A recent study by researchers at the University of Tennessee has been making the rounds on the web lately. Its conclusions are interesting, but they must be kept in context to stay valid. So what’s the study about and what are its conclusions?
At the 2012 Chicago Auto Show, the Army’s Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) is displaying the CERV, which uses a diesel-hybrid “Q-Force” powertrain from Quantum that Quantum says, “saves taxpayer dollars and – most importantly – saves Soldiers’ lives.”
Someone’s trash is another person’s treasure. That’s the philosophy of Old School Industries, a new business that creates unique, one-of-a-kind homewares and furniture by up-cycling. Defined by the creators as “The future of retro”, old furniture is repurposed and transformed into a funky array of colors, patterns, designs and structures.
Well, for those of you who love modern, eco-friendly prefab homes, I have some good news; the company just released word of their new LivingHome C6, which is just as beautiful but priced at a very affordable $179,000.
They also help organizations become carbon neutral through offsets. SELF installs around 1,000 photovoltaic systems a year, thereby replacing the use of kerosene and diesel. This reduction itself prevents about 6 tons of CO2 entering the atmosphere. This is pretty remarkable because developing countries have the tremendous potential to power themselves using renewable energy and SELF is showing how to do this one village as a time.
Small-scale distributed renewable energy is also being developed in places such as Nepal, where 80 percent of the population has no access to the national electricity grid. Solar photovoltaic systems are beginning to be employed in clusters in outlying villages, providing power to between 6 and 12 houses each. Micro-hydropower programs have been implemented in Sri Lanka and the Philippines.