This Is Why

This is Why. Why doesn't need a long introduction. Why doesn't need pretty words. A picture tells a thousand. I'm not sure if this is a yacht or an island. What we do know is that Why is a whole lot more eco conscious that it's competitors. The Why Yacht designers worked around 6 key principles. The focus isn't speed (but it still goes fast), it's insulated, it has a state of the art on board energy management system, it uses natural resources, it stores energy and it recovers and restores wast...

A lot of companies are investing time and big money in cell phone charging technologies. A couple of weeks back for instance, a patent for a kinetic charging technology developed by Nokia leaked to the press. Today I read an interesting post by the people at Ecofriend explaining a new technology developed by RCA that could mean the end of cell phone charing as we know it. The system, called AirPower, absorbs power from increasingly ubiquitous Wi-Fi signals and turns them into electricity. RCA is...

A few days ago I watched this really interesting speech by Bill Gates for TED. To sum it up, Bill Gates thinks nuclear power is the future. And today it turns out he doesn't only think it, he is convinced. Gates plans to invest big money in a partnership between Toshiba and nuclear company TerraPower. Together these companies will work on a next generation nuclear power technology, resulting in a so-called a traveling-wave reactor. Traveling-wave reactors have been on the agenda for a long time....

The die is cast. Ocean energy is the future. Just yesterday I read a report on ocean energy investments in Scotland. Today South Korea casts a big shadow over the Scottish plans. Korea Western Power Corp (WP) will invest a total of 1.22 trillion won ($1.07 billion) to build 20 tidal power plants, starting next year. Holding Asian tradition high, the powerplants will have a total capacity of 520 megawatts (MW), the world's largest. South Korea is still heavily dependent on oil and gas imports. Ac...

The sea is one of the most powerful things on the planet. You don't need to be a surfer to know that. The ocean is constantly moving due to wind, tides and currents. And movement potentially is electricity. No wonder tidal and wave energy have been high on many government agendas for the last couple of years. Scotland is taking a first serious step towards this alternative and endless energy source. The Scottish government approved ten marine energy projects that, if all goes well, could provide...

Time to buy some candles because Earth Hour is almost there. Coming saturday at 8:30PM hundreds of millions of people across the world will turn off their lights for one hour. Total blackout. But turning off your lights doesn't have to be boring. Five tips to have some fun in the dark. Dine in the dark The guys at Opaque figured out that eating with your lights out is a unique experience. If you're lucky enough to live in Los Angeles, San Fransisco or San Diego make a reservation for next satu...

This speech by Bill Gates is pretty inspiring. And the ideas he brings forward are too. Nuclear power is the future. "CO2 is warming the planet. And the equation on CO2 is actually a very straightforward one. If you sum up the CO2 that gets emitted, that leads to a temperature increase, and that temperature increase leads to some very negative effects. The effects on the wheather, and perhaps worse, the indirect effects in that the natural ecosystems can't adjust to these rapid changes, and so...

I just stumbled upon a really interesting blogpost by the lovely people of Ecofriend explaining a new concept to generate electricity. The idea is quite simple. Cars driving at high speed generate air streams. This moving air could, in theory, move another object. This movement is then transformed into electricity. Smart thinking. Image a huge wall besides every highway made out of flexible 'bars'. Flexible enough to bend and stretch whenever a car drives by. A great example of regenerative ener...

What's not to love about bikes? They're a great alternative for those short car rides. Turns out 90% of the time cars are used to travel distances shorter than 10 kilometers. I can't understand why people still use their cars in the busy city centers anyway. Hopefully the AO bike by designer Omer Sagiv will change this. Not only is the bicycle itself a green alternative, the AO bike is completely made out of recycled plastic. And it's designed especially for urban traffic. Smooth suspension, sin...

In the second edition of our weekly Twitter-tribute #EcoMonday tip, a neat little trick to economize water (I bet Peter will like this one)... I have to thank my classmate for sharing this clever one with me. The trick is to put bricks in your toilet's water tank! The reason is pretty simple, check out this picture of a toilets tank. Your tank fills up with water until the float ball is up high enough, making the float arm lower the valve plunger in the ballcock assembly, shutting off the water...