The average car uses 1.6 ounces of gas idling for one minute, while .5 ounces is used to start the vehicle.
(World’s Greatest Book of Useless Information)
My name is Dean Espinosa and I'm a builder here in Denver, Colorado. I'm trying to learn all I can about personal sustainabilty as well as sustainabiltiy in the the built environment. I hope to share what I learn with you.
Thank you for your interest,
Dean
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Tuesday, November 3rd 2009 3:49pm
Tuesday, November 3rd 2009 3:23pm
Tuesday, November 3rd 2009 10:03am
Wednesday, October 7th 2009 10:12am
Friday, October 2nd 2009 8:58am
Monday, September 21st 2009 8:37am
Kids today! We’ve all heard the exclamation made just before the recitation of a time-honored list of character flaws; lazy, irresponsible, always partying, no motivation etc. As evidenced by the sleek work of eco-vehicular art pictured above, apparently there’s at least one young man you can’t pin any of those attributes on. Fresh out of Appalachian State University where he left with a BS in Industrial Design tucked in his pocket, Tom Miceli showed off his ION electric motorcycle at the recently held Southern Energy and Environment Expo 2009. We suspect he needed someone standing by with a bucket and mop to keep the floor drool-free.
The ION was conceived, designed, modeled and constructed in a single semester with a “minimal budget” rendering results that are most impressive indeed. The 84 volt, lithium battery-powered bike uses an AC motor that yields 105 lb feet of torque, 46 hp and allows for regenerative braking. Top speed is estimated at about 80 mph with a range of 60 miles while the waiting time for a full charge using a typical household plug is six hours. Performance characteristics are probably best summed up by Tom on the video after the break. Conferring with someone off camera after driving the bike from its exhibition booth across the waiting pavement outside, you can hear him say, “it doesn’t need to pull any harder than that. It’s kinda scary.” If you know anyone who could make good use of Tom’s talents, better contact this employment seeker quickly before he realizes he could start his own company. Kids today, indeed.This is an awesome looking bike and I am really proud that this bike is created by a recent college grad. Also if you go to the original posting on Autoblog Green he posted pics in the gallery of the cad drawings with a hot model in them.
Saturday, September 5th 2009 7:18pm
Tuesday, September 1st 2009 7:33pm
(World’s Greatest Book of Useless Information)
Wednesday, August 19th 2009 8:01pm
Perhaps the most famous forecast in energy history is that atomic power would be “too cheap to meter.”
On September 16, 1954, Lewis Strauss, head of the Atomic Energy Commission, told a group of science writers, “Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter,” thanks to The Friendly Atom.
Was he serious? Some people say no, that he just got a little carried away. Others — notably Steve Cohn in his book Too Cheap to Meter — have shown that the idea that nuclear power would become incredibly cheap permeated the nuclear industry. Maybe not today, the dour realists assured us, but some day soon. That day has never come to pass.
The problem, as Vaclav Smil points out in Energy at the Crossroads, is not limited to the nuclear industry. Pretty much everybody has been terrible at forecasting technological progress, energy demand, and the cost of energy.
“[F]or more than 100 years long-term energy forecasts of energy affairs — no matter if they were concerned with specific inventions and subsequent commercial diffusion of new conversion techniques or if they tried to chart broad sectoral, national, or global consumption trends — have, save for a few proverbial exceptions confirming the rule, a manifest record of failure,” Smil thunders.
Having seen a few thousand forecasts, I’d tend to agree with the man. But I want to try an experiment out on Inventing Green. I’m going to look through my books and documents and post every historical forecast that I can.
I welcome your additions from across the energy spectrum, no matter whether a given estimate missed high or low. Specifically, I’m looking for individually testable statements of what the future is going to be like. Like, say, $0.40 per peak watt solar power by the year 2000.
Monday, July 27th 2009 6:06pm