The Green Demon Blog

Electric Supercar - 600k's between charges & 800kw of Power

2011-09-24T15:43:00.000-07:00

Croatia has become a holiday hot spot for its myriad islands and warm Adriatic waters but it has never been known as an automotive powerhouse - perhaps until now.Rimac Automobili is a start-up electric-supercar company with big ambitions. Its stunning ''Concept-One'' two-seater coupe is designed to compete with Audi's E-Tron, BMW's i8 plug-in hybrid, Mercedes-Benz's SLS AMG E-Cell and other zero-emission supercars from Porsche, Fisker and Tesla.But the Concept-One has some serious performance figures to rival these competitors. How does 800kW of power, a staggering 3800Nm of torque, a 0-100km/h time of just 2.8 seconds and a self-governed top speed of305km/h sound? Oh, and a 600-kilometre driving range between charges.These are the official figures the Zagreb-based company claims, courtesy of four electric motors to power each wheel and what it calls an ''all-wheel torque vectoring system'' that varies the amount of torque sent to any wheel for maximum traction.Ten 92kWh lithium phosphate batteries are positioned throughout the car for optimum weight distribution, while the sleek body is made from carbon fibre for an impressive kerb weight of just 1650 kilograms, or a bit less than a Holden Commodore Omega sedan.Recharging times are not mentioned but the car's charging point is on the front three-quarter panel.The chief executive of Rimac Automobili, Mate Rimac, started the business in 2009 after developing the company's first ''mule'' car, an electrified E30 BMW M3 that produces more than 400kW.''Our first car evolved in a short period of time into a project that didn't give a final result - instead, it was a start, the start of the world's first electric hypercar, the Concept -One,'' Rimac says.''We started with a blank sheet of paper. The idea was to create an exceptional supercar with a new propulsion concept.''The company says the production version of the Concept-One - its first model - will be limited to 88 units, with deliveries beginning in 2013.

Zero footprint family for one year - the reality

2011-09-19T14:12:00.000-07:00

What does it take to reduce your carbon footprint to zero? And is that kind of lifestyle sustainable? Marj Lefroy talks to New York's original No Impact Man to find out.When New York's No Impact Man, Colin Beavan, took his family off the grid for the whole of 2007, he didn't expect it to have such a positive impact on his quality of life."Our economy is predicated on the idea that the more 'stuff' people have, the happier they will be. So we all work hard to get more stuff and, especially in the US, forget about the importance of our social relationships."That does not make us happy."Beavan says that a renewal of those relationships was one of the unexpected outcomes of his family's year of living green, during which they reduced their net environmental impact to nothing. Together, he and wife Michelle, daughter Isabella and dog Frankie shrank their carbon footprint by reducing their waste and pollution output as much as possible. The residual ecological burden was neutralised by volunteering for environmental causes such as cleaning rubbish off the beach.Instead of watching television, they talked to each other, played games or spent time with friends. During New York's sweltering summers, rather than isolating themselves in their apartment with air conditioning, they took Isabella to play in the fountain in Manhattan's Washington Square Park and found themselves connecting with their local community."So much of what we did 'for the planet' turned out to be better for us. We ate local food and our skin cleared up. We rode bikes and we lost our guts ... we stopped spending our time being consumers and ended up spending more time being friends and neighbours."This is true for the culture too. What's good for the planet is good for the people."Beavan says the transition was both "harder and better" for Michelle, the family shopper."She says that she was addicted to shopping and convenience. But when we broke our bad habits and found that we spent more time together as a family, ate better and got more exercise, it was she who had the biggest benefit and learning."She hasn't returned to shopping and TV."The No Impact experience spawned a book and Sundance-selected documentary, and Beavan was named one of MSN's ten most influential men of 2007.Four years later, the family is still trying to live a relatively low-carbon life."It makes sense to eat food with no unpronounceable poison chemicals in it, so we still prefer food from our trustworthy, local farmer. Rather than take a taxi to the gym so that we can then run in place on the treadmill, it makes sense to get our exercise as part of our day by biking and walking. It makes sense to save money so we've cut our power consumption."Beavan now runs the non-profit No Impact Project in an effort to engage "average folks" to undertake a week-long carbon cleanse and find out how much money, time and stress they can save. Beavan says participants "marvel" when they discover what they're capable of."They become creative about how to re-use clothes and other items and how to entertain themselves and their friends. They cook more. They transport themselves using bikes or their own feet and take control of their actions."The experience is very empowering."Beavan says that local initiatives like Buy Nothing New Month in October, which encourages Australians to avoid spending money on things they don't need, are part of a worldwide movement towards a way of life that's "good for all of us" – including business."Business is supposed to provide what people need."There is plenty of opportunity for excellent business innovation and lots of money to be made ... [including] in the secondhand marketplace, by the way."Read more here: http://noimpactproject.org/experiment/

Solar costs now lower than coal

2011-08-17T13:51:00.000-07:00

THE cost of solar power in parts of NSW has for the first time crept below that of coal-fired electricity - seen as a key tipping point for the expansion of renewable energy.
New data shows solar power is edging towards ''grid parity'', after which it becomes cheaper than fossil fuel-generated energy such as coal and gas, even taking into account the upfront cost of buying rooftop solar panels.
But it was one of the few bright spots for an industry suffering from a 93 per cent drop in rooftop panel installations since the boom late last year at the peak of the NSW bonus scheme.
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Workers at Australia's only commercial solar cell maker, the Silex plant at Homebush in Sydney, were told yesterday that cell production would be outsourced to China.
Nevertheless, the flow-on effects of the subsidies have helped achieve grid parity across wide areas of rural NSW. For the first time, the amount paid to households feeding power to the electricity grid passed 28¢ a kilowatt hour, which is the equivalent of buying coal-fired power from a utilities company
Andrew Blakers, the director of the centre for sustainable energy systems at the Australian National University, said: ''If you look at the prices being paid today, we have already reached grid parity in a lot of places except Melbourne and Hobart.''
In Sydney, the price paid for solar power fed back to the grid depends on the agreement between the household and the provider, and whether a household agreed to the state government's feed-in tariff in time to take advantage of high rates of payback.
The Australian Photovoltaic Association said that while some areas had reached grid parity, it could be several years before solar electricity was worth more than coal-fired electricity in most of NSW, and that depended on state and federal policy.
''A 1.5 kilowatt system in Sydney is probably going to be cost effective next year or the year after, depending on whether we get a carbon price,'' said Muriel Watt, the chairwoman of the association and a senior lecturer in renewable energy engineering at the University of NSW.
The amount of solar energy generated in NSW has surged above the cap imposed by the previous state government.
The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal said thousands of households were still waiting for their panels to be installed under the $1.9 billion solar bonus scheme, which would drive up the overall cost to the taxpayer. As of this week, up to 71 megawatts worth of solar systems had yet to be fully installed, taking the total amount of power generated under the scheme to 371 megawatts.
When the former government halted new applications last October, it received 38,000 applications on the final day, the tribunal said.
This year, the government was forced to abandon moves to cut retrospectively the tariff applied under the bonus scheme, to limit profiteering.
As a result, the state government is seeking the tribunal's assistance in setting tariffs for household systems.
Yesterday the solar industry called on the government to introduce interim measures to pay households at market rates for the power they produced until the tribunal's review of subsidies is completed next year.
The Australian Solar Energy Society said 416 jobs had been lost since the industry spiked in November, and a quarter of the state's solar installation businesses had closed.
At the Silex plant yesterday, about 30 people were told they would be made redundant and others would be redeployed because the company could no longer afford to compete with cheaper, imported solar cells. The panels will still be made at the plant.
The chief executive, Michael Goldsworthy, said: "This type of silicon flat panel technology was actually invented here in Sydney at the University of NSW … that's the sad thing. Now it's all gone offshore."
The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union said many of the workers had previously worked in the same plant with BP Solar, and were being made redundant for the second time.

SMH

Most Australians would buy an electric car if the price of petrol doubled

2011-07-31T19:59:00.000-07:00

Most Australians would buy an electric car if the price of petrol doubled, but only if it didn’t cost them any more, survey finds.

Up to three-quarters of Australian car buyers would consider switching to an electric vehicle if the price of petrol doubled, a Deloitte study has found.

However, two-thirds also expect an EV to cost the same or less than an equivalent petrol- or diesel-engined car, and almost half thought an EV should cost no more than $20,000.

And more than half of the 500 Australians polled for the Deloitte report said their interest in EVs would significantly diminish if they could buy a car with fuel use of 4.7 litres per 100km or better.

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The responses highlight the gap between what consumers want and what car makers are currently able to deliver, with dedicated EVs trickling onto the market in limited numbers and costing up to double the price of equivalent cars powered by conventional internal combustion engines.

Only a handful of vehicles in Australia — mostly diesel-powered city-sized cars — are capable of real-world average fuel use under 5.0L/100km.

However, EV makers can take heart from the survey’s finding that more than 90 per cent of the 500 Australians polled travelled fewer than 120km each weekday.

Mitsubishi spokeswoman Lenore Fletcher says her company's experience indicated green sentiment was more important than the price of petrol in driving buyers towards an EV.

"I think people will be taking [petrol prices] into account, but I don't know that it has a huge impact at this point," she says. "I don't know about you, but I like to shop where I understand that I'm not making a major impact on the environment."

Fletcher agrees pricing is a key motivator for buyers, but says Mitsubishi is aiming to eventually bring the $48,800 price tag on the tiny i-MiEV down to a more affordable level.

"The ultimate goal is to have the electric vehicle as a common part of our range, at comparable pricing," she says. "The price of the i-MiEV has come down by 23 per cent in the last 12 months. Name me one other car that has done that."

In other key findings:

* More than half of those surveyed — 59 per cent— identified themselves as either ‘‘potential first movers’’ or ‘‘might be willing to consider’’ when it comes to EVs; more than the US (54 per cent) and Japan (48 per cent) but fewer than Europe (69 per cent) and China (93 per cent).

* More than half (58 per cent) believed an EV battery should be able to be charged in two hours — the current industry standard is between eight and 12 hours.

Deloitte motoring industry services partner Danny Rezek says the results should prove instructive to car companies and their dealers.

‘‘While the study indicated that the mass adoption of EVs in Australia is likely to be some way off, it strongly reiterates consumers’ continued move towards more fuel-efficient vehicles,’’ he says.

SMH

Now the Prius can power your home...

2011-07-19T19:11:00.000-07:00

Japan’s earthquake disaster has inspired Toyota to offer its Prius hybrid with a power outlet that can run household electrical appliances for two days.

Japanese car maker Toyota is set to offer an optional AC power-point in its Prius hybrid car that will allow owners to run their electrical goods from the car’s battery pack.

Industry journal Automotive News reports the idea was spawned following the devastating earthquake that struck the country on March 11.

Victims were apparently using Toyota’s hybrid-powered Estima (Tarago) van – the only Toyota model which already has an AC plug-hole – to power household appliances in the aftermath of the disaster.

