A Green City With A Brain

www.newscientist.com...

An eco-city in Portugal that its makers are aiming to build by 2015 takes its cues from the nervous system.

"IF TODAY'S cities were living things, they would be monsters, guilty of guzzling 75 per cent of the world's natural resources consumed each year.
Now a more benign urban creature is set to emerge. The planned city of PlanIT Valley, on the outskirts of Paredes in northern Portugal (see map), is aiming to be an environmentally sustainable city. And, just like an organism, it will have a brain: a central computer that regulates everything from its water use to energy consumption."

PlanT Valley will be sustainable and treat it's own water. The buildings are roofed with plants that will help reduce temperatures and absorb rainwater and pollutants. The city will utilize a network of sensors that resemble the nervous system to process water, waste and power generation. Software designed for car and aircraft manufacturing were used in the development. The buildings are hexagonal in shape to serve as an efficient use of space.
The sensors, placed in each building, will measure temp, humidity, occupancy and energy use. The data will go to the "brain" passing on information on energy from photovoltaic devices, wind turbines, water usage and waste. The brain can mange and transfer sources and energy uptake throughout the city.
It can use weather forecasts to best respond to any available energy. On cloudy days, the photovoltaic would switch to stored energy, in the form of ice produced by excess electricity on sunny days, which provides chilled water for air conditioning systems. The data center will process around 5 petabytes per day and each building also has it's own computer. Warm air produced at the data center will also be used throughout the city.
About 3 percent of the water will be used for drinking and cooking, and buildings will reuse water as well.

"Cooking water can be collected and reused for flushing toilets. Similarly, rainwater will be collected by tanks on the "green roofs" of buildings and then filtered by the plants to remove pollutants. A series of lagoons in the city's central park will use reeds, bamboo and other plants to filter waste water, making it suitable for reuse as "grey" water in toilets and irrigation.

Once these plants have grown, consuming carbon dioxide as they do so, they will be cut down and used to produce biofuel, with a new batch planted to replace them."
The city will have cameras placed throughout and if, for example, a child goes missing, an application called Find My Kid will assist parents in tracking down the children. The software checks the questioners status first, to determine if the inquirer is legitimate, then the cameras can search for identifiable factors as clothes, size and other descriptions.

"Find my Kid is one example of the "Place Apps", which Living PlanIT hopes to develop by collaborating with software firms. They could be available at computer terminals dotted around the city or in smartphones. Other possible apps could help inhabitants find a parking space, for example."

One thing that will make the city thrive is it's own trash. Usually a city only diverts about 5 % of trash for recycling, and this system will bring the figure up to 80%, wow!

"Human and organic waste will be used to generate electricity. An anaerobic digester will use enzymes to stimulate microbes to digest such waste, producing chemicals that can be fermented and distilled into biofuels to run the city's cars or to generate electricity. The process also generates by-products such as amino acids and vitamin B12, which can be sold to the pharmaceutical industry.
Dishwasher-sized digesters are also being developed for homes. Fed by a tablet containing enzymes, these would process food and human waste to generate biofuel, which can then be burned to generate electricity.
Of the remaining landfill waste, any aluminium will be extracted and used in industrial chemical reactions to generate hydrogen, which could be used as a fuel to power vehicles.
Finally, a biomass reactor will heat whatever waste cannot be recycled to 400 °C without oxygen, a process known as pyrolysis, to generate energy and biochar, which can be used as a fertiliser.
Residents will not be asked to separate plastic and glass in their trash. All waste is fed through the central digester, which cleanses materials of organic contamination, before they are separated. That means more can be recycled."

This sounds very cool to me, and of course it is right out of a sci-fi world, which in my mind comes with some thoughts concerning control, privacy and dependance, but I am going to stay on the optimistic side of the fence and welcome the efficiency and harmony of this concept. I think this is a positive advancement that could make huge differences in the way we use/conserve energy and waste.
I can imagine a future step could include connecting cities and then so on.....



Peace,
spec

Nice,

I can't wait for the day when all cities are like this. I basically wanted to subscribe to this thread.

Venus Project here we come!!

reply to post by ghostsoldier

Hey GS, thanks for the reply and the link to Venus Project. I was unaware of it, but am excited to now know and will share this with others.
The vid was excellent too, a really good illustration for the examination of the processes for ideas!
I really like seeing innovation like this and I hope it becomes an inevitable direction we must go, as opposed to maintaining a rotting status quo. This info has given me some new inspiration for humanity....

Peace,
spec

ETA: Love your signature links, it is good to see solutions and innovation!