Kinetica

Sewn invisibly into the lining of normal clothes, Kinetica generates energy as you walk and move around, and uses it to charge up your personal electronic devices - mobile, music player or laptop. Very thin zinc oxide wires are sewn into normal clothing, down the seams of trousers or in coat and jacket sleeves. Every time the wearer moves, the wires move too, and the flexing and relaxing of the wires produces an electric current. If the electricity that Kinetica collects isn't used by personal systems, it can be discharged to the power storage systems of a home or car, or can be directed to the devices of friends or family instead.

Read more:

http://www.forumforthefuture.org.uk/lowcarbonliving2022/products/kinetica

Energy Producing Roads

Energy Producing Roads made from solar cells and glass may be the solution to carbon emissions and climate change.


Background
Although Scott Brusaw's company, Solar Roadways, is based out of his house in Idaho and in the home electronics workshop he built next to it with the income from his consulting, it may hold the key to solving climate change and global warming.

Solar Roadways
Solar Roadways is still in the concept phase, built on Brusaw’s childhood fascination with an electric race car game called slot cars. The idea of cars running on electric roads stayed with him as he went on to earn his Master's degree in electrical engineering. As global warming became established science, his wife Julie suggested he turn his obsession with electric roads into a way to conserve fuel and reduce pollution. Brusaw came up with the idea of a road that produced its own electricity, a solar highway for energy independence.
One of the nation's leading authorities on solar energy, Nate Lewis of Caltech, has calculated that covering 1.7% of the land surface of the United States with 10 percent efficient solar energy converters could supply all our current national energy demand. As it happens, this is roughly the same amount of land that is devoted to the nation's interstate highway system. Lewis believes that covering a large, barren section of some of the western states with solar panels is the best solution to our energy needs, but we would need a photovoltaic material almost as cheap as paint to make it cost competitive with fossil fuels, and we would still need to transport the energy around the country.
In Brusaw's Solar Roadways concept, instead of covering a large area of the Southwest with solar arrays, all of our roads would be paved with glass panels that could collect and distribute solar energy. Sunlight would shine through the surface onto a middle layer of solar cells. The solar cells would produce electric energy to light the road at night and heat it in winter, with enough leftover electricity to power homes and businesses. Brusaw estimates that each mile of solar panels could power 500 homes.

Solar Roadway Rationale
Brusaw's Rationale for Solar Roadways includes:
· 4.84 billion (12' by 12') Solar Road Panels would be required to replace the current asphalt road system, parking lots, and driveways in the 48 contiguous states. This is enough to provide three times more electricity than the United States used in 2003 and almost enough to supply the entire world.
· To produce a Solar Roadway Panel (not including assembly and installation) would cost approximately $5,000 for materials. Solar cell cost and efficiency is predicted to improve dramatically with thin film technologies in the next few years.
· Cost to build enough coal-fired power plants to provide a similar amount of electricity - approx. $14 trillion.
· The cost of Global Warming is unknown, but could reach 5% to 20% of global gross domestic product annually, according to the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change.

Constructing Power Generating Roads
To answer the energy transport needs, the roadway's base layer would contain the nation's electric grid, safe from weather and secure from interruption, replacing the current crumbling power grid with a distributed network of independent power sources providing energy from coast to coast. Along with electricity, the base layer could also carry fiber optic cables for television, communication, and high speed Internet so that cities and rural areas would be equally connected and the ugly poles and wires that clutter our landscape could be removed. Smart roadways could reconfigure travel lanes to reduce gridlock, warn drivers of construction or obstacles ahead, sense whiteouts or other weather conditions, and even keep wildlife off the roads. In Brusaw's scheme, heated and lighted roadways would make travelling safer and save lives.

New Technology Requirements
Most of the technologies required for the base and middle layers are already available, Brusaw told the glass scientists and industry reps at a Washington workshop. With only a minute of his allotted time remaining, he summarized his challenges to the scientists and manufacturers: Build a transparent glass panel that absorbs sunlight without any glare, lit by low energy LEDs from within, with heating elements to melt ice and snow and a surface both fireproof and shatterproof with traction equal to asphalt, even when wet, with the ability to withstand road salt, magnesium chloride, sun exposure, vehicle emissions such as antifreeze and oil, and the strength and flexibility to handle heavy trucks. And finally, in order to make the project economically feasible, the glass should last about three times as long as most asphalt roads, he concluded.

