My Passion

Obama’s Cars Will be Electric

ibaaa — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:03:48 +0000

It’s not necessarily an easy promise to make come true, but Barack Obama has promised that, if elected, the entire Whitehouse fleet will be Plug-in hybrids (as security permits.)

It’s not a world changing policy, but it is pretty darned cool. There’s no doubt that plug-in hybrids will come to market, but they will come to market faster with a hand from government, not just with money, but with marketing.

This kinda reminds me of Carter’s placement of solar panels on the roof of the Whitehouse. It’s something the President can decide unilaterally and have congress fund the relatively small spending without much fuss, but it’s a vote of confidence in environmental policy from the most powerful figure in America, and that’s something that I’d love to see.

Toyota to Sell Two New Hybrids by 2010

ibaaa — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 14:12:23 +0000

Toyota has announced that they’ll be selling two new Hybrids (along with the updated Prius.) One of the new hybrids will be a Lexus, and the other will be a Toyota. We don’t know much more than that, aside from that they’re emphasizing that they’re not just another iteration of the Prius. All we’ve got to go on for future Toyota hybrids is the Hybrid-X concept, pictured above.

They’re hoping to have Li-ion batteries in both the Prius, and the as-yet-unnamed Toyota hybrid by 2010. But they won’t start mass-producing li-ion batteries at their recently-announced factory until 2011 or 2012.

Toyota seems to be looking to leapfrog some of the competition, since they’re already a bit behind on Li-ion technology. President Watanabe said that they’re setting up a battery research division to investigate power storage technology beyond lithium ion. It’s long been Toyota’s position that range-extended hybrids like the Volt simply won’t work, and that we’ll need to wait before we can have full-electric propulsion in mass-produced vehicles.

We’ll have to see, but the future seems clear. There are going to be a lot more hybrid options in the next few years, and that will be nice for a lot of car buyers.

Sweden Boosting Alternative Energy Intake

ibaaa — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 14:02:50 +0000

A couple eco news blips show that Sweden is boosting its wind and ethanol intake. First up, Sweden’s Sekab just signed a deal with Brazilian ethanol exporters Cosan, Guarani, NovAmerica and Alcoeste to ship 115 million liters of anhydrous ethanol. Keeping up with the forward thinking Sweden tends to exemplify, the ethanol is manufactured according to strict sustainable social and environmental standards, including rights and safety measures for all employees in accordance with UN Guidelines, ecological considerations in accordance with UNICAs environmental initiative, and zero tolerance for felling of rainforest or slave labor.

Purchasing ethanol from so far away may seem a little counter-intuitive, but Anders Fredikson, VP of Sekab, says that this sustainable ethanol will reduce CO2 emissions from farming, production and transportation to Sweden by 85% compared with petrol. Plus, mills will receive 5-10% more for their traceable product than mills that do not adhere to the sustainability guidelines. Half of the 800 million liters of ethanol consumed by Sweden per year is supplied by Brazil; so going with sustainable ethanol will make a significant impact.

And so will wind farms. They’re currently working on putting up a massive land-based wind farm with a capacity of between 3 and 3.5 GW, with the 2 MW turbines to come from Enercon and Markbygden Vind AB. The project starts this fall and is to be in place by 2020. The farm will really be more of a collective. Covering about 173 square miles, a series of interconnected farms will house the turbines.

Sweden is pretty good at monitoring their impact and putting reigns on things that leave big footprints. So I’m glad to see them taking a few more steps towards sustainability both in what they bring in to the country and in what they create themselves.

Clever Little Cars Goes On Three Wheels

ibaaa — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 13:48:54 +0000

Coming in slightly wider than the,lumeneo but still an ultra tiny 3.3 feet wide and 10 ft long, the clever is a three-wheeled zoomy little low emissions car that could make its way to the street…maybe…possibly…who really knows. But the prototype is here!

CLEVER is an acronym for Compact Low Emissions Vehicle for Urban Transport, and the design came from the Technical University of Berlin. The car is a sinle sylinder 230cc compressed natural gas engine that can go 62 mph for about 125 miles, while spitting out less than 60 g/km of CO2. Yes, that’s less than the Prius’ 104 g/km, but look at the size difference in the car – the lower emissions is kinda expected. They’ve also crash tested it with some pretty good safety results. But why three wheels?

Well, it is possibly because the developers wanted to be cool by sticking with the 100+ year history of three-wheelers. But more likely, three wheels would allow them to stick closer to their goals of producing a lightweight, small two-seater with low emissions. And like the Lumeneo, it is designed to tilt around corners, rather than turn, similar to a motorcycle.

But whether or not it will be a reality for consumers is still up in the air.

Electric Motorbike Programmable for Any Rider

ibaaa — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 11:35:17 +0000

Not ready to lay down $11,000 for the Electric Vectrix? Well, an electric dirt bike might not be as styling’ as the Vectrix, but what if you could cut that price in half Zero Motorcycles is working on the Zero X Electric Motor Cycle; the “Zero” stands for zero emissions, zero noise, and “almost zero maintenance.” The bike should be ready for purchase early 2008. The bike’s drive train is configurable via the manufacturer; you can get the street version with 16″ tires, or the off-road version, which comes with 20″ off-road tires. The bike’s max range is 40 miles, and the max speed is 60 mph. It plugs into a normal 110V/220V outlet, and charges in about three hours.

