ThisWeekInGreen
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Inhabitat's Week in Green: Keystone XL, pod skyscrapers and glowing EVs
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. By now you've probably heard of electric cars, hybrids and hydrogen vehicles -- but what about a car powered by saltwater? Enter the 1,075-horsepower Quant F supercar, whose four electric motors are powered by an electrochemical reaction from the combination of two liquids with metallic salts that act as an electrolyte. In other transportation news, Nissan just unveiled the world's first glow-in-the-dark electric car! The tricked-out Leaf features a special paint job that absorbs UV light and glows bright blue for eight to 10 hours after the sun goes down. The UK has already approved testing autonomous cars on public roads, and the nation's first self-driving car is ready to hit the streets. The Lutz Pathfinder pod car seats two, goes 15 miles per hour and it's incredibly cute. PG&E signaled a bright future for EVs in California by announcing plans to build 25,000 charging stations. But France is offering something even more enticing: an $11,000 check if you upgrade to an electric car.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: Super Bowl LEDs, modified bugs and Lego Pompeii
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. When the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots take the field for the Super Bowl this evening, it will be one of the most widely watched sporting events in the world. And it will also be one of the greenest. The game, which will take place at University of Phoenix Stadium, will be the first Super Bowl host to light its stadium entirely with LEDs, cutting energy use by 75 percent. In other news, Spain announced plans to install the world's first streetlight system that's powered entirely by solar and wind energy. An early prototype shows lampposts with small solar panels and vertical-axis wind turbines attached to the top.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: Warka Water Tower, self-driving cars and purifying water with sunlight
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. High-speed rail projects have been slow to catch on in the United States, but that could change now that the nation's first high-speed rail line has officially broken ground in California. When it's completed, the rail line will link San Francisco and Los Angeles, and it will travel at more than 220 miles per hour. In other green transportation news, Mercedes-Benz just unveiled its futuristic concept for a self-driving, hydrogen-powered car at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The car uses a series of cameras, ultrasonic sensors and radar to drive without any intervention from passengers.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: Solar farms, hydrogen cars and 3D-printing in space
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. 2015 is coming up quick -- and Inhabitat is counting down the days to the new year by showcasing its top posts of 2014! It's been a big year for green tech and environmental news -- take a look at the most inspiring stories, the funniest and the most disturbing -- plus the biggest breakthroughs in wearable technology.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: Glow-in-the-dark roads, lettuce factories and a liquid-filled lamp
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. Could the entire world someday run on solar power? The amount of energy that hits the Earth in just 40 minutes could fuel all of the world's energy needs for a year -- the trouble is harnessing that power. Check out this new infographic to see if it's truly feasible. On the green tech and design front, Arturo Erbsman showcased his innovative liquid-filled lamp, which diffuses light with water condensation, at Belgium's Biennale Interieur 2014 show.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: Long-range EVs, vegetable biofuel and a wearable for Alzheimer's patients
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. It would be an understatement to say that Tesla Motors has disrupted the electric car market, and other carmakers have taken note of their success. Ford just revealed that it is considering building a similar long-range electric car that would rival the Model S's 265-mile range. (Ford's only fully electric car, the Ford Focus Electric, has a range of just 76 miles.) In other automotive news, Detroit Electric has revealed the final exterior design of the SP:01, its electric two-seater sports car. When the car goes on sale next year, it will be the world's fastest production electric sports car with a 0-60MPH time of just 3.7 seconds and a top speed of 155MPH.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: Wind farms, algae power and an airplane made of hemp
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. Highways are big, dark surfaces that soak in lots of sun. Wouldn't it make more sense to make them solar-powered? That's what designer Daan Roosegaarde thought, and now he's making it a reality. Roosegaarde teamed up with Heijmans Infrastructure to install solar-powered glowing lines on a highway in the Netherlands. The test was a success, and it will soon expand to other parts of the country. Also on the renewable energy front, Masdar is building a 50-megawatt wind farm for the Sultanate of Oman, making it the largest wind farm in the Gulf states region. The wind farm will provide enough clean energy to power 16,000 homes, and it will prevent 110,000 tonnes (121,254 tons) of carbon dioxide from being burned per year. And in the UK, Primrose Solar is teaming up with Solarcentury to build a 48-megawatt solar farm in Portsmouth. The companies are aiming to make it the greenest ground-mounted solar farm in the world. Think algae is just green slime? Think again: The natural resource can power everything from a light bulb to an entire city. Here's a roundup of some of the top algae-powered designs that could change the world.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: Tesla D, 'Quake Column' and disaster-proof earth homes
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. We may take them for granted, but blue LEDs were difficult to develop -- it took 27 years to create the first one, and now they're in virtually every LED lightbulb on the market. Now the scientists who invented these energy-saving lights are finally getting their due: the 2014 Nobel Prize in physics. "Their inventions were revolutionary," wrote the Nobel Committee. "Incandescent light bulbs lit the 20th century; the 21st century will be lit by LED lamps."
