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Chain link fence (get it?) - (image by James Jordan, CC 2.0 licensed)
As I've been surfing green building sites and articles over the last week, I ran across these interesting items. I hope you find them useful.
Thermal bridging occurs wherever assembly components with low R-values relative to surrounding materials span from the inside to the outside of a building assembly.
Bamboo - Fast Growing CO2 Sequestration (Image by Joi, CC 2.0 licensed)
I read for the latest innovations and breakthroughs in fuel cell technology, transparent solar cells, exotic new batteries and things like that. But there are tons of much lower tech innovations happening all the time. I happened to meet a guy the other night who's working on a new startup related to building construction.
Are They Energy Star Certified? (Image by kevindooley, CC 2.0 licensed)
In the national consciousness "green is the new black." But what if you want to do a little work around the house - paint the kitchen, retrofit with some compact fluorescent lights, build some shelves? How much of a challenge is getting materials and advice for a green DIY or remodeling project? My friend Rich Wingerter decided to find out a few weeks ago, and went on a little shopping trip. He recounts on his blog .
Spider silk has desirable technical properties that manmade materials cannot replicate yet
I just visited , [url corrected] a new resource and social site for people interested in understanding how nature has solved design problems - such as energy conservation, water collection, and energy generation - and how we can use those solutions as inspiration for our own technology.
AskNature is a bio-inspiration website where innovators can learn from nature's solutions, biologists can find a whole new audience for their research, students can be inspired through science, and collaborators from different disciplines can work together to create innovative, sustainable, bio-inspired designs.
Methanol fuel cell. Image via Wikipedia
I plan to do an in-depth post or series on soon, because there is so much breakthrough work going on in this research area. Fuel cells are interesting on so many fronts - for example, they're probably the best way to use the hydrogen generated by Daniel Nocera's new hydrogen splitting method, announced in mid-August. And just since August, researchers have announced big improvements or cost reductions in every component of the fuel cell - membrane, catalyst, and electrodes.
Looked at one way, carbon fiber composites are just our simplistic human analog of natural nano-featured composites like those that make up mussel and abalone shells. Mollusks use a "digital" process for creating their shells - a digital process controlled by a computer running DNA as its code. What if we could make composites like those little molluscs - stronger and more resilient than some random fibers jammed into some plastic?
