I've been contemplating this topic for several weeks.  There seem to be a slew of technologies that are being developed in the industrial heartland that should change the landscape and perception of the rust belt states.  I've been trying to come up with a better name than green belt..  If the technologies can come to the fore in the next few years, they can continue growing the economy of the midwest and the world.  I don't have time today to go through the whole list of technologies so I figured I'd at least get this started and I'll try to add them when I can.

 

The first one I feel is most readily able to change the world immediately and has several large companies on the east side of Cleveland that have the fundamental technology and capabilities to develop this, is hydraulic transmissions.  There is also a company in Michigan that has put together various cars with a hydraulic transmission to show the power and simplicity called www.Hybra-drive.com.  The companies in Cleveland are primarily Eaton and Parker Hannifan and currently have sample vehicles at UPS and Fedex in test.  If either of these companies were to get a contract for the US Postal service to build a new delivery fleet this would save millions of gallons of gas a year since the ideal platform for this technology is stop and go driving.  This technology obviously will be put in more everyday vehicles also saving vast amounts of gas.  My estimates are that it doubles and can triple or better the mileage depending on the use and how its set up.

 

http://news.thomasnet.com/companystory/807549  - Fedex testing

http://www.hydraulicspneumatics.com/200/Issue/Article/False/38545/Issue  - UPS testing

 

We have a couple of threads on this subject.

 

Not to take away from your post audidave, but is it it possible to review and combine the following if the mods see fit?

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,8024.0.html

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,4778.0.html

The theme is not really about Leed standards or how to build greener houses.  Its more fundamental technologies that are being researched within the universities of the region that are gaining some international interest and can start to be incorporated and implemented within the next 1-5 years.  It can also be as another example the Solar industry with new technology coming out of First Solar in Toledo and also another company in Michigan called United Solar Ovonics.  It could be Windspires that are supposed to be appearing in CSU some day.  However, it could be green buildings if there is a company in the midwest that is developing some kind of technology to make them greener.

There's an inventor in Blacklick, OH outside of Columbus that is working on improving the world of bio-fuels.  Some people thought he was crazy by driving his unaltered '92 Buick across the country in 2005 without gas or ethanol to power it.  He's a farmer and a scientist and he decided to fuel it with butanol he made from his farm.  He has a patent on the process to make more of it more efficiently. He is in the process of stepping up his scale of production.  You can go to his webpage here to learn more.  www.butanol.com  If you think his webpage isn't flashy enough there is another company doing this on a larger scale with funding from Virgin's Branson with a goal of converting the nation's mostly bankrupt ethanol plants to butanol.  www.gevo.com  Finally, BP and DuPont are working on this as well with mass scale coming in 2010 with Bu16.  http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS177211+14-Feb-2008+PRN20080214. 

 

Currently oil refineries make Butanol for a long list of products.  By making Butanol without gasoline and even replacing some gasoline in vehicles, it makes gasoline less of a precious commodity.

Ugh, n-butanol smells vile.  I'm glad I'm nowhere near this guy's production facilities.

One place to really get the Midwest away from being the Rust belt anymore is changing the whole infrastructure away from being able to rust at all and not deteriorate.  Since there is a lot of talk lately out of Washington of increasing the spending on repairing the nations's infrastructure it would make sense to use the latest and greatest materials. 

  Back a few years ago there was a big commotion out of UM for what their Engineering department came up with: ECC concrete or bendable concrete.  This is able to bend and withstand a lot more punishment than regular concrete and it uses less material.  Not too much has happened since 2005 in the US with this.  However in Japan they are starting to use it more vigorously since its stupid not to start using it. Here's a PDF on the subject: http://www.ucs.iastate.edu/mnet/_repository/2009/betterconcrete/pdf/VictorLi.pdf

 

Another idea that is surely going to get bigger is plastic bridges.  Together with the ECC concrete mentioned above engineering crews will be able to start putting bridges together in mere days.  Here's one in Huron county: http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081006/NEWS11/810060335.

 

There's only so many bridges and concrete roads to resuscitate.  Most the roads seem to be asphalt.  Now there's a green way of laying new asphalt that isn't using fossil fuels as its main source and holds up better than with petroleum.    Soybean oil is providing the sticky goo.  Here's a very recent article on that from the Akron Beacon Journal as it is being applied to Akron streets and potholes.  http://www.checkmatepublicaffairs.com/bioproductsarticle.php?storyid=1357

 

The new economy(recession economy) is all about doing more with less.  All the above examples meet that criterion.