Monthly Archive for Januar, 2011
Fracking, or Fracing as the oil and gas industry ungrammatically spells it, is short for hydraulic fracturing, and the technology is now being used extensively to extract shale gas, by pumping liquids at high pressure into the rock, creating and expanding fissures. The liquid is a mix of chemicals designed to carry a proppant, perhaps sand or ceramics, designed to keep the crac... weiterlesen...
by Jaime GrossWelcome to my third and final installment of highlights from Maison & Objet 2011. You can find the first two here and here. This one is a chunky, motley assortment of LED lights, furnishings, and a fleet of sexy chairs. Enjoy!
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Image: SierraActivist.org
Questions are looming over why the State Department won't release its correspondence with Paul Elliott, a former campaign staffer for Hillary Clinton and current oil lobbyist who is seeking Clinton's approval for the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline that would connect Canada with refineries in Texas, and run through six states in between....Read the... weiterlesen...
Photo: Nissan
Capacity: 200,000 Batteries a Year
Compared to getting the batteries right, getting the rest of an electric car right is relatively easy. After all, most of the rest of the vehicle is pretty similar to what automakers are already doing, and an electric vehicle is mechanically much simpler than a gasoline or diesel vehicle (the power electronics and software is mor... weiterlesen...
If you’ve always wanted your very own Panton chair but don’t have the $260 a pop to shell out for one, check out this woodsy alternative. Designed by Peter Jakubik, the Arbor Chair takes on recognizable features of the famous seat its modeled after, but is carved from a simple tree trunk. If you’ve got an old tree trunk lying around, why not follow Jakubik̵... weiterlesen...
Last week BuildingGreen published Green Building Product Certifications, A wonderful and useful guide with everything one needs to understand what labels actually mean and how to use them. I wish it had come out a month earlier; I had been asked to do a lecture on Labels and green product certifications last Friday at the Interior Design Show in Toronto, and this would have saved... weiterlesen...
Images via Climate Progress
File this one under "Big Surprise". The Wall Street Journal has long been revered as the standard bearer for American business journalism -- so it should be no revelation that the WSJ's op-ed page leads the pack in refutations to climate science. Addressing climate change is still considered anathema to the business community, which envisions a web o... weiterlesen...
Photo: Wikipedia, Public domain.
If You Insist on Car-Commuting, At Least Fill it Up With People!
Thanks to modern social networking technologies and mobile computing, finding people to carpool with has never been easier. But sadly, that doesn't seem to be enough. The popularity of carpooling is in sharp decline in the US, down about 50% since 1980s, and corporate efforts to en... weiterlesen...
photo: Eric E Castro/Creative Commons
A quick update on some technological shake out in biofuels: Renewable Energy World reports that Shell has quit its last agreement in weiterlesen...
Photo: Daily Galaxy
So many gimmicky sustainability "challenges" have arisen during the mainstreaming of green over the last few years that I truly thought that I'd never want to hear about another one again. But Rodale's Plastic-Free February is an exception -- free of the pomp of No Impact Man-style displays and embracing of an important central conceit, we might stand to lea... weiterlesen...
by Diana BuddsChristina Fesmire, an industrial design graduate from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, created the "Fugle Swing." Intrigued by the swing's nod to Scandinavian bentwood design and the fact that this was a student project, I asked her about her design inspiration, how her training influenced her aesthetic, her fabrication techniques, and the one qu... weiterlesen...
Tired of seeing similar reviews of the Chevrolet Volt? Here's one for you by Gene Weingarten, a man who's definitely not a automotive journalist and who probably couldn't write a typical review even if he tried to. Some of you might remember Mr. Weingarten's best-known work: "his chronicling of a world-class violinist (Joshua Bell) who, as an experimen...Read the full story on ... weiterlesen...