IdeaStorm
Over 19,059 ideas submitted. 741,205+ votes. 98,015+ comments. 537+ ideas implemented.
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Asia Global Energy Solutions - 25 Years Of Trash To Energy
Jun 18, 2013
1 Vote
Status: New
BRIDGEPORT -- Luis Rullan's fingers worked the knobs on either side of his seat as he stared intently at two 50-foot mountains of garbage on either side of his glassed-in room on the Wheelabrator Bridgeport plant's fifth floor. "The room holds 13,000 tons of trash," said Mike Prutting, the day shift supervisor. "There are about 10,500 or 11,000 tons now. Right?" "Just about," Rullan answered, his fingers maneuvering a large crane -- like those used to pick toys out of prize machines -- to lift old mattresses, pieces of wood, torn clothes and garbage bags. With another twist, Rullan dumped them into the feeder hopper, a vent leading to the combustion grater where the garbage is burned at 2,250 degrees Farenheit. That is the start of the process that converts 2,200 tons of the region's waste into more than 67,000 kilowatts of electricity daily. "It's a good place to work," said Rullan, who has been employed at the plant for 25 years. "I love it here." On Wednesday, the company celebrated its silver anniversary and its employees with a celebration, lunch and guided tours of the facility. "The green vision for Bridgeport started right here 25 years ago," Mayor Bill Finch said. The site is also a boon for the city's tax rolls, topping the top taxpayer list each year with a property assessment of $282 million, not including personal property. And it employs many Bridgeport residents, including Rullan. One employee, Jaime Rodriguez, walked 3.5 hours from his Bridgeport home to the Howard Avenue plant days after a February blizzard paralyzed the city for nearly a week. "The employees are the foundation of the business," said Vin Langone, regional vice president for Wheelabrator Technologies Inc. Plans are in the works to expand the business' scope in the city by using the heat left over after the trash is converted to energy to heat homes and businesses downtown. Around 250 degrees, the heat is released as steam from the company's tall stacks. "Instead of only generating electricity, we're talking about sending out heat through a piping network," Langone said. The South End site is owned by Wheelabrator Technologies Inc., which has 17 waste-to-energy facilities and four power plants throughout the nation. In the last five years, the company has expanded internationally with operations in the United Kingdom and China. Over the last 25 years, the plant has processed 18.5 million tons of waste -- enough to fill tractor-trailer trucks lined up from Bridgeport to Honolulu -- and generated 13 million megawatts of electricity, enough to power more than 2 million Xbox gaming systems for a year. That fact was fascinating to the 12 middle-schoolers sitting nearby listening, members of Park City Magnet School's Green Squad. The children were sponsored by Wheelabrator to participate in an environmental symposium in Florida, something the company has done for decades. Soon after the celebration began winding down, attendees began dispersing or taking their places at the buffet line for lunch. But not Rullan. He mingled for a few minutes, before finding his way back inside, grabbing his white hard hat, ear plugs and safety glasses and returning to his seat at the start of the waste-to-energy process. Related News: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0drCNOZPHcI https://getsatisfaction.com/asia-global-energy
Categories: Environment,
The Green Dell
May 3, 2013
1 Vote
Status: Acknowledged
A website where home gardners and small farmers can put up their crops that they are planning, planting, growing, harvesting - and see, by "locality," what others are planting in their neighbourhood. The idea is that they can then perhaps change their minds and plant something no-one else is growing, leading to greater diversity of foods available in their region. People can then either opt to buy these direct from the grower, or trade them for something that they grow themselves, and the idea is to make every region able to grow good local food. The "locality" should be an area that makes sense for local food, i.e. not much more than 20 - 50 miles, to encourage people to use less fuel transporting food around.People should be able to "pledge" either a certain percentage of a planted or harvested crop, or pledge some labour on the grower's property (sort of like community gardening) or tools and materials (wire netting, compost scraps, etc) in exchange for some of the crop. Additionally, users should be encouraged to share their experiences of what grows well locally, what needs special techniques, and so forth. Within a few years, a site such as this should be able to even out local food production, provide detailed, locality-based advice on what can be grown and how to grow it, and (if advertisers are chosen carefully and with relevance, i.e. home handyman, gardening, nursery, and so forth) be able to produce an income by presenting locally-targeted advertising to users, who can use these ads to find the best local services and materials.It would be a crowdsourced agricultural and GIS dataBASE, as well. This can be stripped of identifying data, and sold/donated to research foundations and government departments to provide detailed knowledge of soil and weather and local plants etc on an ongoing basis. The information provided would give valuable knowledge to such organisations about the health of the ecosphere and the weather systems.On the purely humane side, it would allow a much wider audience to have access to local food, thus strengthening local economies and reducing food miles and handling costs. I think an idea such as this is one of theose things where a large company has nothing to lose by devoting a few resources to it and advertising / publicising it, and then if the site doesn't take off, it's a relatively small loss. If it does take of though, it would establish the green credentials of the company and give them some very good publicity!
