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Wall guards and corner guards don’t make for particularly compelling architecture by themselves. Most people don’t pay attention to them. They are an element in hospitals and offices, particularly where there is high traffic, to protect the walls from damage. And they are often made of PVC plastics.

Rather than being manufactured with PVC plastic, Arden Architectural Specialties has introduced a line of wall-and corner-guards that is made from corn-based biopolymers. Not only does this reduce the toxic byproducts of vinyl manufacture, and require less energy overall for the manufacture, but the end product is also stronger and more damage resistant, and is easy to recycle at the end of it’s life.

Finding yet another non-food use for corn is not without its drawbacks. But finding a substitute for PVC and helping to reduce dioxin pollution
are a positive step that EcoGeeks are in favor of. We’re hoping this is just the beginning of this trend. Bio-plastics should be showing up in everything from pipes to food packaging in the near future.

via: Architectural
Products magazine

It’s pretty convenient that many of the world’s major cities happen to be fairly near to renewable energy sources. Two of America’s largest cities, New York and San Francisco, happen to have extremely strong tidal currents. And while we’ve previously reported that New York is working on some tidal infrastructure, today we’re excited to announce that San Francisco is looking to up the ante.

The City of San Francisco and PG&E (their electric utility) are partnering to study where and how to build the most effective tidal power plant in the bay. The force of the water is, of course, tremendous, and it’s been estimated that tidal turbines in the bay could produce as much as 400 megawatts of power.

Of course, getting at real numbers is precisely why this $1.5 million study is being done. Depending on the results of the study and the level of cooperation between utilities, state governments and the federal government, the bay could be producing power in as little as five years. But we’ll have to wait and see, this is only the first step on an unfortunately long road.

Via SFGate and Green Wombat

See also:
–In Stream Tidal–
–Giant Shark Fin?–

Wall guards and corner guards don’t make for particularly compelling
architecture by themselves. Most people don’t pay attention to them.
They are an element in hospitals and offices, particularly where there is
high traffic, to protect the walls from damage. And they are often made
of PVC plastics.

Rather than being manufactured with PVC plastic, Arden Architectural
Specialties has introduced a line of wall-and
corner-guards that is made from corn-based biopolymers. Not only does
this reduce the toxic byproducts of vinyl manufacture, and require less
energy overall for the manufacture, but the end product is also stronger
and more damage resistant, and is easy to recycle at the end of it’s life.

Finding yet another non-food use for corn is not without its drawbacks.
But finding a substitute for PVC and helping to reduce dioxin pollution
are a positive step that EcoGeeks are in favor of. We’re hoping this is just the beginning of this trend. Bio-plastics should be showing up in everything from pipes to food packaging in the near future.

via: Architectural
Products magazine

It’s pretty convenient that many of the world’s major cities happen to be fairly near to renewable energy sources. Two of America’s largest cities, New York and San Francisco, happen to have extremely strong tidal currents. And while we’ve previously reported that New York is working on some tidal infrastructure, today we’re excited to announce that San Francisco is looking to up the ante.

The City of San Francisco and PG&E (their electric utility) are partnering to study where and how to build the most effective tidal power plant in the bay. The force of the water is, of course, tremendous, and it’s been estimated that tidal turbines in the bay could produce as much as 400 megawatts of power.

Of course, getting at real numbers is precisely why this $1.5 million study is being done. Depending on the results of the study and the level of cooperation between utilities, state governments and the federal government, the bay could be producing power in as little as five years. But we’ll have to wait and see, this is only the first step on an unfortunately long road.

Via SFGate and Green Wombat

See also:
–In Stream Tidal–
–Giant Shark Fin?–

It’s wonderful to see that environmental issues are reaching the emo sect as well. It is worth mentioning that, obviously, emo kids do use less electricity than normal kids.

For one thing, they don’t need to actually go anywhere in order to listen to music and be sad, so you don’t need a car at all. And, of course, as lighting uses 20% of the world’s energy, wouldn’t we all be better off with our blue-black hair hanging down over our eyes in the eternal darkness of a zero-watt light.

Via Digg

Could photovoltaics hit 50% efficiency? Spectrolab in Sylmar, CA is
gunning for it with a record high 40.7% conversion rate from their
latest solar cell. Spectrolab’s solar panels are similar to those from Soliant Energy, concentrating light onto solar cells using mirrors and lenses. However, Spectrolab goes beyond the typical
silicon based solar cell: theirs have three layers of semiconductors, each
capturing different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Though
this idea is not completely new – layered solar cells are used in space
already – in the past these layers could only be made using a limited
number of semiconductor materials. Now, Spectrolab has developed the
use of "metamorphic" materials, allowing them to explore new structural
possibilities and ramp up the efficiency of their cells.

…device designers have until recently employed only a limited repertoire of semiconductors, such as germanium and gallium arsenide, which form similar crystal structures. Metamorphic materials provide flexibility by throwing off this structural constraint, employing a wide range of materials, including those with mismatched structures. "The parameter space you can explore using mismatch opens up a whole world of possibilities," says NREL principal scientist Sarah Kurtz.

Since
the use of metamorphic materials is new, there still is a lot of
potential left. Let’s hope we see those results soon, so that we can
all enjoy more energy and smaller solar panels.

via Technology Review

See Also:
–Half Price Solar–
–New High-Efficiency Solar Panel–