Participating in this year’s SAE Supermileage competition, a team of university students designed, built and drove a single-seat aluminum-shell vehicle that managed to get 2,098 miles out of a single gallon of gas.

The winning team, from Quebec’s Université Laval, reengineered a previously-successful shell to reduce weight, increase fuel efficiency and optimize the electrical system. These alternations were based in part on a post-event analysis of the previous year’s winning team, improving on their already-impressive work.

Running on just a single cylinder, the team beat the combination by far more than a mile – runners up managed to get over 1,000 MPG but none came within 600 miles of this winning design. The dozens of other contestants tried a number of tricks, including creating electric hybrids, but all will have to go back to the drawing board to come close to competing next year.

“One of our main goals is to reduce the vehicle weight,” Désaulniers of the team said. “The fact we reuse the shell from last year gives us time to optimize other parts of the car by doing FEA and trying to make them from aluminum. We had been able to reduce approximately the total weight by 2-3 lb.” Other changes to this year’s car included the clutch system, the electronic system, and fuel line. “There was a significant decrease in the energy loss due to the clutch. Also the electronic system and the fuel line were more reliable than the previous year’s,” Désaulniers said. “We also changed the rear sprocket to get a better ratio between the engine and the rear wheel.”

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Award-winning innovation is rarely associated with restrooms, but considering the long lack of innovation with respect to the loo, it should come as no surprise that there is a better way to design toilets.

Announced on World Toilet Day (yes, it exists), the Wellbeing Toilet designed by three Central Saint Martin’s graduate students responds to the inefficiency and long-term health risks of traditional seats, generally forcing people to sit at 90 degrees. Its shape and structure were “commended for improving human health by reducing the risk of intestinal cancer and haemorrhoids and diagnosing medical conditions.” The design borrows from both Eastern and Western design strategies, combining them with well-being considerations.

A panel of industry experts selected this winner on other criteria as well, including its sustainability (reduction of water usage) and advanced technology (urine analysis to reveal medical conditions), but the primary considerations were related to its simple and effective (com)mode of addressing a basic and necessary human function. The toilet has changed so little over the last few hundred years since the first flushable was introduced, but the time has come to rethink it, even if it all of this potty talk will inevitably elicit a few giggles here and there.

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Aiming to be the first state in the US run entirely on green energy, Hawaii has just passed a law putting it on a path to energy self-sufficiency and sustainability just 30 years down the road. As outlined in the plan, all of the state’s power is to be generated via renewable sources.

Why Hawaii? The state imports much of its energy and relies heavily on oil – power prices are nearly twice as high there as in an average state in the Lower 48. Currently, nearly 90% of energy used on the islands derives from imported oil, costly to transport and bad for the environment to boot.

The goal as outlined in the bill involves a series of steps toward sustainable power generation with milestones spaced out at five-year intervals to check on progress. From Inhabitat, “Some of Hawaii’s projects include a large geothermal plant, biomass facilities and an array of solar, wind and hydropower projects. The islands are pretty perfectly suited to renewable energy.”

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A company in Holland has deployed a radical new system for generating clean, green, renewable energy from plant life in order to power everything from phone charging stations and WiFi hotspots to city street lamps and more.

The technology of Plant-E works on the same principle as a potato battery but much more efficiently and, naturally, at a much larger scale, harvesting power without harming plants via byproducts of photosynthesis.

For the Netherlands streetlight projects, “Plant-e’s electricity generation process involves plants growing in two-square-foot plastic containers. Plants undergo photosynthesis, essential turning solar power into sugars. As they grow, plants always produce more sugars than they need, and the excess is cast out through their roots into the surrounding soil and break down into protons and electrons. Plant-e’s system uses electrodes in the soil to await the breakdown of this plant waste, thus conducting electricity.”

While the current experiments near Amsterdam explore possibilities for urban uses, the real boon come be in remote locations where there is a great deal of plant material growing wild but no electrical grid, ultimately bringing power to the 25% of the world’s population that has never lived with it before. Even in problematic areas with pollution or contamination the dangers posed to humans will not, of course, translate to the power still able to be generated by area plants in browfields sites.

More about the company and what they are working on: “Plant-e develops products in which living plants generate electricity. The technology enables us to produce electricity with living plants at practically every site where plants can grow. The technology is based on natural processes and is safe for both the plant, and its environment. Plant-e is currently working on three types of products, the Plant-e World, the Plant-e Green Electricity Roof and the Plant-e Tube system.”

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The next time you pick up an eco-friendly pair of shoes, you might actually be wearing the byproduct of the thriving pineapple industry. A new textile called Piñatex has the potential to push environmentally-harmful products like leather, vinyl, and even cotton out of the way. And, interestingly enough, it is made from the discarded leaves of pineapple trees.

Carmen Hijosa invented Piñatex while working in the leather industry. On a business trip to the Phillippines, she witnessed first-hand the toxic effect the industry had on the environment and on its workers. On the same trip, however, she was struck by a brilliant idea: the ridiculously abundant natural fibers in the Phillippines could be used as a harmless and versatile substitute. After years of research and development, Hijosa founded the company Ananas Anam and patented her invention.

Once the fruit is harvested from the pineapple tree, the tree is left to rot. Hijosa developed a method in which the otherwise-wasted leaves from those trees are harvested, degummed, and put through a process that turns them into a non-woven textile comparable to felt or leather. The Piñatex can then be stamped to resemble other materials such as metallic vinyl, leather, or snakeskin.

The most exciting aspect of Piñatex is that it is completely sustainable and uses no more water than it takes to grow the plants, which are already being grown for the food industry. Even cotton, long considered an eco-friendly textile, uses an alarming amount of water in its production. Piñatex is currently being tested in real-world applications such as clothing and upholstery, and it has the potential to become an incredibly versatile, Earth-friendly alternative to traditional textiles.

The post Next-Gen Eco-Friendly Leather Comes From Pineapple Trees first appeared on Gajitz.