Jay Parkhill May 5th, 2008
There is a lot of talk, of course, about the facts that (i) the U.S. has the highest per-capita (and overall) rate of CO2 emission in the world, and (2) that China is catching up quickly. This podcast from NPR puts some facts to the story.
NPR previously profiled a family in North Carolina that worked hard to reduce its CO2 output and succeeded in getting itself well below the North Carolina average. For contrast, NPR then profiled an “upper middle class” family in Beijing with a 3 bedroom apartment, a car and a house in the country that makes no real effort to conserve.
The result? Excluding air travel, the North Carolina family trying hard to conserve and the Beijing family that doesn’t are basically even on CO2 emissions. The American family travels more and farther by plane, so factoring that in put the Chinese family in the lead (in the best sense) by a wide margin.
This kind of data, even though anecdotal, is really fascinating.
Jay Parkhill March 5th, 2008
Climate change begins at home for sure. Putting a stop to it also requires lots of local effort. Still, where’s the line between encouragement and pie-in-the-sky-ism (I just made up that term)?
San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom is reportedly bullish on tidal energy, despite the fact that it is economically unfeasible for the near future, and would produce very little energy.
Newsom Waves On SF Tidal Energy « Earth2Tech
Someone last night also told me that San Francisco has an open purchase requisition out for a fleet of city plug-in hybrid vehicles. The problem is that no one is making them as OEM and there have been only 150 or so plug-in conversions of hybrid vehicles nationwide (maybe worldwide) ever.
I applaud San Francisco for moving to the vanguard in pursuing alternative energy. Without taking away from that at all, I would also like to see practical initiatives such as getting commercial buildings to turn the lights out at night. Imagine how much coal it takes to light all those offices when no one is in them at night.
Jay Parkhill January 16th, 2008
I stumbled across an article recently about Jonathan Goodwin (thanks Asher). A little more digging and I realized he is something like a cult hero in the “green car” field (fortunately he seems to spend more time in the shop than on his website).
Goodwin is a self-taught tinkerer, big-car loving environmentalist and alternative fuel afficionado. It’s a cool combination. The Fast Company article talks about a 600 horsepower, 60 mpg biodiesel-hybrid Hummer he is working on, which sounds interesting but expensive.
What is more interesting is his idea of “dual fuel” systems. I think the article refers to one of these as a $5000 bolt-on system that injects hydrogen into a diesel motor, doubling fuel efficiency and producing 80% fewer emissions.
Tinkerers abound in any field, of course. The question is whether their ideas can scale to the mass-production requirements of a major auto manufacturer. Goodwin’s $28,000+ conversions probably won’t make it onto any production lines any time soon.
The dual-fuel idea, though, is awfully interesting. The jury is still out on whether hydrogen has a future (wikipedia covers all the problems), and one of the sticking points is the chicken-and-egg issue of needing ubiquitous fuel stations to fill up before hydrogen cars become appealing, and needing a certain number of hydrogen cars on the road to justify investment in the hydrogen delivery infrastructure.
Enter the dual-fuel vehicle. Goodwin’s engines run cleaner and longer on hydrogen, but can run nicely on plain old diesel as well. Dual-fuel would allow a gradual transition to hydrogen (still assuming that is a desirable objective). Makes sense to me.