Author: gavril

We’ve heard of environment hugging eco-friendly laptops before. Sony’s Vaio W Series Eco-Edition was one of them. Lenovo have started thinking green too and have built a laptop that will have environment conscious users giggling like little girls. The eco-friendly ThinkPad L Series by Lenovo will get all your work done without a hitch and keeps out harmful materials from its body too.

Available in two variants, the 14-inch L412 and 15-inch L512, the ThinkPad L Series uses recycled materials straight of the office desk for its body. The ThinkPad’s LCD cover, palm rests, bottom and top case are made from office water jugs and used IT equipment. With Intel Core i3 or i5 processors, this laptop also boasts ATI Radeon graphics and an 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth, 3G/4G wireless connectivity options, and Windows 7 OS. You can pick one of these for $649.

[Laptoping]

The Green Hornet Navy F/A-18 jet will zip through the air on Earth Day, leaving a trail of green ideas for the aviation industry to grab at. This twin-engine tactical aircraft will use bio-fuel on its flight tomorrow. 50% of its fuel tanks will be filled with refined oil from crushed seeds of flowering Camelina sativa plants. The supersonic jet will take off over the Chesapeake Bay.

The Navy is desperately looking for alternative fuels to power up their aircraft, in order to decrease their complete reliance on petroleum. This is also an effort of the Pentagon to increase renewable energy use to help the military remain un-affected by fuel price fluctuations. The US Navy will go a shade greener in 2016 with the Great Green Fleet of nuclear, bio-fueled powered and hybrid electric vessels take to the seas.

[Nationalgeographic]

You’ve probably seen the Avatar movie in 3D and marveled at its realism and awesomeness. If that wasn’t enough, you could join James Cameron on his trip into the woods to meet the tribes of Brazil, in an effort to save the rainforests. James met 18 indigenous tribe leaders last week to help aide their fight against a building of a damn that would cause the Amazon to flood. According to the Director, these leaders stated that they would fight till the last man, and till the last drop of blood. Looks like they sure mean business!

25,000 indigenous people from 18 tribes and another 20,000 non-indigenous residents would lose their homes, if the Amazon does flood. The hydroelectric plant project, as part of the dam, would help create greener energy, at the cost of land destruction and deforestation. James Cameron sure is doing his best for these tribes. Maybe some of them might find their place in Hollywood too if he ever decides on an Avatar sequel.

[CNN]

Robots aren’t going to be taking over the world anytime soon. For now, they’re busy saving our environment. To join the crew, the Cryosat-2 is now up in space, working tirelessly to help track the volume of sea ice in the Arctic. This new satellite, recently launched into space from Kazakhstan helps gauge the difference between the ice surface and the top of the water.

Weighing around 720kg and measuring 4.6m X 2.4m X 2.2m, the Cryosat-2 will help scientists with a load of data and probably create a larger awareness about global warming. Technology up in the heavens like the Cryosat-2 help record environment changes in real time, producing data that pinches us every time we forget that our environment is depleting.

[Motherboard]

Here’s a lighting device that can light up your bathroom and create a bit of lather to aide your bath too; though it isn’t actually made to do so). This LED lamp is made out of soap, 97% that is. The soap-lamp or the glowing soap, whatever you’d like to call it, was designed by D-Vision and shown off at the Milan Design Week.

LEDs being a cool source of energy, these little lights do not emit any heat at all, keeping the soap from melting. We’ve seen different types of materials like cloth and plastic being used for lampshades before, soap isn’t one of those. LEDs being energy efficient and long lasting as compared to incandescent bulbs, are finding loads of applications today, including lighting up soap.

[Inhabitat]

You probably love stacking up speakers to hook up your home entertainment system to. What you probably haven’t realized is these speakers can suck in loads of energy to make sweet music. Well here’s something we came across that helps amplify your sweet music, without the use of electricity. Jaws dropped? Read on!

These “speakers” are made of recycled paper ceramic. They help amplify sound from you earphones and are not to be hooked up to your audio system. Simply place your each earphone in them, and the ceramics do the job of amplifying. Now don’t expect a sound quality of a Bose audio system or the likes. Ceramics are known to give a pretty decent sound quality though. These are something to show off to your environment-conscious buddies.

