My eco footprint diary

This a diary of what I'm going to do to help the enviroment.

• Firstly I will put my clothes on the line instead of in the dryer.
• Also I will turn off the playstation when I'm not using it.
• I will limit my showers to a couple of minutes.
• Turn off the light when I'm not in a room.

I hope you make a change for the better too!!

Sustainable architecture

Yesterday Kris Wilson a professinal architect came to our class and talked to us architecture and how to make it sustainable. He talked about how important insulation in the home is and now the goverment fund towards insulation has help older homes become warmer. He also told us about heating your water with the heat from your fire with a water back. Here is his website with all of his work. Click here.

Economics on the matai islands

Some people money makes the world go round and basically it does, with the markets also supply and demand. Supply and demand control all companys because when demand goes down so does there need for supply. Here is a diagram showing how supply and demand work.

As you can see the supply and demand affect the economy and the price. Also the consumer like you or me depends on how well the product will sell. If the product isn't something we need and it's too expensive we will just wait until the price comes down.

Building a eco house with eco materials and energy

Eco housing is the thing of the future here is some info of what you can do to help save the earth.

• How solar heating works is solar radiation is absorbed and converted into heat through a series of toughend glass cleared tubes.
• Another way of heating is a ground source heat pump which pumps through air that slowly gets hotter as it is pushed through the pipe then gets pushed out a heat pump into your house.
• Photovaltaics is advanced technology that is similar to solar panels but instead of turning it into heat it turns it into electricity. Cool right.
• Collecting rain water into a tank and using it for gardening and household use. You may think it is stupid but you can put a filter on it so it is clean.
• Double glazing and insulation do the same by keeping the heat in and keeping your power bill down.

Matai islands uranium

Uranium is used to power nuculer facilites and it is a very tedious task to extract it.As shown in this diagram.

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Urainium produces a lot of energy like it says in the old movie back to the future where it says it produces one whole gigawatt of power. But it is dangerous because it is radioactive.

Going green dosn't mean less speed

Lets check out 3 cars that are green and go faster than a porshe 911.

1. TZero by AC Propulsion

The TZero is an all-electric sports car made by AC Propulsion. Launched in 1997 with the goal of bringing it to production, three hand-made prototypes were built. They originally used lead-acid batteries and could do 0 to 60 in 4 seconds, but in 2003 a new prototype with lithium-ion batteries was made and it could accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 3.6 seconds. Unfortunately, it was also in 2003 that plans for commercial production were dropped.

2. Roadster by Tesla Motors

The Tesla Roadster is also all-electric. Compared to the TZero above, you could say that it is the new generation of electric cars. More refined and higher-technology. Using a lithium-ion battery pack and a 248 hp (185 kW) electric motor designed to spin at 14,000 RPM, the Tesla Roadster can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds. Unfortunately, the credit crunch is affecting Tesla Motors and it has delayed its next model of electric car.

3. Ultimate Aero EV by Shelby SuperCars

Shelby SuperCars makes the kind of cars that have over a 1,000 hp and can reach 250 mph. Not what you'd immediately associate with "low emissions" and "powered by clean energy", but the times they are a-changin'. Shelby's next hyper-fast car will be an electric vehicle, the Ultimate Aero EV. It's supposed to use a 500 hp electric motor, though 1000 hp twin-motor version, possibly with 4WD, is also on the drawing board. Unfortunately, we don't know yet the acceleration numbers for the electric version, but the regular Ultimate Aero accelerates from 0 to 60 in 2.78 seconds. We trust that the EV will be in the same ballpark, if it isn't faster.

All info from Treehugger.com

Eco housing pictures

Here are some examples of eco housing and they are quite funky looking.






All of these houses have ether used solar heating, efficient resources or building in to the landscape.