Wave Power!

Why didn't we think of this before??!! Well it's been going on for a while. Wave Power has actually been in use in one form or another from the late 1700's. The first known patent to utilise energy from ocean waves dates back to 1799 and was filed in Paris by Girard and his son. Oh la la! An early application of wave power was a device constructed around 1910 by Bochaux-Praceique to light and power his house at Royan, a town near Bordeaux in France. This was the first Oscillating Water Column type of wave energy device.
In the 1940's the modern scientific pursuit of wave energy was pioneered by Yoshio Masuda. His experiments tested various concepts of wave energy devices at sea, with several hundred units used to power navigation lights. In 1973, a new interest was invigorated due to the oil crisis then.
Some other things being done now --- an Australian company BioPower Systems uses the biomimicry of the floats of swaying sea plants in the presence of ocean waves in its BioWave system. The Oyster wave energy converter (featured in the video) is a hydro-electric wave energy device. The wave energy device captures energy from nearshore waves and converts it into usable electricity.

Wave- cool!

superwoman.

Natalie Jeremijenko, an inventor and engineer, produces work that focuses on the design and analysis of tangible digital media. She bridges the technical and the art world. She is the director of the xDesign Environmental Health Clinic. The Environmental Health Clinic develops and prescribes locally optimized and often playful strategies to effect remediation of environmental systems. This progessive self sustaining strategy produces measurable and mediagenic evidence and coordinating diverse projects to effective material change.

URBAN SPACE STATION Sofia, Madrid 2008 from cesar harada on Vimeo.

Her Urban Space Station project is quite remarkable. Cesar Harada worked on this as well. (He's just amazing.) This portable piece of architecture is intended to improve the quality of air in the surroundings. It sits on the roof and filters air, grows food and re-uses organic waste for inhabitants. Very Inhabitable Organism! It's goal is to improve the health of people around it as well as tidy up our environment. A conscious receptacle of wastes that transforms them to food per say. This is a light weight answer to heavy construction green roofs, not to deter any one from using them. If the urban space station was packaged right , it could be the next big hit from IKEA or any other vernacular store where people could feel apt and capable to application of them. You too can have one on your roof!