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Gayle......!SILVER Member
Pooh-Bah
2,444 posts
Location: Bristol !!!!!!, United Kingdom


Posted:
I have just stumbled acorss this article in the Daily Mail about an Eco-friendly nightclub opening in Kings Cross in London:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/a...lectricity.html

The general information is that the venue will sell organic spirits served in polycarbon cups and will be powered with renewable energy. There are also plans to install a recycled water system to flush its lavatories and an energy-generating dancefloor, which would harness power from the pounding of clubbers' feet and convert it into electricity.

It's also encouring people to get there on public transport or on bike or foot, by letting these people in for free.

What do people think?

Any downfalls to the idea? I don't know how much it would cost to install all the eco-friendly features, epecially the dance floor. Would the benefits outweigh the cost/upheaval of installation?

Are there other places like this near where you live?

Gayle.....!


faith enfireBRONZE Member
wandering thru the woods of WI
3,556 posts
Location: Wisconsin, USA


Posted:
I like the idea, but I am wary of commercialization of "greenness" I would definitely check a place like that out

I don't think we have anything like that here

Faith
Nay, whatever comes one hour was sunlit and the most high gods may not make boast of any better thing than to have watched that hour as it passed


SkulduggeryGOLD Member
Pirate Pixie Crew Captain
8,428 posts
Location: Wales


Posted:
Will they be generating all their power used to run the club in a sustainable way or is this just another publicity grabbing "Green" claim.

You see it all the time now days. "we off set our carbon foot print by sourcing all our goods locally" and other such meaningless statements, but they don't mention those goods came from someone that imported them from the far east or that the goods are made of plastic etc... Sometimes it's all just a bit of public band wagon jumping. The issue of sustainability is very popular at the moment (as it needs to be) but I see more and more people claiming that they are "green" when with a bit of digging you can see they are not.

I'm not saying that is true of this club, but I am wary of believing such statements without researching to see if the claims are true.

Feed me Chocolate!!! Feed me NOW!


DomBRONZE Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,009 posts
Location: Bristol, UK


Posted:
"Before they are let in they will be asked to sign a pledge promising to work towards curbing climate change."



What!? This club isn't already opened and my electricity has been 100% renewable since I moved in 2 years ago, I use biodegradable plastic bags, yadda, yadda and they insist I sign I silly PR pledge to get into their club! I'm increasingly annoyed at the evangelical eco-PR people. When something is so forced it's likely they'll be a reaction against it and I don't think this club helps.



However I'll happily try it out as long as I can get in without signing a piece of paper.



Actually, Gayle, what were you doing reading the Daily Mail! eek

MikeGinnyGOLD Member
HOP Mad Doctor
13,925 posts
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA


Posted:
Dom,

No reason to get so worked up about it. I agree with you, though.

Look, what they're doing is fundamentally good; trying to raise awareness about the issues in a fun venue. But they're being a touch heavy-handed about it with the pledge bit.

Um...how is your electricity renewable? And do you have to pay a premium for that?

-Mike

Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella



A buckuht n a hooze! -Valura


NathanielEveristSILVER Member
enthusiast
315 posts
Location: Melbourne, Australia


Posted:
 Written by :faithinfire


I like the idea, but I am wary of commercialization of "greenness"



Just wondering, why are you wary of the commercialisation of "greenness". I personally fully support its commercialisation, as the sooner it is commercialised, and seen to be a profitable decision, the sooner it is going to be widely implemented by businesses and other profit based organisations, which as you probably know play a large role in the environmental state of affairs.

Aside from that, yeah, I'd check it out. If it was good I'd go there regularly, however the signing a pledge thing is stupid, as Dom already said, to force something onto people, even if it's something that they would normally readily accept will evoke a reactive response, which wouldn't do anybody any good.

Gayle......!SILVER Member
Pooh-Bah
2,444 posts
Location: Bristol !!!!!!, United Kingdom


Posted:
 Written by :Dom


Actually, Gayle, what were you doing reading the Daily Mail! eek



ubblol

I was bored in work. Saw this in the paper whilst flicking through and went to find the article online.

Some good points from people. I didn't like the idea of signing a pledge either. I tried to find out some more about the club, but couldn't find anything online. Wondered if anyone in London had heard about it??

Gayle.....!


DomBRONZE Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,009 posts
Location: Bristol, UK


Posted:
I think I'm just getting sick of "Environmentally Friendly" and "Good for the environment" stickers on everything. Simply put: if something has been produced then it's detracted from our stockpiles and/or nature.

There's nothing 'friendly' or 'good' about a managed forest, a electricity producing windmill or your 100% recycled toilet paper. All of them used resources in their production or detract from the natural state of things.

