Green Options

Here’s a transformer idea for city messenger services from design student Adam Schacter. This tiny EV would carry small cargo loads efficiently in its upright mode. In that configuration, the vehicle would be able to fit three to a parking space. But for days when you had a larger load, you’d simply flip down the back and pull it out wider to become a little pickup truck. Even flipped down into a truck, it would fit two to a parking space.

If artist and designer Jameson Klug has his way, his “City” concept might be coming to a city near you. Klug’s City starts life as a fun and exciting motorcycle, before transforming into the highly responsible and space-efficient, rickshaw-style vehicle above.

Is this a case of having your cake and eating it too?  Find out more, after the jump.

Pirates may be figures of romance, like Captain Jack Sparrow, or historical fact, like the Viking raiders, but what they haven’t been, until the last few years, is a statistical risk. And that’s surprising, because piracy has always been with us. However, in the past five years, the ‘menace’ of piracy has begun to have serious impacts on international waters, and the worst peril is the inadvertent one.

Sometimes it takes an energy crisis to make us realize the value of old technology. As oil prices soar, tall wind-powered ships are looking like an increasingly viable alternative.

The first commercial cargo of French wine to be transported by sailboat in the modern era is due to arrive in Dublin this week after a six-day trip. The 108 year-old British boat, chartered by French shipping company Compagnie de Transport Maritime a la Voile (CMTV), is carrying 30,000 bottles of wine.

Though the ship travels at a top speed of eight knots— half the speed of a modern cargo vessel—it is completely pollution-free. The 50,000 other merchant ships traveling the world emit 800 million tons of carbon dioxide each year.