Energy Information
http://www.google.org/powermeter/howitworks.html

Google energy information - popular site in Delicious

Monitor your houseapplicances' energy consumption via Google!

Google PowerMeter, now in prototype, will receive information from utility smart meters and energy management devices and provide anyone who signs up access to her home electricity consumption right on her iGoogle homepage. The graph below shows how someone could use this information to figure out how much energy is used by different household activites.

How the Amish live against tide of technology.

Amish Hackers - Adopting Technology

For the sake of proof-of-concept, I'm glad the Amish exist. "Ivan is an Amish alpha-geek. He is always the first to try a new gadget or technique. He gets in his head that the new flowbitzmodulator would be really useful. He comes up with a justification of how it fits into the Amish orientation. So he goes to his bishop with this proposal: "I like to try this out." Bishop says to Ivan, "Okay Ivan, do whatever you want with this. But you have to be ready to give it up, if we decide it is not helping you or hurting others.""

Great article on the Amish community discernment process for adopting technology. Dispels a lot of myths, and gives a lot to think on.

Amish use the web at libraries (using but not owning). From cubicles in public libraries Amish sometimes set up a website for their business. So while Amish websites seem like a joke, there's quite a few of them. What about post-modern innovations like credit cards? A few Amish got them, presumably for their businesses at first. But over time the bishops noticed problems of overspending, and the resultant crippling interest rates. Farmers got into debt, which impacted not only them but the community since their families had to help them recover (that's what community and families are for). So, after a trial period, the elders ruled against credit cards. One Amish-man told me that the problem with phones, pagers, and PDAs (yes he knew about them) was that "you got messages rather than conversations." That's about as an accurate summation of our times as any. Henry, his long white beard contrasting with his young bright eyes told me, "If I had a TV, I'd watch it."

One Amish-man told me that the problem with phones, pagers, and PDAs (yes he knew about them) was that "you got messages rather than conversations." That's about as an accurate summation of our times as any.

the natural media company

for steve

Green advertising promotion

Rental moving boxes

"Available in 3 sizes and delivered direct to your door on our fleet of eco-trucks powered waste vegetable oil and bio-fuel. All you need to do is pack, stack and move. When the Recopack are empty, just call us and we’ll come over to your new place and pick them up."

Reusable plastic moving boxes for rent to replace cardboard cartons. Delivered to and picked up at your door by "eco-trucks" powered on vegetable oil, of course.

The First, Zero-Waste Pack and Move Solution in America!

Eco-friendly moving company

Visualized on GOOD Mag (via Karl Long)

If we wanted to rid the world of synthetic fertilizer use—and assuming dietary habits remain constant—the extra land we'd need for cover crops or forage (to feed the animals to make the manure) would more than double, possibly triple, the current area of farmland, according to Vaclav Smil, an environmental scientist at the University of Manitoba. Such an expansion, Smil notes, "would require complete elimination of all tropical rainforests, conversion of a large part of tropical and subtropical grasslands to cropland, and the return of a substantial share of the labor force to field farming—making this clearly only a theoretical notion."

by Paul Roberts (at Mother Jones) — the gist seems to be: re-evaluate your assumptions about what sustainable agriculture means (hint: it involves more than just carbon footprints and whether/not the farm is organic; see also: labor conditions, see also: man-hours of labor) and maybe be prepared to consider a few harsh realities about cost/benefit before you buy another heirloom tomato for $4

Spoiled: Organic and Local Is So 2008

Our industrial food system is rotten to the core. Heirloom arugula won't save us. Here's what will.

see review in boing boing

free book: describes sustainable energy solutions

I just finished reading this book. It's one of the best analysis of energy use I was given to read. Hurray for raw number with cited sources!

