Dear Germany, When You Get To The Green Future, Please Throw The Rest Of Us A Rope!

Hailing from Freiburg, Germany, Rolf Disch is a renowned architect that has put his little city front and center on the eco-map. Literally transforming Freiburg into Germany’s eco-capital where about 35% of residents don’t own a car and new homes routinely incorporate photovoltaic panels. And now, a popular destination for tourist world-wide seeking the reality of sustainable architecture and the inspiration for better eco-friendly housing options for their future. (more…)

Center of Excellence in Ocean Energy Technology

Florida‘s cleanest and most abundant source of renewable energy is its oceans. The Gulf Stream is the strongest current in the world, it flows northward past the southern and eastern shores of Florida, funneling through the Florida Straits with a mass transport greater than 30 times the total freshwater river flows of the world – over eight billion gallons per minute. The warm, surface water of the Gulf Stream overlays much colder deep water that flows through the depths of the ocean and into the Florida Straits from the Arctic regions, yielding an energy-rich and stable source of ocean thermal power. The cold, deep ocean water also has enormous potential for cold water air-conditioning (up to 45% of Florida’s residential electricity consumption is used for air conditioning) and environmental mitigation. These energy sources can supply all of Florida’s energy needs. The kinetic energy of the Gulf Stream has significant potential to supply Florida with much of its needed consumer electricity, provided that technically-feasible and environmentally-friendly harvesting technology can be developed. (more…)

As PopSci.com So Eloquently Put It:

Despite all the talk about carbon capture, carbon footprints and carbon trading, carbon dioxide only causes nine to 26% of the greenhouse effect. That means that the majority of warming results from gases with a much lower media profile than the paparazzi-trailed starlet of global warming, CO2. In honor of last weeks’ report in the Journal of Geophysical Research, which identified a brand new greenhouse gas, we count down the gases that bring us bikini weather in Antarctica and beachfront property in Montana.

10. Sulfuryl Fluoride: The new kid on the block, MIT scientists identified this chemical as a greenhouse gas on March 11th, 2009. Used as a fumigant, Dow Chemicals produces sulfuryl fluoride to kill termites. The chemical, which is highly inert, has a lifetime of up to 40 years, and traps 4,800 times more heat per molecule than CO2. The chemical only exists in 1.5 parts per trillion in the atmosphere, but according to the recent Journal of Geophysical Research, that number is going up by 5 percent a year. (more…)

Already a water utility, Snohomish County PUD began operating as an electric utility on September 1, 1949, providing public power to Snohomish County and Camano Island in Washington state. Snohomish County PUD is the second largest publicly owned utility in the Pacific Northwest and the twelfth largest in the nation in terms of customers served. Along with power generation from the Henry M. Jackson Hydroelectric Project, a 112-megawatt facility, the PUD also owns a cogeneration facility on the Everett waterfront that burns wood for fuel.

The Henry M. Jackson Hydroelectric Project, which began operating in 1984. Water from Spada Lake flows through a tunnel/ pipeline before reaching the powerhouse on the Sultan River, downstream from the dam.After traveling through the turbine-generators at the powerhouse, most of the water goes back into the river. Some of it flows to Lake Chaplain where it becomes part of the water supply. Water from Lake Chaplain is distributed to nearly two-thirds of Snohomish County’s population or is used to maintain proper water flows for fish populations in the Sultan River. (more…)

OK, environmentally concerned restaurant people, listen up! Been pulling your hair out over what to do with all that used vegetable oil you accumulate every day? Knowing it’s most likely being disposed of in landfills or wastewater treatment plants. Well cheer up Baldy, because here’s a solution invented just for you (well, and the planet).

The Vegawatt system uses waste vegetable oil from any food service operation as a fuel to generate on-site electricity and hot water, saving the restaurant thousands of dollars as well as providing a clean, renewable source of energy.

A Vegawatt system contains more than just power generation equipment. (more…)

IST Energy’s GEM is a waste-to-energy conversion system. It processes trash made up of food, paper, plastic, wood, and agricultural waste, and turns it into clean electricity. What is unique about the GEM is that it is the first compact, mobile system that can be housed on-site by business and venues. The system takes the trash, shrinks it in volume by about 95%, and gives you free electricity and heat.

By diverting tons of trash from landfills, the GEM reduces greenhouse gas emissions that are emitted from trash as it decays. In fact, this type of waste (more…)

WOW! —– SUN-TRACKING DEVICE

A team of three MIT students have designed a system that will allow solar power panels to track the sun without motors or control systems.The student team, called Heliotrope, won top honors and a check for $10,000 in the finals of a competition aimed at developing innovative energy technologies.

They designed the system to imitate the way plants track the sun across the sky, by using the difference in temperature between shaded and sunny areas to change the properties of the material supporting solar photovoltaic cells. The system, once built, is completely passive, requiring no power source or electronics to control the movement. Solar cells that track the angle of the sun can be 38 percent more efficient at generating power than those that are mounted in a fixed position. (more…)