Here’s a man who is outrageously optimistic about solar power. You may think he’s being hopelessly positive, naive even, but read this. Most of futurist Ray Kurzweil’s apparently accurate predictions come from his law of accelerating returns. According to him there’s an exponential progress in information technology. Advances feed on themselves, to help create the… Continue reading
Browsing Category Green Technology
Have low-energy, eco-friendly homes finally become affordable?
(The author has written extensively for the Sunday Times Home section.) I blogged last month about the “tea cosy houses” that should cost hardly anything to heat. This is an estate of 14 housing association homes now being built at Wimbish in Essex. Click here to read more. It will be one of the first… Continue reading →
Big boost for radically new wind turbine
The more we accept the need for renewable energy, the more we seem to have it in for wind turbines. They creak and groan and, many say, blight fine landscape. They kill birds, it is alleged. They are just too big and intimidating for the virtuous life. Yet we know we would be mad not… Continue reading →
Capital plan to beat electric drivers' range anxiety
When the first mass-market electric cars glide onto our streets this year (2011), early adopters will need their mathematical wits about them. With a range of only 100 miles, or less, on a full battery, a day’s pootling about could put you close to empty well before you can reach home for an overnight charge. In London at… Continue reading →
Argosy from the Orient delivers a greener future
When did an argosy laden with rare goods from distant parts last make the news in this country? You’d have to go back a long way. The city of St Petersburg may not have been quite up to the pedigree of Masefield’s Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir, bearing ivory,peacocks, sandalwood and cedarwood. But it… Continue reading →
Swedish family start to live 85% CO2 reduction life
We are being urged to cut our carbon footprint by just a little (10% was the target of choice in 2010), and many have taken the challenge, concluding that such a teensy-weensy reduction can’t be so hard. But what if you’re asked to slash your carbon use by 85% — that’s the reduction in consumption… Continue reading →