A US-built Tesla Roadster has broken the world record for the distance travelled by an electric production car on a single charge.

While competing in the Global Green Challenge, Australian Simon Hackett and co-driver Emilis Prelgauskas drove an incredible 313 miles before the batteries finally died in their Roadster.

Until now, the record has been held by another Tesla Roadster, after completing a 241 mile road rally on one charge.

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Naked bicyclists, folding bikes, balloon bikes, and more — enjoy this bicycle photo tour of Barcelona.

The third B in a row, Barcelona is next on this list of great bicycle cities (right ahead of Basel, Switzerland and Bogota, Columbia). As a dense city with a wonderful climate, Barcelona is naturally a wonderful place for bicyclists. However, a lot has been done to make it more so. The biggest carrot encouraging bicycling, by far, is Barcelona’s relatively new bike sharing program — Bicing. This is perhaps the best or second best bike sharing program in the world. It is one of a new generation of sophisticated, smart bike sharing programs. Read more about it on page 2.

Beyond Bicing, the city is also working on creating new bicycling routes and bike parking and it hosts fun Bike Week celebrations every year in May. Also, it has been creating better infrastructure for bicyclists due to so many more people bicycling within the past few years. It is transforming itself into a truly world-leading bicycle city.

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Legendary Italian carmaker, Pininfarina, may yet have some surprises up its sleeves. Even with recent financial difficulties, Pininfarina’s CEO, Silvio Pietro Angori, told Italian newspaper, Il Sole 24, that the company’s Bluecar electric car venture with french investor Vincent Bollore is not simply a concept car and still on track for a 2011 market debut.

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Comedian Sarah Silverman explains her ambitiously brilliant plan to end world hunger. She calls on Ratzinger, the chief architect responsible for obfuscating many of the Catholic Church’s most horrific sexual abuse scandals, to sell the Vatican and feed the world with the money.

“We need a hero, and who is more primed to be our hero than the pope? He’s literally a caped crusader,” explains Silverman. I think that she might be on to something.

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Bicing — Great (3rd Generation) Bicycle Sharing Program

Bicycle sharing programs started out as simple systems in which bikes were painted a certain color and then made available for use for free by anyone in the community, to be picked up or dropped off at undetermined places. The problem with these systems, naturally, was that there was no accountability or security and the bikes would eventually disappear.

In recent years, some more sophisticated programs have been developed in various European countries. One type of more sophisticated program requires that a cash deposit be made to borrow a locked bike and then once the bike is returned the deposit is returned. More sophisticated than this, a few newer programs (such as Bicing) were recently launched in which a customer must become a member of the program to borrow a bike and then the person is able to unlock bikes with their membership card through a fairly sophisticated computer system (similar to carsharing programs such as Zipcar and Flexcar).

Barcelona’s system is one of the most successful to date. It is interesting because it is only open to Barcelonians — not tourists. They can pay a yearly fee of 30 Euros and then get a bike for free for half an hour anytime. If they want it for more than half an hour, they pay 30 cents per every extra 30 minutes. They can return bikes to any of the hundreds of bike parking “stations” around the city. The system started with 100 stations and 1,500 bikes. The system blew-up, was hugely popular, and today it consists of 6,000 bikes and 375 stations.

The system cut into the transportation infrastructure for cars a little bit, and generated some controversy at the beginning, but it seems that people have come to realise more and more the benefits of bicycle transportation for their city. Similar to Bogota, Barcelona has transformed its city into a more bicycle and pedestrian focused place, and as a result “the number of cars coming into Barcelona (has been reduced) by 15 percent.”

Enjoy the photos and YouTube video of this great bike sharing program below!

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Image Credit 1: synes via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: Paco CT via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 3: Altamar via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 4: frodrig via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 5: almogaver via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 6: JesuSarmiento via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 7: Maufdi via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Beautiful Places to Bicycle

Barcelona is beautiful, and that makes bicycling there that much better. Rather than close yourself in a car, tram, or bus, you can enjoy the beauty and atmosphere of Barcelona better on a bike.

