Word: plant
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Better crop rotation and irrigation can help protect fields from exhaustion and erosion. Old-fashioned cross-breeding can yield plant strains that are heartier and more pest-resistant. But in a world that needs action fast, genetic engineering must still have a role--provided it produces suitable crops. Increasingly, those crops are being created not just by giant biotech firms but also by home-grown groups that know best what local consumers need...
Other technologies can work their own little miracles. Micro-hydroelectric plants are already operating in numerous nations, including Kenya, Sri Lanka and Nepal. The systems divert water from streams and rivers and use it to run turbines without complex dams or catchment areas. Each plant can produce as much as 200 kilowatts--enough to electrify 200 to 500 homes and businesses--and lasts 20 years. One plant in Kenya was built by 200 villagers, all of whom own shares in the cooperative that sells the power...
...time convert by the name of Bill Ford. When the chairman of Ford Motor Co. decided to rebuild the company's historic River Rouge complex, destroyed by an explosion in 1999, he hired McDonough, who is based in Charlottesville, Va., as a sustainability expert to help make the new plant outside Detroit as environmentally friendly as possible. The result, which is scheduled to open next year, may not fulfill all McDonough's ideals, but it will be the greenest car factory ever. Thirty-five skylights will illuminate the 2.1 million-sq.-ft. area to save money on lighting. Sedum...
Over the Columbia River, on a high desert ridge, the world's largest wind farm sprawls across 50 sq. mi. of Oregon and Washington. When the last of its 460 turbines are installed, this postmodern power plant will offer clean electricity to 70,000 homes and businesses. Every month hundreds of tourists come to gawk at its fiber-glass blades, twirling with balletic grace atop 160-ft. poles. "People are in awe of wind power," says Anne Walsh, community-relations manager of the Stateline Energy Center...
...fossil-fuel burning, threatens to cause chaos with the world's climate. And the terrorist assault on the World Trade Center raises other scary scenarios: how much easier would it be to crack open the Trans-Alaska pipeline and how much deadlier would it be to bomb a nuclear plant than to attack a wind farm...