Hybrid Living

Kenya Hara wrote the book “Designing Design“, which is 472 page tribute to “white” not just as color but as a design concept. It contains chapters by like-minded designers such as Jasper Morrison and Naota Fukasawa.
The works of German industrial designer Dieter Rams (Braun), and Apple’s “Snow White” design language are other [...]

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Here’s a short presentation at TED 2010 by inventor John La Grou, where he unveils an invention that would make electrical outlets much smarter. The invention, Safeplug, promises to prevent deadly accidents like house fires — and to conserve energy.

Related posts:Highly Efficient House Uses 80% Less Power and Water I have to mention this [...]

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An egg-beater-like vertical wind turbine design could potentially double the output of wind farms by using the space between larger, horizontal turbines.

Wind farms take up a lot of land because the large rotating blades of the turbines need a lot of space in between them to operate safely and effectively, but company Wind Harvest International thinks wind energy could be generated in those empty spaces.  The company claims a MW array of their shorter, vertical turbines could fit in the space between two horizontal MW turbines.

The Wind Harvest turbines work in groups of three or more to maximize their energy output.  The turbines alternate between clockwise and counter-clockwise rotation, creating a vortex that accelerates the localized wind speed by almost double.  The company says it’s also possible that the arrays could boost the energy output of the larger horizontal turbines as well, but that more testing would have to be done to confirm that.

Other than utilizing all of the land in a wind farm, the vertical turbines could also act as a back-up for the horizontal ones.  In extreme wind speeds where large turbines have to be shut off, the vertical turbines could keep generating electricity.  The company also plans to market a turbine for low wind speeds.

Wind Harvest plans to have 25 and 75-kW versions available commercially in 2011.

via Greentech Media

Biking around town is a great way to cut pollution while getting a little exercise, especially now that springtime weather is upon us. So tune up your bike, buckle your helmet, and find a bike-friendly route with the new “Bicycling” option from Google Maps.

This isn’t “one-size-fits-all” mapping that you’d use for a car trip. [...]

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Legislators in California have introduced a bill that would require electric utilities to provide grid-scale energy storage in their operations. The bill would call for a capacity of 2.25% of daytime peak demand by 2014 and 5% of peak demand by 2020.

A variety of technologies could be included in the mix to provide grid energy storage, including pumped storage hydro, compressed air storage, utility-scale batteries, and flywheel storage systems.

This may have the indirect effect of encouraging the utilities to promote efficiency measures and to encourage load shifting, in order to lower the amount of storage that would be required.

via: Building Energy Performance Info

image credit:

INGOCAR is a developmental concept for a 5 passenger car with a hydraulic drive system in place of a conventional powertrian. With the weight reduction this offers and other efficiencies in the systems, the designers say their vehicle could get 170 mpg.

The INGOCAR is a hydraulic hybrid vehicle. Like some electric hybrids such as the Chevy Volt, it uses the motor indirectly instead of using the mechanical motion of the motor to move the car. But rather than using a motor as a generator to produce electricity, the INGOCAR has a highly-efficient 2-stroke diesel engine which is used to pressurize a hydraulic tank called the accumulator. Pressure from this tank is then used to turn individual wheelmotors in each wheel.

Hydraulic power makes the regenerative braking of the INGOCAR much more efficient than that in electric motor vehicles, as well. Regenerative braking with hydraulics is able to recover 75 to 85% of the energy which is used to repressurize the system. The wheelmotors that serve as both propulsion and braking for the vehicle are smaller than the disc brakes they replace.

The INGOCAR’s efficiencies work to benefit it in several ways. For instance, eliminating the conventional powertrain provides a 30% weight reduction for the car. Also, the engine only needs to run for a short period of time to recharge the pressure tank. It can also be smaller since it is only being used to develop pressure, rather than needing to be strong enough to run the car directly.

The vehicle is able to be significantly lighter than an electric hybrid because the motors are much lighter. “A comparable electric powertrain, able to recapture the entire braking energy, is significantly heavier. The weight of the currently best electric motors is 20 times higher than that of the new hydraulic motor. The weights of the energy storage devices (battery, accumulator) are about the same. As result, the weight of the car would increase by about 50% – from 2200 lb to 3300 lb – consequently increasing the fuel consumption.”

The 5 passenger INGOCAR would weigh 2200 lbs (998 kg). The Chevy Volt’s curb weight is expected to be around 3500 lbs, and the current Toyota Prius curb weight is also around 3000 lbs.

link: Valentin Technologies

AT&T has just announced a USB-based telephone charger that does not pull electricity from the wall when it’s not charging a phone. I don’t know about you, but my charger is plugged in 100% of the time. That charger pulls a tiny amount of energy from the wall 24 hours a day 365 days a year. Multipy that by 100 million chargers in America and there’s probably at least one coal-fired power plant in America dedicated entirely to that wasted power.

AT&T’s new charger, however, is a standardized USB charger that does not pull any power from the wall when there’s nothing plugged into it. You wouldn’t think this was a particularly complicated thing to do (especially since chargers routinely cost thirty FREAKING dollars.) But high-markup chargers are a big part of cell phone company’s profit models, so they aren’t generally interested in pulling R&D dollars from that big tasty pie.

But it works, and it will charge a variety of devices, even non-AT&T devices. It’s great news for us all, and at the same cost as a regular (dramatically overpriced) cell phone charger.

Let’s hope the technology makes its way into other vampire power culprits soon. Read the full press release from ATT here.

A Department of Energy report on light emitting diode (LED) technology has some pretty startling numbers to digest. First, 7% of America’s electricity is used to light our homes and businesses. That number is down significantly in the last few years because of the adoption of efficient lighting. But there is still a great deal of ground to be gained. Indeed, as bright white LEDs begin to make their way to the market, the DOE expects their adoption to result in huge decreases in energy use.

The cumulative savings of widespread adoption of this technology over the next 20 years would be about 1.500 terawatt-hours the price of which, at today’s energy prices, is around $120 billion. The savings would eliminate the need for 24 new large power plants, to say nothing of the decrease in carbon emissions.

The DOE has a host of programs to spur growth in the LED market, including a X-Prize style contest, R&D projects and market-baed projects. Of course, we have to do our part too. New technology relies on EcoGeeks to be the early adopters of LED technology. I’ve already got a few lighting up my house.

LED light bulbs have some huge advantages over incandescent and compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs. But they perform differently, so here’s your guide to understanding LED bulbs so you can enjoy their benefits and play to their strengths.

LED bulb designs are constantly evolving, and they keep getting cheaper and more user-friendly. They’re energy-efficient, durable, [...]

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China’s high-speed rail plans get more ambitious by the day.  Not satisfied with having the world’s most advanced and extensive rail line in the world, China is now planning to connect its rail system to 17 other countries in Asia and Eastern Europe where it will join the European rail network.

China plans to have this massive project completed in 10 years.   The rail system will include three major continent-crossing lines running at 200 mph.  One line will connect London to Beijing in a two-day trip and continue on to Singapore.  Another will link Vietnam, Thailand, Burma and Malaysia.  The third will connect Germany to Russia, go across Siberia and back into China.

With travelers able to take major routes like these at high speeds, air travel may become a lot less necessary across Europe and Asia.

China will be financing the project in exchange for access to natural resources from the 17 countries the rail lines will run through.  As an example, Burma will provide China with lithium for its rail connection.

via Daily Telegraph