OK, you might have to be (like me) a gigantic dork to have hours of fun with this Google Maps powered Clean-Tech startup map. But even for people who are just slightly curious, it should be fun.

Earth2Tech created the map which contains all the major clean-tech startup sectors. Electric vehicles, solar, lighting, biofules, and even bioplastics are marked on the map. Obvious take-away...San Francisco and Los Angeles are the places to be for everything clean-tech.

But the detail is where the real meat lies. Click on any one of the icons and you can find out more about the company and see links to recent news on the companies. Welcome to the beginning of the clean-tech boom...Earth2Tech is going to have their work cut out for them just keeping this thing up-to-date. And that's good news for all of us.

Via Earth2Tech

From BBC Science and Nature news:

The UK's first Energy Saving Day has ended with no noticeable reduction in the country's electricity usage.

E-Day asked people to switch off electrical devices they did not need over a period of 24 hours, with the National Grid monitoring consumption.

It found that electricity usage was almost exactly what would have been expected without E-Day

More cute graphics about the E-day in UK here
news

From "Big Foot: In measuring carbon emissions, it’s easy to confuse morality and science."

OK, most New Yorkers probably know this:
"Paying attention to the emissions associated with what we eat makes obvious sense. It is certainly hard to justify importing bottled water from France, Finland, or Fiji to a place like New York, which has perhaps the cleanest tap water of any major American city. Yet, according to one recent study, factories throughout the world are burning eighteen million barrels of oil and consuming forty-one billion gallons of fresh water every day, solely to make bottled water that most people in the U.S. don’t need."

But, maybe not so obvious:
"Last year, a study of the carbon cost of the global wine trade found that it is actually more “green” for New Yorkers to drink wine from Bordeaux, which is shipped by sea, than wine from California, sent by truck. That is largely because shipping wine is mostly shipping glass. The study found that 'the efficiencies of shipping drive a ‘green line’ all the way to Columbus, Ohio, the point where a wine from Bordeaux and Napa has the same carbon intensity.'"

This article is full of many more nuances related to carbon footprint issues.

The lucky sunny state of Arizona is about to become home to the world’s largest Solar Plant! Thanks to a just-announced contract between Abengoa Solar and Arizona Public Service Company (APS), the enormous solar plant called Solana will power up to 70,000 homes, and will be the first example in the country of a major utility getting the majority of its energy from solar. The 1900 acre plant will be completed by 2011 – IF AND ONLY IF Congress renews the clean energy tax credit that’s set to expire at the end of 2008.

This could be a momentous environmental energy venture for the US, so now is the time to get political — we should not let this amazingly positive opportunity slip through the cracks!

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Most of us are worried about increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in the air - and if you aren’t yet concerned about this, you should be. However, now there is a reason for hope: researchers from the Los Alamos National Laboratory have just announced a groundbreaking new project called Green Freedom, which will extract CO2 from the air and convert it into fuel to power cars and airplanes. Talk about killing two birds with one stone! Not only will this remove some of the greenhouse gas currently in our atmosphere, but it will prevent future CO2 from being added to our air, by providing a new renewable form of fuel to power our lives.

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This January, on an exceptionally clear and cold day, scientists for the Sandia National Laboratory and Sterling Energy Systems recorded a 31.25% solar-to-grid efficiency, nearly 2% better than the 1989 record.

The efficiency record, according to the scientists working on the project, brings us another step closer to getting solar to compete with coal power prices.

Solar-to-grid efficiency is very different than solar panel efficiency, which already has exceeded 40%. Unfortunately, getting the power from a solar panel (which is direct current) onto the grid (which is alternating current) requires several steps, each of which eats away at efficiency.

These solar collectors, which use concentrators to heat a Sterling engine, produce alternating current, so less energy is lost getting the power onto the grid.

The scientists contribute their success to 1. The increased reflectivity of the mirrors, which now approaches 95%, and 2. A rather ironic "Perfect Storm." This perfect storm consisted of a perfectly clear day, with 0% moisture and no particulates, the day was 10% brighter than average.

Additionally, the cold weather helped as well. Sterling engines operate by exploiting the difference in temperature between a hot end and a cold end. Solar energy heats up the hot end, but the only thing to cool the cold end is the ambient temperature.

Now we just have to hope that these solar concentrators can be scaled up, or made cheap enough to start, at least on cold days in New Mexico, to compete with coal.