Following a demonstration showing a Prius hatchback powering household electrical items such as a refrigerator, hotpot, fan and desk lamp, Toyota – which ironically is jokingly referred to as the “whitegoods” car maker within the industry, said it would offer a power-point as an option on Prius models from 2012.

The modified Toyota Prius was fitted with an onboard inverter to change the current of the batteries (DC) to that used for appliances (AC).

While there are accessories that can be powered by your car such using a similar inverter (such as low wattage portable fridges and DVD units that plug into the cigarette lighter), the Toyota-developed system has a maximum output of 1500 watts which allows it to power larger appliances like fridges and microwaves.

The whitegoods are powered by the car’s battery pack, with the petrol engine cranking over automatically to recharge the battery when the power level starts to dip. Toyota claims a full tank of fuel will power appliances at maximum output for about two days.

The technology will initially only be available in Japan because of different voltage requirements and regulations, but bloggers around the globe are already singing the praises of the idea.

“That would be a huge selling point down here on the Gulf Coast, where it can take days for power to be restored after a hurricane,” cwallace wrote on The Truth About Cars blog.

“I went for 15 days without juice after Hurricane Ike, and it took 15 more to finally get the smell of gasoline out of my nose after searching for it, hauling it, and pouring it into a generator for two weeks straight.”

SMH

Electric Rolls Royce

2011-07-17T22:13:00.000-07:00

Drive takes the wheel of the quietest Rolls yet – the electric-powered 102EX.

A marriage made in heaven, or an odd couple bound for divorce? Not even Rolls-Royce knows if the arranged nuptials of its ageless flagship, the Phantom, and the alternative fuel technology du jour, a plug-in electric drivetrain, will make it beyond the honeymoon phase.

Still, though, what a honeymoon it will be. The 102EX Experimental Electric - as the $3 million, emission-free, one-off concept is known - will spend the next year touring most of the company's major markets (but not Australia) to gauge the reactions of customers, media and influential decision makers to the union of a couple of unlikely bedfellows.

Even though Rolls-Royce firmly vows "we won't" when asked if it will put this model into production, it's clear from the time, money and effort expended that it would dearly love to get some sort of commitment from its notoriously fickle clientele.

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Or, at the very least, a mandate for another direction that will hedge the company and its thirsty V12 engines against the planet's dwindling oil supplies.

The 102EX's very first stop is Singapore, and it's here that Drive is among the first in the world to get behind the wheel of the electric Roller. In total, only 500 people - mostly current customers - will be asked to drive the car during the year-long tour; only a select handful of media will be granted access to the Frankenstein-like creation.

On a grey, typically sticky day in the Asian hub city, our first glimpse of the 102EX comes outside a makeshift gallery that Rolls-Royce has set up directly adjacent to the city's bustling seaport.

Piles of shipping containers and a noisy fleet of forklifts and cranes form a drab backdrop as the object of our curiosity hoves silently and elegantly into view, resplendent in a unique silver-green paintwork that took 18 coats to apply and whose "ceramic nano particles" that lend the car its metallic sheen are said to be 8000 times smaller than the thickness of a hair.

It's our first lesson in the attention paid to detail by the UK-based super-luxury manufacturer, which set out to create a car that is more than simply a test bed for an experimental drivetrain.

There's also some startlingly modern detail inside the cabin, with the traditional wooden panelling replaced by aluminised foil, while seats made of "corinova" leather intentionally show more character flaws than traditional models. The leather look extends to the floor with thick plates of the stuff replacing luxurious woollen carpets.

Outside, the famed "Spirit of Ecstasy" bonnet emblem is bathed in a funky blue glow, while a beautifully designed power plug replaces the fuel filler cap and can glow different colours to denote modes of recharging.

But that's all a sideshow to the main act, which is the replacement of the Phantom's stock 6.75-litre V12 engine with a bank of 96 batteries under the bonnet, while two electric motors inhabit the space where the petrol tank used to be.

The result is a combined 290kW of power and a handy 800Nm of torque, the latter all available from the moment you press firmly on the accelerator (one never "mashes" the pedal in a Roller).

The 2.7-tonne, 5.8-metre long behemoth surges forward with an even more ridiculous ease than its V12-motivated Phantom brother, surfing a fat wave of torque all the way up to the signposted 70km/h speed limit on one of Singapore's industrial artery roads.

Sure, it's not as quick on paper as the Phantom - 0 to 100km/h in 8.0 seconds versus 5.7 - but it does feel more responsive to both standing and rolling accelerative requests.

The unique Rolls-Royce "power reserve" meter shows that under brisk acceleration we're not even tapping half the engine's potential, and you fancy the electric car's governed 160km/h limit is selling it a long way short of its true capability.

Absent from all of this is the expected snarl of a big-block engine, and the rhythmic rise and fall of a convential auto transmission. This is a Rolls-Royce, after all, but even for owners accustomed to the serenity of their own cars this almost-total aural deprivation will be something quite new.

The twin electric motors are silent save for a barely perceptible whine, and the single gear builds momentum in a satisfyingly - if slightly disconcerting - linear fashion.

The only real noise, then, comes from the tyres - not entirely unexpected given a 2.7-tonne car riding on massive 21-inch rims on coarse chip surfaces around the Singapore docks precinct.

It's nigh on impossible to separate the Phantom - which we drove directly before the 102EX on the same roads - and the 102EX on ride quality, because the Rolls-Royce suspension system that uses airbags instead of springs is superbly calibrated to both cars to produce the trademark "waftability" that the marque's owners demand.

The 102EX also maintains an extremely similar weight balance to the Phantom, with a 640kg battery pack replacing the engine block at the front of the car, and motors replacing the fuel tank at the rear.

Set a fairly direct out-and-back course and with a lead car governing our pace - and a nervous team of engineers in the back seat - there was little opportunity to find out how the 102EX fares in corners. But given the air suspension and a tall, boxy body, it's probably not going to cause Ferrari's engineers any sleepless nights.

Range anxiety was not an issue during our short time with the car, although with others scheduled to drive the car later in the day we were politely requested not to run the airconditioner above its lowest setting - somewhat of a problem as the temperature outside hit 31.5 degrees and the humidity hovered around 80 per cent.

Notwithstanding that the maximum range of 200km will probably only be achievable by turning off some creature comforts that some owners won't be happy to forgo, the 102EX is the most resolved electric car I have experienced, because it ticks almost every box its customers are likely to demand.

Rolls-Royce even has a dignified solution to recharging, eschewing unsightly cables in favour of an induction pad that sits under the car and received a wireless transfer of electricity from a loop embedded in the customer's garage floor.

The marque already has a head-start on other electric vehicle suppliers who are hampered by the inflated costs of building the technology on a relatively small scale, forcing prices out of the reach of most ordinary customers.

Rolls-Royce customers care little of cost; if the car performs to their high standards, and has a a tinge of green credibility about it, it could well prompt enough of them to pledge "I will" for this marriage of convenience to finally be consumated.

ROLLS-ROYCE 102EX EXPERIMENTAL ELECTRIC

Fast facts
Engine: Two electric motors mounted on the rear sub-frame
Power: 290kW (2x145kW)
Torque: 800Nm
Transmission: One-speed auto with integrated differential 0-100KM/h: 8.0 seconds approx
Top speed: Limited to 160km/h
Emissions and CO2: Nil
Weight: 2720kg
Range: 200km
Battery: 96-cell nickel cobalt manganese battery located beneath the bonnet; 71kWh capacity
Recharging: 20 hours (single phase); or 8 hours (three phase)
How much? $3 million approx

SMH

New Range Rover less emissions than a Yaris or Swift

2011-06-29T22:05:00.001-07:00

Two-wheel-drive version of new Range Rover Evoque costs less than $50,000 and emits less CO2 than a Toyota Yaris.

A Range Rover for under $50,000? Until now, a five-year-old Range Rover Sport was your only option. From next March, though, the spanking new five-door Evoque fitted with two-wheel-drive can be yours from $49,995.

Although that price excludes on-road costs, it's a starting point that will fire a shot across the bow of the likes of more expensive luxury soft-roaders such as the Volvo XC60, BMW X3 and Audi Q5.

The Evoque eD4 Pure will be equipped with a 110kW 2.2-litre turbo diesel engine that Land Rover says will achieve just 129 grams of CO2 per kilometre — less than a Toyota Yaris or Suzuki Swift city car.

The price-busting eD4 model comes standard with the baseline ''Pure'' specification, which includes 17-inch alloy wheels, LED fog lamps, part-leather seats, climate control aircondition, push-button start, Bluetooth phone and audio, a 5-inch colour display screen and colour TFT — or computerised — instrumentation. A leather-wrapped steering wheel includes audio, cruise and phone controls.

The Evoque's family-friendly five-door variant is less expensive than the three-door ''coupe'' version, which will carry a premium as the sportier variant.

Buyers can step up to two higher trim levels: Dynamic (adds $13,500) and Prestige (a further $2000).

Range Rover also offers a more expensive and more powerful 140kW turbo diesel engine (SD4), plus a 177kW petrol engine (Si4).

The Evoque that drives its front wheels only won't hit Australian shores until March next year, while the rest of the 4WD range is due to hit showrooms in November 2012.

(SMH)

Great new Bamboo Kitchenware Products

2011-06-16T18:40:00.001-07:00

Green Demon Eco Store now has a great range of Bamboo Household products in store, at the markets and online.

Click here to see!

Bolivia is set to pass the Law of Mother Earth, which will grant nature the same rights and protections as humans

2011-05-24T18:03:00.000-07:00

With the cooperation of politicians and grassroots organizations, Bolivia is set to pass the Law of Mother Earth, which will grant nature the same rights and protections as humans. The piece of legislation, called la Ley de Derechos de la Madre Tierra, is intended to encourage a radical shift in conservation attitudes and actions, to enforce new control measures on industry, and to reduce environmental destruction.

The law redefines natural resources as blessings and confers the same rights to nature as to human beings, including: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered. Perhaps the most controversial point is the right "to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities".
In late 2005 Bolivia elected its first indigenous president, Evo Morales. Morales is an outspoken champion for environmental protection, petitioning for substantive change within his country and at the United Nations. Bolivia, one of South America's poorest countries, has long had to contend with the consequences of destructive industrial practices and climate change, but despite the best efforts of Morales and members of his administration, their concerns have largely been ignored at the UN.

Just last year, in 2010, Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca expressed his distress "about the inadequacy of the greenhouse gas reduction commitments made by developed countries in the Copenhagen Accord." His remarks were punctuated by the claim that some experts forecasted a temperature increase "as high as four degrees above pre-industrial levels." "The situation is serious," Choquehuanca asserted. "An increase of temperature of more than one degree above pre-industrial levels would result in the disappearance of our glaciers in the Andes, and the flooding of various islands and coastal zones."
In 2009, directly following the resolution of the General Assembly to designate April 22 "International Mother Earth Day", Morales addressed the press, stating “If we want to safeguard mankind, then we need to safeguard the planet. That is the next major task of the United Nations”. A change to Bolivia's constitution in the same year resulted in an overhaul of the legal system - a shift from which this new law has sprung.

