Alternative to making hydrogen by energy sucking electrolysis, Australian scientists have found a way to copy the sun powered method of photosynthesis. In plants photosynthesis makes water into carbohydrates, but now it produces hydrogen gas. If this works on large scale, it will take hydrogen based energy and fuel cells in fast forward.
Living with 6 people, you often have a full plate leftover after dinner. We joke about taking it to the guy outside Albert Heijn. We never do. We lack an easy and elegant way of passing it on. US cities - where the food thrown away is said to equal the need in the 3rd world - have Replate. I dought this works in small communities with few foodless people. Any other distribution for leftovers?
Closing the curtains to keep the sun out, is not the smartest way to use solar energy. Architects KV produced a photovoltaic textile that generates up to 16kWh of energy per day. Soft House is their showcase for what can be done with the material. It features a textile chimneylike form that unfolds as room, and folds as softly shimmering chandelier. I’ll know more for MARK magazine.
Wubbo Ockels, astronaut and teacher at my old school, has some fantastic ideas. He also has the power to make them reality. A test with Laddermill generated windenergy for 10 households. He will make the 100,000 households version happen, just not in this small country with 4 large airports. Laddermill has to fly at a height of 1000 meters, where winds are stronger.
“The carbon footprint of internet, is as big as the one by world’s aviation,” Gartner says. I did some calculations on the energy bill of Telecom Italia (incl. office electricity, heating, maintenance that make the datatransport happen) and divided it by the total of mb’s they transport. Downloading a movie of 700 Mb costs them 2,6 kWh. Same as leaving your pc on 24/7 for a whole week!
Next to the oldest trees in The Netherlands, the National Park “Veluwe” will also grow the youngest. The Solar trees in the new forest together cover 125 m2 of solar panelling, what should power 1400 to 2000 nearby households. The forest is an initiative of the Ministry of Agriculture and will cost some 80 million euros. That also covers a breathtaking walkway through the tree tops.
Waste = Food. Every product should either turn into compost, or into a new material. Cradle to Cradle is a green strategy that production companies make profit with. Cause what a waste to throw away your expensive base material. Due to lack of mostly chemical knowledge, companies have untill now produced very few products following the c2c protocol. Here’s the harvest.
Wat car can run 1467 kilometers on 1 liter of gasoline? Eco-Runner II can. Very handy if you wish to drive a motorised banana. But still. It makes me feel that technology for private cars is stuck in the stone age. My car runs 12 kilometers on 1 liter. My 160 kilo motorbike can only make it 18 to 1. Eco-Runner proves we should do better than that.
It looks like a 6 wheel 300% stretched Ferrari. But Superbus is public transport at 250 km/hr. The man behind the wheel is our first astronaut Wubbo Ockels. “Superbus can pick you up at any time, so no wait. Directions are previously combined to fill the luxury seats.” The first electric drive to Beijing has been postponed. We’ll have to wait and see of this bus is super or shaky.
On the path to finding alternative energy, we’re exploring humans as a source. I do not mean illusionist Hans Klok who is always surrounded by wind, but energy from heated heads in stations, movements on a dancefloor and people pushing doors. Fabric is made that turns motion into energy. Now we have to think of what part of a human has friction and moves a lot…
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