Author: gavril

Well, Bentley has something to look forward to and breathe live into. We’re talking about the TEN11 sports car, being designed for Bentley. Well, using numbers to name a car isn’t really new. This time it’s in sequence though. And it’s inspired by the Bentley logo, which has ten feathers on the left and eleven on the right side. This car has been dreamt to be a green one, with low emissions.

Using four electric hub motors, each located in a wheel, the car uses a lightweight body structure, ecological materials, and low CDF, pulling down emissions. Well, the logo inspires the name, though the designing is inspired by kite boarding. This one designed by Miika Heikkinen somewhat reminds one of those luxury sports cars in Speed Racer.

[Tuvie]

Eco-benches get a facelift with the eyebrow-raising attention-pulling bench. Designed by Steven Ma, this bench not only rests your tired legs, but also works as a street light, a power generator and helps the environment a bit, by growing plants. The circular shaped bench is made entirely out of recycled materials, making it a shade greener.

Known as the e-Co Bench, this green resting spot is made from bio-aluminum – a material recycled from redundant aircrafts – and glass. This enables the bench to be further recycled while disposing off. The bench also captures its own water to feed the plants it grows, with the top boasting integrated solar cells during the day. The energy captured is used to spark up the four lighting channels. We sure would love to see some of these in our parks and on side-walks.

[Treehugger]

A lot of us spend a good part of our income on electronics, those little devices that help us communicate, entertain ourselves and are ever handy, making our lives easier. But these little devices need to be charged up too. So, we end up with a box-full of different chargers, to power them up, which also means, an increased usage of electricity form the grid.

Well, you don’t need to rely on the grid anymore to power up your devices, the sun’s ready to help using this solar powered battery charger. It also comes packed with 29 different adapters, ready for use. The 20,000mAh battery can power up your laptop, with 19 adapters dedicated to different laptop types, using the sun. 14 adapters for cameras, phones and the PSP keep your devices charged up. Using solar power, charging time extends to 8 to 10 hours, while an AC adapter takes just 3 hours. Hook up you devices to this charger for just $148.

[Akihabaranews]

The skies above us go greener by the day as the aviation industry constantly upgrades to cleaner and more eco-friendly and environment-friendly means to have its passengers flying. The guys at MIT have come up with designs for a green aircraft, extremely eco-friendly, taken that it consumes 70% less fuel than the planes above today.

The MIT-led team, with a $2.1 million NASA grant, came up with the N+3 airplane. Why this confusing name? it simply states that the plane is three generations ahead of the ones we have today. The team has designed two aircrafts, a 180-passenger D “double bubble” series, which will push the good old Boeing 737 out of the skies, and the 350-passenger H “hybrid wing body” series, that will outdate the Boeing 777. These planes will be 10 percent slower though, but that makes up for the loading and unloading time taken. By 2035, we should have some of these taking off our international airports.

[Cnet]

The iconic red London double-decker buses are all set to go green, and this doesn’t mean they will shed their red skins. Their hearts and minds will turn green. The Routemaster is being brought back to life by London Mayor Boris Johnson, but will not drink those gallons of diesel anymore. Instead, these buses will use clean green technology, hybrid engines instead.

These buses will cut emissions and will regain their status as London’s pride. Each costing $420,000, the all new Routemaster will have a 15% better fuel efficiency than the hybrids around today, and a sweet 40% more than the diesel powered ones. Designed by Thomas Heatherwick, the new Routemaster will have three doors, two staircases, one of which boasts a view outside with its windows. The good old Routemaster, burning asphalt since 1954 gets its well deserved makeover, green and clean.

[Fastcompany]

Answering natures call isn’t just throwing out waste anymore. Thanks to an American architecture professor in Abu Dhabi, we can now use urine to create bricks! These types of sustainable bricks are “built” from bacteria, sand, calcium chloride and urine.

The pee-less method used today to make bricks involve the use of brick kilns, huge ovens that tend to eat up a load of energy. Well, instead of using those energy wasters to make building material, we can now simply use this eco-friendly way, of creating bricks at room temperature. Using microbial-induced calcite precipitation, chemical reactions cause the microbes on sand to join, creating bricks looking like sandstone, strong as clay-fired bricks or even marble! Now using urea in this process might raise a few eyebrows, since these bricks will end up being the walls of our homes in future, but then again, it is indirectly a form of recycling urine that would just end up in sewers anyway!

[Gizmodo]

Here’s yet another device to juice the sun of its energy and power up, instead of connecting to a grid back here on earth. The Sun Drive solar charger by Zyrus and the GreenMobile USB charger have a sun-powered companion. The U-Powered USB portable solar charger by Kiwi Choice helps make your outdoor time a little easier, soaking in the sun and powering up your devices.

