The worlds Greatest Green Inventions

[John Raabe]

Here is an interesting article from the UK's Independent.

THE ECO KETTLE

It is estimated that, on average, we boil twice the volume of water  
needed every time we use our kettles. With a 3kW kettle that's the  
same as wasting the energy of around 50 light bulbs. And standard  
kettles are often highly inefficient - a stove-top kettle, for  
instance, requires energy to heat the handle and shell in addition to  
the water. But British designer Brian Hartley's Eco Kettle solves  
these problems at a stroke. You fill it up, and then use the  
measuring button to release the exact amount of water you require -  
from a single cup to a full jug - into a separate chamber for  
boiling. It is also insulated to keep the water hot. The result is an  
energy saving of up to 30 per cent.

www.ecokettle.com

GREEN ROOFS

Cities may be losing their green spaces to development, but all is  
not lost. Look up to the roofs of buildings, especially office  
blocks, and there, where once there was dead space, you could now  
find a "sky garden" (Barclays' HQ in Canary Wharf, London, has one).  
They could be used as community spaces, chill-out areas for hassled  
workers, or even to grow food. But there are other advantages for the  
bottom line, too: they reduce run-off in periods of heavy rain, and  
they cut back on the heat that gets trapped in built-up areas, thus  
reducing the need for air conditioning. They could even improve air  
quality in congested cities.

www.greenroofs.com

FRICTIONLESS WIND TURBINES

The problem with wind turbines? Often, it's just not windy enough to  
get them turning. It's not really the lack of wind that is the  
problem, but the friction in the turbines themselves. Chinese  
scientists may have cracked this problem with the first "magnetic  
levitation" (or MagLev) wind turbines, which replace ball-bearings  
with the technology used in advanced monorails, making a frictionless  
turbine that can generate electricity from winds as low as 1.5m per  
second. They're ideal for low wind areas, such as mountain regions  
and small islands. The MagLev wind turbines could also use the  
airflow caused by passing cars to generate roadside lighting.

SOLAR-POWERED CELLPHONES

Germany's Fraunhofer Institute, an alliance of 50 technology research  
organisations, is looking at how to integrate solar cells into mobile  
phones, allowing them to be powered continuously on just two hours of  
sunlight a day. The big manufacturers are interested, as the more  
software that's packed into mobiles, the bigger batteries they need.

www.fraunhofer.de

ICE ENERGY

Air conditioning can be a huge drain on electricity supplies. Enter  
Ice Energy's Ice Bear, which integrates with a standard AC unit. The  
water in the Ice Bear is frozen overnight when temperatures are lower  
and electricity, in many countries, is cheaper, and the ice then  
cools the AC unit's refridgerant during the day. This results in a 30  
per cent saving in energy use. An AC unit should last 15 years, by  
which time the Ice Bear will have paid for itself several times.

www.ice-energy.com

GREENER AIRCRAFT

Conventional airliners are heavy, thirsty, noisy and polluting,  
despite aeronautical designers' best efforts. But in the future we  
may be travelling in a flying wing or batwing (in which the entire  
fuselage becomes the means of lift) - an idea first suggested by  
Frederick Handley Page in 1961. Made of plastic and with areas of the  
surface punctured with tiny holes to reduce drag, the wings would be  
much lighter and so more fuel efficient, and the engines would be  
mounted on top to deflect noise away from the ground. And they would  
be flown differently, too: in formation perhaps, which would reduce  
fuel consumption, and at different altitudes to prevent the formation  
of polluting condensation trails. The result could bring aircraft  
emissions below today's levels by 2025, despite an expected doubling  
in the amount of passenger air traffic. Both Boeing and Airbus are  
already working on flying-wing projects.

DESIGNER CARAFES

It's ironic that in our bid to become healthier by drinking more  
water, our conviction that only bottled water will do is causing  
increasingly precious plastics to be thrown away (oil being an  
essential component in plastic's manufacture). Fashion designer  
Pierre Cardin may have the solution. He has just distributed 30,000  
of his Eau de Paris designer carafes for free in a bid to convince  
Parisians that the local tap water is just as healthy. The idea is  
that many people buy bottled water in response to marketing, so  
getting them to drink tap water requires a similar strategy. It's a  
simple idea that, if it spread around the world, could keep millions  
of plastic bottles out of landfills.

THE SUPER-POWERED ELECTRIC CAR

For the rest of the article click the link below (reached limit of characters on one post).

Independent.