The Law of Mother Earth has as its foundation several of the tenets of indigenous belief, including that human are equal to all other entities. "Our grandparents taught us that we belong to a big family of plants and animals. We believe that everything in the planet forms part of a big family," Choquehuanca said. "We indigenous people can contribute to solving the energy, climate, food and financial crises with our values." The legislation will give the government new legal powers to monitor and control industry in the country.
"Existing laws are not strong enough," said Undarico Pinto, leader of the 3.5m-strong Confederación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia (a group that helped draft the law). "It will make industry more transparent. It will allow people to regulate industry at national, regional and local levels."

Bolivia will be establishing a Ministry of Mother Earth, but beyond that there are few details about how the legislation will be implemented. What is clear is that Bolivia will have to balance these environmental imperatives against industries - like mining - that contribute to the country's GDP.
Bolivia's successes or failures with implementation may well inform the policies of countries around the world. "It's going to have huge resonance around the world," said Canadian activist Maude Barlow. "It's going to start first with these southern countries trying to protect their land and their people from exploitation, but I think it will be grabbed onto by communities in our countries, for example, fighting the tarsands in Alberta."

Ecuador has enshrined similar aims in its Constitution, and is among the countries that have already shown support for the Bolivian initiative. Other include Nicaragua, Venezuela, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda.
National opposition to the law is not anticipated, as Morales' party - the Movement Towards Socialism - holds a majority in both houses of parliament. On April 20, two days before this year's "International Mother Earth Day", Morales will table a draft treaty with the UN, kicking off the debate with the international community.

Europe may ban plastic bags...

2011-05-19T21:25:00.000-07:00

With each European using 500 plastic bags per year, and tonnes of plastic littering the Mediterranean, the European Commission may ban them from stores or tax them to combat pollution.

Europe produced 3.4 million tonnes of plastic carrier bags in 2008 - the equivalent in weight of 2 million cars, according to the European Union's executive arm.

The bags often end up in the sea, taking hundreds of years to decompose, it said.

About 250 billion plastic particles weighing a total 500 tonnes litter the Mediterranean, threatening sea life, which can suffocate eating them.

In some EU states, plastic bags are banned from stores or consumers must pay for them in supermarket lines, but there is no EU-wide regulation.

The EU Commission on Wednesday launched a public consultation which will run until August to decide the best course of action to reduce the use of plastic bags.

"Fifty years ago, the single-use plastic bag was almost unheard of - now we use them for a few minutes and they pollute our environment for decades," said European environment commissioner Janez Potocnik.

"But social attitudes are evolving and there is a widespread desire for change. That's why we are looking at all the options, including a Europe-wide ban on plastic carrier bags," Potocnik said.

The EU executive said it also wants to gather opinions on increasing the visibility of biodegradable packaging products and boosting the biodegradability requirements for packaging.

mini-turbine battery chargers for New Jag hybrid Supercar

2011-05-08T19:33:00.000-07:00

Stunning C-X75 hybrid supercar concept confirmed for production. 322km/h. 0-100km/h in 3 seconds. Emissions below 100g/km.

Jaguar will build one of the fastest cars in the world after announcing its stunning C-X75 hybrid supercar concept will become a new halo model for the brand.

The British brand will make the star of the 2010 Paris motor show an exclusive proposition with just 250 C-X75s to be produced between 2013 and 2015, with a price tag for Australian buyers set to be as high as $2 million.

Jaguar is partnering with Formula One team Williams to create the supercar, which it says will be capable of speeds in excess of 320km/h and acceleration from 0-100km/h in less than three seconds.

A hybrid drivetrain will allow the C-X75 to be driven 50km on electric power alone with average emissions expected to be 99 grams per 100km, the company says.

The production model will initially not feature the helicopter-inspired micro-turbines that powered the concept’s batteries, though Jaguar says it is continuing to develop the technology and later examples of the C-X75 could employ the jet-powered propulsion system.

The C-X75 will instead be powered by a small-capacity “highly boosted” petrol engine combined with “powerful” electric motors on each axle that make the supercar all-wheel drive.

Jaguar says Williams’ expertise in aerodynamics, carbon composite construction and hybrid technology – the latter through the use of the kinetic energy recovery system (KERS) used in F1 racing - will be key to the C-X75’s success.

The C-X75 will be made of carbon-fibre to ensure the supercar is both incredibly light and rigid.

“People expect Jaguar to be innovators - that is when Jaguar is at its best," says Jaguar brand director Adrian Hallmark. “The C-X75 received an incredible reception as a concept car.

“We've been building on that momentum and there is a clear business case for this exclusive halo model. No other vehicle will better signify Jaguar's renewed confidence and excellence in technological innovation than this.”

The styling of the production C-X75 is not expected to stray far from the radical shape of the concept car.

Jaguar to build £700,000 hybrid supercar with Williams

2011-05-06T12:34:00.000-07:00

Jaguar to build £700,000 hybrid supercar with Williams

Jaguar has unveiled plans to build a £700,000 ($1.15m) petrol-electric hybrid supercar in the UK.

It will build 250 cars in partnership with Formula 1 team Williams F1.

The C-X75's ultra-light chassis and two electric motors will help it accelerate from nought to 60mph in three seconds.

It will have an all-electric range of 50km and its overall emissions of less than 100g CO2 per kilometre will be one of the lowest in the industry.

The car will have a top speed of more than 200mph, while the hybrid engine will extend the car's range well beyond 50km.

The move is part of a £5bn investment plan, announced by Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) in March at the Geneva motor show, to launch 40 "significant new products" over the next five years.

Production of the C-X75 will create more than 100 highly-skilled jobs in the UK. These will be split between Jaguar and Williams, which is based in Grove in Oxfordshire.

The model will be built from 2013 until 2015, although it has not yet been decided where production will take place.

Jaguars are currently manufactured at Castle Bromwich, near Birmingham, although JLR's headquarters are in Warwickshire.

'Clear business case'

The car offers proof that if they are well-engineered, efficient cars with low CO2 emissions can also deliver high performance.

The partnership is part of Williams F1's plan to extend the number of business areas it operates in

This points to "a sustainable future, but not a boring future", Mr Forster said.

As such, it marks a shift from the past when manufacturers would build high-performance flagship models to show off their capabilities to buyers of frugal, ordinary versions of the same cars.

The logic that anyone who can build a high-performance car should also be able to build good cars with small engines no longer holds, as there is a growing realisation that it is much more difficult to build a car that combines speed and handling with low fuel consumption.

"There is a clear business case for this exclusive halo model," Jaguar brand director Adrian Hallmark said.

Capabilities and skills

The car is central to the Indian-owned luxury car company JLR's plan to establish itself as a technology-inspired carmaker.

The C-X75 was first displayed in Paris in October with an experimental gas-powered jet engine

"It is a showcase of our capabilities and of the hi-tech engineering skills that exist within Jaguar and Williams F1," said Carl-Peter Forster, chief executive of JLR's parent company Tata Motors.

"This is a showcase of what can be done in this country if we all pull together."

The partnership between JLR and Williams F1 is part of the Formula 1 team's plan to extend the number of business areas from which it earns revenue, following hot on the heels of rival McLaren's expansion into, among other things, road car production and GT3 racing.

"In recent years, hybrid technology has been an area of acute development in Formula 1," said Williams F1 chairman Adam Parr, insisting it is only one example of F1 technology that could prove useful in other industries.

Williams F1 is in the process of creating subsidiaries that will sell its technology to companies elsewhere in the motor industry, or even in other industries such as energy, aerospace or health.

SEA levels will rise higher and faster than the United Nations predicted just four years ago

2011-05-04T14:38:00.000-07:00

SEA levels will rise higher and faster than the United Nations predicted just four years ago, a major international study has found.

The new data suggests that, on average, the seas will rise by up to 1.6 metres by the year 2100 - a finding that has serious implications for Australian governments grappling with coastal planning.

The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, based in Norway, found that the Greenland ice sheet is melting four times as fast as it was a decade ago.

''The past six years have been the warmest period ever recorded in the Arctic,'' the authors of the report said in a statement. ''In the future, global sea level is projected to rise by 0.9 metres to 1.6 metres by 2100 and the loss of ice from Arctic glaciers, ice caps and the Greenland ice sheet will make a substantial contribution.''

Each centimetre of sea-level rise roughly translates to one metre of beach erosion, meaning that the coastline can be expected to move 160 metres further inland.

The most recent assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released in 2007, put the projected rise at 59 centimetres by 2100. It acknowledged the views of many researchers that this figure was conservative.

In the past few years, sea levels have risen an average of about 3 millimetres a year, with 40 per cent of this attributed to melting Arctic glaciers, ice caps and the Greenland ice sheet.

The rate is expected to accelerate as the world warms this century and the process will be compounded as more ice cover is lost. White ice fields reflect sunlight away from the Earth's surface, whereas the darker oceans absorb more of the sun's heat, amplifying global warming.

Australia's Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency said its 2009 report into the effects had taken into account the possibility of high sea-level rises.

"There is growing consensus in the science community that sea-level rise at the upper end of the IPCC estimates is plausible by the end of this century, and that a rise of more than 1.0 metre and as high as 1.5 metres cannot be ruled out," its report said.

The report found that as many as 247,000 residential buildings with a value of $63 billion may be at risk of inundation from a sea-level rise scenario of 1.1 metres by 2100.

The NSW Office of Environment and Heritage said it would monitor scientific developments and provide new advice to coastal councils in 2014, when the UN is expected to finalise its next assessment.

You want to buy Green - but you don't. Why?

2011-05-02T13:39:00.000-07:00

Eco conscious consumers are not putting their money where their mouths are, according to new research which has found a ‘weak link’ between the intention of purchasing eco friendly electronic appliances and actually doing so.

The results of the survey suggests consumers don't think green products are inferior, but also reveals that while consumers are thinking green only 20 per cent are actually buying green, which Professor Tim Flannery, Panasonic Chair in Environmental Sustainability, Macquarie University, said needs to change.

“Awareness of environmental issues is extremely high and our next challenge is to turn that into everyday action,” Flannery said. “People are going to continue to purchase and use products such as consumer electronics and need to make sure they’re making the best possible decisions.”

Steve Rust, managing director, Panasonic Australia, said the results were disappointing considering the investment into developing environmentally friendly products.

“The message just isn’t translating into action. Consumers are making all of the right noises but at the end of the day they just aren’t buying green – at least with consumer electronics,” Rust said in a statement.

“The single best thing we can do to encourage more businesses to adopt better environmental behaviour is to make it more commercially attractive. We simply have to work out what is stopping consumers from buying green and overcome it.

Otherwise it is back to business as usual. Cheap bad quality products made overseas that affect us all.

From Current.com.au

Apple biggest user of coal and nuclear power

2011-04-24T14:47:00.000-07:00

'Dirty data' centres put Apple last on green list:

SAN FRANCISCO: Apple has come bottom of the most comprehensive green league table of technology companies because of its heavy reliance on ''dirty data'' centres.

