The future of Detroit looks much greener, ecologically speaking, thanks to a budding partnership between the city and the Greening of Detroit announced Wednesday in a park on the city's west side.
The Walter Meyers Nursery, an abandoned 125-acre parcel in Rouge Park that has been dormant for more than three years, is to be used to provide the city with an efficient means of reforesting the landscape. Plans call for the planting of more than 20,000 trees on nursery property in the first eight years. The trees would be grown from young seedlings for three to five years before they are replanted in public places like parks and school grounds.
"Today is a cause for celebration because it presents a great opportunity for a partnership to blossom," said Rebecca Salminen-Witt, president of Greening of Detroit.
The partnership was blocked in July by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the union with the largest number of city workers. The union objected to the use of private workers, even if volunteers, to do nursery work once done by city employees.
But an arbitrator ruled against the union, which also is objecting to a plan to have Greening of Detroit plant trees in city-owned rights-of-way.
Greening of Detroit is a nonprofit organization established in 1989 to promote the reforestation of Detroit.
With the help of volunteers and community organizations, the group has been planting nearly 2,000 trees a year in the spring and fall.
Greening of Detroit is a 501 (c)(3) not for profit organization, established in 1989 to guide and inspire the reforestation of Detroit. Our latest strategic plan reflects commitment to a clear sense of direction that will guide the organization's development over the next five years.
A new vision was established, expanding The Greening's mission to guide and inspire others to create a 'greener' Detroit through planting and educational programs environmental leadership, advocacy, and by building community capacity.
Air filtration is becoming a huge business today. With the EPA finding indoor air up to 90% more contaminated than the air outside, People are developing asthma and allergies at higher rates than ever before. Here is a very cool way to help the air in your home or office with no electricity needed at all.
Yup. Good ole plants to save the day. Now don't get me wrong, if you can afford to have a powerful air filtration unit in your home or office then by all means go for it, but if your on a budget or just want to green the place up a bit, then pay a visit to your local green house or plant supplier and get some live plants in your place.
NASA has even researched the use of plants for a number of great uses. They have found that living plants are so efficient at absorbing contaminants in the air that some will be launched into space as part of the biological life support system aboard future orbiting space stations. NASA is also looking at using plants to grow food in space for the astronauts to eat. Which brings us to another awesome benefit.
Not only can you have plants in your home for cleaning the air but depending on what your growing, you can spice up your meals as well.
GE leaves behind the old school light bulbs for LEDs and OLEDs (Organic Light Emitting Diodes).
GE Has been working on OLEDS for a while now and they hope to have them for sale by 2010. Below is an interesting article about this technology.
OLEDs are thin, organic materials sandwiched between two electrodes, which illuminate when an electrical charge is applied. They represent the next evolution in lighting products. Their widespread design capabilities will provide an entirely different way for people to light their homes or businesses. Moreover, OLEDs have the potential to deliver dramatically improved levels of efficiency and environmental performance, while achieving the same quality of illumination found in traditional products in the marketplace today with less electrical power.
“Researchers have long dreamed of making OLEDs using a newspaper-printing like roll-to-roll process,” said Anil Duggal, manager of GE’s Advanced Technology Program in Organic Electronics. “Now we’ve shown that it is possible. Commercial applications in lighting require low manufacturing costs, and this demonstration is a major milestone on our way to developing low cost OLED lighting devices.”
Duggal continued, “Beyond OLEDs, this technology also could have broader impact in the manufacturing of other organic electronic devices such as organic photovoltaics for solar energy conversion, sensors and roll-up displays.”
“For businesses, architects, lighting designers and anyone interested in pushing the envelope to achieve increasingly energy-efficient lighting — and vastly expanded lighting design capabilities — today marks the day that viable, commercialized OLED lighting solutions are coming into view,” said Michael Petras, GE Consumer & Industrial’s Vice President of Electrical Distribution and Lighting. “We have more work to do before we can give customers access to GE-quality OLED solutions, but it’s now easier to envision OLEDs becoming another high-efficiency GE offering, like LEDs, fluorescent or halogen.”
The demonstration of a low-cost, roll-to-roll process for OLED lighting represents the successful completion of a four-year, $13 million research collaboration among GE Global Research, Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:ENER) and the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The goal of the collaboration was to demonstrate a cost-effective system for the mass production of organic electronics products such as flexible electronic paper displays, portable TV screens the size of posters, solar powered cells and high-efficiency lighting devices.
