In this economic crisis, one always wonders if one is in the right job. Well, being eco-friendly can be very benefitting even monetarily do. Forbes recently came up with a list of environmental jobs with salaries easily over $100,000.

The top 10 job include:

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Looking for a green home that is both affordable and seems perfect for you? Blu Homes is planning such adobe at Colorado and Utah where the costs of other homes are nearly 50-70% higher. Ever since the company decided to build sustainable and comfortable homes, it has been working on the designs and the cost factor to make them reasonably priced. These homes look contemporary, provide enough space and are eco-friendly. The blue-prints of these homes have been released.

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The i green kitchen is all about green revolution. Green because it’s new, fresh, and totally environment conscious. Revolution because the principle behind it is total change. This designed equipment is on its way to becoming a life-altering element. It’s about a new way of living. The i green kitchen is solid proof that design can help reduce environmental impact, and can contribute to the imperative need to address sustainability.

Designed along with Veneta Cuncine, the i green kitchen aims to help in promoting a kitchen lifestyle based on eco-friendly materials as much as organic food. The effect is total health. The design is vital in this day and age when environmental health is as much an imperative as personal health. While the materials of the i green kitchen are all renewable and have less environmental impact, the kitchen lifestyle espoused is also geared towards the use of organic food that has eliminated the idea of using harsh chemicals for growth.� i green kitchen is, quite obviously, an idea whose time has come.
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If you were wondering how one could stay warm and cozy right on top of an ice-capped mountain, you must seek the advice of the Department of Architecture at the Swiss Federal Technical University. They have constructed the autonomous alpine shelter at a height of 2,810 meters above sea level. Many students and researchers have already started to use the facility and have spoken of its convenience and safety. They surely were awed, too, by its majestic perch on a snowy peak.

Situated right at the tip of a glacier, it is as remote and far away from any energy source as it could get. However, an innovative mind can take one a long way on the journey towards energy self-sufficiency. The building could be used by mountaineers as a base camp before making an ascent on the Alps.

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The kind of megapolises we live in makes us wonder what is going to be like after a few decades. We may imagine crowded streets without enough space to move our toes. However, Nobel-Prize winner Dr. Daniel Kammen believes the cities can in fact be self-sustaining eco hotspots and can allow people to lead a healthier lifestyle than we do today.

Any of the polluting and energy consuming devices and technologies may be phased out and the cities would be blessed with cleaner air and water. Urban gardens could provide as an alternative to farm products, which strip the soil of its nutrients. Alternative fuels, good waste disposal systems, and also mass housing may help our future cities sustain themselves and not leave ugly carbon footprints. In fact, carbon footprints are left by each individual, even when one drives to the supermarket.

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Geothermal Energy is almost like the step-child of renewable resources and the Solar and Wind Energy departments get the treatment of being the perfect brand ambassadors for green energy. This is due to a couple of factors. One is that people do not quite comprehend how valuable and immense the potential of geothermal energy is and secondly those who know about its worth are still unable to find ways to properly harness it. But that seems to be changing fast off late as people seem to have rediscovered its magic.

Google, which has an interest in affordable power to run its growing numbers of server farms, is heavily investing (through Google.org) in research into the development of geothermal power. In the US, Google is the largest funding source for geothermal research. While traditionally the US and North European nations have been considered Geothermal Energy hubs, there seems to be a new leader in the race as well.

The Australian government is investing nearly four times as much as Google to develop geothermal power for Australia. The Australian group estimates that just 1 percent of the country’s geothermal capacity could provide 26,000 years worth of clean electricity. With more countries like Australia and firms like Google investing both money and time in Geothermal Energy, the future indeed looks ‘steaming hot’ for the energy that lays hidden in the heart of the planet.

Via Ecogeek

As nowadays a grave alarm is buzzing against dousing energy resources, we are in a continuous course of carving novel green paths in order to preserve prevailing nonrenewable sources. It is worth here to mention that our human intellect is so spiky and witty that we curtly get a way out of every hitch. Corroborating this is the most recent transformation which we are commencing in our fitness centers on an outsized scale. This modernization is particularly brought in to offset the mounting energy crisis, as in these gyms the human calories scalded per hour by working out would actually engender equivalent watts of electrical energy for powering up the rooms.

