Beleaguered Airline Industry Forced to Start Going Green

Things are looking pretty grim for the airline industry, which has suffered major setbacks in the last couple of years due to rising fuel costs. They’re not just dealing with how to stay in the sky without charging customers outrageous prices, though: environmentalists are forcing the industry to finally take responsibility for the huge amounts of carbon emitted by air travel. All of these factors have airlines scrambling to save themselves, and they’re finally putting some real innovation to work in the process.

From Wired:

Virgin Atlantic recently made a test flight of a Boeing 747 fueled by a mixture of kerosene and biofuel derived from coconut and babassu oil. But the emphasis is on algae, led by Boeing’s recent commitment to the alt fuel and efforts by JetBlue and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines to turn pond scum into fuel.

Christopher Surgenor, editor of GreenAirOnline, says algal fuel is the most promising alternative because “It has the right properties for a jet fuel and can be produced in comparatively large quantities.” But others say it’s too early in the game to pick a winner, and Arvi warns that narrowing the research to one field “is self-defeating. It stifles innovation.”

For all the advancements in engines and airframes, the system we use for moving all those planes around is stuck in the 1940s. Airlines say replacing the radar-based air traffic control infrastructure with a satellite system would reduce fuel consumption and cut emissions by 10 to 15 percent while making the business of getting planes in and out of airports more efficient. Adopting a more efficient means of approaching airports — called “continuous descent approach” — would further cut fuel consumption and emissions while also reducing noise.

Unfortunately, none of these solutions provide a quick fix for the problems that are plaguing the industry today. It’ll be 2-3 years before we see next generation aircraft, and modernized air traffic control is at least a decade away. Analysts say that alternative fuels won’t be anything more than a pipe dream for at least 5 years. And there are some critics who are skeptical that green initiatives will do anything at all for the industry and are simultaneously denying greenwashing accusations: “We care about the environment and we want a clean planet. We just don’t want the industry to get ruined in the process”, says Ernest Arvi, CEO of aviation consultancy The Arvi Group.

They’d better figure out something quick, because with oil prices reaching new heights nearly every day, soon the everyday person won’t be able to afford air travel.

Link [Wired]
Photo credit: Flickr user lrargerich

Motion-Powered Cell Phone Chargers

You may have heard of the dance clubs that harness the energy created by all of those writhing bodies and use it to generate part of the building’s power. Now, we’re hearing about some cool new devices that will actually charge cell phones and other handheld electronics through movement – and you don’t even have to exert too much energy. M2E, a Boise Idaho based company, says their charger will capture energy from your regular everyday motions.

From earth2tech:

It works according to the principles of Faraday’s law of induction, which states that moving a conductor through a magnetic field will induce a current in that conductor proportional to the speed of movement. M2E Power has managed to tweak the output of the Faraday setup to generate a lot more power than previous kinetic energy systems — an increase of between 300 percent and 700 percent vs. what’s currently available, according to the company.

M2E Power tells us it’s talking with the accessories divisions of the major cell phone makers, as well as some of the major accessories manufacturers. Back in November the company raised $8 million from OVP Venture Partners, @Ventures and Highway 12 Ventures, to hire 12-15 people, mostly engineers and lab technicians, in an effort to get their first product into the military field sometime this year.

M2E Power aims to have the charger provide an hour of talk time for six hours of normal movement (about two days worth, assuming that you’re a light talker and only use your cell phone 30 minutes per day). As someone who dislikes talking on the phone and uses a cell phone fairly rarely, I would love to have this charger – I would never have to plug my phone into the wall again!

The charger may be available as early as 2009. The image above shows the current prototype (battery pictured for size comparison).

Link [earth2tech]

Alternative to a Digital Camera: A Box with a Hole in it

We may not have liked Low Tech Magazine’s bumper car idea, but this one is actually really good. Sometimes, in this world full of ever-increasing, complicated technology, the simplest solutions are the best ones, as Low Tech shows with their pinhole camera demonstration. Pinhole cameras are the ultra-green consumer’s alternative to purchasing expensive digital cameras that will just be obsolete e-waste in a few years – just get a box and put a small hole in it.

