 By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth's population will reside in urban
centers. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends,
the human population will increase by about 3 billion people during the interim.
An estimated 10 9 hectares of new land (about 20% more land than is
represented by the country of Brazil) will be needed to grow enough food to feed
them, if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today.
At
present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising
crops is in use (sources: FAO and NASA). Historically, some 15% of that has been
laid waste by poor management practices. What can be done to avoid this
impending disaster?
The concept of indoor farming is not new, since hothouse production of tomatoes,
a wide variety of herbs, and other produce has been in vogue for some time. What
is new is the urgent need to scale up this technology to accommodate another 3
billion people. An entirely new approach to indoor farming must be invented,
employing cutting edge technologies. The Vertical Farm must be efficient (cheap
to construct and safe to operate). Vertical farms, many stories high, will be
situated in the heart of the world's urban centers. If successfully implemented,
they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and
varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of
ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming.
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By Loz Blain
Reprinted from Gizmag 22:48 March 6, 2009 PST 
Compressed air cars are well and truly on their way to mass production in India and America,
among other places - although they seem to be taking their time. But
the cheap, environmentally-neutral compressed air engine also lends
itself to other interesting urban and industrial transport concepts
like the AIRPod.
Intended both as a personal 3-4 seater city commuter
and as a getabout for airport, train station and municipal workers, the
AIRPod is cute and easy to drive with a joystick instead of a steering
wheel and pedals. The three-wheel transport weighs around the same as a
touring motorcycle at 220kg, so it only needs 5 1/2 horsepower from its
lightweight air engine to reach top speeds a little over 40mph.
Best of
all, cheap compressed air refilling will take as little as 90 seconds
and cost about EU1.10 for the AIRPod's expected 220km range. To read more follow this link .
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by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada
on 05.18.09 Treehugger.com 
Will this Turn Out to Be the Battery Breakthrough We've Been Waiting For?
It's still too early to tell if this lithium-air battery technology
will perform well enough to make its way to real-world products, but
the lab results that have been publicized so far are very promising.
With current battery chemistry, "energy storage is limited by the
lithium cobalt oxide electrode (0.5 Li/Co, 130 mAhg-1).
The University
of St Andrews design replaces the lithium cobalt oxide electrode with a
porous carbon electrode and allows Li+ and e- in the cell to react with
oxygen from the air." This could allow up an increase in storage
capacity by up to 10x. Read on for more details.
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by: Jennifer Kho
Published online at Green Tech Media June 18, 2008
Nanosolar
said Wednesday it has created the industry’s largest solar production
tool: a thin-film coater that has the capacity to produce up to 1
gigawatt of solar cells annually.
That compares with 10 to 30 megawatts of annual
production capacity for most solar production tools, CEO Martin
Roscheisen wrote on the company’s blog.
The tool, which uses the Nanosolar’s nanoparticle ink,
costs $1.65 million and – at the speed at which it’s currently running,
100 feet per minute -- produces cells for a hundred times less than a
high-vacuum process, he wrote.
Roscheisen, who also included a video
of the tool in his post, said the company expects the tool to have the
potential to reach speeds of up to 2,000 feet per minute.
He added that the tool delivers cells that can convert sunlight into electricity with up to 14.5 percent efficiency, but declined to answer a question about the average efficiency of the cells that are being produced.
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