Materials Developments
Creating solar roadways may be possible with some new enabling technologies. These new technologies include new types of self-cleaning windows with microstructures based on the lotus flower's ability to shed water, and recent breakthroughs in superconducting transmission cables cooled by liquid nitrogen that carried five times the current of standard cables.

Source: Pennsylvania State University Materials Research Institute

A sustainable city-region for Bristol

Jonathon Porritt will talk about the challenges we face in making cities more sustainable before outlining the programme’s short and longer term plans for the Bristol city region.Having immersed myself in Bristol life for the past six months, and met with a huge variety of organisations concerned about the city’s future sustainability, it’s clear that our task in Bristol is considerable. But with so much energy, enthusiasm and commitment from all parts of the community, if we can create a sustainable city anywhere, it surely has to be Bristol. The City was ranked third in Forum’s Sustainable Cities Index. Yet there are still big issues to sort out, not least with transport and new housing numbers – 90,000 new homes are planned for the area. Tackling these issues, in partnership with others, will be a big focus of our work. Managing the need and demand for travel through the use of IT, and the promotion of active travel and public transport will be early areas of work in supporting sustainable transport. In relation to new homes, we’ll be using our Sustainability Framework for Urban Extensions to ensure that new communities are planned, designed and built to the highest sustainability standards – if they can do it in China, it’s about time we started doing it here too.These are exciting times for anyone living, working or shopping in the Bristol area, and I look forward to hearing from you over the coming months.


Jonathon Porritt speaks at the launch of our Bristol project - video.
Se videoen her: http://www.forumforthefuture.org.uk/


Find out more about our work in the Bristol region here.


http://www.forumforthefuture.org.uk/blog/a-sustainable-city-region-for-Bristol





A report on emerging good practice


TCPA (Town and Country Planning Association, London UK. Published March 2007)


Best Practice in Urban Extensions and New Settlements

New town of Northstowe

Review date: 05 March 2008
Lead designer: Arup Associates
Local authority: South Cambridgeshire District Council
Region: East of England
Description: A new town comprising up to 10,000 new dwellings and associated community and highway infrastructure.

Summary
We welcome the rigour of the approach the design team have taken; the masterplan is of high quality and has potential to be a successful new town. The introduction of 9,500 new homes in the south of Cambridgeshire is a challenge that requires a clear vision as well as careful analysis and understanding of the surrounding landscape and places. We feel that there are still aspects of the masterplan that should be addressed.
At the moment we are concerned that design development of the masterplan has not fully resolved issues of identity, morphology and connectivity. We think there is further work needed by all the parties involved in this project and encourage the design team with the local authority, English Partnerships and the developer to continue working together to resolve these issues. The local planning authority has concerns regarding identity, phasing and sustainability; we agree with their views and these are discussed in more detail below.

Læs hele artiklen her: http://www.cabe.org.uk/default.aspx?contentitemid=2374

Understanding Ordinary Landscapes

(1 anmeldelse):

Understanding Ordinary Landscapes by Paul Groth is a collection of contemporary cultural landscape essays and is a theoretical basis for comprehending the mysteries of perception of the landscape, the environment, and furthering the culture versus nature discourse. It brings critical analysis, and an annotated bibliography to the relatively new area of landscape architectural theory. A must for professionals and anyone interested in the landscape.

http://www.amazon.com/review/product/0300072031/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?%5Fencoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design With Nature

(1 anmeldelse):

Chicago City Planning Consultant Doug Farr has written a great book, Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design with Nature. Farr combines new urbanism with green development in a clear and logical manner. He believes that "sustainable urbanism" is more than designing new Leed certified green buildings. It also includes the creation of green sustainable neighborhoods, and includes plans for sustainable urban development. He combines the strategies and principles of new urbanism with environmental improvements very well. Farr explains the evolution of the design reform movement. He outlines strategies on how to lead and promote sustainable urbanism. Doug Farr did an outstanding on form based codes for our neighboring communities of Bloomington and Normal, Illinois, and in developing plans that enhanced the environment while creating new urban space. I strongly recommend this book.

Craig Hullinger AICP City of Peoria, Director, Economic Development

http://www.amazon.com/review/product/047177751X/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt/104-7788888-6723110?%5Fencoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Building for life

Delivering great places to live: 20 questions you need to answer.

This guide explains the 20 Building for Life standard criteria. Developers can use the 20 questions as a basis for writing development briefs, with a view to speeding up planning approvals and winning local community support. Local authorities can use them to demand high standards of design. Delivering great places to live provides a valuable tool to assess design quality in new housing schemes and should be referred to when applying for a Building for Life standard.

