Every once in a while an idea comes along that is so unlike anything before that it defies reference. Take Belatchew Lab Architecture’s Strawscraper, a skyscraper covered in hair that can harness the energy of the wind. The building looks as though it belongs at the bottom of the sea, with its long anemone-like hair, but its technology is planted firmly on the terra firma of the future.

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Post tags: "wind power", Architecture in Stockholm, Belatchew Architecture, Belatchew Labs, hair shell harvests wind, Piezoelectric technology, renewable wind energy, Strawscraper, swedish architecture, urban wind energy

These days, 3D printers can create just about anything – from human organs to deadly weapons. But one innovation we haven’t previously seen in 3D printing? Printer filament made from of planet-friendly materials rather than Earth-damaging plastics. That’s changing however, with design firm Emerging Objects‘ recycled and recyclable 3D printing materials. Using materials like salt, concrete, wood and paper, they are putting the green in 3D printing.

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Post tags: 3d printing advances, 3d printing technology, Emerging Objects, Emerging Objects 3d printing, Emerging Objects printing material, environmentally friendly 3d printing, environmentally friendly printing materials, recyclable 3d printing, recycled 3d printing, renewable 3d printing, renewable printing materials

Japan has hemmed and hawed about closing its nuclear reactors after the 2011 Fukushima disaster. At first there was talk of closing down all reactors, but the motion was whittled down to affect just those that fail rigorous safety testing, and finally none at all. A panel of seismic experts just announced that one of Japan’s oldest reactors sits on a highly earthquake-prone site and should be shuttered permanently – and the government is taking the first steps towards shutting it down.

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Post tags: earthquake nuclear reactors, Fukushima disaster, fukushima japan, fukushima meltdown, fukushima nuclear power plant, fukushima reactor, Japan closing reactors, Japan ending nuclear power, japan nuclear power, Japan nuclear reactors, nuclear power concerns

What has nearly 100,000 LEGO pieces, spans nearly 2.5 miles and can be used to transport a Lilliputian army? The world’s longest LEGO railway, of course! On May 10th and 11th, Lego enthusiast Henrik Ludvigsen and 80 friends got together in Denmark to assemble the longest LEGO track in the world, and for their troubles (which sound like a lot of fun), they received the Guinness World Record.

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Post tags: Guinness World Record railway, Guinness World Record train, Guinness World Record train track, Lego bricks, lego building, LEGO railroad, LEGO railway, LEGO records, lego world record, world's longest LEGO railway, world's longest LEGO train track

Many people around the world rely on cash crops to create extra income for their families. During the dry season, shallow wells and drought are challenges that reduce crop yield – and extra income. In order to produce a bountiful harvest during this season, farmers rely on pump irrigation to keep the water flowing. The only problem is that pumps can be costly to buy and to maintain – so the folks at International Development Enterprises (iDE) developed SunWater, an affordable water pump system that uses the power of the sun.

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Post tags: green energy ideas, green power, Indiegogo projects, International Development Enterprises, irrigation for poor areas, irrigation for poor farmers, solar power applications, solar power technology, solar water pump, SunWater, third world irrigation, water pump for irrigation

There is a debate raging between the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) – and LEED certification is caught in the middle. Treehugger reports that the latest battleground is in North Carolina, which recently introduced legislation that would effectively ban LEED in the state. The legislation follows on the heels of similar bills that banned LEED in Maine and the Department of Defense in 2011. Is this an ominous sign of things to come as more state governments bow down to the almighty dollar – or will protecting the world’s forests prevail?

Read the rest of New North Carolina Law Could Ban LEED Certification Due to Forestry Dispute

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Post tags: banning LEED, Forest Stewardship Council, leed certification, LEED laws, North Carolina banning LEED, North Carolina green building, North Carolina LEED, North Carolina sustainable building, SFC and LEED, SFI vs SFC, Sustainable Forestry Initiative

Metallurgists at the University of Utah have cooked up an ingenious way to produce solar cells using something that nearly everyone has right at home: a microwave oven. Scientists used a basic microwave, one that was previously used by students to heat up food, to create a nanocrystal semiconductor. Creating a typical semiconductor requires a lot of time and can be toxic. But this new method is cleaner, cheaper and more efficient than ever before.

