Bad Experiences With A Cheap Wind Turbine

If you’ve got a property with some outdoor space and plenty of wind, you might consider throwing up a windmill to generate some electricity. Indeed, [The Broject List] did just that. Only, hi…

Giant Sails Actually Help Cargo Ships Save Fuel, And The Planet In Turn

Shipping is not a clean business. The global economy is fueled by trade, and much of that trade involves hauling product from point A to point B. A great deal of that product goes by water. Shippin…

These Keycaps Are 100% Recycled Plastic

Artisan keycaps are generally meant to replace your Escape key, though they can be used anywhere you like (as long as they fit, of course). Keycap maker [tellybelly] of jankycaps has been experimen…

A Smarter Solar Water Heater

Installing solar power at a home is a great way to reduce electricity bills, especially as the cost of solar panels and their associated electronics continue to plummet. Not every utility allows se…

Daisugi – Growing Straight Lumber Without Killing The Tree

In 14th Century Japan, there was a shortage of straight lumber for building and flat land on which to grow it. Arborists there developed a technique that looks like growing trees on top of trees, c…

Open-Source Solar Modules

As the price of solar panels continues to fall, more and more places find it economical to build solar farms that might not have been able to at higher prices. High latitude locations, places with …

Hacking A Xiaomi Air Purifier’s Filter DRM To Extend Its Lifespan

When [Unethical Info] was looking at air purifiers a while back, their eye fell on a Xiaomi 4 Pro, with a purchase quickly made. Fast-forward a while and suddenly the LCD on top of the device was s…

Kites Fill Electricity Generation Gaps

Looking at a wind turbine from first principles, it’s essentially a set of wings that generate lift in much the same way an airplane wing does. Putting the wings on a rotor and calling them &…

A Practical Open Source Air Purifier

In the years since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, it’s fair to say we’ve all become a lot more aware of the air quality surrounding us. Many of us have added a CO2 monitor to ou…

Solar Chimneys: Viable Energy Solution Or A Lot Of Hot Air?

We think of the power we generate as coming from all these different kinds of sources. Oil, gas, coal, nuclear, wind… so varied! And yet they all fundamentally come down to moving a gas throu…

3D Printing Your Own Triboelectric Generators

A triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) certainly sounds like the sort of thing you’d need to graduate from Starfleet Engineering to put together, but it actually operates on the same principle …

How To Build A Small Solar Power System

We live in an exciting time with respect to electrical power, one in which it has never been easier to break free from mains electricity, and low-frequency AC power in general. A confluence of lowe…

Making The Case For Wooden Wind Turbines With Swedish Modvion

Modern-day wind turbines are constructed using mostly concrete and steel, topped by the fiberglass composite blades mounted to the nacelle that houses the gearbox and generator, along with much of …

3D Printing With Plastic Cutlery

How many plastic spoons, knives, and forks do you think we throw away daily? [Stefan] noted that the compostable type is made from PLA, so why shouldn’t you be able to recycle it into 3D prin…

Saving The Planet With Carefully Cut Paper

You may not think much of origami or its cousin-with-cutouts kirigami, but the latter could (and already is) helping to save the planet. But let’s back up a bit. Most readers will be familiar…

Desalinating Water With The Sun

Getting fresh water from salt water can be difficult to do at any kind of scale. Researchers have developed a new method of desalinating water that significantly reduces its cost. [via Electrek] By…

Tesla’s Plug Moves Another Step Closer To Dominance

Charging an EV currently means making sure you find a station with the right plug. SAE International has now published what could be the end to the mishmash of standards in North America with the J…

Recycling Batteries With Bacteria

Vehicle battery recycling is going to be a big deal with all the electric cars hitting the roads. What if you could do it more effectively with the power of microbes? (via Electrek) “Li-ion&#…

Monitoring Energy Use And Saving Money

On the surface, the electric grid might seem like a solved piece of infrastructure. But there’s actually been a large amount of computerized modernization going in the background for the past…

Airloom’s Whacky Wind Clothesline Turbine Idea

What if you don’t put airfoils on a central, spinning axis, but instead have them careen around a circular track? If you’re a company called Airloom, you’d say that it’s a v…