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Luxury cars are putting away their gasoline guzzling ways and are adapting to a much greener future. Take the 2011 version of the Bentley Continental GT for example. The car’s information for now has been pretty hushed up by the company, who expects it to be a huge change from the vehicles they’ve produced before, when it comes to fuel efficiency and emissions. Not that a person driving a Bentley would worry too much about the cost of gasoline or the car’s efficiency; the reduced emissions would make a difference too. The car will have 40% less emissions than that created by the 552 horsepower twin-turbocharged 6.0-liter W12 engine the earlier model used. The new car’s V8 engine is expected to deliver direct injection and turbo-charging with around 500hp.

The car might just drink up 18mpg as compared to the earlier 13mpg, a lot of fuel, though comparatively more efficient. An electric Bentley would sure make us smile!

[green]

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Planning to steal some sunlight to cook your food out in the open? Well, you could just use the Solar Ibex, an outdoor cooking system with a high performance and an auto tracking sun ray concentrator! Now cooking food has never been so high-tech before, especially in the open. Our forefathers used stoves and pieces of coal to cook their food away from their kitchens. We could use some renewable energy instead, now that the environment needs saving. The Solar Ibex is packed with features such as an adjustable cooking time, up to 300 degrees Celsius of heating and can cook, boil and bake too!

The Solar Ibex is lightweight and folds up easily, allowing you to carry it around with you anywhere. Also, taken that it uses renewable energy to cook food, this one has a zero carbon footprint. The clean and green Solar Ibex makes sure you don’t run out of cooked food in the outdoors.

[solaribex]

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You might have heard of or come across a Segway before, those two parallel wheeled vehicles meant for personal transport. Here’s an eco-conscious vehicle similar to a Segway that uses solar energy to power up. Designed by Siqi Liu, the vehicle called the Urban Wheels can do a lot more than transport one person around, soaking in the sun to charge up. It cuts your grass too, functioning as a lawn mover and makes sure your front yard remains trimmed. That’s not all. The Urban Wheels helps a bit while shopping too, carrying your groceries around for you.

Hopefully in the future, people switch to vehicles like these to cruise around their neighborhoods and while visiting the grocery store, instead of driving down in their gas drinking cars. Nothing gets better than renewable-energy-powered vehicles that double up as lawn movers and luggage carriers too!

[trendhunter]

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Mitsubishi’s lovable i-MiEV is all set to grow bigger when it hits the streets in the United States by next year. The current version of the car is a bit too slow and small to be an American car. And so, Mitsubishi have decided to give the little i-MiEV a makeover, bigger and more powerful than before. Firstly, the car will be wider in order to meet U.S. crash regulations. Also, besides the usual perks Japanese cars offer, like air conditioners, power windows and locks and a basic AM/FM/CD system, the American i-MiEV might just boast of a navigation system, Bluetooth, satellite radio and a lot more. The car will also have an upgraded drivetrain and a 6 kilowatt-hour lithium ion battery with a range of about 70 miles, taking seven hours to charge the 220 volt battery.

For a price tag of under $30,000 before the $7,500 federal EV tax credit, this car sure seems to be an American dream fulfilled by Mitsubishi.

[wired]

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The world has finally opened up its arms to welcome what will be the first ever bicycle made of biodegradable flax fibers. By Schwinn, the bike is as organic as can get, and uses some greener materials instead of the usual steel-aluminum bikes we have around today. Christened the Vestige, the bike performs pretty similar to a carbon fiber one. It works a lot better from an eco-conscious and environment-friendly way and absorbs vibrations off the road better too. To keep the lights of this bike powered on, a dynamo system has been set up that juices the lights instead of using batteries.

The bike also won the EuroBike Gold Award recently. So strap on that helmet and ride away on the green Vestige that does the environment a favor and your health too.

[inhabitat]

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Ever wondered where that poop in Sheffield goes? Well, we just came across an astonishing way to use some of it, powering vans! It really doesn’t stink and it seriously is an innovative and environment conscious thought that uses alternative fuels. The vans, six in all, run on biogas generated from a raw sewage treatment plant. Though powered by poop, these vans do not leave a cloud of smell gas behind. Kelda Water and Yorkshire Water will provide the biogas created at the respective plants. Now the Brits haven’t seen much of poop powered cars around, and might just crinkle their noses on reading this one.

