Solid simple colors from old computer monitors shaped into western symbols and bricked to make entire walls.  Sandy Smith’s salvaged then fixed these computers to work again, or at least to display bright beautiful colors.  Which parallels to her ideal sense of art as stated on her homepage:

“When its sunny outside everything is Art.”

This must of sent the meter spinning.  The average desktop computer uses between 60-250 watts of electricity per hour, start counting and multiply.

The modern religion being fed through tv screens, either through work or with your tv dinner, we are consistently and constantly being fed.  A reminder to go outside today and enjoy the outdoors!

This is one of her first installations as you can see she still has the icons and the OS running.

This would be some beautiful ambient light to have running through a bedroom.  Though you would need your whole roof covered with solar panels to not feel slightly guilty.  An estimated 50 million tons of E-waste is created each year and proving to be a very profitable industry.

+ Sandy Smith

The structures of old meet the structures of new, power plants were designed for function and output, but have now graduated to courses in art, upcycling, and spiritualism. Below is a view of the new potential of power plants.

A call to artists from around the world, the Land Art Generator Initiative is set to bring together artists, architects, scientists, and engineers to collaborate in building a sustainable powerplant with an artist flare.

Each sculpture will continuously distribute clean energy into the electrical grid with each land art sculpture having the potential to provide power to thousands of homes.

THE PROJECT IS DIVIDED INTO 7 STAGES AS FOLLOWS

Stage 1 Feasibility study and project guideline development

Stage 2 Call for submittals

Stage 3 Submitted ideas selection and exhibition

Stage 4 Issue of RFPs for design documentation of successful proposals

Stage 5 Tender of construction works for successful proposals

Stage 6 Construction of sites

Stage 7 Management of complete sites and continuing public outreach and education projects

Here is another recent submitall for the project, which consists of 832 wave energy collecting devices to form in the shape of necklace, and to approximately power 15,000 households of the East coast city.

The pope has even gone big with Europe’s largest solar powered unit, not just to green wash but based on moral and environmental obligations as he states:

“The destruction of the environment, its improper or selfish use, and the violent hoarding of the Earth’s resources cause grievances, conflicts and wars, precisely because they are the consequences of an inhumane concept of development.”

Plasma Arc technology is at the forefront of contemporary powerplants using waste materials as the fuel to energy production. Check out MSNBC’s in depth article of this new technology that doesn’t burn trash but only reduces its mass through gasification that is then burned.

[vimeo 8756755 600 400]

Last but not least a reminder from Jeff Grew, who has created a timelapse video showing the emissions from the mid-America power plant just south of Council Bluffs Iowa. He states that the video isn’t a political statement – that it’s purely for the love of art – but it’s tough to watch this and not think about the political and environmental implications of all the spewing emissions. The music paired with the video clips is the clincher.

Second edition of some cool eco-stuff you might have missed over the weekend.

(Above picture) Plastic coffee stirrers upcycled into upscale designer tables by Studio Verissimo.  They also use this common coffee shop waste to make chairs and chandeliers in 3 colors.  Via Ecofriend

Marti Guixé, a Spanish designer, designed the Xarxa Sofa which is basically a chair which holds pillows that can be rearranged for personal comfort.  Via Freshome

Yesterday’s News’ set of 12 colored pencils made from recycled Chinese newspapers are available for a reasonable $10 as an alternative to wooden pencils.  Via Inhabitots

SRI International boosts the energy-efficiency of OLEDs with a new design, called COLED (“Cavity” OLED), which generates as much as five times the output of a standard OLED using the same amount of energy.  Via Gizmag

YoungWoo & Associates along with New York based architects LOT-EK, came up with a winning design for Pier 57.  The Hudson River Park board and community advocates chose their design (which incorporates used shipping containers) to revamp the old pier into something green that everyone can enjoy and close by  to the newly opened Highline.  Via Treehugger

San Francisco is finally going to start building its first zero energy house in 2010.  Designed by LSarc Architects, the home features a 1500-gallon water reclamation system which also collects rainwater to irrigate the backyard vegetable garden and an eight kilowatt solar array.  Via Ecofriend

Carhenge is a play on Stonehenge in Alliance, Nebraska.  The cars are actually placed in accordance with the real Stonehenge whose original function has been hypothesized to be for healing, burial and/or worship by a very early culture.  Via Inhabitat

By channeling the roots of trees across a river in the span of 10-15 years, a bridge is created in the rainforests of Cherrapunji, India. Via GreenUpgrader

Normal bike lights not making you feel safe enough while riding at night?  Not to fear, Lightlane is going into production pretty soon. Via WorldChanging

In other bike news, good news everyone! “Bike commuting rates have sky rocketed, going from 483,145 commuters nationally in 2003 to 664,859 in 2007. That’s a 37.6 percent increase in the number of people who take their bike to work.” Via Good

Back in 2005, National Geographic was talking to these Berkley Scientists about the development of a battery that produces 1.5 volts of electricity by taking two pieces of paper, soaking them in copper chloride sandwiched between plastic and then putting a drop of urine in a slit of the plastic, and voilà, electricity.  An array of applications have been stated–like cell-phone batteries, mp3 players, computers and cars.  This could make an interesting first date when your cell-phone battery indicator is blinking and you decide to go to the bathroom.  But hey, at least if your car runs out of gas at least you can persuade the officer to let you off for peeing in public.  Any other ideas?  Perhaps a little uncivil, but this  new eco-technology definitely brings new etiquette to our social and public lives.

