Hippy Green

This article raises some good points. I have only started to grapple with the implications of having CF bulbs in our home. I have to think that the average american is going to toss burnt out CF bulbs in the trash rather than disposing of them properly (if you don’t believe me ask yourself where you throw your alkaline batteries). The batteries in hybrid cars aren’t exactly good for the environment either. Does it make sense to put dangerous materials in the general public’s hands or keep them in the big factories? The latter is easier to regulate but the former allows people to give up very little while significantly reducing their energy footprint.

Via Canada posted by antics

*note* I have started Hippy Green and want to see more come from it. I have been pretty busy with changing my contract work and working on some side projects because of this I am looking for writers to post interesting articles/finds on Hippy Green. This article above is written by antics of tears of fire. I will be changing the template a bit so you can see whos posting the stories, please contact me if you want to write for Hippy Green. (Right now its all for fun, but we might change that to a for profit that gives back to the community.)

The next energy harvesting idea is using the already clogged speedway (highway,parkway,etc) to convert the wind created by the passing cars, trucks, etc to electricity. This idea has been around for a while, but I think what makes this recently example so specially is how they go about doing it, using overhead turbines that collect the energy. We could use this energy to power the lights along the freeway, but the upfront cost would be pretty large, especially if we plant to have these every 10 to 100 miles apart.

Joe (ASU) posted on the Archinect schoolblog his idea (picture above) as well as other diagarms explaining how he came up with this idea and how we can use the power. He explains how harvesing this power of cars driving by is much like a parasite on a organism, we would harvest free power from the speeding cars (minus the upfront cost of installing these turbines). I find this project even more interesting because they want to install them in the phoenix area.

As some of you know, I am on vacation in the phoenix area. I actually just drive by where they would be installing this wind turbine near the 51 and Osborn Road. I also been taking some pictures of how people are using solar power here, but since there are a lot of condos and apartments out here with HOA (Homeowners Associations) they REFUSE to use Solar Panels or let renters/buyers install them! I just can not get over these, its FREE POWER, granted their is a cost assocatied with the solar panels, but you can save money and have them not only pay for themselves over time but save money!

Anyway back to the wind farm highway, Joe also did some calculations showing how the average vehicle passes by at 70MPH, so if you take a 10MPH baseline, each wind turbine would produce 9,600KwH of energy annually! (enough to power Joes 700sft apartmnet!). I must hand it to Joe if you get this up and running I will be sure to fly back out here and take some pictures of this futurist highway wind turbine.

Yes, it has been 1 week since Earth Day 2007 and Hippy Green is 1 week old. There have been some great comments, 10 comments in all with 20 entires. Hippy Green has already started to make some money on advertisement along with gain in popularity on technorati. There is still more to come, but I just want to give a shout out and tell everyone to expect much more in the upcoming months. I still have to add a couple more plugins to this blog, but please let me know if you have any suggestions. I want to make Hippy Green a great resource for all things green, from technology to building costs, for any suggestions please email me at the following email: blog (the at symbol) hippygreen period com

After my post yesterday about Hybrid technologies I wanted to continue my post about other companies who are building electric cars. I also find it funny because I just flew out to Scottsdale, Arizona and have been driving my friends Mini. Its a pretty sweet car, wish it was the Mini Cooper S, but I will live. After spending the day driving it and seeing how my friend Amanda only spends about $200 a month on the car (well worth it), I just cant see how a $40,000 electric conversion is going to be appealing. Now don’t get me wrong I am all for going electric, but I think we should aim more towards the sports car driver due to the fact electric cars have the potential for an unlimited amount of torque. I also think their are plenty of electric alternatives then the $59,000 mini, the price tag for the Hybrid Technologies car is just not ideal.

As stated above, I think we need to rethink the way we are selling electric cars to the masses and start by building fast sports cars that have a 0 to 60 time thats under 4 seconds and gets a fuel economy of 100 miles per gallon. After continuing my research about Hybrid Technologies I see that they are starting to think that way in their building of the Hybrid Technologies’ L1X-75.