We just love the alternate fuel being put to use so efficiently though. Well, poop does seem to be a better option than gasoline, when it comes to powering up cars.

[bbc]

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Energy is wasted everywhere today, most of all, at home. We tend to switch on lights and fans at home, in room s that we don’t really occupy. Not everyone’s eco-conscious enough to go around switching off unneeded lights and fans when at home. Well if you’re too lazy to flick a switch to save some power, here’s a counter sensor electricity-cutting system by Botem that showed up at the International Environment Energy Industry Exhibition at BEXCO. The firm specializes in devices and systems like these. The new system detects energy reduction and low carbon-green growth and automatically turns lights on and off on a person’s entrance and departure from a room.

With systems like these installed in urban homes today, imagine all the power we could save around the world, by simply having lights and fans switched off when unneeded!

[aving]

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German designer Marcus Classen came up with a car for Porsche which he hopes the automobile company stumbles across and probably develops. Choosing to call it the Porsche Sebring Spyder, the car is a roadster, meant to burn the asphalt with all that power it packs. With a tiny windshield and just two seats, the Spyder is powered by electricity and keeps the gasoline and carbon emissions at bay. Two motors power up the car’s rear wheels while the battery pack is mounted centrally to help balance the car.

The roll bar of the car is integrated in its one piece body. Also, the car’s chassis makes no effort to hide below any amount of skin and is clearly visible. If Porsche do develop a car like this, the electric Sebring Spyder is sure to grab hearts world over.

[diseno-art]

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A common fear a potential electric car buyer has leaves him wondering what happens if the car runs out of charge and he’s left stranded. With a new development by Zafer Sahinoglu, at the Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories in Cambridge, Massachusetts, this soon will be phenomena of the past. No longer will your electric car run out of juice and leave you stranded in the middle of a busy road or a deserted country lane. Thanks to mobile charging stations that can be moved just about anywhere demand for electricity for cars is more. A network consisting of portable chargers is currently being developed. The system is innovative and intelligent and with in-car sensors, keeps a tab on the battery charge and informs a central operations center about places where cars usually need refilling. Within a few minutes, the mobile charger reaches the spot, with just five needed to cover almost 100 electrics on a 100km highway.

(Image for representational purpose only)

With this, driving to far flung destinations in an electric car seems so much easier, provided mobile stations are at hand!

[NewScientist]

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VIPs and players at the 2010 US Open had a touch of Mercedes Benz’s green commitments, as they rode aboard some clean and green Mercedes-Benz S400 HYBRID sedans and Mercedes-Benz F-CELL (Hydrogen Electric Vehicle powered by a fuel cell) vehicles. 60% of the transportation fleet for the US Open was made up of these green cars. The company provided its F-CELL hydrogen fuel vehicles with zero emissions and 75 S400 HYBRID vehicles, hoping to reduce some of the carbon footprint stamped by the tournament. The US Open has made some pretty green changes over the last three years too, with recycling programs, energy management, composting, and a lot more.

Talking about Mercedes, the S400 HYBRID uses the world’s first lithium-ion battery designed for automobile use and works a 20-horsepower electric motor and a 275-hp V6 gasoline engine for a fuel economy of 30 miles per gallon. The F-Cell on the other hand goes a whole 240 miles before it requires refueling. Using compressed hydrogen, it just spouts out water from its tail pipe!

And with that, tennis gets a greener face, thanks to Mercedes Benz’s initiatives.

[eMercedesbenz]

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The White House has a new piece of art adorning its floors. This rug, made out of recycled materials, has found a home in President Barack Obama’s Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C. Made in Michigan in the United States itself, the rug was put into place when the Obama family went vacationing at Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts recently. Made from sustainable materials, including repurposed wool, this oval-shaped wheat, cream and blue carpet was sewn into piece by Scott Group Custom Carpets. Measuring 23-foot by 30-foot, the new rug at the white house looks strikingly beautiful. With 30 employees working on it, this detailed rug took around 570 hours to complete and includes quotations selected by President Obama from former presidents and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and 48 different colors. 100% natural wool was used for this one, brought all the way from New England and New Zealand.