Using a charming, educational style that teaches how to think about this kind of number, how to estimate with it, and what it means, MacKay explains these concepts beautifully, with accompanying charts that make them vivid and clear, and with exhaustive endnotes that are as interesting as the text they refer to (probably the best use of end-notes I've encountered in technical writing -- they act like hyperlinks, giving good background on the subjects that the reader wants to find out more about while allowing the main text to move forward without getting bogged down by details). sensible personal advice for things you can do to reduce your energy consumption -- especially identifying those few badly designed devices in your home whose idle power-draw really is punitive and replacing them (one Ikea lamp he cites draws nearly as much switched off as running, because of a transformer design that was one penny cheaper to manufacture than a more efficient one would have been).

PDF download on page

"This is to energy and climate what Freakonomics is to economics: an accessible, meaty, by-the-numbers look at the physics and practicalities of energy."

9 Apr 09 / cory Doctorow / David JC MacKay's "Sustainable Energy -- Without the Hot Air" may be the best technical book about the environment that I've ever read. In fact, if I have any complaint about this book, it's in how it's presented, with its austere cover and spartan title, I assumed it would be a somewhat dry look at energy, climate, conservation and so on. It's not. This is to energy and climate what Freakonomics is to economics: an accessible, meaty, by-the-numbers look at the physics and practicalities of energy

Info-graphic: consumption of key resources, estimated number of years before exhaustion. Many between 5 and 40 years.

Twitter

Get Great Gadgets. And Keep Them

Saving the planet through sheer laziness.

sweet design

As one of Olivia Judson’s biggest fans, I feel honored and a bit giddy to be filling in for her. But maybe I should confess up front that, unlike Olivia and the previous guest writers, I’m not a biologist, evolutionary or otherwise. In fact, I’m (gasp!) a mathematician. One of the pleasures of looking at the world through mathematical eyes is that you can see certain patterns that would otherwise be hidden. This week’s column is about one such pattern. It’s a beautiful law of collective organization that links urban studies to zoology. It reveals Manhattan and a mouse to be variations on a single structural theme. The mathematics of cities was launched in 1949 when George Zipf, a linguist working at Harvard, reported a striking regularity in the size distribution of cities. He noticed that if you tabulate the biggest cities in a given country and rank them according to their populations, the largest city is always about twice as big as the second largest, and three times as big as th

One of the pleasures of looking at the world through mathematical eyes is that you can see certain patterns that would otherwise be hidden. This week’s column is about one such pattern. It’s a beautiful law of collective organization that links urban studies to zoology. It reveals Manhattan and a mouse to be variations on a single structural theme. [...] These numerical coincidences seem to be telling us something profound. It appears that Aristotle’s metaphor of a city as a living thing is more than merely poetic. There may be deep laws of collective organization at work here, the same laws for aggregates of people and cells.

Why elephants and cities have the same basic infrastructure

"For instance, if one city is 10 times as populous as another one, does it need 10 times as many gas stations?"

we should send some stuff into this - most of it is a little rough

"Social designer curates and creates smart products that tune into the greater good. You can join the cause by submitting designs for our competitions, weighing in with your opinion, purchasing goods or just simply talking about them. After all, every good idea (and every good cause) starts with a conversation – the more, the merrier."

i see you in one of these someday

Prefab green homes with style, efficiency, and affordability.

Clayton Homes introduces the i-house, the new Revolutionary thought in home building.

Brilliant way to garden!

HT passionate homemaking

I need to figure out a way to make these without damaging the house!

idea 1

1 uniform, 365 different ways. Amazin'

一着のワンピースを365日着倒すプロジェクト。

architectural conjecture :: urban speculation :: landscape futures

A project proposing to build a 6,000 km wall across the Sahara to stop desertification using bacteria which solidify sand into sandstone and could be used almost like a giant 3d printer. The future is here.

Larsson's project deservedly won first prize last fall at the Holcim Foundation's Awards for Sustainable Construction held in Marrakech, Morocco. One of the most interesting aspects of the project, I think, is that this solidified dunescape is created through a particularly novel form of "sustainable construction" – that is, through a kind of infection of the earth. In other words, Larsson has proposed using bacillus pasteurii, a "microorganism, readily available in marshes and wetlands, [that] solidifies loose sand into sandstone," he explains.

