Green Options

Looking to create products for the real world as soon as possible, a new research center in the UK is aiming to speed up the development and installment of a variety of low carbon technologies to ensure a greener future for us all.

This new £50 million ($80 million) center hopes to do this through more coordinated and focused efforts from four universities and a regional development agency. The four universities that have teamed up are Hull, Leeds, Sheffield and Yorkshire, and they are working with the regional development agency Yorkshire Forward. The name of the new center is Centre for Low Carbon Futures (CLCF).

At the Mountain View, CA headquarters of Google, goats have been employed as a low-carbon alternative to gasoline lawnmowers. About 200 goats are used for a week at a time to trim weeds, eat grass, and clean up brush. They also fertilize as they consume.

A border collie named Jen keeps the goats in a manageable herd. They were rented from California Grazing, a company which has 800 goats for rent (also known [...]