Grist List

Why China's winning the cleantech contest

One Block Off the Grid, a company that organizes collective purchasing for green home improvements, put together a very loooong infographic about, in their words, "Why China is Kicking Our Ass in Clean Tech." Fast Company very helpfully chopped that infographic up into digestible pieces. But here is the only picture you really need to understand:


 

Manchester turns a disused building into a vertical farm

We know that some people don't think much of the idea of urban farming, in part because it takes up space that could otherwise be used to house people more densely. But what if an urban farm was a) vertical and b) using an otherwise abandoned space?

That's the plan for Alpha Farm, to be built in the Wythenshawe area of Manchester, England

How do you design a bike that will make people give up cars?

Oregon Manifest is a challenge, sponsored in part by Levi's, to bike designers and constructors to build "The Ultimate Modern Utility Bike." The bike must have features like built-in anti-theft devices, fenders, lighting, load-carrying capability, and kickstand. Bikes entered into the contest will be tested on a 50 mile course that covers city and dirt roads, asphalt, gravel, hills, and stairs. The winner receives a $3,000 prize.

Billionaire carves his name on island

Hamad bin Hamdan al Ahyan is a real-life Chairface Chippendale. He owns a private island near Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, but what fun is that if everyone doesn't know it's yours? So he wrote his name on it, in letters a third of a mile long that are visible from space.

Critical List: DeChristopher gets two years; cities are screwed by climate change

A Utah judge sentenced climate activist Tim DeChristopher to two years in prison. A few people were a bit pissed off by this, and 26 protesters were arrested.

A new NRDC report concludes that cities are going to be screwed by climate change.

The Department of Energy is funding a $85 million project to study carbon sequestration in an underground rock formation called Kevin's Dome. Injecting CO2 into the porous rock could be a way to store it harmlessly.

Floating hydroponic farm makes food with zero waste

Here's an urban farm we'll still be able to use when rising sea levels flood all our cities! Science Barge is a floating organic farm set aboard a barge in the Hudson river.

Crazy ideas for next-gen wind turbines

Is there any image that represents a renewable energy future better than a stately white wind turbine turning on a hillside? Well, don't get too used to it! Researchers are coming up with all sorts of crazy ideas to improve on the current turbine model, the Los Angeles Times’ Tiffany Hsu reports. Here’s what future wind turbines will look like:

Here's what an hour's worth of ocean trash looks like

This artwork by Chris Jordan is made up of 2.4 million pieces of plastic, all collected from the Pacific Ocean. (You can see details here.) This is already staggering, but it's actually only a fraction of what gets pumped into the ocean every hour. If every one of these pieces were a pound of plastic, […]

Chesapeake Bay dead zone could be the largest ever

One-third of the Chesapeake Bay is a dead zone this year. The Washington Post reports:

Especially heavy flows of tainted water from the Susquehanna River brought as much nutrient pollution into the bay by May as normally comes in an entire average year, a Maryland Department of Natural Resources researcher said. As a result, “in Maryland we saw the worst June” ever for nutrient pollution, said Bruce Michael, director of the DNR’s resource assessment service.

The dead zone could grow to be the largest ever.