Nissan Designs a Relatively Cleaner Car Carrier

Visitors to this blog know how much I love the idea of making seafaring more efficient - yep, I have been beating the sailship drum for some time. But, there is a place for large fuel efficient fossil fuel powered cargo vessels compared to some of the dinosaurs that we have today. And Nissan, the first car company to have made a major leap with its Leaf electric car, has shown the way ahead with a fuel efficient roll on roll off car carrier to transport their Leaf cars. My hat's off to Nissan! I hope this aerodynamic design is also applied to container carriers and to dry bulk cargo carriers - the shipbuilding industry could do with savings on fuel costs and the world could do with less pollution!

Swedish Town Uses Waste Instead of Fossil Fuels for Most Public Energy Consumption

The New York Times has this article to brighten the Saturday morning news for everyone who - like this blogger - believes that there is a strong need to use less oil and coal: Link. By converting all of its kitchen waste into biogas and using this gas to heat homes as well as in public transport, the town has not only reduced public consumption of oil and coal to almost zero, it has also managed to slash its energy bills per year by almost half.

Cities with vastly larger populations - and there are many such around the world - could take note of this very successful experiment. More people means more kitchen waste and therefore more raw material to work with in order to extract biogas. Use the Terrabon Link catalytic system to convert sewage into fuel or use an alternative method that extracts gas from sewage, or an algae based system, and there is a strong possibility that far larger cities could be weaned off oil and coal. An ambitious way forward, no doubt, but the good people of Kristianstad started to work on a fossil fuel free future some years ago and successfully got there. It is time the rest of the world learns from their pioneering effort.

Canada's Globe and Mail reviews the Nissan Leaf and Gives Insights into Electricity Generation in the Country

As someone who always enjoys visiting Canada (and not just because he happens to have very close friends there) this blogger finds that our neighbors to the North have a lot of very interesting and eminently sensible ways of doing things that we overlook even over here in the USA. This article on the about to be launched for sale Nissan Leaf electric car talks about the anxieties that Canadians share with us Americans - range issues and fears over charges depleting faster in the winter. But then, there is a hugely positive fact that the review casually tosses out as if it were not even worth mentioning - 70% of Canada's electricity is generated from renewable sources. In three provinces - Quebec, Manitoba and British Columbia, that figure is 100%.

Why is this important? The Canadians have oil - a lot of it - and they make a lot of money sending it South to us. In a sense this is a good thing - it makes the USA less dependent on rogue nations like Saudi Arabia or Venezuela for one thing - it makes money for Canada selling a mineral resource overseas. The Canadians, themselves, use their earnings from the export of their oil to prepare themselves for more renewable energy to be locally used. Smart? You bet!

A powerful and wealthy nation like the USA with a host of problems might sometimes be too absorbed with its own issues to look at solutions in other countries. That said, I do think that it would be a mistake to ignore the Canadian example. Several experts have shown that it is well possible to generate 20% of the electricity that the USA uses from onshore wind. Use offshore wind and combined wind and tidal power both in the sea and off the Great Lakes and this percentage could rise even more. I've said this before and I'll keep repeating this as long as I can - everytime I walk along Lake Michigan, I am amazed at how violently the water heaves up and down several feet even on relatively calm days. All of that energy could keep the lights, HVAC systems and office equipment and home appliances running in most of the cities that dot the lake. In cities like Chicago and Milwaukee to name just two, it could also run cars.

Virginia Tech's Prototype Home for the Future

The New York Times has featured Virginia Tech's entry for a prototype energy efficient home for the future in an international design contest: at this link. While "concept" anything is usually impractical in the extreme, most concepts have some good ideas built into them which could be commercialized and used in conventional housing. Its been a long time since I featured any new low energy use housing on this blog and I hope that this post gives some of my readers ideas.

The Scots Find a Use for Whisky Byproducts

A most interesting post here about the University of Edinburgh developing a process to convert whisky byproducts - pot ale and draff - into butanol fuel
for cars. Though Scotland is the biggest whisky producer, the USA, India and Ireland also produce significant amounts of grain whisky. Perhaps, this is an idea that would catch on in other parts of the world as well . . .

Using Waste Land for Solar Power Generation - An Idea for all of South Asia

Dr Mayraj Fahim who has been a long time supporter of this blog and who has sent me several valuable pieces of information for posting here sent me this link from the New York Times. There is plenty of waste land in India and Sri Lanka that I am aware of - severely degraded by pollution and bad ecological practices which would be ideal for generating the clean power that the region badly needs. While these projects work, the land could be slowly restored using currently available methods and technologies to a clean, natural state.

South Asians, whatever their nationality, find it convenient to imitate Western fashions, listen to Western music, watch Western films and more. Perhaps, a case could be made for them to start imitating Western environmental practices as well . . .

First Lindbergh Electric Aircraft Prizes recognizes Yuneec, Sonex and Antares [w/video] — Autoblog Green

First Lindbergh Electric Aircraft Prizes recognizes Yuneec, Sonex and Antares [w/video] — Autoblog Green

Along with the development of electric cars, there has been a simultaneous (if somewhat less well known to the public) development of electric aircraft. A part of the problem is that aircraft need to be built light and current batteries are heavy, even for cars. However, I do think that technology will find a way to improve these airplanes. Who would have dreamt, when Wilbur and Orville Wright managed to fly a few hundred meters, that someday there would be aircraft that would reliably fly hundreds of people across the world? I do think that this is the beginning of a golden age in electric powered flight. I am happy to be a spectator through this phenomenal process!

Do check out all of the videos and links on this Autoblog Green page.