Posts Tagged ‘tech’

World’s First Carbon Capture Plant to Begin Operations

Air PollutionThe world’s first retrofit of a power plant with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology will begin operating this month in the south of France. By Alok Jha of the Guardian.

At a power plant at Lacq, energy company Total has upgraded an existing gas-fired boiler with CCS technology – a crucial step towards reducing carbon emissions from fossil-fuel power plants worldwide.

With renewable energy sources a long way from covering the world’s increasing demand for energy, many experts believe that developing reliable technology to allow countries to burn fossil fuels without releasing dangerous amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere is essential to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Green Tech Tour of Eco-Products 2008 in Japan

English tours at Japan’s largest eco-fair show international visitors the hottest green gadgets from a country renown for technological innovation.

RICOH booth at Eco-Products 2008

At RICOH booth, we saw the demonstration of a new erasable advance paper. Printed document on this advance paper can be erased by ironing and be ready for another round of printing.

I had an opportunity to take the English guided tour at Eco-Products 2008. The Eco-Products exhibition is one of the largest green fairs in Japan, showing all kinds of green products and services to the public. The event draws a large number of visitors. It’s possibly the world’s largest event of its kind. The tenth Eco-Products 2008 exhibition was successful enough to attract 173,917 visitors this year according to the event organizer.

Visitors came from all over the world to see the latest of Japanese green activities. To accommodate such foreign visitors, guided tours in English, Chinese and Korean, were offered for free by volunteer staff from Japan for Sustainability (JFS) and EcoNetworks (ENW). The English guided tours were offered twice during the three-day event, but you needed to register for the tour beforehand at JFS’s website.

Our tour was guided by Frank H. Ling Ph.D. from USA, who works as a researcher for the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies in Japan. Our group had five visitors including me plus a lead guide, Mr. Ling, with a few more staff for additional assistance.

Tip’d: Your One Stop Destination For Business and Finance News

If you do not want to waste precious moments searching the internet for the top stories in business and finance, or if you have found an ideal economics news story that you would highly recommend to other readers, then Tip’d might quickly become your business social destination everyday.

Tip’d: A Social News Site For Business and Financial News

In the current business climate, readers are increasingly scouring the web for business and financial news from around the world. Tip’d is here to deliver the best business stories recommended by other readers like yourself. Tip’d (tipd.com) is a community for financial news, ideas, and tips. Given the important political decisions ahead and the evolving state of the economy, this social news site is perhaps more of a necessity rather than merely a convenient online news destination.

Cleaning Up Tech: How To Recycle Old Electronics

electronic life cycleEvery time I buy a new gadget it’s like welcoming a new pet into the family. You go to the store, select the perfect little tyke, and rush home to introduce it to your existing collection. The best part? No jealousy among your older electronics: they’re made to play together.

But electronics rarely last as long as a real pet. As faithfully as it might serve you, within a few years it’s time to put that gadget out to pasture. This is your guide to the greenest pastures around.

E-Wasted: Where Will Your Computer and iPod Go to Die?

Electronic wasteSimran Sethi and Sarah Smarsh are writing a series on the impacts of everyday things. They will be posting previews on Green Options before launching the posts on Huffington Post. Want to know how to green your internet porn (or emailing or iTunes) habit? Check out these tips and a post-mortem of where your computers go to die.

Recently, the world computer population surpassed 1 billion. It’s a legion of artificial intelligence that will never die, at least not while humans are around to see it.

The computer species appears to have a high mortality rate (whether due to the rapid progress of technology or an industry conspiracy to ensure that products must be replaced regularly). They “crash” and “die” in droves, their human counterparts literally kicking them to the curb. But there is no heaven, no place in the clouds, for the cold, hard shell once warmed by electrical currents. Once it has left your desk, your computer doesn’t disappear. In a sense, it lives on.

Cool Tech of the Week: Cordless 3D Sensor

Kolibri CORDLESSIt looks like a child’s toy from the 70s, but this new high-tech camera can record more than a simple Polaroid. It can create a 3D image of almost anything, and you can take it almost anywhere.

Developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering IOF in Jena, Germany, the Kolibri CORDLESS is the size of a shoe box and it weighs a little over 2 lbs. No cables required, you just point and click. Several seconds later a detailed 3D image will appear on a laptop. From there you can analyze and use the digital model.

If we have to kill people, let’s at least do it in an environmentally friendly way

usarmy-solar.jpgHoly crap, did you know that your average U.S. soldier in Iraq uses 88 AA bateries during a five day mission!?! The U.S. Military blows through 2.4 million gallons of fuel every day in Iraq and Afghanistan and 2/3 of the stuff soldiers carry in combat is fuel.

All political issues aside, that is a terribly inefficient way to run an army. The military needs to get way more aggressive about embracing renewable energy. Soldiers, [...]

Wednesday Linkdump: compost fires, the coolness of tap water, the five best ways to go Net Zero, and more!

How do you know AT&T is involved with the iPhone? How about the 500 page double sided phone bills?

At least they are printing on both sides of the page, right?

Who is the mental giant who is responsible for this?

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=UdULhkh6yeA]

I finally got my first bill from AT&T in a cardboard box containing 300 pages of it. Apparently, they give you a detailed transaction of every text message sent and received. Completely unnecessary.

I weep for the trees lost due to this stupidity.

Must have for the tunes loving greenie: crank powered MP3 player

eco-media-player_69.jpg

I’m putting this on my Christmas Wish List.Via Ecofriend via Coolest Gadgets, a crank powered MP3 Player ($340) that gives you 40 minutes of listening time for every minute cranked…

The inventor of the Free Play Wind up radio, Travor Baylis is back again and this time with a much better earth-friendly gadget. The device known as the Eco Media Player requires you to wind it up to play music, watch videos, listen to radio, view photo albums and even read eBooks and all that will not require you to pay for electricity.

The player supports media and data of all types on its 2GB internal memory or via SD cards. The media player is so robust that it does not require you to sync it with a computer as when connected to a PC or a Mac it’s seen as an external drive which allows for easy “drag and drop” of all media files.

The device can also function as its own record and tape ripper to capture a large record collection into portable MP3s, it also comes with a microphone for recording voice memos. Another great feature of this device is that it can also act as a cellphone charger.

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