We've been hearing a lot about plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) and straight-up electric vehicles (EV), but Ecotricity's wind-powered carbon fiber composite Greenbird moves just as fast--and looks like way more fun.
British Engineer Richard Jenkins took the missile-like Greenbird for a groundbreaking drive yesterday at Lake Ivanpah south of Las Vegas, Nevada. The Greenbird, with Jenkins at the helm, accelerated to 126.1 MPH across the dried-up, two-mile-wide lake, besting the previous world land speed record for a wind-powered vehicle set by Bob Schumacher ten years ago.
The Greenbird's record-breaking day was the result of years of planning. Jenkins has been building wind-powered vehicles for past ten years in his quest to break Schumacher's record. The Greenbird, Jenkins' fifth-generation wind-powered vehicle, underwent testing in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia before finding the weather and surface conditions necessary to reach ultra-high speeds.
Ecotricity's Greenbird isn't headed to market, but the green energy company has hinted that it plans on releasing a wind-powered car for everyday use. The details of how such such a car will work in everyday weather conditions are unclear, but Jenkins and Ecotricity founder Dale Vince are convinced that wind-powered cars will be on the road in the near future. It's possible, though I can't picture the burgeoning PHEV and EV industries getting pushed aside by wind power anytime soon.
The other day, I stumbled upon a label above a bathroom's paper towel dispenser detailing the "energy footprint"(total amount of energy involved in production) of a single towel. I had never seen anything like it before, but it appears that labeling a product's energy or carbon footprint might become a trend.
Continental Clothing, a U.K.-based "eco-chic" clothing manufacturer, has announced that it's working with the Carbon Trust to produce the world's first carbon footprint label for clothing. A carbon footprint, as defined by the Carbon Trust, is the total set of greenhouse gas emissions caused directly and indirectly by an individual, organization, event or product. The carbon footprint of Continental Clothing's T-shirts and sweatshirts will be displayed on a label that explains the amount of carbon offset from renewable energy use as well as the amount of carbon that can be saved by avoiding tumble drying and ironing the garments.
The company's T-shirts and sweatshirts will initially be sold through Adili.com, but Continental Clothing hopes to persuade mainstream stores to carry the items.
Carbon labels are already available on a number of products in the U.K., including Tesco light bulbs, Tesco orange juice, and King Edwards potatoes. And according to Continental Clothing's product manager, members of British Parliament want to see carbon labels spread far and wide in the country.
The carbon labeling trend is also growing outside the U.K. An intrepid group called Carbon Label California has introduced "The Carbon Labeling Act of 2009" into the California Legislature and Japan recently launched a voluntary carbon footprint labeling scheme.
It's hard to say if people will pay much attention to carbon labels. I'm too lazy to read nutrition labels and product instructions half the time, and I don't think I'm alone. But at the very least, the labels will raise awareness of the mere existence of carbon footprints.
Energy consumption habits are a private thing--sometimes you just don't want everyone knowing that you have a cell phone charger, computer, external hard drive, and iPod charger all draining energy at the same time you're also playing Xbox on your big-screen TV. But for those of you who are energy voyeurs, there's the Tweet-a-Watt.
We first wrote about Tweet-a-Watt earlier this month, when it was one of five finalists in the Greener Gadgets Design Competition. This hack for the Kill-a-Watt energy-efficiency monitor eventually won the competition, besting products like the the Power Hog, the Indoor Drying Rack, and the Laundry Pod.
The concept behind the Tweet-a-Watt is simple: the device connects to a Kill-a-Watt monitor and proceeds to broadcast exactly how much energy you're using to all of your Twitter friends with messages like "Currently using 71.0 Watts, 4766 Wh in last 24hr, 5503 Wh previous day."
And now, after nearly a month after winning the Greener Gadgets Design crown, the Tweet-a-Watt is finally on sale. It's not cheap: Ninety dollars for a starter pack that comes with a receiver, transmitter, two adapter kits, USB cable, and a bag of parts including a 10,000uF capacitor, 220uF capacitor, 2 1% 4.7K resistors, 5mm green LED, and 1/16" heatshrink. That doesn't account for the cost of the Kill-a-Watt, of course, which adds another $20. But theoretically, it should pay for itself with the energy savings you'll accrue from better consumption habits.
