Energy & Green Tech Techonomy Events
Speakers on climate change at TE16 aimed to dispel the stigma associated with nuclear power and geo-engineering–controversial technologies that might help address the climate change caused by humankind’s use of fossil fuels. One said that radiation risks are actually a problem with coal-fueled power, too. More
Energy & Green Tech Internet of Things
The Internet of Things may shift how our energy system works as much as the steam engine reconfigured Western economies at the start of the industrial revolution. As the world focuses on its climate crisis, we must become more energy-efficient, produce less carbon dioxide, and power more things with electricity from wind and solar. IoT can make it possible. More
Energy & Green Tech Global Tech
For years, Germany has been on the fast track for adopting renewable energy technology. Today, Germany leads the world in solar energy and has massively reduced its cabrbon emissions. Now, it faces an unlikely problem: the country has too much energy on its hands. As regulators jump to fix the problem, the hidden challenges of expanding renewable energy technology are coming to light. More
Energy & Green Tech Internet of Things
In an interview with Techonomy’s Josh Kampel, NYU’s Arun Sundararajan, author of the newly-released The Sharing Economy, talks about how the Internet of Things intersects with the sharing economy, and how the energy industry is about to be disrupted. Sundararajan is speaking at Techonomy NYC on May 26 at NYU. To join us, email TENYC@Techonomy.com. More
SpaceX will today launch its Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and then attempt to land it upright on a droneship in the Atlantic. If the mission is successful, it will go down in history, making strides toward more sustainable space travel, revolutionized by reusable rockets. But Elon Musk isn't holding his breath. More
Bio & Life Sciences Energy & Green Tech Internet of Things
By 2025 food shortages and price fluctuations could be a thing of the past, everywhere. New technologies for cultivating plants indoors could feed eight billion people, save energy and dramatically reduce pollution. But beyond the growing enthusiasm for "vertical farms" or "plant factories" lies the potential to alter elements in the recipe for these environments to create plants and foods with no precedent–more nutritious, hardy, or tasty–or whatever other characteristics we decide to favor. More
Bio & Life Sciences Energy & Green Tech Internet of Things
The Open Agriculture Initiative at the MIT Media Lab aims to drive a paradigm shift from the industrial to the networked age of agricultural production—giving rise to a computationally-based food systems revolution that will account for the ecological, environmental, economic, and societal implications of producing food. Making agricultural practices radically transparent will improve access to fresh, nutritious foods, reduce spoilage and waste, and create communities built on a shared platform and shared data. More
Cities Energy & Green Tech Internet of Things
We are once again in the midst of buzz and hype with regard to an innovative mode of transportation–the self-driving car. To Tesla and Google, Mercedes-Benz and Apple, Nissan and Audi and the myriad other companies looking to get us to take our hands off the wheel, I offer up this yellow light of branding caution: Don’t let your own excitement short-change your assessment of how it will really play in the market. More
Energy & Green Tech Media & Marketing Society
The climate movement has gained what may be the ultimate celebrity spokesperson in Pope Francis. Marketers should take heed: the Pope has the ear of Millennials and other consumers who are willing to change their behavior and their purchasing to make a difference. More
Energy & Green Tech Global Tech
In a recent report, a committee appointed by the National Research Council issued a recommendation that the federal government fund research on geoengineering as a means to address global warming. Geongineering, sometimes known as “Plan B,” encompasses technologies that seek to counteract climate change. During a session at Techonomy in 2012, Harvard physicist David Keith said, “If you want to actually reduce the risks to many of the people who will suffer real climate impacts in the next decades, including some of the poorest people in the world, this is essentially the only thing you could do.” More
Energy & Green Tech Techonomy Events
At the Techonomy 2014 conference in Half Moon Bay, Calif., Drew Purves of Microsoft Research speaks about why we will need a second green revolution in order to keep the globe well fed. More
Alta Bicycle Share manages bike-sharing systems in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington, Boston, Toronto, Melbourne, and other cities. In five years our bikes have been ridden more than 35 million miles on more than 25 million rides. That’s more than a billion calories burned, and with zero fatalities. But what seems like a fast-rising trend is really the result of decades of work by many people, communities, and visionaries who believed that the simple bicycle could be an economic, environmental, and quality-of-life panacea for modern society. More
