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Hindus Love Pope Because Of Solar

  • Posted by
  • November 30, 2008

It is not everyday that we hear pieces of news about followers of one religion praise yet another person from another religion. That is why it is very important that I share this bit with you. See, the Hindus have given praise to the Pope and the Vatican for going solar. Nice.
Rajan Zed is a [...]

New LED Light Bulbs Can Replace 100W Incandescents

  • Posted by
  • November 30, 2008

I recently had the chance to test two state-of-the-art LED light bulbs from EarthLED. LED bulbs have many advantages over incandescents and compact fluorescent: LEDs use very little power, they last 10 years or more, and they contain no hazardous substances. They are also tough: they can be dropped and turned off and on repeated [...]

Green Gift Wrapping


A Look At Another Solar Charger

  • Posted by
  • November 29, 2008

There is already quite a number of solar chargers available in the market right now. With the number of such chargers available, you might have a hard time choosing one for yourself. That is why it is good to take a look at specs and see which one is going to work well for you [...]

The Environmental Technology of the New James Bond


007 isn’t generally known for being friendly to anything except the ladies. So being friendly to the Earth certainly hasn’t ever mattered. The question is, now that green-tech is awesome, and green-style is sexy, what’s a Bond to do?

Quantum of Solace seems to take two stances on the issue.

First, green chic is lame. The lead villain of the movie (who shares my last name, unfortunately) is beyond greenwashing. His energy company has been pretending to buy up ecologically sensitive areas, but really he’s trying to control the world’s water. Sounds like a page out of T. Boone’s playbook to me.

And as Greene tries to raise money for his faux-organization, we see the private-jet-flying, schmoozy, evening-balling lameness that I know exists (but have yet to be invited into…for some reason.) Daniel and Olga look smashing, of course, but you can see right through the facade. It’s just another reason for rich people to get together and celebrate how rich they are.
Anyone in the movie who appears to give a crap about the environment for it’s own sake isn’t just full of themselves, they’re also the kind of person who is likely to dine on Florida Panther just because it’s hard to get. The message is clear, this "being green to be cool thing" is over, in the eyes of Bond. And Bond is the leader of cool, as far as a lot of the world is concerned.

On the other hand, clean technologies suddenly start looking pretty damned cool. A half-Russian, half-South American bond chic cruises around in a Ford Ka. It’s likely that you’ve never heard of the Ka, that’s because they don’t sell them in America. But it’s basically Ford’s answer to the Smart Car. A little larger, but ultra-cheap and it gets 38 mpg.
Bond starts out the movie completely destroying a 13 mpg Aston Martin, showing the kind of distaste toward that obsolete technology as an EcoGeek might respect. While, in the end of the film, he’s treating his new hydrogen-powered Ford Edge like a baby, because he obviously loves the technology so much.

The Ka and the H2 Edge are genuine examples of the kind of technology that might one day make our lives and the world a better place. It’s a long way from exploding cuff links, and a long way in the right direction, as far as EcoGeek is concerned.

(keep reading to see Bond escape in the Ka)

“Green” by Way of Frugality


WaterSense Makes It Easy to Save Water and Protect the Environment


Spanish Cemetary Goes Solar


The town of Santa Coloma de Gramanet near Barcelona in Spain wants to do its part in fighting global warming. But the densely packed town – 124,000 people crammed into 1.5 square miles – doesn’t have enough land to dedicate tracts exclusively to the wind farms or solar panels that could help ease residents’ dependency on fossil fuel.

So the city council found the space required to install 462 solar panels in an unlikely spot. In the absence of flat expanses of land in the town, local politicians decided to use the local graveyard. The southward facing panels rest on top of the cemetery’s mausoleums, where 57,000 people are buried. The $900,000 project, three years in the making, will reduce 62 tons of CO2 each year and provide enough alternative energy to power 60 homes for a year each.

City councillor Antoni Fogue told the Associated Press that it took a while for residents to warm up to the idea. “Let’s say we heard things like, ‘they’re crazy. Who do they think they are? What a lack of respect!’ “Fogue said in an interview. But residents who were opposed have since learned that the solar panels don’t change the look of the cemetery.

The director of the cemetery said the solar panel installation is compatible with respect for the dead and their families. Generating clean energy, said Esteve Serret, was the “best tribute” the town could pay its ancestors.

Via BBC and the AP

Meet The Solar Robot

  • Posted by
  • November 28, 2008

This is not about Asimo. Well, in the first place, that robot is not a solar powered robot. This is about AgBot, a robot that runs on solar power and has been developed by the Louisiana State University.
I find this solar robot to be quite interesting. I mean this one has been given the ability [...]

Northern California Solar Energy Report

  • Posted by
  • November 27, 2008

I got an email today from John Reed which contains some very nice information about solar installations in Northern California produced by NorCal Solar Energy Association.  This association,  is a non-profit, solar education group in Northern California.  They just released some new findings on the growth of solar energy installations for 165 cities in the [...]