Inhabitat's Week in Green: solar hourglass, urban tornadoes and the world's tallest garden
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. Japan is the birthplace of high-speed rail, and it continues to be a leader train travel -- officials just unveiled the nation's new magnetic-levitation train to the public for the first time! The new train can hit speeds of up to 311 MPH using "L-Zero" technology, and it will be able to zip passengers from Tokyo to Nagoya in just 40 minutes. In other transportation news, Tesla is gearing up to unveil something big this week -- Elon Musk recently tweeted a mysterious photo of the upcoming project, although we'll have to wait until Thursday for the full details. China's Foxconn may be best known as the manufacturer of Apple products, however the company is getting ready to throw its hat into the EV ring with a $15,000 electric car. And Spanish firm Opbrid is aiming to revolutionize public transportation with a new system that can recharge an entire electric bus in five to eight minutes flat.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: jewel-like greenhouses, solar planes and a space elevator
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. Could Apple's new spaceship campus be the greenest building on the planet? It will be, according to CEO Tim Cook, who made the bold statement at a Climate Week NYC event last week. "It'll be the center of innovation and it's something that our employees want and that we want," said Cook. In other tech news, a trio of 16-year-old Irish girls took the top prize at the Google Science Fair 2014 for developing a project that will combat the global food crisis. The project aims to provide a solution to low crop yields by pairing a nitrogen-fixing bacteria that naturally occurs in the soil with cereal crops it does not normally associate with, such as barley and oats. Speaking of Google, the search giant just ended its relationship with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a shadowy organization that writes industry-friendly bills for conservative legislators. The reason? Google Chairman Eric Schmidt says that the group is "literally lying" about climate change.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: Tesla Gigafactory, Blue Lagoon and an electric unicycle
Tesla has emerged as one of the world's most exciting and successful electric vehicle manufacturers -- and now the Silicon Valley company is getting into the battery business in a big way. Tesla CEO Elon Musk just unveiled new images of the company's $5 billion battery "gigafactory" -- and he also broke the news that it will be powered entirely by renewable energy! Most vehicles fall into a specific category: sedan, pickup truck, station wagon, etc. -- but Toyota's new U Squared concept is the Swiss Army knife of cars. The insanely flexible vehicle folds out to seat up to four passengers, or you can fold down three seats and roll out an array of racks, movable rails and storage trays to accommodate everything from surfboards and bikes to bulky equipment.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: Renovo Coupe, transparent solar panels and the Lego house
Wind power isn't confined to massive turbines found in the middle of cornfields; a Polish company has developed a 3D-printed, foldable wind turbine that can generate up to 300W of clean electricity -- enough to power your smartphone. And best of all? It fits in your backpack. We're also one step closer to having phones that charge themselves -- Michigan State researchers unveiled a crystal-clear solar panel that can be integrated into smartphone displays, windows and other transparent surfaces.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: dinosaur bicycle, 3D-printed shoes and a lightning-proof dress
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. Energy and clean water are two essential resources that we're running critically low on in the 21st century -- fortunately, a 17-year-old girl from Australia has invented a device that could solve both of these challenges. Cynthia Sin Nga Lam, a finalist in this year's Google Science Fair, has created a machine that purifies wastewater and produces electricity from hydrogen. In other green innovation news, workers just finished building a rainwater-harvesting soccer and volleyball stadium at a school in Kenya that can store more than 1.5 million liters of fresh water. The field is part of a larger trend of "waterbanking" structures that harvest and store rainwater.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: solar homes, 'Soofa' benches and a levitating transportation system
Solar Decathlon Europe is officially underway in Versailles, where 20 teams of students from 17 different countries are competing to build the world's most efficient solar-powered homes. Like the American version, the European Solar Decathlon has attracted some truly innovative entries. For example, a team of students from Berlin presented a plan for refurbishing a turn-of-the-century apartment building with solar panels.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: Gigafactory, eVolo Skyscraper Competition and super-powered bionic plants
