Singapore is geographically small. The total area of the city state numbers just 271 square miles. The country is comprised of 63 individual islands. 25% of the gross national product of Singapore comes from refining of raw materials. Another 25% is derived from transport and brokerage of same. All of this industrialization has not come without an ecological price. 100 years ago 90% of the land of Singapore was rain forest. That number plummeted to less than 15% before reforestation measures restored the rain forest to almost 25% of the usable land.

Singapore has become one of, if not the most, technologically advanced nations of the world. They lead the world in implementation of cutting edge clean technologies. A shining example of this is Singapore’s new Clean Tech Industrial Park. As part of a grand plan to achieve energy efficiency and total sustainability the government’s economic development board has partnered with the local corporate community to set up a Green Development area. Not only is the project location itself setup for minimum eco-impact and maximum sustainability, but the work within the park is all focused upon development of clean tech solutions. It is the plan of the government of Singapore to lead the world in this area. Situated on 50 hectares of land the project, to be completed by 2030 will accommodate 20,000 workers. Emphasis on the development in placed on minimizing the office and industrial impact on the land. Simple ideas such as implementation of underground parking and passive lighting are blended with high tech solar power installations. Land optimization seems to be the central theme as all buildings are designed to return more of the original rain forest to the island.

Singapore is a unique South Pacific weigh station in that it prospers as the ultimate global corporate middleman. This new industrial park will exist to develop sustainability technologies as well as incorporate them. The park streets will be lit exclusively with LEDS, the development of which having taken place in Singapore. The specific designs of these are then licensed for manufacture throughout the world. Rainwater is collected on the roofs of the massive office buildings. The system used for this gathering is further developed and marketed. Singapore became one of the wealthiest nations in the world by refining raw materials and exporting them around the word. Now they will likely pioneer the “Green age” by refining sustainability techniques and selling those ideas.

» Return to the category

» Continue to the next article

What if we were to look upon CFLs as less of a long term solution and more of a bridge to a truly sustainable lighting future. Many people may remember futuristic movies and television programs that depicted entire rooms being powerfully lit by panels. These panels were cool to the touch and allowed for an endless amount of lumens. It seems odd that ideas created for films such as 1972’s “Logan’s Run” are now reality. The mainstay of this arrival of the future in lighting is the light emitting diode.
We are all now well indoctrinated into a world where these blue white lights are heavily used. From humble beginnings as device indicators in the 1980s to those emergency flashlights we have fastened to keychains we all uses to open doors with at night, LEDs have evolved to be the efficient light source for the future.

Lighting Source Group is more committed to the future of LED lighting than any other corporate entity in the world. This commitment is shown in two areas. The first area that Lighting Science Group is working hard in to create a well lit yet green planet is in their product line. High lumens per watt LEDs from LSG are incorporated into every conventional lighting source imaginable. From the Times Square New Year’s Eve Ball with 32,000 brilliant LEDs to the “light bulb” you screw into the ceramic fixture in your closet. Lighting Science Group has integrated existing power supplies to their high tech low current luminescence. This integration goes even further with production of brilliant commercial lighting for areas such as parking lots and playgrounds.

Integration of today’s LED technology with past power supplies allows us to light the present but how will we continue to reduce energy waste while improving home and commercial lighting? Lighting Science Group’s second area of emphasis is on research. Currently Lightning Science Group is hard at work developing more efficient Light Emitting Diodes. At the present time most commercial grade LEDs release around 60 lumens per watt. LEDs used in Lighting Science Group product give off a bright blue white 80 lumens per watt. This one feature alone results in huge energy savings. LSG research is looking forward to cool running LEDs that can emit as much as 200 lumens per watt.

What is the result of all this present and future green planning? Each street lighting fixture converted from an incandescent, fluorescent or halogen process to low power consuming LSG products results in the savings of 1 barrel of oil, and ½ ton less of CO2 placed into the atmosphere every year. Plus LED based commercial lighting uses 50% less electricity.

Lighting solutions reliant upon low current draining LEDs are of course but one step towards a sustainable Earth. Passive lighting from fiber optics along with reflective and focal technologies will also help us change the way we light the world. In an environmentally friendly plan for the future we will want to and need to use all of the resources available to us. LED based lighting from Lighting Science Group will surely be one of them.

» Return to the category

» Continue to the next article

Recently some clever people at Dixon Golf set out to create a recyclable golf ball. They took on this challenge because golf balls, being as durable as they are, represent an item that is virtually indestructible. Nearly 300 million golf balls are discarded yearly in the United States alone representing a definitive green Earth hazard.
Of course a golf ball is not a soda bottle or a plastic bag. It is not a simple item to grind up and melt down to make other goods. In fact, the chemical components of most major manufacturer’s golf balls are some of the toughest to breakdown in existence. Golf ball ingredients include heavy metals such as tungsten, cobalt and even lead. With that said, the folks at Dixon Golf knew that making a biodegradable golf ball was not really an option.
But, like our Coke bottle and pair of Wingtip shoes, perhaps a golf ball could be refilled or resoled. That was the exact development direction Dixon Golf chose. To make a golf ball that could be rebuilt and consequently reused.

