Hybrid Living

Yes, I am talking about a solar air heater, a gadget that has been designed to use the power of the sun to help heat a room. And you should probably be needing one right now that the cold season has just declared its presence.
There are a lot of solar air heaters available in the [...]

A few short months ago, many of us were under the impression that this year’s LA Auto Show would be a great showcasing of a new direction for the worldwide auto industry. Everyone knew about the MINI E and expected to see more hybrids and fuel cell concepts than ever before. How naive we were. No one knew, or even expected that by the time the show rolled around, the country would have plunged into a recession that would see many of the Big Three executives in Washington begging for money rather than in LA promoting their products.

That was the tone; the overriding sense of desperation from many of the automakers and the inability to escape the news outside of what we journalists were creating at the show. The press events began with a keynote from Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn, where he grimly outline the fact that there would be both winners and losers in the upcoming consolidation of the auto industry and that all companies were now focused on the short term and the bottom line.

This was reflected primarily in the offerings of the big three. GM cut all their plans for press events, therefore there was no news and no big announcements. Ford hastily mentioned the new Mustang, which was supposed to be its headliner, and quickly moved on to a rather bland discussion of the Fusion Hybrid, a car that has yet to wow anyone but may be Ford’s last hope to join the ranks of Toyota and Honda as a "hybrid-seller." Finally, Chrysler managed to underwhelm expect for the breadth of their offerings, many of which gave you the feeling that they were not long for this world.

Obviously the American manufacturers have it harder than their Japanese and Korean counterparts, but those companies were still obviously suffering. Toyota did not host a press event and most attention from these manufacturers was placed on their hybrid and alternative fuel offerings. Honda perhaps seemed the most immune, focusing their energy on the debut of the FC Sport, a fuel cell concept that will never come to market, but still serves to highlight Honda’s commitment to the future of driving technology.

So, while we all expected the show to focus on green, the green that we got was the kind you stuff in your wallet and not the kind that grows on trees. I’ll be interested to see what happens in Chicago and Detroit after the fate of the Big Three is more or less decided and all the automakers have more time to tailor their offerings to the deepening global recession.

This is something you’re not likely to find anywhere but EcoGeek: an award given to the automaker with the most compact, ecofriendly press kit. While at the media days, I was given more press materials than I could count, from shirts to hats to USB drives loaded with pictures and press releases. However, there were definitely some companies paying attention to reducing materials more than others.

The Worst: Nissan, though it is known as the most fuel efficient car company in Japan and announced its plans to bring EVs to both Oregon and San Francisco, gave out plastic wrapped cases loaded with paper materials and DVDs, along with Nissan Cube t-shirts. Not only was the packaging on the DVDs a little much, but the hundreds of shirts made out of who knows what kind of cotton certainly isn’t doing the environment much of a favor.

The Standard Fare: Most automakers did the job in a relatively frugal way by packaging a DVD in a recyclable paper case with some basic print information, but most of the important stuff on the DVD. Others, like VW gave out business cards with links to find all the images online, but still had large print booklets. Toyota went as far as to packaged their CNG Hybrid information on a 1gb thumb drive in addition to the normal print booklet. There were lots of different presentations, but most of them were focused on presentation and not the environmental impact of hundreds of kits that are sure to be thrown out mere days after the important information is published.

The Best: While a few companies paid attention to reducing waste, I would have to give the overall award to Honda/Acura. Honda’s press information all came on one CD in a plastic clamshell. There were no goodies, junky bags, or paper materials at all. Sure, the CD will be thrown out, but it’s definitely the most compact kit I got. Like the Honda kit, Acura packaged a singled DVD in a custom paper casing with no additional materials, ensuring that there would be no extra waste.

So, congratulations to Honda. If every automaker had taken their tack, or at least moved all their materials to a special, invitation-only website, I probably wouldn’t have had to check a bag on the flight home just to hold all the press materials!

Kokuyo, a Tokyo-based company, wants to improve worker efficiency and cut down on corporate carbon emissions so it has come up with the idea of moving its employees outside. The century-old company which started out manufacturing Japanese-style bookkeeping ledgers in 1905 has set up a rooftop garden office with trees, a man made pond to cool intense summer days and movable solar panels to block direct sunlight on its workers. Electrical outlets and wireless have been installed on the roof.

It’s not the only innovation the company has for its plans to reduce its corporate carbon footprint by 56 tons annually. Kokuyo’s Tokyo headquarters underwent a complete renovation recently and divided up its office space layout so some areas can stay dark when not in use. That knocked power consumption down by 28 per cent. The company has also set up panels on its floors near the entrance to store power when people walk over them.