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Post tags: green metallurgy, green solar cell material, green solar technology, Metallurgy innovations, Michael Free, microwave cells, Microwave Semiconductor, Microwave Solar Cell Material, microwave technology, Prashant Sarswat, solar cell innovations, University of Utah Science

Where there’s smoke there’s heat, and Point Source Power has figured out a way to harness that heat to charge your cell phone. The company’s new VOTO charger converts the heat generated from a fire to create power. It’s an amazing solution that could provide a power source for those who live in areas without power and backcountry campers alike.

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Post tags: camping cell phone charger, camping fire charger, camping light charger, fire cell phone charger, fire charger, fire light charger, heat charger, Point Source Power, Point Source Power VOLO, Point Source Power Voto, renewable energy charger, VOLO charger, VOTO, VOTO charger

Hannah Warren was born in 2010 with a rare condition known as tracheal agenesis, which means that her trachea failed to develop. For the past two years, she has been living in an ICU in Seoul, South Korea, unable to eat, drink or breathe on her own. Now, thanks to stem cells from her own body, Hannah has been able to grow a new trachea – making her the youngest person ever to receive this type of treatment.

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Post tags: growing organs, Hannah Warren, Hannah Warren Give Forward, Hannah Warren surgery, stem cell organs, stem cell research, stem cell surgery, stem cell trachea, stem cell windpipe, windpipe transplant

The shortlist of nominees for the 2013 Aga Khan Award for Architecture were just announced in Spain – and the list includes outstanding projects ranging form a school in Afghanistan to a cemetery in Australia.  Every three years the Aga Khan Award is given to one outstanding project that excels in architecture, planning practices, historic preservation, and landscape architecture. The 20 nominees announced today are eligible for part of a 1-million dollar fund, and the five or six finalists will be announced in September of this year.

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Post tags: "sustainable architecture", Aga Khan 2013, Aga Khan 2013 nominees, Aga Khan Award, aga khan award for architecture, Aga Khan Development Network, architecture awards, green architecture, Green Building, Sustainable Building

Bubbles are bad – how can we forget the internet bubble of the 90s or the recent subprime mortgage crisis? Now it seems that we have gotten ourselves into a new bubble – and the consequences of ignoring it could be disastrous for the planet. A recent report by the Carbon Tracker Initiative shows that companies invested 674 billion dollars last year in developing nonrenewable energy assets globally. Add that to the fact that fossil fuel reserves already exceed the carbon budget and you get an unsupportable surplus – aka a “bubble.”

Read the rest of Forget the Housing Bubble – the Next Crisis May Be the Carbon Bubble

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Post tags: alternative energies, carbon bubble, coal demand, combating global warming, fossil fuel demand, fossil fuel supply, fossil fuel supply demand, global warming, oil demand, reducing carbon consumption, reducing emissions, reducing fossil fuels

Each day people around the world throw away a staggering amount of food – by some accounts, almost half of all food produced winds up in the trash. The German website foodsharing.de aims to fight this statistic by allowing people to trade or give away food that would otherwise go to waste. Not only does the site keep food out of the landfill; it also helps out those in need. Brilliant!

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Post tags: eliminating waste, Excess food sharing, Food sharing, Food sharing website, food solutions, food waste, foodsharing, German food sharing, preventing food waste

Back in January we covered the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive, a project dedicated to preserving the world’s old-growth trees by cloning them. This week, in celebration of Earth Day, the project released its archive to the world and began planting cloned trees in seven different countries – including the US. Both Oregon and California received new redwoods that may bring as much awe and wonder to new generations as the Giant Redwoods do today.

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Post tags: adapting to global warming, Archangel Ancient Tree Project, Archangel tree project, cloning trees, combating global warming, David Milarch, Earth Day celebrations, Earth Day projects, genetic cloning, old growth redwoods, planting old growth redwoods for Earth Day 2013, saving old growth redwoods, saving the forest

There once was a time when cap and trade plans looked like our best hope for limiting carbon emissions. But recent fluctuations in the European carbon market seem to indicate trouble in paradise. The prices of carbon allowances — necessary for any company that plans to produce more emissions than allotted — have dropped down to 10% of what they were once worth. While that’s bad news for investors, it also gives polluters a cheap way to continue polluting as usual.

