Innovation Keeps Coming
In which we highlight even more mind-blowing, impactful green technologies.
By Michael Pinchera and Alan Kleinfeld, CMP
Power Differently
The Indy Racing League instituted its new “push to pass” option last month at the Kentucky Speedway Meijer Indy 300. The ability can best be compared to a mushroom power boost in the Mario Kart video game series—drivers push a button and receive an immediate horsepower increase, lasting up to 20 seconds, depending on the race rules.
The concept behind “push to pass”—kinetic energy recovery—is the same that’s now being tested to produce green energy at the Four Seasons Hotel Washington, D.C. Mini speed bumps—like rumble strips—placed on the hotel’s driveway capture energy from vehicles that pass over them as they slow down.
According to New Energy Technologies, the company behind the revolutionary technology, the MotionPower prototype acts as an “external regenerative brake, by helping a vehicle slow down and thereby capturing and converting a portion of the vehicle’s wasted kinetic energy into useful electricity rather than wasted brake heat.”
As a comparison factoid, New Energy claims “if the kinetic energy generated by all vehicles in the U.S. was captured at any given moment, it could produce enough electricity to power over a quarter million homes each day.”
New Energy is also testing MotionPower at a New Jersey Burger King drive-through and will also be testing at the Holiday Inn Express Baltimore.
Next up for New Energy: SolarWindow—generating electricity by coating transparent windows with the world’s smallest solar cells. Stay tuned!
Reinventing the Food Creation Paradigm
Think differently about the journey food at your next event has taken to get to your plate. That thought is what the Plantagon company seeks to inspire.
The Plantagon greenhouse is designed to produce the maximum amount of healthy food with minimal environmental damage and at the cheapest costs possible. By focusing on installations in major cities and urban settings, the Plantagon nearly eliminates environmental damage associated with food transportation.
The cost benefit under the Plantagon plan also strikes the end user’s fancy considering that up to 70 percent of the food retail pricing goes toward transportation, storage and handling.
The structure is organized in such a way that no space is wasted and is a break-through in the field of vertical farming. A 100,000-square-foot Plantagon greenhouse is capable of creating as much produce as a standard 1-million-square-foot greenhouse.
Sadly, there will be no Plantagon foods at your next event—the company is aiming for a 2012 opening of its first greenhouse.
Learn more at Plantagon.com.