Green Tomorrow

Alternet on the Hydrogen Economy

I like Alternet and read it daily; I share its left wing politics and my name is Alter. I didn’t like “Is the Hydrogen Age Just Around the Corner?” that suggested that we “examine the critics’ misconceptions about hydrogen.” They challenge five “myths” but only one really matters.

Few would disagree with 4/5 of the article, if there was lots of hydrogen around we could probably safely transport it and use it. The problem is the 1/5 that says that “The production of hydrogen is already a large, mature industry” – making it …

Yellowknife To Re-Purpose Gold Mine For Heat Extraction

The City of Yellowknife, Canada is considering using heat extracted from a recently-closed gold mine to warm its buildings. Early in 2008, Yellowknife will formally study what could eventually become Canada’s first large-scale geothermal heat plant.

The miners are already laid off; and the mine pumps are shut down, allowing the 2.5 Km deep shafts to fill with water that is consistently close to 50 degrees F. It’s estimated that by pumping the naturally warm water out of the mine for distribution through a district heating network, the former Con mine could provide up to 20 megawatts of heat – enough for half the City’s population…

Solar Powered Car to Hit Streets in Taiwan

It started out as a Taiwanese entry in the Australian World Solar Challenge and was scaled up. “As [our team] has done quite well in the past 10 years at international solar car races — this year ranking second out of more than 50 cars at the WSC — we decided two years ago to broaden our advanced solar technology applications and make a car for the consumer market,” says team leader Ay Herchang. “At a time when carbon emission reduction and fighting global warming are top priorities of governments and people, a wholly solar-powered car would offer a good alternative for the green-minded.”

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Two Years Ago In TreeHugger: Do it Yourself

Ruben noted “no one knows how to do anything anymore. We can

Three Years Ago in TreeHugger: Prefab and More Prefab

We looked at the NowHouse from Clever Homes (mixed reviews on their first model, they have done more since), The Wee House (Geoff Warner has gone on from success to success ever since) The Dwell House II (In January 2007 they wrote “As with all architectural undertakings, there have been many hurdles to clear, and a project we looked forward to celebrating in its completed form within two years has stretched longer than anticipated…

Microsoft Using YouTube To Promote Vista & Live, Leaves Comments Open

Microsoft has taken its marketing push for Windows Vista and Windows Live into enemy territory by offering demonstration videos on YouTube (example above). The new channel (link) was launched December 21.
The content itself isn’t all that exciting, but they do demonstrate various positive aspects of Vista and Live that viewers may not be aware [...]

Zivity Founder Bares All To Promote Her Startup

Zivity is definitely one of the most controversial startups of 2007. It’s the first (as far as we know) adult site to have received Silicon Valley backing, including an announced $1 million angel round. And they certainly livened things up at the TechCrunch40 conference a few months ago. They went last, and their demo contained [...]

Gmail To Offer Friend Updates?

Google Operating System has found code that would suggest that GTalk within Gmail may soon offer friend updates, similar to what is offered by services such as Plaxo.
Some more details pulled from the code:

…these updates will help you learn more about them. Gmail’s code suggests that you’ll be able to delete the updates you don’t [...]

Subvert And Profit Unapologetically Targets YouTube

Subvert And Profit is a service that lets users pay to get their sites on Digg (and more recently StumbleUpon).
Unlike Pay Per Post, the company doesn’t waste a lot of time trying to spin their business into something socially acceptable. People pay them to pollute big social sites and get traffic, and they’re ok [...]

Climate Change: An Inconvenient Electoral Issue

Despite a near constant barrage of presidential campaign news and appearances – a trend that, unfortunately, has only worsened as we rapidly approach the Iowa caucuses – we have still heard surprisingly little of substance regarding one of our time’s most pivotal issues, climate change. As Ellen Goodman, a syndicated columnist with The Boston Globe, noted this past we…