Dear Pablo, For boiling water what is the most efficient, an electric kettle, a pot on a stove, or a microwave?
Whether you are making tea or cooking pasta, knowing which of these three options is the most efficient way to boil water can help you become a better tree hugger and might even save you a bit of money. Through some quick measurements and calculations I hope to provide a definitive answer to this question.
A large mug is around twelve ounces, or 350 ml, so I will use 350 ml of room-temperature water (17° C). I will be using an electric kettle made by Black & Decker, an electric stove made by General Electric with a Circulon 2 quart saucepan, and a 900W microwave with a turntable. The electricity use of each will be measured using a
Kill-a-watt meter until the water reaches the boiling point, or 100° C....
Photo via MIT
Biomimicry is again at the heart of new technology, this time for a solution to creating a better anchor. "The best anchoring technology out there is an order or magnitude worse than the clam - most are two or three orders worse," says Anette (Peko) Hosoi for MIT. She and graduate student Amos Winter have taken a keen look at the mighty clam and have come up with a robot that can mimic how the clam digs itself into the sand, named, aptly, the RoboClam. ...
photo: Eli Duke via flickr.
With all the focus on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet melting, we could always take a small bit of comfort in knowing that the eastern part of the continent was comparatively stable. New research published in
Nature Geoscience shows that comfort was misplaced: From 2002-2009 East Antarctica has been losing 5-109 gigatonnes of ice annually. And from 2006 that rate has been increasing:...
Image credit: Ecotricity
UK residents have long been able to choose green electricity for their homes. But what about the millions of homes that heat and cook with natural gas? With half of the country's natural gas supplies coming from foreign sources like Russia, clean, domestic supply of gas should be a top priority for anyone interested in energy independence. Now UK households can indeed purchase clean, green gas for their homes, and drive up the supply of biogas in the process. And it's all thanks to Ecotricity - the folks who brought us
stunning urban wind turbines, and whose CEO Dale Vince became
one of the country's richest men building renewables. Here's how it's going to work. ...
Image via TED
Sometimes event the newest gadgets are overshadowed by really, really old gadgets. Ancient technology is amazing, and Tom Wujec shows the
astrolabe, one of the earliest computing gadgets. With the capability of telling time, mapping the night sky, and hundreds of other functions that were high tech for the 1200s (and earlier), the device shows us that not everything has to be electronic and battery powered to do some cool things. ...
Photos:
Culture Change
Previously we've talked about a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) carbon neutral project to
ship grain from paddocks to pantries via sail-craft. That was in Canada's British Columbia. For the past year the Sail Transport Company (STC) have been following a similar ethos -- although a little further south -- moving vegetables across Puget Sound, from farmer's fields in Sequim to the produce markets in Seattle, with yachts.
Using only "wind, tide, and a little human muscle power," the
Sail Transport Company has spent not a single cent on liquid hydrocarbon fuel. They even transport the boxes of vegies from the docks to the markets with
electric-powered cargo trikes....
photo: Ed Lushcei via flickr.
With a continuing stream of announcements regarding the aviation industry's drive to keep on flying while being a bit greener about it -- KLM is making the
first aviation biofuel test flight with passengers today -- TreeHugger wondered how much land will be required to power the global aviation industry with biofuels. We did some quick calculations and this is what we found out:...
Photo via Slashgear
One of the primary aspects of e-Reader devices that are driving competition against one another is the display, with manufacturers looking at how energy efficient, how easy on the eyes, how readable in daylight, and how colorful they can make it. Qualcomm is now putting out an e-reader that uses Mirasol technology - something we've
mentioned only in passing when discussing biomimicry. But this technology which uses butterfly wings for inspiration for creating ultra low energy, ultra bright color displays will play a prominent role in the new e-reader, which might just give the
Kindle and
Nook a run for their money. ...
Image: Courtesy of Mike Vecchione
Astonishing
Simply astonishing. The diversity of species that live beyond any hint of sunlight has astounded the team of international scientists as they near the end of a ten year deep sea
census of marine life. The team has finally released a treasure trove of new photos and video from the deep sea census that will awe and amaze. Above, scientists appear to be examining -- or maybe cuddling and petting -- one of the largest and cutest of the deep sea species: a dumbo octopod, named for the oversized, dumbo-like ears it uses for swimming (photo overleaf). Our pick of the best of the photos, released today, of some 17,650 species now known to thrive in the watery depths follows....
