From Guest Blogger Jon Wikstrom: Cool Green Technologies Flying Under the Radar
Companies that are developing environmentally friendly technologies are no longer part of some passing trend. On the contrary, businesses that are ignoring the innovation and utilization of green practices are starting to look seriously antiquated.
Some practices, like recycling and energy efficient lighting, are so mainstream that it seems weird if you’re not using them.
However, with the growing awareness of climate change and non-renewable resources, there is constantly new cutting edge innovations being developed that are far from the mainstream.
Some of the coolest ones out there are still being tested or are only being used by the most progressive companies with an eye on the future. So, we looked into a few of the ones that seem most useful and most unique to present you a list of under-the-radar technologies that could soon be a part of your daily life.
Farm Up
One of the biggest environmental challenges we’re currently facing is an ever-growing population. In less than 40 years, population projections put our planet at 3 billion more mouths to feed. That number is staggering when you consider the facts that almost all of the world’s farm land is already in use, and that we’d need an area bigger than Brazil to grow enough food to meet the needs of that ballooned population.
So, it’s alternative solution time. One idea that’s already being used is known as “vertical farming” and involves growing food inside tall buildings, many in or around major urban areas. These indoor farms can use sunlight or LED lights and hydroponic growing methods. Vertical farms significantly increase food growing capabilities, but they have the added benefit of saving energy on transport when located in or near to the very cities they supply.
Useful Urine
When it comes to renewable energy resources, what’s more certain to continue to renew forever and ever than human waste? If you can get over your initial revulsion, it’s pretty genius to use urine as an energy source. Even the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation agrees – they’re partially funding the project run by Bristol BioEnergy Center’s Yannis Leropoulos.
This idea is not just a pipe dream; the technology, which channels urine directly from urinals to microbial fuel cells, has already advanced to the point of being able to power a cell phone. This is great news considering the fact that over 6 trillion liters of urine are produced every year.
And not only is this an extremely environmentally friendly innovation, but it also helps to address sanitation issues that many developing countries face. While so-called “urine-tricity” may sound like a punchline, it may turn out to be a serious solution to energy issues.
Waterless Cleaning
Regardless of our improving ability to reduce, reuse and recycle, manufacturing marches on. People need stuff and stuff needs to be made, and that’s unlikely to change any time soon. The problem is that most manufacturing is far from environmentally friendly. Running machines, assembly lines and even cleaning uses up astounding amounts of energy, often resulting in harmful waste.
Perhaps one part of the green manufacturing puzzle, however, is a new form of cleaning that doesn’t use water and, therefore, doesn’t result in excessive water or chemical waste. CO2 dry cleaning is an innovative technology that uses recycled solid carbon dioxide particles, also known as snow, to effectively clean surfaces of everything from delicate airplane parts to computer hard disk drives.
Because it uses recycled CO2, it doesn’t add to the greenhouse effect at all. In fact, the U.S. Department of Energy has funded and even approved the technology because of the fact that it cuts down on energy use and helps advance green manufacturing practices.
Fresh Metal
It’s pretty great when a technology comes along that can kill two environmental challenges with one, very smart stone. In this case the two environmental challenges are our lack of both fresh water sources and energy sources. To address the water issue, scientists have long experimented with desalination, or taking the salt out of salt water.
The main drawback, though, has been the fact that the desalination process results in concentrated brine that has a negative effect on marine life when released back into oceans and seas. Not to mention the fact that this reverse osmosis process is expensive and not very energy efficient either.
But if the salty brine could become useful in itself, that would change everything. Well, scientists are currently working on harvesting the brine for elements like magnesium, uranium, lithium and even rare earth elements, which can be used in everything from high-performance batteries to wind turbines and electric motors. The financial and energy costs become much more reasonable.
While it’s clear that we should have kicked environmentally friendly tech development into high gear sooner, it’s exciting to see the rate at which emerging innovations are being put to use today.
These unique technologies might be considered “emerging” and cutting edge now, but the hope is that all of them soon become standard practices.
About the Author: Jon Wikstrom is a passionate environmental and manufacturing and frequent contributor to several industry publications. He’s also the founder of Cool Clean Technologies, one of the leaders in CO2 cleaning technology and a company that’s committed to advancing green practices for the manufacturing industry.
