Does riding a bike really help the environment? Mr. Green at the Sierra Club says don't over think it, but a couple of folks trying to measure the energy cycling uses aren't quite sure. There are plenty of excuses for not to riding your bike, but is there a rationale? If you want a go at calculating this yourself, here's a handy guide to the variables.
posted on May 14, 2008 - View this thread

If hydrogen-cell cars are no good, how about hydrogen-cell motorbikes!
posted on May 14, 2008 - View this thread

Simple, with icons. 50 Ways to Help the Planet.
posted on May 1, 2008 - View this thread

Pond scum saves the planet? In the beginning, there were algae, but there was no oil. Then, from algae came oil. Now, the algae are still there, but oil is fast depleting. In future, there will be no oil, but there will still be algae. ^ Power your ride with pond scum. In some iterations you don't even need light. (we have talked about this before and the fact that CO2 powers the algae production is not insignificant) More details here.
posted on Apr 17, 2008 - View this thread

On Saturday, March 29, 2008, at 8 pm in each time zone cities around the world will go dark: Sydney will follow Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra; In the Philippines, in Manila the lights will go out; Bangkok in Thailand; Tel Aviv in Israel; Suva in Fiji; Copenhagen in Denmark; In North America, Atlanta followed by Chicago, Toronto, Phoenix and San Francisco will be black. It’s Earth Hour.
posted on Feb 18, 2008 - View this thread

A Solar Grand Plan: By 2050 solar power could end U.S. dependence on foreign oil and slash greenhouse gas emissions. [Via Gristmill.]
posted on Feb 17, 2008 - View this thread

Titan find - The hydrocarbon lakes on Saturn’s moon may contain hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all of Earths known oil and natural gas reserves.
posted on Feb 13, 2008 - View this thread

Biofuels worsen global warming, according to two studies published in Science last week. Current US biofuel policies would double carbon emissions over the gasoline alternative. More details: ScienceExpress fulltext pdf of study #1, powerpoint summary of study #1, abstract of study #2, summary of both, policy recommendations pdf (via: 1, 2).
posted on Feb 10, 2008 - View this thread

Perepiteia. Thane Heins, who named his invention after a Greek word meaning an action that "has the opposite effect to that intended," has perhaps created a...perpetual motion machine. His 20-year obsession has broken up his marriage and lost him custody of his two young daughters. Contraption stumps MIT professor. Is it a hysteresis brake? Or a scam. YOU decide.
posted on Feb 9, 2008 - View this thread

Two articles on how interaction may shape the buildings, work places and urban spaces of tomorrow: Design Week's Study takes sensory approach to improve office of the future [which mentions Duncan Wilson, who works with and blogs about this stuff]; and City of Sound's The Personal Well-Tempered Environment.
posted on Jan 17, 2008 - View this thread

How Africa's desert sun can bring Europe power. A £5bn solar power demonstration project called Desertec is being developed by Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC) that would send solar energy northward from African deserts. The goal is in 30 years to provide a significant fraction of Europe's electricity needs.
posted on Dec 13, 2007 - View this thread

The Big Ox. Power oxygen for real extreme athletes... available in a variety of flavors: Polar Rush, Tropical Breeze, Mountain Mint, and Citrus Blast. Is this The Next Big Thing?
posted on Dec 12, 2007 - View this thread

Could giant magnetically levitated windmills be the solution to the worlds energy problems? Chinese scientist have reported 20 percent increase in capacity over traditional wind turbines using maglev turbines, and now Arizona-based based Maglev Wind Turbine Technologies claims their turbines will have 1000 times the capacity of a traditional turbine. Not everybody is convinced.
posted on Nov 26, 2007 - View this thread

“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.” (RealVideo) Al Bartlett, retired University of Colorado Professor of Physics, gives a stunning hour-long old-school lecture (overhead projector!) on exponential growth and its inevitable results.
posted on Nov 20, 2007 - View this thread

"The world is at the beginning of a structural change of its economic system. This change will be triggered by declining fossil fuel supplies and will influence almost all aspects of our daily life." The new Oil Report from Energy Watch Group makes a strong case that we have now passed peak oil.
posted on Oct 22, 2007 - View this thread

The Solar Decathlon is a just-completed competition in which 20 teams of college and university students competed to design, build, and operate the most attractive and energy-efficient solar-powered house. View a photo gallery or take video tours of the homes. Inhabitat has been blogging the event - here's their view of Germany's winning entry.
posted on Oct 21, 2007 - View this thread

Navarre now generates more than 50% of its energy needs by wind power: a profile of the small autonomous region in northern Spain that is leading the way in renewable energy. This is one of many free access articles in this special supplement on energy issues to the journal Nature.
posted on Sep 11, 2007 - View this thread

Heretofore experimental, the Japanese have now marketed a battery that is urine-rechargeable.
posted on Sep 7, 2007 - View this thread