"Dear Old People Who Run the World, My generation would like to break up with you. Everyday, I see a widening gap in how you and we understand the world — and what we want from it. I think we have irreconcilable differences. ... What do the "M"s in Generation M stand for? The first is for a movement. It's a little bit about age — but mostly about a growing number of people who are acting very differently. They are doing meaningful stuff that matters the most. Those are the second, third, and fourth "M"s. Gen M is about passion, responsibility, authenticity, and challenging yesterday's way of everything. Everywhere I look, I see an explosion of Gen M businesses, NGOs, open-source communities, local initiatives, government."

This may be the most accurate description of my generation I've seen, ever

to read

Small is beautiful, at least in economy...

Gen M is about passion, responsibility, authenticity, and challenging yesterday's way of everything. Everywhere I look, I see an explosion of Gen M businesses, NGOs, open-source communities, local initiatives, government.

Mowing with goats

Mowing with goats http://ff.im/-2vho7 [from http://twitter.com/chrisbechtel/statuses/1671172628]

Googleが空き地の雑草を200頭のヤギに食べさせて、草刈りをし、山火事を防ぐとともに環境フレンドリーをアピールという話。 このヤギだか羊たちって、僕が5年前にYahoo!のSunnyvaleに滞在していたときも裏の丘にいたんだよね。 実はこれはそういう業者に依頼するのだ。 http://www.californiagrazing.com/ 現地の人間に聞くと、州法だか消防法みたいのがあって、ある規模の企業は定期的に敷地の下草だとか雑草を刈らないとダメみたいだとか言っていた。それを広報に利用するというのは、さすが抜け目のないGoogleだな。

Google mows their lawn with goats http://twurl.nl/5yqfth #green [from http://twitter.com/telesaur/statuses/1698040940]

Estas cabras son explotadas como cortahierbas, pero aunque utilitarismo, no se puede decir de buenas a primeras que las maltraten, pues ellas disfrutan comiendo, a sus anchas. Pero la idea de que no son libres puede atormentar a bastantes. Se comen la hierba seca de Google durante una semana. Decidieron cambiar por cabras a los cortahierbas humanos y contaminantes con sus máquinas de tubo de escape. Son 200 y las dirige Jen, que es un perro, border collie para más señas.

9 sites that offer information for the conscious consumer about the companies and products we buy every day.

Silicon Valley thinks the internet can transform anything from car sales to anonymous sex, but the way Americans grow and buy food is rooted in ancient,

'FarmsReach wants to make ordering from local, small farms as easy and reliable as ordering from Sysco. Farmers with smartphones would snap quick photos of their produce, then upload their products into their “virtual stalls.” Restaurants could cruise through the vegetables online and pick what they wanted. It’s a classic farmer’s market with a high-tech twist. And by bringing producers and customers closer together, the internet could cause purchasers to change who they buy their food from. Already, increasing numbers of restaurants and produce buyers demand to know more about the food they are purchasing.'

"With a suite of mobile apps for use in restaurants and on farms, FarmsReach wants to create an online food marketplace that would directly connect farms with restaurants. “The food supply industry is ripe for ‘disintermediation’ because of the internet,” said Alistair Croll, a startup consultant working with FarmsReach. In other words, middlemen beware: Food could undergo a transition like the one that swept through classified ads, air travel and dozens of other industries. If that happens, it could begin to transform the food system, and that would be welcome news for food activists. The problems of the food system have been well-chronicled over the last few years: environmental degradation, occasional food-borne disease outbreaks and millions of overweight Americans."

you have to dice part of an onion

@thecorkboard http://www.serveyourcountryfood.net/ [from http://twitter.com/iblee/statuses/1713505157]

http://delicious.com/

How can consumers who want to reduce their impact on the planet find the best social media tools? The following sites are great shortcuts for weeding through the myriad online options.

How can consumers who want to reduce their impact on the planet find the best social media tools? Here is the social media and web guide to going green.

