REVA Announces 'Second Life' for its EV Batteries

Image credit: REVA India Reva, the Indian electric car maker marketed as the G Wiz in the UK, announced last week that it was launching two new electric cars - a four-seat, three-door hatchback family car , and a sporty two seater. Inevitably, when we write about electric cars, we get asked about embodied energy in batteries, and about the source that the electricity comes from. Reva are now takin...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Gaiam Hosts Carnival of the Green

This week is Carnival of the Green #196 and it's being hosted by Gaiam's blog, Stream of Consciousness, which is under Gaim's umbrella site called Gaiam Life. This "guide to a better living" highlights green living in addition to personal growth, health and wellness, and mind, body and fitness. Gaiam Life is a gathering place to communicate values and to provide people with a gathering place to share thoughts, ideas and feelings about the world we live in and our relationship with it. So head on over to Read the full story on TreeHugger

One Good Chair Competition: Vote On Where You Want To Put Your Rear

The three finalists' chairs are being unveiled today in Las Vegas; a finalist jury is picking the winner. A big component of the voting is the People's Choice vote here at TreeHugger. The three basic principles of "One Good Chair:"

• Make good (Material conservation). How can shape optimize resources in design, fabrication, and shipping? What forms create little waste but lots of taste?
• Feel good (Physical comfort). How can shape aid the body in the act of sitting? How do different people sit? How might they?
• ...Read the full story on TreeHugger
  
  

Coal Plant-Emitted Uranium Linked To Birth Defects In Punjab India Cities

Guru Nanak Dev Thermal Plant in n Bathinda City, Punjab, India. Image credit:PSEB India.org You might think of any given coal type as having relatively uniform properties: black, hard, carbon filled, and so on. However, dangerous mineral constituent concentration do vary widely; and, emissions of toxic constituents also vary greatly depending upon the design and operation of a combustion source. For example, some coal has trace levels of fluorides, while other deposits have highly hazardous levels of toxic fluorine compounds....Read the full story on TreeHugger

Sponsored Protest: Parking Day Comes to the UK

Image credit: ibuyeco Parking Day Parking Day has been going since 2005, and TreeHugger has always been excited about this way to temporarily reclaim space from cars and use it for the common good. Others were less impressed, calling Parking Day Activists "enviro-nuts", and even describing them as "so punchable". Now we'll see how the Brits take to the practice of paying for parking space, only to ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Good News! Nanosolar Reaches Solar Cell Efficiency of 16.4% and Starts Mass Production

Photos: Nanosolar Cheap, Efficient Solar Cells You Can Print For a while, everybody was talking about Nanosolar. They were the Tesla Motors of solar panels, in a way. But for the past year, they've kept quiet and this led some people to doubt that the company really would be able to deliver on what it had promised. Was it all hype? Well, Nanosolar has now broken radio silence and the news are good. They've simultaneously released information about three things, along with a very cool video (check it out below) that shows what the inside of their factories look like, including the brand new one in Germany....Read the full story on TreeHugger

Young Couple Says NO to a Mortgaged Life

image via vela creations Amidst the Chihuahuan Desert, Abe and Josie built a home out of dirt, designed a wind turbine from scrap parts, and raised their newborn without diapers and other conveniences. When their first hand sculpted house went up for sale a couple of years ago in Far West Texas, I was one of many people interested in the real estate deal of a lifetime. But like others who have met this young couple and heard their story, I was inspired to start from scratch, rather than to take out a mortgage, even for their one of a kind, self powered, adobe oasis in the desert. Their website, Read the full story on TreeHugger

Colin Beavan on his Year as No Impact Man

The world has been watching Colin Beavan--better known as No Impact Man--for some time. Now, his year of no-impact living at an end, he is sharing the ups and downs, the laughter and nail-biting, and all the lessons that came from what The New York Times dubbed "the year without toilet paper." No Impact Man is now a film, a book, and a nonprofit (NoImpactProject.org), and the critics are scurrying about trying to make sense of it all. Listen to the podcast of this interview via Read the full story on TreeHugger

Fight Home and Office Ozone: Plant Some of These Greenies

Photo by PinkMoose, via Flickr. Plants are not all doom and gloom, like when it comes to volatile organic compounds. Plants can filter ozone from your indoor air. That's ozone as in smog, a common pollutant floating around in homes and offices, released by copy machines, laser printers and even some indoor air purification systems. Don't expect an Ozone Action Day alert at your office. The colorless gas has been linked to Read the full story on TreeHugger

Making a No Impact Movie About No Impact Man

The No Impact Family and Filmmakers at the Sundance Film Festival (L-R) Eden Wurmfeld, Laura Gabbert, Michelle Conlin, Colin Beavan and Justin Schein Making a movie about No Impact Man means also going no impact during filming...or at least as low impact as possible. So just how does a movie get made? Justin Schein, the co-director of No Impact Man is taking us behind the scenes about how the movie No Impact Man was created with as little impact as possible. (By the way, t...Read the full story on TreeHugger