Ecoble - Latest Comments in 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

cleondann — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:45:19 -0000

this is a good stuff.. thanks... but i think butterfly vibrator is more popular now than other traditional sex toys... what do u think?

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

alexgrinsk — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 21:41:40 -0000

10 months ago
When you use electricity there is an 80% chance that energy came from fossil fuels that were harvested from below the earth. When you burn wood the source is a co2 absorbing tree. There for the wood is far more green because it is offset by a tree that absorbed all the carbon that it took to make that wood...

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

Chair Hire — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 14:31:30 -0000

That tub is literally the coolest thing I have ever seen. I intend to buy some land on a mountain side just to make this a necessity.

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

t_aqilla — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:02:22 -0000

Wow, how puritan can you get??? Who cares about the world...if something looks vaugely sexual (it didn't to me until you mentioned it...have you been using the "butterfly strap-on vibrator too much??) then one it should not be considered?

Or were you making a funny?

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

t_aqilla — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 16:38:06 -0000

You can grow the trees again, they are not saying to cut down old growth forests. Wood is one of the few sustainable products we have...you prefer coal, or electricity? The amount of non-recyclable products that go into making solar panels is horrible too. Yes...this is very "green".

The CO2 put out by people debating the subject is probably worse than what that small wood fire puts out once or twice a week.

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

Mike — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:19:59 -0000

I love your Comments. Critical "Green" thinking is exactly what everyone needs. No one seems to be questioning anything anymore!

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

Person smarter than you — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:54:02 -0000

Dear Jessica,
The burning of wood is considered CO2-neutral because it releases the same amount of carbon that it absorbed during its life as a tree.

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

Topher — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:18:59 -0000

When you use electricity there is an 80% chance that energy came from fossil fuels that were harvested from below the earth. When you burn wood the source is a co2 absorbing tree. There for the wood is far more green because it is offset by a tree that absorbed all the carbon that it took to make that wood...

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

Burt — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 14:07:49 -0000

i know, they should call it "Brown Energy" because green wood won't burn ! anyway, you are right !!!

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

Andrew — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 05:05:36 -0000

@ People saying wood burning is not green ---

Burning wood is MUCH more green than burning coal, as wood is a renewable resource. The CO2 released into the air is taken up by trees which are then burned again. It's cyclical, meaning it has virtually zero footprint.

This is assuming the trees are grown at a rate matching the rate of burning, which is more and more becoming the case. Logging companies are beginning to log only new growth forests which they then replace. Coal on the other hand, takes millenia to replenish. If we were burning the coal at the rate it was being produced, it would also be zero footprint. This is obviously impossible for us to do with our current energy consumption.

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

Josh Gray — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 20:24:18 -0000

That's a great thing this wood heated Hot tub. Now that Global Warming Hoax is finally out in the open we don't need to feel bad about burning wood.

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

Louise — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 19:24:08 -0000

Its amazing what we do on less than 1% of our brain. I think thats what they say we use but I can't remember. See I use less than that!!

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

Mik Seljamaa — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 10:38:53 -0000

that would be 10 kg not a tonne

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

Tony — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 13:19:23 -0000

You're not calculating volume. The Sears Tower is about 100 stories and it has 4.5 MILLION square feet of floor space alone. That's not including the space in between the floors...

So the wax analogy is about right.

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

Oh — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:04:55 -0000

I didn't realize a 100 story building was a straight vertical line. I thought it would look more like a box, if anything...

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

AtmosphericChemist — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 23:39:16 -0000

EDIT
sorry 1.5 degrees Celsius not 15 degrees Celsius.

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

AtmosphericChemist — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 23:37:34 -0000

Okay, I'm a chemist. And I want to say please verify your facts.
The effect that water vapor has on the heat reflected towards and away from the surface of earth is so massive that if there was no water vapor in the atmosphere our planet would be approximately 31 degrees Celsius BELOW our current temperature! This is resultant because at the wavelengths that thermal radiation travels at (between 3,000nm and 100,000nm) water vapor is practically opaque! That means that the said thermal radiation would reflect off of it the majority of the time.
On the other hand if all Carbon Dioxide was removed from the atmosphere of our planet the temperature would drop by a much smaller amount, approximately 15 degrees Celsius. This is because Carbon Dioxide is relatively transparent at the wavelengths of thermal radiation.
I mean at least look at Wikipedia if your going to pretend to know what your saying. Second section of the global warming entry it gives a breakdown of the effect of the effects of different greenhouse gasses. I wish you people would at least make have a try at getting your facts straight.

