Make a goat happy. Let ‘em eat your lawn!

Forget gas-guzzlin’, smoke-belchin’ lawnmowers. The eco-friendly way to mow grass and get rid of unwanted vegetation is to … rent some goats!
The city of Andover, Massachusetts has some unwanted guests: invasive species like the European buckthorn tree and the strangling bittersweet vine from Asia are shouldering out [...]

Plowing tractor exhaust into the field, eliminating fertilizer costs
A wheat farmer in Australia has eliminated adding fertilizer to his crop by the simple process of injecting the cooled diesel exhaust of his modified tractor into the ground when the wheat is being sown. In doing so he eliminates releasing carbon into the atmosphere and at [...]

Featured Invention at the Colorado Inventor Showcase 2009
Seamount Solar is a product that augments a clean-powered hydrogen-transmitted energy system by making ultra-pure water, in quantity, from saline or polluted water evaporated and collected by solar power and condensed by the cooler non-potable source.  Hydrogen and oxygen produced by electrolysis burns to power the flow of clean vapor [...]

KITE POWER!

The Italian firm KiteGen Research is developing a generator that harnesses the wind through kites. As a kite flies into the air, it unspools a cord that cranks the turbine. Carina Storrs writes in Popular Science:
The company developed a prototype that flies 200-square-foot kites to altitudes of 2,600 feet, where wind streams are four [...]

Featured Invention at the Colorado Inventor Showcase 2009
Environmentally-friendly mobile power generation has arrived. SolaRover™ Mobile Solar Power Systems provide pure, consistent electricity for all types of commercial, industrial and emergency applications — wherever and whenever needed. Categorically clean, absolutely silent and far more economical than comparable diesel generators over the long term, SolaRover systems offer [...]

Taichung Convention Center
Taiwan’s new Taichung Convention Center will be covered in solar-powered skin that naturally ventilates the structure reducing energy consumption. (Pics)
 

Researchers from Kitasato University in Tokyo have been awarded this year’s Ig Nobel Biology Prize for demonstrating a method to reduce kitchen waste by more than 90% by using bacteria derived from Giant Panda excrement.  Professor Fumiaki Taguchi, who shares the prize with fellow researchers Song Guofu and Zhang Guanglei (both from the Kitasato University [...]

Boston architects Howeler + Yoon and Los Angeles digital designers Squared Design Lab have designed a conceptual structure for Boston, where an unfinished building would be covered in modular pods growing algae for biofuel.  The pods would be continuously rearranged by robotic arms (powered by the micro-algae produced) to ensure the optimum growing conditions for [...]

Lightning Packs is a company that is developing backpacks that generate electricity with the motion of their users. As the user walks, the spring-mounted backback bounces slightly, turning a gear on a generator. It is the brainchild of Lawrence C. Rome of the University of Pennsylvania, who hopes to market his idea to the U.S. [...]

Scientists are engineering Rhodococcus bacteria to boost production of lipids, which can be converted into biodiesel.
While most attempts to engineer biofuel-producing microbes have focused on well-known organisms such as yeasts and E. coli, scientists also hope to co-opt the unique metabolic functions of some of the microbial world’s less-studied creatures. Anthony Sinskey and his team [...]

Bozen, Denmark’s E-Move Charging Station is the work of that country’s entrepreneur, Valentin Runggaldier, and — while those renders make it look like a flight of fancy — it’s actually real and going through a series of tests. (Pics)

A new green clean

Washing dishes in a full-loaded dishwasher without pre-rinsing saves water (particularly expensive hot water) over washing by hand. This steam dishwasher designed by Vincent Liew saves even more water and energy!

As the title suggests, this dishwasher uses pressurized steam to dislodge food particles on dishes and sanitize them. A hearty rinse after [...]

Researchers merged meteorological and wind-turbine modeling to map China’s wind-energy potential.  Potential output of 1.5 MW wind turbines is shown as a percentage of maximum output over time.
China has doubled its installed wind power capacity every year for the past five, and is on pace this year to supplant the Unied States as the world’s [...]

Just yesterday San Francisco saw the unveiling of the world’s first algae fuel-powered vehicle, dubbed the Algaeus. The plug-in hybrid car, which is a Prius tricked out with a nickel metal hydride battery and a plug, runs on green crude from Sapphire Energy — no modifications to the gasoline engine necessary. The set-up is so [...]

 
Home Energy Management System
Local power companies all over the country are helping to built a 21st century smart grid, complete with smart meters, which talk back to the grid, attached to your home. Control4 is getting ready to deploy its home Energy Management System (EMS) EC-100 so you can monitor and control not only your [...]

Juice of reject watermelons can be efficiently fermented into ethanol
Watermelon juice can be a valuable source of biofuel. Researchers have shown that the juice of reject watermelons can be efficiently fermented into ethanol.
 

The 2,000-megawatt complex similar to this will be built
in Ordos City, Inner Mongolia, China by 2019

First Solar, a leading maker of solar panels, based in Tempe, AZ, has announcedthat it will build an enormous, 2,000 megawatt solar power plant in China, starting next year. Bloomberg reports that it will be the largest solar power plant in the [...]

Inside this white building, piles of sorghum are broken down into acids. The acids they produce can be used to make gasoline.
A company that has developed a process for converting organic waste and other biomass into gasoline–Terrabon, based in Houston–recently announced a partnership with Waste Management, the giant garbage-collection and -disposal company based in Houston. [...]

“SchwarmStrom” (literally, “swarm power”)
An ambitious project was unveiled in Germany on Wednesday to install mini gas-fired power plants in people’s basements and produce as much electricity as two nuclear reactors within a year.
 

BioLogic FreeCharge
Apple devices are getting quite a bit of attention when it comes to renewable energy lately. Just yesterday we showed you the new solar power skin that is coming out later this month. But if you’re needing a charge on a cloudy day, there’s a solution coming out in a few months – you’ll [...]

Nano-ink could replace standard method of manufacturing solar cells
This is one powerful idea that would do away with massive solar panels. Solar cells could soon be spray painted onto the sides of buildings or rooftops with nanoparticles.
 

House on the Water
Our friends from formodesign sent us House on the Water, a self-sufficient house for nomadic life offshore. Designed as a rental house for people who want to be independent it’s available only through water. It is located by Navagio beach, NW coast of the Greek Zante island. (Pics)
 

Glamping
Europeans love touring churches and museums, but when it comes to vacations, Americans have always loved the great outdoors. Fishing, camping and just driving around are great American pastimes. (Pics)

The Oyster concept for transforming wave power to onshore electricity.
A giant new machine called’ Oyster’ designed to harness the power of ocean waves and turn it into ‘green’ electricity is being installed on the seabed off the Atlantic shores of the Orkney Islands. In autumn 2009 it will undergo demonstration trials to prove whether its [...]

Molecular modeling of CO2 capture by an ionic liquid membrane.
Separating carbon dioxide from its polluting source, such as the flue gas from a coal-fired power plant, may soon become cleaner and more efficient.