Aqualta: Times Square at Night, NYC. Images via Studio Lindfors
If nothing happens in Copenhagen, if greenhouse gasses continue to spew unabated, if the glaciers melt, and sea levels rise, New York City based architectural firm
Studio Lindfors has envisioned a fatalistic, and more-than-slightly idealized vision of the future cityscape. "Aqualta" takes familiar New York City and Tokyo urban scenes as they'd appear submerged under 4 stories of water. ...
It's friday and we know you need something to keep you busy for the weekend, so here's the perfect thing. As the efficiency (and business case) for nano-based solar technology
continues to ascend, isn't time you got in the game? Don't worry, it's not as easy as it sounds; in addition to powdered donuts, you'll need some Passion tea from Starbucks and a bottle of Everclear. Even if the cells don't work you've got some good provisions to keep you busy till Monday. Enjoy....
Photo: Rolls Royce
Does It Matter? Depends How You Look at It...
Autocar
reports that a source inside the company told them that Rolls Royce could have an electric version of its Phantom super-luxury car on the road by the end of 2010: "Internally it's thought that the near-silence of electric propulsion, and the fact that full torque is available from a standstill, would align perfectly with Rolls-Royce's core values. Engineers are currently hard at work making this a reality, although a running prototype has yet to hit the road."...
Photo: Wikipedia, CC
Maryland Offshore Wind Development
Martin O'Malley, the governor of Maryland, would like to see offshore wind power developed off the cost of his state, but the U.S. military has expressed fears that the turbines could "disrupt flight and weapon test ranges, as well as erroneously appear on radar as unidentifiable aircraft." Three military bases in the region are using that area in the Atlantic for training missions and flight tests....
Rice = food and electricity at the same time... photo: ya po guille via flickr.
One solution for getting clean electricity to the 440-some million people in rural India who currently don't have grid power (or any power...) is to build wind farms, solar power plants, or use some decentralized but still tech-heavy option such as solar panels. And then there's rice husks and
biomass gasification. Not a new technology, but one the
Economic Times reports
Husk Power Systems is taking advantage of to transform agricultural waste into power:...
photo: Wikipedia.
Here's a not so comforting discovery: A new paper in
Science magazine says that Arctic sea ice melting is starting to dilute surface waters and threatening the tiny shellfish called
pteropods that are the base of the Arctic food chain. Those small swimming snails get eaten by fish, which in turn get eaten by polar bears and seals. Yeah, not so good:...
Images via Petitvention
Designers seem to be setting a new trend for solar chargers, turning small scale renewable gadget charging into something resembling a bouquet of flowers. Hot on the heals of the
Sunny Flower solar charger concept we showed off in September comes the iPetal, a design strikingly similar, and perhaps establishing a trend for stylish solar. ...
Photo via Maurice
When did water fountains become more of a novelty than an expectation in urban areas? And when did their restoration become news? It seems to say something about the state of free clean drinking water in cities - perhaps we've realized we've gone too far towards bottled water and are finally, finally making our way back to the tap. Either way, London has restored a drinking fountain in famous Trafalgar Square, and hopes that it starts a trend of renovating fountains across the city, returning free clean water to citizens who are out and about enjoying their public spaces....
Photo via shooting brooklyn
According to a new study by
Pike Research, 76% of consumers are aware that one of the primary components for reducing e-waste is proper recycling. Rejoice! 76% of consumers can see the obvious!! Now the only trick to getting more of those consumers - indeed everyone - to act on recycling and being sticklers about ethical recycling methods by collectors and recyclers, is to figure out who foots the bill, because 37% of those consumers also think e-cycling should be a free service. And interestingly enough, not everyone thinks it's the manufacturers who should be responsible for the costs. ...
Photo via foxypar4
Last night the
Tech Awards kicked off in San Jose, California, honoring some
incredible innovation happening across several categories, including the environment, education, health, biosciences and more. The competition in the environment section was tough, with GRUPEDSAC, a project providing customizable eco-techniques toolkits for self-sufficiency, the Electronic Field Guide, which encourages citizen science and uses photos to identify leaves with mobile, hand-held and augmented reality visualization of information, and Cows to Kilowatts, which turns slaughterhouse waste into fuel. The latter scooped up the award for the environment, but there were other green-thinking winners as well. ...
photo: Chauncey Davis via flickr.
Remember how last week
Spain was touting a new wind power record, more than 50% of demand for part of the day on a Sunday morning? A pretty great thing, right? Not really, says the folks over at
Low-tech Magazine. Without actually reducing overall energy demand, just adding more renewable energy (and touting absurdist records like the top energy source for a three hour period in a day) won't get us anywhere. It's a good point:...
We'll be working on better category archives soon. In the meantime, take a look at the
if you really want to dig around, or use the search box at the top of the page.
on 11.23.09
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