Unfill The Land Fill

The Windy City area is capitalizing on its most famous attribute with a new wind-powered electric vehicle charging station.  Located in Highland Park, 30 miles outside of the city, the charging station uses electricity generated by Illinois wind farms for law firm Emalfarb Swan & Bain.

The charging station is the second in the country and the first in the continental U.S. to be powered by wind.  The other station is located in Maui, Hawaii.

The charge port was installed by Carbon Day Automotive, a distributor of the EV-charging leader Coulomb Technologies.  Carbon Day has also created a Solar Charge-Port that not only juices up EVs, but also collects, filters and recycles storm water through a Grey water filtration system for irrigation use.

via Green Car Advisor

A new federal agency charged with reporting on climate change is being formed.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will set up the Climate Service using members of the National Weather Service and other NOAA offices.

Climate operations have been spred out among NOAA offices, but with more and more requests pouring in for information concerning climate change, officials decided to combine those efforts into one main office.  The Climate Service will be headquartered in Washington, D.C. with six regional directors elsewhere in the country.

The agency will still have to be approved by congressional committee, but if it clears all necessary hurdles, it should be up and running by the end of the year.

via Huffington Post

Eco Factor: Renewable energy system converts wave energy into electricity.

Ocean Energy has partnered with Dresser Rand to develop commercial ocean energy systems. Dresser Rand has agreed to develop and supply turbines for its system for converting wave energy to electricity. Ocean Energy has been testing the system since 2007 and is preparing to commercialize it.

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Ocean Energy partners with Dresser Rand to develop wave power system

It’s that time of year again!  The Greener Gadgets Design Competition has started and 18 cool, eco-friendly gadget ideas are waiting for your votes.

This year is the third year for the competition and the Greener Gadgets Conference, which is being held on February 25 in New York City, and I must say, this is the best crop of designs yet.  Some of the highlights include a kinetic-energy-harvesting rocking horse that fuels flashlights or nightlights called Rocco, a USB-outfitted, wall-mounted charger that is powered by indoor light called the Illumi Charger and a system of turbine-run highway lighting that would be powered by the air turbulence from passing cars.

Your votes will narrow down the pool to a handful of finalists that will be judged at the conference.  You have until February 12 to cast your vote for the best and most revolutionary idea.  Click here to vote and learn more about the conference.

While the BLM is facing a virtual clog of large, desert-based solar project proposals, smaller, distributed solar projects are popping up at an impressive rate.  In just the past few weeks, 1,300 MW worth of these projects have been announced or approved, which could equal about the same energy output of a big nuclear power plant.

The larger, more ambitious solar power plans have many environmental and land-use hurdles to clear, while these smaller plans, set to occupy commercial and residential rooftops, areas near electrical substations and urban areas, don’t have the same obstacles in their way.  Also, the smaller projects are cheaper, meaning more utilities can afford to implement them as they’re scrambling to meet renewable energy mandates.

Arno Harris, the CEO of Recurrent Energy, a company that has signed a contract with Southern California Edison for 50 MW of small-scale solar, summed it up like this:

“Distributed solar is faster on permitting, on environmental issues and interconnection to the grid.  It offers a safety valve for utilities who don’t want to put all their eggs in one basket.”

The projects, anywhere from 50 to 500 MW each, are mainly concentrated in California, though New York Power Authority is planning 100 MW installation around the state as well.

via Green Inc.

The media coverage of the health dangers of BPA has really reached a fever-pitch these days and, thanks to that coverage, many companies are removing it from their products.  While that is wonderful, there are still many BPA-containing plastics out there and 2.7 million tons of it being made every year.  How do we make sure all that plastic is disposed of safely?

Scientists have come up with a way that they believe decomposes polycarbonate plastic without releasing BPA.  The scientists, Mukesh Doble and Trishul Artham, pretreated polycarbonate with ultraviolet light and heat and then exposed it to three types of fungi known for their pollutant remidiation abilities.

After 12 months, the pretreated plastic had substantially decomposed without releasing any BPA, while the control plastic that was not pretreated before being exposed to the fungi showed almost no decomposition.

via Science Daily

Eco Factor: Sustainable tourist resort harvests solar energy.

With the need for sustainable developments on the rise, architects are envisioning developments that are as great for the environment as they are for people. Mi5 Architects have unveiled a unique project for Izola, the sunniest place in Slovenia, which will merge a tourist resort with a “solar orchard.”

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Mi5 Architects propose ‘Solar Orchard’ tourist resort for Slovenia

Italian port cities are planning to connect large ships like cruise liners to the grid while they’re berthed to cut fuel consumption and potentially slash carbon dioxide emissions by 30 percent and nitrogen oxides and particulate pollution by more than 95 percent.

Venice, Paolo Costa, La Spezia and Lorenzo Forcieri are all expected to install new equipment to allow the ships to plug in to shore-side electricity.  Other cities around the world are experimenting with the same idea, including Los Angeles and Goteborg, Sweden, hoping to eliminate the fuel needs and emissions of onboard generators.

The Italian electricity utility Enel foresees large reductions in pollution and fuel consumption from the practice, but since so far only a few ships are compatible with on-shore electricity, we won’t know the full benefits until ports and ships are equipped and the generators are turned off.

via Green Inc.

Catching up with Doie’s Sara Kirsner.

[In his ongoing but sporadic series Don't Throw That Away!, the Green Cheapskate shows you how to repurpose just about anything, saving money and the environment in the process. Send him your repurposing ideas and challenges, but whatever you do, Don't Throw That Away!]

Ever since the mandatory conversion to digital TV — the proverbial death knell to rabbit ear television antennas — I’ve wondered if aluminum foil sales have plummeted.

If you grew up with rabbit ears, you know what I’m talking about. Who didn’t fashion aluminum foil into a homemade antennae appendage in hope of enhancing the reception of their rabbit ears? I was never convinced that it worked, but at least it gave us something to do, since we couldn’t see what was happening on the screen.

Even with the demise of rabbit ears, aluminum foil sales are still big business. Over 1.3 billion pounds of aluminum foil is produced every year in the U.S. — that’s a heck of a lot of leftovers. While aluminum foil is just as recyclable as aluminum cans, many curbside recycling programs won’t accept it for sanitary reasons (check with your local recycling program for their foil policy). That’s a shame, because recycling aluminum uses only about 5% of the energy that it takes to produce aluminum from raw materials.

Alas, until aluminum foil recycling becomes more commonplace, here are some ways to get the most mileage — and most value for your money — from your aluminum foil by using it more than once:

* Wash it and use it again (and again): I swear my mother is still reusing foil from the time of Christ for wrapping and rewrapping leftovers in the fridge. Just wash it in soap and water, flatten it out with a rolling pin on the kitchen counter, and it’s good as new. (Caution: Foil that has come in contact with raw meat should not be reused for other food purposes.)