Category Archives: Other Stuff
Perhaps Japan has learned its lessons from relying too much on nuclear energy after all the dark hours the nation has spent since the Fukushima plant disaster and is now turning to solar energy instead to power up the lives of the people there. Together with nine private sector firms, the Fujisawa city authorities are busy working on a smart-town design planned to be located on the outskirts of Tokyo. This will be the first town in the world to be completely powered by solar energy, with each home and facility using solar systems and battery storage. Called the Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town, this solar powered town will have a thousand homes, playing residence to a population of about 3,000 people.
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Need to trim your lawn? Well, we just stumbled across a green lawn-keeping firm that’ll cut those blades of grass nice and clean, without emitting a spick of pollution in the air! A zero-emission lawn-care company, Clean Air Landscaping uses solar energy and electricity-powered equipment including mowers, trimmers and blowers. To power up the electric equipment, the firm hooks them on to a trailer loaded with solar panels that trickles in clean energy. Landscaper Barry McLean, the brain behind Clean Air Landscaping has put in every effort in order to keep his landscaping act clean.
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The following policy outlines the types of information that we gather about you and the way that way we use and don’t use this information.
The information that we collect about our visitors falls into three general categories:
1. Information You Provide to Us. We may collect and store information, personal or otherwise, that you voluntarily supply to us either on the Greenlaunches site, via e-mail, or in any other way. Some examples of this type of information include the information you submit (such as your name or e-mail address) when you register for Greenlaunches membership, information that you post on blog entry comment, and information contained in search requests or questions you submit to the site. If you decline to supply or provide us with certain information, we may not be able to provide you with some services that are dependent on the collection of this information.
2. Information that is Automatically Collected. We also collect and store information that is generated automatically as you navigate through the Greenlaunches site. For example, to enhance your experience at Greenlaunches, we use a standard feature found in browser software called a “cookie.” Cookies are small files that your web browser places on your hard drive for record-keeping purposes. By showing how and when visitors use our site, cookies help us track user trends and patterns. They also prevent you from having to re-enter your preferences on certain areas of our site where you have entered preference information before. Another example of information that we automatically collect as you navigate our site is information about your computer’s connection to the Internet. This information allows us, among other things, to improve the delivery of our web pages to you and to measure traffic on our site.
3. Information from Other Sources. Greenlaunches may also obtain information about you from third parties or other sources and may combine the information that we receive from them with information we have already obtained about you.
Greenlaunches includes links to other websites, and provides access to products and services offered by third parties, whose privacy policies we do not control. When you access another website or purchase products or services or conduct other transactions through the Service, use of any information you provide is governed by the privacy policy of the operator of the site you are visiting or the provider of such products or services.
We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our Web site. These companies may use aggregated information (not including your name, address, email address or telephone number) about your visits to this and other Web sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.
Questions on Privacy
If you have questions or concerns about the children’s privacy statement, the privacy practices of the Greenlaunches site, or your dealings with Greenlaunches, please contact us.
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Why swim around in the dark when you can illuminate your swimming pool perfectly well using solar energy instead! If you’ve been frantically searching for swimming pool lights that are efficient, highly water resistant and good enough to keep your pool lit up without blowing out an extensive electricity bill, here’s your answer. These solar powered lights for swimming pools sport solar panels on the top that soak in the sun’s energy during the day time storing it all in internal rechargeable batteries. The lights then glow during the dark hours using the energy stored during the day, using LEDs with 140 lumens capable of illuminating a space extending out to 1,000′ sq.
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NASA is all set to send Juno hurtling into space to Jupiter. And no, we aren’t talking about the whining orange-juice-drinking pregnant teen. Juno’s a solar powered state-of-the-art spacecraft that NASA will soon send out to Jupiter in an attempt to know the planet a bit more and collect information regarding its origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere as it circles 30 times around the planet’s poles. NASA has just finished testing three giant solar panels that will be hooked up to the Juno and power it up once deployed. These 2.7 meters wide (9 feet) and 8.9 meters long (29 feet) will only generate about 450 watts of electricity.
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We’ve had the US defense forces thinking green and putting efforts into using alternative fuels in a bid to wipe out reliance of fossil fuels usually sourced from foreign countries. Now, U.S. Army’s Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) pulled the veil of a Clandestine Extended Range Vehicle (CERV), a hybrid stealth vehicle using Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide, Inc.’s Q-Force all-wheel drive diesel-electric hybrid technology. Producing 5,000 pounds and more of torque, this vehicle boasts an 80mph top speed and a fuel consumption reduction of up to 25% as opposed to vehicles of the same size.
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James Cameron’s masterpiece Avatar took the world by storm, and the next two sequels lined up with do the world a huge favor by going green and environment-friendly. To be filmed at the MBS Media Campus in Southern California, Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment Production Company has inked a deal to lease the 115,000-square-feet of soundstage and production office space on the 22-acre campus for five years. Cameron was attracted to this campus mainly due to its green features including a water conservation program, eco-friendly paints and cleaning products, sustainable café and craft services practices. To add to that, Cameron will also have installed a solar array out of his own pocket that will juice up all the shooting and production of his next to films!
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Solar panels aren’t necessarily an eyesore, interactive design firm Diffus just proved that. The firm’s latest project, a solar-powered handbag, proudly flaunts the solar panels attached to it, instead of shielding them inside given the fact that they can, at times, turn into a complete fashion-disaster. This cleverly pieced designer bag smartly uses the solar panels on the outside to its advantage, with an added touch of aesthetic beauty from the Swiss embroidery company Forster Rohner and the Alexandra Institute. The 100 solar panels on the bag’s exterior soak in enough solar energy to power up your mobile phone and just about any other portable device, including an mp3 player. And that’s not all.
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Which is a better source of generating energy: a Brushless DC (BLDC) motor or a hamster on an exercise wheel? A brief analysis follows.
Hamster Specifications
If a hamster with a mass of 100 grams were to run for two hours a day on a wheel with a radius of 10 centimeters, it would generate 0.1 Nm of torque. Considering the hamster to be in its prime and in robust condition, it may run the wheel at one revolution per second. This equates to 7,200 revolutions over the estimated two hours. (Some of these numbers are estimates for ease of calculation.) This equates to power production at 0.63 watts. Extensive trials with hamsters on wheels have not yet been done to accumulate sufficient results. However, preliminary investigations have yielded the following conclusions.
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With the recent natural disasters shaking up Japan to its teeth, the energy crisis has taken its toll, with people having to shift from their ordinary lives in order to save up energy. Wedding services company Pridal based in Tokyo has come up with an innovative way to keep your special day, the day of your holy matrimony, as green as ever and energy-efficient too. The company has on offer candle-lit weddings that work as energy-saving bridal packages, in a bid to save those precious drops of electricity.
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