Categories: Education, Environment, IdeaStorm,
environmental solution to used electronic equipment
May 1, 2013
2 Votes
Status: Acknowledged
I always have a big question mark that Dell has been collecting tons of used electronic equipment but how these equipment are being treated or they go straight to secured landfills??
Categories: Accessories (Keyboards, etc.), Environment,
Cave Mall
Apr 25, 2013
1 Vote
Status: Acknowledged
I just thought of a mall in a cave. tunnels, fish tanks cable cars etc. that will be a best tourist attraction.
Categories: Environment, Retail,
un exhaustable power source
Apr 19, 2013
1 Vote
Status: Acknowledged
we can run electriccity powerd auto mobile continuely with out a power scarcitywe can extract solar power by itroducing solar pannels at every side of a tele phone towerand we can generate that energy trough wireless electric signals so automoblie runs contenuesly as the {tower} coverage is possible we are not using even 10% of solar energy so ithink this is the best idea for eco friendly transportation and a good news for power and commercial companies
Categories: Environment, IdeaStorm,
Expense Reduction and Going Green
Mar 23, 2013
2 Votes
Status: Acknowledged
I have always paid my DFS account by pre-authorized cheque, and I presume that this is standard payment method at Dell. That being the case, why do you send me/us an empty envelope with every monthly statement of the DFS account? The envelopes are not only a waste of paper, but also an unecessary expense. How many envelopes do you send out each month that go unused? Why do you send a monthly statement? Surely Dell can do all of this online. The cost of paper, postage, etc., etc must be considerable. Dell has got to cut costs! You can stop the waste of money, paper, postage, etc., by simply stoping sending envelopes that are not used, and by DFS putting all accounts on line.Frank
Categories: Environment, Service and Support,
Space bound garbage
Mar 6, 2013
1 Vote
Status: Acknowledged
I once saw on a documentary the idea of a low-orbit space station that is tethered to the ground. Orbiting in sync with the planet, this tether would eliminate the need for rocket fuel propelled vessels to carry objects into orbit. I purpose that if this space station is possible, than why couldn't we send all of our waste into space. This could have a signifigant impact on the enviroment here on Earth.
Categories: Environment, Service and Support,
DLP Phlatlight led light engine in mainstream projectors
Feb 22, 2013
1 Vote
Status: Acknowledged
The color gromet as well as the energysmart rating is much superior than traditional configurations. I have a xxx brand dlp tv with phlatlght tech and there is no compairison of color saturation compaired with my dell 1510x projector. I think the tv uses 118 watts for a 56' tv. The smaller pico projectors use a dlp white led engine and a colorwheel not a red, green, blue led.
Categories: Environment, IdeaStorm,
Deep ocean gas creation to move up ballons with power generating turbines behind?
Feb 14, 2013
1 Vote
Status: Acknowledged
Excuse me, this is just a pre-sketch. However, I'm not a specialist and I dont have time for gaining necessary knowledge.Maybe you can tell me if it makes sense somehow.It's very simple general idea:- use some chemical process to create gas (o2?, h2?) under ocean, so that it could accumulate despite the pressure- make it filing some form of ballon- attach appropriate turbines and energy transmision/storage systems (eg. the ballon on cable?)- release the ballon when it is ready to be pushed with pressure- (turbines could have rotation comaprable/better then average wind-turbines?)- improve every detail to make it cheap and safe and large-scaleEnjoy energy :)
Categories: Environment,
Giving away old computers
Jan 31, 2013
2 Votes
Status: Acknowledged
I recently put up an old Dell 3000 on my local freecycle group. An old Pentium IV that I loaded with Linux. I had over 20 requests for it in just a couple of hours. Dell, do you have any more 3000s or other old machines collecting dust anywhere? I have a list of people who would be more than happy to take them off your hands.
Categories: Desktops and Laptops, Environment, Service and Support,