Along with the building of electric cars, I have to give hands down praise to Tesla Motors (Great Name, gotta love Tesla!). Tesla Motors has built the Tesla Roadster which is a 100% electric car that has a 0 to 60 time of 4 seconds, a 135 mpg equivalent and gets over 200 miles per charge. The great thing about being electric is that we can produce electricity in various forms and methods. We can product electricity by wind turbines, geothermal, hydro electric, and more. Oil on the other hand is pretty limited and becoming more expensive. By having a car that can be plugged in and charged, we can use cleaner forms of energy harvesting and make the Tesla Roadster a zero CO2 carbon emission car. Granted most of our electric does NOT come from alternative energies like wind turbines but from burning coal or nuclear energy, but hopefully one day this will change.

Zap World has also posted up some interesting plugin hybrids as well as crossovers. With all of these options in electric cars you would think that their would be more of them on the market. I think we are going through a green bubble and hopefully will force car companies to start building green and creating affordable electric cars rather then a $59,000 mini. As most of you know I have sold my 2005 Subaru STI and do not have a car at the moment. Depending on where I will be living in the next couple of months I will either be moving to Arizona or living it up in New York City. If I do move to Arizona, I want to buy a more green friendly car, but do not want to give up performance. What kind of a car are you driving? Have you driven the Prius, what do you think about its performance or lack their of?

Well I know its spring here but in other parts of the world, its beginning to get cold. I saw this great hack on how to build a portable solar heater from soda cans, plexiglass, wood, and a hose. Its pretty genius when you think about it and great in places like Vermont where its a LONG winter. Maybe even a project to get started this summer for use next winter!

Well its not Memorial Day yet, but it seems that gasoline prices fell 1 cent last week ending the 12 consecutive weeks of increasing prices. I wrote earlier this week that they predict a $4 a gallon price on gas this summer. Since it was only a 1 cent fall i am still sticking with my $4 a gallon guess.

I know this summer is going to ruin our economic if gas hits prices that high, but what about the buzz of going green? I recently read an article about how its not easy selling green. How can this be? Maybe the return on investment is too low for the average Joe to buy a hybrid. The average Job may not want to go green to be green, but to go green financially and concisely. I know there was a high demand with hybrid cars along with their HOV passes in California, but there is could be less return on a hybrid due to degrading batteries.

Soon to be released hybrids have been becoming more expensive rather then economies of scale bring the price down. Most of this is due to emerging technology in building these hybrids, but the problem still is the cost! Hybrid Technologies is planning to release a consumer friendly electric mini, but for $59,000 USD. Thats a full 40k more then the base Mini and takes 5 hours to charge. I think they are taking 2 steps forwards and 1 step back with this idea because there are other companies that will convert your car to a hybrid for $10,000 to $15,000. Granted this may not be a perfect apples to apples comparison due to various types of batteries and warranty, but come on this would still be a $25,000 difference.

Yesterday Kohls a large department store announced that they were going green by converting more then 75 percent of its California department stores to solar power starting Next month. Kohl’s plans to covert 24 of its 80 stores immediately while waiting for permits and approval for the others. Kohl’s plan to generate more then 35 million kilowatt-hours of renewable energy by going solar. SunEdison will be doing the solar construction that should take about 12 weeks for each store. They predict the first 2 stores to be completed by August and all the solar power conversion to be done by end of 2008.

Add solar panels is not a new thing for large companies in fact Google Announced this past fall that they would be adding 1.6 megawatts of solar photovoltaic to their Mountain View Campus.

There are plenty of reasons to go with alternative energy in the business world, even the Harvard MBAs are going green.

From Micro Wind Turbines to Multi-Axis Turbosystems there are a variety of ways to use the wind as a form of energy harvesting. Many people complain about wind turbines from “Ruins the View” to “kills bird via migration paths”. I just CAN NOT STAND THESE REASONS! The fact is I spent 2 months traveling Europe this summer and have many, many images of wind turbines. I think wind turbines look beautiful and make the scenery even that much more special.

When you see the rotation of the turbines slowly moving in sync its almost memorizing. As for bird migration, do we have to setup our air travel and airports based on bird migration because they will get sucked into the jet engine?

