hippie flavor

hilker:

“What is a zoo to do with its excess panda poo? Denver’s answer is to compress it into pucks and feed them to a syngas-powered hybrid-electric Tuk Tuk.

As anyone who’s been to a zoo can attest, those animals truly enjoy a good deuce. They do it constantly, typically producing more waste than the facility can reuse. Zoo’s often have to haul the excrement away for disposal in landfills—an expensive and inefficient option. But the Denver Zoo has spent nearly a decade working on an ingenious and local alternative to landfills—a 20-year-old motorized rickshaw, also known as a Tuk Tuk.”

Ingenuity can always think of a productive use for our waste. 

“The researchers, led by UW-Madison geologist and crystal specialist Huifang Xu, grew nanocrystals of two common crystals, zinc oxide and barium titanate, and placed them in water. When pulsed with ultrasonic vibrations, the nanofibers flexed and catalyzed a chemical reaction to split the water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen.”

Waste capture FTW!

“When water from the shower, dishwasher, or washing-machine is drained into the sewer-pipes, it’s not just a waste of water, but a waste of the energy used to heat that water. […] This unused energy pestered folks in one French town so much that they decided to put it to good use… and now it heats their swimming pools.

“Such a system actually works quite simply. A series of stainless steel plates is attached to the bottom of the sewer pipes, equipped with a special liquid that captures the heat.”

via ninaprettyballerina

“…a stunning new breakthrough has just surfaced that may make cleaning up radioactive waste easier and much more efficient—and the solution takes its inspiration from one of everyone’s favorite creepy plants. Researchers have developed a material that opens its pores to let in its intended prey—the radioactive ion cesium—then “snaps shut” to entrap it, according to Science Daily. It’s a Venus Flytrap that eats radioactive waste instead of flies.

The flytrap-like material is evidently a snythetic material made from “layers of a gallium, sulfur and antimony compound,” and was developed by researchers at Northwestern University.”

with as much oil as large institutions like these go through, they should be able to produce a significant portion of energy to be used around campus.

it seems this country’s newest green fuel is actually brown [i’m sorry, i couldn’t help myself!]: “In Oslo, air pollution from public and private transport has increased by approximately 10% since 2000, contributing to more than 50% of total CO2 emissions in the city. With Norway’s ambitious target of being carbon neutral by 2050 Oslo City Council began investigating alternatives to fossil fuel-powered public transport and decided on biomethane.

Biomethane is a by-product of treated sewage. Microbes break down the raw material and release the gas, which can then be used in slightly modified engines. Previously at one of the sewage plants in the city half of the gas was flared off, emitting 17,00 tonnes of CO2. From September 2009, this gas will be trapped and converted into biomethane to run 200 of the city’s public buses.”