Download publikationen her:

http://www.buildingforlife.org/apply/buildingforlife.aspx?type=publication&refid=-2&aspectid=15&contentitemid=324

Evaluating housing principles step by step
This guide was commissioned and funded by the Housing Corporation’s innovation and good practice programme to support housing designers and developers in producing well designed developments and achieving Building for Life awards.

Download publikationen her:
http://www.buildingforlife.org/apply/buildingforlife.aspx?type=publication&refid=-2&aspectid=15&contentitemid=2395

The Endless City

The Endless City

An authoritative and visually rich survey of the contemporary city.

More and more people are moving into towns and cities to live and work, altering the urban/rural balance of countries worldwide
The Endless City is an unparalleled study of the growth of six of the World’s international cities (New York, Shanghai, London, Mexico City, Johannesburg and Berlin), exploring key structural, economic and social factors
Overseen by the influential educational institution, the London School of Economics (LSE)
Features extensive research and coherent texts by world-renowned professionals in the field
The information is presented in a comprehensive and visually compelling sequence, enabling quick and efficient reference as well as offering material that is exciting to study
Each city is studied individually in its own chapter and examined comparatively in an observational chapter
Authoritatively edited by Ricky Burdett and Deyan Sudjic in collaboration with LSE and The Urban Age Project, an expanding international organisation seeking a new urban agenda for global cities
Visit the feature website at http://www.phaidon.com/endlesscity/

Yahoo Green

Yahoo recently launched Yahoo Green and is now sponsoring a contest for designers to create an icon that will be used to represent green products throughout its family of sites and networks.

Læs hele artiklen her: http://eco-centric.blogspot.com/

Galleri: Masdar City

Masdar4 Masdar City kommer til at koste 73 milliarder kroner og skal bebo 50.000 mennesker og huse 1.500 forretninger. Her ses en model over byen, som er tegnet af det prisvindene arktektfirma Forster and Partners.

Se Galleri billeder her: http://ing.dk/gallerier/96561

Verdens første CO2-fri by

I oliestaten Abu Dhabi er sultanen ved at bygge verdens første CO2-frie by. Den skal være en ledestjerne, som skal vise verden vej for mere miljøvenlighed. Men byen bliver også en stor forretning, som skal profitere på det voksende CO2-kvotemarked.

Læs hele artiklen her: http://ing.dk/artikel/86495

Norman Foster: Building on the green agenda

Recorded at the DLD Conference, Munich
Architect Norman Foster discusses his own work to show how computers can help architects design buildings that are green, beautiful and "basically pollution-free." He shares projects from throughout his career, from the pioneering roof-gardened Willis Building (1975) to the London Gherkin (2004). He also comments on two upcoming megaprojects: a pipe to bring water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, and the new Beijing airport.

Se film: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/174

IBM Launches PowerUp - Online Climate Change Game

A new IBM promotion comes in the form of a free multiplayer online game, PowerUp, that challenges players to help save the planet “Helios” from ecological disaster.

The game is part of IBM’s TryScience initiative and was launched at Engineer’s Week 2008. The game features a planet in near ecological ruin where three exciting missions for solar, wind and water power must be solved before sandstorms, floods or SmogGobs thwart the rescue. IBM says that it devised the 3D virtual game to engage kids and educators in engineering, energy, and diversity awareness.

www.environmentalleader.com/2008/02/18/ibm-launches-powerup-online-climate-change-game/

Vehicle-to-Grid Plug-In Hybrids, for Free

Electricity requirements for hybrids used a projection of 25 percent market penetration of hybrid vehicles by 2020 including a mixture of sedans and sport utility vehicles. Several scenarios were run for each region for the years 2020 and 2030 and the times of 5 p.m. or 10:00 p.m., in addition to other variables.

Læs artiklen her:

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007902.html

Smart grid community

Xcel Energy announces intended site of Smart Grid City: Boulder, Colo. U.S.A to become first fully integrated "smart" city in the nation, Smart Grid City will be the industry’s first community to comprehensively research and develop intelligent grid technologies as we shape the future of the energy marketplace.
The current electric grid has served us well for the last half century. But the future requires a technology revolution.

Se Smart Grid City filmen her:

http://www.xcelenergy.com/XLWEB/CDA/0%2c3080%2c1-1-1_15531_43141_46932-39884-0_0_0-0%2c00.html