SuperWeed

Pretty, pretty hybrid solar-wind panels modeled after ivy leaves.

They’re from SMIT’s GROW project, “a hybrid energy delivery device that provides power via the sun and wind, and draws inspiration from ivy growing on a building.” Using both photovoltaic and piezoelectric converters in each “leaf,” the GROW system is designed to be mounted on a stainless steel mesh system originally designed to allow ivy and other plants to easily grow up the walls of buildings.

It looks like this:

Here are just some of the reasons I love this project:

• It uses both wind and solar. For both single buildings and in energy policy, we need to realize that maybe we can’t find the one and only solution because there is no one and only solution. I’m convinced that, in addition to reductions in consumption, we need to deploy a multiplicity of renewable energy technologies in a multiplicity of ways.
• It uses solar, which is the most promising and least developed source of renewable energy.
• It works at the building level. If we want to avoid the environmental hazards of things like wind farms, we need more and better on-site renewable technologies.
• It looks great. For people to really want those technologies, and be willing to spend more for them until we reach the stage where economies of scale and evolving technology make solar and wind power more affordable, they’ve got to be aesthetically pleasing.
• The GROW system itself is made from recycled materials.

So don’t say I never blog about anything happy.

March 4th, 2008 | Category: Energy, Vegan Bliss | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL