Groovy Green Goodness: Wearable Plants, Anime Style Electric Bikes
Here's a round up of interesting green tech news this week from EarthTechling, a green technology news and lifestyle website focused on consumers.
1. "Solar Power at West Virginia College a Student's Idea" - Thanks to the mutual interest in renewable energy of a physics and engineering student and a physics professor, the Christopher Hall of Science at West Virginia Wesleyan now features a 200-watt solar panel over its main entrance. The panel generates enough power to provide electricity to the main offices as well as to a refrigerator.
2. "Love Plants? Then Wear One!" - Atlanta-based art and design studio Wearable Planter has come up with a way for people to appreciate nature on the go by creating tiny planters that can be worn as jewelry or even affixed to bikes. The planters are created with 3D printing, which is extremely efficient in terms of waste. Plant itself not included.
3. "Waste-to-Energy Plant Will Put Haiti Trash to Use" - To combat the sanitation issues in Haiti that have arisen in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, the Haitian government and Pittsburgh-based International Electric Power (IEP) have created Project Phoenix, which aims to use the waste currently lying in the streets of Port-au-Prince as an energy source, which will both clean up the city and reduce the country's dependency on foreign power sources. In addition, it's estimated that the project will create about 1,800 new jobs, and provide power for over 75,000 homes.
4. "Vertical-Axis Turbine: New Take on Wind Potential" - An entry from Russia in the James Dyson Award competition features a new take on the vertical axis wind turbine, one whose design stems from careful consideration of aerodynamics to maximize the potential wind as a source of power, especially for small populations living far from a centralized grid. Each blade, for example, operates independently so that each can have the most efficient "angle of attack," and in severe weather, the blades flatten out parallel to the air movement to reduce damage.
5. "Znug Unveils its Anime-Inspired Lowrider E-Bike" - The zecOO, designed by Znug Design and manufactured by Autostaff Suehiro, was recently unveiled at the Tokyo Motorcycle Show. The low-slung, 28-horsepower bike reaches a top speed of 70 mph, and its range is anywhere from 55 to 85 miles, is hefty at 540 pounds, and rather pricey at $70,000.
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