The device unfolds into a tripod with three solar panels, which when exposed to direct sunlight, can also store energy in it for later use. Just incase you don’t rely on the sun too much, or are anticipating a cloudy day out; you can also connect this one to your PC to store some charge in it for later use. You can have one of these for $49.99.

[Engadget]

Mitsubishi have jumped aboard the smart grid brigade and are here with one of their own. Mitsubishi Electric will invest $76 million in a project like this. Two installations will mark Mitsubishi’s entry in smart grids, a residential-size building and a commercial facility. These will boast power generation with photovoltaic panels and energy storing facilities.

Smart meters and electronics using cutting edge technology will monitor the flow of energy. The residential installation will use a 200-kilowatt photovoltaic array and a home energy-management system with appliances connected in a network. Mitsubishi Electric will also experiment with a four-megawatt solar array mini power station juiced by the sun. Looks like Samsung and Panasonic have yet another peer to keep up with in smart grid technology.

[CNET]

It’s about time those small tablet-shaped alkaline batteries go green. And that’s exactly what Sony though of, and came up with these five Mercury-Free (0%) Mini Alkaline battery models, which will debut in August. Batteries like these are used in watches, calculators, toys and portable game consoles. These however have mercury, which when disposed of cause significant harm to the environment. When not disposed of properly, the mercury infiltrates the food chain.

Mercury can also harm the human body as well as the environment on entering the food chain. Sony’s baby, the 0% Mercury Mini Alkaline battery however keeps the mercury at bay, and the problems caused by it away. This does not affect the performance of these batteries either. Introducing batteries like these will decrease mercury by around 470 kg annually, or so Sony hopes.

[Sonyinsider]

Who needs all that horsepower when you can power up your Beemer with your feet! The BMW M Bike is as awesome as it looks. This bike is one of those you can proudly flaunt, while riding through those terribly gridlocked streets on your way to work or the local park, instead of using your car. Sturdy as a stallion, the bike has a beautiful matte anthracite frame and disk brakes for quick stops. It also uses a high tech Shimano SLX gear system.

To keep those bumps away, the bike also uses a Manitou Match suspension fork for the front wheel. It lacks rear shock absorbers though, so don’t try taking this one up a mountain. You’ll just end up with a sore backside. Talking about backside, the bike boasts a leather saddle with red inlays and an eye-catching pair of wheels with an equally eye-catching and matching handle. The bike will be expensive, taken that it flaunts features like these. Keeps your fingers crossed for the yet to be announced price.

[uncrate]

The monsoons are fast around the corner, which means that the hurricanes will be here soon. And the people of Haiti are yet living in tents, without proper homes to keep them away from the ever-looming drastic weather conditions. After the recent earthquake, 2 million people are still displaced, without homes, living in makeshift tents. Green Container International Aid is working hard to provide emergency housing facilities for these citizens, and needs your help!

The company hopes to convince shipping firms around to donate a few empty shipping containers, that otherwise remain idle in shipping yards, and send them to Haiti. Metabolic macrostructure steel frames will be built into which these containers will be inserted. Shipping containers were used for similar purposes earlier in Bosnia in 2001. So spread the awareness and word around, and do your bit to help the people of Haiti from the extremes of weather.

[Designboom]

Want a beautiful green home, so green that Tarzan wouldn’t mind living in it? Simply use nature’s thermal shield on the exterior walls of your home! And by that, we’re talking about ivy creepers! Now ivy growing on the walls of your home is bound to give you those chills and creeps you usually feel down your spine when you see a haunted house with some of these. Ivy has also been blamed, unnecessarily for causing structural damage. Well, the guys at Oxford University sure think otherwise, stating that these plants actually protect homes!

Ivy acts as a natural thermal shield, keeping the heat out. It also keeps the brickwork away from moisture and extreme temperatures. Ivy growing on walls absorbs pollution too, making the air around and inside your home easier to breathe. However, damaged buildings should keep the ivy away, since these creepers tend to enter cracks and widen them up, causing structural harm. So if your home is intact, and the sun’s bothering you, just grow a wall full of ivy!

[Dailymail]

Abu Dhabi’s green dream city, Masdar, is slowly, but sure, springing into existence. Designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, the Masdar Headquarters features on the 2010 National Design Triennial too! The Triennial, held from 14th May until 9th January 2011 with the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum playing host, has the most innovative and sweet designs on display, of which the Masdar Headquarters is one.

The Masdar Headquarters, the center of Masdar City, will be carbon neutral and evergreen. Cutting edge technology will be used, making this city self sufficient. The Masdar Headquarters will have the world’s largest solar panel array with eleven cone-like structures to give natural ventilation and daylight. Masdar is designed to set an example of how green a city can get in our world today.

