The Green Building Top 5 - July 22, 2015

New ‘Solar Paper’ charger is thin enough to fit between the pages of a notebook

The great thing about solar energy is that sunlight is a plentiful resource all around us, practically begging us to take advantage of it. While we’re often getting glimpses of amazing industrial applications of the technology - like this phenomenal solar road in the Netherlands - we could also make our use of small-scale personal technology simpler and more environmentally conscious if we had the right kinds of consumer-friendly solar chargers. Read Full Article

Tesla Model S Gets "Ludicrous Mode" - Will do 0-60 in 2.8 Seconds

The Tesla Model S P85D is already insanely fast. No, seriously – its 691 horsepower made it so fast it’s got an Insane Mode. But that’s not fast enough, because Tesla just found a way to step it up even higher than that, to 762 horsepower. To Ludicrous Mode. Read Full Article

Can D.C. afford to build the greenest schools in the world?

This year, the architects of the rebuilt Dunbar High School announced that the building was one of the greenest new schools in the world, equipped with a geothermal heating and cooling system aided by wells extending 460 feet below the athletic fields and enough solar panels to power all classroom lights for eight hours on a sunny day. Read Full Article

You’ve got green buildings? How about the humans in the machine?

The US Green Building Council has teamed with the University of Virginia School of Medicine to work out how to measure the health impacts of buildings. It’s the next step to expanding the green building agenda to a broader more holistic definition of “green” applied to the health of the humans within the machine, so to speak. Read Full Article

What Kind of Car is the Most Green, Fuel Efficient and Budget Friendly?

A decade ago, drivvers who wanted to go green had little choice beyond Toyota's Prius hybrid. Today the selection of efficient, lower-pollution cars includes a bewildering array of technologies and models -- hybrids, plug-in hybrids, battery electrics, diesels and hydrogen fuel cells. Conventional gasoline cars, meanwhile, have made great strides in going farther on less fuel. Read Full Article