[Treehugger]

We’ve heard of wooden floorings in our homes before. A wooden building does sound weird though. Norway will soon have one of these. The Barents Secretariat Tower is what will be the tallest wooden structure in the world. 144 feet high, the tower was designed by the Reiulf Ramstad Architects. The 16 to 17 storey tall building will be fantasy come true in the world of environment friendly building structures.

Built using recycled materials, the buildings integrated systems enable it to adapt with seasonal weather changes. The building also biodegradable household and industrial waste for biogas production, making it sustainable form the exterior structure as well as its interior. A building like this could be risky though, taken that the wood is quite flammable. A whole load of precautions will need to be taken there.

[ArchDaily]

Atmo from Ishac Bertran on Vimeo.

Now here’s something that you can wear and collect environmental data at the same time. Designed and developed by Ishac Bertran and Mayo Nissen at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design, the Atmo is still in its experimental stages. The Atmo, a wearable, gathers and records environmental data and displays to users the pollutants and toxins they are being exposed to in the atmosphere around them. That’s not all.

The Atmo can also hook up to what will be a centralized authority to help in mapping environmental conditions in real-time. With a device like this, we are sure to know where that terrible toxic smell is coming from and help warn others to keep away from it, when connected to the central authority.

[Fashioningtech]

City streets will be a cleaner place, if we have taxis like the Milano around. Volkswagen’s new battery powered taxi was unveiled at the Hanover Trade Show in Germany this week. The car does away with the passenger door on the driver’s side, allowing passengers to get off on the curb. Also, the front passenger seat is ripped off to make room for luggage.

Using lithium-ion batteries, the Milano boasts a 186 mile drivable range on the EU cycle with a 45 kilowatt-hour pack mounted in the floor. This car is a concept design as of now. Hopefully, Volkswagen, the German automaker does come up with a vehicle like this for production in future.

[Autoblog]

We all know how nasty, bad and smelly oil and coal can get. Well, natural gas in its true colors is smelly too. Natural gas has fewer emissions than oil and coal and releases lesser CO2 as compared to the other two energy sources. That’s all we’ve ever looked at before. No one considered what leakages can cause!

However, there is a twist to this tale too. Methane, out of which natural gas is mainly formed, has a worse environmental impact than oil and coal. During distribution of natural gas, leakages occurring are usual, which can cause harm. This makes natural gas significantly worse and more environment-harming than diesel! Owing to methane’s increased heat trapping, leakages of natural can have a greater impact on global warming.

[Treehugger]

Maybe the Hanna-Barbera’s Jetsons used these to travel to work and school in the animated sitcom. The military however is keen to have a flying car for defense purposes. This new project by DARPA has its researchers working hard and tickling their brains to create a flying car by 2015. Built under the Transformer TX program, these flying cars will be green!

Using a hybrid-electric drive engine, researchers hope these cars will travel for around 250 miles before thirsting for fuel. These vehicles will incorporate an SUV like design, taken that they will be used for the military. Once in the sky, the flying car will operate like a single engine aircraft cruising at 10,000 feet. It can also pack four troops. With a budget of $43 million, flying cars are sure to take to the skies soon. Hopefully, civilian versions pop out soon too! Who wouldn’t love to fly off a gridlocked street to work!

[Inhabitat]

There was something more to look at during this years Coachella music festival in Southern California, besides the musicians from all over the world. Recycling bins by Global Inheritance gobbled up all the garbage during the festival. These bins were a work of eye-catching art by the non-profit organization from LA.

The R2D2 bin greeted people, created by Erik Escoveda. These bins were created by nonprofit solicited artists as part of the TRASHed project. 60 recycling bins turned into works-of-art found their way to the Coachella 2010 festival.

[Treehugger]

Intel will find its way inside our homes electricity supply systems now. With a new experimental device being developed, Intel will help reduce energy consumption and costs in future. The device works as a sensor that monitors power consumption of appliances in real time and has the data sent to a PC, mobile phone or an energy management console via Wi-Fi. The device in its infant stages is will only be capable of displaying data for the users benefit. In future though, the device will see upgrades that will enable it to control lighting systems at home and also control appliances manually with human intervention or the use of by the use of a PC. The company currently has a hand in wind turbines, the Smart Grid Corporation of China and has taken green measures like the Green IT before. Intel should probably name their new energy saving brainchild.