[WorldArchitectureNews]

Like everything else, the way cities are built and function in the future will be a whole lot different than they are today. The simple space saving and environment hugging option to ever expanding cities in the future is vertical growth, instead of spreading out horizontally and eating up land and greenery. So, our future cities will be way up there, in the skies above. The Green Float city in the sky will tower up, 1000 meters high, in the shape of a flower, and a surface area above ground of 1000 meters. Gaining inspiration from lilies floating on water, the cities are designed to accommodate 30,000 residents, above ground, and 10,000 at ground level, besides the water body surrounding the city island. The tower will also incorporate a factory that will make the city self-sufficient, providing it with food.

Temperatures of ground level will remain a pleasant 26-28°C year round. Recycling, livestock farming, waste-to-energy conversion and other processes will be carried out in the tower factory. Countries, with these floating lily cities will crop up in the future, a great way to live in peace with our degrading environment.

Thanks Jason!

The future seems bright. Bright green, with a whole lot of technological breakthroughs coming up everyday and designs for the development of these been sketched every now and then. Flying will be a greener affair in the future too. At least that’s what designer Victor Uribe hopes. He designed an aircraft that should probably take to the skies in the next 40 years that takes of vertically from the ground! And what makes this awesome aircraft so green? It’s powered up with hydrogen! Using hydrogen fuel, synthesized from water, the aircraft he chooses to call, the Airbus A350H, will have its fuel i.e. water, drawn from a river nearby.

By the looks of it, this one sure reminds one of a supersonic jet. Maybe it’ll go that fast too!

[Dvice]

Looks like President Obama is taking the whole green thing seriously. Every effort is being made on his part to save the environment and have the United States go green. His latest was a visit to Missouri, the first ethanol plant. The President stated that U.S. should be No.1 in bio-fuels.

The President is hard up on decreasing dependency on foreign oils, which is why these steps are being taken. In a little corn-filled barn, the President addressed a 200 member strong audience, stating that use of home grown fuels was a key strategy. He also wished for U.S. to be the first in the world of bio-fuels and lead the way before China and other nations. America is sure seeing a bright green future.

[Kansascity]

What better place exists than the middle of the ocean for a good breeze, strong enough too turn the blades of a wind turbine. And that’s exactly what the Obama administration realized while approving the offshore project, Cape Wind. This is just one of the projects that will line up around the Atlantic coast.

At a cost of around $1 billion, 130 wind turbines will be hoisted off the Cape Cod coast. The project will produce enough energy with the help of the wind to power up 75 percent of the electricity demand of the Cape and islands nearby like Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. Like always, every rose has a few thorns, and these are being pointed out by local opponents who claim that a project like this would disrupt marine environment. A handful of European countries are already using power sources like these with few complaints. U.S. has a lot of catching up to do.

[Gris]

Air pollution isn’t something we can ignore anymore. Did you know that six in ten Americans live in places with dangerous levels of air pollution? That’s around 175 million people in America. Currently, Los Angeles has the worst ozone pollution. Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale area of Arizona has the worst year-round particle pollution while Bakersfield, California has the worst short term particle pollution.

A report based on 2006 to 2008 claimed that cleaner diesel engines and controlled coal-fired power plants has led to a decrease in pollution though around 30 million people still live in highly polluted areas. These pollution levels can lead to diseases like asthma, lung damage and premature death. Fargo, N.D., Wahpeton, N.D., and Lincoln, Neb. are currently the cleanest cities in the United States. You should probably consider moving there for some cleaner air.

[Physorg]

Just because your cell phone doesn’t and give out CO2, it doesn’t mean that your phone doesn’t indirectly cause a whole lot of pollution. Think again! Here’s an infographic that tells you just how polluting that Blackberry or iPhone in your pocket could be. Here’s a reality check on how mobile phones can actually pollute.

61% of the world’s population uses a cell phone. That’s around 4.1 billion mobile phones. These phones use around 4,221 mega joules of energy, equivalent to 32 gallons of gas emitting 112 kilograms of CO2. If every charger was left plugged in the whole day, it would waste enough energy to power up 28,000 homes. And to top it all, 140,000,000 cell phones will land up in landfills this year. That’s about 4 phones per second. Recycling all these phones would save enough power to light up 272,000 homes. About time we switch to good old pigeons for communicating.

Via – [Newlaunches]

The Titanic wasn’t the only one affected by melting glaciers and breaking ice bergs. The fluffy white fish-eating polar bears are suffering too. Global warming is sure taking its toll on the glaciers, melting them away like an ice-cream in the sunshine. So, to spread awareness of this disaster, Jovana Bogdanović came up with an idea that will remind you of melting glaciers and polar bears every time you sip coffee.

Recently showcased at the Milan Design Week, these polar bear shaped sugar cube, known as the Sugar Bear, slowly melts away into your coffee, reminding you of the melting glaciers and the endangered polar bears. Ice is what polar bears love living on, and losing ice due to global warming is sure depleting their numbers. These white cousins of brown and black bears are in danger. It’s about time we take emission reductions and recycling more seriously and control global warming.

[Inhabitat]