The list, compiled by Greenpeace and released in San Francisco on Thursday, shows the company relies heavily on highly polluting coal power at the sites that house its servers.

Greenpeace's report, How Dirty Is Your Data?, reveals the company's investment in a new North Carolina plant will triple its electricity consumption, equivalent to the electricity demand of 80,000 US homes.

Advertisement: Story continues below The power will be a mix of 62 per cent coal and 32 per cent nuclear.

The lead author of the report, Greenpeace's IT policy analyst, Gary Cook, said: ''Consumers want to know that when they upload a video or change their Facebook status they are not contributing to global warming or future Fukushimas.''

The report estimated dependence on coal for Apple's data centres at 54.5 per cent, followed by Facebook at 53.2 per cent, IBM at 51.6 per cent, Hewlett-Packard at 49.4 per cent, and Twitter at 42.5 per cent. Top marks in another table, Greenpeace's clean energy index, went to Yahoo, followed by Google and Amazon.

Greenpeace is also campaigning for Facebook to ''unfriend coal'' and use cleaner energy to power its servers.

Mr Cook said: ''Many companies treat their energy consumption a bit like the Coca-Cola secret formula, because they don't want competitors knowing how much they spend on energy … they don't really want this story to be told.''

Data centre energy demand already accounts for 1.5 to 2 per cent of world electricity consumption and is set to quadruple over 10 years.

But Jonathan Koomey, a project scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, whose work was cited in the study, said the IT industry wrongly attracted criticism: ''The use of IT often reduces environmental impacts. When we compared greenhouse gas emissions for downloading music to buying it on a CD … downloads reduced emissions by 40 to 80 per cent.''

Guardian News & Media

Power bills going up AGAIN

2011-04-13T19:40:00.000-07:00

Huge Rise In Your Bills Coming Again...

Household electricity bills in NSW are set to rise by up to 18.1 per cent, or $316 a year following price rises outlined today by the pricing regulator.

A year ago, IPART approved rises of up to 13 per cent to be implemented from the middle of this year, with another round of rises of up to 11 per cent approved from the middle of next year.

At that time, it anticipated the average power bill for residents in rural NSW would reach $1900 a year, compared with between $1500 and $1600 for those living in Sydney, Wollongong and Newcastle.

Electricity prices are being forced higher as electricity companies boost their networks to avoid further blackouts, and are set to rise much faster if the federal government succeeds in introducing a carbon tax, which will force up prices.

When reviewing electricity prices in the middle of last year, IPART allowed rises of up to 36 per cent over the three years to 2012, warning prices would rise by as much as 60 per cent if the earlier planned carbon tax under consideration by former prime minister Kevin Rudd was introduced.

The likely impact of the carbon tax being considered by Prime Minister Julia Gillard on power prices is not yet clear, since no decision has been taken on the likely carbon price.

The state government said earlier the electricity companies would not pass on the blow-out in the cost of the government's solar panel scheme to households, instead raiding money from the Climate Change Fund to pay for the impact of these costs.

Under the latest changes, residential customers of EnergyAustralia will face rises of 17.9 per cent from July 1 (or $1513 over a year), Integral Energy 16.4 per cent ( $1619 over a year) and Country Energy 18.1per cent ($2063 over a year).

What can you do? Well, nothing about the rises, but you CAN start reducing your power usage by using some simple devices that can really reduce your bills. Click on this link to find out more:

http://www.greendemon.com.au/electricalenergysavingenergysavingdevices-c-12_53.html

Porsche Hybrid goes on sale....

2011-03-22T21:12:00.000-07:00

918 Spyder hybrid sports car will be cheap to run but not cheap to buy.

Porsche has opened the order books for its most fuel-efficient car - and it will cost Australians at least $1.5 million.

The German car maker has put a European price tag of 645,000 Euros on its new 918 Spyder that won't go into production until late 2013.

Porsche will build only 918 units of the Spyder, which will be constructed around an expensive but lightweight carbonfibre-reinforced plastic monocoque but will be left-hand drive only.

Porsche Australia says wealthy customers here can still order the 918 Spyder for use on a race track, though it has criticised the government for still applying the luxury car tax to a car that cannot be registered for the road locally.

"We have genuinely interested buyers [for the 918], even though they know it's left-hand-drive only," says company spokesman Paul Ellis. "It's absurd that the luxury car tax should be applied to a car that cannot be registered for road use in Australia."

The luxury car tax adds 210,000 Euros to the price, and with GST and other charges means the 918 Spyder is a $1.5 million proposition for buyers.

Porsche says Australians are being denied the company's most fuel efficient model yet, which is expected to use less than half the fuel of the average small car.

The two-seater 918, which will stay faithful to the 2010 concept car of the same name, is a plug-in hybrid estimated to use just three litres of fuel per 100km, with CO2 emissions of 70 grams per km.

It teams a 368kW mid-mounted V8 with two electric motors - one on each axle - that will produce a minimum combined output of 160kW.

The front electric motor effectively makes the 918 an all-wheel-drive car, with the V8's power sent to the rear wheels via a seven-speed dual-clutch auto.

The 918's lithium-ion battery will provide a 25km driving range in pure electric mode, with a top speed of 150km/h. Porsche says the battery can be charged from a conventional power socket in up to three hours.

Porsche's 918 concept didn't feature a roof but the production version will include roof panels that can be removed by hand and stowed in the car's front luggage compartment.

Customers ordering a 918 will also be given the option to purchase a limited edition 911 Turbo to ease their minimum two-and-a-half-year wait for the supercar.

Both the 911 Turbo S 'Edition 918 Spyder' coupe and convertible feature different leather seats, instrument dials, extra carbonfibre touches and decals to regular Turbo S models.

In Europe, the 'Edition 918 Spyder' 911 coupe and convertible cost €173,241 ($244,000) and €184,546 ($259,000) respectively

Green Vs Green on Solar in the U.S.

2011-03-14T17:23:00.000-07:00

Well, we wanted solar power, and now it's arriving in large scale projects, lots of former supporters in the U.S. are attempting to block construction of large-scale solar plants.

The problem seems to be the clearing of desert spaces and damaging or loosing wildlife habitats in the process. These are not a few solar panels, they are acres of panels that cover large areas of desert, so the argument is valid. The solution is for the ecologists and solar engineers to work together to find a balance - but this being America, the solution is lawsuits of course. More money for the lawyers, less for both sides to use for solutions.

These solar plants can actually provide enough power to run San Diego, we're not talking pipe-dream here, it's reality, and the planet needs this type of renewable energy desperately.

Just weeks after regulators approved the last of nine multibillion-dollar solar thermal power plants to be built in the Southern California desert, a storm of lawsuits and the resurgence of an older solar technology are clouding the future of the nascent industry.

The litigation, which seeks to block construction of five of the solar thermal projects, underscores the growing risks of building large-scale renewable energy plants in environmentally delicate areas. On Jan. 25, for instance, Solar Millennium withdrew its 16-month-old license application for a 250-megawatt solar station called Ridgecrest, citing regulators’ concerns over the project’s impact on the Mohave ground squirrel.

At peak output, the five licensed solar thermal projects being challenged would power more than two million homes, create thousands of construction jobs and help the state meet aggressive renewable energy mandates. The projects are backed by California’s biggest utilities, top state officials and the Obama administration.

But conservation, labor and American Indian groups are challenging the projects on environmental grounds. The lawsuits, coupled with a broad plunge in prices for energy from competing power sources, threaten the ability of developers to secure expiring federal loan guarantees and private financing to establish the projects. Only one developer so far,BrightSource Energy, has obtained a loan guarantee and begun construction.

Like so many of this state’s troubles, the industry’s problems are rooted in real estate.

After President George W. Bush ordered public lands to be opened to renewable energy development and California passed a law in 2006 to reduce carbon emissions, scores of developers staked lease claims on nearly a million acres of Mojave Desert land. The government-owned land offered affordable, wide-open spaces and the abundant sunshine needed by solar thermal plants, which use huge arrays of mirrors to heat liquids to create steam that drives electricity-generating turbines.

But many of the areas planned for solar development — including the five projects being challenged — are in fragile landscapes and are home to desert tortoises, bighorn sheep and other protected flora and fauna. The government sped through some of the required environmental reviews, and opponents are challenging those reviews as inadequate.

“There’s no good reason to go into these pristine wilderness areas and build huge solar farms, and less reason for the taxpayers to be subsidizing it,” said Cory J. Briggs, a lawyer representing an American Indian group that has sued the United States Interior Department and the Bureau of Land Management to stop five of the solar thermal plants. “The impacts to Native American culture and the environment are extraordinary.”

The risk that the suits will succeed in blocking construction could make it more difficult for the builders to get federal loan guarantees or attract private financing.

Officials with the Loan Programs Office of the United States Energy Department did not respond to requests for comment. However, department guidelines classify litigation risk as a significant factor to be considered when qualifying renewable energy projects for a loan guarantee.

Brett Prior, a solar analyst with the GTM Research firm, said commercial lenders also viewed the suits as a negative. “In general, there are more projects chasing project finance than there are funds available, so the investment banks can be selective when deciding which projects to support,” he said. “Projects with lawsuits pending will likely move to the back of the queue.”

The conflict over the California projects has already accelerated a shakeout among competing solar technologies.

Tessera Solar announced last week that it had sold its 709-megawatt Imperial Valley solar dish project, which had become the target of two lawsuits. The buyer, AES Solar, develops power plants using photovoltaic panels like those found on residential rooftops. The move follows Tessera’s sale of its 663.5-megawatt Calico solar dish power plant in late December, a week after the company lost its longstanding contract with a utility. Calico is the subject of three lawsuits, and the project’s new owner, a New York firm called K Road Power, said it planned to abandon most of the Tessera solar dishes and instead use photovoltaic panels.

Solar panels convert sunlight directly into electricity. They are based on an older, less efficient technology, but because of intense competition from Chinese panel makers, prices are plunging. Photovoltaic projects are also not subject to extensive environmental review by state regulators, but are instead approved by local officials.

As a result, photovoltaic projects are now more attractive to utilities. For instance, since January, Southern California Edison has signed contracts with developers to build eight photovoltaic farms that will generate 1,081 megawatts of electricity. Tellingly, seven of those projects will be built on private land

The ingredients that dare not speak their name

2011-02-27T17:26:00.000-08:00

Unlike most households, Vegemite toast is no longer a staple at chef Jared Ingersoll's place. The jar has gone to the back of the cupboard. Owned by the US company Kraft, the nation's favourite spread may contain genetically modified (GM) ingredients. Likewise, Australia's favourite chocolate treat, the Caramello Koala.

Both have been given a ''red light'' by the Truefood Guide, an annual consumer guide by Greenpeace to be published on Tuesday. The Guide earmarks commonplace foods that either contain GM ingredients or whose manufacturers refuse to provide transparent information regarding the origin of ingredients. Other ''red lights'' include Smith's Crisps, Kellogg's K-Time Twists, Baker's Delight breads, Naytura cereals, Birds Eye fish fingers and Ingham's chicken nuggets.

