Category: Green Tech

The Swiss architecture firm RAFAA must have been inspired by its Danish-Icelandic neighbor Olafur Eliasson when dreaming up this proposal for Rio de Janeiro. The Brazilian city was recently selected to host the 2016 Olympics, and RAFAA submitted this enormous sun-powered waterfall, called Solar City Tower, to the Games' International Architecture Competition. While Eliasson's $15.5 million public ...

Last May, scientists completed the construction of the National Ignition Facility, a massive undertaking that includes the largest laser in the world. Even though the last year harbored significant doubts about the future of the project, researchers remain optimistic that they'll eventually use it to successfully solve the energy crisis. CNN recently enjoyed a tour of the laser facility at ...

A British man has patched together a Frankenstein car that's just as green as the monster itself. According to The Daily Mail, Buzz Knapp-Fisher's 'Womble Truck,' named after a kid's TV show about recycling, is made from the parts of 21 different vehicles, and runs entirely on french fry fat and vegetable oil. Knapp-Fisher, a sculptor and environmentalist, purchased the original wrecked frame for ...

When we talk about carbon capture we're usually talking about the act of isolating the CO2 emissions of a power plant and injecting them deep underground for long term storage. So far, the technique has not proven cost effective, and there are concerns about what would happen in the highly unlikely event that the integrity of one of these carbon dioxide reservoirs were compromised. A company ...

The Web is teeming with the unrealized ideas of both students and established designers who set out to produce astonishing renderings and prototypes for unusual products. Unfortunately, due to the lack of time, money or technology, many of those products never progress from the planning stages to the mass market. But that doesn't mean we can't salivate over them, nevertheless. It almost feels ...

Researchers at Stanford University have found a way to harvest 'green' electricity from algae. WonHyoung Ryu and her team enveloped a gold electrode in an algae cell membrane, and used it to trap electrons created during photosynthesis. This is 'green' energy in its purest form (and color), since only protons and oxygen are released during this process. "This is potentially one of the cleanest ...

What would you do for a free meal? According to BBC News, the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Copenhagen is giving guests a $36 meal voucher if they ride an exercise bicycle for 15-minutes -- or until they produce 10-watts of electricity. This program, which launches April 19th, will not only reduce the hotel's carbon footprint, but it will keep guests healthy. An iPhone that shows how much power your legs ...

Plenty of people talk about 'green' technology these days, but we rarely consider where it all started. No, it wasn't with Al Gore. According to the Daily Mail, the world's first solar panel was recently discovered and put on display last week at a British antiques show. Most surprising of all, the device still works almost 60 years after it was created. A British science teacher built the ...

On Thursday, General Electric (GE) revealed a new LED light bulb that could replace every incandescent 40-watt bulb in your house. According to CNET News, the Energy Smart LED bulb emits about 450 lumens, which is equal to the output of your average 40-watt bulb, but consumes only nine watts of power. If you used it for an average of four hours each day, the bulb could last 17 years. "This is a ...

The Climate Group, a group of tech companies including Google, AT&T, Intel, GE, HP and Verizon, has written a letter (.PDF) to President Obama urging him to explicitly support the building of a smart grid and the deployment of smart metering technologies to every home and business in the U.S. The use of smart grid technologies is believed to be an essential ingredient in creating more ...

You might not know it, but it's National Cell Phone Recycling Week. From April 5th through 11th, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is encouraging consumers to recycle all those old cell phones that are just laying around the house. According to NPR, Americans toss out about 130 million cell phones every year. Now, there are some intrepid folks out there fighting the battle against e-waste, ...

At just 16-years old, Rhode Island teen Alex Lin has leaped to the forefront of the e-waste dilemma. According to Take Part, Lin has overseen the recycling of more than 300,000 pounds of discarded electronics through legislation, recycling programs, computer-refurbishing centers and plain old hard work. We've told you before about the mounting problem of disposing old computers, cell phones and ...

A new experiment being conducted by Finland's postal service could raise privacy questions. According to the Telegraph, the European nation will begin a trial next week in which residents can volunteer to have their physical mail opened, scanned, and sent to them digitally by a postal worker. If you sign up, you'll receive an e-mail or text message notifying you that your mail has been sent to a ...

Everybody's favorite vice president and climate-change decrier Al Gore is asking YouTube users for some help this month. According to Mashable, Gore and his organization, the Alliance for Climate Protection, are asking people to create videos that both describe the importance of going "green" and urge political leaders to change current climate policies. On Earth Day, which falls on April 22nd, ...

Sure, you've heard of Earth Day, but have you heard of Earth Hour? No, it isn't just a more abbreviated time of environmental remembrance for those with particularly busy schedules. It's a global event organized by the World Wildlife Fund and hosted annually on the last Saturday of every March -- that just happens to be tonight. The event started in 2007, when 2.2 million Sydney, Australia ...