From the monthly archives:

February 2008

An Efficient Biodegradeable Sunscreen: Caribbean Solutions

February 29, 2008

Sunscreens that pollute the water are not efficient. This is especially true in the ocean, where it’s estimated that 4000-6000 tons of sunscreen wash off swimmers every year. A company called Caribbean Solutions is introducing a biodegradable sunscreen nationwide.

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World’s First Wave Powered Boat

February 28, 2008

Ken-ichi Horie, a 69 year old Japanese sailor, is planning a solo 4,350 mile trip from Hawaii to Japan using an innovative wave powered boat. If successful, the trip would earn him a Guinness record while simultaneously proving the viability of wave powered propulsion.

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Nike’s “Trash Talk” Shoe Made With Manufacturing Waste

February 28, 2008

Steve Nash is the All-Star guard for the Phoenix Suns has forged a partnership with Nike to create the Nike Trash Talk, a basketball shoe made from manufacturing waste. The “waste” comes Nike’s own production facilities—scraps that would otherwise have been discarded. The Trash Talk is modeled after Steve Nash’s current shoe, the Nike Zoom [...]

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Road Runner Shower Head Has Unique “Pause” Feature

February 27, 2008

I’ve been testing the Road Runner low-flow showerhead, which is rated at 1.59 gallons per minute. Currently, it’s my favorite showerhead, beating out my previous favorites: the 2GPM Oxygenics showerhead, and the 1.75GPM Nigara Earth Massage showerhead. The Road Runner has a unique feature: it has a built-in sensor that detects when the water gets [...]

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How To Filter Your Shower Water Very Efficiently

February 26, 2008

This post has been updated for 2009.
I recently wrote about Filtering Your Drinking Water Very Efficiently, but let us turn now to your shower water. When we shower, we absorb the substances dissolved in water through our skin quite readily. For example, 60% of the chlorine absorbed daily comes from showering in chlorinated water. The [...]

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Wind Turbines On Galapagos Islands Reduce Diesel By 50%

February 24, 2008

Three huge wind turbines have been installed on the Galapagos Islands. They will generate a total of 2.4 megawatts for the 30,000 residents of the Galapagos archipelago’s five inhabited islands. The system will meet 60 to 80 percent of electrical demand during the windy months of October, November and December. The turbines will halve [...]

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Solar Balloons Get $21 Million In Funding

February 19, 2008

They look like foil party balloons, but they are actually very efficient solar concentrators. These solar “balloons” were developed by a company called Cool Earth, based in California, and it has just received $21 million dollars in investor funding. The company is now planning to build a 10-megawatt plant of solar balloons in the next [...]

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How To Filter Your Drinking Water Very Efficiently

February 18, 2008

I’ve spent quite a bit of time researching how to filter drinking water effectively. Originally, I was interested in filtering the rainwater that falls on my roof. But I had to put that project on the back burner for now. During my research I noticed that there is little unbiased information available on water filters [...]

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New World Record Set For Solar Efficiency: 31.25%

February 13, 2008

On a perfect New Mexico winter day — with the sky almost 10 percent brighter than usual — Sandia National Laboratories and Stirling Energy Systems (SES) set a new solar-to-grid system conversion efficiency record by achieving a 31.25 percent net efficiency rate. The old 1984 record of 29.4 percent was toppled Jan. 31 on SES’s [...]

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Infinia’s Modular Solar Dish Gets Funding

February 12, 2008

Infinia is a company with a modular product: a mirrored solar dish that looks like a home satellite receiver, and produces 3.5 kilowatts of energy. Infinia announced Monday that it had received $50 million in investment. The dish focuses the sun’s rays on to a Stirling engine (a 17th century invention), this heats a gas [...]

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Windspire: Propeller-Free Household Turbine Gets Approval

February 9, 2008

We just featured the largest wind turbine in the world, now here’s something at the opposite end of the spectrum: a household wind turbine. In the last few years, we’ve seen a lot of mini-wind turbines that haven’t turned out to be very useful. But the Windspire turbine from Mariah Power sounds interesting. The Windspire [...]

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Largest Modular Green Roof Installed: 2.3 Acres

February 7, 2008

The largest modular green roo, has been installed on top of the new “Court at Upper Providence” shopping center in Pennsylvania. The 2.3 acres green roof was constructed with GreenGrid modules. These modules are made with recycled plastic, and they contain small but hardly plants like sedums.

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New Record: World’s Largest Wind Turbine (7+ Megawatts)

February 3, 2008

The world’s largest wind turbine is now the Enercon E-126. This turbine has a rotor diameter of 126 meters (413 feet). The E-126 is a more sophisticated version of the E-112, formerly the world’s largest wind turbine and rated at 6 megawatts. This new turbine is officially rated at 6 megawatts too, but will most [...]

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Review: The Best LED Desk Lamps

February 1, 2008

Update: We’ve posted a new review of LED Desk Lamps for 2009.
LEDs really shine as reading lights and desk lamps. LEDs have a directed beam, so they do not disturb others when used as reading lights (in bed for example). LEDs also do not get hot to the touch, so there’s no risk of burns, [...]

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