The Karma is a plug-in hybrid with four doors and a GT-style body.

(Credit: CNET)

Among the different alternative-fuel strategies playing out, Henrik Fisker is betting big on plug-in hybrids. At a recent dinner speech, he said plug-in hybrids, or PHEVs, will be the dominant type of car for the ...

Originally posted at The Car Tech blog

Cleantech Group, a research firm backed by Deloitte, released a preliminary report on Thursday showing a slight uptick in clean-tech funding during the second quarter of 2009 in North America, Europe, China, and India.

After two quarterly declines, the increase is good news, ...

The Greenpeace guide, which started in 2006, ranks the top 17 PC, cell phone, TV, and gaming console manufacturers based on their policies regarding e-waste, climate change, and use of toxic chemicals.

Hewlett-Packard, ...

The BLM maps cover areas within the six U.S. states most suitable for solar energy generation ...

After a six-year effort, the prototype of a new solar-powered aircraft was unveiled at a Swiss airfield on Friday by its future pilots and promoters Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg.

Dubbed the Solar Impluse HB-SIA, the airplane is designed to fly both day and night without the need for ...

Originally posted at News - Cutting Edge

Originally posted at The Open Road

The new Windows 7 packaging.

Before Microsoft announced Windows 7 pricing, the company detailed earlier this week how it plans to package the operating system.

Microsoft claims that Windows 7 packaging "has a 37 percent weight reduction, and the econometrics score has improved by 50 percent over its predecessor." Instead of forcing customers to read instructions on how to open the box, Windows 7 packaging will open just like a DVD case.

"We've reduced the number of elements in the package down to three: the plastic case, the paper sleeve, and a simple Getting Started Guide," Microsoft wrote in a blog post. "The plastic case opens easily like a standard DVD case, and it will have a single easy-to-remove seal at the top--and that's it!"

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, packaging accounts for a third of consumer garbage. And as CNET pointed out on the Green Tech blog, "plastics comprise 12 percent of U.S. waste each year, but are rarely recycled, while some scientists fear that irresponsible dumping is making a plastic soup of the world's oceans."

Although software arguably should not require any packaging, instead relying purely on Internet downloads, and plastic packaging could (and should) probably be avoided altogether, Microsoft's reduction of packaging materials corresponds with a trend that I think is better for all of us.

Originally posted at The Digital Home

The carbon-capturing structure looks more like a cylinder than a soaring Redwood.

(Credit: Global Research Technologies)

Klaus Lackner, a professor of geophysics at the university, has been working on the project since 1998, according to a CNN report, and is optimistic about a near-future application.

Modern improvements in coal-fired power plants have reduced carbon emissions, but Lackner is seeking a different function. The "tree" would be used to trap carbon that has already been emitted into the air by car gasoline or airplane fuel, CNN reports.

Unlike the real thing, the synthetic "tree" doesn't need direct sunlight, water, a trunk, or branches to function, as it looks more like a cylinder than a soaring Redwood. The concept, which Lackner says is flexible in size and can be placed nearly anywhere, works by collecting carbon dioxide on a sorbent, cleaning and pressurizing the gas, and releasing it. Similar to the way a sponge collects water, the sorbent would collect carbon dioxide.

Green social networks

BigCarrot BigCarrot is based on the premise of rewarding people for the good deeds they do. After signing up, you can start creating prizes for people to receive if they achieve a goal that helps the environment. So if you want to donate $20 to the first person to plant 20 trees in your area, you can do it. Users who prove that they have completed such tasks will be rewarded in more ways than one.

Unfortunately, BigCarrot is designed poorly. It's difficult to make your way around the site, and creating a new prize is far more difficult than it should be. But its community is relatively active. Finding friends is easy and winning prizes isn't as difficult as you might think. It's not the best social network in this roundup, but it's worth trying out.

Win some cash for completing green tasks on BigCarrot.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

Carbonrally Carbonrally tries to get its users to reduce carbon emissions by working together to achieve that goal. After you sign up for the site, you can create your own challenge. To complete that challenge, you'll need to find team members to help you out. You can also sign up for challenges created by other users.

In either case, you'll communicate with your other team members, discuss what you've done to help achieve that goal, and comment on how to tweak the challenge to make it more meaningful. Luckily, the tasks generally aren't hard to complete--one of the more popular challenges is to alter your air-conditioning level by two degrees for a week.

Carbonrally lets you pick a challenge to help the environment.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

Originally posted at Webware