This week the green world of technology brings us rooftop
wind turbines, a house you can heat with a hairdryer, and eco-friendly way to
keep Philadelphia’s streets clean
EarthTronics’s Rooftop Wind Turbine
Tired of governments and farmers lording their eco-friendly
wind energy over you? Well, now you can fight back! The EarthTronics miniature
wind turbine will be hitting store shelves this fall under the name ‘Honeywell
Wind Turbine’ (the name change is due to a licensing partnership with EarthTronic’s
signed with Honeywell). Unlike tradition, large scale turbines, this diminutive
household model does away with the clunky gearbox and using the wind to instead
turn magnets located around the frame. This reformed design, called a “direct-drive”
does away with many of the complications associated with traditional design by
reducing the number of components and moving parts. The 2-kilowatt turbine can
start producing energy with windspeeds as low as 2-mph and can generate up to
2,000 kilowatt-hours per year (weather permitting of course)
Passivhaus Or How I Learned to Heat My House With a
Hairdryer
Germany. Great sausage. Great beer. Terrible winters. So it’s
no wonder they’ve developed the Passivhaus standard, which is a thorough set of
codes that exponentially increase energy efficiency in the newly constructed
house. Well not grounding breaking in terms of a new product, Passivhaus
actually simply accumulates already existing high-efficiency methods and sets
them as the standard for new homes. More esoteric devices, like heat-exchange
ventilators, compliment the thicker walls and the near air-tight seals of the
high-quality domiciles. 20,000 Passivhaus homes already exist across the globe
and the number’s one the rise as the added construction cost steadily becomes
offset by the rising cost of fuel.
Philly Garbage Goes Green
The City of Eco Love? Not to knock on brotherly love, but
the city of Philadelphia has recently taken some steps towards making things a
little greener by installing ‘Big Bellys’ throughout the streets. These
solar-powered trash compactors service the public off the grid, providing eight
times the storage of regular trash cans. So, what’s do this big boys cost?
About $12 million, in revenue that is. The added efficiency is expected to
garner such returns over a 10 year period. Isn’t that lovely?
