Hybrid Living

Imagine going to a clinic and having whatever operation or whatever medical procedure. Now that is scary enough right because anything bad that could happen could happen. Now imagine doing that but going to a clinic which does not even have electricity. Very, very scary.
Now it may be scary for you but that is reality [...]

LCD and plasma TVs are actually more efficient per square inch than those old-fashioned CRT screens. But that doesn’t mean they consume less electricity. In fact, simply because they are, on average, so much more gigantic than old CRTs, they consume far more electricity.

Your average 42 inch plasma TV will probably be eating up more power than your refrigerator over the course of a year’s use. And that’s just the use, nevermind all of the mining, packaging, processing and shipping that go into them before they arrive.

But while manufacturers once competed only on price, size and contrast ratio, a fourth important factor is finally emerging among television purchase points: efficiency. GreenTechMedia was in Japan this week covering the Ceatec conference, where efficiency is being touted left and right.

Sony had a 42-inch LCD TV from 2005 sitting next to a 42-inch LCD TV from 2008. The only difference: the 2005 one consumed 131 watts while the 2008 consumed 57 watts. And that’s just the beginning. Manufacturers across the board are planning on slashing power consumption by their televisions.

Sanyo hopes to reduce power consumption in their televisions by two thirds by 2011, and Sharp has a 26 inch LCD TV that consumes only 40 watts of power.

All of this is great news for the environment, but also great news for me. I haven’t yet bought an LCD TV.  Though I’ve wanted one for some time, the power requirements have been a complete deal-breaker for me. But now that they’re getting into the range of your average light bulb (and reducing the vampire load) I’m getting pretty excited about my next upgrade.

Via GreenTechMedia

There’s hybrids…and then there’s hybrids. And while this isn’t the first time we’ve seen buses that can ride on train tracks (two years ago we wrote about these in Japan) but this is definitely the coolest concept we’ve seen.

The Blade Runner (titles can’t be copyrighted BTW) looks a bit like a semi-truck…a semi-truck built by a super-secret black-ops military operation that is. It was in fact designed by a British design company (Silvertip Design.) The bus itself is pretty cool, looking like a quite comfortable way to transport a LOT of people. If they could build some TVs into the headrests and give me plenty of headroom, I might actually consider the bus for long-term transit.

But that’s only half of the coolness of the Blade Runner. The most exciting possibility is that Silvertip hopes they’ve found a way to quickly and simply drive the bus onto some train tracks, and then have it become a train. The advantage, of course, being that trains are far more efficient than buses, but can’t necessarily get to all the same places that buses can.

This would probably be an excellent solution for commuter mass transit systems, but significantly less so for long-distance travel since the world’s long-distance rail systems are already logistical nightmares. After adding the small trains to the mix only a super-intelligent, nation-wide, all-powerful computer could keep it all straight. Of course…then it would probably get angry that its funding wasn’t increased and decide to blow up congress…I just don’t think we’re ready for that.

Via AutoBlogGreen

Bamboo is an ideal material to fashion into gadgets. It’s tough but lightweight, and it wears well, acquiring a patina to complement any knocks and scratches. And to me, it’s much more pleasing to the eye than plastic. But few bamboo-clad electronics have made it into mass production yet though. One exception is ASUS’s bamboo-cased [...]

Netgear didn’t get much of a mention in our recent post “The Greenest Routers of 2008“. But now the company has released two green routers — the Netgear WNR2000 router, and its DSL modem-equipped DGN2000. Both these routers comes with EnergyStar-rated power supplies, and they come in new packages made with 80 percent recycled content.(…)Read [...]

Can a hybrid engine be shrunk small enough to fit within the very narrow confines of a motorcycle? Honda thinks it can do it and if I was going to bet $700 billion of taxpayers’ money on that gamble, I would place the bet on Honda.

The Japanese automaker says it is working on hybrid motorcycles and the first models could be on the market within two years.

By 2011, Honda plans to take it even one step smaller and introduce scooters with hybrid engines.

The problem with making hybrid motorcycles have been compacting all the components of a hybrid engine and making it efficient enough in such a small surface area that the vehicle can actually travel a decent distance.

The first roll out with the motorcycle will be for engine displacements between 200 and 1,000 cc and Honda claims the hybrid motorcycles will be 50 per cent more fuel efficient. The automaker thinks production costs could be kept reasonable by using common components in its current lines of hybrid cars and motorcycles.

Next will be the electric scooters ranging from 50 to 125 cc.

The smaller electric motorcycles will only be able to run about 18 miles, or 30 kilometers, on one charge.

Via Mainich News

Transport: Mass-produced hydrogen fuel-cell cars have been promised for a decade. Where are they?

DURING a keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, the boss of General Motors (GM), Rick Wagoner, unveiled the Cadillac Provoq, a new hydrogen fuel-cell concept car. With a drivetrain emitting only water vapour, a 300-mile range and a top speed of 160kph (100mph), the vehicle, said Mr Wagoner, represented “the promise of truly sustainable transportation”. It was a promise that sounded vaguely familiar.

Last week, the Sustainable Endowments Institute released its 2009 Green Report Card. As GreenBiz reports, it compiles the green and not-so-green aspects of 300 colleges and universities through the United States and Canada. The Report Card was designed to identify those schools that are leading by example through their commitment to sustainability initiatives on campus.

Genetically engineered bacteria could make cellulosic ethanol cheaper to manufacture, researchers report. The finding could unlock more energy from the waste products of farming and forestry.

The world is spending $300 billion every year to subsidize fossil fuels that pollute the air, wreck the climate … and run the world’s economy.

So what if we, as taxpayers, stopped spending $300 billion on coal, oil and natural gas, and started spending it instead on wind, sun and water?