Ecofriend

Eco Factor: New solar plants to be built on public lands.

Federal agencies are eyeing the possibility of converting vast areas of barren land in different states of the U.S. into solar power hubs, which can collectively generate more than 100,000MW of green electricity for the States. The zoning portion of the initiative has marked 24 tacks of Bureau of Land Management land located in half a dozen western states, which have enormous solar potential, and each site is capable of producing more than 10MW of green electricity.

Eco Factor: Sustainable growing shelter evolves with seasons.

Designers at XLXS have created the GrowShelter for people who want to live a sustainable life in the company of animals and plants. The growing shelter evolves with seasons starting their cycle in spring when the sustainable spherical structures are embedded in a mixture of earth and seeds. Come summer and the shelters start to bloom with the embedded seeds being turned into food for both animals and the inhabitants.

Eco Factor: Phone made from recycled aluminum carries ultra-low power E-Ink display.

Designed by Luis Barceló, the Nokia Ink 01 is an answer to the growth in the number of cellphones being used and their impact on the environment. The Nokia Ink 01 is designed to reduce the energy consumption in all stages of the lifecycle of the phone, making it easy to disassemble and ensure that it had a high percentage of recyclable materials. It was a goal of this project to use current proven technologies that can be implemented quickly and not rely on technologies being developed and potentially very expensive.

Eco Factor: Zero-emission yacht powered by hydrogen fuel cells generates renewable energy for on-board systems.

In a bid to study pollution caused by the use of fossil fuels in the Mediterranean, the Zero CO2, which is the world’s first hydrogen propelled yacht, will set sail in March 2010. The objective of the Zero CO2 project is to create a clean way to commute across the seas without emitting a single gram of carbon.

Eco Factor: Sustainable space gets inflated with passing wind currents.

Created by Mass Studies, the Air Forest provides sustainable space for a wide range of applications. The 1,400 square-meter pavilion can be inflated with passing wind currents and once deflated can easily be transported and set up at some other location without making use of any specialized building materials.

Eco Factor: Concept cellphone powered by alcohol.

Apart from solar and wind energy, other green energy sources are being developed to run our portable gadgets and like always designers are taking cellphones to perfect their most ingenious of technologies. Industrial designer Tryi Yeh is developing a new “high” for communication with a cellphone powered by wine.

Eco Factor: Device captures water condensate in the AC for watering the garden.

Summer months are not just hard for you, but the same for your garden as well. Watering gardens during summers increases your utility bills and if you forget doing it, some of your plants will have to pay for it. The AIR-igator system solves both the issues by collecting condensate from air conditioners and storing it in an underground tank for watering the garden.

Eco Factor: Hydrosense water consumption monitor tracks leaks to their source.

Tracking electricity consumption in a normal household isn’t a new concept, but tracking water usage and detecting the tap which is consuming the most with just one device installed somewhere in the plumbing system is unique, and the tech is not just ingenious but efficient as well. Shwetak Patel, a professor of computer science and electrical engineering at the University of Washington has developed a unique sensing device called Hydrosense, which can plug into water pipes in a household and detect the tap which is consuming the most water and can also detect leaks back to their source.

Eco Factor: Energy-efficient HomePlug adapter saves up to 50% power in standby mode.

Energy-efficiency is the need of the hour, and electronic companies are quite well versed with the requirements as most products launched recently offer greater energy savings and hence a reduction in utility bills. Guillemot Corporation has unveiled the Hercules ePlug 200, their latest in networking-over-power gadgets, which the company claims saves up to 50% energy.

Eco Factor: Limousines powered by biofuel produced from plant waste.

The world’s most important climate change conference will see the likes of Gordon Brown and Barack Obama being ferried in luxurious limousines propelled by a unique biofuel generated from plant waste. The next-gen biofuel isn’t made from crops like corn-based ethanol is, rather it uses plant waste and the rest of the crop goes for consumption as food or other much important uses.