Eco20/20

This blog gives insights on leadership, green living, green building, the growing eco-mmunity, and alternative energy news.

With gas prices going through the roof and regulators requiring cars to be ever more miserly, Volkswagen is bringing new meaning to the term "fuel efficiency" with a bullet-shaped microcar that gets a stunning 282 235 mpg. Volkswagen's had its super-thrifty One-Liter Car concept vehicle -- so named because that's how much fuel it needs to go 100 kilometers -- stashed away for six years. The body's made of carbon fiber to minimize weight (the entire car weighs just 660 pounds) and company execs didn't expect the material to become cheap enough to produce the car until 2012.

We know what's really been holding you back from building a wind energy farm in your backyard is the fact that turbines clash with the rest of your décor. Well, Philippe Starck is here to rescue the renewable energy industry with his Democratic Ecology. The transparent mini-turbine, which comes out in September, can generate 20-60 percent of the energy needed to power a home for $633. Pramac, a company better known for oil and diesel generators, helped out with the technical details.

Twenty-five years ago, when I was CEO of Intel, I had an unusual experience while visiting a customer. It was during a period of tight availability of microprocessors, our main product. This was not an unusual state of affairs. Supply and demand ebbed and flowed as the computer business had its ups and downs. Sometimes we had too many chips sitting in inventory; other times, like this one, we had too few. My main purpose in visiting was to reassure the customer that we were working hard to boost production and that relief was on the way.

I used to be a strict modernist; my role at TreeHugger was to demonstrate that green design could be wonderful and cool and I filled the site with all kinds of modern houses with some claim, often weak, for being green. Those houses became less common on the site in recent times, as I worried more about house size, the appropriateness of single family dwellings on big suburban lots, and trying to reconcile my love of clean, modern design with my concern about the use of fossil fuels or building materials that cannot be maintained in a world made by hand.

An Australian climate lawyer says the G8 nations' commitment to a 50 per cent cut in global greenhouse gas emissions would require a much bigger reduction target for industrialised nations. Countries agreed at the G8 summit to a "vision" of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

PETROL should be included in Australia's carbon emissions trading scheme, but low-income households should be compensated for higher power and fuel bills, the nation's top climate change expert has warned. Issuing a stern challenge to the Rudd Government to include petrol in the scheme, when it begins in 2010, Ross Garnaut warned of dire consequences for Australia's natural icons unless urgent and decisive action is taken.

Christian Science Monitor has published a totally charming story about how Dr. Frank E. Fish was inspired to "bio-mimic" a fan blade design, upon viewing a Humpback Whale sculpture in a Boston MA gift shop. There are prospective efficiency gains from re-designed wind turbine blades, also, based on this "discovery".

Looking to make solar panels cheaper, MIT researchers have created sheets of glass coated with advanced organic dyes that more efficiently concentrate sunlight. The researchers, whose results appear in this week's issue of Science, say that the coated glass sheets could eventually make solar power as cheap as electricity from fossil fuels.

Personal wind turbines are more often invented than actually manufactured. Those that make it to the commercial stage are mostly available at several thousands of dollars. That's why it is all the more surprising that as of next September you'll be able to buy a true designer windmill for way less than that.

While certain American politicians complain about a million bucks being included in the country's energy plan to promote bikes, in the UK they are investing £140 million (about US$ 280 million) to create dedicated bike lanes, provide bike parking, safety training, on-street bike rental networks and a campaign to promote bicycling in 12 Cycling Demonstration Towns.

Previously seen in the Sustainable Dance Club in Rotterdam, this is Britain's first exposure to such technology. The rest of the power needed will come from a wind turbine and solar energy system, with any surplus used to power private homes in the area. The club will also be installing the latest air flush, waterless urinals, low flush toilets and automatic taps to ensure maximum water saving plus less greedy air conditioning units.

Al Gore has made a major speech in Washington this morning, setting out an ambitious goal for the USA to produce all of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2020. I thought I'd comment on the technical feasibility of the plan, and the underlying economics of such an endeavour.

A British company is poised to construct the world's first floating wind turbine, in a move that could herald a new generation of cheaper, less problematic wind energy. Blue H, a firm registered in the UK but based in Holland, aims to anchor its prototype device 12 miles off the coast of southern Italy later this month.

An underwater turbine that generates electricity from tidal streams was plugged into the UK's national grid today. It marks the first time a commercial-scale underwater turbine has fed power into the network and the start of a new source of renewable energy for the UK.

Texas, headquarters of America's oil industry, is about to stake a fortune on wind power. In what experts say is the biggest investment in the clean and renewable energy in U.S. history, utility officials in the Lone Star State gave preliminary approval Thursday to a $4.9 billion plan to build new transmission lines to carry wind-generated electricity from gusty West Texas to urban areas like Dallas.

have a biking nemesis: During my regular rides around the six-mile outer loop of New York's Central Park, the big hill at the north (uptown) end of the park invariably sucks the very life out of my aging legs. Yesterday, however, pedaling up the big incline was another story altogether. It was as easy as climbing a small rise. My new-found prowess had nothing to do with any improved fitness, of course; it was the bike I was riding, the Twist Freedom DX from Taiwan's Giant Bicycle, Inc., which augments every pedal stroke with a finely timed electric boost.

Despite an unstable regulatory environment-renewable energy tax incentives are stalled in the senate, BLM policy has been inconsistent- the United States will surpass Germany to be the largest market for solar power in the world by 2011, according to a report by JP Morgan, cited in Greentech Media. By 2011, the US will have an installed capacity of 1.6 gigawatts (with 920 MW in California alone), surpassing Germany's expected capacity of 1.35 gigawatts. The third largest market by this time will be South Korea with 957 megawatts of capacity.

And you thought the U.S. was getting big solar photovoltaic projects (like the one being built by SunPower for FPL, or SunEdison for Duke). But those will deliver just a little more than half of what a Godzilla-like solar PV project in Germany will soon provide. The managing director of solar builder Juwi Solar, Michael Martin, said Juwi has already built over half - or 26 MW - of what, at 40 MW, he claims will be the world's largest solar PV project, which could be completed as soon as the end of the year.

The incandescent lightbulb that wastes 90% of the electricity as heat is dying, we all know that. But a new breakthrough in solid state lighting might also kill compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) faster than some expected. Scientists at Purdue University have figured out how to manufacture LED solid-state lights on regular metal-coated silicon wafers (more details below). What this means is: much lower costs.