March 2007 Archives

A reader on the YDR York Exchange writes:

The more I read, the more I think that diesel is better than either hybrid or flex, although when plug-ins become feasible, that may be the way to go for people who drive less than 40-50 miles a day (unless they could recharge at home and at their destination?) The problem with that is finding clean, renewable, adequate sources of the electricity needed to recharge them. The cost of that electricity could also be a concern.

Where this will leave the price of corn, other crops not planted (and food) this fall is anyone's guess.

Perhaps the bright spot in this is that the cheap corporate sweetener of choice, High Fructose Corn Syrup, may be at a price point with sweeteners that are actually healthy for you, like honey. However, with demand comes price, affecting the entire food market.

Soaring corn prices are enticing farmers to plant the biggest corn crop in 60 years because of the boom in demand for ethanol.

It's stormy seas for a group of U.K. sailors in Iran as consumers prepare to board their ark-like SUV's in the U.S this morning for work.

Oil climbed past $68 yesterday, for the seventh consecutive day, to its highest intraday price since Sept. 6. bloomberg.com

Tracy Crawford, of Green Bay, Wisconsin, has spent the past year trying to convince her local government to allow her to drive her electric car. Wisconsin law says such vehicles are OK to drive as long as each municipality in which they're driven permits them.

True the car is small, but so are motorcycles and Tracy also has a moped that is street legal. The DiamlerChrysler GEM car uses electrolyte flooded batteries, like the one in every car on the road and an electric motor – nothing exotic here.

It really shouldn’t be this difficult to be an innovator, to diverge from the crowd of oil consuming clones. Our president consumes thousands of gallons of petroleum fuel crossing the U.S. showcasing alternative fuels. We have tax credits for hybrids and incentives for ethanol and bio-diesel production... one person’s vision shouldn’t be so difficult.

The resources needed and pollution created to manufacture a hybrid could be worse than the overall cost of producing and running a non-hybrid

A recent article has been floating around started by CWA marketing detailing how GM's Hummer only cost about $1.95 per mile to put on the road, while the Prius $3.25 per mile. The idea is that building a Toyota Prius causes more environmental damage than a Hummer that it is on the road for three times longer than a Prius. It's assumed the Hummer will be around for over 300,000 miles and the Prius 100,000 miles.

Some other things to consider... the nickel in the batteries

The XR-3 plug-in hybrid is a carbon fiber vehicle with a simplified approach to saving fuel. The front wheels are driven by a diesel engine and the rear wheel by electric power. It can be plugged in and driven by electric power for short commutes and use the diesel for longer rides; or combine the diesel and electric to enhance acceleration.

At just 1300 pounds, the company says, "this high-performance design combines lightening-fast acceleration, a maximum speed of 85 mph, and fuel economy of 125- to over 200-mpg."

Starting tomorrow, the IndyCar series plans to run its entire 17-race 2007 season, using ethanol, making it the first series in motor sports to compete on a renewable fuel. Its high-tech and high-speed Honda Indy V-8 engines will be powered by 100 percent fuel-grade ethanol.

A sponsor of the race is an ethanol producer, helping to make that possible.

Robert Wilder makes money on companies that save the earth.

Wilder, 47, successful co-founder of the WilderHill Clean Energy Index (ECO) has become the Dow Jones index of environmentally sound companies, yet dispite his home filled with all the electronic goodies of 2007, he only pays $30 a year to the electric utility because of the solar panels mounted on his roof.

Smith Fulton, (center) of Peach Bottom township, was all excited when he showed up at the Old Trading Post today for lunch to socialize with the regulars. He had a piece of a hydraulic ram pump (the green piece sitting on the table) and an historic piece of rural York County energy independence.

The Bush home in Crawford, Texas
►The 4,000 sq/foot home uses Geothermal heat pumps that use 25% of the energy of a traditional system
►A 25,000-gallon underground cistern collects rainwater and gray water where it's purified and used for irrigation
►According to David Heymann, the house's architect and associate dean of the University of Texas architecture department, Heymann designed the house so that "every room has a relationship with something in the landscape that's different from the room next door. Each of the rooms feels like a slightly different place." In a USA Today interview, Heymann said, "There's a great grove of oak trees to the west that protects it from the late afternoon sun. Then there is a view out to the north looking at hills, and to the east out over a lake, and the view to the south...out to beautiful hills." Chicago Trubune 04/29/01
The Gore home in Nashville, Tennessee
►Consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).
►Natural gas bills for Gore’s a 10,000 sq/foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.

I had forgotten about the Biosphere 2 noise of the 1990s until I was driving across the Arizona desert and saw this geometric glass structure with a jungle inside.

The project that began life 20 years ago was designed to study photosynthesis in an entirely sealed loop.

There is a glass envelope on top and a stainless steel basin below (to keep naturally occurring radon from seeping in); a perpetual sealed life cycle where Bionauts would study (and be studied) for 100 years. An ocean of almost a million gallons with a wave machine, a rain forest, a desert climate, high-intensity farming; all enclosed with a few people into a sustainable loop.

The studies were supposed to help us understand if people can survive in a sealed terrarium that closely resembles earth. This data could then be applied to building colonies on other planets and other applications where the environment was not able to sustain life as we know it on earth.