeve’s efficiency, including working in some ambient light conditions. And Powcell continues to charge its internal battery even when removed from the phone – so when reconnected it provides talk-time even if the device battery is exhausted.
Ahead of full production the sleeve has attracted considerable interest from major phone manufacturers, which have even approached Powcell about sleeves for future, yet-to-launch models of their phones.
Henry Powell, Client Director of MotionTouch says “Dispensing with the need for plug-in chargers makes Powcell a ground-breaking eco-product. And the ability to provide power for that crucial call, even when your phone is flat, makes it an essential accessory. We are very excited to have been so involved in this unique product that could change the future of mobile technology.”
We admit it’s a nice design — but some users will definitely be turned off by the added bulkiness; albeit minor compared to other options. The greatest leg-up here is the ability to have a backup battery source when you need it — and using clean energy to power your phone. It’s not for everyone, but it’s one of the best designed solar accessories we’ve seen yet.
Powcell expects to release the iPhone unit soon — with other phone models available shortly after.
If you’ve ever lived in or visited Ithaca, NY your probably familiar with the phrase “Ithaca is gorges”. It’s a funny little saying that gives a good indication of the region’s topography — hills, hills, and steeper hills. In fact, the inclines we have around here would make even Lance Armstrong break a sweat. So, it was with great expectation that I took advantage of an opportunity to review the IZIP Trekking Enlightened hybrid-electric bicycle from Currie Technologies. Could it be possible to bike to work and not immediately have to take another shower?
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Enjoy solar showers, but really want to be completely naked in the process? Unless you’re in a nudist colony, that option might be not available on a public beach. However, this innovative (and stylish) pop-up privacy tent from Guide Gear will hide your bits and bops while giving you a clean, hot rinse. The 6.5 lb tent is quick to setup and includes a 5-gallon PVC Solar Shower. Said one recent reviewer on Amazon:
Our family has always been more on the “minimal” side for car camping trips, but with my 23 year old daughter and her friends along on our recent trip, we needed a shower. We bought a Zodi water heater and this pop up shower tent. Great decision! The tent pops up in a second, nothing to put together and added almost no weight or bulk to our gear. The olive green material provided total coverage, blended nicely with the outdoor terrain, and had plenty of room for big guys. The 3 adjustments we made were adding a clip/clothespin to attach the shower head to the top, a chair right outside to hang towel and clothes (it cannot support much weight), and a large plastic pan to stand on. With those items, we had eight of us showering daily with no hitch.
That being said, you could also just go and jump in the nearest river. While this item is indeed handy, it may just be another piece of “baggage” that’s rather unnecessary when camping. To each their own, however — you be the judge.
Amazon via Ecofriend
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