One of the truly unique features of this bike is the configurable on-board “ZBrain” computer. You can tweak the max speed, throttle response, max output current, and more. This is another of the many advantages of electric vehicles. If you want to make it more efficient, program it to be more efficient! If you want it to jump off the starting line but only go 20 miles on a charge, you can do that too! The bike connects directly to any Microsoft Windows computer via USB 2.0 cables.

They are in the production phases of their “2008 Zero X”, but you can reserve yours at their website. If you don’t believe the power of this dirt bike yet, then check this out, the bike has even been used in the Mini Moto Competition.$2000 reserves the bike…the total cost is about $6500.

Mystery money found in mailbox of Tokyo apartment

ibaaa — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 13:09:59 +0000

A mystery gripping Japan over anonymous cash gifts has taken a new twist. For those who want the next batch of giveaways, the place to look is in their mailboxes — or even right at their feet.

Residents of a Tokyo apartment building are baffled after a total of 1.81 million yen (15,210 dollars) was found in 18 mailboxes by Saturday, a police spokesman said.

“The money was in identical plain envelopes, which were unsealed and carried no names or messages,” the spokesman told AFP.

But residents became “spooked” rather than pleased with the anonymous gifts — and were too upright to pocket the money secretly

“Some people initially suspected they were fake bills. When they realised the bills were real, they reported them to us,” the spokesman said.

The predominantly middle-class apartment building in Tokyo is not alone. An envelope with one million yen was left in the mailbox of a 31-year-old woman in the western city of Kobe on Wednesday.

Police admit they have no idea who is leaving the cash — whether a few people are behind the bizarre giveaways or if Japan is witnessing a craze of copycat benevolence.

Since June, dozens of city halls and other public buildings across the country have reported finding neatly packaged envelopes full of cash in men’s restrooms.

The bathroom money has come with identical letters asking people to do good deeds — leading to speculation that the benefactor may be a public servant trying to cheer up his profession or perhaps a member of a new-age religion.

Japanese cash drop-offs are not always so neat.

On Wednesday, bills worth 960,000 yen were inexplicably seen “falling” in front of a convenience store.

“We can just say the money came from the skies,” a puzzled police official said. “There were other passers-by outside and customers in the store but the incident caused no confusion,” he said.

“People thought it was too eerie to touch.”

A man who contacted police saying his daughter had dropped the money had his claim rejected as groundless, the official said.

The largest single drop-off so far was in the ancient city of Kyoto on July 23, astonishing a 67-year-old woman who found an envelope containing 10 million yen of stacked bills in her mailbox.

But mystery money does not always reach police intact.

A woman walking on a bridge over Tokyo’s Sumida River told officers that she saw bills falling at her feet from an elevated expressway above on July 6.

She believes 30 to 40 notes fell but police managed to collect only six notes worth 46,000 yen by the time they arrived.

“Some people were picking the money up on the bridge,” the Tokyo Shimbun quoted the woman as saying.

No one can say if more people have collected money and not told police.

Media tallies suggest more than four million yen, including some found last year, has been found in the public restrooms.

Dutifully, police are holding most of the money in case the rightful owner eventually decides to reveal their identity.

World’s tallest man marries

ibaaa — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 12:57:13 +0000

Bao Xishun (R), 56, a 2.36-metre (7 feet, 9 inches) tall herdsman listed by the Guinness World Records as the tallest living man, and his wife Xia Shujuan, 29, 1.68 metres (5 ft., 5 inches) tall, leave after a news conference in Baotou in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region July 13, 2007. The world’s tallest man, whose search for a bride covered the world, ended up marrying a woman from his hometown nearly half his age and more than two feet shorter,to view more pic just go in

Today joke,.Stupid Man

ibaaa — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 12:36:22 +0000

Man: what is the cost of this washing machine?

Shopkeeper: sorry i do not deal with stupid people.

Man: how did you know that i am stupid?

Shopkeeper: because this is not a washing machine, but a fridge.

Muscle turn into balloons …

ibaaa — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 10:59:49 +0000

Want to watch video secretly?

ibaaa — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 09:56:38 +0000

There are some excellent strides being made in LCD efficiency, and OLED displays promise to continue that trend. But while LCDs and Plasma sets are more efficient per square inch than CRTs ever were, they’re also allowing us to build and sell much larger sets.

This thirst for the big screen is driving energy demands higher even as sets could be getting more efficient. Which is why I’m blogging about MyVu. While I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing one of these in public, it is an environmentally friendly alternative to a 42-inch plasma screen.

The MyVu exploits your brain’s ability to infer distance by placing two video screens near your eyes, but separated so that the screen appears to be a big screen TV several feet away from you. Apparently it’s not an easy sensation to wrap your brain around, especially since the glasses allow you to look around them and continue seeing your surroundings.

It seems a little 1990’s cyberpunk, but the important thing is that it decreases the actual screen size to a couple of square inches instead of 800. The result is a more environmentally friendly, and significantly cheaper option.

Though, sitting around with the family watching a movie wouldn’t be quite the same if it didn’t matter which direction everyone was facing. Plus, you’re never quite sure what dirty Uncle is actually watching.