Satya Sivani, Author at The Green Optimistic

India Unveils its Second Green Airport

Satya Sivani — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 13:07:34 +0000

Indian Prime Minister, Sri Narendra Modi, has inaugurated India’s second green airport in Vadodara last Saturday. The first one was unveiled in Kochi last year. Mr Modi said, “Connectivity is becoming very important in this century,”. He added, “Happy that 2 airports in India have joined the green movement,”. “The first(one) was in Kochi and the […]

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Let’s Vow to Heal the Ozone Hole by 2050, On This World Ozone Day

Satya Sivani — Fri, 16 Sep 2016 14:04:48 +0000

Three decades back, news had it that a hole appeared in the Ozone layer over Antarctica. The world shivered with fear. All the Countries responded quickly and the result is the Montreal protocol,1987, to ban ozone-depleting chemicals such as CFCs. Scientists say that the efforts that are being put since 1995 in restoring the Ozone […]

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Facebook CEO Gifts Solar-Powered Drone to Pope Francis

Satya Sivani — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:46:09 +0000

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has presented Pope Francis an unusual gift – a model Solar-Powered Drone – on Monday at the Vatican. Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla saw the Pope at the Vatican. Mark wrote in his Facebook post “We told him how much we admire his message of mercy and tenderness, and […]

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July 2016, The Hottest Month Ever Recorded, Proves Climate Change Yet Again

Satya Sivani — Mon, 22 Aug 2016 06:18:05 +0000

NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) Scientists say that July 2016 turned out as the hottest month ever recorded in the 136 years of Global temperature record-keeping history. The announcement also says that July was the 10th consecutive month of record warmth, which means 2016 would be the hottest year ever recorded. Gavin Schmidt, who […]

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New Materials Greatly Improve Solar Fuel Cell Peformance

Satya Sivani — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 18:59:40 +0000

Chemists from University of Texas at Arlington(UTA) have devised new materials of high performance for solar cells to split Carbon dioxide and water into fuels like methanol and hydrogen gas. “Technologies that simultaneously permit us to remove greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide while harnessing and storing the energy of sunlight as fuel are at the forefront […]

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Charge Your EV at Phone Booths with SPARK Plugs

Satya Sivani — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 18:29:58 +0000

Spark Plugs could be a simple solution to your ‘range anxiety’. Spark Ventures has converted some selected phone booths near Auckland into EV charging stations and is allowing drivers to top-up their car battery. Spark Ventures CEO, Rod Snodgrass, says,“Using our lovely phone boxes as top-up charging stations is an incredibly innovative and modest idea, and […]

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‘Wind Tree’ Proves the ‘Silent Wind turbine’ Oxymoron False

Satya Sivani — Thu, 18 Feb 2016 19:39:21 +0000

Wind Tree, as we can guess from the name, is a wind turbine that looks like a tree. But, that is just a speck of this unconventional wind turbine’s definition. Noisy, Monstrous, Nauseous, giant, unpleasant, bird scaring are some of the properties that flash in our mind when we think about wind turbines. But, not […]

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India Expands Solar Cover With the “Rent-a-Roof” Concept

Satya Sivani — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 21:25:38 +0000

Indian electric companies are using the ‘Make in India Week‘ campaign to encourage potential customers to rent out their rooftops to host solar panels. Last Saturday, the Prime minister of India, Sri Narendra Modi has started the ‘Make in India week’ exhibition in Mumbai to attract huge investments in various sectors. Around 2500 international and […]

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Smart AirVisual Node Shows How Polluted The Air Around You Is

Satya Sivani — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 21:57:42 +0000

AirVisual Node, a smart and portable air quality monitor, developed by Airvisual, a China-based startup, can be a smarter solution to find the degrees of pollution around you. HEADLINES Researchers say China air pollution kills 4000 people a day – Bloomberg AIR pollution responsible for killing roughly five MILLION people around the world each year, a […]

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‘Power Paper’ – Story Of A Paper That Can Store Electricity