Now to the alternative windturines, Mass Megawatts Wind Power, Inc has a patented Multi-Axis Turbosystem (MAT) that harvest energy via wind. Much like the micro wind turbines, the MAT system is arranged in a array of multiple wind collectors that rotates multiple generators to transform wind to electricity. Now keep in mind I think this site has over estimated some of their numbers, but I would love to see one of theses and monitor how much energy its harvesting. The company has a PO Box in Worcester, MA but after calling their phone number the operator said they have an office in Shrewsbury, MA. The operator was not able to answer any more of my questions and was more of a messaging service then informational. I do know have the background/information to endorse their product, but I think there is something fishy going on.

As for micro wind turbines, I think they are a great idea. There is a demand for smaller wind turbines in urban areas, but using many smaller wind turbines can still create a large amount of power. Inhabitat posted an article about micro wind turbines last month. You can even order some if you want via Motor Wave Group

Magenn Power’s MARS (Magenn Power Air Rotor System) is a windturbine thats a hot air balloon that generates power an sends it down via tether cables. MARS is a horizontal axis wind turbine that uses a 1000 ft tether cable to transmit its power. There are restrictions that the FAA requires, but having a easy to deploy wind turbine can be a huge selling point!

For those people who either live in the middle of no where or remote 3rd world countries, a source of power is very important. *Side Note* This would be awesome at Burning man. The MARS system is designed to be rapidly deployed and installed without the use of concrete or cranes. MARS generates power with wind speeds between 4 to 60 mph. This idea is just genius and would LOVE to see one in action. Magenn even created a small video about MARS, its on the right hand side of their site.

Energy harvesting wind is a simple concept, but creating new methods and products that will harness the power with easy rapid deployment is HUGE for the wind community. This concept is interesting and makes me think if some green hacker could make a smaller version attached to his house? I know I see those big blow up ads at gas stations, maybe we should look at building the college version and see what power we can harvest at 100 feet.

It looks like this past weekend was not only a big jump for Hippy Green, but for youth involvement with the environment. More teens and college students are picking up banners on global warming and getting the message out into the public. High school students are building various things with solar panels like cookers and cars, we are even seeing an influx talk about environmentally friendly college campuses. It’s seems everyone is talking about Green, now its time to put those words to use.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to change NYC to a Greener city by instituting a $8 car congestion fee. This idea of a congestion charge has and is working in cities like London. I know while I was over there this past summer I saw few cars on the road in certain areas at specific times due to the fact that some can’t afford it. Commuting is becoming expensive especially when gas goes to $4 dollars a gallon! I am with Mike on trying to change and slow down the traffic in NYC, but you need to see the BIG PICTURE. People are always going to need to commute into the city, but how are we going to deal with this influx if people are not using cars. We need to look at Mass Transit. Lets get our port authority and NJ Transit, LIRR, Metro North, Subway people together and start to plan for this. We would need more trains and frequent stops as well as new styles of trains. Currently NJ Transit has switched to new double decker trains for the Trenton line, this frees up space for everyone on the train and has plenty of open seats. We need to start adding more of these, but also thinking about the person who is traveling on these trains.

After traveling on these double decker’s both on NJ Transit on from Providence, RI to Boston I can tell you, we need to “add” some features. For once, everyone and their mom has what 3, 4, maybe 5 electronic devices on the train, lets start putting in electric outlets. Now they say, wait who is gonna pay for that electricity. Well lets look at energy harvesting in train stations and frequent walkways and try and gather power from people walking. We can use pads that convert people walking into an electric charge using piezo crystals. Wired had a short article about piezo electric walkways last summer.

We need to start by allowing the people to be heard, the best way is ONLINE! Let’s start by posting up discussion boards and allowing the average Joe commuter to post up his problem about mass transit and allow others to comment and respond. We could even take this to the next level and allow users to post problems like a traffic light out or subway step missing, this information could then notify the right person to fix it. Well it turns out Bryan Helmkamp started to build this project called Fix My New York, part of a idea inspired by Neighbourhood Fix It