Recently, I was given the opportunity to give a guest lecture for an entrepreneurship class at a local community college. The teacher wanted to give his students a glimpse into the green business world. For me, it was a terrific opportunity to reach out to an audience of poor, mostly minority students, many of whom had GEDs at best, and to test the universal appeal of green business.
The class went amazingly well, and I found that these students were as jazzed about green business and clean tech as any group of Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists. More so, in fact. Below, I present the outline of my approach so that others in a similar situation may build on this communication success, and adapt the approach as they wish.
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The Army knows that extensive alternative energy installations are the best way to ensure continuous, reliable electricity production. That’s why the military organization is building the Department of Defense’s largest ever solar project at the Fort Irwin Base in California’s Mojave Desert.
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Korean tire maker Kumho has produced a concept for an electric SUV utilizing a tire maker’s favorite material – rubber. The Fortis SUV features body panels made from recycled rubber and the rest of the design is pretty cool too.
The SUV’s wheels contain one 100-horsepower motor each, allowing the production of front-, rear- or all-wheel-drive models. Built-in software controls the motors so different types of traction control can be programmed in.
Of course, the neatest feature of this concept car is the tires, which change Transformer-style depending on the terrain. During off-road driving, they deflate, revealing metal lugs that up the traction. When you get back on the road, the air cavaties expand, inflating the tires and covering up the metal lugs for smooth driving.
The SUV deisign also includes a Lithium-ion battery pack and regenerative braking.
via Autoblog Green
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Panasonic Corporation just announced that it will sponsor Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Solar Electric Vehicle Team (SEVT). The team will be competing in the upcoming Global Green Challenge (GCG) to be held in October of this year in Australia. As part of the sponsorship, Panasonic will provide the team with its a high-capacity (2.9 Ah) lithium-ion batteries.
The MIT SEVT student team will compete in the World Solar Challenge with a solar powered car using Panasonic lithium-ion batteries to store its solar generated power. Separately, Panasonic will provide the same high-capacity, lithium-ion batteries to a team from Japan’s Tokai University which is also competing in the same category.
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McKinsey & Co. have released another report about climate change, but this time they’re putting it in motivating terms: money, money, money. The consulting firm has calculated the amount of cash the country could save over the next decade if we fully commit to becoming more energy efficient, and the amount is huge: $1.2 trillion.
Of course, this savings can only be accomplished through a large investment in weatherizing homes, retrofitting buildings, efficiency education and government initiatives, etc. – costing about $520 billion over that same decade. So, you’re actually looking at a net savings of $700 billion, but that’s still a nice big incentive to cut our energy consumption and help the planet at the same time.
The firm states that homes and businesses could trim 28 percent off their current energy bills and industries could trim 20 percent. The report doesn’t factor in transportation, just “stationary” uses of energy, but the study shows that through that large investment in efficiency, the country could slash 23 percent of its energy demand by 2020 and prevent the emissions of 1.1 gigatons of greenhouse gases yearly, the equivalent of taking the U.S. passenger fleet off the road.
As ecogeeks already know, a large portion of wasted energy is consumed by vampire power loads. The study revealed that efficiency standards that prevent our electronics from sucking energy while not in use could lead to energy savings equal to the yearly electricity consumption of the Netherlands.
Click here to read the full report.
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Congratulations America! When we give you free money, you take it! And that is the only lesson learned from the “Cash for Clunkers” legislation. The stated environmental goals, of course, were thrown out of the window ages ago. But we gave Americans (and car companies) more free money to sell and buy the inefficient vehicles of today so they won’t need to buy the efficient vehicles of tomorrow.
Here’s how Cash for Clunkers should’ve worked. You bring in an old, extremely inefficient and polluting car or truck. The government gives you some money for taking that car off the road, allowing you (who would otherwise not be able to afford it) to get a more efficient used car, or an extremely efficient new car. New cars, originally, had to be extremely efficient.
Then the environment took a back seat to the auto industry and, unfortunately, it wasn’t wearing it’s seatbelt when the whole thing slammed into a brick wall.
So, with the environment flying through the windshield, suddenly you can get a cash for clunkers credit for a 15 mpg truck or an 18 mpg SUV or, and honestly this is the worst of it all, a 22 mpg car! Of course, the government has mandated a fleet-wide efficiency of 27 mpg in just two years for cars. So, yeah, we’ve basically set ourselves up to have a bunch of extremely inefficient cars on the road for the next ten years while new, efficient cars sit on dealer lots, not getting sold because everyone interested in a new car bought one on July 30th 2009. Just one year before true alternative vehicles hit dealer lots. Just two years before the fleet-wide average was bumped up 5 mpg. So basically, what I’m trying to say is *facepalm*.