Read the full press release after the jump.

Via Metaefficient

Let’s face it- Valentine’s Day isn’t really about the romance anymore- it’s about the chocolate, the Hallmark cards, and of course, the sexy lingerie. But sexy and sustainable aren’t mutually exclusive- in fact the most sexy skivvies are the ones that are so organic and natural they feel like a second skin. Here are a few tips to green your boudoir attire…

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Every once in a while it's nice to pretend. Personally, I'm still a huge fan of building fake cities in Maxis games and making everything as beautiful and sustainable as possible. But Greenpeace has done me one better, in their marvelous Flash Application: The EfficienCity.

Take a tour of what a real sustainable city would look like, complete with wave power, combined heat and power plants, high speed rail, and (if you look really closely) Smart Cars.

The city gives you information on all of these beautiful sustainable aspects of itself. You can zoom into the city and learn about wind power, small-geothermal power, bio-gas, solar, wave, wind, and tidal power. The amount of informating hiding in this little city is staggering.

If you want to give yourself a little tour of what it is to be an EcoGeeky city, this is a great place to start. But don't dive in if you don't have a few minutes to spare. It'll suck you in.

Via Greenpeace

If you want to build a wind farm in Minnesota right now, you're in for a nasty surprise. A 612 year nasty surprise in fact.

The Midwest Independent Transmission System (MISO), the organization in charge of the power lines, has to approve every new project that will connect to existing power lines. And MISO is only used to dealing with coal-plant-sized projects. Thus, the current regulations say that they must dedicate 2 years of their time to every project that will connect to the grid.

Not only that, but they're only allowed to process one application at a time.

This worked fine back when they were approving coal plants. Two years was plenty of time, and there weren't enough giant fossil fuel plants to fill their docket.

But a system that worked fine for fossil fuel has completely broken down in the face of distributed wind energy. People filing an application with MISO to build a medium to large scale wind project (of which there are currently over three hundred) have a heck of a wait in front of them.

So...why hasn't the system been changed yet? Obviously, if people want to build wind turbines in America, especially in the Midwest where it's windy and the land is already roaded, we should let them! But so far, the only solution they've been able to come up with is to group proposals together, pretending that ten or twenty wind farms are all the same project. It's not technically legal, but apparently it's easier than changing the law.

The problem is, even if they manage to make that work, people applying today still have to wait at least FIFTY YEARS! I think we'll probably see MISO getting some serious pressure from the federal and state governments to change their ways, and fast.

Via SolveClimate and the Star Tribune

I don't know about you, but I've been feeling downright un-bionic lately. What I need is a good on-board power source that will whir and buzz and make me really feel like I'm worth at least $10 million.

Thankfully a group of US and Canadian scientists have, together, created a "knee dynamo" that taps the power of walking to create enough power to charge mobile phones or iPods or increasingly advanced electrical prosthetics for amputees (and RoboCops). The device, aside from being obnoxiously large and loud, is really quite cool. It actually uses the energy of the leg swinging forward at the beginning of the stride to generate the power.

This energy would otherwise need to be counteracted by the leg muscles to keep the leg from jarring the knee. This way, the dynamo can actually produce more power than the extra energy the wearer spends to use the device. Think of it like regenerative breaking in hybrid cars. Every time you take a step, your thigh has to both speed up and slow down your lower leg. This thing just helps your leg slow itself down, and captures some of that energy. There's an excellent video of the thing in action at BBC news, I suggest you check it out.

I'm saying this right now...if I can't power my own iPod 15 years from now, I give up on this planet...thanks to these guys for getting this technology another step (or half-stride) closer to reality.

Via BBC News

Our good green friends at Terry, a sustainability project in Vancouver have finally announced the winners of their Bake For A Change sustainable gingerbread house contest! The competition was meant to promote thinking on sustainability (rather than pit the best architects and designers in gingerbread land against each other), so the submissions were judged primarily on the clever incorporation of sustainable design elements with a sprinkling of visionary confection. It took over five weeks for Terry’s esteemed panel of judges to decide upon the winners of their inaugural Bake For A Change contest. Which leads us to ask, were they judging their gingerbread and eating it, too? See the winning entries >>>

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Tags: Bake, For, A, Change, Terry, University, of, British, Columbia, sustainable, gingerbread, house, design, competition, winners, flickr

The rise in temperature due to global warming will have a number of consequences that we have just barely started to comprehend. To make sense of it all, the National Geographic Channel is set to air “Six Degrees Could Change The World” tomorrow, February 10th, based on the book by Mark Lynas of the same name, that will clearly show how the future is set to change, unless we change the way we live.

