Emerging Tech: Power Plant: One Small Leaf Could Electrify an Entire Home. Scientists at MIT have created what may be the first practical artificial leaf -- a device about the size of a playing card capable of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen and storing the energy in a fuel cell. Placing the leaf it in a single gallon of water in sunlight could produce enough electricity to supply a house in developing countries with its daily electricity requirement, according to researchers. A team of scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed what it describes as the first practical artificial leaf. The device, made from silicon, electronics and catalysts, is the same size and shape as a playing card, but thinner. It splits water into its two components, hydrogen and oxygen.
"It's really cool stuff -- they're taking a solar cell and turning it into a battery," Carl Howe, director of anywhere consumer research at the Yankee Group, told TechNewsWorld. Soon the World Will Love You, Sweet Leaf Nocera's Work It's a Long, Long Road. Bamboo Bikes In High Demand – Planetsave.com: climate change and environmental news. When it comes to sustainable transport, you’ve never seen anything like this before. The Ghana Bamboo Bikes initiative is gaining momentum and is gearing up to start exporting to other African nations, the EU and the US. They’re also looking forward to providing the bikes to teachers and healthcare workers within Ghana. The project, which won a United Nations’ SEED award in 2010, manufactures bicycle frames from bamboo. This reduces the greenhouse gas emissions per bicycle by over 70 percent. It also embraces inclusive working practices.
In addition, bamboo is considered a regenerative crop which can be planted on degraded land to help to the soil, air and water in the surrounding ecosystem to recover. Tags: bamboo, bamboo bicycles, bamboo bikes, bicycle, bicycles, bicycling, bike, bikes, biking, Cycling, ghana, Ghana Bamboo Bikes, green transport, green transportation, Transport, transportation About the Author.
New York City's Dragonfly A Locavore Wet Dream. Photo courtesy of: Vincent Callebaut Architectures Architect Vincent Callebaut will have locavores drooling if his 128-floor vertical farm concept is actually realized. The Dubai-esque Dragonfly addresses issues like food production and agriculture in cities that are horizontally-challenged for space like New York City. The concept supports housing, offices, laboratories and twenty-eight different agricultural fields. Set at the Southern bank of New York's Roosevelt Island, the Belgium-designed Dragonfly consists of two towers and is completely Hobbit free. It's a 2,000 foot tall structure that harnesses both solar and wind power. The exterior gardens are used for capturing and filtering rain water. The greenhouse, which gives the structure its wing-like design, supports the load of the building and is inspired by the structural exoskeleton of dragonfly wings. Photo courtesy of: Vincent Callebaut Architectures. Boat Concept Produces More Energy than it Uses.
Last year, we told you about Vincent Callebaut's amazing 128-floor vertical farm concept to green the New York City skyline. Now, he's moved his eco-friendly designs to the waterways with the Physalia--a floating garden transport vessel that not only produces enough energy to sustain itself, but generates a bit to spare. In addition to being carbon-neutral, the boat is also be capable of purifying its own water and growing its own vegetables, all while educating its passengers on sustainability. Ship ahoy! The Physalia, which is named after a species of jellyfish, is as forward-thinking in its eco-friendly features as it is in its design, boasting many of the same self-sustaining features as the creator's other green concept, the Dragonfly building.
Not only is the vessel designed to carry passengers through European waterways, it will be a virtual botanical garden as well with its rooftop garden. The boat is made of steel with a skin of aluminum and titanium dioxide. Going Underground. By Derrick Jensen For several years people from different places and backgrounds kept recommending the same oddly titled book to me: Paul Stamets’s Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World (Ten Speed Press).
Everyone told me it was one of the most mind-bending texts they’d ever read. With so many recommendations, I perversely hesitated to pick the book up, and when I finally did, I prepared myself to be disappointed. I wasn’t. Stamets fundamentally changed my view of nature — in particular, fungi: yeasts, mushrooms, molds, the whole lot of them. When we think of fungi, most of us picture mushrooms, those slightly mysterious, potentially poisonous denizens of dark, damp places. Since reading Mycelium Running, I’ve begun to consider the possibility that mycelia know something we don’t. Almost since life began on earth, mycelia have performed important ecological roles: nourishing ecosystems, repairing them, and sometimes even helping create them. Moringa Olifera - "A natural coagulant for water treatment" | Moringa Oleifera "Tree with enormous potentialities" In the tropics, many people use rivers as their main water source. The river water can be cloudy and very polluted, especially during the season rainy season when river sediments are removed and remain in suspension, along with runoff fields and other surfaces carrying solids, bacteria and other organisms micro element.
It is essential that purification procedures eliminate the maximum amount of suspended material, before they go to water disinfection stage. To remove the solid material used coagulants, which are added to untreated water, usually are products chemicals such as aluminum sulfate (alum) or synthetic polyelectrolytes. In countries developing these products are often imported, involves a large outlay of foreign exchange.For many years researchers have been explore the potential of the seeds of Moringa Oleifera in water treatment, by collecting samples from containers water storage, seed treated with Moringa crushed to better sedimentation.
Reference: Is That a Banana in Your Water? This story is part of a National Geographic News series on global water issues. Banana peels are no longer just for composting or comedy shows: New science shows they can pull heavy metal contamination from river water. Metals such as lead and copper are introduced to waterways from a variety of sources, including agricultural runoff and industrial wastes. Once there, heavy metals can contaminate soils and pose health risks to humans and other species. Lead is known to affect the brain and nervous system. Traditionally, water quality engineers have used silica, cellulose, and aluminum oxide to extract heavy metals from water, but these remediation strategies come with high price tags and potentially toxic side effects of their own.
(Read more: “Predicting the World’s Next Water Pollution Disaster.” ) Bananas, on the other hand, appear to be a safe solution. Don’t Try This at Home Castro doesn’t advise the use of banana peels for home water purification.