Eco Green News, Technology, DIY Project and Hacks

New customers of the Tesla Model-S Sedan take a ride around a parking lot at the SpaceX rocket factory in LA, during the unveiling party for the new Tesla Sedan. Tesla Model-S is the latest offering from the Silicon Valley electric car maker.

Luxim Plasma technology has a bright future. Being 10x more efficient then the standard incandescent bulb, 2x as efficient as LED bulb technology and almost 2x as bright as a standard compact fluorescent bulb, these 140 lumens/watt bulbs could see their way in to our homes in the not to distant future.

The bulb works by using an amplified RF (radio-frequency) signal to ionize plasma gas, creating an superbright 30,000+ lumen glow.

[Luxim]

Tesla Motors today unveiled its latest addition, the Model S sedan, to its line of electric vehicles. The Model S is its first push to make electric vehicles more affordable. The sedan will ship for $50,000 in late 2011.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk explains the Model S’s three level of removable battery packs, which will propel the electric vehicles 300 mi, 150 mi …. depending on the pack installed. Musk also boasted about the battery packs impressive 45 minute charge time.

[Jason Calacanis]

Wired reviews some green gadgets in honor of St. Patrick’s day.

Chris Fenton is on the beading edge of Eco Tech, with his homebrew DIY laptop built in a wooden case. While his laptop can’t compete with the latest Dells laptops, it is on par with the with computing power of a late 1980’s.

SPECs: a whopping 256 kilobytes total memory, 16k of RAM, Picaxe 28X-1 Microcontroller, 24 x 8 serial character display, in a Beautiful, hand/laser crafted wooden case.

[ChrisFenton]

Chris over at [DIY is the way] built an Arduino powered thermostat they you can monitor your heating and cooling system via a web interface. The project allows him to monitor and control the thermostat remotely. The project uses an Arduino (Duemilanove), an Arduino Ethernet Shield and an LM35 temperature sensor.

The Arduino is a low cost open source microcontroller which has gained a huge following by DIYer and artists.

Its amazing how far logging has come since the days of the lumberjacks and chainsaws.

More great research coming out of MIT, scientists have found a way of improving the charging speed of Lithium Ion batteries.

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) report in Nature today that they devised a way for lithium ions in a battery to zip in and out about 100 times faster than previously demonstrated. “We took a basically great material called lithium iron phosphate [LiFePO4] and we tried to improve it further,”

“In an attempt to pick up the pace, the M.I.T. researchers coated the lithium iron phosphate material with an ion conductor, which in this case was a layer of glasslike lithium phosphate. Sure enough, the charge-carrying ions traveled much faster from their storage medium; a prototype battery the scientists built completely charged in about 10 to 20 seconds.” [Scientific American]

Think about it, being able to stop at a charging station with my electric car and have it topped off in under a minute.

With all the innovations in green building, not much compares aesthetically to a true living wall. Built with vegetation, the wall insulates the structure as well as provides an amazing display of greenery. In a wet humid climate a living wall can make sense economically.

Here is a list put together by the website Chemically Green. Given all the diverse textures and colors, my favorite has to be the CaixaForum Museum in Madrid.

1. Musee du Quai Branly [Paris]
2. SkyFarm [Toronto]
3. CaixaForum Museum [Madrid]
4. Vancouver Aquarium [Vancouver]
5. Marche des Halles [Avignon]
6. Qantas First Lounge [Sydney International Airport]
7. Parabienta [Japan]
8. Siam Paragon Shopping Centre [Bangkok]
9. Rica Talk Hotel [Stockholm]
10. Oulu Bar & Eco-Lounge [Williamsburg]

Tesla’s yet to be released Model S electric sports sedan will have the capability to charge via a 440 volt fast charger. The new chargers will greatly improve recharging time of the on board batteries.

The more important question is the market will see the proliferation of fast-charging stations. There are no public 440-volt fast charging stations. ECOtality, a clean-electric transportation and technology company, has implemented 5100 of these stations in 13 airports across the country, but none is public, said Colin Read, marketing directory for ECOtality.

While no specific charging time was mentioned, the Tesla roadster features a 220 volt charger which can fully charge the batteries in 3.5 hours.

[CarTech]