Rest assured, the President is happily walking around on a rug that’s green and eco-friendly.

[HomeManagement]

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Pens are usually made of plastic, and plastic when disposed of lands up in the landfill. These plastic pens, if not recycled properly, stay put forever, causing harm to our environment. Which is why the, Envirostick Ballpen seems like the best writing tool around, green and recyclable. The pen is as green as a pen could get, and probably more eco-friendly than any other we’ve seen around. Besides just having a recyclable body, made from recycled drink containers, the Envirostick Ballpen also has a green refill in there, also made from recycled materials. The pen’s cap and refill are both made from Ecoallene, a plastic material derived from recycled Tetra Pak beverage cartons with 75% paper, 20% polyethylene and 5% aluminum. The pen’s barrel uses recycled polystyrene that comes from Italy, and not the Middle East, keeping away carbon footprints caused during transportation.

The Envirostick sure is one hell of a green pen our environment conscious folks would just love to write with!

[PR Fire And BusinessGiftPens]

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They come in all shapes and sizes, some huge, some tiny, and play home to just about everything. We’re talking about buildings. Not all of them stay green though, most turn to the bad ways of carbon emissions. From the ones that do stay clean, a few receive some pretty cool LEED certifications, like the Palace 66 building which expects a certification of the like. Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF, this retail project covers 1.2m sq ft and resides in Shenyang’s commercial center in the Shenhe District of Zhongjie Lu. So why would this modern and well designed building with all its glazed roofs and beautiful exterior deserve an LEED? Well, for one, its powered by the sun, using a photovoltaic system to soak in the energy and generate power. Also, the building’s hooked on to some pretty high-performance heat pumps with low emissions. The building also packs a grey water recycling system and will use 20% less electricity and 40% less water by the end of the year.

KPF Design Principal James von Klemperer stated, “The retail center is really an ‘anti-box’ – it features open corners, green terraces, and one of the world’s largest fields of operable solar louvers.” Any more reasons for it to well deserve LEED certifications? Hell no!

[WorldArchitectureNews]

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In China, most people barely spare a second glance to their refrigerators in the colder winter months, and chose to store food on their balconies, a space and energy saving technique. This inspired designer Nicholas Hubert to create the External Refrigerator for Electrolux. Now, unlike the boxy one you’ve got plugged into the grid in your kitchen, this refrigerator keeps its act clean, using solar energy to power up when the sun shines. The refrigerator is equipped with solar panels in its side that help absorb solar juice. The refrigerator mounts on an exterior wall of a home, and slides out towards the window every time you need something from it. In the months of cold, the refrigerator keeps up with the ambient temperature outside to cool food.

An amazing concept indeed, to save up on all that space in your kitchen, and cut you electricity bill, this refrigerator sure has a green heart.

Via - [Designlaunches]

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Efficiency issues are one of the reasons the world shies away from the use of solar energy today. With a solar concentrator like this though, efficiency is hardly a problem to worry about. The SkyTrough solar concentrator by SkyFuel, a U.S. based company, drinks up as much solar juice as possible, and is the most efficient solar concentrator around. The concentrator flaunts a thermal efficiency of 350˚C (662 ˚F), 73% more than the concentrators we have around today. The SkyTrough’s performance was closely monitored, just to make sure the claim was true, at the Optical Efficiency Test Loop in Golden, Colorado, and fulfilled all its efficiency expectations. The concentrator uses a patented reflector film jointly developed by SkyFuel and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). A parabolic trough solar concentrator, this one makes steam for electricity generation using solar energy with a thermal-to-electricity loss of only 27%

We just hope this breakthrough in technology pushes forward the use of renewable energy today.