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Post tags: cap and trade problems, carbon market dropping, carbon market failure, eu cap and trade, EU carbon allowances, EU carbon market, European cap and trade, European carbon allowances, European carbon market, global warming solutions, market solutions for warming

In February, TransCanada President Alex Pourbaix assured the world that the Keystone XL Pipeline wouldn’t have any impact on climate change — a statement that was met with more than just a little eye rolling and raised eyebrows. But the opinion was later echoed by the State Department, which issued a report claiming that the pipeline would have little environmental impact. Now, a new report from environmental group Oil Change International reveals how ridiculous that opinion truly is.

Read the rest of New Report Shows Just How Much the Keystone Pipeline Will Impact Global Warming

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Post tags: canadian tar sands, carbon emissions projects, Climate Change impacts, keystone pipeline, Keystone pipeline climate change impact, Keystone pipeline global warming impact, Keystone pipeline report, keystone xl, Oil Change International, Oil Change International report, State Department pipeline, State Department tar sands, transcanada pipeline

Renewable energy is on the rise in the US as new solar projects pop up across the country and thousands of new wind turbines are built every year. According to a recent report from the American Wind Energy Association, wind energy grew 28-percent in the US during 2012 – and it now accounts for 42-percent of all new US electricity generating capacity. Over 6,700 wind turbines were built across the US in 2012, bringing the nation’s total up to 45,100. That’s enough wind energy to power over 15 million homes, according to the AWEA.

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Post tags: American clean energy jobs, american renewable energy, American Wind ENergy Association, us green energy, us renewable energy, US wind power 2012, US wind power increase, US wind turbines, wind power and drought, Wind power numbers, wind power saves water

Every year there is a little less summer sea ice in the Arctic, which begs then question: when will the sea ice be gone? It may be sooner than we thought. A recent study published in the Geophysical Research Letters indicates that the summer sea ice may be gone by 2050, and could even be a thing of the past as early as 2020.

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Post tags: Arctic ice melt, Arctic Ice Melt by 2020, Arctic Ice Melt by 2050, Arctic Ice Melting, Geophysical Research Letters, Glacier Melt, Glacier melt studies, Global Warming Arctic, Global Warming Arctic Melt, Global Warming Ice Impact, James Overland, Muyin Wang, NOAA Arctic Study

When Stephen Hawking speaks, you listen. The world-renowned physicist gave a speech recently as he toured the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to support research for Lou Gehrig’s disease, a condition from which he suffers. In his speech, Hawking urges scientists to continue exploring space to secure the future of humanity. “ I don’t think we will survive another thousand years without escaping beyond our fragile planet,” he says.

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Post tags: A Brief History of Mine, A Brief History of Time, ALS research, global warming, Lou Gehrig's disease research, space exploration, stem cell research, Stephen Hawking 70th birthday, Stephen Hawking speech, Stephen Hawking urges space exploration, Stephen Hawking visits Cedar Sinai

Wind turbines offer a great way to generate clean power, but they doesn’t exactly work in a city. So Professor Farzad Safaei, Director of the University of Wollongong’s ICT Research Institute, decided to do something about it. Safaei has created a wind turbine that can be installed on skyscrapers or large apartment buildings and can generate energy even safer, quieter and more affordably than current turbines.

Read the rest of PowerWINDow: New Bird-Safe Turbine Can Generate Clean, Quiet, Affordable Wind Power in Cities

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Post tags: city wind power, green energy inventions, Green Power innovations, ICT RESEARCH INSTITUTE, PowerWINDows, Professor Farzad Safaei, University of Wollongong, UOW Australia, wind energy, Wind power in the City, wind turbine alternatives, Window Turbines

We’ve been following Liquid Robotics’ solar and wave-powered robot here at Inhabitat for some time as it’s gone from tracking great white sharks and hurricanes to making a record-breaking trip across the Pacific. And now, the company just announced a new surfboard-sized robot called the SV3 that opens up a whole new world of ocean exploration.

Read the rest of Wave Glider SV3: Liquid Robotics Unveils Faster, More Powerful Wave and Solar-Powered Robot

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Post tags: liquid robotics, Liquid Robotics Hawaii, Liquid Robotics SV3, ocean exploration, ocean research, solar powered ocean exploration, solar powered robot, SV3 robot, SV3 wave glider, wave glider, wave powered ocean exploration, wave powered robot