A quick, but interesting, little tidbit of information … in Haringey, a city in the UK, the city council hired a company to use a military-style plane outfitted with a thermal imaging to take pictures of every structure in the area.  They took the heat loss information from the pictures and created a color-coded map identifying the various levels of heat loss for each building.  As you can see from the image shot above, the dark red homes are really losing some heat.  By visiting the Haringey Interactive Heat Loss Map, you can scroll over each gray dot and get the address of that particular energy loser.  I’m not sure if the data has led to any improvements (there’s definitely a concern over privacy here in the U.S.), but it’s probably led to some interesting discussions: "Excuse me neighbor, did you know you’re a red house?  Well, I’m a blue house and I think I can help…"  Via CD + TechDirt. 

• Vehicle to Grid Technology – Power to the people: run your house on a Prius. 
• Fitter. Happier. Better. Greener.  Science shows sustainable design does more than help the Earth, it makes you feel better, too. 
• AlwaysOn Going Green 100 – a first annual list of the hottest private companies in greentech. 
• There’s a new trend in residential energy: being the first small wind turbine on the block. 
• Aspiring to be America’s greenest city, state commitment helps Sacramento rank No. 2 in energy efficient office space. 

You may have heard of Jay Leno’s Green Garage, but have you heard about him installing the Delta II wind turbine on the building to generate electricity?  Delta II is an American-made, vertical axis turbine designed by PacWind.  It’s a 9 foot, 500 lb. beast with the ability to produce 10 kw of power at 28 mph winds.  One of the benefits of this design is that it can start producing electricity at lower wind speeds … to get a more specific idea, feel free to watch this installation video at Popular Mechanics.

Jay’s Green Garage was recently on the newest episode of Living with Ed, and according to the show, Jay plans to expand his arsenal of Delta II wind turbines.  We’ll keep an eye on the news to see how many he adds to the building.  What does this mean?  It sounds like he’s happy with the turbine’s performance, which is a good thing because the small wind industry is still trying to gain momentum and traction.  Delta II MSRPs for a cool $19,995. 

CNET and Michael Kanellos went on the scene at XtremeHomes‘ factory to walk through the process of building a modern home.  The video is just over 3 minutes long and talks about the efficiencies and environmental benefits of factory-built homes.  Towards the end, there’s a small portion with Michelle Kaufmann demonstrating the NanaWall; she’s having the mkLotus built right now at XtremeHomes’ factory and the home will be unveiled at West Coast Green. 

• The Urban Revival – Cities may be the key to curbing climate crisis. 
• Fat Zones – Does where you live influence what you eat?  A new study says ZIP codes are surprisingly accurate predictors of obesity. 
• Another new study suggests that people who live in damp, moldy homes may be prone to depression. 
• A new roof and attic system being developed at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory could help owners lower summer utility bills by 8% or more. 
• Alcoa announced the start-up of a 588,000 watt, roof-mounted photovoltaic solar power system at its California manufacturing facility, enabling the supply of clean and reliable renewable energy.