DIY Trash-Powered Gasification Car (Video)
Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:15:31 -0500

Honda Accord Runs on Trash We’ve got excited about waste gasification before, especially at news of the first US waste gasification facility. We’ve even got excited about
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Library Use is Booming Because of Recession
Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:14:30 -0500

Photo: Flickr The Good Ol' Book is Back in Vogue When green advocates talk about product service systems (PSS), many might be left scratching their heads (if that's you, check out the linked Wikipedia page). Yet we're all familiar with public libraries, a great example, and when times are harder economically, people increasingly turn to these alternatives to owning stuff. Read on for more....

Labels and standards are a touchy and confusing subject. Who sets them? What do they cover? TreeHugger readers have seen companies just calling themselves green, companies inventing their own labels (like SC Johnson), Companies going to third party labels-for-hire to certify what they think is important but may not be, (Like LG Eden and SCS) Labels that cover only one aspect (like Energy Star and Greenguard), and labels that let the manufacturer submit data for cl...

photo: David Silver You may have missed it over the holidays of the past ten days but the BBC ran an interesting piece on the sort of transformation that will be required in the 21st century to feed a projected world population of 9 billion by 2050, without continuing to simply pump more chemicals into fields to replace what has been lost by intensive industrial farming. Professor Tim Lang of the UK government’s Food Council described our current agriculture syste...

Photo: Lotus Evora Lotus Electric Car in the Cards These words were recently spoken by Lotus CEO Michael Kimberley, making us think that being a supplier to Tesla Motors inspired the company to throw its hat in the ring. The concept EV is expected for the Geneva Motor Show in March. Read on for more....

Photo via Flickr

A few weeks before we even rang in the start of 2009, I was already thinking about my New Year's resolutions. And then I started wondering what resolutions other people were making. I heard both the usual: eat better, exercise more...and the unusual: write more thank-you notes, focus on organics, for example. And that last one got me thinking: there are so many people who are still dwelling on the fringe of greener living. What better time to take the plunge than the start ...

photo: Dominic Alves With the honeymoon phase of support for first generation biofuels (those derived from food crops such as corn, soybeans, etc) pretty much over, and research into second generation fuels (cellulosic fuels and those derived from non-food crops) ramping up, you’ll have to forgive me to jumping ahead to what may one day be termed third-generation biofuels: Ones using genetically engineered microbes to produce fuel. Yale Environment ...

Want to keep track of what's happening money-wise in clean tech during 2009? A new website called TheFunded.com presents a way to get insider input and reviews on what's shaking in clean tech investing. ...

Background photo via Martin Kingsley Starting with the new year, Oregon and Washington are launching e-cycling programs to help keep electronics out of landfills. As of January 1, it is free to drop off items like computers and TVs at permanent collection sites. Read on to see where these are located, and how to find local sites across the US. ...

Obviously not on an apartment building in the Bronx, but at Logan airport in Boston, this is the sort of wind turbine to be installed by Blue Sea Development. Photo: AeroVironment Though small scale wind turbines certainly have their drawbacks compared to their larger industrial-scale cousins, especially in urban areas (as the New York Times correctly points out), they can be put to good use. Witness an affordable housing project in the...

image: Tidal Energy Ltd It’s safe to say that tidal, wave, and ocean power (all different but similar in that they generate power from moving ocean water) have more competing designs than other methods of generating electricity renewably. TreeHugger has covered most of these before, but here’s yet another contender: The DeltaStream from Welsh company Tidal Energy Limited. While it’s not a radical departure from existing technolo...

Photo via kawanet While we've been hearing about them for awhile now, solid state drives are rapidly growing in popularity, and that means stronger, longer-lasting devices and hopefully much less wasted energy and e-waste in our near future. Read on for when to expect solid state drives to take over our electronics. ...

Mentioning it a while back when she was being interviewed on TreeHugger, in this video Daryl Hannah –– TreeHugger's favorite foxy environmentalist –– explores eco-tourism holidays in Sinai, Egypt. In particular, she nests for a bit at an ancient spot on Mount Sinai, an eco-resort an...

While TVA claims that water quality tests performed after the coal ash spill at the Kingston power plant in Tennessee show that contaminant levels remain below limits for drinking water, preliminary tests performed by

Photo via itchys IBM's Venture Capital Group is keeping an eye on the next big target for the greening of America - and for clean tech investing - and its convinced 2009 will be the year of the smart grid. ...

Photo via pvera We've all seen it before - a wiring situation that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. You just know there's a whole lot that can go wrong when there's so many plugs and so few outlets. We're taking a look at some seriously scary wiring situations, and stopping to wonder about what that says about us. Check out wiring that makes us wonder in our image gallery. ...

photo: OregonDOT Everyone likes a new world record, but this next one is a bit like saying you’ve run a 3-minute mile and when when queried about where and when you did it, you respond “sometime in the next five years.” In that light, two Chinese firms have announced that they will be collaborating on building what will eventually (as in, someday, but we’re not telling) be a 1 GW solar power project in the Qaidam Basin. Here are the details: ...

Image via The Christian Science Monitor. The emergence of the “ecocity” concept has been one of the most exciting trends in city design in recent years. As the idea gained traction and exposure, a string of ambitious ecocity projects were announced – intelligently designed ecological cities that would revolutionize the way we thought about the environments in which we dwell. However, one of the most famous and ambitious of these now seems doomed to forever remain on paper. What sank plans for China's Dongtan ecocity?...

Popular Science Rensselaer Polytechnic students Peter Zummo and Matthew Naples have developed a modern version of Heineken's Wobo (world bottle-here in TreeHugger and more detail in Inhabitat) of 45 years ago; a plastic bottle that can be filled with sand and locked together like Lego to build housing. Their struggle to patent and bring it to market is covered in The New York Times Education Life section....