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

john — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 19:20:14 -0000

true, but natural decomposition takes much, much longer than burning.

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

JimB. — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 13:00:38 -0000

That's some waxy buildup.!

If we assume that 1 story = 10 ft, a typical handwave, then a 100 story building is about 1000 feet and as Google will show you, (0.038%) * 1000 feet = 4.56 inches, and 0.038% is the percentage of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere. Personally, I'd avoid any buildings with four and a half inches of wax on the floor.

If I told you once, I told you a million times... don't exaggerate.

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

Mr B — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 10:25:36 -0000

Sarin? Oh my, great analogy. Fact is there has always been co2 in the atmosphere, way before man invented the internal combustion engine. Do you understand why dinosaurs were the size that they were? Because there was more co2 in the atmosphere back then than there is now - fact.

Here's another tidbit for you... when Mt Pinatubo blew it spewed more shit into the atmosphere in two days than man ever has or ever will. We are still here, aren't we?

Again, co2 is at best a trace gas. Get over it. Study sun spot cycles and clue yourself in.

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

Mr B — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 01:21:11 -0000

LMAO @ you green knuckleheads. When are you going to get it through your heads that carbon dioxide is at best a trace gas in the atmosphere. Water vapor is the key, not co2. Dolts!

Imagine a 100 story sky scraper. By comparrison the amount of co2 in our atmosphere would equate to the WAX covering the tile in the first floor of said sky scraper.

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

Dave — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 23:15:26 -0000

Burning coal is a "closed loop" in the same way that burning wood is. The only difference is the time scale. Biodiesel crops re-capture their carbon in a single year. A tree takes between 20 and 50 years. Coal takes millions.
Most climatologists are saying that the next 20 years are going to be the critical ones as far as the greenhouse effect is concerned. Therefore, burning a tree whose carbon won't be re-captured for at least 20 years is as bad as burning coal.

But carbon dioxide is only one form of pollution. It's one that has gone completely unnoticed for so long that we let it build up too much and now we are panicking about it but that doesn't mean that all the other sorts of pollution don't matter. Wood smoke contains carbon monoxide and loads of tiny carcinogenic particles. These don't have the same long term effect on the climate but they have a far more direct effect on our personal health.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-11-13-...
http://www.lungusa.org/site/c.dvLUK9O0E/b.23354...
http://burningissues.org/car-www/index.html
http://www.epa.gov/woodstoves/healthier.html
http://www.epa.gov/woodstoves/refp.html

The magnetic fridge link has gone 404 but I found a couple of articles about the technology:

http://www.physorg.com/news64851465.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2006/dec/1...

Unfortunately the articles are a little old but the spin-off company that was created to start manufacturing the fridges looks to still be doing things:

http://www.camfridge.com/Pages/news.html

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

mort — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 22:34:54 -0000

Burning wood releases exactly the amount of carbon that the tree sequestered while it was alive. It's a closed loop as long as the timber was grown in a sustainable method. The excess carbon in our atmosphere is caused by burning hydrocarbons which sequestered carbon eons ago. The carbon in trees is released by burning or by natural decomposition in the same quantity.

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

jeff — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 17:41:22 -0000

I think the wood-fired hot tub violates the "green" portion of the title of the article. Burning wood is far from green.

The gravi-lamp has been thoroughly debunked. Quick back-of-the-envelope calculations show that it could not possibly produce more than a few minutes worth of light. It's designer (Clay Moulton, a student at Virginia Tech) has admitted that he never did the calculations to support its claims, and has recanted them. Unfortunately, the contest judges didn't do their homework either before giving the award.

Re: 7 Offbeat Off-the-Grid Green Gadgets, Inventions, and Innovations

laurance — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 05:31:55 -0000

the whole point with wood burning is that the wood has already taken the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere so you releasing it by burning it makes no overall effect on carbon levels, hence why it is generally classed as being green to use wood burning stoves