technology

Here's a great article on some outlandish but intriguing geo-engineering ideas that are starting to get more attention.

 The ideas are shrouded in controversy -- "Why are we speculating about whether we can construct concrete trees that may or may not effectively capture carbon from the atmosphere when we've got people's homes which aren't properly insulated? That's absurd," -- but still quite fascinating and fun food for thought leading into the Global Summit in Denmark next month:

 If there were some kind of panic button to stop global warming, what would it look like? How about billions of tiny mirrors, launched into orbit to deflect solar rays away from Earth? Or big, fluffy clouds, artificially whitened so they reflect more sunlight back into space? Or maybe mechanical trees, ugly but effective at sucking carbon dioxide from the air along busy highways.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/26/MN2H1AKSHS.DTL#ixzz0YIpCiVP2

Okay, this is a bit off topic, but it's too outlandish not to mention: The government of Thailand has launched the world's first environmental satellite, according to Lime.  The satellite will help Thai government agencies monitor crops, and also to track illegal logging and spot the cultivation of opium poppies.  Big Green Brother? Maybe so, but they say you can't fool Mother Nature anyway. 

image sxc.hu 

Gigacrete is a new, eco-friendly cementitious building material that uses no Portland cement; rather, it consists of a proprietary nontoxic binder, and a filler utilizing waste ash from coal fired power generation stations, of all grades, not just the fly ash currently used as a ten percent filler in concrete. Other fillers include waste paper, cardboard and plastics, styrofoam packaging, sludge from paper mills, and agricultural waste fibers (leftover from food crops like rice, corn, wheat and other grains). Since most of these materials would just end up in a landfill (sacrilege!), they instead make a great alternative building material. All of the above materials become totally fireproof and can be made very lightweight, yet are as strong as traditional concrete, sometimes even more so. Gigacrete composites do not shrink or crack like concrete, they're fireproof and water/insect/vermin/mold/hurricane/earthquake resistant. Products include: PanelSystem, Stuccomax, StuccoMax-E (Environmental), Floor Overlay, PlasterMax, GigaCast and GigaPatch. The site is definitely worth a look-see.

From the site:
PanelSystem is the basis of a complete panelized building system with many residential, commercial, and industrial applications. Utilizing new manufacturing technology, the PanelSystem is vertically cast in a factory and delivered to job sites ready for rapid installation. The PanelSystem is engineered to be fireproof and water, insect, vermin, mold, hurricane, and earthquake resistant. While GigaCrete™ panels have minimum compressive strengths of 1,200 PSI, the panels are a fraction of the weight of most Portland-based concrete panels and require only hand labor to move and construct. The GigaCrete PanelSystem can be molded for structural walls, interior walls, floors, and roofing - providing a turnkey building system that significantly reduces the time and cost of construction.

GigacreteUSA

Voted one of the top 25 "Best of Green Design", by Popular Mechanics