Have you ever thought about how much electricity you consume when you go night clubbing? Think about it: blinding lights, deafening music, AC, water, one-time use materials…
Well, now you can rejoice, because some people have been thinking forward and have come up with ways for us to party without feeling guilty :)
In the last few months, several “green” clubs have opened up around the world: the Watt in Rotterdam, the Surya in London, the Temple in San Francisco, the Greenhouse in New York… How are they green? In different ways, they try to minimize their electricity and water consumption, reduce waste, use recycled materials, and so on.
At the Watt in Rotterdam, the cups are recyclable, the restrooms run on rainwater, the bar minimizes waste, and more interestingly from a technological standpoint, the dance floor uses the piezo-electric effect to transform the dancers’ energy into electricity that can be used for the lighting and audio systems (see video).
The owners of the Watt say they can reduce the energy consumption and CO2 emissions by 30%, and the water consumption and waste generation by 50% in comparison with a normal night club.
Other features in the different clubs include LED-lighting, high-efficiency heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, use of recycled materials, waterless urinals (what’s that?), low-flow sinks, serving organic juices and cocktails…
This may sound like a lot of PR/advertising, but if you are planning on going out in Rotterdam, London, NYC, or San Francisco, give it a try!
Sources:
http://www.sustainabledanceclub.com/
http://sustainablerotterdam.blogspot.com/
http://www.sustainabledanceclub.com/fckuploads/file/WATT_Project_EN.pdf
http://www.club4climate.com/
http://www.templesf.com/
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/green-nightclub-trend-comes-to-new-york/
4 comments:
This idea of making nightclub more 'green' seems really good and innovative. It is an interesting way of using electricity in the future. It seems to be the future of electricity as Roger Duncan talked about it in class when he came saying that for example electricity could be produced when we walk to cahrge cell phone for example. In my opinion, trying to use all the energies prodced by human deplacement is a very good idea as it can help reduce emissions.
Neat idea. I wonder if any of these are planning on expanding beyond a single establishment into a sort of green branded night spot.
This reminds me of other ways you could utilize human energy. When I’m at the gym riding a stationary bike, running on a treadmill, lifting weights, etc., I’m thinking about how the power I’m creating is just being wasted as heat (and resulting in higher AC costs). There are already stationary bicycles that can power small household appliances (http://www.econvergence.net/electro.htm), and there’s got to be plenty of other gym equipment that can be converted to produce usable power. Like the dance floors in those sustainable clubs, an indoor track could use the same principle and harness a runner’s energy. In fact, there are already a number of “green gyms” popping up around the world, like this one in Portland (http://www.thegreenmicrogym.com/).
The idea of using human energy is a great idea. A night club using human energy to power their lights is a fascinating idea! Humans produce a lot of energy and it would be a waste not use it. Instead of just depending on natural resources to power our appliances, we can use ourselves to power them. The idea is both good for human health and also environmental friendly. However, humans are so used to having techonology and machines to produce the energy that we need, that doing it manually is like going back into the past and doing everything ourselves.
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