''Green lights'' have been awarded to companies including Sanitarium, the makers of Weet-Bix, Schweppes Cottee's Cordial, Heinz baby food, and Goodman Fielder, the bakers of Wonder White and Mighty Soft breads.

Ian Greenshields, director of corporate affairs at Goodman Fielder, says the company implemented a non-GM policy in reaction to consumer concern. "Across all of our brands we've found that consumers are mistrustful of GM ingredients in their food," he says.

Consumer interest was also the impetus for the Truefood Guide's focus on foods marketed at children, after they were inundated with enquiries from concerned parents following Truefood Australia's detection of GM ingredients in S-26 soy infant formula last September.

Laura Kelly, the genetic engineering team leader at Truefood Australia, says theGuide gives parents information that labels don't. "In the absence of mandatory labelling, theGuide helps parents make informed choices."

Ingersoll will launch the guide with fellow chef Peter Gilmore of Quay and the Wiggles' Murray Field. All are concerned about the lack of transparency in food labelling, opinions they made known to the recent Independent Review of Food Labelling Law and Policy. "The refusal to label all foods that contain GM ingredients means our options are removed," Ingersoll says. "We need to have the opportunity to make informed choices for our kids."

His concerns have fallen on deaf ears. The review received 6486 submissions from consumers. Chaired by the former health minister Neal Blewett, it did not recommend mandatory labelling of foods that contain GM ingredients, a requirement already mandatory in Britain, France and Germany.

The approval and labelling requirements of foods containing GM ingredients is the responsibility of Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ). In November last year Senator Nick Xenophon and the Greens senator Rachel Siewert introduced a bill to Parliament that would require FSANZ to implement mandatory labelling of food containing GM material.

"This is an area where consumers are being deliberately left in the dark," Mr Xenophon says. "The labelling requirements for GM need to be completely overhauled and tough new standards need to be enforced."

FSANZ relies on information provided by the applicant to assess the safety of a food product. It says that manufacturer self-regulation of this nature is in line with international standards, namely the principles of the United Nations' food regulatory arm, the Codex Alimentarius Commission (the Codex), of which Australia is a member.

However, like the US government's food regulatory authorities, FSANZ seemingly overlooks the Codex's standards for labelling prepackaged foods, which clearly state that labelling should include "any special requirements to ensure that the consumer is not deceived or misled about the nature of the food".

A recent Auditor-General's report found FSANZ's analysis of data supplied by manufacturing companies lacking. The FSANZ chief scientist, Dr Paul Brent, when asked if FSANZ undertakes scientific testing of products, replied: "No, in order to get an approval the applicant supplies us with information from which we make an assessment."

Ms Kelly at Truefood Australia says the system is not good enough. "Relying on data supplied by the manufacturer is hardly robust regulation."

On Thursday Forbes writer Glenn Lammi called individuals concerned about GM ingredients "foodie elite" and "Luddite activists".

Mr Xenophon disagrees. "This is an issue that transcends ideological fault lines. Many consumers would prefer not to eat GM products, but right now they don't have a choice."

Ms Kelly agrees. "All we ask is to prove that it is safe, and label it," she said.

SMH

World's first Diesel Hybrid - Amazing 1.9L per 100km's

2011-02-22T19:05:00.000-08:00

World's first diesel plug-in hybrid to offer 1200km range and lowest ever emissions.

Volvo has unveiled a new family wagon that sips around half the fuel of Australia's most efficient car.

The V60 Plug-in Hybrid concept is the world's first rechargeable diesel-electric vehicle and has a combined claimed fuel consumption of just 1.9 litres per 100km, while emitting just 49g/km of carbon dioxide - unprecedented numbers in the world of hybrid cars. By comparison, the most efficient car on sale in Australia, Ford's diesel-powered Fiesta Econetic, uses 3.7 litres per 100km and emits 98g/km.

The V60 is fitted with a five-cylinder 2.4-litre turbo diesel engine producing 150kW of power and 440Nm of torque, which sends power to the front wheels. The rear wheels can be driven by a rear-mounted 50kW electric motor that adds an extra 200Nm of torque.

Advertisement: Story continues below Volvo says the V60 Plug-in won't just appeal to those focused on fuel savings, saying the V60 offers the appeal of three cars in one - because the car can be operated in three modes.

In Pure mode the car runs only using the electric motor, and has a range of up to 50km and pumps out zero exhaust emissions. Recharging is estimated to take between three and seven hours, depending on the power source.

Hybrid mode focuses on combining the diesel engine and electric motor to save fuel, and is the mode to choose if your aim is to replicate the claimed 1.9L/100km.

Power mode, however, focuses on performance - offering a combined power output of 200kW and 640Nm, which enables to V60 to sprint from 0-100km/h in just 6.9 seconds despite the extra weight from the batteries and electrics.

As with all Volvos, there is an enhanced focus on safety - the V60 Plug-in features extra collision safeguards to stop the car's batteries from being crushed in an impact, while power to the batteries is cut off as soon as the car's sensors pick up an impact.

The V60 Plug-in concept will be officially unveiled at the Geneva motor show on 1st March.

It is scheduled to go on sale in 2012 and is being considered for the Australian market.

Power bill rises - worse than we thought.

2011-02-04T19:21:00.000-08:00

ELECTRICITY bills are set to surge by as much as 20 per cent from July, as power companies apply for their second round of rises within a year.

It comes as Sydney is hit with rolling blackouts and demand is pushed to new peaks after a week of extreme weather conditions.

Today, the heatwave will push the temperature to above 40 degrees in the city's west, prompting fears of more blackouts as ageing power equipment wilts under the pressure of exceptionally high demand and the hot weather.

Parts of Enfield, Croydon Park, Belfield and south Strathfield were expected to lose power again yesterday while two EnergyAustralia main cables were being repaired.

But 22 mobile generators were in use and peak afternoon use was slightly lower than it had been.

More than 12,000 residences and businesses have lost power in the past five days.

The average household bill will rise by $130 a year under applications to the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal yesterday. The rise is about twice that already approved.

EnergyAustralia is seeking a $56 rise for the average customer to cover costs incurred this financial year from the federal government's renewable energy scheme.

Another $73 is to cover the costs of carbon reduction schemes for 2011-12, taking the rise for each household to $129 a year from July 1.

Integral Energy and Country Energy are seeking similar rises.

The decision to shelve the carbon pollution reduction scheme will result in households paying more for their electricity than if it had gone ahead.

Under the scheme the annual household rise would have been $63. In the middle of last year, electricity retailers were given approval to raise prices by 42 per cent over the three years to 2012-13.

Under the original approval, electricity prices were to rise by up to 13 per cent from midyear, following on from increases of up to 13 per cent implemented from the middle of last year.

EnergyAustralia customers faced increases of 10 per cent from July 1, which will now be 20 per cent if the regulator approves the rises, as it is expected to do.

Customers of Integral Energy face slightly lower increases while those for Country Energy customers will be slightly higher.

These rises have been approved to allow upgrades to the electricity network to avoid blackouts.

The extra price rise applications lodged yesterday will push these increases to 20 per cent, as the power companies invest to boost the use of renewable energy sources, to reduce carbon emissions under federal government demands.

If the government's carbon pollution reduction scheme had gone ahead, this would have resulted in energy-efficiency schemes operated by the NSW government, such as the GGAS scheme and the newest energy-efficiency scheme, being halted.

''Without the CPRS, the GGAS scheme has had to be extended, and then there is the new energy-efficiency scheme that is being implemented,'' an industry source said yesterday.

''These inefficient state-based schemes are pushing up power prices.

''The federal government's CPRS would have been a more efficient way of recovering these costs.''

SMH

Insulated Stainless Steel Water Bottles - 1L & 600ml

2011-02-01T16:18:00.001-08:00

The Cheeki insulated series are double-lined to help you keep your drinks fresh and cold all day long!

They can even be used for warm liquids as well in winter. Stops condensation - ideal for cars, bags and well, pretty much anywhere really. Fits all Cheeki lids.

Throw them in your bag and keep hydrated. Safe, Healthy, BPA-Free – No nasty toxins to leach into your drinking water; pure stainless steel inside with BPA-free lids. Notice how the water tastes fresh and clear! Non-toxic inks used on artwork exteriors. Cheeki Bottles are manufactured from Premium 18/8 304 Food Grade Stainless Steel.

Specifications
Environmental Concerns - Unless disposable plastic bottles are incinerated, they will be around in landfills, oceans and parks for hundreds of years. Most of us nowadays like to think that we are environmentally conscious, yet take a look at how many people are buying, carrying around and throwing out plastic bottles on a daily basis! Its mind-boggling. (not to mention the health risk, the taste or the expense). Millions of plastic bottles are thrown out – it’s really one of modern life ’s most ludicrous “developments” (not to mention the energy consumed in transportation and refrigeration).

About BPA – Bisphenol A is extremely widespread among many household plastics such as baby bottles and food storage containers. BPA is a chemical used in the manufacture of plastics and epoxy resins and is a known carcinogen that has been linked to brain synapse, reproductive and developmental impairments. Canada announced in 2008 it’s intent to ban the sale of baby bottles containing BPA’s.

Furthermore, repeated use of common disposable bottles (PET) can cause the plastic to break down and carcinogens to leach into your drinking water. Try leaving a full plastic bottle (re-used) and a full Cheeki bottle overnight and next morning take a sip from each – the difference in taste is incredible.

Economy
You only need to refill your Cheeki bottle approximately five times as compared to purchasing five bottled waters to “break even”. We then hope you refill your Cheeki bottle five hundred times – for free!! (that’s a saving of about $1700!)

http://www.greendemon.com.au/cheeki600mlinsulatedstainlesssteelsilverbottle-p-597.html

Canberra Uni bans plastic water bottles

2011-01-20T13:46:00.000-08:00

THE University of Canberra has become the first Australian campus to ban the sale of bottled water, setting what environmentalists hope will prove a template for the rest of the country.

If successful in encouraging students to refill bottles, the ban is estimated to reduce water bottle sales by 140,000 a year.

Bottled water will be replaced in campus cafes and shops by water vending machines that refill a 600 millilitre container with chilled water for $1 or sparkling water for $1.50 - cheaper than a sealed bottle.

Advertisement: Story continues below Refillable plastic and aluminium bottles will be sold on campus. Backed by funding from the ACT government, the university has also installed six water bubbler and bottle refill stations on the campus.

Jon Dee, from the activist group Do Something!, helped organise the ban after a student campaign. He said it would save people money and help the environment.

''This sets a model that other universities can follow - we're talking to several universities that have expressed interest,'' he said.

A survey two years ago by the Plastics and Chemicals Industries Association estimated that more than half the plastic bottles sold in Australia ended up in landfill.

Mr Dee said government statistics suggested more than 105 million litres of oil were used to produce the bottled water sold in Australia each year. This translated to 126,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year.