Down The Mine. An essay on coal mining as seen by George Orwell in 1937. [Via The Huffington Post.]
posted on Aug 18, 2007 - View this thread

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) published their latest Infrastructure Report Card in 2005. America's infrastructure got a D. The ASCE estimate that it will cost $1.6 trillion over a five-year period to bring the nation's infrastructure to good condition. They also have a Critical Infrastructure blog. [Via Gristmill.]
posted on Aug 3, 2007 - View this thread

Google goes to the dark side. Meet Blackle.
posted on Jul 27, 2007 - View this thread

John Kanzius can make salt water burn using radio waves. It is not yet practical for energy generation, more energy is consumed than produced, but increases in efficiency could make salt water a viable replacement for fossil fuel.
posted on Jul 6, 2007 - View this thread

Previously featured on MetaFilter, "Free Energy" company Steorn had scheduled a demonstration of their revolutionary, world-changing, physics-defying contraption Orbo to open today at London's Kinetica Museum. But due to "intense heat" from camera lighting, their fake invention isn't working today. Here's the live web feed of an empty box. Incidentally, it seems that the Steorn folks have allies in high - very high - places.
posted on Jul 5, 2007 - View this thread

Is the USA the Saudi Arabia of Coal? Not so fast! It appears that US coal reserves have been grossly overstated. (See also this report in PDF format.) Does this mean we've already hit peak coal in the lower 48? How does this change the plans of those who want to use CTL to ease our dependence on foreign oil.
posted on Jun 23, 2007 - View this thread

For months IDT Energy has been accused by Con Edison customers of fraudulant "sales" tactics. The Consumerist decided to hire a journalist to investigate how the company conducts business by getting hired by Midtown Promotions, the company IDT uses to canvas and bully ConEd customers into switching to IDT Energy. Today is Day One in a multi-part series investigating the underhanded practices of an unregulated utility company.
posted on May 30, 2007 - View this thread

Skeptoid: Critical Analysis of Pop Phenomena was born in October, 2006 to help fight the good fight against the overwhelming majority of noise in the media supporting useless alternative medicine systems, psychics preying upon the vulnerable, the erosion of science education in the classroom, xenophobia of advanced energy and food production methods, and generally anything that distracts attention and public funding from scientific advancement. Episodes feature such prominent MeFi discussion material as organic food myths, blood for oil, chiropractics, and SUVs. Links are to podcast transcripts. Full episode guide.
posted on May 24, 2007 - View this thread

Founded in Berkeley by artist Jim Mason, The Shipyard, a collaborative industrial arts space constructed from recycled shipping containers, has hosted numerous large-scale projects and events including a Survival Research Labs show, Power Tool Drag Races, gassification experiments and workshops, and various large-scale Burning Man projects such as 2005's Clockworks. Short documentary here (quicktime). However, relations with the city of Berkeley have been consistently tense. Recently, the city shut off the Shipyard's power, to which the Shipyard responded by going off grid. On May 8, Berkeley issued 3-day vacate and abate notice, with which the Shipyard is attempting to comply (auto-playing video).
posted on May 15, 2007 - View this thread

Solar Tower (text and video). "The rays of sunlight reflected by a field of 600 huge mirrors are so intense they illuminate the water vapour and dust hanging in the air."
posted on May 3, 2007 - View this thread

The Solar Ark - built to symbolize the goal of becoming a "clean energy society".
posted on May 1, 2007 - View this thread

Don Lancaster: energy and small business Lancaster wrote in 'Nuts and Volts', wrote 'The Incredible Secret Money Machine', and has a website that ranges from small business to hydrogen economy to ebay to magic sinewaves. This is the link to his current blog, but take a look at his archived works. His writings on avoiding filing for patents are particularly thought-provoking and perhaps inspirational.
posted on Apr 14, 2007 - View this thread

Go fly a kite! Who thought it could be this [pdf] complicated?
posted on Apr 5, 2007 - View this thread

Ohio Valley Creative Energy Ohio Valley Creative Energy was founded to provide a heat intensive multi-arts facility for glass, clay, and metal artists that will be powered by methane, AKA landfill gas.
posted on Mar 22, 2007 - View this thread

Mike Strizki lives in the nation's first solar-hydrogen house. "The technology this civil engineer has been able to string together – solar panels, a hydrogen fuel cell, storage tanks, and a piece of equipment called an electrolyzer – provides electricity to his home year-round, even on the cloudiest of winter days. Mr. Strizki's monthly utility bill is zero – he's off the power grid – and his system creates no carbon-dioxide emissions. Neither does the fuel-cell car parked in his garage, which runs off the hydrogen his system creates."
posted on Mar 16, 2007 - View this thread

Peak Oil no more? Prophets of peak oil are being proven wrong as new technologies increase oil recovery rates. In fact, the entire peak oil theory might be based on flawed assumptions.
posted on Mar 6, 2007 - View this thread

Bombing Iran - motive, opportunity, means (and thuggish accomplice).
posted on Feb 24, 2007 - View this thread

