Sustainable Technology

Unlike the automobile, the pneumatic car tire has undergone little innovation over the past 100 years. Now Korean manufacturer Hankook is giving the humble wheel a makeover with the i-Flex, an airless tire that is light, puncture-proof, and made from 95% recyclable materials!

The i-Flex was just unveiled at the 2013 Frankfurt Auto Show this week. The tire is composed of polyurethane synthetics, and the entire unit is fabricated with the rim and measures 155/590 R14. Geometric cells inside the wheel allow the tire to function without the need for air, eliminating the stress of having to check for pressure, fixing flats, and improving fuel economy.

Hankook has yet to announce any production plans for the i-Flex, but experts speculate that it is only a matter of time before the manufacturer follows in the treads of other airless tire makers like Bridgestone and Polaris. The company is concurrently working on another prototype in conjunction with the University of Cincinnati dubbed the ” eMembrane ” which able to transform its shape depending on road conditions.

A bridge that repurposes abandoned viaducts, produces energy AND looks futuristically sleek? Yes, it can be true, and it is Italy’s proposed Wind Turbine Viaduct called “Solar Wind.” Southern Italy is dotted with unused viaducts, and rather than spending $50 million to tear them down, town officials near Calabria held a competition called “Solar Park South,” open to designers and engineers asking them to come up with an environmentally conscious way to re-use the existing structures.

Solar Wind, conceived by the design team of Francesco Colarossi, Giovanna Saracino and Luisa Saracino, has an abundance of green benefits. Using the space between the viaduct, the team proposed installing 26 wind turbines, which would produce 36 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year!

Additionally, the roadway across the bridge would be densely lined with solar cells coated in clear plastic, producing another 11.2 million kilowatt hours. Much like New York’s Highline, but on a much more grandiose scale, the entire viaduct itself would be turned into a promenade and park. Drivers may pull off to take in gorgeous coastal views, solar powered greenhouses would be installed along the bridge, creating an ultra-fresh farmer’s market.

The entire structure is like a green Utopia, repurposing abandoned structures, producing a combined 40 million kilowatt hours of electricity (that is enough to power 15,000 homes), while creating a chance to take in the surrounding panoramic views, and buy the freshest of produce! Sounds much better than merely tearing down the old viaducts.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, announced Wednesday that the company is working on a new kind of battery that would be used to power homes. Based on Tesla’s lithium-ion battery technology, the new battery is expected to help the company become a leader in the growing home energy-storage market.

Speaking during an earnings conference call on Wednesday, Musk said that the design of the battery is complete, and production would begin in about six months. Although the company did not provide any date for the product’s launch, Musk said that he was pleased with the result.

“We are going to unveil the Tesla home battery, the consumer battery that would be for use in people’s houses or businesses fairly soon,” Bloomberg quoted Musk as saying.

During an earnings call last year, Musk had talked about his plans to make a product that would be fitted into consumers’ homes, instead of their cars. He had expressed an interest in the home energy-storage market and predicted enormous demand for battery systems for backup power at both homes and businesses.

“We are trying to figure out what would be a cool stationary (battery) pack,” Forbes had quoted Musk as saying at the time. “Some will be like the Model S pack: something flat, 5 inches off the wall, wall mounted, with a beautiful cover, an integrated bi-directional inverter, and plug and play.”

The Palo Alto, California-based automaker already produces residential energy-storage units through SolarCity Corp., a solar-power company that names Musk as its chairman and the biggest shareholder. In addition, Tesla’s Fremont, California, facility also produces large stationary storage systems for businesses and utility clients, Bloomberg reported.

“The long-term demand for stationary energy storage is extraordinary,” JB Straubel, Tesla’s chief technical officer, said. “We’ve put in a huge amount of effort there.”

At this moment, many solar or wind-powered homes have to remain on a the grid because there has not been a way to store extra power for lean hours. If given a relatively cheap and reliable battery to hold the power needed, building off-grid in the country will become commonplace, and even in the city, self powered homes could be a less expensive option than being grid-tied.

Now who’s ready to fire their monopoly power company?

If you live in Portland, your lights may now be partly powered by your drinking water. An ingenious new system captures energy as water flows through the city’s pipes, creating hydropower without the negative environmental effects of something like a dam.

Small turbines in the pipes spin in the flowing water, and send that energy into a generator.

“It’s pretty rare to find a new source of energy where there’s no environmental impact,” says Gregg Semler, CEO of Lucid Energy, the Portland-based startup that designed the new system. “But this is inside a pipe, so no fish or endangered species are impacted. That’s what’s exciting.”

For water utilities, which use massive amounts of electricity, the system can make it cheaper to provide clean drinking water. Utilities can either use the power themselves or sell it to a city as a new source of revenue.

“We have a project in Riverside, California, where they’re using it to power streetlights at night,” Semler says. “During the day, when electricity prices are high, they can use it to offset some of their operating costs.”

In Portland, one of the city’s main pipelines now uses Lucid’s pipes to make power that’s sent into the grid. Though the system can’t generate enough energy for an entire city, the pipes can power individual buildings like a school or library, or help offset a city’s total energy bill. Unlike wind or solar power, the system can generate electricity at any time of day, regardless of weather, since the pipes always have water flowing through them.

The pipes can’t generate power in every location; they only work in places where water is naturally flowing downward with gravity (if water is being pumped, the system would waste energy). But they have another feature that can be used anywhere: The pipes have sensors that can monitor water, something that utilities couldn’t do in the past.