Bundanoon, a southern NSW town with a population of 2000, banned water bottle sales in 2009.

The University of Canberra vice-chancellor, Stephen Parker, said the ban was part of a push to make the campus sustainable. ''We have plentiful supplies of fresh, healthy, free drinking water on campus. There is no need for our students or staff to buy bottled water.''

SMH

Gadget charger harnesses walking power

2011-01-05T16:40:00.000-08:00

Gadget charger harnesses walking power
January 6, 2011 - 9:11AM

This device uses kinetic energy to charge your gadgets.
A US company has come up with a baton-shaped device that charges gadgets using power generated by walking, hiking or running.

Tremont Electric was in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, where it will tout the nPower PEG (personal energy generator) as ideally suited for today's gizmo-dependent lifestyles.

"It's for any outdoors enthusiast who is deep in the woods and doesn't have access to a power outlet or for a commuter who constantly needs backup battery power," said Jessica Davis of Tremont.

"You could use this for an emergency situation or just for your commute."

PEG batons measure nine inches (23 centimetres) and weigh 11 ounces (312 grams). Electricity is generated when floating magnets slide through coils, according to Davis.

The batons can be put in a backpack, brief case, or runner's pouch where they synch to up-and-down motion to generate power.

"It tunes to optimise the amount of power being produced," Davis said.

PEG works with more than 3000 handheld devices that are USB 2.0 compatible.

The Ohio-based company began selling the U$S160 "kinetic" chargers in September and has been scrambling to catch up to demand.

http://www.npowerpeg.com/

AFP

Aussies do their bit as solar panel use surges

2010-12-20T17:45:00.000-08:00

Aussies do their bit as solar panel use surges

Australians have installed more than 100,000 rooftop solar panels this year, more than in the entire previous decade, new data shows.

The clean energy sector says it shows Australians are keen to do their bit in the battle against climate change.

A report by Clean Energy Australia, released by the peak industry body today, provides a snapshot into just how Australia uses renewable energy.

It showed there were 105,520 solar power systems installed in Australia in the 10 months from January to October 2010, more than the 81,232 installed from 2001 to 2009.

The council's chief executive Matthew Warren said it made solar power technology the "Hills Hoist of the 21st century".

"Over the past year, more than 100,000 households have made a significant personal investment to take individual action on climate change," he said in a statement.

It was also a sign Australians were bracing themselves against hikes in electricity prices, Mr Warren said.

Electricity costs are slated to rise by up to two-thirds in NSW and Queensland by 2015 to meet increasing energy demands, with at least $100 billion needed to upgrade aging infrastructure.

Mr Warren said investments in clean energy would be much cheaper.

The report forecasts that the government's 20 per cent Renewable Energy Target (RET) will dramatically boost the sector, with more than 55,000 jobs to be created by 2020, mostly wind and solar.

That's up from the 8085 that presently exist.

Mr Warren said policy uncertainty surrounding climate change and renewables had slowed investment in large-scale clean energy projects, which recorded just modest growth.

Seventeen major projects were recorded to October this year, although another 11 are under way.

Overall, 8.67 per cent of Australia's electricity was provided by renewable sources in 2010, creating 21,751 gigawatt hours, with the remainder coming from fossil fuels.

SMH 21.12.10

Plastic bags could be going...

2010-12-19T15:22:00.000-08:00

Plastic out, biodegradable bags in to reduce landfill

Days numbered . . . plan to ban supermarket bags. Photo: Jon Reid
THE state government plans to introduce biodegradable bags to supermarket checkouts and open more waste collection centres to reduce landfill.

They are part of a draft waste avoidance plan to be released today by the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water. It encourages businesses to recycle more and invest in waste infrastructure.

If the draft is adopted, compostable bags would be trialled in several supermarkets to gauge public acceptance.

Food scraps wrapped in compostable bags would be mixed with garden refuse and councils would be encouraged to combine collections for the two.

''By separating food scraps for compost we can greatly reduce the amount of waste that goes to landfill,'' the Environment Minister, Frank Sartor, said.

Plans for a national ban on plastic bags were scrapped in 2008.

South Australia, the ACT and the Northern Territory have since banned them and Tasmania is expected to legislate next year.

The national technical manager of the recycling company Remondis, Mohan Selvaraj, said it was sensible to run a pilot program because compostable bags had variable success overseas and their strength is questioned.

Mr Sartor said a ban on plastic bags was likely once compostable bags were accepted.

The government will also increase the number of council waste collection centres for difficult items such as gas bottles, car batteries or paint. Talks to oblige manufacturers of problem wastes to help recycle products have become bogged down.

A scheme for electronic waste such as televisions and computers will start next year but there is argument over the cost and impact of so-called extended producer responsibility for other wastes. If there is no progress at a national level by 2013, NSW will introduce its own measures.

There will also be clearer land-use planning guidelines under the action plan in an attempt to attract more investment in recycling facilities.

The manager of sustainability at Veolia Environmental Services, Peter Shmigel, called on the government to follow Victoria and provide infrastructure subsidies. NSW collects more than $300 million a year in landfill levies but reinvests little in recycling, he said.

The action plan is designed to push NSW closer to its goal of recycling about two-thirds of waste by 2014. In 2008-09 the state recycled 59 per cent of the waste generated.

Consultation on the draft plan runs until February, when Mr Sartor will finalise the plan.

Aaron Cook
December 20, 2010 (SMH)

Doing nothing on climate is a fool's wager

2010-12-06T21:44:00.000-08:00

Doing nothing on climate is a fool's wager
Barry Jones (SMH)
December 7, 2010
With nothing to lose and much to gain, action is in the national interest.

Climate change as a political issue has probably had a greater effect in Australia than any other nation. In 2007, when Kevin Rudd campaigned on climate change as ''the greatest moral issue of our time'', it was a major factor in defeating the Howard government and sweeping the ALP into office.

Last December, the Copenhagen climate change conference failed to secure international agreement for binding targets for greenhouse gas reductions and was beset by controversy about the validity of projections by climatologists.

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Australia retreated from its aspiration to be seen as an international leader and exemplary model in setting greenhouse goals, and Labor made the inexplicable blunder of failing to involve the community in education and advocacy, despite opinion polls indicating that more than 60 per cent of voters favoured setting a carbon price and acting decisively on climate change.

In the 2010 federal election, climate change was barely mentioned as an issue and Prime Minister Julia Gillard's proposal to establish a ''citizens' assembly'' of 150 to promote public engagement in climate change attracted much derision.

Climate change was central in reducing Labor's primary vote to 38 per cent, increasing the Greens vote to 11.7 per cent, and may have contributed to the high informal vote.

Labor's vote fell sharply in the mining states of Queensland and Western Australia, increased in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. The ALP maintained a majority of seats in New South Wales despite growing distaste for the state Labor government.

Australia refuses to face a ''post-carbon'' future. The moral implications have been marginalised. National Times columnist Elizabeth Farrelly's coinages ''climate morality'' and ''carbon ethics'' are timely and appropriate, but they are not in the political lexicon.

After the 2010 election produced a hung parliament, Gillard negotiated a deal with the Greens and independents that put climate change back on the agenda. The concept of Australia ''going it alone'' to set a moral example and secure a stronger bargaining position in international negotiations had become a sour joke. We were trailing far behind.

Despite Barack Obama's problems with his Senate, he grasped the issues and some states, notably California, had taken leadership roles. China, potentially facing the greatest risk from climate change of any major state, seemed to be taking practical action. Britain and New Zealand have both adopted carbon prices.

In Australia, the opposition is strongly opposed to setting a carbon price and the Gillard government is hesitant. It is probably too late for Australia to act unilaterally - and courageously - on greenhouse targets. We may be able to regain some moral authority if we propose higher targets, developing new scientific programs for alternatives to fossil fuels and work constructively with the US, European Union, China, India and Indonesia.

I have proposed my own variant of ''Pascal's wager'' to examine the options for climate change:

■ If we take action on climate change and disaster is averted, there will be massive avoidance of human suffering.

■ If we take action and the climate change problem abates for other reasons, little is lost and we benefit from a cleaner environment.

■ If we fail to act and disaster results, then massive suffering will have been aggravated by stupidity.

■ If we do not take action and there is no disaster, the outcome will be due to luck alone, like an idiot winning the lottery.

Failure to act appears to favour the present but it certainly prejudices the future. As the French diplomat Talleyrand acutely observed 200 years ago, ''Not to choose is to choose''.

Political failure on climate change in Australia has had three direct consequences: inaction on the issue, political mayhem, and the sacrifice of international influence.

Crisis-driven policy is a consequence of inaction, which in turn heightens the risk both of environmental disaster and political upheaval. Public involvement in the climate change debate is critical and must be genuine. But there are limits to consensus and, ultimately, decisions will need to be made based on what needs to be done. Leadership matters and political will is required if outcomes are to be changed.

The electorate appears to want, or is at least prepared to tolerate, action even if tough. Policy and the debate that surrounds policy development needs to be informed and critical: opinion must be distinguished from fact, arguments must be supported, and not all opinions carry equal weight in the absence of such support.

A solution will need to be found to the ''two cultures'' approach that separates scientists and economists: the environment and the economy are interdependent. Ultimately, Australia can and should choose to set a moral example and work towards a new economic base. Moreover, as the new version of Pascal's wager suggests, action is the low-risk road with the prospect of highest reward. It is in the national interest to take it.

Professor Barry Jones is a writer, broadcaster and former federal Labor politician. He is currently a professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne. This is an edited version of an essay commissioned by the Whitlam Institute within the University of Western Sydney that will be launched today.

New Ausiie $10k Electric car from 2102

2010-11-26T19:09:00.000-08:00

An Australian-designed designed electric car to be built in China plans to take on the world with a sub-$10,000 price, an iPad like dash capable of downloading apps and the promise of never needing fuel.

Set to debut at July's Melbourne motor show, the Noddy-like EDay hatch will initially arrive next year as 100 lease vehicles before going on sale in 2012 from $9990 (plus on-road costs), undercutting petrol powered competitors by thousands and about 14 per cent of the price of the only mass produced electric car on sale today, Mitsubishi's i-MiEV.

Able to travel up to 160km between charges, it has a top speed of just 80km/h and a weight of 450kg it will be the slowest and lightest new car on the market - and the cheapest, something sure to cement its appeal in a segment where shaving a few hundred dollars can boost sales.

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The top secret project is being run by EDay Life, a small Australian company run by former Holden director of innovation and advanced engineering Laurie Sparke and car dealer Robert Lane. The pair have formed a team of 20 designers and engineers and are finalising plans to sell the cars in countries as diverse as Malaysia, Hong Kong, UK and France.

"What we're bringing ... is Australian innovative technology," says Sparke of the ambitious start-up project. "We are going to develop the new-generation of electric car."

While the prospect of a start-up taking on the established car makers may seem laughable, Sparke says the size, flexibility and clean-sheet approach brings advantages.

Just as fledgling brand Tesla prompted others to take notice - Toyota has since signed an agreement with the Californian electric car specialist - he predicts a rise of next-generation vehicle manufacturers driven from the IT industry, pointing to the Dell computers business model of lean manufacturing.

