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Swedish furniture giant IKEA has converted the Kobe Portliner Monorail into a moving showroom before the April 14 opening of a new retail outlet at Port Island. The redecorated train, which features a colorful exterior, bright upholstery and fancy curtains, will carry passengers in style until May 6.

Hakozaki Junction

Hokko Junction

Hokko Junction

Tempozan Junction

Daikoku Junction

Kawaguchi Junction

Million dollar garments made of gold coins in Tokyo

Bling, bling and more bling………….where is all this blinging leading to? Here’s one more paradigm of the latest trend from the Midas Kingdom. Take a look at the outfits that were fitted with more than 1,500 Austrian gold coins! Designed by students from a Tokyo design school, Bunka Fashion College, the outfits were shimmering and the models looked like fishes with dazzling golden scales! The coins were lent by the Austrian Mint Office and worth more than $1.2 million. They were sewn onto three pieces of apparel - a full-length dress weighing 10 kg (22 pounds) and two jackets weighing up to 21 kg (46 pounds).

The coins were sewn onto the clothes in a locked room within the college campus, where the teachers kept a constant watch. “I felt the weight of the task as I sewed on each piece, coin by coin,” said student Yuko Imauji. However if you are planning to create one for yourself then, lemme warn you that recently Gold prices have hit a 28-year high as the dollar dropped. Spot gold hit a high of $799.30 an ounce, its highest since January 1980.

New Record: World’s Largest Wind Turbine (7+ Megawatts)

The world’s largest wind turbine is now the Enercon E-126. This turbine has a rotor blade length of 126 meters (413 feet). The E-126 is a more sophisticated version of the E-112, formerly the world’s largest wind turbine and rated at 6 megawatts. This new turbine is officially rated at 6 megawatts too, but will most likely produce 7+ megawatts (or 20 million kilowatt hours per year). That’s enough to power about 5,000 households of four in Europe. A quick US calculation would be 938 kwh per home per month, 12 months, that’s 11,256 kwh per year per house. That’s 1776 American homes on one wind turbine.

The turbine being installed in Emden, Germany by Enercon . They will be testing several types of storage systems in combination with the multi-megawatt wind turbines.

These turbines are equipped with a number of new features: an optimized blade design with a spoiler extending down to the hub, and a pre-cast concrete base. Due to the elevated hub height and the new blade profile, the performance of the E-126 is expected to by far surpass that of the E-112.

WiredForStereo of The Way explains the operation of these new turbines:

[The E-126]… has no gearbox attaching the turbine blades to the generator, in fact, the generator is housed just at the widest part of the nose cone, it takes up the entire width of the nacelle to generate power more efficiently, and provide longer service life with less wear.

Also like small turbines, these have inverters instead of synchronous generators, that is to say, a separate controller that converts the wild AC generated into something the grid can use. This means the rotor can run at more optimum and varied speeds.

Again like small turbines, this one does not shut right off at a predetermined speed due to gusts or just very high wind speeds. It simply throttles down by turning the blades slightly away from the wind so as to continue to generate power though at a lower production rate. Then the instant the wind is more favorable, it starts back up again. Many smaller wind turbines do something similar except have no blade pitch control, they use a technique called something like “side furling” where the whole machine, excepting the tail, turns “sideways” to catch less wind but continue operating.

Money, why else? Big things are cheaper per unit production. If you have 3 2 MW generators, you have to have three (at least) cranes to put them up, build three foundations, have to maintain three machines, and have three times the parts to fail. If you have one, it is larger and more expensive in itself to move, but not as expensive as having to move three smaller ones.

I don’t understand how people can be so concerned about birds becoming mush with modern wind turbines, especially ones this big. It only turns at 12 rpms. That means it takes five seconds to complete one revolution. That is slow but this is much bigger and easy to see compared to the whirring blades of old. The Altamont Pass turbines gave wind turbines such a bad name because they were built in the middle of the natural habitat of rare birds, the turbines were the small fast spinning type, and they were built using lattice towers, the kind birds love to nest in. These are slowly being replaced and all of the new ones are of the slower rotating kind. In the end, it comes down to this. Stationary buildings and moving cars kill literally millions of times more birds than wind turbines. And things like the Exxon Valdez spill kill millions of everything. So let’s go with the best option.

A graph of the World’s Largest Wind Turbines.

Eco-boat powered by human fat attempts round the world speed record

The fastest eco boat on the planet will attempt to break the round the world speed record using fuel made from human fat.

Pete Bethune, the New Zealand skipper of Earthrace, said the attempt to circumnavigate the globe would begin from Valencia in Spain on March 1 next year.

Bethune and his wife mortgaged their house and sold everything they own to help make the project happen, while continuing to seek support from sponsors.

Record breaking attempt: Earthrace will attempt to circumnavigate the globe running 100 per cent biodiesel, and with a net zero carbon-footprint.

Earthrace is a 78 foot alternative fuel powered wave-piercing trimaran, it can carry 3,000 gallons of fuel, and weighs 23 tonnes when fully fuelled

Demonstrating further commitment to the cause, Bethune underwent liposuction and donated enough to produce 100ml of biofuel, while two other, larger volunteers also had the procedure, making a total of 10 litres of human fat.

This in turn produced seven litres of biofuel, which could help the boat travel about 15km.

Earthrace is fuelled on 100 per cent biodiesel and has a net zero carbon footprint.

