Archive for February, 2010
February 24th, 2010
If you had the chance to catch 60 Minutes on Sunday, you saw their exclusive on Bloom Energy. The company has been in stealth mode for some time, but all of that appears to be over. As reported by Lesley Stahl, which you can view in the video embedded below, Bloom makes a fuel cell that will be used to power homes (in the future) and commercial buildings (right now).
Pictured above is K.R. Sridhar with a fuel cell stack – two of these could power the average American home. A retail store like Starbucks could be powered by about 64 stacks. Each stack is made with multiple fuel cells.
The fuel cell is made with a layer of sand that is baked into a ceramic and then coated with proprietary green and black “inks.” This is then sandwiched by a metal plate made of a cheap metal alloy to complete the fuel cell.
The core of the Bloom box is made with multiple stacks. The boxes require a fuel, such as natural gas, landfill gas, or bio-gas, which reacts with air in the fuel cell to create electricity.
Bloom boxes, according to Stahl, have been purchased and are being tested by 20 large California companies, including Google, FedEx, Wal-mart, Staples, and eBay. The ones bought by FedEx cost $700,000 – $800,000, with substantial state and federal incentives available to cut back the cost.
In five to ten years, Sridhar expects smaller Bloom box units in the residential context, with a unit costing somewhere less than $3,000. It's an interesting prospect to consider. In the meantime, Bloom Energy appears ready to blow the lid off their website tomorrow.
Media credits: 60 Minutes/CBS.
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February 24th, 2010
Do you know of a green person, product, company, event, or concept that deserves to be lauded for the positive environmental change it has enacted? Let us know! In TreeHugger’s second annual Best of Green Awards, we’re looking to bestow top honors on the people, places, and things that are helping move sustainability into the mainstream.
Last year, we awarded more than 170 prizes across eight general themes. This year, we’re asking for your help making some of the selections. Let us know who you think should be nominated for a Best of Green Award. Then we’ll ask for your hel… Read the full story on TreeHugger
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February 24th, 2010
Easter is coming and you can have the most eco-friendly …not to mention the most interesting peeps a person could hope for! Made from recycled vintage radio vacuum tubes. The chicks are flocked so that they are fuzzy and the roosters come with hand shaped comb cocks and beaks. Get them quick because I don’t think my Easter will be complete with out a dozen of these!
$8.00 each at LunaClayDesign’s Etsy Shop
A doodad tchotchke of the recycled vacuum tube kind!
$16.00 at LunaClayDesign’s Etsy Shop
Wear a vacuum tube around your neck and remind yourself of simpler times and bigger boxier TV sets. Those days before flat screens were grand! weren’t they?
$20.00 at HighWindSteamWork’s Etsy Shop
A hanging decor item anywhere you need some inspiration. Perfect for those of you who turn on your lights with a pull chain. It is created from a vintage vacuum tube, also known as a thermionic valve.
$95.00 at TrashandTrinket’s Etsy Shop
This clock is made from a recycled 7” sawblade and is adorned with 1950’s era vintage radio vacuum tubes. Begs you to ask the question, “Does anyone really know what time it is?”
$49.00 at OverClocked’s Etsy Shop
Created from a recycled vintage electrical vacuum tube and adorned with a purple butterfly image sealed on to the outside of the tube.
$50.00 at Thesteampunktrunk’s Etsy shop
February 24th, 2010
This beautiful home will probably be the first certified Passive House in the state of Utah. Passive House consultant Dave Brach, principal of Brach Design Architecture, anticipates receiving a certificate in the next week or so. He designed the Breezeway House to consume only 10% of the energy of an existing single family home of the same size and location and 20% of the energy of a new home built to code. What’s more, solar electric and hot water panels should produce about 75% of the home’s annual energy needs.
Brach had such a good time designing this house and working with the Passive House standard that he fully expects to do nothing but Passive House design going forward. He told Jetson Green in an email, “It’s not easy, but it’s the smartest way to design a building.“
Smart design in this case had a tight budget, too. In terms of construction costs, the premium to upgrade from a standard code house to Passive House was about $10 per square foot.
The Breezeway House was built by Fisher Custom Building for a couple who set up a website, Our Passive House, to document the process. You can read more about the construction specifications here and how the home was built to pursue such aggressive efficiency goals.
Photo credits: Brach Design.
February 24th, 2010
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
The variation in the beaks of Galapagos finches famously served as inspiration for Darwin’s theory of evolution. The various birds, however, may not be all that different. According to new research in applied mathematics from Harvard University, the finches can be clumped into three major groups…. Read the full story on TreeHugger
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February 24th, 2010
Bombus vestalis, better known as the Southern Cuckoo bumblebee. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
It’s been absent from the hives of Scotland for 50 years but, it seems, the Southern Cuckoo bumblebee has returned. Still common in England, the curi… Read the full story on TreeHugger
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February 24th, 2010
If only human architects could build so well. Philip Ball in the New Scientist describes how green and sophisticated it is:… Read the full story on TreeHugger
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February 24th, 2010
This animation frame shows in color the loudness of calling right whales off the Cape Cod-Boston area with no ships in the area. Image: Dimitri Ponirakis, via Physorg
We know that ocean noise is damaging to whales, especially when it comes to the deadly effects of military sonar. But what about the less drastic noise of ships? As more ships hit the waters along coasts, the noise pollution is blocking whales’ ability to communicate over distances. New animations show how noise pollution is jamming up daily communication among whales in the ocean, and what impact that is havi… Read the full story on TreeHugger
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February 24th, 2010
image: Yale University
Another study on Americans’ attitudes towards global warming from the Yale Project on Climate Change has been released. Classifying people’s attitudes into six categories of concern and awareness, the study found that while nearly half believe strong action needs to be taken, the amount who think it’s all a hoax has doubled. Interestingly though, nearly everyone supports regulating carbon dioxide as a po… Read the full story on TreeHugger
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February 24th, 2010
Photo via yaaaay
What do we expect when we take away and animal’s habitat and they have neither a large enough home nor enough food? Two incidents of a clash between humans and big cats occured this week as a leopard and a tiger both left their “sanctuaries” in search of food and had some seriously unfortunate interactions with people. The leopard strayed from a sanctuary in the eastern Indian state of Orissa and ended up attacking villiagers, and a tiger wandered out of the Sunderbans tiger reserve and mauled a woman as she was feeding her chickens. … Read the full story on TreeHugger
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