"If you look at who is driving [the technology behind] electric cars, they're not from the auto industry," says Sparke. "It's the new technology that is coming, and the global [automotive] manufacturers can't respond."
Sparke says a ground-up design allows engineering flexibility while Australian ingenuity - often leveraged by US giants Ford and General Motors with their local operations - and EDay's miniscule size gives it an advantage over established players.

"Currently an electric car is simply the smallest car in a global manufacturer's range. It's had the engine pulled out and an electric motor put in - that's a very compromised solution. An electric car needs to be different in a whole range of ways and we'll develop those in Australia.

The EDay will also get a touchscreen display to control major functions and the ability to download apps that could include everything from basic vehicle data to vehicle-to-home communication

Sparke believes the world will be accepting of an affordable electric car. Already there are various Australian fledgling operations converting conventional hatchbacks into electric vehicles, but the EDay promises to be by far the most affordable.

"Our global advantage is we'll be able to do that in a time frame of three to six months with smart solutions that aren't locked up in the way cars are always being done," he says. "And we'll have globally competitive vehicles."

However, he concedes manufacturing a budget electric car in Australia doesn't make sense, prompting the move to utilise the low manufacturing costs of China, which is fast becoming a global automotive powerhouse. With production set for a Shanghai plant with capacity of 50,000 (and potential for 100,000) EDay plans to sell the cars around the world.

"What we've been very skilled at in Australia the last 20 years is smart engineering. We [Australia] can't manufacture as cheap as China, but we can design, develop, test and certify and that's the automotive business that Australia can do, a world-competitive business."

Sparke admits the EDay is a specific vehicle that will sell largely on price and its zero emissions promise.
"We're starting with a car that's fairly mundane," he admits. "But we'll satisfy the market needs because people are eager to have an electric car and its looks are a secondary consideration.

Sparke, who was instrumental in introducing life saving safety features into the Holden Commodore is aware of the mountainous road ahead in a world where profits have slimmed and major brands been forced to change the way they do business.

"Today's challenge is to establish ourselves in the market as a credible supplier of electric vehicles," he says. "To ensure we don't compromise that credibility, we've gone to a lot of effort to monitor this fleet so we don't trip over when we go into a larger volume of production.

"We'll utilise Australian technology and suppliers to do the prototype and testing here. And when we've got a proven solution, we'll send that to our manufacturers in China and they'll produce it."

Europe has banned baby bottles containing the chemical Bisphenol-A

2010-11-25T14:44:00.000-08:00

Europe has banned baby bottles containing the chemical Bisphenol-A as of early next year over fears it may harm the health of children throughout the EU's half a billion population.

Parents across the European Union, the world's biggest open market, "can be sure that as of mid-2011 plastic infant feeding bottles will not include BPA", said John Dalli, commissioner in charge of health and consumer policy.

"This is good news for European consumers."

The ban will see the "manufacture of polycarbonate infant feeding bottles with BPA" outlawed from March 1, 2011, and from June 1, 2011, "the placing on the market and the importation into the union of these bottles will be prohibited", the commission underlined in a statement.

Dalli's spokesman Frederic Vincent told AFP that the commission successfully "tried its luck" by bringing forward a proposal originally intended for presentation in early 2011 and seek backing for a ban before a committee of national government experts already scheduled to meet on Thursday.

The decision does not require the approval of the European Parliament, which in any case called in June for such a ban.

"This is the result of months of discussion and exchange of views between the commission's services, the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA), the member states and the industry," a delighted commission added.

Canada became in October the first country in the world to classify Bisphenol-A as a toxic substance despite industry opposition.

Only two EU countries, France and Denmark, had unilaterally imposed bans on baby bottles with the controversial substance. Danish authorities went a step further by extending the prohibition to all food products for children up to three years old.

Bans are already in place in Canada and a few US states. A similar voluntary move is under way in Australia.

EFSA issued in September an opinion by experts on the chemical, which said that Bisphenol-A was safe in very small quantities, but also pointed to areas of uncertainty.

"It cannot be excluded that there might be an effect on the development, immune response or tumour promotion," Dalli said in a statement on October 7.

Audi all electric supercar....

2010-11-21T15:30:00.000-08:00

Audi's battery-powered R8's enticing looks and performance aplenty hide a heart that is pure green, reports Peter Mckay.

Audi confesses it may have arrived a little late to the electro-mobility party; its mostly Japanese rivals were dancing and show-boating long before the German luxury brand even rang the doorbell.

Audi clearly wants to arrive with a flourish. While other brands roll out tiny plug-in city runabouts with modest performance credentials and geeky looks, Audi's sleek R8 supercar is leading the German brand's electric charge.

It's a heck of an eye-catcher in which to arrive at the electric vehicle (EV) soiree — a sleek supercar dubbed the R8 E-Tron that (almost silently) whooshes from standstill to 100km/h in a Porsche-like 4.8 seconds.

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With its prodigious acceleration — like a Scalectrix car jumping from rest — the R8 E-Tron quattro will target enthusiast drivers with a green bent when it goes into limited production in late 2012.

With looks to match its intent, the car has demonstrated that brands don't need to create cartoonish electric vehicles that appear to be the unfortunate outcome of a few moments of unseemly passion between a Smart car and a Tata Nano.

The R8 looks gorgeous and its aluminium spaceframe construction is suitably high-tech for a car of the future.

The R8 E-Tron is a full EV with a 550-kilogram battery pack mounted amidships and an asynchronous electric motor on each of the four wheels, making it a genuine all-wheel-drive vehicle. Power transmits to the wheels via a single-staged transmission and short input shafts.

It wasn't the cheapest car to develop but Audi sees it as a chance to integrate more expensive technology into a premium sports EV. It is also a golden opportunity to catch the eye of the world's media; hence Audi's exclusive invitation for Drive to get behind the wheel of this breakthrough supercar for a short road loop in Germany.

Our preview of Audi's electric future doesn't end with the R8. The brand has also developed a three-door E-Tron version of its city runabout, the A1. The R8 E-Tron may be the show-stopper but the A1 is the car most likely to generate serious production volumes. The final part of the jigsaw is a drive in Audi's first production petrol-electric hybrid, based on the Q5 soft-roader.

In the metal, our R8 E-Tron looks menacing and ready to excite. After wriggling into the racy Recaro seat, you twist the key and instead of the usual ferocious roar from a V8 or V10, there's ... nothing. Just a gauge in a surprisingly familiar cluster on the dash that advises you're "ready".

Moving the gear lever from P to D and pressing the accelerator unleashes a very swift change of scenery, accompanied by some growl from the fat, 19-inch tyres and a little resonance from within the car. "It's only a prototype," the man from Audi says.

There is no tachometer, of course, replaced by a dial representing the recuperation status of the energy supply and the output. You can select the level of recuperation by pressing switches on the steering wheel, influencing the energy recovery and braking power of the electric motors and so extending the range.

Audi's head of pre-development of vehicle concepts, Dr Michael Korte, says the R8 E-Tron is not an autobahn-storming machine designed for long runs on Europe's high-speed motorways. He compares it to a powerful sports motorcycle — a mix of fun and technology that is good for short bursts of stunning speed.

With a combined output of 230kW of power and about 680Nm of torque (Audi misleadingly claims 4500Nm but is calculating the output at the wheels rather than the motors), the R8's four engines can accelerate and decelerate individually with impressive exactness thanks to a clever management system.

Similar to the standard Audi R8, about 70 per cent of the power acts at the rear wheels in regular operation, with the remaining 30 per cent going to the front wheels. Should wheelspin occur, the software changes the balance in a fraction of a second.

The individual control of the four motors also allows so-called torque vectoring, the selective acceleration of individual wheels and, therefore, active distribution of torque. Any loss of traction in individual wheels, such as understeer and oversteer, is countered quickly using small power boosts and brake interventions.

Behind the cockpit are the large, fluid-cooled, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries and the electronics used to control the power flow. Impressively, engineers have managed a 42:58 front-to-rear weight distribution, matching the regular R8.

Audi insists the production R8 E-Tron will weigh no more than the V8-engined R8 supercar. In its final evolutionary stage for market, the R8 E-Tron's battery is expected to be good for a range of about 250 kilometres (although manufacturer claims of EV range are often optimistic).

While the R8 E-Tron may be the attention grabber, the E-Tron versions of Audi's small city runabout, the A1, and its compact soft-roader, the Q5, are also on hand for our test drive.

The A1 E-Tron is a three-door hatch that uses a tiny petrol engine to extend its range once its battery reserves are depleted. The range-extender comes in the form of a compact rotary engine used not as an alternative to the battery but, specifically, to put energy back into the battery when needed — such as on a longer-than-normal commute or a steep climb.

From the driver's seat, the three-door A1 E-Tron looks much like a regular A1 that goes on sale here next month. Except, that is, for unfamiliar gauges with terms such as "E-Tron ready" that give the all-clear to engage D on the gearbox selector and hit the accelerator for emission-free motoring using only the electric-drive system.

In this mode, the range is about 50 kilometres — good enough for most daily commutes. The Volkswagen Group, which owns Audi, says research shows that of the 60 per cent of Germans who travel to work by car, almost half travel less than 10 kilometres and a third travel less than 25 kilometres. Recharging every 50 kilometres means there would be no need to use any petrol.

Based on a suite of information the car collects (such as driving style, outside temperature, navigational data), it decides when to move to range-extender mode to replenish the battery that feeds an electric motor mounted transversely in the front. The driver may also press a button on the dash to trigger the range extender's vibration-free and quiet rotary engine.

The 254cc petrol engine is fed by a 12-litre fuel tank and powers a 15kW generator able to extend the A1 E-Tron's range by an extra 200 kilometres. True, it's consuming some petrol — a meagre 1.9 litres per 100 kilometres — but at the same time the battery is recharging and increasing the drive it supplies to the vehicle.

The lush torque of an electric motor is evident almost the instant you push the throttle and there's a feeling of almost limitless thrust, uninhibited by the need to change gears. The front wheels are fed a minimum 45kW of power and 150Nm of torque, with peak numbers as high as 75kW and 240Nm. The torque flows to the front axle via a single-stage transmission flanged to the electric motor. The almost-silent travel is eerie, with just a light whine and a little tyre noise discernible.

Claimed acceleration from rest to 100km/h is 10.2 seconds, with a top speed of more than 130km/h. That's not as impressive as a regular A1 but hardly a deal-breaker for most commuters. Obvious, too, is that there are few compromises with the A1's adaptation to the electric drivetrain. It still seats four, there is cabin cooling and heating, a premium sound system sits in the dash and the cargo area is its usual size. The T-shaped lithium-ion battery pack is hidden under the rear part of the centre tunnel and below the rear seats, giving excellent weight distribution.

Features such as full internet connectivity — with Google navigation and a wireless hot-spot — hint that it's a car more suited to contemporary city transport.

