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What's popular - Technology
A Sexy Little Black Dress That Doubles Up as a Cellphone
Self-Cleaning Solar Panels Beam Down To Earth
How Cell Phones Can Unlock Ride Sharing
Rotating Solar Home Generates More Power Than It Uses
The Cost of Going Solar and How To Do the Math
NASA Searching For Solar Powered Rover That Runs At Night
A Bridge to Car 2.0: Kiwi WiFi Device & iPhone Apps
Augmented Reality iPhone App Points You to Every Nearby London Bike-Share Hub Nearby
World's Largest Tidal Turbine Unveiled in Scotland - Yes, It's Humongous
Global Warming Increases South Asian Monsoon Downpour Intensity = Increased Risk of Flooding
DIY Balloons Glow to Show Air Quality
High-Tech Indian Water Treatment Plant Uses High Pressure to Purify Water
Putting Chips to Work for Sharing Pedal Power
Solyndra Scores So Cal Rooftop Solar Deal
Cali Makes It Official: Electric Car Charging Won't Fall Under Utility Rules
Mississippi Lures Khosla's Stealthy Soladigm for $130M Plant
Green Tips: Eco-friendly Office Furniture
Scientists Report Success in Biodegrading Pretreated BPA Plastics With Fungus
Charge While You Walk with the Solar Backpack
Satellite-Based Tree Height Map to Help Account for Global CO2
Apple Releases AA Battery Charger With Energy Management
Evatran Previews Cordless Electric Vehicle Charging Station
Is It Possible To Really Go Off The Grid?
10 Stunning Photos of Far Away Galaxies (Slideshow)
A Decade of Prius: 1.8 Million Sold, Half in the U.S.
GM Wants to Convince You the Volt is Better Than Other Electric Cars (Video)
Algae Biofuel Grown in Bioreactors Has 3.7x the Carbon Footprint of Petro-Diesel: Study
'Conflict-Free' Electronics Bundled in Financial Reform Law
Will the Rise of IT Help or Hurt the Planet?
Lead-Free Component Advances Greener Electronics
Solar-Powered Data Center the Keystone to Canada's Green IT Ambitions
How to Green Your Home Entertainment With the Roku Box
Green Your Home Entertainment with the Roku Box
Old Cigarette Vending Machines Repurposed to Dispense Books
First Self-Sustaining Biomass Bot Eats, Excretes, Runs for a Week
NRDC, Oceana Launch Underwater Robot to Track Oil Plumes
Ecosphere
Green Moves Lie At Heart of Panasonic's Buy Out of Sanyo
NASA Satellite Monitors Watershed Pollution from Space
India Unveils Plans for $35 Solar-Powered Laptop
Plant Trees With Game Points From Mobile Deluxe's Sudoku "Green Edition"
Wild Tiger Population Dropped by 96.8% in 20 Years
New Electric Vehicle Charger: 0 to 50% in Three Minutes
Prehistoric Humans Caused Climate Changes, Too?
Keep Snapping Away With a Solar-Powered Camera Strap
Where Does Green IT Fit in Real-World IT Practice?
Put Your Sleeping PCs to Work While Saving Energy
Climate Change is Creating More Space Junk
Scientists Predict Continued Rapid Summer Arctic Sea Ice Decline - But No New Record
Sweden Becomes Home to Europe's Largest Wind Farm
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Seven ways to speed up your computer (Photo: Dougal Waters / Getty Images) As your cursor becomes a virtual hourglass, endlessly turning itself over and over, you know you're in for a long haul ... You have to wait for the computer to boot, for programs to open, and webpages to load. And at every step of the process, that hourglass is there, tempting you to put your fist through the screen. But wait! Don't do it! There are easy ways to speed up your computer and help it run..
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Dolphin gets an iPad (Photo: Speak Dolphin) The fact that there is a dolphin using an iPad is perhaps less amazing than the surprise that Apple's marketing department had nothing to do with it. Yes, Merlin the dolphin has an iPad, and he and his trainer are using it to better understand each other's communication patterns. If successful, the Apple gadget may help break the dolphin-human language barrier. Ever since the debut of the iPad, there have a pleth..
