User:Peter Campbell/Greenlivingpedia links

From Greenlivingpedia, a wiki on green living, building and energy

These are recent links on green living, green building and green energy that I have bookmarked.

Mapping Hurricane Sandy’s Deadly Toll - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com

At last count, officials were attributing more than 100 deaths to Hurricane Sandy. Some patterns emerged in mapping the deaths in the region. Elderly residents were hit especially hard, with close to half of the people who died age 65 or older. In New York City, the majority of deaths occurred in Queens and on Staten Island, and most people perished at the height of the storm, drowned by the surge. [?]

Smart design a means to green esteem

OWNERS and tenants are moving into one of Melbourne's first apartment buildings to achieve a four-star Green Star rating. Lend Lease's newly completed Serrata building, a bold sculpted-concrete complex in Docklands, gained its green credentials from innovative design rather than expensive features, according to its architect, Robert Stent of Hayball. [?]

First drive review: Renault Twizy

Renault's Twizy is an enigma in the vehicle world. Its fluid, skull-shaped, monospace plastic body secured to a deformable tubular steel chassis is too narrow, according to Renault, to require a rear window. It operates with or without doors, and for another two months at least it won't have the option of zip-in windows. [?]

More eco-friendly housing incentives urged - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Despite millions of Australians embracing renewable energy, recycling and other ways of lessening their impact on the environment, sustainable living proponents say the uptake has been too slow. They say soaring electricity prices have failed to prove enough of a catalyst for change, with the capital costs of making houses more eco-friendly still a deterrent. Andrew Marsh is an Adelaide home owner whose home may look like many others, but energy-saving measures are proving highly effective. [?]

The house with no bills

The winner of an eco-friendly builders award is a house that generates zero emissions and has no effect on the environment. The HIA GreenSmart Home Awards were announced at Sergeants Mess overlooking Chowder Bay, Mosman, today. Taking out the top spot of GreenSmart Home of the Year was Clarendon Homes in conjunction with Landcom for their Net Zero Emission Display Home, which has an eight-star thermal performance rating. [?]

The Conversation

The recent take-up of domestic solar photo-voltaic (PV) panels in Australia has been quite phenomenal. Across 2010 and 2011, the installed capacity increased seven fold to about 1.4 gigawatts, doubling every 9 months. By the end of this year we will probably have in excess of 2 gigawatts of solar PV capacity installed. All fired up at the same time it is enough to produce about 8% of the average daytime electricity demand. [?]

Beyond 7 Billion - latimes.com

After remaining stable for most of human history, the world's population has exploded over the last two centuries. The boom is not over: The biggest generation in history is just entering its childbearing years. The coming wave will reshape the planet, and the impact will be greatest in the poorest, most unstable countries. [?]

Beyond the concrete jungle

One Hawthorn resident has rigged up a plastic greenhouse in his backyard to propagate manna gums that he surreptitiously plants in nearby open (read, too open) public land. Over in Brunswick, locals are digging up slabs of footpath and planting olives. In Caulfield, someone's cultivating the strip alongside the rail tracks, while another gardener in the city is making public planters out of discarded televisions and toasters. Just as English gardening writer Tim Richardson established this year's Chelsea Fringe as a way of highlighting that gardening in Britain is no longer a backyard pursuit alone, gardeners in Melbourne are increasingly turning the soil outside their fenceline [?]

Last Weekend, Half of Germany Was Running on Solar Power : TreeHugger

That's right—half of all of Germany was powered by electricity generated by solar plants. That's incredible. It was also world record-breaking. Germany is pretty much singlehandedly proving that solar can be a major, reliable source of power—even in countries that aren't all that sunny. [?]

Solar plane completes maiden intercontinental trip - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

A solar plane has landed in Morocco, completing the world's first intercontinental flight powered by the sun. The Solar Impulse took off from Madrid and landed at Rabat's International airport after a 19-hour flight. Shortly before Swiss pilot Bertrand Piccard landed in Rabat's airport, the project co-founder and pilot Andre Borschberg said the aircraft had proved its sustainability. [?]