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Cordless LED sconces from Exciting Lighting: a review
Do you want to add some beauty and atmosphere to your home lighting? Or perhaps do you need so shed some light in a dark corner of a room? But you don’t want the expense or mess of cutting into a wall...
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The World’s Largest Paper Wad, Belatedly Recycled
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency estimated how much paper Minnesotans throw away in 30 seconds and then combined that much into a giant ball to display at the Minnesota State Fair in August 2014....
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It looks like a revolution in rooftop solar systems
The cost of solar energy has dropped dramatically. You know that. But soft costs account for almost half the cost of rooftop solar systems. Soft costs include permitting, design, installation, and...
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Recycling methods: what happens behind the scenes?
You have put your recycling out at the curb, or perhaps taken it to a drop-off center. Does it actually get recycled? Probably. It depends. You may have read that a lot of what’s put out for recycling...
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Renewable energy certificates (RECs): hope or hoax?
Renewable energy certificates (RECs) are supposed to encourage development of green power. Do they? They lurk behind the controversy when a company like Apple or Amazon claims to operate facilities...
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Will velomobiles help commuters and shoppers save gas?
ELF solar tricycle. Some rights reserved by Michael Andersen Velomobiles have been around since before the First World War. A cross between a car and a recumbent tricycle, they provide an enclosure for...
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Recycling Styrofoam: solving an environmental headache
A mountain of Styrofoam Never, ever put Styrofoam in your recycling container. It will break into tiny little pieces in the sorting equipment at your local recycling facility. Then it will get all over...
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Recycling with robotic sorting and artificial intelligence
Robot recycling sorters We toss our recycling into a single container. Then a truck hauls it to a materials recovery facility (MRF). Sorting it is monotonous and potentially dangerous work for humans....
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Jazzing up white sauce: many meals from one basic technique
Sausage gravy Last week, I wrote that you can cook a variety of meals with just a few basic techniques. This week, I might as well let you in on one of my secrets. If you can make a white sauce, you...
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Recycling wastewater and its solids
Water draining If you live downstream of any town, some of the water you drink was once used to flush someone’s toilet. And so it’s past time to outgrow squeamishness about wastewater. It simply goes...
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3 ways to make liquid fuel from carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide. Black = carbon, red = oxygen I came across an article about making liquid fuel from carbon dioxide. A Google search quickly turned up three methods, two currently ready for commercial...
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Wastewater energy: clean and renewable
Sewage treatment plant. Wastewater treatment plants use a lot of energy. Recent research shows that wastewater sludge can produce enough energy to operate the plant. And sewage is an infinitely...
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Sustainable forestry practices that don’t kill trees
Forestry work in Austria Sustainable forestry seeks to use the resources of a forest in a way that maintains the health of the forest. For the most part, it means finding ways to cut down trees...
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Recycling clothing: promise and problems in textile recycling
Photo by Bicanski on Pixnio People are buying more clothes than ever before but not keeping them as long. Too much of it winds up in landfills. Thrift stores receive more donations than they can sell....
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Recycling rare earth metals: 4 new solutions for an old problem
Rare earth oxides. Clockwise from top center: praseodymium, cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, samarium, and gadolinium / US Agricultural Research service via Wikimedia Commons Inefficient, expensive, and...
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The Lorax: environmental warning still valuable after 50 years
B Rosen via Flickr On April 22, 1970, Earth Day kicked off the environmental movement. The following year, Dr. Seuss published The Lorax. It featured the familiar whimsical drawings and rhymes, but in...
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