While filming the new Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, the stunt driver of Bond’s $200,000 Aston Martin, misjudged and drove off a cliff into 150 feet of water, knocking him out. 29 year old Fraser Dunn came to and managed to swim to shore with only minor injuries. Police weren’t amused, he was fined about $800 for dangerous driving.
You may recall the opening scene in the James Bond Film, Goldeneye, where our hero sprints along the top of a dizzyingly high dam, bungee jumps to the bottom, and subsequently wreaks havoc on the top secret scientific installation within.
Some readers may be aware that the dam forming the backdrop to this daredevil scene, instead of being deep inside the former Soviet Union, is in fact located in the Val Verzasca in Southern Switzerland. Retaining over 100 million cubic meters of water, and generating 105 megawatts of electricity, the Verzasca dam is one of 527 hydro electric power plants which together provide more than 57% of the electricity consumed within Switzerland.
In the interest of bringing EcoWorldly readers first hand and up-close reporting on renewable energy I had originally planned to visit the dam this weekend in order to relate my experiences of bungee jumping off a 720 foot high hydro-electric energy installation. However, in the interests of meeting editorial deadlines I ultimately had to settle with a video from YouTube. It’s worth watching just to appreciate the sheer scale of this installation.
I don’t know if this is truly a step forward in clean car technology, or just something for James Bond and Aquaman fans, but Swiss car maker Rinspeed will debut the sQuba, a fully submersible electric car, at next month’s Geneva Auto Show.
Editor’s note: Today, we’re pleased to launch a new content partnership with Celsias. To kick this off right, we’re featuring a wonderfully innovative feature from Celsias writer Doug Snodgrass: the JetPack Rating System™. This post was originally published on September 13, 2007.
I once again present the JetPack Rating System™, my weekly effort to help humanity cope with its collective disappointment over the broken promise of personal jetpacks, the Sean Connery-era James Bond standard of