The social media and web guide to going green: http://bit.ly/801Jo [from http://twitter.com/sherrymain/statuses/1579819305]

Soaring online demand stretching companies' ability to deliver content as net uses more power and raises costs

RT @ecologee Web providers must limit internets carbon footprint, say experts http://tinyurl.com/cjwamo [from http://twitter.com/gbyat/statuses/1704966289]

"Soaring online demand stretching companies' ability to deliver content as net uses more power and raises costs"

Web providers must limit internet's carbon footprint, say experts Soaring online demand stretching companies' ability to deliver content as net uses more power and raises costs

New Soap, Old Bottle sells brand new liquid soap packaged in old plastic soda bottles, plastic water bottles, and glass beer bottles — all of this aimed at keeping our environment healthy.

Company sells cleaning products and things packaged in sanitized reused soda bottles.

The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.

"The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying. The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves."

The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying. The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves. The allegations raise serious questions about the accuracy of the organisation's latest World Energy Outlook on oil demand and supply to be published tomorrow – which is used by the British and many other governments to help guide their wider energy and climate change policies.

interesting article to read

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Food crops, agriculture and biodiversity cannot be separated from one another A sustainable global food system in the 21st Century needs to be built on a series of "new fundamentals", according to a leading food expert.

Global food production will need to double just to meet demand. "We have the knowledge and the technology to do this, as things stand, but the perfect storm of climate change, environmental degradation and water and oil scarcity, threatens our ability to succeed." ...We are going to have to get biodiversity into gardens and fields, and then eat it. "We have to do this rather than saying that biodiversity is what is on the edge of the field or just outside my garden.

food rethink by bbc

Fascinating presentation on Issues Facing Our Changing World

Stewart Brand on TED.com

Far too many countries purchase bottled water instead of just taking it from the tap. Not only is this common practice wasteful, the water consumed is frequently less safe than what comes out of your faucet. Read more about the truth of bottled water in this graphic.

I've heard some of these statistics before, but find it more digestible in infographic form. Really though, stop buying bottled water if you can help it.

Bruce Sterling's Manifesto for a new Millennium

Condenses pure drinking water from air, just like the water traps in Dune.

Tapping an unlimited source of fresh water The Element Four WaterMill provides fresh, potable water from an unlimited source: the air. It's the sustainable, elegantly designed solution to providing fresh water for your family, and the world.

A household device that pulls fresh, potable water from the air. If this is for real, it's incredible.

product called watermill turns air moisture into drinkable water

product guides - taps, showers, gutters, tanks etc

Sito con trucchi per risparmiare acqua, giochi interattivi. molto bello, molto interattivo

how can we save water?

Tips on saving water. Great resource for secondary students

Adura Technologies

August 24, 2009 Hemcrete®: Carbon Negative Hemp Walls

whoa

Bloom Energy is changing the way the world generates and consumes energy. Our unique on-site power generation systems utilize an innovative new fuel cell technology with roots in NASA's Mars program. Derived from a common sand-like powder, and leveraging breakthrough advances in materials science, our technology is able to produce clean, reliable, affordable power,... practically anywhere,... from a wide range of renewable or traditional fuels. Our Energy Servers™ are among the most efficient energy generators on the planet; providing for significantly reduced electricity costs and dramatically lower greenhouse gas emissions. By generating power on-site, where it is consumed, Bloom Energy offers increased electrical reliability and improved energy security, providing a clear path to energy independence.

Bloom Box!!!

Localized energy "servers" for your home.

Don't let misinformation prevent you from cashing in on PC power management

Turning off PCs during periods of inactivity can save companies a substantial sum. In fact, Energy Star estimates organizations can save from $25 to $75 per PC per year with PC power management. Those savings can add up quickly. According to a recent report by Forrester titled "How Much Money Are Your Idle PCs Wasting?" PC power management is helping General Electric and Dell boast savings of $2.5 million and $1.8 million per year, respectively. That also results in a substantial reduction in CO2 emissions. So why is there hesitancy at some organizations to implement PC power management, given that the payback is easy to calculate? Perhaps some companies are being swayed by myths about PC power management. Forrester outlines five such myths in its report.

I want one of these. I really liked the "old and new" by Mouzon Design

The Green House of the Future We asked architects to draw up plans for the most energy-efficient houses they could imagine. They imagined quite a bit.