From Low Tech Magazine:

A pinhole camera is very easy to make yourself, although it can also be bought. Basically, it is a light-tight box with a tiny pinhole on one side (made with a needle) and photo paper or film on the other side (taped to the box). No lens, battery or automatic operation is used. A pinhole camera can be constructed from a can or a container, as in this mint tin [see photo] (see the pictures made with it) or this tea can. The vessel used could also be a coffee pot, for instance. A pinhole camera can be built from scratch using cardboard or wood, or made from an existing camera by removing the lens and replacing it with a pinhole. These low-tech cameras could be as small as a matchbox, but they might as well have the dimensions of a suitcase or a refrigerator as they allow you to produce gigantic photographs.

The photos pinhole cameras produce are really stunning. They have that romantic, hazy, sort of eerie quality to them that’s hard to capture with a super-sharp digital camera. Plus, as Low Tech points out, “Digital photography might spare the harmful chemicals of the analog developing process, but the materials and energy needed to produce a continuous stream of new gadgets (and batteries) is far worse.”

Link [Low Tech Magazine]
Photo credit: Chris Keeney

Blacktop Roads About to Get Greener

Signs of American progress on the green front are enormously encouraging. We may be way behind many other developed nations, but we’re slowly awakening from our Bush-induced idiot coma. One such sign is that we’re starting to clean up the process of laying down roads.

Wired’s Autopia blog has it:

There are more than 4 million miles of paved road in the United States, and 93 percent of them are covered in asphalt. Unless you’re backpacking in the wilds of Alaska or wandering the bayous of Louisiana, you are never more than 22 miles from a stretch of blacktop.

That’s a lot of asphalt, and a lot of energy needed to produce it - which is why Hussain Bahia wants to find a greener way to make the stuff. He’s a civil engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and he says anything that increases asphalt’s recycled material content or cuts the energy needed to lay it down will have a big impact on the environment - and our pocketbooks.

“This is a no-brainer,” says Bahia, who has been studying asphalt for more than 20 years. “If any person involved in managing our infrastructure looks at the data, why would you spend more energy and money on something else?”

Bahia is part of a $5 million research program called the Asphalt Research Consortium, which hopes to, among other things, make blacktop more ecologically sustainable. One of his first goals is to develop “cold-mix” asphalts that require significantly less energy than conventional asphalt to apply.

Sure, it’s more economics than environmental concerns that’s spurring the change, but we’ll take it regardless! There is no reason why we can’t green up our roads, and it’s another baby step toward sustainability. Next we’d like to see more hybrid or electric public buses on those roads instead of cars… and bike lanes… and a national rapid transit system… but let’s not get ahead of ourselves, eh?

Link [Wired]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Men, Prevent Unwanted Pregnancies by Turning Off Your Sperm via Remote Control

If you think about it, most of the contraceptives that are available are really wasteful (how many condoms litter the landfills? How many litter the streets of the city you live in? Eww). Now there’s an option available that not only eliminates the environmental impact, it will make you feel like you’ve entered the age of hovercrafts and moon dwellings. Men love using remote controls to change the channel on the television, so maybe some of you will be psyched about using a remote control to ‘turn off’ your sperm.

The Green Daily has it:

Australian scientists have apparently figured out how to insert a microchip in the vas deferens (that’s the part of the male equipment that delivers semen - it’s also the tube that gets snipped when a guy gets a vasectomy).

When the man is about to have sex, and doesn’t want procreation to result, he can press “pause” on a device that sends RF waves to his intimate microchip. The chip translates the waves into acoustic waves, which then cause the chip to expand, blocking sperm from passing through the vas deferens. When the man wants to switch back to having possibly reproductive sex, no return visit to the doc is necessary - he just presses the reverse function button, and the chip contracts, allowing sperm to pass.

It’s certainly an interesting mashup of sex, technology and green. The future is now. I don’t know how many men will be willing to have this thing implanted in their vas deferens, but it’s nice that men can now experience how invasive some methods of birth control can be. I mean, women have been walking around with little pieces of plastic or copper (intrauterine devices) in their bodies to prevent pregnancy for years. Ours just don’t come with the radio wave remote control aspect. So, maybe that will make it more attractive to all you eco geeks out there. You can feel like you’re doing your part to save the world from overpopulation with some super crazy futuristic technology. Fun!

Link [Green Daily]
Photo credit: Flickr user frenkieb

Apple Working on Solar Powered Portable Devices

There’s no way around it: portable electronic devices are here to stay. We’ve all got them: cell phones, electronic organizers, laptop computers, mp3 players and other handhelds. While it’s great that many of them are getting lighter and smaller, what we’d really love is to be able to charge them with the power of the sun. Well, we’re getting closer.

