MIT student Otto Ng proposes to solar-power the Arabian peninsula with more than 10,000 square kilometers of Powerscape – a tensile solar-collecting canopy comprised of inflatable mirrors. The problem with solar power, says Ng in a TED presentation, is the great amount of space required to produce the same amount of energy as a conventional […]
While solar advancements continue apace, wind energy technology has remained fairly stagnant over the years, making it in most cases less viable than fossil fuels or nuclear energy. It’s expensive, harmful to birds and bats, deeply inefficient and comes with a host of annoyances such as noise and vibration. Responding to what they perceive as […]
Africa’s largest wind farm to date is slated to begin construction as soon as a long-delayed financing agreement is completed, according to Wind Power Monthly. Morocco’s state utility Office National d’Electricite (ONE) awarded a $350 million, 20-year PPA contract for the 300 MW Tarfaya wind power plant to a consortium consisting of the local firm Nareva and […]
What’s hotter than Italian-designer Gabriel Diamanti talking about a solar-powered desalination device for the 99%? Not much, except for the Eliodomestico that he built during his graduate studies at the Milan Polytechnic in 2005. Following extensive travel to parts of the world that can no longer take fresh water supplies for granted, like Saudi Arabia, […]
These days it’s impossible to trust anything. We go to the store or market and buy what we believe is an organic head of lettuce but it’s virtually impossible to know whether that label meets our own standards for healthy food. Which means that we could be consuming nasty chemicals without even realizing it. Unless […]
The disruption to Jordan’s natural gas supply from Egypt has finally awoken a sleeping giant: renewable energy. Long focused on oil shale and nuclear energy instead of renewable sources, the Kingdom has recently entered negotiations with no fewer than 20 international wind and solar-energy suppliers. These are mostly small or medium-sized firms that will provide […]
Bifacial solar panel can boost energy yield by 50%. Researchers have been trying to develop double-sided solar cells that can capture both direct and reflected sunlight for the last forty years, and now an Israeli startup believes they have come up with the winning formula. bSolar, a venture-backed project founded in 2007, showcased their bifacial […]
Scott Howard is among a growing number of people working on building projects that are not only eco-friendly, but actually help to regenerate natural systems. Once built, the Regenerative Home in Colorado will hopefully produce its own food in an entryway greenhouse and vertical garden, process all of its own waste, capture and recycle water […]
We would give anything to be in Rabat as the world’s first solar-powered transcontinental flight comes to an end at roughly 11pm local time. Despite the relatively late hour (chosen to avoid dense air traffic), delegates from the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (MASEN) and others will be at the airport to congratulate pilot Bertrand […]
Residents of the artificial Jumeirah Island villas in Dubai face cooling bills of up to $1,600 a month – almost double last year’s price, according to The National. So British national and long-time Dubai resident Tony Caden decided to install an array of 38 solar panels and a giant 20 tonne chiller. Now completely independent […]
I know I know, the proposed federation of six gulf countries has nothing to do with anything remotely green. I also realize that the ulterior motive is to gain political strength and stability in the region and it is possible that this may even escalate the unrest, given that not everyone is happy with this […]
Biomimicry is one of the smartest contemporary approaches to design, so it was inevitable that Israeli researchers would apply this science to their military designs. Like the Iranian home that mimics a snail’s form in order to stay cool and a bottle inspired by the Namib desert beetle that can harvest water in one of the […]
Can the Energy Tower slated for US Mexico border create clean power and mitigate climate change? If Americans put Man on the moon, why not, argues Brian. Professor Dan Zaslavsky and Dr. Rami Guetta from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology are trying to develop an idea first patented by Phillip R. Carlson in 1975. In what […]
A dynamic young Egyptian firm has won an $11,000 innovation prize for an off-grid, solar-powered water pump. Judges of the first HCT-Wharton Innovation Tournament held last week in Abu Dhabi were impressed by KarmSolar because their design could easily have a high impact on great numbers of people, reduce dependency on diesel, and it would […]
Are android sex workers the future of tourism or an absurd use of clean technology? People will soon be having sex with robots as the latest in sex tourism, suggests a recent news report. This novel twist on ‘clean technology’ (the inventors point out that the androids will be made of bacteria-resistant fibers) is enough […]