> Tech companies going green: "In a growing trend, Facebook and Microsoft have announced new purchases of wind power for data centres. They join Google in choosing wind for the power-hungry facilities, which house IT equipment for computing, networking and data storage, as well as infrastructure for electricity and cooling."
Image: nyc.gov
> World’s Largest Landfill Will Soon Be NYC’s Biggest Solar Plant: "New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that Freshkills Park on Staten Island, once the world’s largest landfill, will soon be converted into the city’s largest solar energy facility. Once completed, the plant will produce up to 10 megawatts of power — five times more than any solar energy system in the city and enough to power approximately 2,000 homes."
> 10 landscape design projects that turn damaged and neglected spaces into healthy, beautiful environments.
Image: Ron Pollard
> Architectural Record on "Performance Anxiety": "Creating buildings that deliver on progressively more ambitious environmental goals will require energy simulations that reliably predict post-occupancy consumption."
> Rooftop Solar Can Meet 58% Of Peak Power Demand: "A new study by the Pecan Street Research Institute found that residential solar panel systems can cut electricity demand during peak summer hours by 58 percent.
By monitoring 50 single-family homes in Austin, Texas with west- and/or south-facing solar panels from June through August this year, the study found that west-facing solar panels produced 49 percent more electricity during summer peak demand hours than south-facing panels, a finding that should make utilities think twice about excluding west-facing solar panel systems from solar rebate programs. According to the study, west-facing rooftop systems cut peak demand 65 percent, while south-facing systems reduced peak demand 54 percent."
> Startup helps restaurants and groceries turn food waste into fertilizer: "Food waste is a huge issue these days, not just in the home, but also in the food service and grocery industries, with an estimated 40% or more of the food in the U.S. ending up as waste each year – totaling millions of tons of organic matter. And with food production consuming as much as 80% of our freshwater, 50% of our land, and 10% of our energy, that food waste ends up also being water and energy waste as well.
However, one startup, founded by two former Microsoft employees, has a solution to dealing with the vast amounts of unusable food generated in food prep and sales, not necessarily by reducing the amount of waste, but by turning those wasted food scraps into a valuable resource."
Image: Air Danshin, Translated by Spoon & Tamago
> Japanese levitating house system could protect homes from earthquakes: "As fantastical as a home levitation system may seem, Air Danshin claims that the technology is not only effective, but also 1/3 cheaper than many other earthquake-proofing systems out there – and it requires little maintenance. According to Spoon & Tamago, the technology calls for a fairly simple, if powerful, set of mechanisms to be installed around a property. When an earthquake hits, a sensor responds within one second by activating a compressor, which forces an incredible amount of air under the home, pushing the structure up and apart from its foundation. The air pressure can keep the home levitating up to 3cm from the shaking foundation below. An indoor valve controls the flow of air under the house, keeping the structure steady as it 'floats.'"
> A 140 acre forest is about to pop up in Detroit: "The lower east side of Detroit is about to get a make-over. Hantz Woodlands (formerly known as Hantz Farms), has reached a deal with the State of Michigan to purchase 1,500 parcels of non-continuous land for the price of half a million dollars and plant urban forestry in place of blighted and derelict properties that scatter the landscape."
Image: RAND
> What will our future be like if we don’t change how we get around?: "How will Americans get around in the year 2030? A recent report from the RAND Corporation lays out two 'plausible futures' developed though a 'scenario analysis' and vetted by outside experts. While RAND takes a decidedly agnostic stance toward the implications of each scenario, the choice that emerges is still pretty stark."