New Florence. New Renaissance.

Hypermilers

"He's a hypermiler, part of a loose-knit legion of commuters who've made racking up seemingly unattainable mpg (many times 100 mpg) an art. And a sport. Hypermilers practice such unorthodox techniques as coasting for blocks with their car's engine turned off, driving far below speed limits on the freeway, pumping up tire pressure far beyond car and tire makers' recommendations and carefully manipulating the gas pedal to avoid fuel-burning excess." - USA Today

Photo Credit - calcars.org

The Green City of the Future

Turbines which harness wind power of cars driving by on highways.  Others which harness energy as pedestrians walk. Algae which generate hydrogen. Micro-filters to desalinate sea water. Vertical farms in buildings many stories high.Energy paint which traps sunlight on buildings and converts into electricity. Next generation magnetic levitation vehicles.

Many such fascinating ideas in this Popular Science gallery

Windpower in Oil country

In Houston, TX the global petroleum capital,  WindPower 2008 kicks off today.

In a related story, FAST Company interviews T. Boone Pickens - "The Oracle of Oil" - about his wind investments

PBS Series on "Green Options"

Starting tomorrow on the Nightly Business Report (6.30 in most US East Coast cities) PBS is running a 4 part series on Green Options:

Tuesday - discussion around bio-engineered crops as food and fuel compete

Wednesday - Florida sugar cane as source for ethanol

Thursday - a bacterium which can turn scrap, pulp etc into ethanol

Friday - a Japanese team trying to harness methane hydrate - a frozen gas

Greener Planes

In the short term, a revolution in jet engines is about to occur, with radically different designs that use gears to cut fuel consumption, noise and pollutants. And those new engines will power planes built more and more with carbon composite materials, which are lighter and may also be safer than the aluminum they replace.

In the longer term, the fuel itself may change; scientists are looking for an aviation version of ethanol, something that can be made from plants rather than petroleum.

New York Times

The Hotbed that is Iceland

"We would like to be the world's laboratory for exploring a carbon-neutral future," says Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, the country's foreign minister and former mayor of Reykjavik. Reykjavik Power, the world's largest geothermal heating company, and other local firms already export expertise to markets including China and the United States (which is the world's largest consumer of geothermal power and which hopes to boost that usage exponentially).

Fast Company

Green Design at new Nationals Park

 

The stadium opening today was designed to be "green" with high efficiency field lighting and building materials with 10%+ recycled content. Much of landscape flora is drought resistant and needs less irrigation, roof materials are high-reflective, there's plenty of car pool parking, the stadium is accessible to public transportation etc. And there is an elaborate filtering system to prevent contaminants from entering the nearby Anacostia River.

More coverage at USA Today.

Earth Hour

Google turned its "lights off" today as a gesture to raise awareness of a worldwide energy conservation effort called Earth Hour.

As to why Google does not do this every day...well its research has found black backgrounds do not reduce energy consumption. Read more here. But plenty of other ways to reduce energy consumption - check out Energy Star for one.

San Francisco Green

Solar rebates, wave energy, carbon tax - the mayor of San Francisco talks about various green initiatives in this video

Portable Chargers powered by nature

"Both products (HYmini and Solio) are about the size of your hand, light-weight (about 3 and 6 ounces) and produce electricity from the wind and sun. The juice can be used to directly power a mobile gadget or stored within the chargers' own internal batteries for later..."

Consumer Reports