Satya Sivani — Sat, 12 Dec 2015 15:48:31 +0000

Power Paper, created by the researchers of Sweden’s Linköping University, is showing an outstanding ability in storing energy, which can later be used to recharge devices. To meet the ever-increasing energy demands of our society, we need two kinds of devices – the first kind are the ones that can generate energy from renewable sources and the second […]

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Solar Powered Trike For The Disabled on The World Disabled Day

Satya Sivani — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 19:16:35 +0000

On the occasion of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD), we would like to present the idea of this Solar Powered Trike for all our physically disabled pals across the world. The United Nations has been observing 3rd December as the ‘International Day of Persons with Disabilities’ since 1992. It estimates that there are around […]

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Olafur Eliasson is Kickstarting an Attractive Solar Phone Charger

Satya Sivani — Mon, 28 Sep 2015 09:46:53 +0000

Olafur Eliasson has designed a high-performance, portable solar phone charger-cum-light, which is very attractive – attractive in both design and affordability. The solar-powered phone charger namely ‘Little Sun Charge’, designed by Eliasson along with engineer Frederik Ottesen, has, till now, raised more than €232,000 funding, which is 5 times the creator’s funding goal on Kickstarter, while there still […]

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Caltech’s ‘Artificial Leaf’ Could Revolutionize the Hydrogen Economy

Satya Sivani — Mon, 14 Sep 2015 19:42:20 +0000

Caltech institutions’s newly invented ‘Artificial leaf‘ is a highly efficient stand-alone photoelectrochemical (PEC) device which can split water into hydrogen and oxygen using sun light. “The first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen and pollution free,” ex-President George W. Bush said in his 2003 State of the Union address to the scientists […]

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World’s First Fully Solar Powered Airport Unveiled in India

Satya Sivani — Mon, 31 Aug 2015 19:01:05 +0000

India launches the world’s first fully solar powered airport at Kochi (Cochin), Kerala. The Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL) had started the solar power venture in 2013 by installing a 100 kWp solar photovoltaic plant in its premises. Later, it installed a 1MWp plant, which, together with the former plant, so far saved the environment […]

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Google’s Project Sunroof Calculates the Solar Potential of Your House

Satya Sivani — Fri, 28 Aug 2015 19:33:03 +0000

Google has launched the Project Sunroof, a set of tools, which can help us estimate how much we can save by switching to solar. The creation of Alphabet and Android Experiments, the announcement stating Sundar Pichai as Google’s new CEO, and now the launch of Project Sunroof – all have placed Google in the spotlight, this […]

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‘Super-Algae’ Identified by Scottish Scientists for Biofuel Production

Satya Sivani — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 19:04:29 +0000

The researchers of Scottish Association for Marine Science spotted the ‘Super-algae‘, which, they believe, would be useful for the production of bio-fuels for two-wheelers, automobiles, and aircrafts. A team of scientists from SAMS (Scottish Association for Marine Science), with an aim to identify the ocean-based algae strains that are highly rich in oil content, conducted a series of experiments on […]

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NASA’s New Wi-Fi Reflector Chip Boosts the Speed of Wearables

Satya Sivani — Wed, 29 Jul 2015 09:21:06 +0000

The Wi-Fi Reflector Chip, which has been developed for wearable devices by the NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), together with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), reflects wireless signals instead of using regular transmitters and receivers. While wearable gadgets are finding their way into many sectors like health, security and entertainment, many new developments are […]

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Student-Made 2098 mpg Car Won the SAE Supermileage Competition

Satya Sivani — Wed, 22 Jul 2015 07:12:33 +0000

2098 mpg is the mileage achieved by the Quebec’s Laval University team, which won the SAE Supermileage competition, this year. Living in an age of impending climate change and fossil fuel depletion, possible solutions are either we depend on renewable fuels like solar, wind, biomass etc., or use the available fossil fuels really efficiently. While many nations […]

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Sustainable Legos to Replace their Plastic Cousins by 2030