“We made electrical infrastructure really smart over the last 20 to 25 years, but the same hasn’t happened in water,” Semler says. He points to the example of a pipe that burst near UCLA last year, wasting a staggering 20 million gallons of water in the middle of California’s crippling drought.

“They didn’t really know that the pipe burst until somebody from UCLA called,” Semler explains. “Our pipe can get indicators like pressure, a leading indicator for whether a pipe is leaking or not. So before it bursts and before we waste all the water, there are onboard information systems that water agencies can get to more precisely manage their infrastructure.”

Sensors in the pipe can also monitor water quality, making sure it’s safe to drink.

The company hopes to work with cities to install new systems as old pipes wear out. They’re also hoping to expand to the developing world. “It’s a great source of remote power,” says Semler. “So in places outside the city that don’t have an electrical grid, you’re able to use the system to generate energy.”

The biggest potential for the new system may be in places like California, where 20% of total energy use goes into the water supply-and even more electricity will be used as cities start to install desalination plants. With the pipes, utilities can generate some of their own much-needed power.

“There’s a lot of energy in going into making sure we have safe clean drinking water,” Semler says. “Our focus is really on helping water become more sustainable.”

by Posted on

” Apple’s New Headquarters Will Be Powered Entirely By The Sun“

Share:

CREDIT: shutterstock

On Tuesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced the company’s plans to build a 130-megawatt solar farm to power its stores and facilities located in California. Speaking at a technology conference hosted by Goldman Sachs, Cook said Apple will work with First Solar to build the $850-million plant, which will be sited on 1,300 acres in the interior of central California’s Monterey County. Apple’s two campuses in Cupertino, several hours’ drive north of the plant, as well as a data center and the state’s 52 Apple stores will all get power from the development, according to Cook.

The announcement is the second major solar commitment made by Apple so far this month. Earlier in February, Apple announced it was building a massive solar-powered global data command center in neighboring Arizona. The planned investment of $2 billion will include a 70-megawatt solar farm to power the facility.

Apple currently has three solar farms; two in North Carolina and one in Nevada. In 2013, Apple began using 100 percent renewable energy to power its data centers, a goal not yet achieved by Amazon, Google and Facebook.

“We know at Apple that climate change is real,” Cook said on Tuesday. “Our view is that the time for talk is past and the time for action is now.”

Cook also said that the California solar project, which is the company’s biggest solar deal to-date, will lead to major savings for Apple, though he stressed that the company is doing it because “it’s right to do.”

Apple’s California solar farm, called the First Solar California Flats Solar Project, is the largest solar procurement deal by a company that’s not a utility. It is also the first wholesale commercial and industrial power-purchase (PPA) agreement for First Solar, which signed a 25-year PPA with Pacific Gas and Electric.

“Over time, the renewable energy from California Flats will provide cost savings over alternative sources of energy as well as substantially lower environmental impact,” said Joe Kishkill, Chief Commercial Officer for First Solar, in a statement. “Apple is leading the way in addressing climate change by showing how large companies can serve their operations with 100 percent clean, renewable energy.”

Shares of Arizona-based First Solar, a leading photovoltaic company with over 10 gigawatts installed globally, surged nearly five percent after the news of the Apple deal.

In 2013 Apple hired Lisa Jackson, head of the EPA from 2009 to 2013, as vice president of environmental initiatives. Last summer, Apple released its 2014 Environmental Responsibility Repor t. The report states that the company’s carbon footprint from energy use dropped by nearly a third from fiscal year 2011 to 2013, even as energy consumption increased 44 percent. According to the report, carbon emissions from the company’s manufacturing partners – often located oversees in countries like China – remain the largest portion of Apple’s carbon footprint, an area the company is “committed to addressing.”

The fact that much of Apple’s emissions come from partners overseas underscores a difficult truth for the company: that beyond Apple’s headquarters in renewable-energy friendly California exists the globalized economy that the company depends on for sourcing, manufacturing, shipping, selling, and using their products. This environment is not easily controlled. Apple can set a leading example by building solar farms, but when it comes to the companies that Apple relies on for supply chain purposes like Foxconn and Pegatron, change is harder to enforce.

Tesla didn’t ship nearly as many cars this quarter as it had projected, but CEO Elon Musk remained upbeat during today’s earnings call as he let some details slip about a brand new product. According to Musk, the company is working on a consumer battery pack for the home. Design of the battery is apparently complete, and production could begin in six months. Tesla is still deciding on a date for unveiling the new unit, but Musk said he was pleased with the result, calling the pack “really great” and voicing his excitement for the project.

What would a Tesla home battery look like? The Toyota Mirai, which uses a hydrogen fuel cell, gives owners the option to remove the battery and use it to supply electrical power to their homes. That battery can reportedly power the average home for a week when fully charged. Employees at many big Silicon Valley tech companies already enjoy free charging stations at their office parking lot. Now imagine if they could use that juice to eliminate their home electric bill. A more practical application for your car would be a backup generator during emergencies, which is how Nissan pitches the battery in its Leaf.

Musk said that production of the battery could begin in six months

On an earnings call last year Musk had laid out his ambition to make something that would live in consumers’ homes, instead of their cars. “We are trying to figure out what would be a cool stationary (battery) pack,” Musk said. “Some will be like the Model S pack: something flat, 5 inches off the wall, wall-mounted, with a beautiful cover, an integrated bi-directional inverter, and plug and play.”

“The long-term demand for stationary energy storage is extraordinary,” added JB Straubel, Tesla’s chief technical officer, during that call. “We’ve done a huge amount of effort there and have talked to major utilities and energy service companies.” That plan seems like it’s now much closer to a reality the company can share with the public.