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Last week EcoGeek stumbled across a little story about some little antennas that could, just maybe, revolutionize not just the solar industry, not just the energy industry, but the whole entire world.

Well, we thought there was a bigger story there than we could get from one press release, so we contacted the scientists behind the project and it turned out we were right. Dr. Steven Novack took some time to tell us about his nano-antenna (or has he calls them, nantenna) arrays, and some of their potential applications.

I was blown away.

The original article discussed how nantennas could be used as a solar panel that could beat all current efficiencies at a much lower cost. But it turns out that nanetennas have dozens of other uses, many fascinating for EcoGeeks. These include:

• Passive, energy-neutral cooling by converting infrared radiation into radiation that we don't feel as heat (like radio waves)
• Passive heating by turning radiation we don't feel as heat into infrared radiation
• Extremely efficient lighting by basically broadcasting photons from the nantennas. As it's basically the solar process in reverse (photons from electrons, instead of electrons from photons), this is just as feasible as the solar applications
• Passive heating or cooling within clothing
• Electricitiy production in clothing by harnessing our bodies' radiation.

Dr. Novack was kind enough to answer some of our questions. Keep on reading if you want to hear more about this fascinating technology, and where it's headed five, ten, and twenty years down the road.

Paris is well known for its rich traditions of arts and culture. Now the city is looking to continue this legacy in the coming century by supporting a new project that perfectly blends a refined sense of style with innovative environmentally conscious designs.

The project is the brainchild of renowned architect Vincent Callebaut. It is located over an abandoned historic canal in the 19th Parisian district. Callebaut looks to freshen this elderly setting by building a curvaceous pair of buildings, one an egg like shape, the other a spiraling tower. The buildings will collectively provide truly unique public galleries, meeting rooms, and gathering spaces.

The somewhat egg-shaped ellipse is the first of the pair and is dubbed “Solar Drop." It rests serenely on abandoned railroad tracks. The exterior is a mixture of 250 square meters of solar panels and titanium dioxide. The photo-voltaic solar panels produce all of the building’s electricity, while the titanium dioxide reacts with organics and reduces airborne pollutants and contaminants when exposed to the UV radiation present in sunlight.

Callebaut says his objective with the structure is to “absorb and recycle by photo-catalytic effect the cloud of harmful gases (Smog) from the intense traffic near Paris." The building's spacious interior provides a public meeting space replete with a central courtyard and natural lagoon. The building also features strips of green plant cover on the rooftop. These strips collect rainwater for use in the lagoon and elsewhere in the building.

The companion of the “Solar Drop” is the elegant “Wind Tower." Rising up out of the water, the tower sport a helical façade, which alternates vegetation and Vertical Axis Wind Turbines. These turbines capture prevailing urban winds sweeping along the canal. The interior features a winding gallery. At the pinnacle visitors are treated to an attractive rooftop garden and views of the Paris city that is sure to take travelers’ breath away.

Via Inhabitat

Click here to read the article in yesterday's Washington Post. We are all in this together.

Imagine an urban future where no cars are ever parked blocking the curb, but instead are ‘parked’ by being perched atop large pole where they would act as streetlamps at night. Is this a brilliant idea, or what? We’re big fans of designer Ross Lovegrove, and were blown away when we discovered his new project, Car on a Stick. It isn’t just the solar power roof or the smart design that got our attention, but rather the sheer imagination of using parked vehicles to provide illumination to the city at night.

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Norman Foster’s Masdar City is poised to become world’s most sustainable, zero-waste, car-free, carbon neutral city. The model for the city was formally unveiled on 21st January at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi. We’ve talked about the grand scheme before, but the official debut deserves some new attention, given its viewing and support from everyone from General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi to the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company and even President George W. Bush. The construction would start the next month, and the city is likely to open in late 2009.

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Our friends at EnviroWonk have just put up their Super Tuesday 2008 Primary Poll. As over half of America has now had a chance to vote in the primaries, we should be able to get a pretty good feel for how Eco-Blog readers are voting, and how much of a factor the environment plays.

Polls