Welcome to the government trying to spur innovation and, instead managing to stifle it extremely effectively.
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When I was nine years old – I just knew something along just these lines was in our futuristic future!
My Jetpack: finally! Here it is; invented by German aerospace engineer Alexander Boeck, and first seen (by me) in the Chinese Olympics. Here, finally, on sale in stores near you, at $269; is that new high tech transport!
I am so down for casually commuting to work at 25 miles an hour, and striding nine feet at a time, and loping gracefully along with the occasional leap over a short building or two. All while looking like some kind of robotic gazelle – - and one that is two feet taller than me!
And the carbon footprint of this amazingly delightful form of transport? It’s Zilch!
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When I was nine years old – I just knew something along just these lines was in our futuristic future!
My Jetpack: finally! Here it is; invented by German aerospace engineer Alexander Boeck, and first seen (by me) in the Chinese Olympics. Here, finally, on sale in stores near you, at $269; is that new high tech transport!
I am so down for casually commuting to work at 25 miles an hour, and striding nine feet at a time, and loping gracefully along with the occasional leap over a short building or two. All while looking like some kind of robotic gazelle – - and one that is two feet taller than me!
And the carbon footprint of this amazingly delightful form of transport? It’s Zilch!
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You can’t turn on the TV and avoid the ads for the dealers promoting the Cash for Clunkers program. Experts predicted that the money would last at least two to three weeks, but alas, it is not so. The LA Times is reporting that in less than one week, the $1 billion dollars for the program is already gone and the government is scrambling to find more money to keep the program going. Worst case, I suppose they can just write “IOUs” like the state of California is doing and according to Governor Schwarzenegger, may be bailing out the federal government some day.
“We are working tonight to asses the situation facing what is obviously an incredibly popular program,” the White House told the LA Times. “Auto dealers and consumers should have confidence that all valid CARS transactions that have taken place to date will be honored.”
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WorldChanging Teamby Tania Branigan China should see its first lawsuit by an environmental group against authorities within weeks, state media reported today.A member of the All-China…
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Yale Environment 360Several recent studies show that the rapid warming of Arctic tundra is leading to a host of sweeping changes, including more extensive fires, the growth…
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Joe Romm“If the slimehead were still a slimehead, it wouldn’t be in this kind of trouble,” begins a good WashPost story today on overfishing of the…
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WorldChanging Teamby Austin Davis We’ve heard plenty about the mainstream media’s complete inadequacy when it comes to covering climate change (see links here). At least one…
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Did this fake-letter lobbying effort, and others, sway the vote on the climate bill in the House? Will the same efforts come into play in September in the Senate? And is this an outrage, or just the way Washington works?
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U.S. District Court has sentenced a Vermont man to a week in jail for killing an endangered lynx – after he left the carcass with a taxidermist for mounting.
According to the Bangor Daily News, Vermont Fish and Wildlife officials were tipped off by the taxidermist, who said the man claimed he thought was “shooting at a coyote” while enjoying a deer hunting excursion in Maine.
This marks the third time in less than three years that someone has been sentenced for killing an endangered Canadian lynx (Lynx canadensis).
U.S. Magistrate Judge Margaret Kravchuk believed the jail time was necessary, saying that
We have the Endangered Species Act to protect, restore and save these types of animals. I do think this defendant deserves jail time. Just a fine would be a meaningless punishment.
The man who killed the lynx, Alan B. Clark Jr. 38, of South Hero, VT, admitted to Kravchuk that he knew it was a lynx when he took it to the taxidermist, and pleaded guilty to the federal misdemeanor crime of possession of unlawfully taken wildlife.
Although Clark faced up to six months in jail, and a fine up to $25,000, his attorney got him a reduced sentence, citing “recent chronic health problems” and “inability to work.” Clark’s jail time starts Thursday afternoon at the Penobscot County jail.
Apparently, Clark’s right to possess guns and hunt will not be affected by the conviction.
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Recently, I was given the opportunity to give a guest lecture for an entrepreneurship class at a local community college. The teacher wanted to give his students a glimpse into the green business world. For me, it was a terrific opportunity to reach out to an audience of poor, mostly minority students, many of whom had GEDs at best, and to test the universal appeal of green business.
