Author Archive
Wednesday, June 25th, 2008
BeUtilityFree Puts The Means Of Renewable EnergyProduction Into The Hands Of The People.
I’ve been adding articles to this site from time to time and I think I ought to make a plug for the company I work for, which is working on making renewable energy available to everyone. Hey, Mark okayed it, so plugging your company must be cool! ; ) Shameless Plug for BeUtilityFree Take the [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Bio-Fuel,Gadgets & Products,Green Building,Hydrogen,Solar,Water,Wind by Brett
Tuesday, January 8th, 2008
Solar Heat Engine to be 60% Efficient
One of the most surprising things about this new invention is that it was (in a roundabout way) inspired by the SuperSoaker. Lonnie Johnson, the man who made “squirt gun” synonymous with inadequacy, is currently working on a prototype heat engine which would use heat from the sun to force hydrogen ions through a molecular [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General,Solar by Brett
Tuesday, January 8th, 2008
Nanosolar Breaks $4 a Watt by a Long Shot.
Nanolsolar Inc. has been talking big lately about making a leap in solar panel technology that will drop the cost to under $1 a watt. The current standard for solar panels has been hovering around $4 a watt (wholesale cost) for a while. Well, on December 18th Nanosolar announced their first shipment of solar panels [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General,Solar by Brett
Friday, December 14th, 2007
Driverless Car Rally
All those sci-fi novels with the hero of the story taking a nap in the back of the car while driving across the country are starting to look like they could come true. DARPA, the US military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, sponsored a rally in November of 2007 offering a $2 million prize to [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General by Brett
Friday, December 14th, 2007
Commuter Car Round-up
I just found this great page of one- or two-person electric cars that are available today or will be soon. There are good descriptions an pictures of these odd-looking little wonders, whose price tags range from $8,000 to an incredible $84,000! My favorite (and the priciest–imagine that) is the Tango T600, looking like a laterally-compressed [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Gadgets & Products by Brett
Wednesday, December 12th, 2007
Google Lays Out the Big Bucks for Renewable Energy
In late November, Google announced that it plans to spend somewhere in the tens of millions of dollars to support the development of renewable energy infrastructure in 2008 and hundreds of millions in the near future. Their plan is to spur the development of high-altitude wind generation (a technology as yet untested), solar thermal electricity [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General,Solar,Wind by Brett
Wednesday, December 12th, 2007
Infinitely Recyclable Carpet
Last year I had the privilege of attending the US Green Building Council’s 2006 Greenbuild Conference and seeing, among other wonders, Shaw Industries’ amazing Ecoworx carpet. Just like any other carpet, you lay it down and use it for years (it’s available in tiles so you can replace the most-used portions without re-carpeting the whole [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Gadgets & Products,General,Green Building by Brett
Wednesday, December 12th, 2007
Germany Mandates Heating New Homes with Renewable Energy. Why Haven’t We Thought of That?
The Renewable Energies Heating Law just passed in Germany requires all new homes built after January 1st, 2009 to provide 14% of their heating and hot water energy with renewable sources. The German government is promising $517 million dollars a year in grants to help make this happen. Then, starting in 2010, existing homes will [...]