We asked architects to draw up plans for the most energy-efficient houses they could imagine. They imagined quite a bit.

Norbert Eisenreich, a senior researcher and deputy of directors at the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology (ICT) in Pfinztal, Germany, said his team of scientists have come up with a substance that could replace plastic: Arboform -- basically, liquid wood.

alta modalitate de a capta puterea soarelui

Daniel Nocera

http://cleantechnica.com/2008/10/25/mit-energy-storage-discovery-could-lead-to-unlimited-solar-power/

Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have discovered a new way of storing energy from sunlight that could lead to ‘unlimited’ solar power. The process, loosely based on plant photosynthesis, uses solar energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. When needed, the gases can then be re-combined in a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity whether the sun is shining or not.

Interesting. I hate to be cynical, but I wonder if it will take off?

Tips on conserving energy and saving money at the same time

Fun tech ideas from Gizmodo that will save money and potentially increase the value of your home.

Let’s today step out of the normal boundaries of analysis of our economic crisis and ask a radical question: What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall — when Mother Nature and the market both said: “No more.”

Friedman, Thomas L.. The Inflection Is Near?." New York Times 07 March 2009.

We must have growth, but we must grow in a different way. For starters, economies need to transition to the concept of net-zero, whereby buildings, cars, factories and homes are designed not only to generate as much energy as they use but to be infinitely recyclable in as many parts as possible. Let’s grow by creating flows rather than plundering more stocks.

“We created a way of raising standards of living that we can’t possibly pass on to our children,” said Joe Romm, a physicist and climate expert who writes the indispensable blog climateprogress.org. We have been getting rich by depleting all our natural stocks — water, hydrocarbons, forests, rivers, fish and arable land — and not by generating renewable flows. “You can get this burst of wealth that we have created from this rapacious behavior,” added Romm. “But it has to collapse, unless adults stand up and say, ‘This is a Ponzi scheme. We have not generated real wealth, and we are destroying a livable climate ...’ Real wealth is something you can pass on in a way that others can enjoy.”

m the things I’ve made for them,” Chen said. “And I also hear that, when they no longer want an item, they simply

The Inflection Is Near? By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Sometimes the satirical newspaper The Onion is so right on, I can’t resist quoting from it.

Freidman,

People should have one meat-free day a week if they want to make a personal and effective sacrifice that would help tackle climate change, the world's leading authority on global warming has told The Observer

even skipping meat one day a week makes an impact

UN says eat less meat to curb global warming | Environment | The Observer

This is his recipe for making tofu from soy milk, and it's the one Yagi uses: Add a teaspoon of liquid nigari to 500 milliliters of cold soy milk and stir. Then pour it into heat-proof bowls and cook (in a water bath or steamer) until it sets like custard. That is it. There's no heating the soy milk to bring it to a certain temperature before adding the nigari. No separating liquids from solids. No straining once it's cooked.

Dispelling myths about pre-washing dishes in a dishwasher, among other things.

“Pre-rinsing dishes is a big mistake,” said John Dries, a mechanical engineer and the owner of Dries Engineering, an appliance design consulting company in Louisville, Ky. “People assume that the dishwasher will perform better if you put in cleaner dishes, and that’s not true. Just scrape. Pre-rinsing with hot water is double bad, because you’re pumping water and electricity down the drain.” It’s actually triple bad, according to Mike Edwards, a senior dishwasher design engineer at BSH Home Appliances in New Bern, N.C. “Dishwasher detergent aggressively goes after food,” Mr. Edwards said, “and if you don’t have food soil in the unit, it attacks the glasses, and they get cloudy,” a process known as etching that can cause permanent damage. It’s also important not to use too much detergent, he said.

I liked this video for it's story and editing. It tells it all in ~2min.

Guy who lives in a 89 sq ft house...awesome!

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eat the seasons aims to promote an understanding of food seasons. Each week we list the seasonal foods that are at their peak, and share enlightening facts, useful tips and enticing recipe ideas picked from the web and our favourite books.