December 9, 2011

Picture the Eiffel Tower full of green plants

Filed under: Design,Nature,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 5:54 pm

Dutch engineering consultancy Grontmij, the third largest in Europe, has come up with a plan to help Paris establish itself as one of the greenest cities in the world. It involves filling the Eiffel Tower with some 600,000 plants.

The Eiffel Tower would look like it had a green carpet, which would block the view of the tower being light up in the evening. The plants are able to absorb some 87 tonnes of CO2.

The entire plan is to cost a whopping 72 million euro, and some major companies have already agreed to contribute to the project. If they get the green light, the plants will be placed from summer 2012 until January 2013 and stay there until 2016. A system of hoses will water the plants, which will weigh about 375,000 kilos.

(Link: www.depers.nl)

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October 17, 2011

Occupy Amsterdam: some impressions

Filed under: General,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 7:00 am

“Give us our money back, dude!”

Following in the footsteps of Occupy Wall Street and other recent big city protests in London, Rome and Brussels, Amsterdam started its ‘occupation’ on Saturday, 15 October with some 1500 people. On Sunday, 16 October, only some die hards in tents were left, with many people visiting and listening to speakers in circles sitting on the ground telling stories about capitalism. There was also food and people singing Bob Dylan songs.

Some Dutch tweeps (Twitter users) were wondering how long the people on the Beursplein (our Wall Street, if you will) would 1) stay camping 2) be allowed by the police to keep camping. By Dutch standards, it’s getting cold outside and today some people will have to go to work at some point.

And yes, it looks more like a student protest, but in all fairness, the slogans were good and very much to the point: banks are totally screwing us. The Dutch have had bank troubles with DSB (bankrupt in 2009), ABN Amro (acquired and broken up by the government in 2009) and ING, although the latter paid its debt back in full, if I am not mistaken. The Belgians had a nasty fight with Fortis (partially Dutch owned at the time) and are now in a crisis with Dexia, partially owned by the French.

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July 12, 2011

World’s first hydrogen-based formula race car

Filed under: Automobiles,Dutch first,Science,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 3:34 pm

The Forze IV, the first formula race car in the world that runs on hydrogen fuel cells was unveiled on 9 July by Delft University of Technology in The Hague for everyone to see.

The Forze IV is lightweight with two electric motors powered by hydrogen fuel cells and can do 0 to 100 km in 5 seconds. The one downside for the people who watched the unveiling is that the motor doesn’t go vroooooom.

Today the Forze team will be at the UK’s Silverstone race track for the Formula Student Championship where young engineers from around the world compete with their sustainable and innovative creations. On 16 August the Forze IV will attempt to break the world’s speed record for hydrogen fuel cell powered car on the Prinses Beatrixlaan in Delft.

(Link: formulazero.tudelft.nl, Photo of the roll-out of the Forze IV at the Spuiplein in The Hague by Richard van het Hof)

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June 28, 2011

Data centres in churches kept cool, churchgoers kept warm

Filed under: Design,Religion,Sustainability,Technology by Orangemaster @ 3:37 pm

Warming big old churches and cathedrals are a costly affair in the Netherlands. And when it’s too cold, sometimes they even cancel services. Sustainable consumer platform Nudge in Haarlem held a contest called ‘Holy Warming’ to collect ideas about how to warm up Sint Bavo Cathedral in a sustainable way . The winner was ‘Church on a cloud’: heat the Cathedral by putting a data centre in the cellar. The Cathedral keeps the racks cool and the computers keeps the flock warm. Amen!

(Link: bright.nl, Photo of the Saint Gertrude cathedral in Utrecht by Wikimedia user pepijntje, some rights reserved)

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May 11, 2011

Buy an electric car, get a free parking spot in Amsterdam

Filed under: Automobiles,Bicycles,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 4:34 pm

The goal of this ploy is to get residents of Amsterdam to buy an electric car so they can get a free parking spot with a free electricity charger near their house until 2012, which could be extended. Getting an actual designated parking spot in Amsterdam can easily be a 5-year to 10-year affair.

Amsterdam wants 5% of cars to be electric by 2015, which would be about 10,000 cars. The city’s freebies cover electric cars but won’t cover hybrids until the electric–only range of hybrids rises above 60 kilometres.

I wouldn’t get an electric car just yet, I’d keep biking, roller skating, taking public transport and walking like I already do.

Amsterdam’s green ethos seems very much intact. But one unintended consequence: in it’s enthusiasm for electric vehicles, the popularity of electric bikes is undermining pollution goals, as owners of foot-powered bikes upgrade to electric models.

The same way this implies that electric bikes are trumping electric cars, the fact that I work at home and don’t travel for work makes me less green than owning a car and not using it, which is plain stupid defeats the purpose.

