Posts
Amazing kinetic wooden scupltures!
(Plant not included)
Dave
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Opt Out Of Your Phone Book Delivery
Yellow Pages Goes Green has a great site with info and the ability to opt out of receiving a phone book. Very cool.
Dave
The $50 and Up Underground House
The Fifty Dollar and Up Underground House Book
By Mike Oehler
Ever tire of being a mere surface dweller? Mike Oehler, one of the worlds foremost underground house designers, shows you how to harmonize with your environment on a budget. While subterranean dwelling may not be for everyone, it’s a fun read and has an abundance of surprisingly insightful ideas.
Available at Undergroundhousing.com and your local library (if it's eclectic that is).
The Lorax
The Lorax
By Dr. Seuss
Yes, that Dr. Suess. The Lorax is probably one of the best books ever written on the problems of conspicuous consumption and how it affects our planet. Kids love it, parents love it, and most importantly, it’s a simple way to begin a dialogue about the environment with children. From the Grickle-grass to the Brown Bar-ba-loots to the problems with Thneeds (which everyone needs), the Lorax is a book for all humanity.
Available at your local library and Amazon.com.
Learn something and plant some trees
This is pretty cool. Treewala has a vocabulary game that will help the planet. For every word you get correct you get a leaf on a virtual tree of sorts and each leaf generates ad revenue. That money is then taken and used to plant sustainable forests in areas of the rain forest that have been destroyed. How cool is that? So what do you say, want to learn a thing or two and save the rainforests?
Dave
Green Patriot Radio
Kind of a cool website I learned about a few weeks back as they interviewed me for their podcast. They've got some really good info. Check it out.
Dave
Run your car on Java?
Hmmmm, I wonder if caf gets better mileage than decaf. Check out the buzz (pun intended) from The Economist.
Dave
Run your business on Veggie OIl?
And you thought veggie power was just for the road. Check out the Vegawatt and use that unwanted fryer oil to run your business!
Dave
Teachers At Sea
Here's a great opportunity to study the North Pacific Gyre firsthand. Check out this site for info on how teachers of all experience levels can actively participate in a ten day study of the garbage patch. Real world hands on experience combined with daily write ups on their blog and a recap afterwards will provide valuable information about this problem to kids around the world.
Dave
Ford's Ready Made Electric Car
According To Paul
What's interesting is that Magna can sell this same generic EV to any car maker with a model of similar size to the Focus. There's significant savings in doing it this way so it should allow other car makers the option of bringing a low cost BEV to market within the next 3-4 years.
Magna is even designing its own body for the EV in case a car company doesn't even want to do that part. Seems to me, this makes them a car maker like all the big OEMs.
I wish they discussed the battery some. No info on the kWh capacity, although they do claim a 100 mile range which indicates around 25 kWh.
Paul
******
According to Paul
Every once in a while my friend Paul Scott, founding member of Plug In America, EV advocate and Solar guru, sends me an email about something going on in the world of solar or EVs. I will be posting them here under the heading According To Paul pretty much as in the same state he sends them to me. Also, over the next week or so i will be bringing stuff form the other site over here so my apologies if there are a lot of posts.
Dave
Mitsubishi iMiEV Test Drive
According To Paul
Darell is one of the more active members of Plug In America and has the best EV site anywhere (www.evnut.com).
He was allowed to put a new Mitsubishi iMiEV (pronounced "imeev") through its paces and wrote a great report on his experience. I copied part of it below, but for all the photos and more info, go to http://evnut.com/iMiEV.html.
My only comment was his note about coasting. This is something all EV makers will want to incorporate in their cars. If you've never driven an EV, you might not know about the "freewheeling" aspect of coasting without the regenerative braking. This allows for superior efficiency if used properly. Both the Nissan of yesterday's post, and this iMiEV from Mitsubishi do not allow this option. I told the Nissan folks they should definitely build it in as it's easy to do and will be a competitive advantage over those who don't have it.
Check out Darell's site, lots of good info and funny in places.
Paul
*******
Howdy EVerybody -
Last week (Thursday) I had the pleasure of taking the Mitsubishi iMiEV for a test drive. I love this little car! I made a page, and there is a short video embedded at the bottom (sorry for the quality - I had "issues.")
http://evnut.com/iMiEV.html
-= Darell =-
http://EVnut.com
Mitsubishi iMiEV
March 19, 2009. Vacaville, CA.
Today I got to drive a Japan-spec Mitsubishi iMiEV. And while this thing may look like a low-speed NEV, it most definitely is not. This car has a governed top speed of 81 mph, and a range of 76 miles. It seats four full-size adult males comfortably, and accelerates and handles smartly with that load on board. There is precious little cargo space - but as a people mover, I just can't see doing it any more efficiently. This is the ultimate commute vehicle. With the wheels placed at the extreme outboard edges of the vehicle, the passenger compartment is maximized (as well as handling and road feel). And what looks like a diminutive car on the outside suddenly becomes a comfortable pod for four adults on the inside. I had tons of headroom left over, and plenty of leg/hip/shoulder room all around. The car has all the normal amenities of power windows/mirrors/steering/brakes along with HVAC and stereo. The throttle and braking regeneration is seamlessly blended. This is a REAL car, folks, once you get over the outside dimensions. It has enough power to do anything that you need a freeway-capable car to do. With four large guys onboard, I was somewhat astonished at the acceleration. This is no Tesla Roadster, but it pulls away with every bit as much authority as the Rav4EV. When I think about carpooling in a vehicle like this, I almost get giddy. Shuttling a few guys to work in this instead of a solo driver in a Prius? Just no contest.
The faults I can find include a charge rate (from 120 V or 240 V) of just 9A. I see little reason for this low limit. The other issue I have is that there is no way to "coast." There is always some regen to mimic a gasoline car in compression. You can add a bit more regen with the shift lever, but there is no way to defeat it. To me this is an easy-to-rectify omission. The reasoning I was given is that they want the car to feel just like any other car. And that's fine! Just allow those of us who wish to have no regen a way to turn it off. A little button on the shift lever comes to mind!
Specs:
Battery: Li-Ion, 330 V, 16 kWh
Motor: 47 kW, 180 n*m, permanent magnet
Weight: 1,080 kg
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Dean Kamen and L.E.D.'s
Dean Kamen is one of the cooler guys out there. The inventor of the Segway (and the wheelchair that walks up stairs that preceded it), he's one of the good guys who is working on fixing the problems the world has. So an article about Kamen, his island home, and his experiment to turn it 100% L.E.D. has got to be cool. Check it out!
Dave
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