Accordingly “The Green Micro gym” in Portland has thought-out adopting this green concept in their gymnasium as well. Basically the mechanism generating energy via exercising is quoted as ‘Human Dynamo’ and it is clasping exactly four spine bikes enclosing weed whacker motors which in turn are coupled to a mini generator.

So to power up surroundings that generator would produce around 75 watts of energy on hourly basis which would unravel our gym’s electricity fix to a large extent. Undoubtedly, this project of conserving electricity by exploiting human power seems to be an inevitable accomplishment in futuristic world.

Via CleanTechnica

Poop power fuels the idli joint run by Sivagami at the Puducherry bus stand in India. And she is doing her bit for nature, though the gesture is propelled by the need to save money. Yes, apart from using the regular LPG cylinders, the woman also resorts to the gas supplied by a biogas plant outside her kiosk. This plant produces gas from human and food waste 24 hours a day, making her meet the rush of hungry workers every day. Around 8,000 people use the toilets at the bus stand every day and almost 30 toilets supply to the biogas plant.
Sivagami says that LPG cylinders are very costly and biogas helped her save three to four LP cylinders every month; which means a neat profit in her monthly earnings. Biogas is not anything new to the villages across India but now even in small towns people are trying to tap this organic renewable energy. But there is a glitch. There are many who are not comfortable eating food prepared on a biogas fuel. Keeping that in mind, biogas will perhaps never replace LPG in the Indian households but yes the hotels can learn something useful from Sivagami’s dhaba.
Via ibnlive

One actor we can safely call an eco-lover is Pierce Brosnan. In a recent interview with Reader’s Digest magazine, he shared how the absence of a father in his childhood made him a family man he is today. The former James Bond has 5 kids and wants his “boys to feel that they have a very loving family”. By the way, the doting dad realises the importance of time spent with his children and continues to do so despite busy schedules.
Coming to Brosnan’s environmental initiatives, we are aware of the monetary contributions he has been making to various eco-benefit organisations (buzz is that the figure is over 1 million dollars). But charity begins at home. No one understands it better than Brosnan who carries his passion for nature even to his home. In his words, “We have a compost bin and my boys know how to use it. And they do compost all the food regularly, from where it goes into the garden.”
Wow, isn’t that food for thought! I’m sure not many of us knew of this wonderful way to stay eco-friendly.
Via ecorazzi

Wind Energy is one alternative source of power that has been under-utilized and especially since Solar Power has really taken off in the last decade. But harnessing the power of the wind could be essential in our effort to cut down our dependence on conventional sources of energy. If we wish to go green with our energy production and consumption in a grand fashion then we need to try and cap every possible source of energy. California Edison seems to be doing exactly that with its new project that taps in to the energy of the wind.

Southern California Edison (SCE) signed a 20-year contract with DCE, an affiliate of Caithness Energy, which will provide up to 909 megawatts of wind power. The project, called Caithness Shepherd’s Flat, involves the installation of 303 wind turbines across 30 square miles in Gilliam and Morrow Counties in North-Central Oregon between 2011 and 2012. Shepherd’s Flat is expected to generate 2 billion kilowatt-hours per year of renewable energy, which is more than one-tenth of SCE’s overall renewable portfolio. Looking at the numbers though one wonders if SCE is a bit superstitious about figures- 909 megawatts of power from 303 windmills spread across 30 square miles!

The project though, will benefit SCE customers because it requires no additional or upgraded transmission lines, which significantly lessens the time it takes for a power plant of this magnitude to come on line. Developers say that once completed, the Caithness project will be one of the world’s largest fully permitted wind farms. It is indeed nice to see such new avenues being explored considering the increasing pressure on conventional resources and growing crude oil prices.

Via: Nextenergynews