Bosque | Upcoming 
Architects and federal officials plan one of the world's most extensive vertical gardens in downtown Portland - what amounts to a series of 250-foot-tall trellises designed to shade the west side of an 18-story office building.
he Green Touch consortium, led by Alcatel Lucent's Bell Labs, promises it can cut the energy used by the world's data networks by a factor of 1000. "Networks produce 300 million tonnes of CO2," said Gee Rittenhouse, vice president and head of research at Bell Labs. "That's the equivalent of 50 million cars - twenty percent of the cars licensed in the United States."
The 20-year strategy includes making land available for people to grow their own food and education on healthy cooking. The government also wants less food waste, more food bought in season to reduce environmental impact and to encourage people to buy sustainably-farmed food.
The World's First Production Hybrid Motorcycle (really more like a noped – a moped sans pedals, if you ask us) is about to go on sale in India, and it will return about 280 miles per gallon with a top speed of 40 miles per hour.
Other World Computing, will build the first data center to have 100% on-site wind power to run its operations. The 500 kW turbine is expected to generate an estimated 1,250,000 kilowatt hours per year. This is more than twice as much electricity as is used by all of data center's operations. The facility is grid-tied, and will sell the excess power back to the local utility, as well as being able
Battles between homeowners groups and property owners are cropping up across the state as the installation of solar systems becomes more affordable and utility costs rise. Apparently they think that solar panels decrease the property value.
USPS is piloting a mail-it-back program consumers can use to mail their used electronic items such as PDAs, cell phones and ink cartridges. Also, now all stamps are made with soy-based inks and nontoxic adhesives.
There is more to being green than driving a Prius and buying local produce. The author shines more light on the eco-friendly messages we've heard for years.
Plans for the new wind farms around the world are being delayed or abandoned due to objections from the aviation community or air defense interests. A group in the UK is using stealth technologies to hide the turbines and blades. Personally, I would have thought pilots would like to see what is on the horizon.
New research shows that compressed air energy storage is a relatively inefficient technology at the scale of individual cars and would add additional greenhouse gas emissions with the current electricity mix.
