Hasta La Gadget!

Just because something is environmentally friendly, that doesn’t mean it can’t be stylish. Like this headphone design by Britt Ashcraft, for example. It’s made from recycled materials, yet it looks like something you’d have to spend quite a bit of money on.

The main headband holding the headphones together is made from recycled wood. But not just any wood, it’s wood recycled from old acoustic guitars. Meanwhile, the rest of the headphones are made from a combination of reclaimed aluminum and leather. According to the designer, all of that leather will come from old jackets and bags owned by musicians.

Unfortunately, as beautiful as these headphones are, they appear to just be a design, meaning you likely won’t be able to ever buy them. Looks like we’ll never know just how expensive they would be.

Porsche already has plans to make waves in the hybrid market — which includes its 918 Spyder supercar — but now the German manufacturer has revealed its first three all electric sports cars.

Three different e-versions of the iconic Porsche Boxster will eventually be produced, and the first was recently unveiled in Stuttgart. It features two, 240 horsepower electric motors, which are attached to both the front and rear axles, giving the car all wheel drive performance. It’s also expected to have a range of around 100 miles and be able to go from zero to 60 miles per hour in 5.3 seconds.

The announcement is part of Porsche’s electric pilot program that, in conjunction with the city of Stuttgart, will be experimenting with vehicles and infrastructure in an attempt to make the region more EV friendly. Sadly, there are no curent plans to make these electric Boxsters commercially available.

Via Autoblog Green

The Air Force has certified its first plane to begin using biofuel. The C-17 Globemaster III will use a blended fuel, that’s composed of both a plant-based biofuel and traditional jet fuel. The mixture will be 50/50.

The fuel mixture burns much cleaner than traditional jet fuel and doesn’t feature many byproducts, such as sulfur. And it does so without hindering the performance of the plane.

“When blended as we’ve done, this is a potential drop-in solution for jet fuel for our aircraft, requiring no modification to systems or special handling or monitoring,” Jeff Braun, the Air Force’s alternative fuel certification office chief, said in a statement. “We expect to conclude HRJ flight testing within the next 12 months, supporting fleetwide HRJ [hydrotreated renewable jet fuel] certification within the next 22 months.”

What if a solar cell could heal itself just like a leaf on a tree? That’s exactly what a team of researchers at Purdue University are trying to figure out in an attempt to reduce the costs associated with solar power.

Solar panels are expensive to produce and expensive to repair, so a self-healing solar cell could potentially reduce costs quite a bit. The cell would last longer and require less maintenance. And to create a solution the research team looked to plants.

“We’ve created artificial photosystems using optical nanomaterials to harvest solar energy that is converted to electrical power,” assistant professor Jong Hyun Choi told ScienceDaily. These cells would regenerate continuously. “This sort of self-regeneration is done in plants every hour.”

The process uses engineered DNA, which combines with a dye found in the solar cells, allowing it to self-repair just like a leaf. However, the research is still in its early stages, and could potentially be too expensive to produce on an industrial scale.

If you’ve ever looked at the Nissan Leaf and though you’d like something a little more sporty, Nissan may have just the thing for you. In the future, at least. The company has unveiled a brand new concept car called the ESFLOW, which blends the environmentally friendly features of the Leaf with a sleek, futuristic sports car.

As a concept, details on the ESFLOW are slim, but here are a few, straight from Nissan: it’s a real wheel drive two seater, it features two electric engines that each power one rear wheel, the batteries are laminated lithium-ion, it can go from 0-100 kilometers an hour in just five seconds, and it has an expected range of over 240 kilometers on a single charge.

The ESFLOW will make it’s debut at the Geneva Motor Show in March. Hit the jump to a pre-rendered video of the car.