A new washing machine design uses 90 percent less water and reduces utility bills by 30 percent by cleaning clothes with tiny plastic beads.
The machine by UK company Xeros Ltd uses 3mm-long nylon beads that can get into all crevices and folds of clothing and absorb stains and dirt. Stephen Burkinshaw, a polymer chemist at Leeds University, discovered that nylon beads at 100 percent humidity could attract stains away from clothing and into the center of the beads, preventing deposition back onto the clothes.
The machine uses a small amount of water to dampen the clothes and to reach the right humidity level, then the drum is flooded with the beads. When the cycle is complete the beads drain away with the water to be reused hundreds of times.
I’m sure you’ve already started questioning what happens to these plastic beads once they’re done scrubbing clothes. The company wants to eventually create a closed loop where the saturated beads can be refreshed and reused in the machines, but for the time being they will be collected and recycled.
Xeros says that if all of the US used these machines instead of regular washing machines, it would save 1.2 billion tonnes of water per year and the CO2 emissions saved would equal taking 5 million cars off the road. The machine would also eliminate the need to dry clean many delicates, another environmental benefit. The Xeros machine is expected to be available by the end of next year.
via Guardian
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If you really want to see the future of everyday transportation, you have to look no farther than the racing series happening right around the corner. As much for entertainment and competition as it is a testbed for new technology, the highly competitive nature of racing forces engineers and manufacturers to put their best foot forward if they hope to stand out (and beat!) the rest of the crowd.
The American Le Mans Series is one of my favorite racing series and the season starts up in just a few days. Just in time to compete for the 2010 season, Braille Batteries has announced a partnership with Primetime Race Group to tackle the newly-formed Le Mans Prototype Challange.
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Usually when you read about concentrated solar power, it’s referring to some large project destined for the Mojave Desert, but Syracuse’s Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems (SyracuseCoE) has set out to prove that this technology can be used in smaller, colder settings.
SyracuseCoE in Syracuse, NY is itself a LEED-platinum-certified, 55,000 square-foot building that serves as a testing ground for renewable energy and efficiency technologies. The south wall of the building is home to a concentrated solar facade that, at first glance, resembles the frosted cube walls found in doctors’ office waiting rooms.
This 8-foot by 8-foot facade houses several clear pyramid lenses that track the sun and concentrate the rays onto high-efficiency PV cells. Extra energy not converted to electricity is used for heating water and radiant heat in the building. And because it’s made up of clear panels, it also adds natural lighting indoors. You can watch a video of the system at work here.
Using a concentrated solar power system in an architectural application is a new concept, so the center will be monitoring and reporting on its performance.
The facade was designed by the Center for Architecture Science and Ecology and the company HeliOptix is licensed to market it.
via Jetson Green
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As we’ve talked about on these pages before, the battle for the hearts and minds of the next generation of car purchasers is starting. By the end of the year many major auto manufacturers will have some kind of electric vehicle for sale on the mass market and by 2014, nearly all major manufacturers have plans to introduce at least one electric car.
In these early stages, carmakers have chosen several different paths, some opting to go for the cars powered solely by batteries (Battery Electric Vehicles or BEVs) such as the Nissan LEAF, some for the plug-in hybrids (PHEVs; like a Prius with a bigger battery), and some for the extended range electric vehicles (EREVs with small generators on board to charge the batteries) such as the Chevy Volt.
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Senators Graham, Kerry, and Lieberman believe we can match the scale of China’s centralized industrial policy by fully deploying the engine of American prosperity: our marketplace. Do you? Opinion article by Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund.
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Here in the US, tea is essentially a niche product, falling way behind coffee in terms of popularity. But in places like the Middle East, Europe, and Asia, tea far surpasses coffee as a national past time. In 2008 alone, the world production of black tea was more than 3.8 million tons.
Typically, all those spent tea leaves and remaining liquid are tossed out with the trash, but now two Pakistani researchers have decided to tackle what they perceived as a waste of resources, and have figured out how to completely recycle the leftover tea and tea leaves into biodiesel, ethanol, methane, propane, fertilizer and even chemical spill absorbent.
Pretty ingenious if you ask me.