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Gravel batteries offer a solution for renewable energy storage One of the most frequent objections to renewable energy systems is that their production is too variable. But technologies continue to be developed that will allow storage of power generated from wind, solar, and other intermittent renewable sources. The latest development comes from researchers at Isentropic in Cambridge, England who propose giant batteries filled with gravel and argon gas. These batteries would provide a number advantages o..
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Sustainable brick made from sand, bacteria, and pee It seems like pee, or more specifically urea, is becoming quite the sustainable ingredient.  Beyond being tapped as a good source of hydrogen, it's powering batteries and is now being used to make sustainable bricks. Architect Ginger Krieg Dosier has designed a way of "growing" bricks by combining sand, bacteria, calcium chloride and urea, all easy-to-come-by materials.  Traditional brick-making is very energy-intensive, producing more pollution ..
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Super-insulator aerogel could also clean up oil spills Aerogel, the amazing material that is 37 times better than fiberglass as insulation, could also be the perfect tool for cleaning up oil spills.  The downside is that Aerogel isn't ready for the large-scale production necessary to help with the current oil disaster. The material is incredibly low density - it's mostly air - so it has the capacity to absorb a lot of oil.  The maker of Aerogel, AeroClay, is beginning testing on an Aerogel sponge tha..
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A Call for Serious Debate and Action on Our Energy Future Contemporary energy security demands a mixed basket of energy sources. A move from the current carbon energy usage, to a more balanced energy portfolio, delivers this as well as opening up almost unlimited business opportunities and a pathway to creating thousands of green jobs...
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Ford Opts for Liquid Cooling to Maximize Battery Life  Ford Motor Company's all-electric Focus will use liquid instead of air to cool and heat the car battery in order to maximize the battery's life and driving range...
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Banks Back Away from Financing Mountain Top Removal The environmentally destructive coal mining practice, for years a target of shareowner activists, faces new regulatory restrictions and limited financing from major banks...
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Fairground Dung and Leftovers Tested in Waste-to-Energy Project Which waste is the best to convert to energy -- animal dung or leftover funnel cakes, corn dogs, cotton candy and other fairground favorites That's what a Midwest scientist and a group of researchers are exploring at the Minnesota State Fair.  ..
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Climate Risks That Every Executive Should Know About When it comes to a company’s impact on climate change, does directors and officers insurance cover executives While companies say yes, the insurance industry is saying no. We’re talking millions -- perhaps billions -- in legal liability here, so someone will end up holding the bag.  ..
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Green Gardening Machines Blast Weeds With Bursts of Steam These hefty-looking machines are Green Steam Weed Killers, and they will soon be patrolling the streets of San Francisco, annihilating unwanted weeds without the use of pesticides. The City’s Park and Rec Department recently purchased one for every Park Service Area. Created in Canada, these high-tech gardening machines are the first of their kind in [...]..
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A Sexy Little Black Dress That Doubles Up as a Cellphone If you ask a woman what her life staples are, the cell phone and the little black dress would probably come up in conversation. So in the spirit of streamlining, the clever designers over at CuteCircuit have fashioned a sexy little number that does duty not only as a favored basic, but also as a soft-circuitry [...]..
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Apple Refuses to Participate in Green Rating for Mobile Phones With consumer interest in greener gadgets on the rise, Apple has refused to include the iPhone in a far-reaching green ranking system for mobile phones in the UK. The rankings convert manufacturers’ answers to a 63-question survey into a ranking of 1-5 for each device, factoring in energy use and materials among other things. Read [...]..
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MIT’s Seaswarm Robots Could Clean Up Gulf-Sized Spill in a Month We can thank MIT for adding another piece of weaponry to our future oil spill cleanup arsenal. Dubbed the Seaswarm, this autonomous 16-foot long, 7- foot wide robot features an oil-absorbing conveyor belt covered with a nanowire mesh, carefully designed to absorb up to 20 times its weight in oil all while repelling water. But as impressive [...]..
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IKEA Designs the Ultra-Efficient Kitchen of the Future What high-tech gizmos will we see in the kitchens of the future IKEA may have the answers. The Swedish superstore recently drew up a concept kitchen for the year 2040, and it’s pretty wild — it features self-cleaning kitchen counters, 3D holographic displays, cabinets on rails, a “sixth-generation” iPad, remote-controlled ovens, and a host of [...]..
