Peak Oil, 1925. In 2000, 20% of new buildings will be solar equipped. By the late 1990s, 90% of the world's energy will be nuclear-generated. These and other erroneous projections are being collected as part of the Forecast Project on the website Inventing Green: The Lost History of Alternative Energy in America.
posted by Miko on Jul 27, 2009 - 65 comments

Revealed: the environmental impact of Google searches - "Physicist Alex Wissner-Gross says that performing two Google searches uses up as much energy as boiling the kettle for a cup of tea."
posted by nthdegx on Jan 11, 2009 - 74 comments

Chris Goodall, author of Ten Technologies to Save the Planet, talks about the ten big green energy myths.
posted by Artw on Dec 1, 2008 - 42 comments

Google goes geothermal with EGS.
posted by Artw on Aug 19, 2008 - 16 comments

Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What It Means to Be Green. Last month, Wired published what it called "10 green heresies" which makes the case for urban living, intensive forest management and, er, air conditioning, among other things.
posted by nthdegx on Jun 13, 2008 - 120 comments

If hydrogen-cell cars are no good, how about hydrogen-cell motorbikes!
posted by nthdegx on May 14, 2008 - 22 comments

The Edison of our age? Stanford Ovshinsky may not be a household name, but his inventions have the power to change the world.
posted by kliuless on Jan 1, 2007 - 35 comments

The Air Car. A car that runs on compressed air. While not a new idea, or unique, the MDI car can reach a speed of 68 mph and has a claimed range of roughly 124 miles. To recharge the tank, the car reportedly needs to be plugged into the grid for 3 to 4 hours or attached to an air pump in a gas station for only 2 minutes. Is the wind of the future about to break? Will this technology pass gas as our urban fuel of choice?
posted by Floydd on Jul 19, 2005 - 46 comments

The end of the light bulb? E. Fred Schubert, a professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute "claims to have invented a 99-percent efficient reflector that promises to speed the replacement of light bulbs with LEDs." According to researchers, this could happen within the next five years. The current prototype is bankrolled by the ARPA and The National Science Foundation "recently award Schubert's team a $210,000 grant to create in three years a commercial version of his patented omnidirectional reflector."

"Schubert claimed that lighting accounts for 25 percent of U.S. electrical energy consumption. Since white LEDs emit more light per dollar and generate less unwanted heat, they are potentially a major energy saver." (see EE Times link)

Meanwhile, some of the oldtimers seem to be pretty refractory.
posted by tcp on Jul 24, 2004 - 10 comments