As you might imagine from the complicated-sounding bag of parts, putting together the Tweet-a-Watt is no easy task. Tweet-a-Watt's Website warns, "The kit is unassembled and requires some light soldering to piece together. It is a moderate/advanced project and is intended for people with electronics & computer experience and are comfortable working around High Voltages." In other words, I hope you have a friend who's an electrician.
If you're still intent on bragging to your friends about what an energy-saving machine you are, the Tweet-a-Watt is available here.
Bottled water companies have been struggling with a backlash against their products because of energy and health concerns, but they're not going away. At least the innovation these days seems to be focused on improving the impact bottled water has on the environment rather than merely in its marketing claims. PepsiCo's Aquafina brand announced the launch yesterday of the Eco-Fina bottle, made with 50% less plastic than normal Aquafina bottles. The new bottle, scheduled to begin shipping in April, will save an estimated 75 million pounds of plastic each year. Aquafina also plans on removing cardboard base pads from 24-packs--a move that will save 20 million pounds of corrugated cardboard each year.
Startups are getting in on the act as well. A company called Boxed Water is Better is producing, as the name implies, boxed water. BWAB ships unfilled recylable containers to the water source in an attempt to keep pollution level low, and it donates 20% of all profits to world water relief and tree reforestation organizations.
Just today, Plant It Waterdebuted packaging made from over 60% renewable materials. The company also says it will plant a tree for every carton of water sold. (That's maybe not as fun as planting a tree for every vodka bottle sold, but it is easier--and healthier--to make a positive impact with heavy consumption.)
Of course, for the residents of most U.S. cities, drinking clean tap water is still the way to go. But if you have to drink bottled water, better to support the brands making an effort to be more sustainable. Some change is better than no change at all.
Tesla, the electric vehicle (EV) maker best known for its outlandishly-priced roadster EV, unveiled its newest, the Model S Sedan, this afternoon at the offices of CEO Elon Musk's other startup, SpaceX. The Model S promises a 300-mile range, 45-minute fast-charge capability, a 0 to 60 time of 5.5 seconds, and room for seven passengers. The car will also feature a removable battery pack as well as two LCD touch screens--one displaying the gauges and one mounted centrally in the dashboard.
Tesla hopes that this sleek mass-market electric vehicle prototype can be manufactured affordably so that the sedan can be priced at $49,900 (after tax breaks), enabling the company to move 20,000 units a year by mid-2012, a year after its debut.
Tesla may rent battery packs to customers for long road trips, but in general, the batteries will be available for lease. The company claims they will last from seven to ten years, and Tesla's Model S will be covered under a warranty of three to four years.
The car will be manufactured in Southern California, but the Model S drive train will be produced in San Jose. Musk says that the company has designed--and plans on manufacturing--its own platform.
So those are the facts behind an announcement thick with vapor. You can't buy a Tesla today. Or next year. Tesla has been plagued with problems since Musk founded it in 2003. Tesla's roadster was late, over budget, and is now too expensive for everyone but the seriously wealthy. The company has also burned through nearly all the money it raised ($150 million) and recently laid off 20% of its staff. Even the streaming video of the Model S debut crashed within minutes.
Why all the fuss then? Today's lumbering Big Three automakers can't adapt to the world of electric vehicles quickly enough--witness today's news that GM and Chrysler are headed for another bailout. They're too busy trying to stop money from bleeding out of the auto industry to focus on new ways of doing things. Small, nimble companies don't have to change the way they've done things forever. They can work on electric cars from the beginning. So Tesla is just a symbol of what we need to revive American automotive manufacturing. May a thousand Teslas bloom. And produce some cars people actually want to buy.
Digg founder Kevin Rose has leaked pictures of Tesla's first mass-market electric car, the Model S, only hours before a working prototype of the car is set to debut in Los Angeles. The $50,000 car, scheduled for commercial release in 2011, features what appears to be a touchscreen dashboard replacing the central console. Tesla predicts that 20,000 Model S vehicles will be sold each year--a drastic change from the company's roadster, which has thus far had a production run of 250 units.
According to Tesla, the car will combine performance, luxury, and superior battery power. Stay tuned for more information when the car is officially unveiled later today.
Update 3:20 pm ET: Tesla asked Kevin Rose to take his photos down, indicating that the images are in fact real.