Satya Sivani — Fri, 10 Jul 2015 14:12:16 +0000

News has it that LEGO is planning to find a sustainable alternative to make its iconic plastic blocks with, for which it is going to spend DKK1 billion. Legos, those fine, multi-colored plastic blocks – look simple, but together, they can be built up into many complex structures. For nearly four generations, they have served […]

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Facebook’s New Data Center Powered by 200 MW Texas Wind Farm

Satya Sivani — Thu, 09 Jul 2015 19:32:24 +0000

Facebook announced that its fifth privately owned and second 100 percent renewable energy powered data center is being built at Fort Worth, Texas, with $1 billion. To suffice for the data center’s energy requirements, Facebook is co-developing a 200 MW wind farm in collaboration with the local energy companies – Citigroup Energy, Alterra Power Corporation, and […]

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Evaporation as New Source of Renewable Energy

Satya Sivani — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 20:17:36 +0000

Evaporation is now becoming a source of renewable energy with the help of bacteria and the two new devices, Evaporation engine, and Moisture mill, invented by the Columbia University scientists. While solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, tidal, bio-energies are widely known, there are also other sources which are, now, less reliable as both research and technology in those […]

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RX1E – World’s First Electric Passenger Plane Made in China

Satya Sivani — Thu, 25 Jun 2015 11:39:22 +0000

China’s first electric plane, RX1E Ruixiang, has become the world’s first electric passenger airplane to receive an airworthiness certificate. With an ultimate motive of reducing the fossil fuel usage where ever possible, Electric planes sector is one area where many nations are encouraging their scientists. So, since 1973, when the first man-carrying electric plane was made, […]

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Smart Palm Trees are the New WiFi Hotspots of Dubai

Satya Sivani — Tue, 23 Jun 2015 07:48:24 +0000

Smart Palm trees, being fully solar-powered, are sustainable, date palm tree shaped Wi-Fi hotspots that also offer gadget charging and weather forecast information along with seating and shade – now they ornament Dubai. Its usual that coffee shops, airports, railway stations act as WiFi hotspots. But Palm trees? Not the natural, but the hi-tech ones. […]

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Dutch Windwheel Powered by its Encased ‘Silent Wind Turbine’

Satya Sivani — Fri, 19 Jun 2015 08:25:06 +0000

The Dutch Windwheel is a giant circular wind energy converter that houses apartments, hotels, restaurant and a giant coaster ride – a concept of self-sustained iconic structure, which, for majority portion of its energy requirements, depends on wind energy and, utilizes solar, biogas and rainwater as other sources to supplement for its basic amenities. Though […]

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Ecocapsule – Freedom to Live Off-Grid Anywhere

Satya Sivani — Sun, 14 Jun 2015 06:17:25 +0000

Ecocapsule, a tiny, off-grid, fully portable, solar and wind powered house, looks like some dinosaur’s giant egg – only differences – due to some limiting factors, even dinosaurs didn’t lay such big eggs and instead of some baby bird, it is for people to live in. Ecocapsule has been designed by Nice Architects, a young […]

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GE’s new EcoROTR, the ‘UFO’ Dome, Boosts Wind Turbine Performance

Satya Sivani — Wed, 10 Jun 2015 20:18:27 +0000

General Electric (GE) adds a new dome-shaped object called EcoROTR, which looks like a UFO, to a standard wind turbine and improves its performance by 3 percent. The addition helps the turbine to capture wind energy that is lost by regular turbines. GE took up this project as a part of its ecomagination initiative, which started […]

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Nestle’s Maggi Banned in India Due to Excessive Chemicals Used

Satya Sivani — Sun, 07 Jun 2015 05:17:32 +0000

Global food giant Nestle’s Maggi instant noodles are banned in many of the Indian states including the Capital city Delhi, due to the presence of Monosodium glutamate (MSG) and impermissible levels of lead. Maggi, a 2 minute instant noodles, which became India’s favourite since its arrival in 1980’s, was often cited as a marketing and […]

