Filed under: MPG

One of the big contributors to rising food prices over the past year has been the cost of getting food from the field to the grocer. Truck drivers across Europe and especially in the UK have been protesting increasing fuel costs for months. The U.S. Department of Energy is partnering with the Swedish government and one of the largest manufacturers of heavy trucks - the Volvo group - to find ways to reduce the fuel consumption of those trucks. The two governments and Volvo have already previously committed $12 million to the joint development program and this week announced an additional $36 million dollars. The two governments will each contribute $9 million of the new funds with the rest coming from Volvo. The goal is to reduce fuel consumption of the truck engines by 10 percent. The program will evaluate biofuels in heavy truck engines as well as develop advanced transmissions, new engines and hybrid drive systems.

[Source: Department of Energy]

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Filed under: Diesel, Emerging Technologies, EV/Plug-in, Hybrid

About a year ago, Maxwell Technologies told the world about the Chinese government using its ultracapacitors in various official vehicles. Another July brings another announcement, and so we learn that the city of Milan, Italy will soon be using Maxwell's ultracap modules in its hybrid and electric buses. The 125-volt BOOSTCAP ultracapacitor modules will store energy from the bus' brakes and then spit it back out for torque assist when the driver steps on the accelerator. Overhead electric lines or a diesel generator will supply the rest of the energy needed to move the public transit vehicles. Milan has ordered 70 buses from Vossloh Kiepe and Van Hool and will soon take deliver of the first 15. More details after the break.

[Source: Maxwell Technologies Inc.]

Continue reading Maxwell will supply ultracaps for Milan's electric buses

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Filed under: News, Alternative Energy

The Anaconda, a 600 foot long device designed to harness the power of the waves, could be our collective ticket to energy freedom.

The wave power generator, designed by researchers at the University of Southampton and Checkmate Seaenergy, is essentially a 20-foot-wide rubber tube full of water. When anchored at sea, the waves cause the Anaconda to undulate, pushing a "bulgewave" to the bottom of the tube where it generates electricity thorough a small turbine. The power is then transmitted back to land through a small cable.

The Anaconda technology has a number of advantages over other renewables besides the ability to hilariously scare the crap out of unsuspecting scuba divers. For one thing, since the tube is made of rubber it has few moving parts and requires less maintenance than, say, a wind turbine.

It's estimated that each Anaconda could produce enough electricity to power several hundred homes, and if tests continue to be successful, "farms" with hundreds of the devices could be ready to go as early as 5 years from now.

Check out this animated video describing how the Anaconda works.

 

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Filed under: Food, Health

There's a good chance that your veggies aren't as organic - or vegan - as you think.

As Eat.Drink.Better recently pointed out, some "organic" vegetable growers still use animal products, like bone meal, blood meal and animal waste fertilizer to help the plants grow. And along with animal products comes - you guessed it - e.Coli and salmonella. In addition, the animals that produce the bone meal and fertilizer aren't coming from humane, organic farms, but from factory farms, where they arvee fed with food altered with hormones and antibiotics, increasing the risk that those chemicals will eventually wind up in your produce.

Instead of getting bone meal from factory farmed animals, some farmers only source the by-products from trusted farmers. Thankfully, many U.S. and Canadian organic farmers are going one step further, and starting to practice "stock-free" farming, by utilizing no animal by-products, whatsoever. To find one near you, you can visit the Veganic Agriculture Network's list of farms in the U.S. and Canada.

 

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Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Mitsubishi

Mitsubishi has been showing off and field testing its iMiEV electric car this year in preparation for a limited production launch in 2009-10. To help spread the word, the Japanese automaker has launched a new micro-site dedicated to the battery powered micro-car. On the site, Mitsubishi explains some of the technology choices made for the oddly named car. The iMiEV uses a lithium ion battery pack mounted under the floor to provide a range of about 100 miles. The i that the iMiEV is based on features a rear mounted engine which is replaced with a permanent magnet motor driving the rear wheels. The batteries are coming from a new joint venture between Mitsubishi and GS Yuasa. The site also features videos about the car and a paper craft version that you can make for yourself. Domenick is evaluating that one in the AutoblogGreen garage right now and will have a full review shortly. Thanks for the tip Yanquetino!

[Source: Mitsubishi]

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Filed under: Food, Home, Shopping Guide

When I'm doing a lot of entertaining, like at this time of year, I can get a little sloppy in my shopping. Things I usually stay away from, like Ruffles and Diet Coke, somehow make it into my grocery cart. Not to mention the charcoal lighter fluid that I almost bought before green heads prevailed!