Remember when your elementary school teacher held class outside during particularly sunny days? This is the adult version. The UK-produced OfficePOD, which debuted yesterday in London's Cumberland Hotel, makes working outside possible for cubicle-dwellers--sort of. The 7x7 movable pod apparently features "innovative storage and desktop solutions using high-quality materials
chosen for their visual, physical and environmental characteristics" along with energy-efficient insulation and cooling, wireless IT and phone connectivity, and a secure locking system.
In addition to minimizing energy use, the OfficePOD's creators speculate that the shed-like room saves companies money by allowing employees to work at home while still maintaining a separate office environment. In theory, that makes sense. Any freelancer can tell you that working where you sleep is a challenge.
The pod costs approximately $7284 for a yearly lease, which includes installation, help-desk support, health and safety assessments, repairs, and eventual removal. That's considerably less than the $13,112 necessary to accommodate an employee in an office building for the same amount of time.
It's hard to deny the environmental benefits of working from home (fuel savings, energy efficiency), but the OfficePOD seems a bit alienating. Color me cynical, but I don't relish the prospect of working in a 7x7 foot space with no human companionship. It may save time, money, and energy, but the costs to employee morale could be enough to steer employers away from the OfficePOD.
The other day at the Green:Net 09 conference, I spoke to someone who predicted that home-energy management systems would never take off until we could easily have a remote control to automate home appliances. Verizon may have been listening to our conversation, because the company announced yesterday that it is integrating home-energy management into its Fios broadband service some time in the next year.
Verizon can remotely update home routers, which means that customers can too. So once we give thermostats and window shades IP addresses, we can turn down the heat and schedule the shades to open or close on a daily schedule--all from our cell phones. That's the gist of what Verizon wants to do, but the company remains mum on details of a release date, partnering companies, and price.
Up until recently, consumers have looked primarily to utilities' rapidly proliferating smart meters for home-energy management. But the landscape is changing, with non-energy related companies like Black & Decker, Google, and now Verizon entering the fray. None of these companies can succeed without the detailed usage information available from smart meters, but all of them can help make energy efficiency easier for those of us with limited time, and, well, energy to devote to the cause.
Banks have gotten a bad rap recently, and for good reason. The FDIC's Failed Bank List is rife with private banks that have been flattened in the past two years, and we all know about the myriad bankrupt investment banks. But now U.S. Congressman Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) has proposed a bank we can believe in.
The congressman introduced The Green Bank Act of 2009 this week. If passed, the act would create a tax-exempt bank owned by the U.S. with the ability to provide financing to clean energy and energy-efficiency projects such as wind farms, solar installations, and transmission lines. The U.S. would give the proposed bank $10 billion in initial funds through Green Bonds issued by the Treasury Department.
That $10 billion could be instrumental in expanding our renewable energy infrastructure, according to Reed Hundt, co-chair of the Coalition for Green Bank. CGB estimates that the bank's funds could provide 15GW of clean energy, reduce annual energy costs in the U.S. by $22.5 billion, and cut carbon emissions by 26.9 million tons--not to mention the jobs created by companies with the newfound ability to fund cleantech projects.
Incidentally, the proposed green bank won't actually be called "The Green Bank." That name is already taken by a 119 year-old commercial bank in Tennessee. Instead, Van Hollen's bank will go by a more descriptive name: the National Clean Energy Lending Authority. Not quite as catchy, but it gets the point across.
We learned last week that the Obama's are working on a 1,100-square-foot White House vegetable garden to be cared for by local fifth graders and the first family. Now web-based vegetable-garden design application Plangarden has released an interactive version of the Obama garden for anyone who can't make it to Washington for a first-hand look.
The interactive garden recreates everything from stepping stones to round edges on the garden beds and features planting/harvesting dates for the Obama's planned blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, fennel, spinach, onion, pea, chard, lettuce, and shallot crops. Plangarden anticipates updating garden changes throughout the year.
Though the garden is a noble effort on the part of the President to raise awareness of home gardening, the Plangarden blog questions the usefulness of four beds of spinach, as well as the conspicuous lack of easy-to-grow crops like tomatoes, potatoes, and cucumbers.
Most of us won't be able to use the Obama garden as a template--after all, not everyone has 1,100 square feet of extra space--but it's a helpful guide to planting crops in the D.C. area, even if the garden is producing more spinach than any four-person family could ever hope to consume. I hope state dinner attendees like leafy greens.
The other day at the 