ECD Senior Vice President Nancy Bacon said, “This program was a major step in developing high volume roll-to-roll manufacturing for OLEDs and other organic semiconductor devices. The success of this program is testimony to the effectiveness of NIST’s advanced technology program model, and our 20-year history of pioneering research in roll-to-roll technology. We currently are utilizing this technology to mass produce our flexible, durable and lightweight UNI-SOLAR brand solar laminates. ECD looks forward to continuing collaboration with GE to further develop this technology for future commercialization.”
GE researchers provided the organic electronics technology and were responsible for developing the roll-to-roll processes, while ECD provided its unique roll-to-roll equipment-building expertise to build the machine that manufactures the OLED devices. The machine is being utilized for further manufacturing research at GE’s Global Research Center in Niskayuna, New York.
The development of this low cost roll-to-roll manufacturing process has the potential to eliminate the manufacturing hurdles that currently exist in preventing a more widespread adoption of high performance organic electronics technologies such as OLED lighting. The unique commercial equipment and technology needed to enable high performance-based organic electronics products does not currently exist. The few organic electronics products on the market today are made with more conventional batch processes and are relatively high cost. A roll-to-roll manufacturing infrastructure that enables high performance and low cost devices will allow a more widespread adoption of organic electronics products.
GE’s OLED Research Program
GE, as part of its ecomagination initiative, has made substantial investments in OLED research that has resulted in world records for OLED lighting device size and efficiency. In 2004, researchers were able to demonstrate an OLED device that was fully functional as a 24-inch by 24-inch panel, which produced 1,200 lumens of light with an efficiency on par with today’s incandescent bulb technology. This was the first demonstration that OLED technology potentially could be used for lighting applications. Since then, GE has more than doubled the level of OLED efficiency using device architectures that are scalable to a large area and can be produced cost-effectively.
The efforts to increase the efficiency and performance of OLED lighting have coincided with the development of a low-cost, roll-to-roll process for manufacturing these devices. The ultimate goal of GE’s research program is to introduce OLED lighting products to market by the year 2010.
About GE Global Research
GE Global Research is one of the world's most diversified industrial research labs, providing innovative technology for all of GE's businesses. Global Research has been the cornerstone of GE technology for more than 100 years, developing breakthrough innovations in areas such as medical imaging, energy generation technology, jet engines and lighting. GE Global Research is headquartered in Niskayuna, New York and has facilities in Bangalore, India, Shanghai, China and Munich, Germany. Visit GE Global Research at www.ge.com/research.
About Energy Conversion Devices
Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. (Nasdaq: ENER) manufactures and sells thin-film solar laminates that convert sunlight to energy using proprietary technology. Distributed globally under the UNI-SOLAR® brand, the company's products are ideally suited for cost-effective solar roofing solutions because they are lightweight, durable, flexible, can be integrated directly with building materials, and generate more energy in real-world conditions. ECD also pioneers other alternative technologies, including a new type of non-volatile digital memory that is significantly faster and less expensive, and is ideal for a variety of applications including cell phones, digital cameras and personal computers. For more information, visit www.ovonic.com.
I thought this was super cool. Houston has approved changing every single traffic light in the 500 square mile city from the old school 135 watt bulbs to 10 watt LED lights. This is costing the city 16 million to do, but it will save the city 10,000 dollars a day in electricity. What a great investment, within 4 years not only will these wattage savers completely pay for themselves but they will be putting about 3.6 million dollars a year after that back into the cities budget. Now that's smart.
In other cool news for Houston's Green efforts check out this article.
Houston is retrofitting municipal buildings to save not just the greenhouse gasses produced from wasted energy but to create a surplus of money saved in the process.
Good job Houston. Let's hope other cities follow suit. With all the economic issues we face today, it makes sense to do things that SAVE money.
Here are just a few of the things that I do to clean my city, with city meaning my local living area:
I recycle all paper, paperboard, cardboard, glass, aluminum, and plastic that I use. This includes junk mail and food packaging materials, which those two make up the bulk of my recyclables. I grow plants in and around my living space. Not only do these convert carbon dioxide into oxygen they have " grown on me " become part of my daily routine and bring a smile to my face. I drive a LEV, "Low Emission vehicle" and try to drive as smart as possible. This does not always happen because I have a bit of the lead foot syndrome but I try. I choose water for 90% of my beverage intake. Creating a lot of benefits inside of my body. I set up a recycling program at my day job, and now it literally keeps 5 to 8 tons of cardboard and paper a month out of the landfills, it has also saved the company waste disposal fees because it has freed up so much space from the dumpsters. Win Win situations are always good.
