bemoreeco

No, New York or London are not underwater (yet, anyhow) - that’s a clever ad for HSBC by Ogilvy & Mather Mumbai ad agency in India. The bank wanted to raise awareness of the dangers of global warming, so the clever ad guys glued an aerial photo of a city’s skyscrapers to the base of a swimming pool … the effect of a submerged cityscape is fantastic!

Source: www.neatorama.com

Artists are lighting up London’s South Bank with 1200 wind-powered lights as part of a digital arts festival.

The Aeolian tower - which means moved by the wind - is a 15m steel structure located next to Waterloo Bridge. The tower is covered with hundreds of tiny wind-powered LEDs. Each one made of a plastic turbine, controlling circuits and three red LEDs.The designers aim to show how renewable energy can be used to power sustainable art and design. As wind blows over the tower, swirling patterns of light reveal the strength and direction of the breeze.

“We want to visualize the invisible, making people realize that there’s a lot of energy out there that we’re not using,” said Zena Bruges from Jason Bruges Studio, which designed the tower.

The designers chose the location next to Waterloo Bridge because of the complex wind patterns that come off the River Thames and the bridge, said Gabby Shawcross, one of the tower’s creators.The lights need a gentle wind of about 3mph (4.8kph) to reach full brightness.

A 2.5m square panel of lights is also on show inside the BFI delegate centre. Since the panel is indoors, the lights are powered with two industrial fans. These lights are connected to a laptop, which controls the lights so that they can display patterns and messages.

“The result of this could be a low-resolution, wind-powered billboard,” said Ms Bruges.

The team is working with architecture students from the University of Westminster to develop a wireless version of the technology that will allow the lights to be controlled remotely. These lights wouldn’t need power or data cables, so designers could apply them to any surface in any location, said Mr Shawcross.

The Aeolian Tower will be in place from 14 -16 November as part of the One Dot Zero - Adventure In Motion festival at the BFI Southbank in London. 

Source: BBC News

Yesterday Sainsbury’s joined the great supermarket battle for the environmental initiative by opening the UK’s greenest ever superstore. The new store in Dartmouth, Devon, is built entirely from timber (not steel), collects rainwater to flush the toilets and uses wind turbines to power it’s checkouts. Better still, Sainbury’s have begun powering delivery lorries with methane-gas produced from rotting rubbish.

Sainsbury’s have really pulled out the stops on this one. The company has planted 400 trees to replace the 200 needed in construction, and engaged in no less than 38 energy-saving tactics. These include burning wood-chips in the biomass boiler, installing LED lights and solar-powered fans. Even in construction, Sainsbury’sclaim 90% of waste was recycled.

This very much seems to be the blueprint store for all of the supermarket’s new stores. Sainsbury’s anticipate that this store will use over 50% less electricity from the grid and produce 40% less CO2 than their normal stores. Sainsbury’s also hope to use 60% less rainwater than the typical supermarket store.

(Via: Brand Republic)

If you’re really serious about going green, then generating your own electricity isn’t as difficult as you might think. Traditionally, energy was cheap and solar panel technology couldn’t meet the challenges. Worst, it was a massive capital expenditure which most typical families couldn’t afford.

But now it’s changing.

First, there is a wider range of technology available now which can generate electricity for homes. There are better wind turbines, solar thermal systems, hydroelectric power, biomass boilers and even ground source heat pumps. You can see how they all fit together with your home here.

Today, there are also banks and loan schemes which finance the capital needed against the money you can generate. Even better (and this is the most important thing), the government has announced schemes which will allow homes generating their own electricity to sell excess electricity back to the energy grid. Effectively, you could make a tidy profit and recoup your money quite quickly.

The most telling quote is in John-Paul Flintoff’s article for The Times about homes which generate their own electricity, it reads as follows:

Haward calculates that a 50kW hydro-turbine, which costs about £200,000 to install, would generate £34,000 of electricity a year. Such a potential income stream, he believes, should add £300,000-£400,000 to the value of any property. “That’s quite a big turbine,” he says, “but even at half the size, you’re going to be putting £200,000 onto the value of the property.”