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Microsoft to Invest Half-Billion Dollars in Va. Data Center The company's massive new Generation 4 facility in Mecklenburg County will showcase its modular designs and put Microsoft's future data center plans on the map. ..
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Did Smartphones Get a Green Boost in O2's Rating Scheme? In its first eco-rankings for mobile phones, the company puts potentially energy-sucking smartphones at the top of the list. Are smartphones really that green, or did the company move its goalposts to boost smartphone sales ..
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Companies Get the Basics of Green IT, But Lack Maturity A new survey sponsored by Fujitsu found room for improvement among all elements of green IT practices, but that data centers and computer fleets are relatively well covered, while energy management and carbon impacts are almost nonexistent. ..
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Climate Corps 2010: A Search for Leaks Lands Savvis $6M in Savings A blast of cool air far away from the servers in a Savvis data center triggered a hunt for iar leaks and ended with the discovery of $6 million in savings ..
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Climate Corps 2010: Four Ways to Plug in PC Power Management Simple steps, such as power management software and using available green ratings can lead to big savings in energy and money for companies large and small. ..
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Chimps Found Deactivating Snares Set By Human Bushmeat Hunters photo: Graham Racher via flickr Go chimps, go! An interesting new paper in the journal Primates documents how a group of chimpanzees in Bossou, Guinea have been successfully deactivating snares set by human bushmeat hunters. Though not always successful, the scienti... Read the full story on TreeHugger..
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Déjà Vu All Over Again: Offshore Oil Platform Explodes in Gulf of Mexico [Updated x5] Image: Google Maps Thankfully, No Deaths This Time An offshore oil platform exploded and caught fire today in the Gulf of Mexico. It is located about 80 miles off the Louisiana coast, west of the site of BP's massive oil spill. All 13 people who were on the rig were evacuated and only one was injured, reports the U.S. Coast Guard.... Read the full story on TreeHugger..
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Universal Cell Phone Charger Coming Soon...At Some Point...In the Maybe-Not-Distant Future... Photo via kalleboo A common complaint about cell phones is that there is no universal charger -- if you don't have the one that works specifically for your phone, well, you're just out of luck when your battery dies. It's not only a hassle for cell phone owners, but it's a huge problem for e-waste as the chargers become useless when the corresponding cell phones are tossed aside for newer models. But progress toward a more environmentally respo..
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New York City Inks Contract for Up to 475 Compressed Natural Gas Buses Photo: New Flyer What's the Difference Between CNG and Diesel The Board of the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority (the "MTA") has awarded New Flyer of America a contract for up to 475 buses. The contract is for 135 40-foot compressed natural gas ("CNG") heavy-duty transit buses with options for up to an additional 340 CNG buses. We know that buses are a pretty green way to move lots of people around in urban area, but how much better are ..
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Exploiting Utah's Oil Shale Deposits is Fossil Foolishness (Video) Ahead of its upcoming report Fossil Foolishness: Utah's Pursuit of Tar Sands and Oil Shale Western Resource Advocates has produced the above short video detailing, as you might imagine from the title, why even though it may be ... Read the full story on TreeHugger..
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LEED Platinum Elementary School To Open In US It's September, which means students are getting ready to head back to school once again. But for those who attend the new Richardsville Elementary in Kentucky, they'll be able to experience the country's first ever Zero Energy school. The school is able to reduce heating and cooling costs thanks to a highly insulated roof, insulated concrete walls, and special windows that reduce glare. It also features a ground-source heat-pump that takes car..
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eBay Goes Green With Reusable eBay Box To kick off September, online auction house eBay is continuing to make green moves, this time by announcing a new initiative that will see it sending out thousands of reusable, recyclable shipping boxes to sellers. eBay will start sending out the boxes next month, with an initial test run of 100,000. The "eBay boxes," as they're known, are designed to be reused so as to reduce the amount of waste that comes with shipping products all over the w..
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Puma's Mopion bike adds extra storage without sacrificing style Bikes are quickly rising in popularity because of their green nature, but there's still at least one place where cars have the advantage: storage. Lugging around a big package on a bike is no fun at all. But Puma is hoping to fix that with its new Mopion bike. Designed in conjunction with Biomega and KiBiSi, the Mopion features a large storage area on its front, making it perfect for trips to the grocery store. The bike has been designed with u..