I'd rather see more honest "less harmful" and "less polluting" labels and be honest about the fact that we will continue to use up the world forever more.

The order of priority is reduce, reuse then lastly recycle. That reduction is probably what's most important and hardest to do, I know it is for me!

Gayle, you're forgiven, but only if you were really bored.

Doc, in the UK you can choose who you pay for your electricity, which is in fact just one of many companies who supplies the national grid. My supplier is ecotricity, which as well as being one of the smaller companies has it's own wind turbines. The premium is 5% above the price of a normal supplier.

NathanielEveristSILVER Member
enthusiast
315 posts
Location: Melbourne, Australia


Posted:
Dom, good points. Most of it isn't truly "Eco-friendly", is just less unfriendly, lol. But even being less unfriendly is something I encourage. It may not be as good as possible, but it's a step in the right direction. And an electricity producing windmill is good in my opinion, sure it uses up resources, but so does breathing. Windmills are an investment in renewable energy, and as such mean that we don't need to burn (as much) fossil fuels or other fuels to turn turbines, which is an absolutely absurd method of gathering energy.

Sure, we may not be an entirely sustainable race yet, but I encourage the steps people are taking. Although they're not good enough, at least it's something.

StoutBRONZE Member
Pooh-Bah
1,872 posts
Location: Canada


Posted:
I too am getting sick of all this greenwashing...

I just listened to an radio advert where the manufacturers of a car are comparing the emissions of hat car to a campfire with the implication that their product is more "eco friendly" than the campfire. yea...right..

I'm skeptical about this club's claims about recycling wastewater....Assuming they plan on only recycling washing water and not actually installing a sewage treatment plant, why not go for a rainwater capture system if their only goal is to flush toilets.

The pledge ? well, that'll probably end up being a whiteboard that you scribble something on when you enter the club.

How...exactly do you prove that you walked there ?

But the most interesting thing is the piezoelectric dance floor. I don't know much about this technology but a brief google search turned up basically....high voltage, low current ( therefore low power ) and i couldn't find any examples of this sort of power generating technology being used in a fashion similar to the club's proposal, so I'm skeptical whether it would actually really work.

Up to 60% of "the building's needs " ? If they can get that much power from this system then the potential for being an "under sidewalk" alternative energy source might just help with our growing energy demands. smile

MikeGinnyGOLD Member
HOP Mad Doctor
13,925 posts
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA


Posted:
 Written by :Stout


Up to 60% of "the building's needs " ? If they can get that much power from this system then the potential for being an "under sidewalk" alternative energy source might just help with our growing energy demands. smile



Seriously! Between light and sound and climate control, clubs use a lot of energy! You could power all sorts of public buildings with this technology if it could be mass-produced cheaply enough.

-Mike

Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella



A buckuht n a hooze! -Valura


StoutBRONZE Member
Pooh-Bah
1,872 posts
Location: Canada


Posted:
Doc...I'm currently doing the piezoelectric power topic on another board, one that's loaded with scientists and engineers and so far.......It's possible, but highly unpractical.

Nobody's been able to comment on the 60% claim, but i did get a link to a paper that an electrical engineer says is not to technical ( ha ha ) that details building a circuit that uses piezoelectrics to charge a battery...a small battery.

https://www.cimss.vt.edu/pdf/Conference%20Papers/Park/C20.pdf

One interesting thing i did find out about is the existence of a piezoelectric device that uses rainfall to generate power, which is more apropos to our temperate coastal rain forest climate than solar is. But...again, it's for "monitoring devices"

Oh yea, and supposedly there's a circuit in some shoes capable of charging a mobile phone battery.

As of now, it looks like expense is a serious limiting factor with this technology, but my guess is that that's not really a concern of the obviously very wealthy club owner.

burningoftheclaveySILVER Member
lurking like a ninja with no camouflage..
926 posts
Location: over yonder, New Zealand


Posted:
i suppose the piezoelectric dancefloor could be ok.. means the punters decide with their feet how good they think the dj is... if hes rubbish the system shuts down!

although it would suck for places where people don't stay on the dancefloor all the time.

on spam robots - "Burn the robot! Melt him down, and then we can make lots and lots of money from his shiiiny juices!"

Owned by Brenn smile


StoutBRONZE Member
Pooh-Bah
1,872 posts
Location: Canada


Posted:
The piezoelectric dance floor is getting the thumbs down from the engineers. Nobody's saying it can't work, more that it's a system that nodody's tried to scale up to that sort of power output because , were it possible it would be so ridiculously expensive to generate the tens of thousands of watts required to run a nightclub.

example...

