Couple years ago I had the opportunity to publish an interview of Lloyd Kahn (now age 76).

In response to President Obama’s move to make the White House more environmentally friendly, DoSomething.org, one of the largest teen organizations in America, announced today they will join forces with GreentheWhiteHouse.com, an interactive site enabling users to upload suggested “green” features into virtual rooms in The White House. The goal is to inspire America’s youth to lead the charge in greening their own homes and help teach the rest of the world, including The First Family, how to green theirs.

“If young people can change their habits, the White House and the rest of the world can too,” said Nancy Lublin, CEO of DoSomething.org. “Teens are leading the nation’s green movement – we’re just providing the platform.”

Sloan Barnett, author of the New York Times bestseller “Green Goes With Everything: Simple Steps to a Healthier Life and a Cleaner Planet,” created GreentheWhiteHouse.com so everyone could have access to the symbol of American power and a voice in shaping its future. “We want to inspire Americans to get involved in a national collaboration that’s truly “by the people, for the people,” and home by home, reduce our impact on the planet in measurable ways,” said Barnett.

The Green the White House initiative, which launches today, gives teens ideas, inspiration and expertise on how to make simple green changes around their homes. GreentheWhiteHouse.com will offer teens and adults a virtual tour of the White House, allowing users to see how “the nation’s house” can be made more eco-friendly. Users will then be able to upload their own ideas and actions to DoSomething.org/WhiteHouse, which will include facts and stats about the environment and what America’s youth can do to make a difference in their communities.

Teens across the country will want to show America how they are making their own homes eco-friendly, too. Greenthewhitehouse.com’s renowned panel of America’s leading “green” experts will moderate a national dialogue about all their suggestions and all things green, from water, clean air, personal health, food, building and more, through informative blogs, content and interactive video. Users will be encouraged to upload their pictures and videos of how they made their homes more eco-friendly, and then will have the opportunity to submit ideas to the Obama’s on how they can continue to green their home.

Solar cars, solar homes, solar backpacks, and now we have an example of a solar camel.

This pilot test of solar-powered refrigeration units on camels is being performed by a nomadic community in Kenya. Mpala Community Trust is using these units to transport medical supplies (most notably vaccines) with the help of Princeton University’s Engineering Department and Designmatters.

Another part of this Mpala Project is HIV/AIDS education and family planning. As pictured here, the canvas flip-book was one of the end productions of this venture. The original project was submitted as an entry into the World Bank Development Marketplace competition in 2007.

What other interesting solar applications have you run across?

Demand for green homes is on the rise according to Michelle Kaufmann, award-winning green architect and sustainable living expert, who has seen her architecture business triple over the past year. Michelle Kaufmann Companies which recently completed its thirtieth (30th) home, focuses on making beautiful, thoughtful design accessible to more people by employing prefabricated modular building practices and prepackaging green solutions.

“Despite the ‘doom-and-gloom’ housing market, we’ve never been busier,” said Michelle Kaufmann, founder and chairwoman of Michelle Kaufmann Companies. “There’s an enormous demand from homebuyers, who want beautiful homes and healthy environments as well as the lower energy bills that come along with our homes.”

With two major museum exhibits focused on prefabricated building–New York Museum of Modern Art’s (MOMA) Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling and Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry’s Smart Home: Green and Wired, which features Michelle Kaufmann’s mkSolaire™–interest in green prefab building is at an all-time high.

“People are actually living in our homes, so for us green, modular design isn’t a concept, it’s a reality,” explained Michelle. “Our company has built more homes for clients than any other firm in the modern modular architecture world–with hundreds more in the pipeline. We’re thrilled that our company is well on its way to delivering thoughtful, sustainable design to the masses.”

By reducing resource consumption, waste, costs, and building time by up to 50%-75% over conventional building methods, Michelle Kaufmann’s prefabricated, modular building techniques deliver benefits to individual homebuyers as well as builders/developers, who are interested in building green multi-family and community developments.

When designing any space, Michelle Kaufmann creates sustainable structures based on 5 EcoPrinciples: smart design, eco materials, energy efficiency, water conservation, and healthy environment.

Michelle Kaufmann offers six modular configurations–Glidehouse™, Sunset® BreezehouseTM, Sidebreeze™, mkLotusTM, mkLoftTM, and mkSolaire™–as well as custom homes and larger multi-family and community developments.

Ms. Kaufmann unveiled the first mkSolaire™ home as part of the original Museum of Science and Industry exhibit Smart Home: Green + Wired, Powered by ComEd and Warmed by Peoples Gas. The exhibit opened in Chicago May 8, 2008 and will run through January 4, 2009.

About Michelle Kaufmann Companies

Michelle Kaufmann (AIA, LEED® AP) is a tireless advocate and knowledgeable source for eco-conscious living. Michelle founded Michelle Kaufmann Companies with the mission to make it easier for people to build green and live a more sustainable lifestyle. To that end, Michelle Kaufmann leads a full service design/build architectural firm that uses off-site modular technology and prepackaged green solutions as the means to create beautiful, eco-friendly homes and multi-family develoments. Founded in 2002 and headquartered in Oakland, CA, the company expanded to run its own factory delivering homes for clients on the West Coast. Michelle Kaufmann Companies also works with key factory partners to handle increasing volume and expanded territories.

Interested in connecting with people beyond traditional architecture, Michelle has launched a collection of lifestyle media properties, products, and events designed to inspire individuals, families, and communities to create and enjoy sustainable lifestyles.

Visit Michelle’s blog at www.blog.michellekaufmann.com.

