Better Place / Shai Agassi / battery / cars / energy / environment / transportation / videos
May 13, 2009 0
This is a demonstration of the world’s first automated battery switch technology for electric vehicles in Yokohama, Japan. Better Place will own the batteries and charging stations and it will sell subscriptions just like your mobile phone.
Someone needs to use these as pixels and make this wall display information!
More great buildings with vertical vegetation over at WebEcoist
(apologies for the lowfi video quality!)
I’m not sure if this is the first augmented reality marketing campaign ever but it’s the first I’ve seen. The folks at GE obviously want a slice of the ’smart grid’ action. This campaign is super slick and has an incredible website. It’s worth checking out so follow the links below:
Vertical wind turbines are quieter and kill less birds than their propeller based relatives. Not to mention they look rad.
Eric Schmidt speaks at the Natural Resources Defense Council event held at Google NYC. The topic of discussion for the evening was “Partnership for the Earth: Strategies and Solutions for Energy Security.
Eric’s speech was followed by a panel with Frances Beinecke, President of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Ralph Cavanaugh, co-director of NRDC’s energy program and Dan Reicher, Director, Climate Change and Energy Initiatives at Google.org.
Eric Schmidt / Google / energy / environment / green / solar / talks / videos / wind
November 19, 2008 0Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Google, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the New America Foundation, and a member of President-Elect Barack Obama’s Transition Economic Advisory Board, addressed a packed auditorium at the Ronald Reagan Building on Tuesday, November 18th.
Schmidt provided insight into the junction of technology and government, stressing that solid infrastructure is the key to an efficient and effective government, and using the internet as the model for how government should approach the current fiscal crisis facing our nation and the world. He also pressed the need for open networks and systems as a foundation for innovation.
The Google CEO also emphasized that engagement is the fundamental component in finding solutions to our countrys current economic woes, and used President-elect Obamas addresses on YouTube as an example of the way government should enlist modernization and embrace the voices of all as it contemplates solving the financial and social ills of our society.
Schmidt concluded that while there is no silver bullet, but he remains optimistic in our countrys future and its prosperity.
GREENSBORO, N.C., Oct. 9 Quaintance-Weaver Restaurants and Hotels announced today that the Proximity Hotel in Greensboro, NC, has been awarded LEED Platinum by the U.S. Green Building Council. Opened in late 2007, the Proximity and the adjacent Print Works Bistro are the first hotel and first restaurant to obtain the USGBC’s top level certification. LEED is the USGBC’s rating system for designing and constructing the world’s greenest, most energy efficient, and high performing buildings.
Dennis Quaintance, the CEO and CDO (Chief Design Officer) of Quaintance-Weaver, is obviously delighted. “When we started the design process four years ago, I would have never believed that we could use 41% less energy and 33% less water without one iota of compromise in comfort or luxury and with minimal additional construction costs,” says Quaintance. “It just goes to show what a determined team can accomplish if they use common sense and get a little bit of help from the sun.”
His “sun” comment refers to the 100 solar rooftop panels that heat water for the AAA Four Diamond hotel. To illustrate how the hotel and bistro save energy without negatively affecting guests, he asks, “How is it a compromise for a guest to shower with water that is heated by the sun?”
Quaintance collaborated with his subcontractors on every little detail and personally tested most products, and this attention to detail is paying off in savings. For example, the hotel and restaurant will use two million gallons less water during the first year, saving more than $13,000 by spending less than $7,000 in additional construction costs.
Proximity did not attain this milestone by just using less energy and water. They also:
[Proximity Hotel | via Energy Roadmap]
(click to view full size in new window)
The map above was created by Lee Byron by scraping some data from Walk Score. It would be nice to have these for every city!
[map by Lee Byron | Walk Score]
“Rock Port, Missouri, is a small city of 1,300 people, and they just made history by being the first city in the US to be 100% powered by the wind, also making them #1 in the US for percentage of renewable energy. The Loess Hills Wind Farm, built by the Wind Capital Group, employing 500 workers from 20 states for about a year, is expected to produce about 16 million kilowatt hours annually, while Rock Port only uses 13 million. The excess wind power will be sold to other communities in the area.”
Way to go Rock Port!
[via TreeHugger | photo by andrijbulba]