 Written by

Also: piezos are expensive, electricity is cheap. Seriously. Picture a one-watt piezo generator; I suspect that's on the large and expensive end of the scale. Vibrate this thing as hard as it can handle, and it'll still take a thousand hours (over a month) of pounding on it to get one kWh of energy. One kWh is worth about a dime. How much did you spend installing, wiring, and maintaining this ultra-fancy power-generating tile? Is that investment really worth an income of $0.10/month? (And that's assuming the mechanical power is free.)



It would probably be more effective to mount a solar panel on the roof to charge the batteries in the basement. They cold still advertise their "green power system" but, granted, it wouldn't have the same novelty factor as the dancefloor system.

Maybe instead of signing a pledge form, the clubbers could spend five minutes on a power generating treadmill before they're admitted into the club. Good warm up ya ?

MikeGinnyGOLD Member
HOP Mad Doctor
13,925 posts
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA


Posted:
From the article: "The author claims 8.4 watts
of useable power can be achieved from a PZT mounted in a shoe."

So if we imagine 100 people on the dance floor and two shoes each, that's 1680 W. There would have to be a lot of dancing people in a very quiet club for 1680 W to power 60% of a building. The A/C alone...

-Mike

Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella



A buckuht n a hooze! -Valura


StoutBRONZE Member
Pooh-Bah
1,872 posts
Location: Canada


Posted:
8.4 watts is certainly more respectable than the 1 watt mentioned in the quote I yoinked from another forum...but still.

Thinking about piezo in shoes, I took apart my two year olds LED embellished shoes last night thinking that there was a piezo system powering them. You know the ones, originally designed as safety gear for night time joggers, but mostly favoured by children, looking to see if there was a battery in them or if it was strictly piezo as I suspected. No battery, just one step, one flash peizo.

And then. looking for something..anything that might give figures on the power output of different piezo systems ( like do they really put out 8 watts ? ) I came across these shoes that do have a battery in them. After all what good would shoes with "headlights" in them do if they flashed on and off like the children's shoes.

https://dvice.com/archives/2008/04/pioneer_headlig.php?p=2&cat=undefined#more

StoneGOLD Member
Stream Entrant
2,829 posts
Location: Melbourne, Australia


Posted:
 Written by NathanielEverist

Just wondering, why are you wary of the commercialisation of "greenness". I personally fully support its commercialisation..



It’s called green washing, and it’s a con.

 Written by

'Green washing'

Big-business green marketing claims under fire

As consumers continue to jump on the environmental bandwagon, so too is big business. With that comes an increase in questionable green marketing claims - a practice the competition watchdog is currently investigating.

But the growth in green marketing has led to a new trap for consumers: green washing. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is close to releasing its findings into questionable carbon offset claims.

It is already threatening fines of more than $1 million for companies that make false or misleading statements. But Climate Group spokesman Rupert Posner says that has not stopped advertisers testing the limits of fair representation.

"It's already important that claims are accurate and that they're clear. For instance, saying that a product is recyclable when the product's made of paper, really is nothing new, there's nothing special about it," he said.

"So, to try and market that product as green is really trying to pull the wool over the consumer's eyes."

Ms Bodger says existing trade practices laws should be adequate to deal with green marketing. But she says concepts like carbon neutrality are hard to measure and there needs to be a clear set of guidelines.

"They need to make sure that all the claims they make are absolutely accurate, they're scientifically sound and that they can be substantiated," she said.

"But there's further obligations than that. Advertisers need to step back and ask whether the overall impression of what they're saying is accurate, as well."

Mr Posner says companies who are advertising their products as environmentally-friendly need to be very honest about how that is so.

Even the competition regulator is finding it difficult to come to grips with green marketing. Earlier this year, the ACCC investigated Woolworths' Select brand of tissues and toilet paper.

Woolworths' sourced raw materials from an Indonesian pulp maker. Woolworths' labels said the products were from an environmentally managed company, but an Indonesian group argued the pulp mill was clearing natural forests in Sumatra for much of its timber.



Perhaps they serve Cascade beer at the club:

 Written by

Cascade, which is owned by Foster's, unveiled its green brand in March, hoping to tap into the growing consumer movement for environmentally-friendly products.” "Many millions of dollars [have been] invested at the brewery to ensure that we do make year on year improvements in environmental performance. The Department of Climate Change has awarded Cascade a greenhouse friendly certificate and says the brewer has cut its carbon emissions by 16 per cent in six years. (above article)



So much for VB, the original green beer wink

If we as members of the human race practice meditation, we can transcend our fear, despair, and forgetfulness. Meditation is not an escape. It is the courage to look at reality with mindfulness and concentration. Thich Nhat Hanh



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