Luxury Earthship

Hmm, I am not sure if this can be called an earthship, but is sure is very luxurious!

http://emmas.blogg.se/2010/november/villa-vals-or-a-hole-in-the-mountain.html

Cargo bicycle

This interesting concept builds on the already existing Dutch cargo bike. But as you power this bicycle with two persons it can carry much more cargo.

http://sync.nl/vrachtfiets-de-bakfiets-20/

http://www.vrachtfiets.nl/

Water stream = energy source

People have been using water streams as an energy source for ages. But it seems to have gone out of fashion. The Bourne Energy company might change that. They just released a statement that they are going to produce a device that delivers 500 watt for about $3000.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/backpack-hydroelectric-plant/

Building hotels smarter

The Dutch blog Sync has an interesting article about a student who wants to promote a smarter way of building hotels. He says it is ridiculous to promote reusing your towels while on the other hand the hotel itself consumes enormous amounts of enery. He wants to ditch concrete and replace it with steel and wood.

The original article can be found here:

http://sync.nl/stalen-hotel-met-een-jasje-van-hout/

Automatic translation can be found here.

Mobile watermaker

This might be an interesting technique to apply in an earthship as well: http://www.mobilewatermaker.nl/

Germany’s solar energy success story

In Germany you get paid a bit above market rates for the electricity that you feed the grid. This is paying off in different ways.

1. They produce over 50% of all solar energy in the world, despite the fact that the country is covered in clouds very often.

2. CO2 reductions are huge, for different reasons. An obvious reason being that people buy solar panels to feed the net. Another one being that consumers will probably start thinking greener as they will be more aware about their consumption.

3. Germany is building a huge solar panel industry with factories and the knowledge that goes with it.

Read the story here: http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/2009/11/27/catching-rays-cutting-emissions/

Passive homes

Today I heard a news article about passives homes on the local radio. Passive homes look a lot like conventional homes but they are super-isolated and use technology like heat exchangers to minimize heat loss. This way they there is very little need for heating during the winters.

http://www.passiefhuis.nl/

http://www.mijnpassiefhuis.nl/