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. First, the bad news: A new NASA-funded study predicts that industrialized society could completely collapse in the coming decades due to growing inequality and overconsumption of resources. Officials in Paris are taking emergency measures to curb emissions after air quality monitors found that air pollution had risen to hazardous levels in recent weeks. And large-scale famine could be closer than we think: A new report finds that climate change could affect food production much sooner than previously thought.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: human diamonds, floating farm and a 13-year-old nuclear fusioneer
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. Ever wish you could take a bite out of Kanye West? A new (possibly satirical) startup is taking meat alternatives to an absurd new level, with plans to make salami from animal meat and human tissue from celebrities. No word yet on what Kanye thinks of the venture. In other weird science news, a Swiss company says it is creating diamonds from cremated human remains. The company claims that its so-called memorial diamonds are almost indistinguishable from a typical diamond.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: self-driving tractors, U-CAT robot and the Interceptor police sedan
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. With Thanksgiving in the rearview mirror, it's time to start thinking about holiday decorations. London's Southbank Centre recently gave new meaning to the phrase "green energy" by unveiling a Christmas tree powered entirely by Brussels sprouts. And in Austria, a family claimed their second Guinness World Record by stringing over half a million LED Christmas lights across their property. In other tech news, Recchi Engineering and Carlo Ratti Associati won a competition to design Holland's 17,000-square-foot pavilion for the 2015 World Expo in Milan. The pavilion's green roof will be tended by a pair of self-driving tractors. Manuel Dominguez dreamed up a design for a futuristic mobile metropolis that can actually move to different locations in search of resources. And in Bogotá, a crowdfunding campaign has been launched for what could be Colombia's tallest skyscraper.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: 310MPH Maglev train, full-color 3D printer and a car that boasts an astounding 1,300MPG
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. Lego just made an announcement that will have geeks around the world salivating: Beginning in September, the company will release a 1-foot-tall Star Wars Ewok Village, complete with tree houses, rope ladders and of course, our favorite furry friends. That's not all -- this week the toy maker also unveiled plans for a new Lego museum in Denmark that looks like a big pile of toy bricks. In other blocky building news, the world's first carbon-negative building brick was just unveiled in the UK, and Studio Liu Lubin created an awesome set of stackable Tetris-style micro houses in China. And in green transportation news, Tesla announced that it will add a fourth car -- a compact SUV -- to its electric vehicle lineup, and Japan just unveiled a new prototype of its ridiculously fast 310MPH maglev train.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: bike-powered generator, world's largest wave farm and a DIY lightsaber
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. What would you give for a working lightsaber? This week Inhabitat reported that a laser hobbyist created an awesome (but totally dangerous) DIY lightsaber that can burn through wood. In renewable energy news, Scotland announced plans to build the world's largest wave farm, and an ingenious inventor created a bike-powered generator hidden inside his patio furniture. On the consumer tech front, Apple announced plans to produce a new line of Macs in Texas, and Intel is set to release its new Haswell chips, which could boost laptop battery life by 50 percent. Scientists discovered Arctic plants that have come back to life after being frozen for 400 years, while ninth graders conducted a science experiment to show that plants don't grow as well near wireless routers. And Ukrainian carpenter Valerii Danevych carves functioning watches -- including the gears -- entirely from wood.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: biospheres, X-wings and energy-creating shoes
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. News that Amazon will add three large biospheres to its downtown Seattle headquarters had the tech world buzzing this week. The domed structures will feature a mix of workspaces and gardens, and they'll be flanked by a public park. Amazon's big announcement wasn't the week's only surprise, though. A multinational consortium announced plans to develop a Dubai-style artificial island with a space hotel and a zero-gravity spa off the coast of Barcelona. And new research finds that "pinkhouses" -- vertical farms that use only pink light -- are much more efficient than those that use the full light spectrum.
