Posts from — May 2007

Feature Factory’s design.

Gordon Brown’s planned eco-towns could learn more from a web site called Irresidence than from Prince Charles’ stately village of Poundbury.

Labour are planning five eco-towns, and apparently they are to be modeled on Poundbury which is more interested in reflecting England’s cultural heritage than its eco principles. You can visit the Irresidence web site to see the plans for fantastic, high-tech, high spec buildings using prefabricated parts and proven, factory tested designs, that could come off the production line in their hundreds if only someone would listen. The Treehugger web site says “it makes housing design more like industrial design.” (more…)

Solar future: not quite present

Eager-beavers Gizmodo.com just can’t wait to bring us the good news. Such was their excitement over a new type of solar panel from US company Solient that they may have indicated the product will be widely available a year before it actually comes on the market. We covered the next generation of concentrated solar panels last month in “Now Concentrate” .

Gizmodo, a consumer site, said the Heliotube will be available in 2007. Solient say companies may be able to buy the new technology by the end of the year, but residential customers will have to wait until late 2008 to get hold of one. (more…)

Sleep in back of workplace

The New York Times web site is in a lather over a report that students at NYU are having to share office space as living accommodation. There are hundreds of comments at NYTimes.com dissing the muppets at NYU, and describing readers’ own experiences at making do in expensive city centers here are the most inventive the final contribution is the best we ever heard.
SLEEP AROUND
I also am an NYU student. I currently live in a variety of places- couches, rooms, offices. I alternate week to week depending on the availability of my hosts. This way I save thousands of dollars a year and still have some extra money for booze! I use this booze money to entertain my hosts and make new friends who allow me to use their couches. Another good technique is to get a girlfriend and sleep with her – always remember- in America you have a right to party, but not a right for housing.

Posted by Mike D. (more…)

Never alone with a motor home

David Burley had to live in a Motorhome before he got the urge to create the Motorhome facts web site, which is now one of the most popular motorhome sites on the net. We particularly like the guide to wild camping places. David (pictured right with his missus) says “I have stopped at plenty of the places myself as I lived in a van with my wife and our Labrador, Bradley for two years, travelling Europe.”

We hope that wild camping list gets substantially beefed up by members’ suggestions in the future. You don’t even need to be a paying subscriber to use the camp site listing, but there are now 15,000 members and new ones joining at the rate of 500 per month. (more…)

Don’t look like much but it works

A student architecture project has produced a new off-grid hub for disaster relief. Students at the Minnesota U plan to send the hub to New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward. The cheap, practical off-grid pod can provide water and power wherever it is parachuted in. Much of the Lower Ninth district remains behind in reconstruction efforts, lacking electricity or running water, and the portable sanitation center will certainly be a boon to the area, said Greta Gladney of the Renaissance Project, a nonprofit organization in the Lower Ninth.
Are You Ready? An In-depth Guide to Citizen Preparedness (US Dept. of Homeland Security, FEMA, Citizen Corps Uniting Communities Preparing the Nation) (more…)

Burn baby, burn

As the two founders of Burning Man struggle for control of this iconic, off-grid, anarchist art event, its been announced that Burning Man 2007 in late August will have an eco theme. In fact it has been something of an eco-event for two decades. Last year 40,000 came to the hundred square miles of Nevada desert, some punks, some naked, some painted every color of the rainbow. But Larry Harvey the de facto king of “the Burners” has rather damaged his credibility by leaping so blatantly onto the green bandwagon this year. For those who don’t already know, Burning Man, in the Nevada desert is the ultimate off-grid festival. (more…)

“I�m going to tax your butt”

New French President Nicholas Sarkozy has promised a stream of eco measures, led by a series of green taxes with a “polluter pays” principle. He plans to target countries like the US and Australia which have not signed the Kyoto treaty by taxing their imports. Although he is heavily pro-nuclear, Sarkozy has said he will encourage renewable energy in a country where it is still illegal to provide your own electricity through sources such as solar panels or wind turbines. (more…)

Go to Forbes.com to view the slideshow

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PV to Hydrogen

Apart from saving resources, using solar energy instead of power from portable generators like diesel generators. Yamaha generators or Honda generators, for everyday power needs could shield the West from the negative effects of dramatic shifts in the supply and price of energy.
But the sun does not always shine. You need backup power for your home — a way to store solar energy for times when the sun is not shining. Hydrogen provides a safe, clean , efficient way to do this.
Here’s how the solar hydrogen cycle works: (more…)