This was accomplished by creating a ball that used a different material for its core. The core of a Dixon Golf Ball is made from a special polymer that is 100% renewable. Also, the covers of Dixon Golf Balls are made of materials that are easily recycled to make other consumer products. Every part of a Dixon Golf Ball is reusable from the core to the cover.
Golf balls are manufactured to exacting standards. All of those little dimples in a golf ball act as tiny wings to give the ball aerodynamic lift and control. Inside, the core of a golf ball is designed to compress upon forceful impact from the club. The head of a golf club, swung by an amateur, strikes the ball at an average speed of eighty miles per hour. The release of that compression sends the ball outward at a great speed. Making a golf ball that meets the requirements of amateur and pro golfers alike is no small feat. Making a ball that is also recyclable is almost impossible.
We say “almost” of course, because making a completely recyclable golf ball is precisely what Dixon Golf has done. Dixon Golf has created a superbly crafted high quality golf ball that is the equal of any ball in play today. In independent testing Dixon Golf balls outperformed higher priced Titleist, Nike and Callaway balls. The same test showed that the Dixon Golf “Earth” ball received a 92% approval rating.

So how did Dixon Golf founders and Principals William Carey and Dane Platt create a recyclable golf ball that can out play the best on the market? Fortunately, the owners of Dixon Golf had spent years working in the golf ball industry for a manufacturer that made name brand balls. The construction of a Titleist differs greatly from a Nike ball and neither company is sharing their design secrets. But the principals of Dixon Golf didn’t need anyone else’s secret technology to aid them. They had a combined 30 years of ball making experience between them and knew firsthand the design characteristics that went into making a competitive ball. The trick would be to make a ball out of green materials that was designed from the outset to be rebuilt and resoled. Further, the 100 percent recyclable golf balls would need to perform equally as well as other brand name balls.

But green golf doesn’t stop there. Marketing is a major part of Dixon’s Green Golf Planning. When you purchase a Dixon Golf ball you can trade in your old Dixon Golf ball for a one dollar credit towards the purchase of Dixon Golf balls. Dixon Golf will even give you a 50 cent credit on any non Dixon Golf balls returned. Following through on this marketing swing, all of the materials used to make and market Dixon Golf Balls are recyclable including packaging and displays.
At the present time there are two grades of Dixon Golf Balls, Earth, and Wind. The Dixon Golf Fire ball will be available beginning this summer. Each of these is designed for particular playing conditions and player abilities.
While it is true that a Dixon Golf ball shanked into a pond will still need to be rescued by a diver, at least when it is recovered it can be recycled.

» Return to the category

» Continue to the next article

But it turns out that the Volt is a real car and a beaut of one at that. What is perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this new car that Chevrolet refuses to call a hybrid is its conventionally attractive styling. Sure most people will marvel at the Voltec drive train which differs from the Toyota Prius’ and Honda Insight’s in that the onboard internal combustion engine used has no direct mechanical connection to the drivetrain. The engine on the Volt runs at an economically constant speed so as to keep the 16 lithium ion batteries used at a steady current. That current then drives the Volt’s electric motor, which of course drives the wheels.
When running by way of the current generated by the Volt’s gasoline generator into its 140 horsepower electric motor, the car averages a mere 50 miles per gallon fuel consumption but average in the mileage achieved from battery only “silent running” and that figure leaps off the line to a tremendous 150 MPG! On a fun note, if your batteries are fully charged and you run out of gas, you will still have 40 miles of driving in order to reach a station.
The exterior of the Chevy Volt is more than attractive enough to lure buyers. This will be necessary with a planned initial sticker price for the car of $40,000. This figure is offset by a hefty tax credit of $7,500.

Perhaps the one feature found in the Volt that anyone over thirty and born in the last fifty years has anticipated is the ability to drive the car for 40 miles before the gasoline engine is required. In fact, if your commute is within the national average of 33 miles daily then you might go weeks without visiting a gas pump.
You will have to plug your car into a conventional wall socket every night for a ten hour recharge. The Volt’s platform also allows for a quick 3 hour charge if plugged into a 240 volt socket such as those used by a clothes dryer.

An electric car that can drive around town and go 70 miles per hour on the freeway was not too long ago the stuff of science fiction. We may not yet have the predicted flying cars for the new millennium but come November of 2010 there will be an automobile that we can plug into the socket just above the washing machine, charge overnight and drive to work in the morning.

» Return to the category

» Continue to the next article

The solution is to take one giant step further with new designs that plan for a green future. One such idea in the making is Ricoh’s quick warm up copier. While most office copy systems require a lengthy nonproductive warm up time the new Ricoh models are ready to run in under ten seconds. This allows the machine to be “at rest” in energy-saver mode yet come quickly to life resulting in an overall power usage savings of almost 50%.

This savings pales in comparison to Ricoh’s rewriteable paper system. Perhaps you remember as a child writing secret messages with lemon or potato juice on paper. No one could read the message unless they knew to warm the note over an incandescent light bulb. Once heated slightly the top secret magically appeared. Now consider that Ricoh has developed an image printing and erasing system that uses heat in the same manner to write on a sheet and erase it up to 200 times. While the process itself uses some energy, that use is minute compared to the energy used to produce a sheet of paper. This is the ultimate form of paper recycling. Point of use recycling saves energy so definitively that business costs for items such as copy making can be cut by as much as 90%. This does not even factor the submerged labor costs of purchasing and delivery of paper supplies.

As companies such as Ricoh continue to develop these ubergreen technologies everyone on earth will delight in maintaining a high quality of life and convenience without sacrificing environmental comfort.
Ricoh should be commended further for their overall eco-strategy that is based on a year 2050 long-term environmental vision. This planning embraces energy conservation, resource conservation, pollution prevention and reduction of paper use entirely.

» Return to the category