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University Class Replaces Text Books With iPads A project management class at Notre Dame university is experimenting with phasing out text books by loaning students iPads. The move is part of a year long study to determine whether or not eReaders are a viable option for the school. "eReaders are quickly being adopted for reading mass market literature, but also align well with the desire of higher education faculty and students to promote sustainability by reducing paper use," Paul Turner, m..
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Bioserie iPhone Cases Are Made Entirely From Plants There are so many options out there that picking out a case for your iPhone or iPod Touch can feel like a daunting task. But if you're looking for something a little greener to cover your handheld wonder, you might just want to check out Bioserie. The cases are made of bioplastic, which is a plastic created entirely from plants. In fact, all aspects of the case designs are derived from plant life, including the coloring agents and the packaging..
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Facebook reacts to Greenpeace anticoal campaign Social network gets flak from Greenpeace over its planned giant data center in Oregon, but Facebook says its efficiency will be industry-leading. ..
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Audit finds PG&E smart meters accurate However, the utility's customer service is faulty, according to an independent review of the controversial yet pioneering smart-meter program. ..
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Focus EV to use liquid thermal battery control Car will take its battery pack temperature, then automatically cool or warm it to optimal temperature range before charging or engaging the battery. ..
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Motor City getting in on electric fever Coulomb Technologies installs free public electric-charging station in downtown Detroit as part of ChargePoint America program to encourage EV adoption. ..
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Cisco buys Arch Rock in smart-grid push Networking giant to augment its IP-based communications tech with planned purchase of start-up Arch Rock, which makes wireless sensors for buildings, data centers, and utility networks. ..
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Ecosphere Plants, snails, live shrimp, algae and ferns live in this self-sustaining ecosystem. All it needs is a bit of indirect sunlight ….this would be perfect for my office that has no windows! $89.00 at VivaTerra This one, available from Hammacher Schlemmer, claims that it was developed as the result of years of research at NASA! [...]..
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Solar Reading Light This lightweight device can be clipped on the edge of your book or the bed frame. Perfect for you types who fall asleep with the light on….remove all guilty feelings of wasting energy. This can be a great gift and engraved with your thoughtful wishes. $29.95 at the Ultimate Green Store..
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Voltaic Generator Solar Laptop Bag Your laptop deserves a cool bag and this one has a big bonus—it charges your ‘puter with solar power! Its solar charger has high-efficiency cells that can recharge the battery in about five hours, and the fabric is made from recycled pop bottles. Available at Florida EcoProducts, $449...
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Solar Powered Natural TerraCotta Fountain Got a bare spot in the yard you’d like to decorate, but don’t have a power outlet nearby Class it up with this terra cotta fountain that’s powered by a solar pump, but also includes an AC adapter for indoor use. Available at Turning Life, $128...
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Solar Shower Sick of taking those freezing showers on camping trips This five-gallon Solar Shower will heat water for bathing and washing dishes in only three hours. Spoil yourself while roughing it! Available at Sundance Solar, $9.75...
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Solar Shaded Parking Structure at Dell Headquarters Envision Solar International, Inc., the leader in solar integrated building systems, announced today the completion of a solar shaded parking structure of Solar Trees® at Dell’s headquarters in Round Rock, TX. This configuration of Solar Trees®, called a Solar Grove®, is designed to produce more than 130kW of solar power, helping avoid 145,000 pounds of [...]..
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Wheego Electric Cars Announces Trade-Up Program WHEEGO ELECTRIC CARS, manufacturer of all-electric cars, today announced it has finalized a ground-breaking Trade-Up Program for customers to move from Low Speed Vehicles (LSVs) which they are selling now, to the Full Speed Vehicles (FSVs) expected next year. Anytime within 24 months of their purchase of the Wheego LSV, a customer may trade up their [...]..
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Venom power releases Eco Alkaline batteries Venom Power Eco Alkaline™ batteries feature 0% Mercury, 0% Cadmium, 0% Lead and are certified carbon neutral by Carbonfund.org. Venom’s Eco Alkaline batteries are progressive, high quality consumer batteries with performance rivaling national leading alkaline battery brands. “Today’s consumers are more aware of the global warming and environmental impact of the products they use every day. [...]..
