We’ve just stumbled across an astounding ride being pieced together at Pininfarina’s stables. Called the Cambiano, this exceptional car could pretty much hit the streets in near future and is a marvel of automobile technology. With a design that sways away from the ordinary, this car has been termed as a sports sedan and is a plug-in hybrid sporting a range-extender. Using four electric motors mounted in the wheel hubs, each at 60 kilowatts for about 80 horsepower, the car uses a diesel-powered microturbine for a range extender. Touching the 62mph mark in below 4.2 seconds, this sports luxury sedan can go up to speeds of 170mph when with its pedal pushed down to the floor. With a battery pack range of 124 miles, this swank new Pininfarina has a single door on the driver’s side and is quite an intimidating looker too!

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Designer Phil Pauley came up with a design that could pretty much change our lives today. A portable power source in all essence, the Powerpack365 soaks in energy from the sun to power your gadgets on the go. The device basically piggybacks onto other devices like laptops and smartphones and power them up with renewable energy. Sporting solar cells and light emitting technology facing one another in an enclosed housing, the Powerpack365 concept seems to be an efficient answer to power up while away from grid connections. Also, the Powerpack365 could very well find larger applications up ahead, and designer Phil Pauley plans to have this one accompany a $200 price tag.

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Water buoys now get greener with this interesting concept by designer Dr. Hakan Gursu. Sculpted out for Designnobis, the Triton buoy is an eco-friendly self sustained warning device that requires no grid connections to power up. By harvesting energy from the wind and the sun, the Triton powers on all of its warning signals efficiently. Winner of the prestigious Design Turkey Award, the Triton uses LEDs, solar panels and wind turbines and comes with GPRS, making it easier to locate by port authorities and ships alike.

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One thing’s for sure. The President sure prefers green renewable energy to oil and gas power. President Barack Obama in his speech at the University of Miami recently mentioned the efforts to solve power shortages that have been put into place recently. Apparently, the United States alone uses 20% of the world’s oil and has only 2% of the world’s reserves. Efforts are being put to expand oil and gas drilling, though according to the President, this isn’t the answer to energy woes. Also, the President spoke about wind and solar energy harvesting being carried on in the country and mentioned the fact that algae-based biofuels developed at home, could pretty much replace up to 17% of the oil being imported for transport purposes. All in all, the President seems to understand just how bad the global oil crises has turned out, and seems adamant on setting the United States free from complete reliance on international oil.

[inhabitat]

Recently, Ericsson, Volvo, Göteborg Energi, and Viktoria Institute together came up with an initiative that could pretty much pull the load of EV owners, helping make the event of charging electric cars simpler and slightly less expensive. Telecommunication firm Ericsson from Sweden has designed a mobile technology that makes it easier for EVs to connect to electricity grids. This enables better control over charging and allows for scheduled charges with the costs of specific charging times being mentioned. Also, the system helps prevent overcharging and helps decrease electricity bills substantially, making owning an electric car a more pocket-easy affair.

[chipchick]

Official pictures of what automaker Infiniti is planning for the supercar market in the near future have showed up on the internet lately. From the looks of it, this super car’s a clear winner when it comes to design. With the right curves and cuts, the Infiniti Emerg-E concept is also as green as a leaf. To be powered by a mid-mounted range-extender drivetrain with an electric motor and an internal combustion engine, this swank new Infiniti is expected to perform just as well as any other supercar in its performance category and will finally debut at the 82nd Geneva International Auto Salon. Beautifully green and an aesthetic treat, this concept super car is bound to shine in the limelight.

[carscoop.blogspot]

The IBM Blue Gene/Q, crowned as the world’s greenest supercomputer, will soon head to Melbourne at the Victorian Life Sciences Computation Initiative (VLSCI). Hosted by the University of Melbourne, this super-green supercomputer will provide next-generation computational capacity for life-sciences research. In short, the computer, also the fastest in the whole of Australia, will help up the levels of medical research and will sport 836 teraflops of processing power, about the same as 20,000 desktop computers. Also, as compared to other supercomputers of its kind, the Blue Gene/Q is extremely efficient and was ranked as the world’s most efficient supercomputer by the Green500.

[newsroom.melbourne]

Wind chimes soothe the soul. Meant to drive away negative emotions and depressing energies, these traditional Japanese bells jingle away gloriously in the breeze. Inspired by these aural garden ornaments, designers Chen Yan Zhuang, Zhou Li, Peng Qixuan, Liu Huan-jung, Ke Qi Ling & Zhong Zhida came up with the Hope of Breeze concept. Essentially a wind-powered lamp, the Hope of Breeze uses energy harvested from the flow of wind to light up the LED lamp instead of producing those customary clinking tinkling sounds. Also, the Hope of Breeze’s LED board on the bottom works as a wishing board with touch technology, enabling one to pen down their wishes and blessings by moving their finger across the board.

