In the glorious Past Before Television, adventurous men and women gained fame and fortune by testing their skills in competitions designed to expand the limits of human knowledge and innovation. Several organizations are bringing back this kind of “innovation prize” in a big way, with competitions designed to solve some of humanity’s greatest challenges, and expand its horizons beyond terrestrial limits.
One of the greatest scientific breakthroughs in history was the result of a prize offered by the British government in the 18th century. At that time, many ships were being lost due to the inaccuracies involved in calculating their longitude at sea. The previous method, dead reckoning, introduced greater errors the farther the ship got from a known point, usually ending in loss of life and heated discussions about the velocity of various types of swallows. The British Parliament offered the modern equivalent of $4.56 million for a solution to the Longitude Problem.
One of the potential solutions to the problem required invention of a marine chronometer of such high accuracy that even Sir Issac Newton doubted that it could be created. But, in 1730, clockmaker John Harrison set himself to the task, and effectively solved the multiple problems of corrosion, temperature, humidity and durability within 5 years, (although it took him another thirty to collect his prize) a task which has been compared to the landing of men on the moon in the 1960s.
Ever since I was a kid, when my father used give me Matchbox cars he bought on his way home from work, I’ve been crazy about cars. So I was extremely excited to have the opportunity to speak with Simon Saba of Saba Motors, whose EV vision is something any gearhead can get jazzed about: to deliver an exotic electric sports car with a price tag of under $40,000, that will have the looks and performance of cars costing 10 times as much and is environmentally friendly to boot!
Above: U.S. Hikes, a live data table by Factual.com: Click & Scroll to view & edit data.
“Decisions. They are made every day. Some are made on the fly such as when a low fuel alert prompts me to stop at the nearest gas station. Some are more considered, involving detailed research and analysis, perhaps on the Internet or consulting with friends or experts. And others are made for us, by our friends and family, or our government. An important question is: are we all, given the data available to us today, making good, well-informed decisions? One thing is nearly certain, if your data isn’t accurate and accessible, a good decision isn’t likely to follow.” - Factual, Inc. CEO Gil Elbaz
Paper or plastic? Diesel or hybrid? Extrude or blow-mold? Some of the most difficult problems in designing sustainable products involve making the right choices in materials, processes and transportation methods. However, choosing the options that will actually have a lower environmental impact is much more complex that one would think.
Deciding what metrics to use, where to draw the boundaries and how to compare wildly different materials is a highly involved and technical art known as Life-Cycle Analysis, or LCA. Sustainable Minds, a Boston-based software company, is making LCA much more accessible to designers with its new web-based software service. I was recently able to see the software in action at a seminar entitled, “Mastering Environmental Impact Assessment in the Design Process”
As Pratt Institute professor and ecologist Christopher X J. Jensen, Ph.D., explains, while quantitative methods, such as LCA are the best ways to measure the environmental impact of a product, these methods need to be applied by scientists, and do not jibe well with the qualitative methods generally used by designers to evaluate the aesthetics of a product design.
Making your life more eco-efficient is kind of like losing weight: you have to stay motivated until you start to see results. If you are not seeing results, you are likely to get discouraged and eat the next doughnut that comes along. When that happens, you need someone to remind you to get back on track. When it comes to sustainability, Going Green Today wants to be your personal sustainability coach.
Today, TriplePundit is reporting a potential major breakthrough in Lithium-Ion battery technology, which was published by “Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Professor Gerbrand Ceder and graduate student Byoungwoo Kang”. The technology breakthrough, if true, would represent a huge benefit to electronics manufacturers, especially electronic vehicle producers.
According to the article:
“lithium ions can only pass through tunnels to the active electrode material when they’re perfectly positioned. In the absence of a few good traffic cops, it’s pandemonium. The solution, Ceder discovered, is to engineer the material with a so-called beltway system that guides the ions towards the tunnel entrances at an ideal angle.”
Computer simulations represent some of the most useful tools ever invented, allowing us to experience all manner of complex, dangerous, expensive or long-term situations in short time periods, and letting us try them out over and over and over again without experiencing the potential consequences. The applications range from nuclear weapons testing to pilot training to immersive gaming environments.
The potential market for energy technologies is huge.
New energy technology transitions will take decades to replace existing technologies, not the short adoption timeframes associated with typical Silicon Valley tech companies.
A new report by The Climate Group on behalf of the Global eSustainability Initiative (GeSI) suggests that global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be reduced up to 15% over “business-as-usual” by applying Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to the power generation and transportation sectors.
This research paper from the Institute for the Future discusses information overload and the future of various technologies to overcome it. It is a really interesting read.
My favorite part is where they discuss the social web, especially social bookmarking services like del.icio.us. I love del.icio.us, and I use it quite a bit. The problem, for me, is that I haven’t yet figured out a way to discover those perfect gems of the internet which are ripe for blogging. What I need to find are relevant stories, research, ideas, products which are just coming onto the scene, and before the mainstream blogs pick up on them.
Steve Puma is a sustainability and strategy consultant, technologist and writer. He lives with his wife Cori and pug dog Miles in Northern California. More...
Ever since I was a kid, when my father used give me Matchbox cars he bought on his way home from work, I’ve been crazy about cars. So I was extremely excited to have the opportunity to speak with Simon Saba of 
Some of the most difficult problems in designing sustainable products involve making the right choices in materials, processes and transportation methods. However, choosing the options that will actually have a lower environmental impact is much more complex that one would think.
Computer simulations represent some of the most useful tools ever invented, allowing us to experience all manner of complex, dangerous, expensive or long-term situations in short time periods, and letting us try them out over and over and over again without experiencing the potential consequences. The applications range from nuclear weapons testing to pilot training to immersive gaming environments.