[Inhabitat]

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Street lighting in the future will be a lot more advanced and a whole lot greener than the lamps we have today. And we’re certain of that, looking at what turned up at the ‘International Lighting & Display Exhibition (L&D Korea 2010) in EXCO, Daegu. Yuyang DNU pulled the veil of this system of hybrid LED streetlamps composed of an LED streetlamp (56W). The system can make use of solar energy as well as the wind to power up and lighten up your path. Also, it controls its lighting hours, meaning that no energy is wasted in the form of useless lighting. Depending on the weather, this one automatically selects its best power source and alternates accordingly.

Also, these hybrid street lamps are easier to install. They pack storage batteries that can keep them going for a good 3 days too. Street lamps connected to the grid will soon find its place in a museum, with developments like these.

[Aving]

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“The whole world’s on Facebook!” yeah you’ve probably heard of that one before. Well, Greenpeace get the jitters every time someone says that aloud. And no, it isn’t because they hate socializing. They just hate the use of coal that ends up in the form of pollution, effecting our environment to a significant amount, all thanks to Facebook’s data centers, coal guzzlers. The organization has been pressuring Facebook to reduce their dependence on coal, and the website sure has paid some heed to this, with its energy efficient new data center. Today, an increasing amount of new users are logging on to Facebook everyday, and its no wonder the need for larger data centers has increased too, which means more coal use. 500,000 people currently support the cause “Unfriend Coal” on Facebook itself, hoping the social networking giant will look to cleaner forms of energy to power up data centers.

Hopefully all the persuasion does have an impact on the social networking site we all love chatting, posting and updating our status messages on, and Facebook goes greener with some energy efficient data centers.

[Cnet]

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Now here’s a great way to listen to those favorite tracks of yours while on the go, using a bit of renewable energy. The Kinetic MP3 Player by British designer Matthew Smith makes sure you have your music playing, using kinetic energy! The energy generated to power this one up is created due to friction, so be it a jog or a brisk walk home from the supermarket, the Kinetic will just keep pumping those beats. The MP3 player uses a built in kinetic energy generator, that converts all that kinetic energy you create with motion, into power. The player boasts a joystick that you can use to browse through the menus and metal pads on its handle grip, that keep your heart rate in check. This comes handy while working out.

So why plug into a socket at all, if a bit of walking or exercising could charge up your MP3 player, when the Kinetic MP3 Player’s green and it keeps you entertained too.

[TheDesignblog]

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Remember the 32 foot robot that we came across all the way from China, made out of a recycled truck? Or may the 10-foot tall Gundam robot, again, made out of recycled stuff? Well, these robots made from scrap now have a few more jumping on their bandwagon. And that’s not all, you can, for once, own one of these too! Three robots, made from recycled materials, showed up on Robo Steel’s website for sale, two 60-cm Optimus Primes and 2.5-meter version. The statues are made from junkyard stuff like spark plugs, car brake pedals, etc. The bigger version costs €5,500 ($7,000) and weighs around 550 kg, made from cars, boats, motorbikes, and dishwasher parts. Also, a 400 kg, 2.2-meter tall version of Bumblebee costing €5,000 ($6,400) was put up for sale.

Now we’d all love a Transformer at home, probably not alive and turning into cars or anything like the ones in the movie, but these statues sure are a lot better than those, taken that they’re made out of recycled parts, and don’t go blowing away your neighborhood to fragments.

[Carscoop]

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The best place on earth to get something old that’s as good as new, for money’s worth. eBay. Now we’ve probably used the website before and brought home a load of stuff from there. Well, the whole world logs in there from time to time and makes purchases. And so, they need a hell lot of packaging to deliver their products, right? That’s exactly why they’ve decided to turn their packaging eco-friendly, in the form of a shipping container that can easily be recycled. Basically, the stuff you order arrives in a box, that’s made out of 100% FSC-certified material, features water-based inks and requires minimal tape to close, which is then sent back to the company for recycling. eBay believe that using a single box for up to five deliveries saves up to 4,000 trees, 2.4 million gallons of water and energy to power up around 49 homes for a year. Amazing isn’t it? We think so too. Good going eBay!

[FastCompany]

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