TrendHunter Magazine has it:

Imagine your iPhone or iPod automatically charging by the sun as you use it. A new Apple patent promises exactly that, by exploring the use of solar power in various versions of their mobile devices: iPhone, iPods and portable computers. The mechanism augments the devices, including the transparent screens, with layers of solar cells,.

According to the patent, “Solar cells are typically stacked with other layers made of transparent or semi-transparent materials… Some of these layers may be used for display or input purposes, and some layers may be coated with various materials or they may be etched with product logos or other patterns.”

We have all of our fingers and toes crossed on this one. How great would it be to sit on the beach or in your garden, with your phone and iPod charging next to you, no cords required? Steve Jobs, you’re our only hope, give us solar powered handhelds!

Link [TrendHunter Magazine]
Photo credit: Flickr user ernop

WTF: Pollution Sensitive Dress Wrinkles On Smoggy Days

Wow, this sure is a conversation piece. Designer Stephanie Sandstrom has created a dress that responds to bad air – literally. It wrinkles up when you enter an area with bad air quality. The ‘EPA Dress’ isn’t just pretty and fashion-forward, it’s a way to avoid health hazards.

Inhabitat has it:

Designer Sandstrom has embedded her EPA dress with sensors that are able to intelligently read the surrounding atmosphere and in turn create telling kinks in the fabric’s surface. On days when the air quality is particularly poor, the EPA dress looks as if it has been pulled out of the laundry bin or from the back of one’s closet. It’s a scary prospect to think that our clothes might take on a texture of their own, but if this is a viable way for us to see our true selves or rather the state of our environment, well then, we are all for it!

Now you’ll always have an excuse on those days when you sleep in, run out of your apartment with your shoes in your hand and your toothbrush in your mouth trying to catch the A-train before you’re late for an important meeting and walk in looking like you slept in your clothes. You can just tell them you’re an eco-fashion warrior way ahead of your time!

Link [Inhabitat]
Photo credit: Will Meeker

What Can Save the Floundering U.S. Economy? Green Technology!

The state of the U.S. economy has a lot of people worried. They’re not just concerned about their own bank accounts (though that is a major part of it), they’re concerned about their retirements, their businesses and their children’s futures. Everything seems like a bit of a mess at the moment, and New Yorker staff writer Nick Paumgarten had some big questions for Michael Novogratz, president of the Fortress Investment Group, at the latest New Yorker Stories from the Near Future conference.

From Wired:

Our current economic woes, he said, are analogous to the dot-com bubble burst.

The internet’s turn-of-the-millennium troubles were solved by the rise of second-generation web services. Globalization 1.0, as Novogratz called it, stalled after an initial purchasing power burst among the developing world’s newly-arrived middle classes, but will be saved by globalization 2.0. All will be well.

There’s only one catch: We need another wealth-generating economic bubble. And that, said Novogratz, must come — can only come — from new energy sources and green technology.

“As the price of oil goes up, there’s got to be a green revolution. I think of what will be the next driver of the American economy, and it’s green energy. That’s a huge growth opportunity. It’s not about the pollution. It’s about the energy. Gas will go to $10 a gallon,” he said.

Anybody interested in improving our future through sustainable, earth-friendly means has got to be psyched about that. Not only could it give the U.S. economy a major (and much needed) boost, it could result in an amazing burst of creativity on the green technology front. It’s just what we need to push past this ‘age of oil’ and enter a new era of green forward-thinking technology and practices.

Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s all gravy. We have some major hurdles to get over, and we probably won’t get past them unscathed. It’s going to get ugly for a while – there’s no getting around the fact that we’ve already done so much damage. But, at least green technology offers a silver lining in what seems like an increasingly bleak outlook of the future.

Link [Wired]
Photo credit: Flickr user borman818

New Firewinder Light Uses Wind Power

Years ago, ‘green’ things were known for being pretty boring. I can recall sitting through a demonstration at a power plant on a third grade field trip, desperately wishing I was someplace else while someone in a hard hat lectured to us about turning off the lights. Most of America feels the same way about all of the eco-education that’s going on right now, and that’s part of the problem. Green stuff isn’t thought of us fun. That’s why people like the inventor of the Firewinder make me happy.

From Firewinder:

Firewinder® is The Original Windlight™ – A decorative, 100% wind-powered outdoor light which harnesses the power of the wind from whichever direction it blows, to create a simple yet magical visual effect with a universal appeal.