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13 Year-Old Fatima-Al-Kaabi Invents Solar Bag for Trekkers

Satya Sivani — Tue, 02 Jun 2015 14:09:54 +0000

13-year-old Fatima Al Kaabi of UAE has invented a solar bag that can charge electronic gadgets, supply power to lights and a fan for backpackers in remote locations. Fatima, who constantly works on innovative ideas, is a serial inventor who has already invented a printer for the visually impaired, a photographer robot, a cheerleader robot […]

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The Secret Behind Biogenic Methane Discovered at Stanford

Satya Sivani — Sun, 31 May 2015 04:24:07 +0000

Stanford University researchers have taken a quantum leap in discovering how methanogens acquire electrons from solid surfaces, how hydrogen producing enzymes are important in Methanogenesis, how certain enzymes take up electrons and many other interesting facts. Methane, the main component (87%) of natural gas, a fossil fuel, which can be found both underground and under […]

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EO Smart Connecting Car 2 – Social Electric Car That Can Drive Sideways

Satya Sivani — Wed, 27 May 2015 19:36:58 +0000

The Robotics Innovation Centre (RIC), of the Artificial Intelligence Research giant DFKI (German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence), has developed the EO smart connecting car 2 (EOscc2), a prototype electric car, which can drive sideways and alter its shape, to drive through a street gridlock smartly and fit itself in tiny parking spaces. In today’s […]

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Indian Researchers Producing Biodiesel from Used Cooking Oil

Satya Sivani — Tue, 26 May 2015 11:41:13 +0000

Researchers from Modern College of Pune, India, produced biodiesel from used cooking oil, which would otherwise be thrown away by the contractor of their college canteen. While many commercial kitchens heat oil till a point at which it is not useful for cooking anymore, consumption of dishes made from excessive heating of oil increases levels […]

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Donate: Solar Light Caps for the Homeless Nepal Earthquake Victims

Satya Sivani — Fri, 22 May 2015 19:17:22 +0000

To help the homeless Nepalese, who survived the massive earthquakes, restore and rebuild their lives, 2C Light Company is collecting funds to send solar light caps to Nepal through the Indiegogo fundraiser. Sad that Nepal is down due to earthquakes. According to the Earthquaketrack.com, Nepal has had 118 earthquakes in the past month. While the mountain […]

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MIT’s New Solar-Powered Desalination Tech Wins USAID Award

Satya Sivani — Fri, 08 May 2015 19:45:32 +0000

A new solar-powered desalination technology called “photovoltaic-powered electrodialysis reversal system”, which had been developed by the MIT, has won the top $140,000 Desal prize from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). As there are so many causes like irregular monsoons, drought, global warming etc., for the water scarcity, the world is continuously searching for permanent solutions. […]

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Drumi – The Pedal-Powered Laundry Washer That Doesn’t Need Electricity

Satya Sivani — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 06:52:37 +0000

Drumi, a pedal-powered portable washer-dryer presented at the 2015 Green Living Show at Toronto, doesn’t need electricity, battery, generator or a solar panel. Ever worried about the big pile of dirty laundry staring at you just after you came home from a happy camping? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could wash dirty laundry on the move […]

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Progress Eagle, a Triple-Decker Solar-Powered Airplane Concept

Satya Sivani — Mon, 27 Apr 2015 18:55:22 +0000

With an ultimate aim of reducing the environmental impact of air travel, the AWWA-QG Progress Eagle Quantum airplane, an airplane concept, was designed with zero carbon emissions. ‘Progress Eagle’ was designed by a Barcelona-based Spanish designer, Oscar Vinals, as his second concept. Last year, he released his design of AWWA Sky Whale, an airplane concept […]

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New Artificial Photosynthesis at UC Uses Nanowires and Bacteria

Satya Sivani — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 12:42:52 +0000