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Is London Heading For a Water Crunch? The warning comes from sustainability experts Envirowise and follows research which found that 70% of sustainability specialists consider the threat of dwindling water supplies to be equal to the impact of carbon emissions, while 54% believe the world will run out of water before it runs out of fuel. It is predicted that UK groundwater will [...]..
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Cellulose from Wastewater Can Now be Turned into Fuel for Cars Qteros of Marlborough, Mass., and Applied CleanTech, based in Israel, today announced that they have developed a novel solution for turning cellulose from municipal and agricultural liquid waste into ethanol fuel for cars. Joint use of the Qteros Q Microbe™ and Applied CleanTech’s Recyllose™ feedstock has been found to boost ethanol production, address sewage sludge [...]..
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GE Aviation Taps Naverus Tech for Low-Fuel Landings Startups might not be able to convince the FAA to try out a new, fuel-saving way to guide planes to their landings at airports around the country, but what about GE. On Thursday, AA flight 1916 used technology based on the work of startup Naverus. ..
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Cali Considers New Clean Power Feed-In Tariffs California state regulators have spent the last few years trying to revise a program that was meant to boost small-scale renewable energy generation but wasn’t popular because it wasn’t lucrative enough to attract many takers. Now, a new proposal has emerged. ..
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Car Data As the Next Platform for Innovation A vehicle data platform has finally emerged, and entrepreneurs, automakers and DIY-ers are increasingly tapping into it and using it to develop innovative applications around transportation that will make driving more efficient. ..
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Green Overdrive Video: Al Unser Jr. Gets ZAPped While electric vehicle maker ZAP has had its fair share of less-than-stellar press, we took a road trip up to Santa Rosa to check out what the company is actually producing. We found a manual SUV electric taxi, a low-speed Zappy scooter and Al Unzer Jr.! ..
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What Shell’s Brazilian Biofuel Megadeal Means for Codexis Dutch oil giant Shell and Brazilian ethanol giant Cosan sealed the deal Wednesday on a $12 billion joint venture to turn sugarcane into pump-ready fuel. How will the massive partnership affect Codexis, Shell’s biocatalyst partner and recent entrant to the public markets ..
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Port of Long Beach Retrofitting Old Tugboats After debuting the world's first hybrid tugboat in 2009, the Port of Long Beach is partnering again with Foss Maritime Company to retrofit an existing tugboat with hybrid technology. The ship called the Campbell Foss is a conventional dolphin tugboat assisting ships in the San Pedro Bay. It will be fitted with motor generators, batteries and control systems by Foss at one of their shipyards.  The retrofit should cut 1,340 tons of CO2 emissions an..
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Where's My Air Car!? It sounds like a good idea: Use electricity to compress air, stuff it in a tank and use the power expelled by the air's release to power a vehicle. Seems like a good idea, certainly a lot easier to understand than nano-constructed cathodes on a lithium ion cell. And several companies have been actively attempting to build cars powered by conpressed air for quite some time. We at EcoGeek have been excited about them. The two biggest of these compa..
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Color Filter Could Boost LCD Efficiency by 400% Researchers at the University of Michigan have created a color filter that could boost the efficiency of LCDs, the power hog of all your gadgets, by more than 400 percent, and no, I didn't add an extra zero there. The researchers made an optical film that colors and polarizes the light that passes through an LCD, taking the place of the several layers of optical devices that typically serve the same function in an LCD.  Those multiple layers give..
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Lithium-Ion Battery Prices Set to Drop It looks like supply and demand is working out in the consumers' favor when it comes to lithium-ion batteries.  Production has been ramping up for the batteries as more electric cars go into production and that has led to an oversupply that may just keep piling up.  Analysts are predicting a price drop of between 19 and 25 percent by the end of the year -- a slash that could also spell cheaper electric cars in the very near future. Battery makers..
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Coast Guard Implementing Net Zero Housing The U.S. Coast Guard has set a goal of a net zero carbon footprint for housing at their Southwest Harbor Base in Maine.  The base is using solar panels, solar hot water heaters and now a wind turbine for their energy needs.  Efficiency-boosting retrofits will also be done, including new electrical systems and better insulation. The newly-installed wind turbine sits atop a 70-foot tower and provides power to a duplex housing unit located on the ba..
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