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Hot on the heels of the announcement that Mercedes will produce electric cars, comes the news that fellow German manufacturer Volkswagen plans to produce a test fleet of plug-in hybrid electric cars by 2010.
A few months ago, to much excitement from the automotive press, the company unveiled a diesel-electric Golf but, according to VW chief Martin Winterkorn, “the future belongs to electric cars.” To help in mapping out the road to this electric future, the company have unveiled a plug-in hybrid powertrain, called the Twin-Drive, which will make its first appearance in a Golf kitted out with a 122-horsepower diesel engine, twinned with an 82-horsepower electric motor.
Editor’s Note: Today we are happy to bring to you a guest post from Sean Casten, CEO and President of Recycled Energy Development.
Americans have a habit of framing our scientific history as a series of Great Inventors, from Eli Whitney to Thomas Edison to Afrika Bambaataa. The history books say each was prodded by Adam Smith’s invisible hand to come up with the great technological advances that have made our country a home of innovation.
There’s a problem with this mythology: sometimes there’s no invisible hand. Sometimes short-sighted government regulations give preference to bad technologies over good ones — stifling innovation and blinding us to our own ability to make progress.
Nowhere is this mythology more evident than in our energy system, the most heavily regulated and subsidized industry in the country. A host of bad regulations have made this system grossly inefficient, contributing both to global warming and to high power costs.
By Eva Pratesi •
June 24, 2008
With escalating oil and gas costs and growing French electricity imports, Italy is changing is stance on nuclear power. The re-elected Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi promised on his campaign to recommit the country to nuclear power and an heated debate is now popping up from north to south.
The general impression is there is still strong local opposition for three main reasons: high construction costs, projected build times of one to two decades and no identifiable Italian community willing to see a nuclear reactor built in their neighborhood. Italy has also failed to resolve the issue of what to do with nuclear waste. A proposed dump in Basilicata region was shelved in 2003 after thousands of demonstrators staged road blocks, marches and hunger strikes.
By Levi Novey •
June 17, 2008
Not too many years from now, parents living in the little town of Alumbre, Peru will probably tell their young children that they remember the days before there was electricity. These “old-timers” will talk about how wind was once thought of as the enemy– blowing out the few candles that provided light as they struggled to finish their homework after dark, or while trying to finish weaving a sweater. The kids, like most, will probably shrug off these anecdotes of wisdom from the past, wondering how their parents could ever think of something as wonderful as wind as an enemy.
By Nick Chambers •
June 13, 2008
First Flex-Fuel Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle
As part of a push by the US Department of Energy (DOE) to make plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) cost competitive with other cars by 2014, Ford has delivered a plug-in hybrid electric flex-fuel Escape to the DOE to join its test fleet of other PHEVs currently undergoing research and testing.
The vehicle is equipped with a 10 kilowatt lithium ion battery that can take it up to 30 miles at speeds under 40 mph before needing to fire up its fuel-fed hybrid-electric engine. After that, the hybrid-electric engine kicks in and can deliver a fuel economy of 88 mpg in the city and 50 mpg on the highway when using E85 (85% ethanol/15% gasoline blend).
For mobile telephone network providers in Africa like Safaricom, Kenya’s largest and the most profitable company in East Africa, extending services to rural hinterlands can pose so many challenges.
Infrastructure is a definite minus because there will be not much to talk about - bad roads, lack of electricity - yet cell phone communication knows no boundaries in any modern economy and even communities in backwater areas of the continent would go for the best connectivity.
The dilemma faced by these companies has always been how to power their base stations in an economical and environmentally-friendly way, given circumstances where no utility power is available.
Editor’s note: Today’s final installment of Low Impact Living’s “A Thirsty Nation” focuses on steps you can take to conserve water around the home. Make sure to check out the previous two posts in this series on water use and conservation, or take a look at the whole report on Low Impact Living’s site.
What Can You Do to Reduce Water Consumption?
Improve the water efficiency of your lawn.
