Pedal Powered Water Purification Island; Algae a secret weapon; BMW Offers Plug-In Electric Diesel Hybrid; Earthship Makes Landfall in Nicaragua; UPS Trying New Hydraulic Hybrid Trucks

Pedal Powered Water Purification Island This people-powered water purification island, designed by Jakub Szczesny as part of the Synchronicity architecture and art festival in Warsaw, Poland, hooks up basic exercise machines to kinetically pump polluted water through four filters into overhead tanks that spill into a large drinking fountain at the end of the cycle.

Algae a secret weapon in climate change war Driven by fluctuations in oil prices, and seduced by the prospect of easing climate change, experts are ramping up efforts to squeeze fuel out of a promising new organism: pond scum.

BMW Offers Plug-In Electric Diesel Hybrid BMW’s offering at Frankfurt was a plug-in electric diesel hybrid that is about as green as they get, rated at the equivalent of about 75 miles per gallon, but with the sporty acceleration of a BMW M3 sports car — like a zero-to-60 time under 4 seconds and a top speed of 155 miles per hour.

Earthship Makes Landfall in Nicaragua I love earthships and have written about them many times on my own site. But now the Earthship crew from right here in Taos, NM has gone to Nicaragua and showed them how to build these sustainable homes. Nice job guys!

UPS Trying New Hydraulic Hybrid Trucks Using trucks where the engine has no direct physical link to the wheels, UPS is testing a new hydraulic hybrid system for some of its trucks. The hydraulic drive system is purported to be more efficient than traditional hybrid systems because there is less energy lost between the engine and the wheels.