When Frank Zammataro thinks about water pressure, he sees an opportunity to create electricity. Zammataro, 53, is President and Co-Founder of Rentricity—a New York City energy company that has discovered a new way to tap into the excess pressure in water-treatment plants, reservoirs, and factories to help power our water infrastructure, which consumes four percent of America’s electricity.
“In my neighborhood in Amman, Jordan, we only have eight hours of water service a week during the summer,” Amer Sweity says. Sweity, 30, is working on his PhD in desalination technology at the Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in southern Israel, where he is the first Jordanian doctoral student at the university.
Deep in the heart of Silicon Valley, an office building home to Google is about to become a prototype for a cleantech product that’s capable of harvesting the sun’s power in a whole new way. The product in question is EnFocus Engineering’s Diamond-Power panel—a high-tech module that’s one part skylight, one part solar panel.
From cell phones to television screens, billboards and even designer electronics, OLEDs are everywhere. And it’s easy to see why. Energy-efficient and long lasting, OLEDs are the go-to light source for a new environmentally aware, post-incandescent era. Already capable of being produced as thin and floppy as a sheet of paper, now scientists are taking existing OLED technology a step further, from bendable to the first fully stretchable OLED.
Catching a nasty virus certainly isn’t on anyone’s holiday wish list, but for solar power it might be just what the doctor ordered. With the help of a genetically modified virus, materials researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found a way to boost the efficiency of one type of thin-film photovoltaic cell by 30 percent.
There’s no reason to beat around the bush: 2011 was a challenging year for many industries, including cleantech and sustainable business. With a rocky economy and a complicated political landscape, businesses were forced to tighten their belts and get a little more creative. But let’s not harp on the past. If nothing else, celebrating New Year’s is about waving goodbye to where we once stood and focusing instead on where we’re headed. And so, we thought it only appropriate to couple our end-of-the-year reflection with a healthy dose of 2012 projection (and that I assure you will be my last rhyme).
Although Jeff Howe may not be a household name, his most famous idea certainly is. Howe is famous for coining the term “crowdsourcing”—a concept that has taken Web 2.0 by storm and is already beginning to revolutionize the way citizens interact with their communities and government. While the execution can be complicated, Howe’s definition of crowdsourcing is simple: “the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.”
As the Director of Operations for the New York City Accelerator for a Clean and Renewable Economy (NYC ACRE), an incubator focused on IT-based cleantech startups, Micah Kotch knows what it takes to bring an idea from conception to production in the clean energy and efficiency space. And he is dedicated to helping other entrepreneurs and startup companies make their sustainable innovations a lucrative reality.
By day, cities are sun-soaking swaths of concrete and glass. By night, they’re teeming clusters of diodes and filaments with lights so bright you can see them from space. What if these two chapters were part of the same book: sun powering light and light powering dark? Meidad Marzan, a student at Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, wondered the same thing.
The benefits of solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources are clear. Environmental progress, increased national security, and greater energy diversity are just some of the advantages these sustainable technologies provide. Still, a universally acknowledged challenge exists: the power renewable energy sources provide can fluctuate with literally every passing cloud. One solution that could help utilities stabilize the load on regional and national power grids involves an old technology taken to a colossal new scale: flywheels for energy storage.
In the thinktank, we pose a question and ask for your input. This week, we’re asking “What sustainable innovation would you like to see your city adopt?” To get involved, follow us on Twitter @ecomagination or on Facebook. Then check back to see if your comment was featured here in the Green Room.
If you’ve searched for and found this blog, there is a good chance that you are interested in making your residence more sustainable as soon as possible. Here are 5 simple and relatively cheap ways that you can reduce energy waste and increase efficiency in your home right now. 1. Replace the weather stripping around all exterior doors. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, heating and cooling your home can account for 44% of your utility costs. You can easily reduce the amount of work your…
March 19-25, 2012 is world water week. UNICEF’s Tap Project will ask restaurants to ask their customers if they will pay $1.00 for the glass of water that comes with their meal. UNICEF estimates that each dollar is the equivalent of 40 days of clean water for a child. They calculate that 4100 children die daily due to water borne diseases. Approximately 900 million people do not have access to safe water. About 2.5 billion people are without adequate sanitation. Water access and sanitation cannot be…
Just a guy looking for a selection of organic clothing? Here’s a smattering of online choices that specialize in eco-friendly clothing. RAWGANIQUE – an easily navigable website selling a full range of organic cotton t-shirts, hoodies, jeans, pants, and undergarments. Many items are available undyed and unbleached. Some are even elastic free. The organic cotton clothing looks soft and yummy. Also many hemp and organic linen items. NAU – an eco-friendly clothing company that doesn’t look like one! Lots of…
Last week, GoodGuide founder Dara O’Rourke delivered a keynote speech at the Sustainable Foods Summit that focused on how mobile technology will transform the food system. Whether it’s bringing transparency to the marketplace (like our app) or improving food safety, there is no doubt that this technology can and will make a difference in how our food system operates. However, despite the various tech-based solutions presented to consumers, retailers, distributors, and farmers, there still remains the…
Hey there bright world! How great is it that there are people out there so dedicated to a cause that they invest their time, money, and energy into creating a film to bring awareness of that cause to the masses?! Big ups to those in the documentary film industry! Now if only society treasured them in the mainstream as much as they treasured those lame ass, recycled CGI films…. ugh..groan! Anyways, I wanted to bring to your attention a very thorough, organized and informative documentary called “Ingredients…
If you have been reading my blog, you will know that one of my intentions is to celebrate businesses and their charitable contributions to our society. Suzanne and Dominic Fielden run the Rocky Mountain Flatbread Co., a pizza chain that combines fresh, healthy food with extensive community involvement. Suzanne and Dominic come from a background of consulting for major corporations on sustainability and environmental matters. When they decided to open a restaurant in Canmore Alberta with the goal of…
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