Scientists from the University of California have developed a process of artificial photosynthesis using nanowires and bacteria. Many studies have been made to develop artificial photosynthesis with the ultimate aim of producing ‘solar fuel’, a fuel that can be made purely out of water, sunlight and the abundant carbon dioxide available in our ever depleting […]

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New Self-Powered Video Camera Can Work Indefinitely

Satya Sivani — Mon, 20 Apr 2015 08:34:49 +0000

World’s first self-powered video camera, which can convert the incident light from its object into its input power, was invented by a computer scientist, Shree K. Nayar at Columbia University. The scientists took advantage of the capability of a pixel photodiode to operate both in photoconductive and photovoltaic modes. It works in photoconductive mode while recording […]

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Biosynthesis to Develop Renewable Propane, a Next-Gen Biofuel: Study

Satya Sivani — Thu, 16 Apr 2015 21:09:47 +0000

Researchers at the University of Manchester (UoM) have taken a quantum leap in the renewable biosynthesis of propane. The researchers at the University’s Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (MIB) collaborated with their colleagues at Imperial College London and University of Turku to develop a synthetic pathway that enables the renewable biosynthesis of propane. Last year, a […]

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NASA’s Origami Solar Panels

Satya Sivani — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 20:41:43 +0000

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory researchers engineered solar panels inspired by the Japanese paper folding art, Origami. They are light, foldable and easily deployable. As far as I remember, a paper girl made out of a chocolate wrapper was my first origami artwork (though I came to know of the name ‘Origami’ only in my late teens). […]

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Facebook to Launch Solar-Powered Drones for Internet Connectivity

Satya Sivani — Thu, 09 Apr 2015 05:12:08 +0000

To provide online connectivity to remote and inaccessible locations, Facebook is developing Internet-beaming drones with an aim of bringing 5 Billion people without internet access online. India could be the first Country where Facebook deploys them. Last month, the first test flight of the drone was successfully completed in UK. To Connect the world from the sky, […]

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Giant Food Producer ADM Embraces No-Deforestation Policy

Satya Sivani — Tue, 07 Apr 2015 04:15:12 +0000

Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) pledged to help stop Deforestation by committing itself to ‘build traceable and transparent agricultural supply chains that protect forests worldwide’. Their commitment is implemented through supply chain policies of palm and soy. They extended their commitment to improve both the crop quality in global supply chain and the lives of farmers […]

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Smog from Asia Affects California, Study

Satya Sivani — Sun, 05 Apr 2015 06:52:58 +0000

The Researchers of University of California, concluded that 10 percent of the Ozone pollution of San Joaquin Valley is due to the second-hand smog from Asia. The preliminary research was presented to the scientists and air quality regulators. According to the recent sensational online documentary ‘Under the dome’, 1/5th of the Beijing’s pollution comes from […]

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Beijing to shut its last major coal plant down next year

Satya Sivani — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 05:32:10 +0000

Beijing, the capital of China is leading the country in a fight against pollution. Next year Beijing is going to close the last of its four major coal power plants. China, The world’s factory is facing a serious environmental threat due to pollution. It is now the world’s biggest emitter of green house gases. The environmental […]

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NASA Using Distributed Propulsion for Electric Airplane

Satya Sivani — Sat, 28 Mar 2015 12:22:51 +0000

An announcement made by NASA changes our perspective of Airplane wings and propulsion system. NASA announced its distributed propulsion design on which it was working since last year. The project, named Leading Edge Asynchronous Propeller Technology (LEAPTech) was taken up by NASA in cooperation with Joby Aviation and Empirical Systems Aerospace (ESAero). To build electric planes, […]

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Tesla Model S Now Has a Certified Pre-Owned Program

Satya Sivani — Tue, 24 Mar 2015 07:00:34 +0000

It looks like Tesla has launched a Certified Pre-owned program for the Model S sedan. One of the CPO Model S buyers posted the photos of official Tesla CPO limited warranty document in the Tesla motors club discussion forum. The best way to experience service is, of course, not to experience service – said Elon Musk, CEO […]

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