Over at iVillage I just read a great list of seven things to think about when making a purchase. It's all information you know -- and things we talk about all the time here -- but it helped me to see it again all in one place. The article is an excerpt from Big Green Purse, by Diane MacEachern, which Patricia reviewed a few months ago.

1. Buy less
2. Read the label
3. Support sustainability
4. Look for third party verification
5. Choose fewer ingredients
6. Pick less packaging
7. Buy local

Yes, every single one of those is a no brainer, but it's good to be reminded that every time you take out cash, credit cards or a checkbook, your decision can have a good or bad impact on the world around you. After all, the environment never gets a holiday from us.

 

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Filed under: Home, Tips

We have two clawfoot bathtubs in my house. There will come a day that our renovations will lead us to replacing at least on of the tubs. As a fan of the heavy baths with their unique talloned perches, I will not be tossing the extra tub, but rather reusing it. I have been looking for ideas and here are five:

1. My father, appealing to my love of religious kitsch, has been encouraging me to create Virgin Mary shrine for years by burying half of the tub and getting a yard statue of the holy figure.
2. Turn it into a chair by removing a side but keeping all four feet. The result is quite lovely.
3. A neighbor of mine has a clawfoot tub blooming with flowers on the sidewalk in front of their house. This might not work in every neighborhood, but the tubs do make great planters.
4. I have also see bathtubs used as ponds complete with lily pads. The option to sink -- or not to sink -- is yours.
   
5. I'd imagine that you could cut a hole in the side and flip it over for a doghouse. It would be weather proof and last quite a long time -- if I had a dog.

 

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Filed under: EV/Plug-in, AutoblogGreen Exclusive, USA

A somewhat mysterious message arrived the other day via the ABG comments from someone calling themselves "B.T." It consisted of a link to pictures of a Toyota Corolla station wagon with an admonition to check it out, as well as the sentence, "There has to be an interesting story behind this." This seemed like a challenge so we took it up and discovered there was an entertaining bit of back story once we started uncovering the clues.

Looking at the pictures more closely revealed "Seabury Engineering" printed across the front of the car and a license plate from Hawaii. We knew the comment also originated from the island we discussed the other day as being a perfect place for electric cars like this one. Our good buddy Google soon put us on the straight and narrow path leading directly to Seabury Hall, which is a small "Blue Ribbon School" on Maui affiliated with the Episcopal Church where, among other things, they are teaching kids how to turn sinful gas burning cars into green-haloed electric ones.

A little more digging found the car conversion blog which had lots of pictures and posts by different students. It shows the class opening a highway project with Hawaii governor Linda Lingle and getting "celebrity" visits from such folks as the Tesla Motors co-founders, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. The exact fate of the car itself may remain a mystery. the blog was last updated in early June with a post talking about the NiMH batteries arriving. Perhaps it remains for next years class to put on the final touches and let us know what kind of performance they have achieved with their seraphic conversion. Thanks for the tip, B.T.

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Filed under: Climate Change

If you want to survive climate change, load up your car and head to Canada., according to a recent study by Maplecroft, a British consultant group. Canada is followed by Ireland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden. The United States cames in 11th, followed by the U.K.

Africa is the most vulnerable region, with eight of the 10 most vulnerable countries located in Africa. Five non-African countries made it onto the list of the twenty most vulnerable; Yemen, Afghanistan, Haiti, Pakistan and Nepal. The Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean is the world's most vulnerable country, according to the report, due to political instability, risk of increased storms, rising sea levels and agricultural issues.

So why did Canada score so well? Low pressure on natural resources due to low population density, combined with high agricultural capacity, a healthy economy and excellent public institutions. However, Canada's wildlife was expected to be seriously affected by changes to the Arctic region.

 

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Filed under: Local, News, Polit-eco

Earlier today, we reported on the felicitous news that a large chunk of land in Montana was on its way to being preserved. What's the opposite of a silver lining? Whatever it is, this deal definitely has it: The Washington Post reported today that the company which made the deal with the Nature Conservancy to preserve that land, Plum Creek Timber Co, didn't exit the negotiations empty-handed.

The Forest Service, which is run by a former timber lobbyist (I didn't know that!), agreed in a separate deal to allow Plum Creek to open large areas of its holdings up for residential development. The American West, as anybody who lives there knows, is a fast-growing real estate market, and Plum Creek lobbied for the rights to turn a bunch of land into residential subdivisions.

The Forest Service, reports the WaPo, may get sued by Missoula County for bypassing public review processes in granting the Plum Creek deal. Meanwhile, environmentalists in Montana are quoted as actually sort of missing the old-school extractive timber industries. At least a clear-cut forest has some potential to grow back, whereas if the land is covered by cul-de-sacs and giant second homes, the damage is almost permanent.

 

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