Want to increase your energy efficiency and use more renewable energy? Want to install solar panels on your roof, buy a hybrid car, put in new storm windows, or make any number of other green improvements to your home or business? Want to save money doing it? DSIRE is a comprehensive source of information on state, local, utility, and federal incentives that promote renewable energy and energy efficiency. Just click on your state and take it from there.
posted on Feb 23, 2007 - View this thread

Lawrence Livermore National Lab produces fascinating charts of energy flow in the US (more). More energy use statisitics can be found at the Energy Information Administration.
posted on Feb 16, 2007 - View this thread

Passivhaus/Passive house design that saves mucho energy, does not require air conditioning, does not require heating even when outdoors it's 10 below! Since, for example, more than 30% of energy consumed in the UK is for homes and 82 per cent of that is space and water heating, [Monbiot, "Heat,"chapter 5, "Our Leaky Homes,"] changing our standards of home design is important. Diagram shows that basic solar design concepts are well understood and technically easy to implement in new construction. [If only my house could be turned 45 degrees!] Possibly through ignorance, and partly through the desire to cut corners instead of doing things right, we do not make these wise concepts a priority. There are lots of cool alternative building techniques, many of which are traditional and being revived. This leading design standard saves 90% of energy used in the home. Here in Canada it's called the net zero energy home.
posted on Jan 14, 2007 - View this thread

Water footprint - "of an individual, business or nation is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual, business or nation"
posted on Jan 11, 2007 - View this thread

Wal-Mart and the Light Bulb [NY Times link] - Wal-Mart officials admit their push to sell 100 million compact fluorescent lights per year is at least partially a marketing ploy, but if successful, it would increase the number of the energy-efficient bulbs in use by 50% while "saving Americans $3 billion in electricity costs and avoiding the need to build additional power plants for the equivalent of 450,000 new homes." Wal-Mart's environmental record is less than perfect, of course, but if they managed to pull this off it would be hard to see it as a bad thing.
posted on Jan 2, 2007 - View this thread

Open Secrets - the trouble with Enron
posted on Jan 2, 2007 - View this thread

The Edison of our age? Stanford Ovshinsky may not be a household name, but his inventions have the power to change the world.
posted on Jan 1, 2007 - View this thread

Is this BMW version what some were waiting for? I've heard about complaints on hybrid performance. BMW claims to be the best in performance. But did they miss the boat?
posted on Dec 4, 2006 - View this thread

The End of Ingenuity (NYT OpEd by Thomas Homer-Dixon)"..cheap energy is tightening, and humankind’s enormous output of greenhouse gases is disrupting the earth’s climate. Together, these two constraints could eventually hobble global economic growth and cap the size of the global economy." See also The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilization. (2006).
posted on Nov 30, 2006 - View this thread

Stan Meyer invented a water powered car that estimates showed could travel from one US coast to the other on 22 gallons of water. He shows the in car in operation in this old news clip. So what ever happened to him? He died after eating at a restaurant on March 21, 1998. An autopsy report showed the cause of death to be poisoning.
posted on Nov 21, 2006 - View this thread

This Israeli process could turn the gigantic oil shale deposits of the US into the largest energy production in the world, outstripping the Middle East's role and dramatically altering the world economy to be even MORE US-centric.
posted on Nov 18, 2006 - View this thread

(relatively) cheap fuel-cell cars.
posted on Nov 11, 2006 - View this thread

The Worlds of David Darling. British astronomer and science writer David Darling has written over 10,000 articles for three massive online efforts: the Encyclopedia of Astrobiology, Astronomy, and Spaceflight, the Encyclopedia of Alternative Energy and Sustainable Living , and a related encyclopedia of concept vehicles. Though the diversity of entries can be eccentric, and some are quite short, the science seems solid: learn about the illicit corned beef sandwich of Gus Grissom, peruse a comprehensive set of advanced space propulsion concepts, and see a terrific illustrated listing of strange land and air vehicles (don't miss the Peel P50 microcar and the Volvo Gravity Car).
posted on Oct 16, 2006 - View this thread

miniHome: "What is it? A cottage? A Trailer? A Home? All of the above. Technically, the miniHome is classed as an RV - or recreational vehicle (yes, it is on wheels!) but it is designed to work as a comfortable, year-round dwelling in extreme climates. While we see it as the future of sustainable housing and urban infill, it is ideally suited as a ski chalet, cottage, vacation retreat, guest cabin, a place for the kids or family - basically as a luxurious yet simple home-away-from-home." Welcome to life off the grid in Ontario.
posted on Sep 30, 2006 - View this thread

Webcasts from the Clinton Global Initiative conference (all wmv, archived of past 2 days and live tomorrow) --covering energy, healthcare, agriculture, poverty, religious and ethnic conflicts, etc. They're trying to turn "practical ideas into meaningful action". More here, including a cool waterpump/merry-go-round thing.
posted on Sep 21, 2006 - View this thread