It is a commonly held belief that all, or most, green technology must be expensive to develop and to purchase. A perfect example is the Tesla Roadster, an all electric sports car with a price tag of $100,000+. The Tesla Roadster accelerates from 0 to 60 miles an hour in 3.7 seconds. Not too shabby. Expensive, but very green. Helping to perpetuate the idea that only Hollywood stars can afford to be super Green
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Then comes along a 16 year old named Azeem Hill. He and his buddies, as part of high school project, decided to build a super hybrid sports car to rival the Tesla and hybrids on the market as part of the Automotive X Competition. He and his team mates built a car that accelerates from 0 to 60 in 5 seconds and gets 70 mpg on the highway and 100 mpg in the city. Not bad for some high school kids in Philly competing against the likes of MIT and multimillion dollar tech firms, proving that inovation can come from the most unlikely places. Check out the video and be impressed with what can be done with imagination, persistence and a very small budget.
Posts Tagged ‘alternative energy’
Green Innovation Can Be Child’s Play
Tuesday, October 26th, 2010Laundry Hangout
Sunday, May 31st, 2009
© Kathryn Neel
When I was a little kid growing up in the South I remember my Mom hanging clothes out to dry on the clothesline in our backyard. I use to love to walk between the lines and smell the sheets as they were drying in the hot summer sun. The smell of those sheets as I went to bed at night or when I pulled on my shorts and shirt to go out to play each day always held the faint sent of the honeysuckle that grew on our back fence and rooted me to home. These days our clothes usually smell of of whatever variety of dryer sheet we threw in with the load and don’t connect us in any way with our environment.
Except for refrigerators, the biggest energy consumers in most homes are the washer and the dryer. The good news is that it’s easy to to dramatically reduce the energy these appliances use. By washing all clothes in cold water, you can reduce consumption by as much as 90%. Unless clothing has grease or oil stains, cold water will clean just fine and will keep colors brighter longer. What’s more, by drying laundry on a clothesline or rack you can save $75 and 700 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year. The simplest fix of all: don’t wash your clothes until they look dirty or they fail the sniff test.
Let’s bring back that real nature fresh scent to our laundry and make Mother Earth proud.
Thoreau Has Pink Flamingos In His Yard
Friday, May 15th, 2009
© Kathryn Neel
I was out shooting photos at Walden Pond the other day and it hit me that I live in the land of Thoreau, Emerson and Hawthorne. I live in the town that was the birthplace of Johnny Appleseed. I am, quite literally, sitting in the middle of the historic center of the conservation and ecological movement in this country. How funny that this area is also where plastics were invented. Perhaps even more noteworthy, the pink plastic flamingos that are used as lawn ornaments were invented here. If Thoreau isn’t spinning in his grave he should be.
I think Thoreau saw this coming. Not pink plastic flamingos particularly. But the direction that the Industrial Revolution would take us. I wonder how he would view a time in history where the new trend was to “go green“. Would he laugh? Would he be appalled? Would he think, “It’s about time”? I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be surprised that what brought this global epiphany, this Aha moment, this Holy Shit! awakening about was our running our natural resources into the ground and driving our extinction to the cliffs edge a la lemmings. I also doubt he would be surprised that the real motivator for change for most people turns out to be simple economics.
In his book, Walden, Thoreau has an entire chapter dedicated to Economics. The economics that dictated how one was suppose to lead one’s life centuries ago, complete with societal expectations, duty to family and government, you name it. All the same baggage that we are saddled with today. When I attend Green Expos and Conferences I often hear people ask questions like, “How do I decide which alternative energy source do I use so I can save the most money?” It’s not that they don’t care about the planet or polar bears and such. I think that for most people wrestling with the responsibility for the condition of the entire planet is just a smidgen more than one person can wrap their head around. Especially given that most people right now are struggling to manage to keep their jobs, take care of their kids and scrap together enough money to do it all again tomorrow. It seems that most people are so focused on the Urgent of day-to-day living that the Important (i.e. long term goals of what is left for future generations) has gotten lost in the churn.
So where is all this going you might ask. I propose that everyone who is willing try an experiment. What would happen if you tried to be just 5% more aware of your impact on this lovely biosystem of a planet each of us is a part of? So maybe if you hardly think about this eco stuff at all you decide to plant a tree or two. If you are a crunchy granola, Birkenstock wearing tree hugger you decide to do something else, like join a Greenpeace trip to save the whales. Maybe if you are someone like me, with scientific/technical training the thought of taking your next vacation with a group like EarthWatch would really floats your boat. The beauty of our diversity is that we don’t have to do or want to do the exact same things. We are an adaptive species with opposable thumbs, imagination and twitter. We can save the World.
Check back here for more discussions on sustainable living and alternative energy.