upthehill

Electricity generation from hot water, or micro geothermal energy. This works in a tubular form, and is much simpler than conventional solutions. Still some work to do, but great potential!

Interesting experiment in Sweden for a family to try to achieve a reduction in their carbon footprint to 1 tonne per person.

Cycle helmets made from cardboard! Just ordinary cardboard, but thicker, and coated with a water proof acrylic.

Starting this June, Sharp will start a series of test of its eco technology including but not only solar panels, Eco Powered Equipment like fridge, LED Lights, AC and other Power Monitoring and management system on a real size House built in Sakai City within Osaka Prefecture.

The Goal here is to make sure that all Sharp’s technology and products once used together will lead to a sharp decline in power demand and built the first Zero CO2 Emissions House. Also this “Ultimate Power Saving” House will help Sharp to rethink and redesign some of its tech if necessary to further tune and reduce the house overall power consumption

Sharp Corporation has completed a Sharp Eco House at GREEN FRONT SAKAI in Osaka, Japan and in June 2011 began operation with the aim of realizing a house that emits “zero CO2 emissions.” Sharp’s dual goals for the Eco House are to minimize power consumption and contribute to a comfortable living environment.

The Eco House is equipped with cutting-edge energy-saving appliances integrated into a network using HEMS*1. This makes it possible to use displays, such as AQUOS TVs and LCD tablets, to show how much electricity is being consumed, and it will eventually give residents of such a home a quantitative look at their energy consumption and energy savings. The Eco House is also equipped with LED lighting, which will be evaluated for energy-saving performance and for its ability to adjust the brightness and color of the lighting to the most comfortable levels.

Also to be evaluated is the ability to use HEMS to properly control the energy created by the photovoltaic modules, stored in the storage batteries, and consumed by the appliances.

The Eco House will use state-of-the-art technology in Sharp’s efforts to develop the ultimate in future home comfort. For example, the energy generated by the photovoltaic modules will supply DC (direct current) power straight to DC appliances*2 without conversion to AC (alternating current), while an electric vehicle (EV) traction battery will work in conjunction with the Intelligent Power Conditioner as a storage battery for the house. In addition, a large 180-inch LCD screen will be evaluated for suitability to today’s green-conscious world.

Data acquired through Eco House evaluations will help Sharp to expand its energy solutions business: the Eco House experiment will help realize practical applications that cover things like the control of peak electricity and the compatibility of devices and appliances with smart grids.

The Eco House will do the following:
•　Use devices like AQUOS LCD TVs and LCD tablets to see exactly how much electricity is being saved through the use of HEMS and systems for measuring individual appliance consumption.
•　Evaluate the energy savings and comfort of LED lighting.
•　Evaluate how effectively an EV storage battery connected to the Intelligent Power Conditioner can power appliances in a house.
•　Evaluate the use of photovoltaic module energy as direct feed for DC appliances.

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Japanese technology companies get serious about sustainability - or at least minimising energy consumption...

Photos: Wikipedia & Flickr, CC

Mario & Luigi Would be Proud
Sometimes, discovery is about putting things together in new ways. We know that mushrooms can be great at breaking down pollutants, and we know that disposable diapers are a huge problems, with mountains of the slow-degrading poop-containers filling up landfills... So how about finding a kind of mushrooms that fests on diapers? That what researchers at the Metropolitan University in Mexico City have apparently done. Read on for more...

Pleurotus ostreatus. Photo: Wikipedia, CC

In an article published in Waste Management (the journal, not the company), Alethia Vázquez-Morillas describes her research:

cultivating the right type of mushroom on soiled nappies can break down 90% of the material they are made of within two months. Within four, they are degraded completely. What is more, she says, despite their unsavoury diet the fungi in question, Pleurotus ostreatus (better known as oyster mushrooms), are safe to eat. To prove the point she has, indeed, eaten them.

The second photo in this article shows what the Oyster mushrooms look like. They are good at this job because they feed on cellulose, the main material used in disposable diapers. In the wild, the Oyster mushrooms grow on dead trees, so they have the enzymes to break down cellulose...

See also on Parentables: Mom's Carry-On Bag: What to Tote When You Fly

If you like this article, you can follow me on Twitter (@Michael_GR) and Stumbleupon (THMike). Thanks.

