This video was featured on treehugger.com. It is short and relevant.
The term “green Google” is particularly interesting, and who is to say that YOU are not the person/group that is going make the difference–there is definitely opportunity out there. Listen, if we are on the eve of the energy technology revolution, it is going to take all of us working together to come out on the other side as winners. Get into the action in any way that you can. Here’s a question: Does drilling get us to the point where we will never have this sort of problem again?
Gas prices are still stupid, right? We know you want to liberate yourself but aren’t quite sure how to do it. Well, the vehicle highlighted in this post won’t be for everyone, yet it does put a smile on our faces. Here are the requirements:
1. Less than 50 miles driving per day.
2. No need to go over 55 mph.
3. Live in a dry, temperate climate.
4. A helmet.
5. An adventurous side.
That’s right, folks, we’re talking about an electric moped. This moped, however, packs quite a punch. It has a top speed of 55 mph, an estimated range of more than 70 miles (it probably won’t make this mark at high speeds), an expected battery life of 7 - 10 years, and is a ton of fun to drive. Being 100% electric, you could throw some solar panels or a wind turbine up and be driving for free for as long as the bike lasts you. Can anyone say freedom from petrol? It is just too bad a vehicle like this won’t see wider adoption because of silly stuff like lugging the kids around or getting to work dry, but hey, at least some people could convert.
Oh, you want to know what it is?
XM-3500 LI Electric Moped
With a price tag of around $4000 you could trade your car in tomorrow and be saving thousands of gallons and, consequently, thousands of dollars.
What if every home could become a mini-powerplant? Instead of sucking power from some central repository, houses across the nation would create enough energy to support those inside and maybe a little extra for the grid. This is the ultimate idea of distributed generation–producing power at many small sites rather than a few big ones. Perhaps the most exciting recent development in making this sort of dream a reality is new science out of MIT. It is what many would call a hybrid system, and it is impressive because it combines solar and hydrogen technologies to produce energy even when the sun is not shining.
The system relies on solar panels to provide energy during the day when the sun is available, and it borrows a small amount of power from the panels to split water into its basic parts: hydrogen and oxygen. Then, at night when the sun has gone down and the panels are no longer producing power, it combines the stored hydrogen and oxygen over a fuel cell to create electricity. Power during the day or night. What is so great about this system? It is energy that is almost free. If a homeowner were to have an all electric car, she could recharge the batteries with energy produced right at home. No more trips to the gas station. In addtion the scientists working on the system say that they are designing it to be closed, meaning that you would put water into it once and it would hum away creating electricity for the duration of its lifetime. This is exciting stuff.
There are still hurdles to overcome, but technologies like this are just the kind of thing the world needs right now. Information about the scientists (Daniel Nocera and Matthew Kanan) and the technology can be found all over the internet as this has been a hot topic over the last few weeks. This Wikipedia page is a good start.
