by: Gizmodo , 2010-11-29 20:22:47 UTC
In an address to the National Press Club, Energy Secretary Steven Chu argues that federal R&D in energy needs to be sustained once stimulus dollars run out so the U.S. can stay competitive in the world economy.
Bespoke Innovations is a San-Francisco-based firm founded by industrial designer Scott Summit and orthopedic surgeon/engineer Dr. Kenneth Trauner. Bespoke is using rapid prototyping to make a product with surprisingly little competition in the marketplace: Personalized prosthetics that not only work well, but look freaking cool.
"A current prosthetic is an amazing piece of engineering and research, but it's half of the equation," says Summit, featured in the NY Times video on rapid prototyping below. "A person is about form and shape and beauty and sensuality. That won't be reached by an assemblage of off-the-shelf mechanical parts."
Stepping in to fill the void, Bespoke makes kick-ass prosthetics using RP. If a person is missing just one leg, Bespoke can scan the other, mirror it in CAD, and crank out a counterpart; further production methods can then be applied to the prosthetic, like chrome-plating and/or wrapping it in leather that's been etched with tattoo-like patterns. The end result becomes something that the user would be proud to leave visible, rather than hide underneath pant legs.
Hit the jump to read Bespoke's well-reasoned mission statement.
Here's one of the more interesting green initiatives I've seen recently, enacted by Denmark's Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers hotel earlier this year: Guest-powered electricity, with rewards. The hotel will actually feed you for free if you generate some juice for them.
The 366-room Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers, one of the world's greenest hotels, is taking efficient energy production one step further by installing electricity producing bicycles in its gym for guests to use. Anyone producing 10 watt hours of electricity or more for the hotel will be given a locally produced complimentary meal encouraging guests to not only get fit but also reduce their carbon footprint and save electricity and money.
Guests using the new electric bicycles will be able to monitor how much electricity they're producing via iPhones mounted on the handle bars. Avid fitness fans can also race against the hotel's solar panel system in a bid to produce the most electricity.
This reminds me of the Netherlands' Sustainable Dance Club, whose exportable Sustainable Dance Floor, you guessed it, generates juice from boogeying club-goers:
It's pretty ingenious, and the only gripe I have with it is that in its current iteration, it generates electricity whether you dance well or dance badly. And that just doesn't seem right.
by: Sustainable Design News, 2010-11-29 11:02:24 UTC
The Journal of Interior Design (JID) is sponsoring a symposium focusing on design for a small planet.
The aim of this symposium is to advance the understanding of environmentally responsible interior design (ERID) through discussion of research and scholarly activity, design practice, and teaching strategies.
This year's 2010 Greenbuild Conference and Expo offered the usual enormous hall filled with displays of all kinds of products and building materials that can be used to create greener buildings.
Eco Home Magazine has a slideshow of 14 of the products that were on display at this year's Greenbuild. These are more residentially-oriented products, compared to the rather many more products aimed more at the commercial building market.
Some are fairly prosaic, and will still be chiefly of interest to builders and professionals (unless you happen to be a fan of drywall or plumbing fixtures), but others are more interesting, like a Freewatt Plus microCHP unit (PDF) that is available both for forced air as well as hydronic installations in homes, although EcoGeek readers have known about microCHP plants for years.
Another new item is the Modlet, a web-addressable module that plugs into a conventional outlet and then allows you to monitor and control energy use through a browser. This should be reaching the market in the coming year with both online sales as well as retail.
Of course, it should still be noted that making a greener building is far more than just buying a few green products. The basic operation of a building can be enhanced by added green hardware, but a bad design can't be redeemed simply by including a few green elements. Fundamentals of good green design are still the most important part of creating an environmentally appropriate building.
For years we have been watching as LED technology has improved and the cost of LED replacement bulbs has gotten lower and lower. Compact fluorescent bulbs have become commonplace, which has been instrumental in saving energy and lowering electricity costs for millions of consumers. But still, we've been waiting for LEDs to reach the point where they start being widely used. And now, it looks like that point may be here.
By the middle of 2011, a new 12-watt LED bulb from Osram Sylvania is scheduled to be available from all Lowes stores.
The Osram Sylvania Ultra A-Line LED bulb produces 810 lumens. This compares quite well with a standard 60 watt bulb (the one I checked is listed at 830 lumens). The LED bulb uses 12 watts, versus the 60 watt incandescent, wich is an 80% energy savings. And the LED bulb should last 25 times as long as a conventional bulb.