The announcement was made at the QE2 pier in Greenwich where Earthrace is being hosted by Greenwich Council until January 1.

Circumnavigating the globe represents the pinnacle of powerboat challenges, and more than 24,000 nautical miles is the world’s longest speed challenge.

Pete Bethune, the New Zealand skipper of Earthrace, believes the boat can help advance biodiesel as a genuinely viable alternative to petroleum diese

The current record holder is British boat Cable and Wireless Adventurer which took 75 days in 1998.

From the start in Valencia the boat will cross the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans and travel through the Panama and Suez Canals..

From there the boat will cross the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans as it thunders along the planet’s circumference at a maximum speed of 40 knots.

When it attempts to break the Round the World Speed Record, the goal is to do 20-25 knots (23-29mph) almost continually for 65 days.

The not-for-profit project aims to promote awareness of the environment and the sustainable use of resources.

Inside Earthrace: The not-for-profit project aims to promote awareness of the environment and the sustainable use of resources

Earthrace, which cost about £1.5 million to build, can carry 3,000 gallons of fuel, and weighs 23 tonnes when fully fuelled.

The boat is designed to cut through waves rather than sail over which enables the boat to go faster through big seas compared to conventional craft.

Bethune believes Earthrace can help advance biodiesel as a genuinely viable alternative to petroleum diesel.

He said: “Governments have a role to legislate to make biofuels happen.

Route to success: The boat will cross the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans and travel through the Panama and Suez Canals

“If it were up to market forces, biofuels wouldn’t happen at all.

“Politicians in Western Europe must be prepared to stand up to the oil industry, and be more supportive of the biofuels industry to make sure the production of biofuels is sustainable.”

A successful attempt by Earthrace would mark the first time in history that an official UIM (Union Internationale Motonautique - The International Powerboating Association) Powerboat world record has been broken using only renewable fuel.

Shell-shaped Nautilus House is gorgeous inside and out

Who cares what the neighbors think? Let’s build a house that looks like a snail shell! That’s just what a Mexico City couple did, with the help of the astonishing imagination of those wild and wooly architects at Senosiain Arquitectos.

It’s more of a sculpture than a dwelling. Taking cues from a Nautilus shell, the house is put together using ferrocement construction, a technique involving a frame of steel-reinforced chicken wire with a special two-inch-thick composite of concrete spread over it, resulting in a structure that’s earthquake-proof and maintenance-free.

The open concept inside the house is dominated by smooth surfaces, spiral stairs and natural plantings that makes the inhabitants feel like they’re living inside a snail who swallowed the entire contents of somebody’s back yard. While the house is surrounded on three sides by the bustling Mexico City, its West side (where most of its portal-style windows are located) has a breathtaking view of the mountains. Wow. Maybe someday all houses will be made this way.

Caracool by Joel Escalona

Children are always curious to discover the world, to learn from everything that surrounds them, and one of the most common ways they accomplish that, is by playing and interacting with other children. Caracool get lost in the garden, it seem amusing to the children who undoubtedly have fun gliding and playing in the slide.

A Green Environmental Tower - Dubai

The Dynamic Architecture building, which will be constantly in motion changing its shape, will be able to generate electric energy for itself as well as for other buildings. Forty-eight wind turbines fitted between each rotating floors as well as the solar panels positioned on the roof of the building will produce energy from wind and the sunlight, with no risk of pollution. The total energy produced by this inbuilt ‘powerhouse’ every year will be worth approximately seven million dollars.

Each turbine can produce 0.3 megawatt of electricity, compared to 1-1.5 megawatt generated by a normal vertical turbine (windmill). Considering that Dubai gets 4,000 wind hours annually, the turbines incorporated into the building can generate 1,200,000 kilowatt-hour of energy.

As average annual power consumption of a family is estimated to be 24,000 kilowatt-hour, each turbine can supply energy for about 50 families. The Dynamic Architecture tower in Dubai will be having 200 apartments and hence four turbines can take care of their energy needs. The surplus clean energy produced by the remaining 44 turbines can light up the neighborhood of the building.

However, taking into consideration that the average wind speed in Dubai is of only 16 km/h the architects may need to double the number of turbines to light up the building to eight. Still there will be 40 free turbines, good enough to supply power for five skyscrapers of the same size.

The horizontal turbines of the Dynamic Architecture building are simply inserted between the floors, practically invisible. They neither need a pole nor a concrete foundation. In addition, they are at zero distance from the consumer, which makes maintenance easier.

The modern design of the building and the carbon fiber special shape of the wings take care of the acoustics issues. Producing that much electric energy without any implication on the aesthetic aspect of the building is a revolutionary step in tapping alternative energy sources. Furthermore, this energy will have a positive impact on the environment and economy.

8 EXORBITANT LUXURY YACHTS

Some people have it all. Loads of money, beautiful partners, fast supercars, extreme houses, exorbitant yachts. Over a hundred million Dollars for a yacht is no exception. But we have pictures, and those are free…

1. The Amevi ($300.000.000)

2. The Octopus ($200.000.000)

3. The Lauren L. ($112.000.000)

4. The Boadicea ($120.000.000)

5. The Maltese Falcon ($100.000.000)

6. The Pelorus ($179.000.000)

7. Dubai ($230.000.000)

8. Salem ($19.750.000)