Aeroturbine free energy or a cost disaster

Aeroturbine by Aerotecture are being called the future of urban wind energy. Despite of this positive reputation of Aeroturbine many are arguing that the asking price by Aerotecture is a too high. Assuming that one could get 5 KWH per day out of the 1KW 510V model of Aeroturbine and assuming that the value of the KWH is $0.12/KWH, yearly income equivalent would be;

365days/yr x 5KWH/day x $0.12/KWH = $219/year
Therefore payback time in years would be
$15,000/($219/yr) = 68.5 years

Even if you could get 10 kWH per day (which is doubtful because where are you going to have wind blowing at 30mph 10 hours/day), the payback for Aeroturbine would still be about 35 years. However, Bill Becker’s Aeroturbine its self would probably breakdown long before that.

Being a strong supporter of green energy, the cost of Aeroturbine does not disturb me, but Aerotecture should consider a more sensible pricing for Aeroturbine as green technology should be consumer friendly and so that its implementation can be wide spread. Aeroturbine its self is not an expansive set of equipment, in fact it’s simple and cheaper in terms of manicuring compared to the regular wind turbines. Aeroturbine is a light weight easy to install low thought regular yield equipment that should be sold in bulks on more retail grounds.

Sustainable living tip of the day

Sustainable living tip of the day of the day is to print on both sides of the paper as much as possible.

Sustainable living tip of the day

Sustainable living tip of the day is to check your taps for leaks. its sustainable to add a new washer to stop that drip. One drip per second wastes around 1200 litres of water in a year, that’s around 4 litres a day.

Mysterious Maglev wind turbine

Maglev wind turbine has been a big splash on Worldwatch's blog, Treehugger and inhabitat. The original article about Maglev wind turbine
was in Chinese Xinhua News paper, and as per this article about Maglev wind turbine some of the claims from the English and web media are misleading.

First of all Maglev wind turbine won't be levitating off the ground, and won't be frictionless as well, but these may be significantly more efficient than existing windmills. The magnetic levitation that Maglev wind turbine would use is between the rotating shaft and the fixed base of the machine, basically taking the place of ball bearings. Such magnetic bearings have been used for decades in smaller turbines and pumps by Ebara, Leybold, Seiko-Seiki, and others. However, they generally can't handle being bumped around much because the magnetic force isn't that strong enough. Making magnetic bearings strong enough to handle the loads put on them by Maglev wind turbine would be hard, and would use prohibitive amounts of power just keeping the electromagnets running strongly enough. However, the Worldwatch article says the new Chinese device uses "full-permanent" magnets, meaning there are no electromagnets, only cleverly placed permanent ones, so it should use no power. It sounds like they will be used on small turbines (perfect for home use), which would be similar in scale to the pumps and industrial turbines currently using magnetic bearings. But who knows, in a few years it might be possible to scale them up for Maglev wind turbine.
Unfortunately there's not a shred of additional technical information in the article about Maglev wind turbine’s structure. so we can only speculate what their solution was for the mysterious Maglev wind turbine. Some are speculating that they're probably using Halbach arrays in a system like the Inductrack invented at Lawrence Livermore Labs several years ago. Any permanent magnet system would doubtless need lots of Neodymium ("rare earth") magnets, which may have questionable sustainability when mined in large amounts, but as it happens China is rich in that element--in fact, energy.buzz points out that China owns 90% of the world's market of rare earth magnets. Since July 2006 Maglev wind turbine remains a mystery with very little details and even lesser news.

CONTAINER HOMES

Container homes are becoming the most popular type of urban Eco friendly housing. Container homes are also becoming the symbol of mega & greener recycling, as the amount of energy and resources utilized to convert old shipping containers into comfortable container homes is far lesser then melting and welding those rusty old containers. Container homes is not a new concept during the mid of the last century caravans and trailer were introduced as the new age alternate housing. Container homes today are no dough a viable green solution for cleaning up the shorelines all around the globe. Container homes are also developing an impression of sudden yet reliable housing that not only looks nice but is also energy efficient. Green homes made out of straw bales, sand bags and bamboos are great but just not the answer of our ever growing urbanization. Container homes are the preeminent green solution when it comes to tiny spaces of the synthetic urban environment.

Container homes are being fabricated from the inside with green insulation's to control temperatures and provide sound proofing, but that’s not some thing to get excited about what fascinates more about these container homes is the possibility of using reflective surface paints and solar ivy’s for preventing heat and generating electricity. Efficient and green passive solar lighting and heating is also possible in container homes with little alteration. Modern solutions such as led lighting and efficient ventilation systems make container home the next big thing in the housing industry. Solar water heaters, mini wind turbines and photo voltaic promise off the grid cheep and green living when installed on the solid surfaces and perfect angles provided by these container homes. Landscaping and rainwater harvesting are some of the passive and interlinked features that are being used to soften the industrial look that is associated with container homes.

