Imagine nature's most elegant ideas organized by design and engineering function, so you can enter "filter salt from water" and see how mangroves, penguins, and shorebirds desalinate without fossil fuels. That's the idea behind AskNature, the online inspiration source for the biomimicry community. The featured pages are a good starting point. Cross-pollinating biology with design. [more inside]
posted by netbros on Jun 5, 2009 - 13 comments

Andy Grove on Our Electric Future - "Energy independence [viz.] is the wrong goal. Here is a plan Americans can stick to." Perhaps some infrastructure spending^1,2 is in order? [etc., &c., cf.] [more inside]
posted by kliuless on Jul 15, 2008 - 14 comments

How I built my house for £4,000
posted by nthdegx on Feb 20, 2008 - 34 comments

For years, MDI has been developing a car that runs on compressed air. Last month, they signed an agreement with Tata Motors to produce the MiniCat - a zero-emissions vehicle that will travel up to 180 miles on $3 worth of fuel. See it in action here. (youtube)
posted by Afroblanco on Mar 19, 2007 - 45 comments

mtvU and GE are sponsoring a contest among colleges to create sustainable energy projects. The finalists' projects range from campus-wide runoff reduction proposals to a public bicycle-based laptop charger for students. The winner receives a $25,000 grant to implement their project, which is unfortunately small potatoes compared to the millions of dollars required to, for example, convert an entire vehicle fleet to biodiesel. unrelated, previously.
posted by mkb on Jan 19, 2007 - 6 comments

Hurricane Ivan VS soy sprayed house that wouldn't look bad in Star Trek. Results of the match: house wins ! Proof proved that if you build to last, the building lasts ...but if you don't for whatever reason.... More info on the building here
posted by elpapacito on Sep 18, 2004 - 19 comments

Synthetic Trees could purify the air - "It looks like a goal post with Venetian blinds," said the Columbia University physicist...synthetic trees could help clean up an atmosphere grown heavy with carbon dioxide..."You can be a thousand times better than a living tree...There are a number of engineering issues which need to be worked out," he said. (BBC) Hurry up, then - "Ice dams are blocking Latvian ports, winds and storms are battering Europe, Portugal is freezing, Vietnam has lost one-third its rice crop, and the cold has caused close to 2,000 deaths in usually temperate South Asia."
posted by troutfishing on Feb 23, 2003 - 18 comments