Hybridcore Homes May Be the Best of Both Worlds Between Prefab and Site Built
TreeHugger has waxed ecstatic over the benefits of prefabricated housing as a way of delivering better quality with less waste and energy, and we hoped at a lower price, yet somehow the industry never delivered what it promised. There were a couple of problems that were never resolved:…Read the full story on TreeHugger
Humdinger Wind Energy’s Tiny Turbine Is Ten Times More Efficient
Image via Ecofriend
It’s tough work to find a small scale wind energy charger that works. While we’ve seen innovative designs pop up over the last few years, it’s simply difficult to get enough wind coming through such a little device to charge devices. However, thanks to a company called Humdinger Wind Energy LLC, that might change with their new device called the microBelt. It is a piezoelectric turbine-based system that is purportedly 10 times…Read the full story on TreeHugger
5 Crazy But Clever Places to Put Data Centers
Photo of data center in limestone cave, via Computerworld
Data centers suck up a lot of energy, so it pays to put servers in places that can keep them cool and running efficiently. While some companies are choosing to make what they have work better, others are thi…Read the full story on TreeHugger
LED Flashlight Combines Solar and Pull Power So You’re Never In The Dark
Image via Essential Gear
Solar powered flashlights are great, but you have to wait for a charge. Pull-cord flashlights are great but you have to work for a charge. But what about one that combines both so if you’re short on light or short on energy, you still get a charge? The ECOPower Solar Pull Light combines two sources of reliable alternative energy to make sure you’ve always got a light in a pinch. …Read the full story on TreeHugger
Acer Unveils New Aspires As Their Greenest Laptops
Image via Acer
Acer has launched two new notebooks, Acer Aspire 3811TZ and Aspire 3811TZG. They’re part of the Timeline series, which touts a 40% energy efficiency improvement over traditional laptops, and these two notebooks are free of two toxic materials that many companies either have, or are working to eliminate from their laptop lineups as well. …Read the full story on TreeHugger
Renewable Energy Developers vs. Local Communities
Why Can’t We All Get Along?
Our friends over at TriplePundit has an interesting piece about why renewable energy developers must first win community support. Indeed, too many projects are derailed because local people protests, and it often seems like nobody took the time to get them on board in the first place. It might seem harder to have to involve communities, but in the long run, it will probably avoid many problems (though on the other hand, local communities should le…Read the full story on TreeHugger
Gloria Reuben on the Dirty Lie of Clean Coal
When people describe their first time seeing mountaintop removal coal mining, the response is invariably the same: dropped jaws and sunken hearts. Along with her prolific work in film and television (ER, Raising the Bar), Gloria Reuben is a tireless backer of clean energy, global public health, and climate sanity. She talks with TreeHugger Radio about the myth of clean coal, the grim tale of mountaintop removal, and her hopes for Copenhagen.
Listen to the podcast of this interview via iTunes, or just click <http://…Read the full story on TreeHugger
Solar & Construction Industries Demand Robust Support for Solar (Video)
Image credit: We Support Solar
The We Support Solar campaign has long been pushing for a solar feed-in tariff in the UK, and the Government is indeed instituting one in 2010. But the question is, just how ambitious will this plan be? Earlier this week, I posted on a report that argued a more robust feed-in tariff could see the UK generating 6% of its energy from micro-renewables like wind and solar. Now We Support Solar has taken…Read the full story on TreeHugger
Three Letters That Mean A Lot–MRV
China made big news this week when it announced that at the upcoming climate negotiations it will offer to reduce its “energy intensity by 40-45 percent by 2020, relative to 2005 levels. Some see this as a positive development while others are left scratching their heads and asking, “What does ‘energy intensity’ even mean?” Well, first a definition. Energy intensity refers to energy output per unit of gross domestic product. So the Chinese are saying that as their booming econ…Read the full story on TreeHugger
Top 4 Energy & Environment Untruths in Sarah Palin’s ‘Going Rogue’
Photo via Newsmax
Well, that didn’t take long. Sarah Palin’s hotly anticipated memoir, Going Rogue, is hardly out the gates, and it’s already facing a torrent of criticism from mainstream news sources for including various untruths and flat out lies. It appears that everyone’s favorite vice presidentia…Read the full story on TreeHugger