Posts Tagged ‘Green’
Please dont stop the.. dancing!
Thursday, February 5th, 2009
With its powerful sound-system, its numerous lights, its heating and cooling system, a nightclub is an energy glutton. Trying to address this issue, the first eco-club of the world opened last September in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The Club Watt saves 30% electricity costs by re-injecting into the main circuit the energy produced by its customers shaking their bodies on the dance floor. The trick? A spring-loaded floor, which dips about 1 cm and activates a flywheel, which starts to capture kinetic energy convert it to electricity, similar to the electro-mechanical process of a bicycle light.
There is a lot of research done on energy saving, but it leaves a wide field open to innovators, imagining revolutionary appliances for old and new technologies. When I heard about this floor transforming movement into energy, I tried to imagine other places or things that we use, where energy is lost, that could be collected instead. What about a computer that would re-load it’s battery when typing on the keyboard?
An average person types between 30-50 words per minute. Considering that the average word is 4 to 6 letters long – say 5, typing on a computer equals pushing down a button 150 to 250 times per minute. Wouldn’t that produce enough energy to power a notebook, or at least increase its battery life? Plus it would have a wonderful effect on our productivity: imagine you’re 5 hours in the plane without a power plug. Should you rather watch a 2 hour movie, or frenetically type this report you should have done weeks ago, which would keep your battery going for the whole journey?
What are some other ways we can apply this technology?
High traffic areas maybe? i.e. airports, metro stations, concerts…
Looking forward to reading your brilliant applications in the comments 
Written by: Antoine Verdon
uno
Tuesday, October 7th, 2008
A few things come to my mind when i heard about the uno…what is this thing? according to the website, this fun concept may be the wave of the future. Part unicycle and part motocycle, this electric transport vehicle plans to green up the streets. To keep balance, the uno uses similar technology as the Segway to keep the wheels on the ground when making a turn.
I could see some entreprenuers in NYC buying a fleet of these and attaching rickshaws on the back. Since its electric, it doesnt need fuel and doesn’t let out exhaust, great for passengers.
fun sustainability: PlayPumps
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008
A friend of mine J. Lippi, just turned me on to a company called PlayPumps. PlayPumps has created a breakthrough innovation through simplicity and creativity, helping solve the overwhelming issue of bringing clean water to those without direct access.
Watch this inspirational video on the concept and implementation:
From the PlayPumps Website:
Together, we provide schools and communities throughout Africa with an innovative, uniquely sustainable, free supply of clean drinking water.
Talk about creating a sustainable business – I love it!
green dance club
Monday, August 25th, 2008
i just came across this neat article in Time magazine, that is showing that green business is reaching hip and unconventional applications. a dance club in London called “club4climate” uses a its dance floor as a source of electricity for its club. the technology is called Piezoelectricity and is created by certain types of materials like crystals and some ceramics. to put in simply, the dance floor (of a this material) harnesses electricity that is generated from people bouncing up and down on it (compression creates a small amount of electric charge). the electricity is then transferred and stored in nearby batteries.
the green focus doesn’t stop there, the club uses rainwater for its toilets, free trade organic liquor, and no cover charge for people who walked or took public transport to the club.
if this is working at dance clubs, we should really start capturing some of the energy that we use at the gym.
new england foodservice expo
Tuesday, April 8th, 2008
with a beautiful day ahead of us, dave and I attended the new england foodservice expo in the search of new innovations, cool concepts and free food! the expo ends today so we missed many of the speakers and many vendors were winding down their kiosks and booths. the expo was nicely partitioned between food vendors (high end meats, cheeses, salmons, produce, prepared foods), technology (POS, handhelds, pagers, software), industrial equipment (mixers, washers, ovens, fryers), textiles (clothes, towels, Crocs!) and beverages (beer, liquor, coffee, drinks). the show seemed very upbeat as food defintely helped us move from station to station.
Here are a few overall thoughts that I had:
No Green: i thought that there would be more innovation in the way of green. the show was defintely missing or lacked marketing around new products that were better for the environment. maybe a new dishwasher that used less water or electricity, or a water system that circulated used hot water for other uses. we did see a vendor selling green food packaging that is a great alternative to styrofoam or other non biodegradable materials.
Sales: lots of the sales people we met with were either too busy chatting with other sales folks or looking at their watches waiting to leave. most of our questions were met with generic answers or pamphlets of information. we went to many booths and actually stood their and waited for a few minutes to no avail. to be fair we did meet lots of cool people who wanted to share their stories behind their business.
innovation?: i was really excited about seeing innovative new machines and products but there was nothing really ground breaking to speak of. there were many different variations of existing products but I have seen many of them before.
Overall it was fun and great opportunity to network and keep ontop of the foodservice industry…
Below are some pictures from the show..Enjoy!
Incubaker hits the show…
birds-eye view
dave making deals
this was a really neat hotdog machine, that cooked the hotdogs and released them right into a steamed bun…ready to eat
new bistro clogs from Crocs for chefs and cooks (no holes and unique tread)
water sanitation device for cleaning hands and produce
a neat idea for an event…fun desert sushi
rice krispy with swedish fish sushi
super automatic espresso machine (for inspiration cafe?)
clean bags
Wednesday, December 5th, 2007
I was leafing thru a magazine today and noticed an ad by BASF. The ad was pretty simple but the content was interesting. BASF has developed a plastic bag that is environmentally friendly. The bag is completely biodegradable and decomposes in compost after a few weeks. This product can help replace the millions of plastic grocery bags, trash bags, and shopping bags we use each day. I think plastic bags aren’t going away soon, but as consumers become more environmentally aware, they will demand more products like this. Till now many stores have introduced reusable grocery bags and in some cases plastic bag recycling. Even Ikea, one of the largest retailers in the world, has started charging customers for each plastic bag they use. But it has been difficult to change consumer behavior as these options have had minimal influence on the general population. This bag by BASF is a great innovation that does not affect the consumer but reduces our impact to the world. Great job BASF…
To read more about this: http://www.basf.com/stories/