Images: Cecilia Macaulay An odd entry in a long list of Google searches piqued my curiosity. Intimate Permaculture. What can that be?, I wondered. Turns out it is a phrase coined by Cecilia Macaulay, a permaculture teacher and writer/illustrator, who divides her time between Australia and Japan. She has a particular fascination with balcony gardening, for growing food very close to where we live. Permaculture is a very practical and functional form of eco-design that mimics nature, but Cecilia appears to enjoy fresh interpretations and injects the discipline with a hearty dose of whimsy. Her article on ‘Permaculture For Keeping Cosy’ should appeal to our northern...

Image: Kayu website When I happened upon Kayu sunglasses made of bamboo I nearly kept on moving. Did the miniscule amount of plastic found in a pair of glasses frames merit replacement by bamboo? Well, I use a replaceable head toothbrush, so maybe that argument could be made. But what piqued my interest more, was the statistic that “80% of blindness is curable or preventable, yet 36 million are needlessly blind.” Responding to this dilemma Kayu contributes $50 USD, for each pair of glassses sold, to Unite for Sight who work towards the elimination of preventable blindness....

Chewing gum has long been the bane of teachers and street cleaners...and the love of dentists. Made of synthetic chicle, sugar and flavouring it causes cavities, and sticks to the pavement--costing millions in street cleaning. Now a small co-operative in the Mexican rainforest is bringing back the original chicle processing skills to make a chewing gun that is certified organic and saving the rainforest. Called Chicza Rainforest Gum, it will be sold in supermarkets in Britain very soon....

Photo Credit: Kanko Research with green tea and Alzheimer's continues to show that the antioxidant properties in green tea (Camellia Sinensis) may in fact have the ability to decrease production of beta-amyloid, which is the protein which forms plaques in those affected by the disease....

Photo Credit: Tochichi Toyota, who is famous for its groundbreaking introduction of the Prius, is currently rumored to be hot on the trail of another first... a solar powered car. This headline was splattered all over the Web last Thursday. The vehicle will feature roof mounted solar cells that will have the ability to collect enough electricity to power a small portion of the vehicle. The future goal will be to have these vehicles completely powered through the solar energy they collect, but this was admitted to be a few years down the line....

Image courtesy of Wired The smallest possible regional nuclear war would unleash around 700 million tons of carbon dioxide—about as much as a country like England emits every year. The stat comes from a new paper called "Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security" by Marc Z. Jacobson, a professor of environmental engineering at Stanford. The piece led the British newspaper the Gua...

Burj Dubai Tower, still under construction Via:TagPuan TreeHugger has posted many times on Dubai's sometimes "green," sometimes wretchedly-excessive building boom (please pardon one last requiem use of the now much out-of-favor "green"). The boom is over; and a crash looms for Dubai landlords and credit holders. Falling oil prices have a lot to do with it. See more below the fold....

Photo courtesy of CSS Play When 8 year-old Judson King decided he wanted his favorite video game character for a pet three years ago, it wasn't just some fleeting phase based on fantastical whims like it would be for most youngsters. No, the boy's infatuation with Sonic the Hedgehog set a chain of events in motion that would end up actually changing Kansas law....

Image Via Georgetown University Coffee is the 2nd most traded commodity after oil. Some claim that coffee has health benefits while others claim that it is an addictive substance that taxes the body’s adrenal glands, depositing adrenaline daily into our bodies, and taking tolls on our bodies in other ways. Whatever you believe, coffee is not essential to our lives and thus it is one commodity worth considering giving up entirely in order to benefit the planet and our pocketbooks in a time of economic and ecologi...

Image courtesy of Blue Summit Invest Now that both a massive recession and the New Year are underway, it's time to start thinking about staying afloat financially. And now might be the best time ever to invest in green—there are a slew of factors that make green look good for 2009: among them, a new administration bent on unfurling a green jobs plan is taking office in a matter of weeks, and the fact that shares in most green companies are way down at the moment (read: cheap). According to

Photo courtesy of the LA Times The devastating, 2.6 million cubic yards of toxic coal ash slurry released in a Tennessee dike burst could perhaps have been avoided if TVA officials hadn't rejected costly fixes, a new report in the Tennessean reveals. Apparently, a review of state records shows that there was a minor blowout five years ago that spurred officials to look for a way to ens...

Image source: Sterling College Sterling College - University of Vermont students give new meaning to the idea of college students getting baked. ahem. This time, they are actually baking pies to save the planet. Well, or at least feed their local neighbors. Combining a need in area food banks, with a surplus of organic butternut squash and willing labor, one local community is taking its motto outside of their campus walls and acting locally....

Image: JRC GEM How close do you live to a city of 50,000 or more? How long does it take you to reach the "wilderness"? A fascinating map created for the World Bank World Development Report 2009 explores the question of accessibility of markets, hospitals, schools or water to populations across the world. In attempting to more consistently define "urbanization", the map leads to several amazing conclusions....

photo: Focus Organic With cold season in full swing it would be nice to be able to squirt some sanitizer on your hands and avoid a cold for the whole year. Well, that's just not possible. But in a pinch, parents love to use this stuff to prevent the spread of germs on the go. Now a greener hand sanitizer is claiming to be as effective as the conventional ones, but without the scary ingredients....

ABC Foreign Correspondent Postcard (5:18) The New Years holiday is a time to visit a shinto shrine in Japan. When I went to Ise Shrine, I made a real fool of myself when I talked to a guard and compared the structure to the pyramids of Egypt. He immediately replied: "No,...

Photo credit: SoftPixTechie Global warming is the cause of a number of damaging effects to the earth and its inhabitants, such as climate change, glacier retreat, rising sea levels, and now we may have a new threat on the horizon... world war! According to the 2007