Apr 21
As one of the world’s largest producer of pistachios, Turkey has plenty of pistachio shells to go around. So, in the tradition of turning food waste into energy
Apr 15
A team of Chinese scientists did an impossible-sounding thing. They created electricity simply by dragging a droplet of saltwater across a layer of graphene. No big fires, no greenhouse gases, no fuss. They created energy with just a miracle material and one of the most plentiful substances on Earth.
Mar 12
As an electricity source, what could be greener than plants? That’s the idea behind this rig, the world’s first system that powers an FM radio using nothing more than the photosynthetic powers of moss. And creators Fabienne Felder and Dr. Paolo Bombelli are just getting started.
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Jan 10
Building the perfect battery is a hard problem. Batteries either too inefficient or too expensive or too unstable to power the renewable gadgets of the future. But a team of Harvard scientists just built a new kind of battery with a molecule found in food, and it could solve these problems.
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Sep 15
Inhabitat’s Week in Green: lane-straddling bus, invisible skyscraper and space vegetables
Posted in: Today's ChiliEach week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week’s most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us — it’s the Week in Green.
When it comes to public transportation, taking the bus is the least sexy option. Buses are slow; they make frequent stops; and because they share the road with cars, they get stuck in traffic. But a new proposal for a giant lane-straddling bus would eliminate traffic congestion by letting cars pass right through the middle of it. The futuristic bus is just one of several stories about innovations in green transportation on Inhabitat this week. Mercedes-Benz just completed the first cross-country trip for a self-driving car with its S500 Intelligent Drive research vehicle, and BMW unveiled the official production model of its 2015 i8 plug-in hybrid sports car at the Frankfurt Motor Show. In other green car news, Nissan announced that it is in the final stages of developing its second electric vehicle — the e-NV200 compact van. In an effort to make flat tires a thing of the past, Korean manufacturer Hankook has produced a puncture-proof, airless tire that is made from 95 percent recyclable materials. And in more good news for green cars, August was the best month ever for US sales of electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and conventional hybrids.
Jul 21
Inhabitat’s Week in Green: anti-mosquito sticker, a cancer-identifying scalpel and the world’s largest offshore wind farm
Posted in: Today's ChiliEach week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week’s most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us — it’s the Week in Green.
Urine and cellphones don’t mix — just ask anyone who has ever dropped their phone in the toilet. At least that’s what we thought before learning that a team of UK scientists has created the world’s first pee-powered cellphone, which is based on microbial fuel cells. In other renewable energy news, the Peruvian government is providing free electricity to over 2 million of its poorest citizens by harvesting energy from the sun, and China just became the world’s first country to install 3 GW of utility-scale solar. Wind power is also on the rise as CalTech researcher John Dabiri figured out a way to make cheaper, more efficient wind farms inspired by schools of fish, and construction began this week on the world’s largest offshore wind farm on the Fukushima coast. And in an unusual paring of renewable energy and architecture, Morphocode has designed a futuristic-looking loft that is nestled on top of an offshore wind turbine.
Mar 21
Technological advancements are not only being made in consumer electronics. Modern technology has greatly improved and advanced the usage of renewable energy. Major companies such as Microsoft, Amazon and Apple are already using renewable means of energy to power their massive facilities in various parts of the world. Apple’s chief financial officer, Peter Oppenheimer, revealed earlier today that the company is generating 167 million kilowatts for its Maiden, North Carolina data center through a 100 acre solar farm and fuel cell installations. That’s enough to power 17,600 homes for an entire year, though it only counts for 60% of the data center’s power needs. The rest of the green power is purchased by Apple. The Maiden data center is for internet storage and iCloud hosting.
Oppenheimer added that the company has switched many of its corporate facilities to green power, including those based in Cork, Ireland, Austin, Texas and Sacramento, California. Throughout the company use of renewable energy is at 75%. It is Apple’s aim to only use renewable energy at all of its facilities. Companies of such scale are often criticized for operating power hungry data centers, but it is good to see that they’re taking responsibility and investing in renewable energy.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: PopCap Games’ Solitaire Blitz Jumps From Facebook To iOS, Apple Not Using Samsung For iPad 5 And iPad Mini 2 [Rumor], 
Mar 21
Apple says it now gets 75 percent of its total energy from renewable sources
Posted in: Today's Chili 
Based on the latest reports, the company once chided for making too large an impact on Mother Earth is now claiming that a full 75 percent of its energy is being sourced from renewables. Apple’s chief financial officer, Peter Oppenheimer, informed Reuters this week that all of its data centers — including the gargantuan facility in Maiden, North Carolina — are now fully powered by renewable energy from onsite and local sources, while three-fourths of the energy used by the whole company is pulled from green sources. For those wondering, that includes solar, wind, hydro and geothermal, and the 75 percent mark is a stark 40 percent uptick from just two years ago. As for what the future holds? According to Apple: “We won’t stop working until we achieve 100 percent throughout Apple.” Alrighty then.
Source: Apple
Mar 12
The cost of energy isn’t cheap as gas prices and home heating costs rise on a semi-regular basis, and one place that we usually don’t think of as energy-sucking locations is the local 24-hour pharmacy. These places need to run their business at all times of the day in order to get you your pills to help with your upset tummy. But one pharmaceutical chain plans to introduce a store that completely runs on renewable energy.
Walgreens is announcing they have started working on what it’s calling America’s first zero energy superstore. The store will be located in Evanston, Illinois and will have over 800 solar panels, two wind turbines and geothermal energy to provide enough power to the store so it wouldn’t need to draw power from outside power sources. (more…)
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Cleaner Air, Thanks To Metal Organic Material, Charging Your Electric Cars Become Easier,
Mar 11
One of the ways to reduce carbon emissions is to capture the carbon that we generate in a number activities such as energy production. Most electricity is generated by coal-burning plant which produces the bulk of today’s carbon emissions.
However, until recently, the methods used to capture carbon emissions are far from efficient as a great deal of energy is required to transfer the captured carbon from the capture material to the final storage location. The chemists at University of South Florida and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology are working on a reusable way that is more cost-effective and efficient in capturing and separating carbon dioxide: metal organic material (“organic” means that its molecules contain Carbon). (more…)
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: WADI Affordable Water Filtering Technology Powered By Solar Energy , The Clip Holding concept is a solar-powered light clip,
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