[Wired]

A few years in the future, you’ll save your eyes the sight of gas guzzling lawn movers and other energy burning devices. The world is preparing itself for the solar power age. The sun generously gives the earth enough energy every minute to power up for a year. So we ought to make use of it and exploit it to its fullest. The sun will never cease burning, and our power supply source will exist forever, if we use solar panels on a larger scale that is.

Everyday stuff around us, like water heaters are going solar powered. Solar chargers, solar lighting and batteries, toys powered by solar energy, solar screens to keep out the glare from your homes, solar powered garden and patio equipment, solar pool heaters and solar powered air-conditioning systems are taking over the world quickly, taken the urgent need for energy and alternative means to generate it. A solar-powered world in the making? Probably!

[CoolerPlanet]

Renault with a little help from Japanese partner Nissan has pulled the veil off the design for its new electric car, Fluence Z.E. This electric car’s total costs of ownership will be similar to a diesel powered vehicle. The car is powered up by a synchronous electric motor with rotor coil. With a maximum torque of 226 N·m (167 lb-ft), this car nestles a 22kWh lithium-ion battery in its belly. The car has a drivable range of 60 km (99 miles) and a top speed of 135 km/h (84 mph).

To charge up, the car can be hooked up to a power supply of 10A or 16A, 220V that will have the car juiced up in 6 to 9 hours. We are eagerly awaiting this car’s launch. The new electric Renault Fluence Z.E. is sure to win hearts world over with its sleek, sweet, energy efficient design.

[Treehugger]

If you rely on the US Postal Service for your snail mail delivery, you probably won’t receive any on a Saturday, thanks to global warming. Probably another effort to save up on costs, the dying postal service could do with the power grid connection we reported on before. Anyways, this proposal of a Saturday off will help the USPS cut CO2 emissions by around 503,000 metric tons per year.

This equals pulling off 60,000 to 96,000 cars annually. The already financially suffering USPS will benefit from such steps, taken that a day off will help save up on fuel consumption costs, at the same time doing the environment a huge favor with reduced emissions. Electric delivery trucks may be expensive at first, but could help the USPS profit in the long run if the fleet is overhauled.

[Examiner]

The University of Queensland will soon bask in the sun’s glory, with the largest solar panel array in the whole of Australia, to be set up at the St Lucia campus. Costing around $7.75 million, this project will save up on around 1750 tons of greenhouse gases annually. This solar array will cover up an area as big as a rugby field and a half.

According to physicist Paul Meredith, the project is part of a large scale overhaul of the university’s campuses to have them use renewable energy. With, %1.5 million invested by the government in this project, Australia will soon have more of its campuses go green with renewable energy. Taken that Australia has an extent of open spaces, wind energy harvesting could be up for grabs too!

[Heraldsun]

If you plan to drive a Ford soon, you’ll have something more to look at on your vehicles dashboard. The company’s MyFord Touch in-vehicle software system will now have an Eco-Route tool added to its functions before it launches. This system will knock green consciousness and fuel efficiency in driver heads.

So in future, when you enable your Ford’s GPS system, you can also select the most fuel-efficient route and not just a shorter or faster one. According to the company, drivers using the Eco-Route will see a 15% mileage improvement. This might increase the cars instrument panel a bit, with a few more distractions and complexities, but for the increased mileage, this all seems worth it! Nice move Ford!

[VentureBeat]

Walking around on the side-walk will soon not only be an alternative to missing the bus or burning fat, you’ll end up powering your street lights too! This sounds fantastic, and the idea is undeniably so. Using the principles of piezoelectricity, these modules developed by a Dutch company, Sustainable Dance Club uses micro-sensors which on exerting pressure generate electricity.

This technology has already found its way on a trial section laid out at Toulouse, France. Eight modules, generating around 50 to 60 watts have been laid out. These produce enough energy to power up a street lamp. Walking to your local convenience store has never been more electrifying and powerful before.

[FastCompany]

Here’s a lighting system you probably haven’t ever seen or heard of before, unless your obsession with origami led you to build a house in which folding up paper wall resulted in creating windows, “Light Form”, by Francesca Rogers and Daniele Gualeni Design Studio is a modular lighting system that uses wood panels that you can simply flip back and have the energy-efficient electroluminescent lights behind them exposed.

These beautiful panels create a sort of mosaic design when flipped back and reminds you of traditional Japanese art. Allowing you to create lighted patterns to your taste by flipping panels, the Light Form can also use a bare white wall surface to reflect light instead of an electro-luminescent film.

[Inhabitat]