The wackiest green innovations ever?

Green Innovations

The green industry is probably the fastest growing sector in the world. It already has its own well established sections, such as wind and solar energy, which have long been considered genuine alternatives to fossil fuels.

There are certain things we in the developed world do that can be considered not entirely necessary - luxuries, if you will - and going to the gym is perhaps one of these. And this is obviously what prompted architect Mitchell Joachim to come up with the human-powered floating gym. The idea behind these "river gyms" is to take all that energy expelled on tread-mills and cross-trainers and turn it into energy which can transport people up and down the rivers of New York, the home of the gym's creator.

But the invention, what is essentially a gym powered commuter ferry, raises some serious questions. It is hard to believe that the resources used to build the gyms would make the energy savings worth it, especially when you can jog or ride a bike on existing roadways at a much lower cost. Apart from creating a city of super-fit, yet exhausted, business folk - who would be forced to work out every time they travelled to and from work - the invention would sadly achieve little else.

Energy efficient transport is a popular concept for green-minded scientists, with hybrid solutions being a particularly popular venture. But unfortunately not all are realistic. There have been a number of hybrid SUVs that have tried, and failed, to bring environmentalists round on the large gas guzzlers, as many get worse gas mileage than most sedans and require tremendous virgin resources to produce. Then there are the even more bizarre concepts such as the air and water powered cars.

And what of the roads on which these green machines will drive? Well, they're not safe either. There is an invention that uses "road cells" to harness the friction and heat generated by the millions of cars on our roads. Scientists have toyed with the idea of special absorbent cells that could harness all that energy for reuse. The only problem is a lack of feasibility: retrofitting roads with special cells is unlikely when the nation's infrastructure is already struggling due to a glut of poorly considered investment by previous governments. But I suppose there is always the $35 trillion solar roads idea...

OK, so if we can't get our electricity from asphalt, how about having it fired to us from outer space? That's an idea than Japan are investing heavily in. Sending satellites into space, where they unfurl 1.5 mile-long solar arrays and send limitless clean energy to earth. However, there is one small danger: rays of concentrated electricity like this could fry an entire neighborhood if the beams miss the receiver.

And if we find ourselves short of ideas on how to cut the amounts of carbon we produce, how about ways to hide it? A new version of carbon capture-and-store technology involves burying pollution at the bottom of the ocean in huge sausage shaped bags. But since humans produce around 800 tons of carbon every second, we would use a bag every 11 days at the current rate. If oceans are forced to absorb carbon dioxide, though, the acidity will increase, which would be very bad news for marine life.

In green industries, ideas and concepts tread a very thin line between being genius and dubious, but they are all extremely valuable in driving us forward in our attempts to reverse the effects of climate change and preserve the longevity of our planet.

Image Sources: Inhabitat and Popular Science

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