Image Credit 1: ras263 via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: JorgeMiente.es via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 3: _Asane_ via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 4: lcrf via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 5: Juan Carlos! via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 6: Plug 1 via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 7: Tuquetu via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 8: JaulaDeArdilla via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Bikin’ in the Rain, Kids on Bikes, & Men in Suits

Image Credit 1: vitelone via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: vitelone via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 3: vitelone via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 4: vitelone via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Folding Bikes

Easy to travel with or bring to work, these folding bikes are very popular in Barcelona. (There’s one on page nine, too.) The photographer for the first picture here writes: “Barcelona seems to be something of a magnet for Bromptons and other types of folding bikes. It recently hosted an event specifically for Bromptons.” A few artistic pictures of these super utilitarian bikes for all of us to enjoy:

Image Credit 1: identity chris is via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: Brújulo via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 3: . SantiMB . via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 4: Juan Carlos! via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Big Bike Taxis

Image Credit 1: uayebt via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: uayebt via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 3: jose_gonzalvo via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 4: james. via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Balloons on Bikes

Image Credit 1: karuleta* via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Naked Bicyclists

Mix Spain and bicycles and you get a few naked people! What a free look this picture has.

Image Credit 1: sheenabizarre via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Moving or Shipping Bikes & Critical Mass Bike Rides

Image Credit 1: Liz Castro via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: funkyfabriz via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Flowers or Pac-Man in the Bikes Lanes?

At first, I thought these were tulips. Then, I realized (partly by seeing the title of the second one) that it is actually a tribute to pac-man! Interesting bike lane art.

Hope you enjoyed the photo tours of Basel (Switzerland), Bogota (Columbia), and Barcelona (Spain). To keep yourself updated on the next seven photo tours, keep your eye on EcoWorldly or even subscribe to its feed or email list. Have something extra to add? Comment below!

Image Credit 1: Ibán via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: Ibán via flickr under a Creative Commons license

Norway committed to cut their greenhouse gas emissions 40% by 2020 this week. This is the most ambitious goal of any rich nation to date.

Norway’s prime minister Jens Stoltenberg (just re-elected) is meeting the requests of many developing nations and environmental NGOs with this commitment.

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GASP!     WOOT! YES!

President Barack Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize today for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples“; as well as for his ongoing work to free the world of all nuclear weapons.

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Clean tech has passed biotech and IT as the top venture capital (VC) investment category in the world. This is after investments in leading clean tech markets increased by 10% in the third quarter of this year.

Cleantech Group released findings on Wednesday showing that the cleantech sector “accumulated $1.59 billion across 134 companies” and this was 10% more than the $1.2 billion it had accumulated in the second quarter.

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A new report ranks ten leading world cities on their greenhouse gas emissions. It also examines how and why the emissions differ.

As the report says, over 50% of the world’s population lives in urban areas. Leading cities of the world, global cities, are the places where greenhouse gas emissions really need to be cut. The greenest city from the study is Barcelona and the worst is Denver.

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A new study by nearly 30 of the world’s best scientists concludes that we have crossed three of the world’s nine thresholds. It is not only about climate change.

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Climate Action Will Pay for Itself, and More.

The United Nations (UN) stated earlier this month that the cost of avoiding climate change was at least 1% of global GDP — $500-600 billion dollars. Despite this major cost, Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the UK, and The Climate Group, presented a report to the UN yesterday saying that a strong climate deal will “boost growth in all major economies & create millions of new jobs.”

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A new report released by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) says that biotechnology is one possible solution to our climate change and our economic problems.

It could have a dramatic effect on CO2 emissions, and it could also be part of the new green economy. How much can it help? The report says it can reduce global emissions by as much as some leading countries emit in a year.

What is biotechnology? How can it cool our climate and give a boost to our economy? Is it an appropriate and safe solution to these problems?

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BUT, what does it mean to be a “global citizen”?

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An Italian company has announced plans to install the world’s largest rooftop solar photovoltaic plant, with an energy capacity equivalent to the power needs of 5,000 households.

Solon SE will establish the facility at its Padua warehouse and truck-loading complex, generating an output of up to 15 megawatts when the sun is at its brightest.

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The Reva Electric Car Company has announced plans to build the world’s largest factory for cheap all-electric cars, capable of a massive annual output of 30,000 units.

The Bangalore, India-based company hopes that after the Rs300m ($6.1m) facility begins production in the first quarter of next year, it will help to introduce green energy to the subcontinent’s rapidly growing automotive industry.

The Reva, a small hatchback powered by eight six-volt batteries, retails for a mega-competitive Rs350,000 in India and £7,500 ($12,200) in the UK, (where it is marketed under the G-Wiz brand), far less than most rival companies.

Speaking about the plan, Chetan Maini, Reva’s deputy chairman and chief technology officer said, “We are promoting a technology that holds the key to the global energy crisis.”

