Map: NASA , public domain. Good Thing “Rare Earths” Aren’t That Rare… They say that in life, timing is everything. It’s now starting to look like the re-opening of the Mountain Pass rare earths mine in California has excellent timing. During the past decade, China has dominated the market as a supplier of rare earth elements, which are minerals necessary to make all kinds of high-tech things, … Read the full story on TreeHugger
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Bear meets camera. Screenshot from BBC.com Trying to get up close and personal with the world’s largest land carnivore can be a tricky, and dangerous, endeavor. Even some of the hardy high-tech cameras the BBC dispatched to the frigid reaches of Norway didn’t fare too well — but they captured some pretty cool images along the way…. Read the full story on TreeHugger
Continue reading …Is the Nissan LEAF a Good Car for Families With Young Children? (Video Review)
December 29, 2010 No Comment
Strollers, Car Seats, and All that Jazz So you’d like to go all-electric but you have young kids (and all the stuff that comes with them whenever you have to drive somewhere) and are wondering if the Nissan LEAF would … Read the full story on TreeHugger
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Photo: SMG A Way to Make Transit Even Greener Seoul’s residents now have access to high-tech full-sized electric buses on the Mt. Namsan circular routes. So far only 5 out of the 14 buses that serve this route have been swapped for EVs, but over time they will all be replaced. This is an initiative of the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) and part of a larger goal: By 2020, the SMG would like to see 120,000 electric vehicles on the city’s roads, “which will account for 50% of all public transport vehicles, 10% of sedans and 1% of trucks and vans.”… Read the full story on TreeHugger
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Image Credit: Green Roofs for Healthy Cities It’s ten years since the start of construction of the green roof on top of the big River Rouge plant. Kevin described it in TreeHugger in 2004: “The 10.4 acre sedum roof insulates the building, provides a habitat for birds and insects, produces oxygen to offset the factory’s carbon dioxide emissions, and purifies rainwater. “Instead of having a chemical-based storm water treatment plant,” Ford says, “this system mimics nature.” TreeHugger hero
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Old transformers could get new upgrades to smart solid-state transformers as the smart grid grows. Photo by doug_wertman via Flickr Creative Commons As the smart grid grows, smarter technologies are be needed to handle issues like incorporating renewable energy, fast charging times for electric vehicles, and energy flowing into the grid from homes and businesses with their own solar arrays or wind turbines. In response to this need, companies are coming up with ways to beef up the “muscle” of the smart grid — transformers. And that includes making them … Read the full story on TreeHugger
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Image credit Nina Schymczyk When writing LifeEdited: What We Can Learn From Camping Equipment , I asked “Why do camping equipment designers make pots and pans that all stack together and take up the space of only the largest pots, while a regular pot and pan set takes up an entire drawer?” Mocoloco shows the work of Hanover designer and photographer Nina Schymczyk , channels the thought with her … Read the full story on TreeHugger
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Photo credit: Keith Slausen/US Forest Service According to some estimates, a species is lost every 20 minutes . This shocking number considers factors like habitat loss but also includes approximations of the planet’s total number of species, known and unknown. Actually declaring a species extinct, however, is a long and laborious process that requires evidence beyond a reasonable doubt the plant or animal has disappeared from the face of the earth. The difficulty of this process is hig… Read the full story on TreeHugger
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Image: wwarby, Flickr Most everyone has heard the phrase “yule log,” and many have enjoyed the various versions of a log-shaped cake that grace the celebration of the winter holidays, whether Christmas or the solstice. But in the age of central heating, few people have carefully reserved the perfect log for a magnificent fire to mark these special days. This year, as we spend the first of what will hopefully be many winters in a stone house on an organic farm, the concept of a yule log has suddenly taken on a special meaning, reminding us of the importance of simplicity and nature, in … Read the full story on TreeHugger
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photos credit Ganny Gozaly and dpavilion architects I do often wonder about container architecture; whether it is done because it is cheap, or whether it is done as an attention grabber. One certainly knows where the Indonesian firm dpavilion architects stand; they call their building Contertainer, and tell the Contemporist it is “an amalgam of two words: container and entertainer. From… Read the full story on TreeHugger
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