Container homes are now available in container home kits designed to do it your self DIY intelligent designs for developing urban minimalist and contemporary homes out of rusty old shipping containers. LOT-EK is one such company that provides container homes kit with some very nice and efficient designs.

With China’s voracious appetite for steel and other construction materials, and trade deficits that nations face with China piles and piles of rusty old shipping containers are stacking, at some places these piles of shipping containers actually mean sun set an hour earlier. Container homes are not only helping reduce such shocking sight pollution but also providing cheep green housing at $150 per sq ft in areas where a regular construction would easily cost $250 per sq ft.

Container homes are also a step towards grand civil mobility as mobile container hospitals and emergency centers would be a sudden relief when ever where ever help is required.

Container homes are such a spark that they are bringing monkey thought in my brain like putting the container homes on platforms with sliders to minimize the damage during earth quakes and winds, some external ideas include putting them on shocks …..

High Power LED Light Bulbs

High power LED light bulbs are better! & provide long life. High Power LED Light Bulbs are made with LED offer clean pure white light and great colors! High power LED light bulbs are shock and vibration resistant and are direct screw-in replacements. High powered LED light bulbs use the new super flux smd or surface mount LED that generate from a single high power LED, about the same volume of light as 10-15 of the 5mm round type LED. ALL high powered LED light bulbs have a 1 year warranty against defect. Dual voltage means the High Power LED Light bulbs will switch internally from 110/120vac to 220/240vac as is appropriate for the country it is used in.High Power LED Light Bulbs Radiates eco-friendly & energy saving light.If a High Power LED Light Bulbs used for one hour a day, the LED has a service life of 300 years.

Ride a bicycle for producing electricity.

Motivation for fitness and environment friendliness with a different approach, now ride a bicycle and charge your cell phone, or a battery that can power your laptop. Motorola and another group of individuals developed the technology, and made it public during the Coachella Music & arts Festival energy factory, a three-day event visited by almost 60000 people every day. Some 24 bikes were setup at the festival and visitors were provoked to paddle the bicycles for generating electricity directly using human power input.
The design at the Festival included a bike, trainer stand, an alternator and a 12V battery.Human energy is directly being harnessed on bicycles, from the early age of cycling, inform of the mini dynamo motor attached to the rare wheel of the cycles, that powered the torch placed on the handle of the bicycle. Who knows some day we might as well start using the good old flour and water mills.

Read more: http://www.scienceshareware.com/articles/diy-byo-bike-generator-coachella/human-powered-bike-generator-cell-phone-charger-alternator.htm#News_Links

Electric ivy.

Every day literally every day some thing new and ground breaking is happening in the world of renewable sources of energy. If we look 5 to 10 years back alternate sources of energy were big PV panels, good old 3 propeller wind mills and bio gas plants, but its different today not that the sources of eco friendly energies changed, it’s the shapes , sizes and efficiency, that don’t fail to amaze us with the sustainability and compatibility along with there pleasing shapes that attract our aesthetics.
Here is some thing that should be able to amaze most of us who like to peep into the world of alternate energy Teresita Cochraine’s sustainable design group, SMIT (Sustainability Minded Interactive Technology) has a gripping new project called GROW that’s an innovative and aesthetically arresting solar and wind power solution. GROW draws inspiration from ivy growing on the side of a building - resulting in a hybrid energy delivery device of leafy, fluttering solar shingles that provide power via both sun and wind. Teresa began working on GROW after cutting leaf-shaped solar panels for her brother’s project. What followed was GROW as SMIT’s first product offering, which now exists in 2 versions, GROW.1 (currently at the Museum of Modern Art), and GROW.2, a residential application built on top of a stainless steel mesh system, allowing ivy and other crawlers to grow with it.
Using a series of flexible solar cells as leaves, GROW takes the shape of ivy growing on a building- the leaves are solar cells while the wind that causes them to flutter is harvested as viable energy. Teresita hopes that the modular system would be readily available via the Moma store or Design Within Reach, rather than a commercially out-of-reach system like many traditional solar components. GROW also integrates an energy monitoring system for users to visualize their consumption. The leaves are made of 100% recyclable polyethylene, and are available in a variety of colors and opacities.
To learn more about Teresita Cochraine’s GROW & (Sustainability Minded Interactive Technology) visit http://www.ecolect.net/limelight