[yankodesign]

The U.S. Air Force has big plans for renewable energy development over the next 15 years, and we’ve just had a sneak peek at it all. One of the proposals that have had us hooked is the space solar stations the Air Force is planning. These will beam energy generated from the sun directly back home to planet Earth as well as space satellites. The exact technologies that will be used to wirelessly transfer energy from these solar-energy-collecting stations to the earth however are yet being perfected. Also, the Air Force currently has just 27 kilowatt (kW) arrays for satellite power and is looking to expand out on the same with this future proposal. We wish the U.S. Air Force all the luck it needs in this endeavor of sending clean renewable energy to our planet right out of space!

[zmescience]

A bunch of researchers from the Wake Forest University's Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials have come up with a new way to generate small amounts of energy. Using a fabric called Power Felt made from "tiny carbon nanotubes locked up in flexible plastic fibers, this fabric generates energy from changes in temperature. Meaning, a simple touch could generate a trickle of energy. Using the principals of thermoelectric, the Power Felt fabric seems to be a promising way to power up smaller devices if used to create clothing. Also, these fabrics could wind up as car seats and generate substantial amounts of energy for automobiles, given that people do tend to wriggle and move about in their seats while travelling, helping generate some clean green renewable energy in the bargain!

[popsci]

With the world turning to greener renewable energy sources of energy to power up, the Chattanooga Metropolitan Authority too decided to sway to the greener side and has hooked up the Chattanooga Airport to solar panels. By Atlanta-based Inman Solar, the installation covers a whopping 4.5 acres and trickles in green energy for the airport’s use. These high-efficiency crystalline silicon solar cells and modules were developed by Suniva, also an Atlanta-based solar company. Since completion in December, the installation has already generated 90,000 kilowatt-hours of power and saved 62 tons of Co2 from entering the ecosystem, making the Chattanooga Airport a green place to fly.

[smartplanet]

[inmansolar]

[chattairport]

Earlier, the batteries used in EVs and those used to power up homes were a mile apart in design and execution. Now, Toyota Motor Corp has come up with a way to reuse nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) rechargeable batteries used for hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) in homes as stationary batteries. With field tests for the same currently being carried out, Toyota has been disassembling NiMH batteries, and with reduction treatment, the company has been sticking these into HEVs. All in all, these tests will prevent batteries from HEVs landing up in landfills, giving them all a better retirement in people’ homes.

[techon]

Disposable diapers aren’t really too gracious with the environment and the eco-system. These diapers pose a threat to the environment, given the fact that they take substantial amounts of time to disintegrate in landfills. That’s not all. To manufacture these, loads of energy and resources are used, making disposable diapers an enemy to our environment. Now, designer Iven Dieterle has come up with an innovative way to deal with the issue. Called the Swish, this standalone spherical washer keeps reusable diapers clean, enabling you to use and reuse cloth diapers time and again, in a sanitary way. Using solar energy and thermal energy to power up and heat the water inside, the Swish makes cleaning reusable diapers easier and more hygienic. A brilliant way to keep those ecosystem-choking disposable diapers away from landfills, the Swish washer encourages reusability.

[yankodesign]

Trading firm Marubeni has decided to put the Japanese winds to better use and is currently drawing up plans for a wind farm of the coast of Fukushima. Wind farms have worked well to keep the Japanese grid alive in times of natural calamities that have struck in the past, pulling down nuclear plants in the bargain. Now, Marubeni will begin work on a 1GW floating offshore renewable energy generating plant that will add some clean and green energy to the Japanese power grid. Also, the Japanese government will lend a helping hand with funds for the initiative, while companies like Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Nippon Steel Corp, and Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding will lend their support too.

[inhabitat]

Apple has been making an effort to stay green since quite a while now, and has just released its 2012 Environmental Report, with its Maiden data center in focus. This data center in North Carolina will soon sport the largest end user-owned solar array in the United States and will cover an area of about 100 acres. All this will help generate 42 million kWh of green renewable juice annually, while Apple also plans to build a 5MW Fuel Cell facility alongside it. The 20MW installation will help Apple wipe off its carbon footprint to quite an extent, and will further help the manufacturers of iOS devices to stay eco-friendly.

[engadget]

[9to5mac]