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Earlier this week, the world’s first piloted aircraft powered solely by hydrogen fuel cells, took to the skies above Hamburg Airport, Germany, producing zero carbon dioxide emissions.

The Antares DLR-H2, jointly developed by the German aerospace centre DLR, Lange Aviation, BASF Fuel Cells and Denmark’s Serenergy, has a range of 750km (390nm) and can stay airborne for 5 hours at top flying speeds of about 90kt (170km/h).

According to DLR, a main hurdle was improving fuel cell performance capabilities and efficiency to such an extent that the motor glider could take off using fuel cell power alone. DLR’s Johann-Dietrich told reporters, “This enables us to demonstrate the true potential of this technology.” (see more pictures after the jump).

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A new way to treat wood has trees back in the limelight: a hardwood’s reliability that even a rain forest mahogany tree can love.

The above picture is of the world’s first heavy traffic road bridge made from Accoya® wood. The bridge, located in Sneek in the Netherlands, is “the first wooden bridge in the world that can support the heaviest load class of 60 tons”.  At this week’s Wall Street Green Trading Summit, a panel on forestation introduced a new way of thinking about how to deal with destruction of the rain forest.

>> More from the recent Wall Street Green Trading Summit:   Opening, Carbon Markets, Weird Investments and Solar Panels for All.

I think we can all agree that planting trees is a good way to go environmentally green (they capture carbon like crazy), but lets take a look at that other green for a moment: the green of cash.  Forestation can turn a profit quickly, given that it is one of the few industries in the United States that we know for sure will be cross marketable as a carbon offset industry. 

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Even for a group focused on Investing First and Green Second, this is getting a little silly.

The longer I am here at the Wall Street Green Trading Summit, the less this feels like anything to do with environmentalism.  At some point, when does off-setting stop being feasible, and when does carbon reduction become the name of the game?

>> More Wall Street Green Trading Summit:   Opening, Carbon Markets, Solar Panels and the Electric Grid

This was driven home to me by a presentation on the investment opportunities presented by species banks.  Now, I didn’t even know what a species bank was until today, but apparently you can purchase an offset credit to get around the fact that your company is destroying the natural habitat of an endangered species.  And, there is an entire market based around this principle.

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We’re coming at you no-longer-quite-live at New York’s very own Wall Street Green Trading Summit.

The summit is over for today, but I wanted to throw some concluding thoughts out after an afternoon spent discussing good business models for producing alternative energy and for overhauling our current electrical grid.

>> More Wall Street Green Trading Summit:   Opening, Carbon Markets, Weird Investments.

Two presentations stuck out to me from the afternoon, Tioga Energy and Acorn (no, not that ACORN) Energy.  Without turning this into too much of a publicity-fest for either company, here’s what they were about.

Solar Panels for All

Tioga has gotten pretty good at a business model that I’ve actually heard about in a few different places: effectively, they lease people’s roof space and put solar panels up on homes and businesses.  Then, they sell the energy to the people in the home at a fixed rate (below market value for the customer) that goes up slowly over a 20 year period.  There are options for the owner of the property to purchase the solar panels if they would like to down the line, but until they do Tioga maintains everything for them. This means that the company soaks the initial start-up costs for people: often that prohibitive thing reinventing a small business or a home-owner from taking a plunge.

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We’re coming at you live with more special Red, Green, and Blue coverage from New York’s very own Wall Street Green Trading Summit.

It’s Lunchtime now at the WSGTS, and I just emerged from another dizzying bout of acronyms to find myself totally shocked by how little I know about big market investing. Fortunately, I stumbled on Open Carbon World, an open source project on carbon footprints that is here at the conference.  They have accumulated the following glossary of terms, acronyms and etc. to help novices like me navigate these crazy fast talking presentations.  If I drop one or two over the next few days, please forgive the frazzled brain, and give them a look up!  

>> More Wall Street Green Trading Summit:  The Species Bank?, Carbon Markets, Solar Panels and the Electric Grid

OCW is presenting tomorrow, so I’ll reserve final judgment ’til then, but expect a post on some sweet open source ideas having to do with footprints and offsets.

OCW is presenting tomorrow, so I’ll reserve final judgment ’til then, but expect a post on some sweet open source ideas having to do with footprints and offsets.

OK, so Carbon Trading, huh?

The murky mysteries of the market continue to elude me.  The second session today was all about the carbon offset market: where the money is, where the investment opportunities are and will be, and who is making the rules about what a carbon offset even means.

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