A world record was broken on July 4th at the inaugural ROTHBURY music festival in Michigan. And no, the record had nothing to do with the world’s stinkiest hippie, or the world’s longest guitar solo.
Filed under: Etc., Hybrid, Manufacturing/Plants, Toyota, Japan
The Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., better known to us in the west under the Panasonic brand, has "informally decided" to spend about $951 billion (100 billion yen) constructing what would be one of the world's biggest li-ion battery factories. This would triple the company's current capacity with its three existing plants, place it ahead of Sony and very close to the worlds number one, Sanyo. The three companies together currently control about 70 percent of the consumer electronics li-ion market.
The additional 50 million units a month capacity would help the company meet surging demand and be used in laptops, cell phones, and, of course, automobiles. They have been studying what it would take to make li-ion for automotive applications via their joint venture with Toyota that goes by the catchy moniker of Panasonic EV Energy. They expect the new plant to be able to ship product as soon as two years from now.
[Source: Yomiuri Online / Reuters]
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When Nava Atlas wrote to me a couple of years ago and asked if I'd consider taking the photos for her new book, Vegan Express, I recognized it as a unique opportunity to expand my photography skills and have my photos published in an actual book--a chance that wasn't likely to ever come along again. Working with Nava, her editor, and the book's art director was a great learning experience, but an unexpected benefit was that my family got to sample over a dozen of the recipes before the book was ever published. One of the first recipes I tried, when I was still "auditioning" for the job, was Seitan and Polenta Skillet with Fresh Greens, and it was such a hit with my husband that he was overjoyed when the art director asked me to re-shoot the photo--it meant that I'd have to make the recipe again. As it turned out, I've made the dish several times at my husband's insistence, and we never get tired of it. There's something delicious about seitan, polenta, and fresh greens, and when you season it all with balsamic vinegar and sundried tomatoes, it's a hearty yet "haute" meal.So a few days ago, when I needed to get a meal on the table fast and to use up some baby bok choy before it went bad, I thought of Nava's recipe. Unfortunately, I didn't have any seitan, and oil-packed sundried tomatoes are not on my diet, but I did have a roll of prepared polenta in the pantry and a willingness to experiment. My version, which uses marinated tofu instead of seitan, isn't quite as quick, as easy, or as photogenic as the original, but it was still a big hit with my family. And without those oil-packed tomatoes, it's light enough to get the seal of approval from just about any low-fat diet plan, including Weight Watchers' Core and the McDougall Program.
Polenta and Tofu Skillet
(printer-friendly version)
Using reduced-fat tofu will make this even lower in fat.
5 sun-dried tomatoes (not packed in oil)
14 ounces extra firm or firm tofu
2 tablespoons soy sauce, low sodium
1 tablespoon water
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1/2 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
5-6 baby bok choys or 1 head regular bok choy
1 18-ounce package prepared polenta
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/4 cup vegetable broth
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Put the sundried tomatoes in a bowl and pour boiling water over them to cover. Set aside until soft. When they're soft, drain the water and cut each tomato into 1/4-inch slices.
Mix the soy sauce, water, garlic, and balsamic vinegar together. Cut the tofu in half lengthwise, and slice each half into 1/2-inch rectangles. Put the tofu into a ziplock bag, pour the marinade over it, and turn gently to coat. Let it marinate while you prepare the bok choy and polenta.
Cut off the end of each head of bok choy so that the stalks are separated and wash them well to remove all dirt and grit. Slice the stalks and leaves into 1/4 to 1/2-inch thick slices. Set aside until needed.
Cut the polenta into 1/2-inch slices and cut each slice into 4 wedges. Heat a non-stick skillet (lightly sprayed with olive oil, if you're worried about sticking); once it is hot, add the polenta in a single layer. Cook until lightly browned on one side, and then turn over and brown the other side. Remove from the pan and set aside. Keep the skillet hot.
Lift the tofu out of the marinade and place it in the hot skillet. Cook until just beginning to brown and then turn it over. Put the bok choy on top of the tofu and pour the vegetable broth, oregano, basil, and reserved marinade over the greens. Cover tightly and steam until the greens begin to wilt. Stir in the sundried tomatoes and polenta and cook, covered, just long enough for the stalks to get tender-crisp, about 1-2 minutes. Add freshly ground black pepper to taste, and serve with additional balsamic vinegar at the table.
