Chip Ransler and Manoj Sinha, founders of the Husk Power Systems (HPS) have found a way to give electricity to parts of India which still manage without one of the most essential energies today. This company focuses on providing power to the people in villages using rice husk (rice being abundantly grown here) through a small, off-grid system. The company already has five such projects operating in various parts and hopes to increase the number to a hundred.

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With the population on Earth increasing rapidly, there’s always a supply-demand mismatch with respect to all resources, especially food. Companies like Monsanto have made attempts to balance these deficiencies with herbicides and bovine growth hormones. Well versed with the damaging effects of these steroids and chemicals, people are now turning to organic foods which are grown without their use.

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This might be the largest biomass power plant in the world that runs only and only on chicken manure. Netherlands has come up with an innovative eco-friendly method which is expected to provide renewable electricity to somewhere around 90,000 households.

With a capacity of 36.5 megawatts, the biomass plant will generate more than 270 million kWh of electricity per year. Insiders reveal that the plant is a good way to get rid of the chicken manure, which if spread over the farm land would release a massive amount of CO2 as well as methane.
In other words, the plant is more than just ‘carbon neutral’. It will use up approximately 440,000 tons of chicken manure, which is one third of the total chicken manure produced in Netherlands every year. Indeed a good way to get rid of pollution by excess of different kinds of animal manure, a problem faced by many agrarian economies.
Via enn

Finally something to fight the food shortage problem!! Conceptualized by Dickson Despommier, a professor of public health at Columbia University, this is sure to be both environmentally friendly and economically profitable. Added to this the dream of preserving a little of the country in the city is a utopian one which now will help fight global warming too. The professor believes that only by allowing significant portions of the Earth’s farmland to return to forest do we have a real chance of stabilizing climate and weather patterns. Merely reducing energy consumption would not suffice.

Allowing forests to regrow where crops are now cultivated, he believes, would reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Besides, with the world’s population expected to increase to 3 billion by 2050 and almost 80 per cent of farming land in use, the idea has never been more relevant. The best way very rationally Despommier argues, is to change the way we farm.

Dr. Despommier estimates that it would cost $20 million to $30 million to make a prototype of a vertical farm, but hundreds of millions to build one of the 30-story towers that he suggests could feed 50,000 people. “I’m viewed as kind of an outlier because it’s kind of a crazy idea,” said he. The revolutionary scientist envisions blocks of vertical farms in the world’s biggest cities, each structure 30 stories high that could potentially be as productive as 588 acres of land and grow up to 12 million lettuces a year.

Currently he is in discussions with potential investors to build the first prototype. For Dr. Despommier, the high-rise version is on the horizon. “It’s very idealistic and ivory tower and all of that,” he said. “But there’s a real desire to make this happen.”

Via dailymail

The concept of ‘green buldings’ seems to be catching up in India. These structures are truly eco-friendly as they harvest their own water and not to forget the solar power systems. Not only this, they even have their own waste re-cycling system.

Plus the greenery in the otherwise concrete junglse that metros in India have become, is sure bliss. The construction has been done so that more than 50 per cent of the bulding is covered with glass like it is in Japan, which reflects the sun’s rays and keeps the indoor cool; thus, saving power.

When the fad was at a nascent stage, a 20,000 sqaure feet green building was consructed in Hyderbad in 2004. But now, the green attitude is catching up. You will be surprised to know that the green buldings (please read 315) in India today cover over 235 millin square feet.
Via zeenews

The pretty Daryl Hannah has never fails to surprise us with her eco-friendly ideas and innovations. And the best part is that she likes to share them with the world. In a recent interview, she came out and loud about her love for nature and frustrations with the word “green”. She even talked about her eco-make up and steps she would take to make her life more ‘natural’.

One of the steps included, cultivating sunflowers. Daryl looks at them as a fuel crop. She even expressed her desire to grow hemp because then she would be able to grow her fuel for one full year in just an acre. But she cannot do so as growing hemp is ridiculously illegal in the U.S.
Indeed a stupid law, because hemp is a useful crop that serves as food, fuel and even non-petroleum biodegradable plastics.
Via ecorazzi

Italy has been a busy bee trying to save the bees on their land. News is that the government has banned several pesticides that are believed to have caused the deaths of millions of honeybees. Neonicotinoid pesticides like clothianidin and imidacloprid are used in sunflowers and sweet corn but not anymore. These chemicals attack the nervous system of insects and can also get to the pollen and nectar, thereby damaging beneficial insects like bees.
Italy is not the only nation to be taking such stringent steps. Germany and Slovenia had introduced a similar ban early this year while France had done its bit way back in 1999. Clothianidin and imidacloprid are produced by the famous German company Bayer CropScience that has made profits to the range of 800 million in 2007. And now the German Coalition are after Bayer to stop marketing harmful pesticides after thousands of hives were lost due to poisoning.
Via enn