I was going to mention Richard Register's work, but you already know about them. I see you're already turned on to permaculture as well. I assume you know about Bill McDonough and Cradle to Cradle.
One good, highly relevant project for the computer geek set would be developing really good, easy to use, low-cost building simulation software. The commonly used free package (eQuest) is quite old; more recent software is hard to use and expensive. I would love to see someone take the free EnergyPlus analysis engine and marry it to Sketchup.
As for carbon fibers: the shortcoming there is not the performance of the fibers, but their cost and, more importantly, their usefulness for mass manufacturing. FiberForge, a spinoff from RMI, is working on this but don't seem to be making alot of headway towards commercial application.
no subject
One good, highly relevant project for the computer geek set would be developing really good, easy to use, low-cost building simulation software. The commonly used free package (eQuest) is quite old; more recent software is hard to use and expensive. I would love to see someone take the free EnergyPlus analysis engine and marry it to Sketchup.
As for carbon fibers: the shortcoming there is not the performance of the fibers, but their cost and, more importantly, their usefulness for mass manufacturing. FiberForge, a spinoff from RMI, is working on this but don't seem to be making alot of headway towards commercial application.