That’s a nice sum and certainly a worthwhile investment. This isnt to say you should rush in, it is a big investment and a major commitment to make. Not all homes can use it, and those living in rented properties or in shared properties (flats, apartments etc) will struggle to make this happen.

However, if costs or concerns about it’s efficiency were your primary reason for not living ‘off the grid’, it’s time to think again. It could be the best way to increase the value of your property.

This remarkable story is reported by EarthFirst about Edith Macefield. Edith rued her house being engulfed by local industry and refused to leave. In desperation local developers offered increasingly large sums of money for Edith to move out. The Seattle Times article states Edith was offered nearly $1m to move, she turned it down.

Edith, 86, passed away a fortnight ago, in the same house and on the same couch where her mother had died. As the Seattle Times reports:

The tiny house in the industrial flats once was part of a row of picket-fence-lined cottages along a working-class street. That was old Ballard. Today it sits walled in on three sides by what will be a five-story health club and a Trader Joe’s. New Ballard.

The only reason the new hasn’t completely obliterated the old — yet, anyway — is because of the principled lady who lived there. She stuck it out through years of garbage trucks rumbling by, a homeless car-camping colony out her front door, and now, for the past two years, the racket of construction mere feet from her windows.

“I don’t care about money,” Edith said. “What would I do with that kind of money anyway?

So what becomes of her house now? The article notes that joints and holes have been left in the construction around her assuming they will be added in once the house is demolished? Edith had no relatives, and in the last two years spent much of her time with the senior construction superintendent.

Cate Trotter reports on Inhabitat that the £7.2m Orchid House, of the Lower Mill Estate, has been purchased - possibly by a celebrity.

The eco-friendly house, designed by Sarah Featherstone, is part of the Lower Mill Estate project to rejuvenate a disused gravel pit into a range of environmentally friendly and fashionable homes. As noted in the comments, the computer generated designs do not feature a driveway or any route in to the house, prompting the suggestion that a bike path, canoe or another form of environmentally-friendly transport will be needed. Cate also provides extra details about the record-breaking property:

Possibly to subsidize the £3,000 per square foot cost of the property, the building aims to generate more energy than it consumes, making use of geothermal heating. The house can be adapted to any occasion, be it a family holiday or a large reception, due to its flexible living spaces. Inhabitants and visitors to the property can be entertained by the glass-sided badger set installed in the garden

So who has bought the house? So far the buyer has remained anonymous, though the post does speculate upon a possible celebrity buyer:

The buyer chose to remain anonymous, but rumor has it they work in the entertainment industry – and may well be a household name, going by the celebrities such as Brad Pittand Kylie Minogue who’ve expressed an interest so far. We may have to wait until 2011 to find out though – this is when the house will be completed and become home to the mystery buyer.

Some great images are available at Inhabitat.

TreeHugger reports on an intriguing office development in Bristol. The Office Group is building environmentally-friendly office apartments around the United Kingdom for small businesses who usually lack the capital to invest in green technologies.

As reported by TreeHugger:

It can be even harder for a small company to implement a green office policy if it’s dealing with short-term leases and unresponsive landlord.

[...] The company’s Bristol office, their first location outside London, features rainwater harvesting, a fully useable green roof, solar panels, sensor lighting and even a wormery for organic waste (it’s also walking distance from the farmers market and the city’s flagship eco-eatery Bordeaux Quay). And let’s not forget that the simple fact that smaller companies are sharing facilities such as meeting rooms means a lower overall footprint in terms of space.

The Office Group is planning to develop more green office buildings for smaller businesses throughout the UK.

As reported in several media outlets this week, the London Olympic Development Authority (ODA) are in discussions with Chicago about shipping our Olympics stadium their way after the event. The move is being roundly applauded by environmentalists keen to see less waste produced by the one of the world’s two mega-events (the other being the FIFA World Cup).

An additional bonus here is not just the environmental benefits in less construction and waste with building future Olympics stadiums, but also a significantly reduced cost. Renting, funded by the private sector, opens the event up to dozens of smaller countries eager to host the Olympics games. The rise of the Olympic spectacle has limited potential host cities to the few that can afford to stage and accomodate such an event. Now dozens more cities can use the event and repeat the growth seen after Barcelona ‘92 and Tokyo, ‘64.