Claimed as the second century of flight. The Personal Air Vehicles (PAVs) will be a new generation of small aircraft that can extend personal air travel to a much larger segment of the American population. As a solution to America’s future mobility needs, NASA aeronautics developed the PAV concept to provide a more distributed and less centralized system of air travel. Super energy efficient PAVs will be able to transport people to within just a few miles of their doorstep destination at trip speeds three to four times faster than airlines or cars. NASA predicts that up to 45% of all miles traveled in the future may be in PAVs. This will relieve congestion at metropolitan hub airports and the freeways that surround them, reduce the need to build new highways and save much of the 6.8 billion gallons of fuel wasted in surface gridlock each year.

Some key features of PAVs are:

- Highly fuel efficient and able to use alternative fuels
- 150-200 mph “flying car” that flies above gridlock without traffic delays
- Quiet, safe, comfortable and reliable
- Simplified operation akin to driving a car
- As affordable as travel by car or airliner
- Near all-weather, on-demand travel enabled by synthetic vision
- Up to 800 mile range
- Short runway use so you can walk to grandma’s from small residential airfields

NASA’s PAV (Personal Air Vehicle) Challenge is a contest modeled after the successful “X-Prize” Space flight competition. To stimulate rapid innovation and progress in PAV performance, NASA has funded $2 million for the flight competition.

–Today, eSolar™, a producer of scalable solar thermal power plants, announced that it has closed $130 million in funding from Idealab, Google.org, Oak Investment Partners, and other investors for the construction and deployment of pre-fabricated power plants. Designed to address the complex issues surrounding large or utility-scale power projects, eSolar’s distributed solar thermal plants achieve economies of scale at 33 MW, and are modularly scaled to fit the needs of large and small utilities.

“The eSolar™ power plant is based on mass manufactured components, and designed for rapid construction, uniform modularity, and unlimited scalability,” said Asif Ansari, CEO of eSolar. “Rather than over-engineering the solution, eSolar’s smart scalable solar architecture targets what we see as the four key business obstacles facing the sector: price, scalability, rapid deployment, and grid impact.”

In order to deliver on the promise of Big Solar, the typical utility-scale installation faces huge construction costs and requires large tracts of real estate, combined with expensive transmission line improvements to bring the power out of the deserts and into the cities. eSolar’s modular approach stands in direct contrast to this ‘bigger is better’ strategy. eSolar has replaced expensive steel, concrete, and brute force with inexpensive computing power and elegant algorithms. This new method of installing a solar power plant minimizes costly civil construction and the use of heavy equipment, dramatically reducing project cost and deployment time.

Centering on eSolar’s 33 MW pre-fab form-factor, the company’s modular design translates to minimal land requirements. The company’s solar power plant solutions are tailored to fit local resources and produce a low environmental footprint, favoring a straightforward siting and permitting process. Myriad locations combined with a multitude of interconnection options mean that eSolar can deliver more clean, carbon free power where it is needed: near the cities and towns where it is consumed.

“eSolar’s primary business goal is nothing short of making solar electricity for less than the price of coal, without subsidies,” said Bill Gross, eSolar Chairman and Founder of Idealab. “This is not only attainable, but will truly change the world.”

Bandel Carano, Managing Partner of Oak Investment Partners, added, “eSolar is the only cost effective solution that can deliver gigawatts of solar energy generation at market prices today, because they have developed a truly disruptive scalable solution that can be deployed rapidly.”

eSolar has secured land rights in the southwest United States to support the production and transmission of over 1 GW of power. eSolar will have a fully operational power plant later this year in southern California.

About eSolar

eSolar is an Idealab company founded by CEO Asif Ansari in 2007 to develop, construct and deploy modular, scalable solar thermal power plants. eSolar’s approach marries a low-impact, pre-fabricated form factor with advanced optics and computer software engineering to meet the demands of utilities of any size for clean, renewable and cost-competitive solar energy. By focusing on the key business obstacles that have characterized large solar installations from its inception – price, scalability, speed of deployment and grid impact – eSolar has developed a proprietary solution to make a dramatic reduction in the cost of solar thermal technology. eSolar is based in Pasadena, California and has 70 employees. For more information please visit http://www.esolar.com/.

About Idealab

Idealab’s mission is to create and operate pioneering technology companies. Founded in 1996 by entrepreneur Bill Gross, Idealab provides a broad range of operational support to its companies, allowing the operating company management teams to focus on getting to market quickly and cost effectively and to take advantage of the serial start-up experience of the Idealab team. Bill Gross and Idealab have founded companies such as eSolar, Inc., Energy Innovations, Overture Services, Inc., CitySearch, Picasa and Internet Brands. Current operating companies are providing innovative technology solutions in industries such as software, search, robotics, 3D printing and alternative energy fields. Additional information may be found at www.idealab.com.

About Google.org

Google.org aspires to use the power of information and technology to address the global challenges of our age: climate change, poverty and emerging disease. Google invested in eSolar to create utility-scale electricity from clean renewable energy sources that is cheaper than electricity produced from coal.

About Oak Investment Partners

Oak Investment Partners is a multi-stage venture capital firm with a total of $8.4 billion in committed capital. The primary investment focus is on high growth opportunities in communications, information technology, Internet new media, financial services, clean energy, healthcare services, and consumer retail. Over a 28-year history, Oak has achieved a strong track record as a stage-independent investor funding more than 435 companies at key points in their lifecycle.

The project, dubbed Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal, is hiring dozens of engineers and targeting investment financing at advanced solar thermal power, wind power, enhanced geothermal systems and other new technologies, Google said.

Some may think that going into areas not related to the core business is bad business… though I will enjoy watching what Google can do in an area that seems to need more help. Solar and wind generation continue to be more costly then buying from your local utility.

Google has allocated 10% of their money toward unrelated projects… this one taking up 3% which equals 500 million.

Just makes me think of Nokia and the rubber boot company they used to be.

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