Having workers outside could lessen the company’s carbon emissions by more than five tons a year. Company president Akihiro Kuroda thinks that the move will not only be good for the environment but also motivate workers. “Workers can work more efficiently in a natural environment,” he says. “I hope it will lead to changes in employees’ mentality.”

The 140 employees are expected to spend one third—or about 90 days a year—of their work time in the garden office. On rainy days, workers can go inside but even in the winter, employees will be encouraged to work in the garden office with blankets to keep them warm.

Via Mainichi and TechOn

Despite plunging gas prices, the auto industry’s move to greener and more fuel-efficient technology appears to be gaining momentum with a growing number of manufacturers betting on a market for cars, trucks and crossovers running entirely on battery power.

The transformation is being driven home at the Los Angeles Auto Show which runs until the end of the week and showcases a new focus on “electrification,”

A British designer has come up with the Wilting Flower as a way to raise awareness of home energy consumption. The device is shaped like a flower that provides a visible reminder of how much energy is being used at the moment. When low amounts of energy are being consumed, the flower stands tall and blooms open. Flick on more lights and turn on the TV or video game and the flower wilts and closes up.

The prototype is expected to cost about $90 when it comes to the market. So why would someone buy this novelty device when a simple energy monitor would do the exact same thing? Designer Carl Smith, who came up with the Wilting Flower, told the Daily Mail that he hopes people will become attached to the flower and keep it in bloom by changing their energy consumption habits. Other products display energy use on small LCD units which are not as attractive, he says.

A wireless connector is connected to the household electricity supply and when more appliances are turned on, the amount of current drawn increases and is relayed back to the Wilting Flower. When the flower displays a blue and greenish light, that means power usage is low. Purple is a bad sign and an indication that the flower is about to wilt and it’s time to turn off some of those appliances.

Via: Daily Mail

A team of researchers from the University of Maryland posed the following question: what would happen if we were to literally blanket huge swaths of land in wind farms? Could we change the weather? The short answer is yes, if you build an absurdly huge wind farm stretching from Texas to Canada and from the Great Lakes to the Rockies. Doing so would lower wind speeds by 5-6 mph downwind.

Granted, that is a pretty preposterous scenario. Ultra-large wind farms, though, are not outside the realm of possibility, specifically in wind-heavy parts of Texas and the Midwest. Although these kinds of wind farms would not be as powerful as the one in the aforementioned study, they might be able to cause small local disturbances that would ripple in other directions. Some believe it might even be able to affect things like storm patterns.

Obviously, controlling the weather is pretty low on the list of reasons to develop wind power, even if there was some kind of proof. Sounds like a good dissertation topic for a meteorology grad student, though.

Via Discovery News

It was really difficult to pick the 5 most exciting green cars from this years auto show, primarily because I didn’t know whether to focus on the concepts or those cars already on showroom floors or in the pipeline for the near future. That said, I think you will find my choice a mix of these two categories, because as important as it is to have green options right now, there’s no denying that the future is looking even brighter.

Here are my top from, from least to most exciting:

5. Nissan Cube

It may seem strange to put the Nissan Cube on a list like this because it will only get a shade above 30 mpg for it’s EPA rating, but I think the Cube represents a new kind of car for the U.S. Sure, Scion has had the xB for several years and has already reached quite a few buyers, but it’s still new to see such an untraditional car coming from a major brand in the U.S. I have seen these cars in Japan, and along with the Kei-class of cars, they represent a dramatically different way to look at personal transportation.

The Cube seats 5 and has a relatively small foot print and high gas mileage, but it’s boxy shape eschews traditional styling for maximum utility. You may not like how it looks, but there’s no denying that the car can hold a lot and it takes a lot of the energy out of the old "I bought an SUV so I could haul my sports equipment" argument. The Cube has incredible utility and I hope the concept of efficient use of space catches hold in the U.S. market.

4. Honda FC Sport

The FC Sport is just a design concept, but that doesn’t mean we should be any less excited about it. Honda is well-known for creating the first certified hydrogen fuel cell car, and is continuing that tradition of innovation by trying to show consumers that not only is hydrogen eco-cool, but it can be just plain cool.

You did not know that, did you?
Well, now you know. Grease could be turned into biodiesel. And that would be far better – recycling grease we have used for cooking and turning them into biodiesel than just throwing them away through your drain. Just imagine where all that grease goes and what it does later [...]