(Link: smartplanet via presurfer)

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April 22, 2011

Elephant parade in Heerlen for a good cause

Filed under: Animals,Art,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 12:25 pm

Until 25 May these elephants will be adorning the city of Heerlen, Limburg, which can proudly be listed as a host of these works of art alongside big cities such as Rotterdam, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and London. The Elephant Parade can be admired in and around the city centre — have fun finding all 30 elephants, I found about 10. The elephants were designed by local, regional and Thai artists, as the goal is to eventually raise money with an auction for the Asian Elephant Foundation to help protect the Asian elephant. Convincing the foundation to set up the Elephant Parade in a small, lesser-known Dutch city was done by a group of local women who come up with ways to let their ‘problematic’ old mining city smile again. It worked for me.

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March 15, 2011

‘Organic farming can be deceiving’

Filed under: Animals,Food & Drink,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 4:11 pm

When it comes to environmentally friendly products, we tend to collectively think that they’re automatically better than conventional products without even checking. The media and marketing play on these warm and fuzzy feelings all the time, which tends to be echoed by people whose need to believe always seems to outweigh checking the facts. Yes, these are nasty generalizations and yes, I too want to believe, but I don’t — yet.

After an aquaintance had posted an ‘I’m better than you because I eat less meat’ blurb on a mailing list, I promptly responded with our posting on producing meat is actually less damaging to the environment than producing cotton T-shirts. I’ll bet you she still buys cotton T-shirts.

However, I do agree that the video linked below seems to gloss over the issue of pesticides and other interesting comments the farmers were trying to make, but the deception is real: organic products have their own issues and according to everything I have read from several countries as an ordinary consumer, they are very often the same or only slightly better than conventional products.

And yes, killing animals is still killing animals, I got that part.

Watch the short video report: ‘Organic meat not better for the environment’.

(Link: Radio Netherlands)

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February 4, 2011

A Dutch bike path with solar panels

Filed under: Bicycles,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 2:26 pm

In 2012, the town of Krommenie, North of Amsterdam, will have cool bike paths made up of solar panels. And there’ll be roads with solar panels as well.

Developed by the Province of North Holland, the Ooms Avenhorn Group and Imtech, the solar bike path will be constructed with a concrete base, topped with a 1 cm thick layer of crystalline silicon solar cells. The solar cells will then be protected by a thick, heavy-duty glass surface strong enough to drive a truck over it. The SolaRoad is estimated to generate 50 kw hours of electricity per square meter per year which will be used to power street lights, traffic systems, and perhaps even households along the SolaRoad system.

(Links and photo (thanks Jay!): metaefficient.com, tno)

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January 4, 2011

Charge your iPhone with wind power using the iFan

Filed under: Bicycles,Gadgets,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 12:18 pm

Dutch designer Tjeerd Veenhoven has come with an ‘iFan’, a way for him to charge his iPhone while cycling, I guess, to work and back, and around town.

Smartphone batteries don’t last long in a day, especially if you do more than just call and be called. A friend of mine usually asks his husband before they leave somewhere if he is ‘all charged up’, not if he is ready to go, just to give you an idea of the sign of the times.

The iFan, made with a modified computer fan, is a rubber skin that just slides onto the phone and charges when the wind blows, taking 6 hours to fully charge an iPhone. As Veenhoven writes, “rather long I think… but it works.”

He plans to see what he can do about making the fan blades smaller and have the thing charge from a car and the likes. I enjoy reading about his thought process as well, which keeps it real.

(Link: digitaljournal.com, Photo: Tjeerd Veenhoven)

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December 25, 2010

Winter hunting ban; porn and clown voices; secretary most wanted job; and more

Filed under: Animals,Automobiles,General,Sustainability,Technology by Branko Collin @ 3:20 pm

* Several provinces have instated hunting bans for a variety of animals because of the cold weather. Zeeland, Drenthe, Noord Holland and Limburg have ordered a general hunting ban, while others have limited their bans to a selection of animals. The Party for the Animals (PvdD) has called for a nationwide ban, Trouw reports.

* Car navigation software voiced by porn actress Kim Holland was the most popular of the Navigatiestemmen.nl stable in 2010, Blik op Persbericht reports. Her voice was also the most popular in 2009. The winner of 2008, Clown Bassie, came second this year. Unrelated: recently Holland’s demand that Internet provider Ziggo release the personal data of a customer suspected of infringing her copyrights was rejected on appeal.

* The most wanted job title on Monsterboard.nl in 2010 was secretary, just like last year. Visitors searched 500,000 times for the title. Manager and controller were other popular job titles, Blik op Nieuws writes.

* Almost 1 billion worth of guilder coins and bills are still hiding underneath mattresses and in other places, Z24 reports. Half of that money is in coins, and can no longer be exchanged for euro. Paper money can be exchanged at the central bank (DNB) until 2031. The amount of unclaimed banknotes seems to be the same as last year’s.

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