Energy & Green Tech Manufacturing
Tesla Motors and Panasonic confirmed this morning that they will cooperate on the construction of a large-scale lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant in the U.S. Five states in the running to host the $5 billion Gigafactory expect an announcement of its location after the market closes today. Arizona, California, New Mexico, Nevada, and Texas are the hopefuls to house the facility, which is expected to comprise up to 10 million square feet over 1,000 acres. More
The Obama administration is arming cities across the country with lasers to help combat the effects of climate change. The lasers won’t be used, however, to blast tornadoes to pieces or to zap flash floods before they devastate a town. Instead, they’ll help spot potential climate change hazards before they become a problem. Earlier this month, the U.S. Geological Survey announced that it would launch a $13 million 3-D elevation program using light from lasers to create an advanced mapping system that could make it easier to detect potential flooding issues or find ideal spots for wind turbines and solar panels. More
Americans today are paying closer attention to food waste, long a European concern. Helping them reduce that waste is an important new opportunity for food and restaurant brands. Like Ikea and EasyJet, who have made the spartan ethic trendy, food firms can make this an integral part of their brand story. It's a welcome development given that Americans throw away between 30-40 percent of our edible food every year. Mainstream food brands need to rethink policy and get creative to drive both internal and consumer food-saving behaviors. More
Google Maps Street View lets people discover any place in the world and explore it via the Web as if they were actually there. Now, the cars that take photos for Street View are using advanced sensor technology to search for gas leaks and faulty pipes in places like Staten Island, Boston, and Indianapolis. Google has partnered with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to pinpoint sources of pollution using methane sensors and data-crunching algorithms. More
The latest foray into air-purifying architecture is a 9,000-square meter "urban forest" in Milan, set to be unveiled at the city's Expo Milano 2015. The massive smog-eating building, called the Palazzo Italia, will mimic the function and appearance of trees while also supporting the expo's theme of "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life." The secret of Palazzo Italia is photocatalytic concrete, a special substance that, when in contact with ultraviolet light, captures nitrogen dioxide pollutants and converts them into harmless salts that can be washed away with the next rainfall. More
A California researcher is working to create a new type of battery, powered not by lithium, alkaline, or lead-acid, but by ... algae? Yes, reports TechCrunch, algae batteries, which charge faster and for longer than their traditional counterparts, have the capacity to power a smartphone, a tablet, and even a Tesla. Research has already shown the power of algae, but Adam Freeman, founder of alGAS, says he's about to create the first algae battery that could power a car--with a charge 200 times greater than current lithium-based batteries can provide, and for a fraction of the price. "Think of driving your car on a living battery that charges in seconds with a battery that costs almost nothing and is actually good for the environment," Freeman told TechCrunch. More
When you want to make a mushroom omelet, you usually cut off the stems and use the caps—the tastiest, most tender part of edible fungi. But when it comes to putting mushrooms to more utilitarian use, the web of roots called mycelium has been getting a lot more love. Paul Stemets, author of “Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World” has prototyped medicinal applications from fungi, including small pox, HIV, and malaria treatments, and used mushroom enzymes to clean up contaminated soil. Now he’s developed a building material that attracts and kills termites. Meanwhile, a company called Ecovative Design is using mycelium to make mushroom foam for packaging (Dell uses the stuff to ship its computer servers) and building insulation that’s grown between walls instead of injected or installed. More
Just how bad is China’s air pollution? A recent M.I.T. study concluded that a huge swath of the Chinese population is losing an average of five years in life expectancy due to pollution. The Chinese government is getting serious about the issue, and not just because the thick smog actually interferes with domestic surveillance efforts. China's pollution has become a source of national embarrassment and outrage, with Chinese scientists comparing it to a nuclear winter. The government is now escalating the use of drones to fight its recently declared “war on pollution.” In a plan reminiscent of the futuristic geo-engineering discussed at Techonomy 2012, aircraft disperse chemicals that freeze pollutants, making them fall to the ground. But what becomes of this solidified smog, not to mention the chemicals, once it's been scrubbed from the sky? More
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