Wind technology's future

Wind technology could be big in the United States soon.

Attached at the end is an article and 10 min presentation about the state of U.S. energy and foreign oil by an oil man named T. Boone Pickens. Watch it its good.

The article following talks about how we can power 84% of peoples cars with electric energy when people charge their cars at non peak hours. This means 84% of all cars are plug in hybrids or Electric vehicles and we dont need more power plants to supply this new electricity demand if people charge at night when people are sleeping.


Jetson Green Article

another follow up article

10 Things You Should Know About Natural Gas Vehicles



DC

Fully Electric Factor Cars in 2009-10?

I can't WAIT. For these cars to start hitting the road in substantial numbers.

We are hopefully looking at about 5-10 fully electric cars by 2010. Some of them you can pre-order and some are still in the testing phases. Here are a few of them for you to check out.

The Tesla electric car
Two Seat Sports Car

0 to 60 in 3.9 seconds
135 mpg equivalent
220 miles per charge
2009MY Roadster base price: $109,000


NEW! The Six50
A hybrid 2+2-seater (Electric and Solar Powered)

62 miles per charge
75 mph top speed


The Phoenix Electric SUT
4 Seater Pick up Truck (and they have an SUV model as well)

100 miles+ per charge
75 mph top speed (factory set)
On-Board Vehicle 6.6KW Charger: 5 to 6 hours
Off-Board High-Power 250KW Charger: Under 10 min. to 95% SOC



The Mitsubishi iMiEV

80 mph top speed
100 mile per charge
2010 in US... under $20,000


The Subaru R1e
two-seater city car

65 mph top speed
50 miles range
2012-13 in US... under $20,000



BYD (Chinesse Batter Company)'s E6 Electric Car
5 seater

100 mph top speed
186 mile range

Keep a look out for these cars hitting the road soon. Also check out Zap Cars, Tango T600, and the unimpressive Chevy Volt.



DC


UPDATE: I just found this site with 30 electric cars. I like my list better because the cars I chose are more updated and they are cars that will be mass produced commuter cars. A lot of the cars in this other article are slow neighborhood cars or concept cars that will never be sold to consumers.

Old Man MacCready

Paul MacCready is a very very interesting man. Intelligent and creative he has won countless awards.

He was an inventor, most know for his flying machines. He designed a plane that was bike powered plane, the Gossamer Albatross, that flew 22 miles across the English Channel in 1979. In 1981 the Solar Challenger, flew 163 miles on 400 watts from photovoltaics. His solar powered car, the Sunraycer, crossed 2,000 miles of Australian desert. (This was part of the inspiration for the EV1, GM's fully electric car.

In 1990, he and his team designed the Helios (youtube video). The Helios has about 62,000 solar cells across the wing. The solar cells collect energy from the Sun and convert it to electricity, which runs the 14 small motors, which turn the 14 propellers.

"On August 13, 2001, remote-control pilots on the ground used a computer to fly the Helios Prototype to an altitude of 96,863 feet. That's over 18 miles straight up! Before the Helios Prototype, the highest recorded flight of any aircraft was about 85,000 feet. This was done in 1976 by the SR-71 spy plane, the fastest jet in the world. Only rockets and rocket-powered airplanes have gone higher."
source

Paul gave this speech at TED a few months before he passed away.
Video-21minutes(very cool)

DC

Zero Energy Project

After about two weeks of brainstorming, we have come up with a project for the summer.

Project:
We are going help design Donna Shalala's guest house to be a Zero Energy Building.

Background:
Donna Shalala as well as many other UM teachers are going to be moving into a new neighborhood in Coral Gables called Four Fillies Farm. Her house is going to be too large to do anything major with sustainable design, but the designers expressed interest in designing the guest house to be Zero Energy. The guest house will consist of a garage for her driver? and an apartment on the second floor.

The Plan:
We are going to focus on 2 topics:
Rainwater Harvesting and a
Integrated Energy System

We are going to be exploring permeable pavement, roof rainwater harvesting, pvs, solar water heaters, and reflective roof technologies.

Food for thought!
Starting 2016 all new homes in the UK will have to be zero-emission for heating, hot water, cooling, ventilation and lighting.

California is planing on doing the same for 2020.

DC

Summer Internship

The summer has arrived. I am excited to say that I will be researching "sustainable" technologies this summer. After the first few days of researching and brainstorming, it looks as though I will focusing my energies on studying:

Green Roofs,
Photovoltaics,
Pervious Pavements,
and Rainwater Harvesting

I am really excited I get so much time learning and researching as much as I can about these sustainable technologies.

Meanwhile here is some food for thought:

A new solar technology that is likely to exceed a 35% efficiency, making solar power as cheap as power from the grid. The first product is called a SunBall the second is called the SunCube. These guys from Australia designed them and already orders for millions $$$ of dollars worth of them.

Check an Article about it HERE

And For a Video explaination Click HERE

DC

Living Land & Waters

I was watching Ben Harper on "Green Deets" when I heard him bring up a man by the name of Chad Pregracke. Harper said this guy was one of his heroes. I wanted to find out more about this guy and what I found was really inspiring.

Chad Pregracke is the President and founder of Living Lands and Waters. 10 years ago he starting cleaning up the Mississippi and has continued every since. Here is LL&W website, there you will find a video from CBS about Chad and his endeavors.

LL&W

Also check out this short 4 minute clip from youtube.com where he gives a funny inspirational talk about how he first got started. This is well worth the watch, I think he could be in stand-up.

youtube.com


DC

What can TED do for you?

Al Gore, just recently gave a new slide show presentation entitled "New Thinking On The Climate Crisis." It is an inspirational 22 minute presentation, followed by a short Q&A session.

Check it out here!

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/243

And if you are pressed for time the video is cut and compressed into a 2 minute barrage of words and images here:

Al Gore Video in 2 minutes


DC

Extra Reading and Sources:

Treehugger.com
TED.com