A couple of grad students from Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture founded Luminaid Labs and currently has a crowdsourcing fundraiser ongoing at IndieGoGo - 100% of funds will go to producing and distributing the LuminAID lights.
Some features:
Water-proof, inflatable, and packs flat
Coating:
Flexible, semi-transparent waterproof material (Photovoltaic film is laminated to polyethelenevinyl acetate plastic) with a printed dot matrix to diffuse light.
Charge time: 4-6 hours in sunlight Low setting: 4 hours of lighting @ 35 lumens High Setting: 6 hours @ 20 lumens
Batery is rechargeable up to 800 times.
On September 21, 2010, Swiss company Solar Impulse flew its first solar powered plane from Payerne to Geneva. André Borschberg, pilot and co-founder of Solar Impulse, notes the significance of this flight, saying, “the Swiss solar flights represent a major step forward for our team, taking us away from our customary airspace. We have learned to work together with international airports, merging in with the heavy Swiss air traffic.”The pioneering flight lasted about four hours and twenty minutes, with the plane’s speed averaging 50 km/h. The solar plane is powered by four electric motors that produce up to 10 hp, and by 12,000 solar cells, which charge the batteries enough for flights to be taken at nighttime, as well. The time has finally come; not only can we create cars and businesses that let out zero-emissions, but airplanes as well.
This plane is scheduled to fly internationally by 2011 and trans-Atlantic by 2012. The team–comprised of Bertrand Piccard, André Borschberg and Raymond Clerc, among others–is already in the process of creating a faster and more efficient plane, one they hope to fly around the globe by 2013. The company hopes to inspire the next generation of aviators and engineers. Bertrand Piccard believes that “using the solar plane as a symbol, our goal is to promote the pioneering spirit in young people, making them aware of the importance of renewable energy, energy saving and new technologies.”
A self-taught carpenter, Dan Phillips builds homes in Huntsville, TX out of recycled materials including cattle bones.
He started his own construction company back in 1997 by mortgaging his house.
The result? Phoenix Commotion.
His mission? To build affordable homes for low-income families using recycled materials.
He hires unskilled labor for a project and teaches them the necessary and valuable skills to help them with future employment.The only new materials in any of his houses are plumbing, wiring, structural elements.
He's built about 14 homes total. The estimate cost of building the 750 sq. ft. bone house is $26,000
Have you ever heard of the Doomsday Vault? I haven't until recently. It's actually called the Svalbard Global Seed Vault and it's been open since February 26, 2008. It's purpose? "To serve as the ultimate safety net for one of the world's most important natural resources."
From the site:
The Seed Vault is an answer to a call from the international community to provide the best possible assurance of safety for the world’s crop diversity, and in fact the idea for such a facility dates back to the 1980s. However, it was only with the coming into force of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, and with it an agreed international legal framework for conserving and accessing crop diversity, that the Vault became a practical possibility.
The Vault is dug into a mountainside near the village of Longyearbyen, Svalbard. Svalbard is a group of islands nearly a thousand kilometres north of mainland Norway. Remote by any standards, Svalbard’s airport is in fact the northernmost point in the world to be serviced by scheduled flights – usually one lands a day. For nearly four months a year the islands are enveloped in total darkness. Permafrost and thick rock ensure that, even without electricity, the samples remain frozen.
Twenty years ago, the environmental movement got a colorful supporter in the heroics of Captain Planet, the world’s “first and only eco hero.” The creation of Ted Turner and Robert Larkin III, the children’s animated show “Captain Planet and the Planeteers” ran from Sept. 15, 1990, to Dec. 15, 1992. And now, the city of Atlanta has decided to honor Captain Planet on this twentieth anniversary of its original air date.
On Sept. 15, the people of Atlanta will watch Mayor Kasim Reed present Captain Planet with the Phoenix Award, the highest award granted by the mayor. Further, Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue will give Captain Planet a commendation to celebrate this milestone. In honor of the day, Captain Planet has asked the world to perform a green action like planting a tree, recycling, saving water, and/or volunteering in your community.
Captain Planet tells the story of Gaia, the spirit of the Earth, who awakens to find the planet threatened by human activity. She sends out five magic rings with the power to control nature and the heart, each worn by an industrious teenager around the world. These are Kwame from Africa, Wheeler from North America, Gi from Asia, Linka from Eastern Europe, and Ma-Ti from South America. Gaia sends the five adventurers around the globe to stop various acts of eco-destruction. And together, the five can summons Captain Planet for help. Their collaboration is symbolic of the world’s need to come together to save the Earth.
“Captain Planet and the Planeteers” is the brainchild of media mogul Ted Turner. The first series of its kind to merge education and entertainment, the show was developed and co-produced by Turner Program Services and DiC Entertainment. The show ran on 185 stations nationwide and in more than 50 countries until 1992. A sequel, “The New Adventures of Captain Planet,” ran for an additional three years through Turner Broadcasting and Hanna-Barbera Productions. Episodes can still be seen on Cartoon Network’s sister station, Boomerang. You can also watch Captain Planet and his Planeteers save the Earth exclusively on MNN.
The day also honors the Captain Planet Foundation (CPF), started in 1991 by Ted Turner. The purpose of this organization is to help children to experience the world through “learning experiences that engage them in active, hands-on projects to improve the environment in their schools and communities.” The work of those receiving CPF grants in 2009 alone extended across 24 states and even into Costa Rica. The foundation is currently involved in over 3,000 projects throughout the United States.
WorldShares lets you earn donations for your favorite nonprofit.
It's a renewable resource, and approximately 10 billion litres are flushed away every single day around the world. But scientists say everyday urine should be conserved and used to heat buildings or even run cars.
If only we could find a way to harness it.
Gerardine Botte, an engineer at Ohio University, said in an interview with New Scientist magazine that harnessing the power of urine could mean that an office building of 200-300 people would produce about 2Kw of power.
“One cow can provide enough energy to supply hot water for 19 houses,” Botte told the New York Daily News in 2009. “Soldiers in the field could carry their own fuel.”
The key is from urea, which is the key ingredient in urine and forms roughly 2% of human urine. Each molecule of urea includes four hydrogen atoms - twice the number as in a water molecule. This makes it easier to process and an easier target for synthesizing hydrogen gas.
Hydrogen gas is the base fuel for most eco-friendly fuel cell technologies.
Botte believes hydrogen prices could drop as low as $1/kg, less than half the current valuation.
The idea isn't new. Ways to process urea using electrolysis or even microbial fuel cells have been described in various academic journals for years.
But in the latest issue of Energy and Environmental Science, Shanwen Tao from Heriot-Watt University in the U.K. describes how a fuel cell could work exclusively on urine, without any other energy input.
Just throw urine into the engine, and watch it go. No 'on' button required.
Tao hopes to market his idea by producing small portable sources of energy that could power radios or phones on the go, he told New Scientist.
"You could carry a small fuel cell for low-power mobile communications without having to carry the fuel," he said.