Leave it to the Japanese to come out with the first public application.

Go ahead and do a google search of Nopopo and click on the shopping tab and you can have a flashlight with batteries for $40 or just the batteries alone for $15.  Not a bad deal and a good gift to crack some jokes over and try out at a birthday party.

via National Geographic

When push comes to shove, as they say, and Newton’s second law comes into affect, who would expect to find within their toilet something greater than a jewel.  Virginia Gardiner did, and what came next may shock you more than disgust you the next time you consider your own excrement as the pre-cursor to a meal rather than the byproduct.  She has managed to create an affordable system that will actually turn a person’s feces into bio-fuel that can be used anywhere in the world. Known as the Loowatt, this portable toilet, pictured here, not only converts feces to usable bio fuel, but is more valuable than any jewel you would expect to find within the many parts of the third world.

The next time you sit, on the toilet perhaps, ponder the significance of a jewel in comparison to human feces, and know now a pirate can be proud of more than one thing coming from his booty.  A Joule, pronounced the same as jewel, is actually a single unit of energy, and in many parts of the world, without the means to facilitate either, draws no more relevance than a toilet. But now, with Virginia Gardiner’s invention, one can actually start the preparation of a meal right where they left off with the last, using the bio fuel generated by the Loowatt to cook it.  While many of us who are reading this have no reason to consider any use of this contraption if the thought alone provokes us, we can at least appreciate the beautiful design made from ninety percent horse dung.

This incredible piece of engineering, combining human waste with intelligence, is indicative of the functional creativity that is in a human’s mind. So, if you ascribe yourself with words like sustainable and eco-friendly, practical or   revolutionary, there might be no better way to prove yourself than investing in a system like this. But what do you really think about adopting a system like this personally? Is there something to a world envisioned by Virginia Gardiner, or is this too forward a concept because people haven’t quite gotten comfortable with their number two rituals?

If you haven’t known already, for the last couple years the big lighting buzz has been incorporating energy efficient lighting into public as well as private spaces.  A couple months ago, workers replaced the remaining incandescent bulbs (in total about 4,000) around Grand Central Terminal in New York City with new compact fluorescent lights (CFLs).  Not an easy task, so how hard is it changing the bulbs in your home?

People are discovering that lighting their homes has become a process with more options than ever before.  Here at CWOCA we’ll try to break it down for you, illustrating the pros and cons of each kind of major light source: incandescent, fluorescent, halogen and LED.

The pioneer of putting lighting on the market, excluding the caveman’s discovery of fire, is the great incandescent bulb .  It comes in many shapes, sizes and voltages, but the current problems are that they consume a lot of electricity and they contain lead at levels that exceed hazardous waste limits. On the upside they are  the cheapest kind of light on the market and help produce an epiphany when placed over your head.

They may have a negative effect on the environment compared to new lighting systems, but their quality of warm and soft light as well as the dimming option still give them their own niche.  The mellow aura that an incandescent exudes, make them perfect for mood lighting.  Try using them in fixtures with dimming abilities, as this will save energy, provide subtle lighting for intimate get-togethers and cozy movie watching.  To appreciate the full beauty of this iconic bulb, don’t cover it up with a lampshade; let it hang out in an open space; just make sure it’s not in the way of moving objects.   Alot of small restaurants in New York City do this to create exposed interior design particularly in a warhouse in Brooklyn.

Not surprisingly, most people are still using Thomas Edison’s familiar heated filament to illuminate their homes.  This however may change in the near future.  As soon as 2012, the US will start to phase out all general-purpose light bulbs less than 30% energy efficient than current incandescent bulbs as stated by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.  Southern California is even aiming one year earlier than the rest of the nation to do this.

Does this mean that after a few years you will never again see these familiar bulbs?   Maybe not according to some scientists who are developing a new kind of incandescent bulb that is twice as efficient as current ones.  If they are successful in making them last as long as the greener light options (covered in the next posts), the next generation of incandescent will be a major contender for illuminating the future.

There is also a portion of society who believe that pure scientific analysis of lumens per watt is not sufficient to understand the subtleties of lighting and that lowering energy consumption lie more in the habits of the user than switching over to “greener” light options which may arguably produce less attractive light.

Now that you know a little about the century old lighting originator, the next article will cover the energy saving options being widely used and their situational applications.

Next week: Fluorescents