Makes 4 servings. Per serving: 206 Calories (kcal); 5g Total Fat; (31% calories from fat); 15g Protein; 10g Carbohydrate; 0mg Cholesterol; 885mg Sodium; 4g Fiber. Weight Watchers Core/ 4 Flex Points.
Filed under: SMART, Legislation and Policy, USA
Click above for more shots of the smart Crossblade on eBay
Mercedes shocked the motoring press when it announced back in the early 2000's that it would actually launch a production version of its crazy smart Crossblade. Equipped with the same turbocharged three cylinder engine as the regular smart fortwo was offered with, what really distinguished the Crossblade from a run-of-the-mill smart was what it was missing. Gone was the roof and normal doors, along with most of the windshield. What was left intact were the Tridion cell and the rest of the smart's safety features.
The smart Crossblade never made it across to the United States, but there are apparently a few of them over here anyway, one of which has just appeared on eBay. According to the current owner, the car was titled in Cali, though it now resides in Idaho. Unfortunately, the far-left state has now decided to nullify that original title, as the car doesn't fit their definition of an automobile. We wonder if they have the same problem with the Jeep Wrangler. In any case, the asking price is a bit steep, though the new owner would likely never see another Crossblade on the road. Thanks for the tip, Cary!
[Source: eBay Motors]
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People give you this whole rap about how easy saving the planet is. Change a light bulb and save the world. Yes and no. How about we consider it a start rather than an end destination? The lowdown on the CFL from Simran Sethi and Sarah Smarsh.
Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Phoenix, Spy Shots
Click above image to enlarge
Blogger extraordinaire Mickey Kaus recently spied the above SUV innocuously parked in Santa Monica and sent us the photos, wondering if we had any clue what it is. As luck would have it, we do. The truck is a SsangYong Actyon SUV, but it's also more than that. You see the Actyon, in both SUT and SUV body styles, is the basis for Phoenix Motorcars' electric SUT and SUV, which are scheduled to arrive in the U.S. in 2010. The white example Mickey snagged has been de-badged, which lends it an air of mystery, but we know SsangYong's not coming to the U.S. market. As our esteemed colleague Sam Abuelsamid points out, Phoenix is based in Ontario, CA so it's basically a lock that this is one of their EV development mules. Using the SsangYong as the basis for their electric trucks has two distinct benefits for Phoenix. First, they offer practical, usable packaging that'll work fine in the real world. Second, their front-end styling is bizarre enough that the unwritten rule which states that EVs have to look weird will surely be upheld. Obviously, those Tesla guys, with their sexy-spiffy Roadster, didn't get that memo.
You can check Mickey out every day at Kausfiles, and, on occassion, at Bloggingheads.tv as well. Thanks for the photos!
[Source: Mickey Kaus]
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Filed under: Gadgets and Tech, Activism, Climate Change
Recently, one of my favorite forums announced the newest steps they've taken to reduce their carbon footprint even further, and I must admit it's something I never even really considered in detail. The Backyard Chickens forum has committed to offset their total carbon footprint of their servers by 110 percent. This is achieved through large-scale reforestation campaigns operated by American Forests.How it works is the server company calculates their commitment to reforestation not only on the energy consumption of the servers themselves, but on the entire infrastructure. This includes routing, switching and backup equipment. Check out the American Forests website for more details on how this is achieved.
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In keeping with my shower theme this month, I'd like to take a look at how to recycle disposable razors. Just to be clear it's not me who uses these. They end up in my household because a certain someone (my husband) is too frugal (read: cheap) to buy the other kind with the replaceable blades. Here are five ways to recycle those little landfill fillers:- This isn't really a new use for a disposable razor but TreeHugger recommends the Razor Saver, a blade sharpener for disposable razors! Who knew?
- Use a dull razor to remove fuzz and pills from sweaters.
- Practice your shiv making skills in case you ever find yourself behind bars.
- Chop off the sharp and and use the stick to wind twine around or as a plant stake*.
- Package them up and send them to Gillette with a letter of demand stating that they should make more recycle-friendly products. Period.