Easy to install, you simply hang it up from a tree in your garden, on your roof terrace or mount it to a post or wall and watch it light up and glow every time the wind blows!

Firewinder’s patent pending technology elegantly transforms wind into light to enable the visualisation of the abundantly free energy in the wind as a mesmerising, endlessly upward spiralling helix of light.

It is pretty cool looking. Things like this would be a great help toward getting the general public to buy ‘green’. There’s a perception that green isn’t pretty or exciting, and that’s proving more and more to simply not be true.

Link [Firewinder]

A Guide to Greener IT Culture

The IT world has suffered a bit of an image problem in the past couple of years in regards to its eco-friendliness. Some reports claimed that the internet technology industry was responsible for a big chunk of global warming, while others maintained that IT’s contribution is minimal compared to other industries. Regardless, all of this has eco-minded techies wondering how they can make changes that will add up, and the 451 Group of New York has a few ideas to offer.

Greener Computing has it:

• Measure or estimate IT power use. Energy use lies at the heart of eco-efficiency, and the most successful organizations in establishing a green culture will be those that can set a baseline of energy use and efficiency and then map progress against targets.
• Buy low-energy or Energy Star products, and publicize this policy.
• Turn computers off when not used, either centrally, or encouraging users to do so (through labeling, etc.). Discourage wasteful printing.
• Recycle IT-related waste (toner cartridges, old PCs, batteries, etc.).
• Publicize successful use of IT that results in a lower carbon footprint — for example, use of videoconferencing to replace air travel.
• Accept some tactical increased risk where appropriate, through the use of less redundancy.
• Adopt and publicize policies of organizations such as Carbon Trust, Energy Trust and EU Code of Conduct (for IT).
• Specify in contracts that suppliers should conform to high environmental standards. Use the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool to assess these.
• Buy renewable energy or renewable energy certificates. Publicize this to staff and stakeholders.
• Seek to understand the relationship between organizational energy use and CO2 production, and create a policy that links any low-CO2 program to IT use.

Videoconferencing, sharing computers, managing the use of power more efficiently and stopping over-provisioning are a few more of the suggestions that can help companies lower their carbon footprint. Taking steps like these can help technophiles feel a lot better about how their daily operations affect the environment, and with as many large IT companies as there are in the US, it could really make a big impact overall.

Link [Greener Computing]

Photo credit: Flickr user exfordy

Heap Some Home Cookin’ Onto Pig Piss Plastic Plates

Imagine enjoying a delicious meal at a friend’s home, noticing their nice dinnerware and complimenting them on it. “Oh, these? They’re made of pig urine!”

Agroplast of Denmark aims to put pig piss plates on the tables of restaurants and homes around the world. Cnet news has it:

The company has essentially devised a way to better commercialize urea, a compound of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen, found in urine.

Other animal waste products like manure can be inserted into the system, but pig urine is particularly interesting because it is an environmental hazard, says Peter Tøttrup, a partner at Seed Capital, a Danish venture firm that also helps the government incubate start-ups. We ran into Tøttrup at the coffee urn at the NordicGreen conference in Menlo Park, Calif., this week.

“There are 20 million pigs in Denmark, and what they do environmentally is a problem,” he said.

Agroplast sees pig waste as an eco-friendly solution to the fossil-fuel-plastic dilemma. Not only can it be used in products, it eliminates the issue of disposing of the waste. Tøttrup claims that these pig waste plastics would cost less than fossil fuel plastics, but others disagree, as historically bioplastics have been more expensive. Either way, the company advocates using pig waste in fertilizers (okay, sounds about right) lotion (getting grosser) and as a “flavor enhancer in cigarettes” (um, vomit).

Link [cnet]

Photo credit: Flickr user beelden zeggen meer

Fujitsu’s Zero Watt Computer Monitor Uses No Power in Standby Mode

We’re all aware of the issue of phantom power, wherein all of your electrical items that are left plugged into outlets constantly draw a small stream of energy even if they’re turned off. The energy savings from eliminating these phantom power draws can definitely add up over time, but one thing that’s annoying for many technophiles is constantly unplugging and plugging back in items that we use regularly every day.

Computer monitors are one of those items. For those of us that don’t use notebook computers but still use our computers frequently throughout the day, the new Fujitsu Zero Watt computer monitor may be exactly what we need. The technology may even cross over to other electronics.