The biggest remaining question will be consumer acceptance. Does the LED bulb provide an adequate distribution of light, without the "hot spots" and dim areas characteristic of some earlier LED bulbs? And, is the color rendering of the LED good enough to make it an acceptable substitute for an aincandescent bulb? The A-line bulb has a color temperature of 2700 Kelvin and a color-rendering index (CRI) of 91. (An incandescent bulb has a perfect value of 100.) Most fluorescent bulbs have a CRI ranging from the low 50s to the high 80s, so the quality of the light should be quite good.
LED lights may have some end-of-life issues with circuit board materials, as do compact fluorescent bulbs, but, especially with RoHS regulations in place in many parts of the world, those are minor compared with the question of mercury in compact fluorescents. Of course, it's not a problem if the CF bulb is recycled (and more and more places are now taking those bulbs for recycling so that is becoming less of an issue, as well). And the total amount of environmental mercury is lower when considering the amount of mercury put into the atmosphere by burning coal to produce all the additional electricity that a conventional incandescent bulb requires as compared to the amount that would be spilled if a bulb was broken rather than being recycled, so concerns over CFLs should already be pretty well settled.
The 8 watt A-Line bulb is around $20 and is available right now. The 12 watt A-Line bulb should be in stores in the first half of 2011.
by: TreeHugger Science, 2010-11-24 20:01:50 UTC
Image: Spectrolab
Evolutionary, Not RevolutionarySpectrolab, a subsidiary of Boeing, has announced that it is starting mass-production of a very efficient concentrating solar cell, the C3MJ+ (the datasheet above is for the C3MJ, the "plus" version is a newer, slightly more efficient model). With an efficiency at converting sunlight into electricity of 39.2%, this cell would be the most efficient on the market. "Last year we set a new world record for efficiency with a test cell that peaked at 41.6 percent. We now have entered production with ess... Read the full story on TreeHugger
by: TreeHugger Design, 2010-11-26 12:22:25 UTC Image courtesy of Airclad.com
Need a spare room, but only for a few months? Want to make your outdoor jacuzzi an indoor one for the winter? Thanks to Airclad, by Inflate, now you can. The London based designer, which has been producing temporary inflatable structures (marketed for events and conventions) since 1995, is now going permanent and semi-permanent. The Airclad line is designed for those interested in an extra room, but want to avoid the permanence and carbon footprint that comes with building conventional structures. If you don't like it, just deflate it.... Read the full story on TreeHugger
by: TreeHugger Design, 2010-11-25 10:36:16 UTC Dirty Rags at Elisava Design School. Image Credit: Vicente Zambrano
What can you do with 1.285 bright green used uniforms? This was the brief the design students at Elisava school in Barcelona received by Urbaser, a local waste collection and urban cleaning company. Not only were they asked to design useful products for the company's employees out of their old uniforms, they also had to come up with designs that would use all of the pieces of the uniforms; leaving nothing behind.The Elisava students presented their work in an exhibition called "Read the full story on TreeHugger
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2010-11-29 23:27:17 UTC
Producing brick from recycled fly ash consumes less energy and emits less CO2 because it does not require firing to harden the masonry units. Nor is ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2010-11-29 02:05:08 UTC
The Modlet from ThinkEco is a smart outlet that reduces energy waste by monitoring real-time equipment power consumption and creating an automated ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2010-11-28 02:33:30 UTC
Paper is a cellulose non-woven and has therefor similar characteristics as cotton and viscose. Textiles made form paper can be crisp, translucent, ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2010-11-27 02:40:45 UTC
This fabric is made of a biodegradable fiber which is the result of research in starch and other grain byproducts.
Working with overspun yarn experts ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2010-11-26 02:02:39 UTC
Rubber manufacturers typically throw off waste of 5 to 15 percent – it’s a cost of doing business. These manufacturers now have another, more profitable ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2010-11-25 00:45:25 UTC
Nothing is refreshing as the pure taste of fresh water flowing from a spring. Grohe developed GROHE Blue® - the water spring for your own home. It ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2010-11-24 02:47:18 UTC
Bamboo is a wonder plant by all accounts. Its many uses include erosion control, watershed protection, soil remediation, and environmental greening. ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2010-11-23 01:42:00 UTC
Bagasse is a byproduct form sugarcane production and besides being used for energy production it can also be used as a material for making paper or ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2010-11-22 03:20:03 UTC
The Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) Catalyst program is accepting applications starting today through Tuesday, November 30 for design ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2010-11-22 01:24:46 UTC
"In our research, we learned that consumers are concerned about the environment and are interested in using products which save precious resources... ...
Image: Spectrolab
Evolutionary, Not Revolutionary
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Dirty Rags at Elisava Design School. Image Credit: Vicente Zambrano
What can you do with 1.285 bright green used uniforms? This was the brief the design students at
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