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What do Dubai, The Story of Stuff, and Greenpeace have in common? They’re all up right now, on Reusable News.

Dubai’s Architecture Takes a Turn for the Green

Treehugger.com reports that a newly-proposed skyscraper set to be built in Dubai boasts of using three different renewable energy systems. The city that built the world’s tallest building is now looking to build a 50 story building dubbed “The 10MW Tower”.

The proposed building, designed by Studied Impact, will be crowned with a 5MW wind turbine. The sun-facing side of the building will be entirely covered in heliostatic mirrors which concentrate sunlight into a single point, generating another 3MW. And finally, a glass curtainwall will capture upward-moving hot air, creating another 2MW.

The building itself will not need to use more than 1MW to function, and projected power estimates say this building will “zero out” in under 20 years, with a yearly estimated energy output from the renewable systems of 20,000 MWh, and an embodied energy of 360,000 MWh.

No other building has ever done this.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/03/dubai-skyscraper-giant-wind-and-solar-generator.php

IBM and Stanford Tag-team Sustainable Plastics

Scientists from IBM and Stanford University have been working together for several years now and have discovered something that could lead to the development of new types of biodegradable, biocompatible plastics.

IBM’s Bob Allen: (Sound Byte)

Multiple industries could be affected by this innovative discovery, including biodegradable plastics, healthcare, microelectronics and plastics recycling.

Google Maps Gets a Cycling Overhaul

You may have noticed something new in Google Maps.

EcoGeek reports that on March 10, Google added biking directions to their Maps function. The biking directions include routes that consider biking infrastructure and uphill/downhill slopes as well as marking where off-street, bike lanes and preferred routes are.

This latest Google innovation throws into sharp relief the fact that many communities, cities and states do not currently have nearly the amount of bike paths and bike-friendly routes that they could have. Only about 150 cities across the United States now show bike routes, so looking at biking directions in many areas is like looking at a blank page.

Google’s Maps site also has a bike path upload system to incorporate new paths. We’ll have to wait and see what places begin to adapt to the needs of cyclists, now that America’s bike routes are on the map.

http://www.ecogeek.org/component/content/article/3104

“The Story of Stuff” Becomes a Book

Many people remember “The Story of Stuff”, a 20 minute online video created by activist Annie Leonard in 2007, which chronicles the journey of our items after we throw them away. In her light-hearted but on-point video, she examines the costs, both monetary and ecological, of the modern, wasteful societies of the world. But in her words, “The Story of Stuff” wasn’t actually the whole story.

The 352 page book is already on the shelves. But don’t worry, it’s printed on recycled paper!

Celebrated Conservationist Dies at 103

The Environmental News Service reports that Dr. Edgar Wayburn, Honorary Sierra Club President and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner, died on March 5 at his home in San Fransisco. He was 103 years old.

Wayburn spearheaded the preservation of millions of acres of natural lands in California and Alaska, including the nation’s largest urban park, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in California.  The park’s 76,000 acres include San Francisco’s beaches, Alcatraz and the Presidio and open space in south and west Marin County.

He also achieved passage of the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which protected over 100 million acres of Alaskan wild lands and created 10 new national park units, doubling the size of America’s National Park system.

And these are just some of his many monumental achievements in the preservation of land and wildlife. Edgar Arthur Wayburn will certainly be missed.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2010/2010-03-09-092.html

Greenpeace on Trial in Japan

Valentine’s Day marked the start of the trial of two members of Greenpeace for allegedly intercepting a shipment of whale meat they claimed was stolen by a member of the whaling ship Nisshin Maru, the flagship of the Japanese Antarctic whaling fleet.

Junichi Sato and Tori Suzuki of Greenpeace had all but slipped the noose around the whaling fleet’s necks, gaining the cooperation of Japanese prosecutors to look into the possibility of whalers taking a cut of the whale meat. But they dropped their investigation when Sato and Suzuki were arrested.

Sato and Suzuki – who claimed the meat was destined for the black market – face up to 10 years in prison if found guilty of theft and trespassing. They claimed the package, taken from a warehouse in Aomori, Japan, was marked “cardboard” but contained 23kg of salted whale meat worth around 350,000 yen.

But the Greenpeace anti-whalers on trial are decidedly optimistic about the trial, and hope to use it to gain more exposure for their cause. Here’s Junichi Sato speaking through a translator:

(Sound Byte)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/14/sato-suzuki-trial-japan-whaling

New Home Improvement Program Set to Put Solar on the Minds and Roofs of 18 States

The New York Times Green Inc. Blog reports that a new program which reduces the upfront costs of solar panel installations is getting the go ahead.

The program, called Property-Assessed Clean Energy, or PACE, takes into account the fact that high upfront costs dissuade many homeowners from installing solar panels on their roofs. To solve the problem, PACE allows homeowners to pay for the installation costs gradually through higher property taxes.

Eighteen states, including California, New York, Florida, Hawaii and Oregon, have already passed legislation to allow the program. Only 2,000 homes have taken advantage of PACE so far.

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/home-efficiency-program-poised-for-ramp-up/

Korean Research Team Suggests “Mega Kites” for Mega Energy Production

A German company called Skysails is currently using parafoils, giant industrial-strength kites, to reduce the fuel consumption of many oceanic vessels. They report they have reduced fuel consumption by 35 percent.

Along comes a Korean research team made up of Park Chul of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute and Kim Jongchul of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. Thinking big, they pondered the following question: Instead of just offsetting fuel costs, why can’t parafoils actually create energy?

The solution they came up with was to take a very large ship, equip it with a hydroelectric turbine, and tie to it a mega-kite flying almost a mile in the air. As the parafoil pulls the boat, seawater would be forced through the turbine, which generates electricity. The 800 megawatts of electricity produced would separate seawater into hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis, and the hydrogen would then be stored on-board the ships.

It’s a lofty amibition, but the largest parafoil in production right now is only 6,835 square feet. The size needed for the Korean team’s plan? 6.5 million-square-feet.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/hydro-paraplant/

That’s Reusable News.