Amazon 'biodome' approved by Seattle for company's new downtown campus. Algae Farm Power. Algae fuel or Algal biofuel is an alternative to fossil fuel that uses algae as its source.
Several companies and government agencies are funding efforts to reduce capital and operating costs and make algae fuel production commercially viable. Harvested algae, like fossil fuel, release CO2 when burnt but unlike fossil fuel the CO2 is taken out of the atmosphere by the next generation of growing algae. As locations go, Columbus, New Mexico is hard to find but is a pretty good place to stage the first attempt, here on Planet Earth, to cultivate crude oil as an agricultural crop. To do so, three partners are attempting to do something else that has never been achieved before — using algae as a major, global crop platform — not on the scale that has produced vitamin and nutritional supplements, but on the scale and at the costs more closely associated with the dozen or so great staple crops around the world. A farm needs flattish land because then you have to move the water. Plants Grow Fine Without Gravity. When researchers sent plants to the International Space Station in 2010, the flora wasn't meant to be decorative.
Instead, the seeds of these small, white flowers—called Arabidopsis thaliana—were the subject of an experiment to study how plant roots developed in a weightless environment. Gravity is an important influence on root growth, but the scientists found that their space plants didn't need it to flourish. The research team from the University of Florida in Gainesville thinks this ability is related to a plant's inherent ability to orient itself as it grows. Seeds germinated on the International Space Station sprouted roots that behaved like they would on Earth—growing away from the seed to seek nutrients and water in exactly the same pattern observed with gravity. (Related: "Beyond Gravity. ") The new study revealed that "features of plant growth we thought were a result of gravity acting on plant cells and organs do not actually require gravity," she added.
Root Growth. How designers and botanists are putting a colourful flourish on drab urban landscapes - Science, Science & Technology. Photograph by Brian Howell Mike Weinmaster and Patrick Poiraud have their own interpretation of “going green.”
They mean it literally. The founders of Vancouver-based Green Over Grey Living Walls and Design plant herbs, flowers and even trees vertically on city buildings. “We wanted to integrate gardens in the middle of a concrete jungle,” says Poiraud, who has degrees in botany and ecology. His company just completed one of the largest vertical gardens in North America, a 2,680-sq. The wall does not contain an inch of dirt. Similar systems have been in development for decades—but for very different purposes than greening cities. These systems, however, can be pricey, ranging from $110 to $400 per sq. foot.
With or without soil, living walls are energy efficient. In an increasingly urban world—the UN says 69 per cent of the Earth’s population will live in cities by 2050—growing plants up the walls may well become the only way to make the planet a truly greener place. Philadelphia Cleans Up Storm Water With Innovative Program. —the theft of city-provided rain barrels . In a backhanded way, the crime was a tribute to the success of the city's new Green City Clean Waters program. "You know when you've arrived when people value something enough to steal it," says Chris Crockett, the Philadelphia Water Department's deputy commissioner of environmental services. In a unique effort to address the city's storm-water runoff problem, improve streets, benefit the community, and create jobs, the Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) has opted for green infrastructure solutions rather than simply digging new tunnels and storage tanks to hold runoff.
The city is relying on a combination of solutions including green roofs , porous paving, storm-water planters, rain gardens, and, of course, the coveted rain barrels. Crockett had hoped to encourage Philadelphia's residents to take a role in keeping their water clean, little expecting the program would be so popular that people would impersonate others to get their rain barrels.