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Filed under: Movies, TV and Books
One of the first movies, the Edison Studio's Frankenstein, offers a pretty compelling argument for environmental responsibility. The main character, a mad scientist, rebels against the limits imposed upon him by God and attempts to transcend his limitations. In a vat of chemicals, he creates a monster that is fundamentally unnatural; it subsequently haunts him, killing his fiancee before he manages to destroy it.Horror movies are, by their very nature, incredibly conservative. In the vast majority of them, the monster is fundamentally unnatural, almost seeming like a walking crime against nature. While this tendency toward eco-responsibility has existed almost since the beginning, it massively increased in the 1950's. This was not accidental: as society realized the horrific potential of nuclear weapons, movies began to reflect the possibility that nature itself might rebel against these weapons. One of the first of these movies, Them! (1954), featured a nest of gigantic, mutated ants that wreaks havok upon a small New Mexico town. Two of the queen ants escape; while one is destroyed in the sewers of Los Angeles and the other is killed on an ocean freighter, the inevitable scientific expert ends the movie with the grim warning that the nuclear genie has been let out of the bottle, and more such monsters can be expected.
As with any good idea, Them! had many imitators, notably Beginning of the End (1957), which featured giant grasshoppers and The Wasp Woman (1959), in which a woman is transformed after using cosmetics that were made with wasp jelly. This subgenre mutated out of nuclear horror and into eco-horror in the 1970's with movies like Bug (1975), which features giant, fire-starting cockroaches; Kingdom of the Spiders (1977), which is pretty obvious; and Frogs (1972), which features evil frogs that are trying to kill a young Sam Elliott.
At the same time, other films that were less explicit in their atomic linkage, but no less cautionary. For example, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) featured giant foaming watermelon "pods" that replaced people with perfect, unemotional copies. While the monsters were an alien force, it's notable that the pods grew in fields, where they often transformed their victims. Most of the pundits of the day noted that the film was a thinly-veiled attack on McCarthyism, but it's hard to miss the distrust of nature that underlies much of the movie. Considering the fact that this period marks the real beginning of suburban tract housing, it's easy to imagine a nascent eco-consciousness creeping around in the psyches of the producers!
Of course, as the only victims of an actual atomic attack, Japan got into the act as well. Movies like Godzilla (1954), Mothra (1961), and Rodan (1956) certainly demonstrated a fear of the mutating power of nuclear radiation, but the contemplative, elegiac Attack of the Mushroom People (1963) offers a more powerful lesson. Basically an updated version of Homer's Lotus Eaters, the movie features a group of pleasure boaters who end up shipwrecked on a deserted island. As they begin to starve, one after another of them starts eating a strange mushroom that grows on the island. This, of course, has terrible effects. While this film has been relegated to late-night television and creature-feature style programs, it resounds with a very powerful environmentalist message.
In Danse Macabre, Stephen King explores the way that cultural fears leach their way out through horror films. Sometimes this process is deliberate, but it usually is more subtle and accidental. While many people would argue that ecological consciousness is a post 1970's phenomenon, atomic-age horror films seem to demonstrate that, on some level, the moviegoers of the 1950's and 1960's realized that mankind's abuse of the planet was bound to have terrible consequences!
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Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Tesla Motors, USA
click the photo of Eberhard and his car for a high res gallery
We are now happy to officially confirm what yesterday seemed a likely fait accompli. Martin Eberhard, co-founder of Tesla Motors, has now happily received his very own "Founders' Series" Tesla Roadster. The car,shiny gray with double orange stripes and a matching interior, was silently delivered by Tesla employees early on Saturday morning to Eberhard's solar panel-equipped home. After signing off on all the paperwork and getting the official walk-through of the Roadsters special features, Martin and his wife, Carolyn, were left holding the keys as the rising sun highlighted the orange accents of the beckoning electric sports car. Time to go for a ride!
The trio spent the morning together traveling the very roads for which the Tesla was designed. We suspect Martin's grin only grew wider every time a slower-moving vehicle appeared in his cars sights, giving him yet another opportunity to experience the "never-ending torque" the Roadster delivers while overtaking. You can read all about Martin's first day with his roadster at his blog, Tesla Founders Blog. Bookmark it, as he promises to update that space frequently now with more photos and Roadster observations.
[Source: Tesla Founders Blog via Tesla Motors Club]
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