For many homeowners in the southern United States, lawn irrigation is likely the largest source of residential water waste. There are many things one can do to correct this.
Adjust your irrigation controller to fit your climate conditions and landscaping. This alone can produce water savings of over 30%. Some water utilities offer water audits, so check with your local water provider to see if they offer this service. Or, find experienced landscape maintenance firms in your area.
Install rain and soil moisture sensors. Many people don’t turn off their irrigation when it rains. Also, most lawns receive far more water than they actually need when it isn’t raining. Both problems can be corrected using sensors attached to your irrigation system. See examples.
Replace existing landscaping with climate-appropriate options, keeping grass to a minimum. The biggest challenge with many yards is that they are composed of plants originally from other areas with vastly different climate conditions. The typical turf lawn can use up to 40 inches of water a year or more; many climate zones in the US have far less than that in rainfall. What most people don’t realize is that all regions of the US have native plants that are beautiful, durable, and adapted to local climate conditions. Some native grasses can provide the benefits of turf while requiring 1/3 of the water. So, if you really want to save water and also want to stand out on your block, cut down your turf use and rebuild your lawn using beautiful natives. Find landscape architects in your area who can help.
With more than 60% of its population unable to access the power grid, Nigerian engineers are now racing to devise viable alternatives to deliver electricity to an additional 85 million people or more in less than 12 years.
An email sent to me by one Irene Faluyi-Smythe talked of an event that will rally Nigerian engineers in the Diaspora to return home and take part in engineering development that would deliver sustainable power, and I got interested.
Sponsored and hosted by the UK chapter of the Engineering Forum of Nigerians, the 14 June 2008 conference in London will be looking at means and ways of delivering sustainable power in the country.
I cover a lot of upcoming or future technology, but it’s time to step into the present and aim for the past. Today we’re going to look at a technology available right now that can make some wanton energy waste history. It’s a surge protector that stakes the hearts of vampire electronics without hassling you, the sleeping victim.
Vampire appliances are pretty much anything you can plug in that still sucks energy when it’s supposedly turned off. Some are pretty obvious - the clocks on your microwave or VCR/DVD player burn all day, everyday. We know they’re not “off” because we cans see their LEDs glow. But other electronics, from your television to your cell phone charger also draw power when they’re plugged in but not in use. Check out a handy graph from Good Magazine. Some gadgets are notorious, like your plasma TV. Estimates claim that 5% or more of U.S. energy usage is insidiously wasted by “stand-by mode” or certain misleading “off” buttons. A whopping 5% may not sound like much, but it adds up to about $1 Billion dollars per year - and energy prices will probably continue to rise.
Be honest - how many times would you go around the house unplugging everything before it got old? Smart greenies have been switching off their surge protectors, but it’s easy to forget while watching your favorite late-night TV show or blogging at 4am. So what can we do about these metal-toothed Nosferatu in our midst? How about a surge protector that turns off all your appliances for you?
After hearing President Bush blame Congress for our country’s high gas, food, and energy prices yesterday, I still wasn’t convinced that drilling in ANWR would solve all of our problems (note: sarcasm).
It turns out that voters, at least according to a poll of 1,200 Americans conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates Inc., feel the same way.
Not only did fifty-seven percent of voters rate energy issues as “very serious” concern, but they also thought investment in renewable energy was the best solution:
GM’s plug-in hybrid electric car, the Chevy Volt, will have its lithium-ion batteries road-tested by end of the month. Engineers have already been testing the Volt’s electrical hybrid system, the so-called E-Flex architecture, but only with nickel-metal hydride hybrid batteries in place. The newer, more advanced lithium-ion batteries are seen as the key to to the vehicle, since they store energy more efficiently than other batteries of the same size.
Last week, GM engineers worked to replace the nickel-metal hydride batteries with lithium-ion batteries in three different test-vehicle “mules”. These trial vehicles have allowed engineers to fine tune and improve components of the vehicle system, before putting it all together into something that more closely resembles the final Volt production model. GM hopes to complete road-testing for the Volt by November 2010.