Via The Economist

More on Green Tech
Amazon is Now Selling More Digital Kindle Books Than Print Books
95% Data-Center Cooling Energy Reduction Thanks to Fluid-Submerged Servers
Google's Prediction API Could Optimize Your Car's Fuel Efficiency

Another example of answers to very difficult questions being solved by nature. Edible Oyster mushrooms cam completely break down disposable nappies within just 4 months!

Good news for those engineers who tell us that LED lighting is just not ready for mainstream indoor use yet!

Photo: kevindooley, Flickr, CC

This Should Help Further Reduce the Cost of Wind Power
The current methods to deal with this problem can only work with a relatively small number of turbines, but researchers at Adelaide University claim that their evolutionary method can efficiently deal with as many as 1,000 wind turbines.

Dr Neumann says the question of exactly where wind turbines should be placed to gain maximum efficiency is highly complex. "An evolutionary algorithm is a mathematical process where potential solutions keep being improved a step at a time until the optimum is reached," he says.

"You can think of it like parents producing a number of offspring, each with differing characteristics," he says. "As with evolution, each population or `set of solutions' from a new generation should get better. These solutions can be evaluated in parallel to speed up the computation." (source)

"Selection of the fittest" is used to determine the location of the turbines while taking into account variables like wake effects, the minimum amount of land needed, wind factors and the complex aerodynamics of wind turbines.

See also: Google Invests $100m in What Will be the World's Largest Wind Farm (845 MW)

Via University of Adelaide, Science Daily

More on Alternative Energy
China's Largest Solar Panel Maker Expect Sales to Climb 20% in 2011
We Could Have 10 MW Wind Turbines by 2011 and 15 MW Turbines by 2020
U.S. Needs to Boost Spending for Energy R&D, Panel Tells Obama
Some U.S. Utilities Starting to Replace Coal with Natural Gas
Steven Chu: China Giving U.S. a Clean Technology "Sputnik Moment"
iSuppli Forecasts 15.8GW of Solar PV in 2010, 19.3GW in 2011

Adelaide University has produced a new evolutionary algorithm to allow the optimal locations for massive wind farms to be determined. Because of the limitations of interference and microclimate, usually it isn't possible to do this for large numbers of turbines.

Brilliant and simple explanation of why you should try to buy FSC certified products where possible. This example is from Canada, but it applies everywhere.

Why settle for one form of renewable energy when you can produce power with two? That’s exactly what scientists from the University of Liverpool have done by upgrading an everyday wind turbine with a new set of spinning solar blades. The team, led by Dr. Joe King, came up with the innovative solution to stymie critics who say wind turbines are “only useful when the wind is blowing” — their design doubles the functionality of traditional turbines by incorporating photovoltaic technology.

Image © Philipp Hertzog

Dr. King said, “While we are no strangers to windy weather here in the UK, it can be intermittent in other regions. Solar panels may only be useful here during our ten days of summer or an occasional heatwave, but in countries such as Morocco, Italy and Spain they could make a real difference.”

However the team has faced problems. Early computer simulations found that the turbine mounted solar panels would cause blinding beams of light to shoot out across the surrounding area. There was a real concern that the turbines could potentially blind aircraft pilots as well as anyone living in the vicinity. Not just that, but on a particularly hot day the turbines would generate ‘lethal’ solar rays that could set buildings on fire if concentrated.

“The last thing we want is for our turbines to cause plane crashes and fires, so we’ve devised a ‘tinted’ solar panel that doesn’t reflect sun beams. Our early prototype looked like a massive disco ball when it is was operational, but our solution now prevents that.”

The team is now deciding where to install their prototype solar wind turbine. “Due to the poor amount of sunlight in the UK, we’re definitely looking abroad,” Dr. King said. “Personally I believe an ideal place would be Ireland. It’s close by, has strong winds, wonderful summers, plus my family live there so I can go visit!” Expect the solar wind turbine, dubbed the “Heat Waver”, to be set for a summer installation in a few months. “We still have several tests to run,” Dr. King said, “but we are confident we can transform the world’s renewable energy needs. Just think what our turbines could do in countries like Australia.”

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Two renewable technologies are better than one! Liverpool university researchers have created a wind turbine with PV cells on the blades - brilliant!

Cheap rechargeable battery technology just got a whole lot cheaper!
Should make electric cars cheaper...