Treehugger has it:

A new computer monitor by Fujitsu Siemens Computers breaks with its brethren and uses no power at all in idle mode. It works with a clever switch that shuts down the monitor when there’s no signal from the computer, and turns it back on when there is one.

If we extrapolate a bit, we see that this probably can’t be used on all electronics if we want remotes to still work, but in a home entertainment system (stereo, TV, etc), it could easily be fitted on all accessories except one that would catch the signal from the remote, and then when it powers on, that would give the signal to the rest to follow suit.

It’s pretty awesome that as issues like phantom power are being identified, solutions are being invented fairly quickly. We can be thankful to those with super-crazy-smart ideas for continuing the trend of breakthroughs in green technology. Thank you, crazy smart people! We’re not worthy!

Link [Treehugger]

Florida College Student Invents Reusable Alternative to Styrofoam Take-Out Containers

Proving that simple solutions are often better than complicated high-tech ones, Eckerd College student Audrey Copeland has invented an alternative to Styrofoam take-out containers that you don’t even have to wash yourself. The EcoClamshell, made from a durable dishwasher-safe material, is available to students for a one-time fee of $5 and is designed to be brought back once you’re done with it. At least 200 students are currently using it.

From Bay News 9:

“Usually people bring them to their rooms,” Richards said. “Then afterwards they dump whatever the didn’t want and you can bring them back dirty, throw them in a bin. Then they rinse them out. It works great for me.”

Eckerd College has reduced the use of styrofoam by 25 percent a week.

“The same container circulates multiple times,” Copeland said. “Kinda like a plate.”

The student hopes to market the containers to cafeterias and restaurants with a regular customer base.

What a great way to encourage students to ditch the disposables. When you’re living on campus and depend on the dining hall for every meal - and trying to fit in lunch between a tight schedule of classes - you inevitably end up using lots of take-out containers, most of which aren’t biodegradable or reusable. The EcoClamshell offers a great way for college students to avoid introducing so many harmful materials into landfills - let’s hope it catches on nationwide!

Link [Bay News 9]

Dell Gives a Sneak Peek of Tiny New Bamboo Eco Computer

How cute is this thing? Dell CEO Michael Dell unveiled their eco-friendly bamboo computer design at the Fortune Green conference, and Earth2Tech got some great photos of it.

Earth2Tech has it:

Dell said the computer is 81 percent smaller than a standard desktop, uses 70 percent less power and is filled with recycled materials like old bottles, milk jugs and detergent cases. While Dell wouldn’t give the name of the bamboo box, he said the product would come out later this year and would likely range in price between $500 and $700.

What an awesome way to use recycled materials, and about time too! I can definitely imagine toting a little laptop like this around. It would make catching up on green news & posting on EarthFirst that much more cool and convenient in places like coffee shops and city parks, and you can’t deny that it’s pretty. Let’s just hope that as more people make the switch from desktops to notebooks, all of those old bits of plastic and metal don’t end up in the landfill. Luckily, Dell has their new free recycling program set up, so there’s really no excuse!

Link [Earth2Tech] + [Dell]

Boeing Proves Their Bombs Don’t Just Kill People, They Put Out Fires!

Nobody ever said Boeing engineers aren’t smart. They’ve come up with a way to make C-17s into firefighters that drop collapsible, biodegradable containers of water onto blazes - putting fewer human firefighters into harm’s way. Beach-ball sized ‘water bombs’ are stacked on pallets within cardboard containers.

From Boeing:

The unit’s spherical shape minimizes airflow resistance. Each sphere contains 50 pounds of water and easily remains intact while it falls true to target. The spheres burst on impact at the heart of the fire. A single C-17 PAFF mission could airdrop 140,000 pounds of water on multiple “hot spot” targets-equivalent to nearly 100 helicopter deliveries.

“What’s more,” said Cleary, “the C-17 can airdrop from 1,000 to 2,000 feet above ground level using precision navigation and airdrop instrumentation, remaining safely away from the fire and winds,” he said. “If a C-17 were used, this delivery system is remarkably cost effective, and the savings in lives and property make it an interesting possibility for the Air National Guard.”

This is actually an incredibly cool way to control fires before they reach epic proportions - they get to the fires faster, can drop more water at once, have computer-aided targeting and can put out fires in all weather and all terrain, day and night. Considering that the other bombs Boeing is known for are meant for carnage rather than the good of mankind, we’re offering golf claps for their efforts.

Link [Boeing]

Photo: Flickr user DoctorWho