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In 1984, General Motors and Toyota joined forces to produce cars together at a single plant in Fremont, California. Called the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., the joint venture gave Toyota its first manufacturing base in the U.S., and GM a chance to learn from its rival Toyota on quality and lean manufacturing techniques. Over the years the plant gave us the Geo Prizm, the Toyota Hilux, and Pontiac Vibe/Toyota Matrix, among many other items.
One could argue that one company benefited more than the other from the partnership. But when GM announced it was shuttering the Pontiac brand, it also pulled out of the NUMMI plant, leaving Toyota holding the reigns. Toyota announced it too would pull out of the plant, and it looked like another manufacturing center and hundreds of jobs would be lost. Enter Aurica Motors, maker of electric cars. They have a plan to save the plant, and many of the jobs, by retooling the plant to build electric cars.
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Much hilarity and cracking of bad puns has greeted the arrival of a coffee powered car over in the UK. “The Car-puccino” which runs on “expressos” and needs its own “filter lane.” Groan.
The car used was a Volkswagen Scirocco, apparently because of its resemblance to the DeLoren in Back To The Future. This prompted one truly awful copyrighter (who should be taken out and shot) to come up with “Scirocco-ccino”.
The thing is though, this is a working road-legal car powered by left over coffee grinds.
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Alex SteffenHere are three talks I found thought-provoking and inspiring. All three demand some attention (and probably some time after to ponder what was said), but…
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Conventional gasoline engines are terribly inefficient things. Only 13% of the energy of the fuel actually moves the car. 62% is lost in the engine as waste heat, and driveline losses, accessories, and idling also reduce the efficiency.
Transonic Combustion is planning to build automobile engines with improved efficiency obtained through heating and pressurizing gasoline before injecting it into the combustion chamber. “This puts it into a supercritical state that allows for very fast and clean combustion, which in turn decreases the amount of fuel needed to propel a vehicle,” according to MIT Technology Review. A transonic test vehicle achieved 64 MPG in highway driving, compared to a 48 MPG hybrid Prius, and running at a steady cruising speed of 50 mph, the test vehicle achieved 98 MPG.
Like diesel and HCCI, the Transonic Combustion technology operates without needing a spark plug. Timing software also further enhances the operating efficiency of the system. Transonic injection is being developed for use with gasoline engines at present, but will also be compatible with advanced low carbon footprint bio-fuels in the future. Transonic expects its system will be comparable in cost to other current high-end fuel injection systems.
Because of the higher operating pressure, the longevity and durability of the engine will be important considerations the company will need to address. The company plans to build its production facility in 2013 and expects to be building engines for production vehicles in 2014.
via: Inhabitat
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It’s a one-two green punch for the trucking industry: today the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced a program with the U.S. EPA to help get rid of older trucks with dirty emissions, and just yesterday the company New Energy Technologies announced another step forward for device that can harvest sustainable kinetic energy from trucks as they, well, keep truckin’ on.
If you ever grew up on an urban truck route (which I did), the idea of green trucks might seem like an oxymoron but hey if the trucking industry can get their sustainability act together then by golly you betcha just about any major commercial sector can (except for maybe this one).
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WorldChanging Teamby Warren Karlenzig Last post I covered some guiding principles for urban resilience planning in the face of climate change and diminishing resources (especially fresh…
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Beginning today, Google has begun providing bicycle directions for its Google Maps service with directions for cyclists in 150 cities in the United States. Google already incorporates public-transit and walking directions in addition to automobile driving directions, and the bicycling community has been calling for Google to add bike routes for some time.
The routing suggested for cyclists is designed to avoid freeways and high-traffic areas, and to select gentler terrain by routing around hills. To make it even more useful for riders on the go, Google expects to have a mobile version available in the near future, as well.
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WorldChanging TeamA blue-collar business embraces a green stormwater fix. by Lisa Stiffler Editor’s note 3/9: This profile is now available in PDF format here. On Seattle’s…
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Eric De PlaceA climate action lesson from Denmark There’s been a lot of ambitious talk lately about carbon neutrality. It’s exciting stuff, but it’s worth pausing to…
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