The A1 E-Tron also destroys another misconception — that EVs are heavier than regular cars because of the battery pack. The E-Tron version weighs about the same as the regular A1 as there is no heavy multi-stage transmission or four-cylinder engine and no big fuel tank.

A socket for the standard household plug fitting used to recharge the A1 is hidden behind the Audi badge on the grille. A flat battery requires less than three hours' charging time from a 240-volt grid — or 30 minutes for high-voltage fast charging.

On the move, the large electric motor driving the A1 E-Tron can convert deceleration energy into electric current , which is fed back to the electrical system by operating as a generator once the driver releases the accelerator. In city traffic, it can recover almost one-third of its energy.

The project leader for the A1 E-Tron, Dietrich Engelhart, is evangelical about his baby, using "when" rather than "if" to talk about a production version. "It is a mature concept with premium quality, the space, the ease of operation, convenience features such as a sound system," he says. "It's a true Audi."

While the ultimate goal is to provide pure electric propulsion, Audi is also developing more traditional hybrid vehicles for the short-term.

The company's first mass-market hybrid is set for German and US showrooms by the middle of next year, although right-hand-drive versions are unlikely.

The Q5 Hybrid Quattro — pitched as a sporty mid-size soft-roader with the power of a V6 and the fuel economy of a four-cylinder turbo diesel — offers the practicality of the Q5 range here.

A brief drive in Ingolstadt, Audi's hometown, adds weight to the claims. The direct-injection, turbo-charged petrol 2.0-litre four, and the associated electric motor sandwiched in between the engine and the gearbox, together have a system output of 180kW and 480Nm. That gives the vehicle excellent driveability, along with impressive acceleration of 7.1 seconds from 0-100km/h. Top speed is 222km/h. Fuel use on the official European cycle is a little less than 7.0L/100km.

There's some doubt that the compact hybrid soft-roader will make it to market as there are plenty of Audi engineers who still view diesel as a superior green technology. However, the US market has been slow to embrace diesel and Audi is keen to have a rival for the Lexus RX450h hybrid soft-roader.

The hybrid Q5 looks and feels normal inside, with no loss of cabin or luggage room. Press the start button and a "hybrid ready" sign tells the driver the Q5 is set to move. Slip the gear selection lever into D and you move off in pure electric mode. An EV button on the dash provides an extended drive mode. Press it and the petrol engine starts.

Audi first eased into hybrid development in 1989 with its "Duo" concept based on the 100 Avant. The Q5 is the result of three generations of development.

Changes from the Q5 range on sale here include modifying the engine internals and introducing the stop-start requirements of a hybrid (at rest, both power sources are deactivated). It gains an eight-speed automatic gearbox, electromechanical steering and larger brakes beneath 19-inch wheels.

The lithium-ion batteries, weighing just 38 kilograms, are stored where the spare wheel is normally housed. A redesigned instrument cluster now incorporates a "remaining battery charge" meter, which looks similar to a fuel gauge, and a larger dial that shows whether the car is using power from the engine or battery or is recovering energy under deceleration.

The powertrain of the hybrid Q5 can also be used in other Audis with longitudinally mounted engines — the new A8 and the as-yet unseen A6 are prime candidates.

For more on the Audi E-Tron concept cars, go to drive.com.au/audi

When silence is not golden

Premium car makers usually spend inordinate time and expense reducing noise and vibration, a painstaking process aimed at cocooning occupants in glorious silence.

Electric vehicles have no exhaust pipe and therefore emit no sounds of acceleration and gear changes.

Gliding through the streets, EVs are almost silent at speeds up to 25km/h. Beyond that, some tyre noise can be heard but it is not loud enough to warn pedestrians — particularly the vision-impaired — of approaching danger.

In the US and Japan, it is already law for silent cars to have a manufactured noise source and other countries are likely to follow.

Audi acousticians are hard at work developing unique artificial sounds for its E-Tron vehicles.

"It's not just a matter of safety," says the acoustics chief at Audi, Ralf Kunkel. "It is also a question of how the Audi of the future should sound."

That sound will not be of a combustion engine, nor of a jet aeroplane or anything in nature, such as the rustle of leaves.

Kunkel offers a clue: "The [EV] sound will be new and unusual. The Audi RSQ in the film I, Robot gives an indication."

SMH 22.11.10

m/

Food experiment - is pre-prepared food more efficient?

2010-11-11T15:10:00.000-08:00

Food experiment - is a 2-week delivered pre-preared low-fat breakfast/lunch/dinner more energy efficient than making breakfast/lunch/dinner every day?

Starting today we have had a weeks worth of pre-prepared breakfast/lunch/dinner delivered, all we have to do it is eat it!
This is a two fold exercise - seeing if the energy & water saved in the preparation and storage and washing up generated by home cooking/shopping is greater or less than the energy & water generated by pre-prepared food.

It's quite a difficult exercise to quantify as we don't know the energy used by the company we are using (lite n easy) so we will have to make some educated assumptions on transport, cooking, storage etc... but we can fairly accurately work out our own usage. So we should get a reasonable comparison.

There are other issues such as wastage of packaging (have already noticed the plastic is a degradable plastic (bit is it food safe?) but will try and find out this type of info for a final breakdown and report. Will also send this information to the company for comments and see if we can build up a final recommendation!

If anyone else has tried this or has experience with pre-prepared/delivered food, please let us know what you think!

Lastly, most people try this to loose weight. We are being delivered 1500 calories every day, so we will also factor in the heath aspect of this exercise as well - might even slim down a little!

Stay Tuned!

Nissan believes many electric car owners will mostly recharge in the garage, and not at rapid recharge station

2010-11-10T15:48:00.000-08:00

Nissan believes many electric car owners will mostly recharge in the garage, and not at rapid recharge stations.

Owners of Nissan's Leaf electric car will be more likely to trickle-charge their car at home than visit a rapid recharging station for a top up, the car maker says.

Nissan Australia chief executive Dan Thompson says he believes a 15-amp power point plug will be the most important accessory for owners of the fully electric car, which can travel up to 160km on a single charge of its battery pack depending on conditions.

The Leaf is due to launch in Australia in 2012, about a year after the Mitsubishi's i-MiEV electric car becomes available to private buyers (it's currently only offered to fleets and governments on a lease basis) and the Holden Volt range-extended electric vehicle, which uses a small petrol engine linked to a generator to supply on-demand electricity.

Thompson says the development of recharging infrastructure is likely to be a two-stage process, starting with the home before working its way into commercially operated recharging points.

“You will be able to plug the Leaf directly into your (electrical) outlet at home or in the office … and that's where we see most of the charging taking place in the beginning,” he says. “That will be about eight hours for a full top-up or a full charge.”

However, he says there will eventually be a need for commercial recharging point operators to move into the market, anticipating that many Leaf owners will use those to gain only a brief, 10-minute charge to, say, lift battery capacity from 50 to 80 per cent – much like dashing into a petrol station and taking on only a splash of fuel – rather than idling for a 30-minute stay to take on a full load of electricity.

Nissan says Leaf owners will be able to recharge their car using a normal 10 amp household power point, but it takes about twice the eight-hour recharging time over a 15 amp plug, which uses a larger earth pin than a normal household plug. A new plug can be fitted by a qualified electrician for very little cost.

Thompson says Nissan is leaving it up to other providers to install rapid recharging stations where electric car owners can get a top-up.

“[Rapid recharging stations] require a considerable hardware investment, so we'll leave it up to other entrepreneurs to do,” Thompson says.

SMH/Drive

Christmas time again....

2010-11-08T16:38:00.000-08:00

Well it's coming up to that time again when we all start to spend money on products we don't really need in a time of economic uncertainty.
As it is inevitable, we hope everyone will purchase products that are as green and eco friendly as possible, think packaging, supply train, materials. And of course, practicality and educational use.

So with that in mind, we offer you a selection of such products for the jolly season that night help you out:

http://www.greendemon.com.au/christmasshopping-c-129.html

All put into nice & easy express categories - now how easy is that!

New Youtube Green Demon Eco Store Video Knowledge Bank launched....

2010-10-31T17:05:00.000-07:00

We have started up a 'Video-knowledgebank' on Youtube that contains 'how-to's', manufacturers instructions, useful info and more at:

http://www.youtube.com/user/GreenDemonEcoStore/

We will be adding to this site (or channel as you tube likes to call it!) as we go, and welcome any videos, links or suggestions as to what we should include.

Happy watching, the Green Demon.

Stocklands attempts to kill trade outside it's Balgowlah Totem Centre

2010-10-26T21:13:00.000-07:00

Stocklands Totem Centre Balgowlah and Manly Council have decided to ignore their own DA's (342/2010) and go ahead with plans to remove the passageway connecting Sydney road and the new centre, effectively blocking pedestrians from entering the sydney road parade when in their centre.

Stocklands already tried to buy several properties to kill the Sydney Road shops & failed (virtually nobody would sell), and this is another attempt to cut off the retailers in Sydney Road. You can understand Stocklands motivation - they are ruled by 'revenue at any cost', but Manly council is clearly taking a backhander in some form to change the DA. Stocklands have already ignored the DA condition stating that no plastic bags were to be used in the new centre - again, Manly council have let it slide. Who is taking bribes/favours in Manly council!? The Manly Daily is running a story on 28.01.10 - keep an eye out!

Don't let Stocklands get away with killing Sydney Road Retail - email 'records@manly.nsw.gov.au' quoting DA 342/2010 and object to the 9 studio apartments they are planning to build (with no parking so those residents will all be parking on the local streets) at 360 Sydney Road.
Having already banned the centre staff from parking in the massive half-empty car park (another DA reversal!) it's going to get even more congested.

Otherwise you will be left with no Sydney Road Retailers & a shopping centre full of Macdonalds & cheap chains, as only chain store retailers can afford Stocklands rent - several unique shops have already left and have been replaced. The future of this centre has to be a 'downgrading' of expectations from 'A' cost retailing to 'C' cost retailing.

The connection between Sydney Road and the Totem centre serves both sets of retailers as pedestrian traffic is two-way. There is only one reason to block this connection - so Stocklands can remove the competition. Don't let Apathy ruin Balgowlah just when the high road is coming to life with new unique businesses - help us make a stand and contact the council.

Banned hot hatch ok for Aus - Lax Aus Emmisions laws

2010-08-11T14:16:00.000-07:00

Does this sound familiar?

'Banned elsewhere around the world, allowed in Australia' It happens with the food we eat, the plastics we use, the chemicals we spray.
Why do succsesive Australian goevernments and regulatory bodies simply not care about it's citizens and thier health? Below is yet another example:

Due to Australia's lax emissions laws the Honda Civic Type R has been given the all clear to be sold in Australia.

Emissions rules kill off Civic Type R in Europe but it survives down-under.

A hot-hatch that will be banned from UK and European roads from October will continue to be sold in Australia.

Japanese car maker Honda will remove its Civic Type-R from the key markets because the hatch’s high-revving 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine doesn’t comply with forthcoming (Euro 5) emissions regulations.

Australia’s lax emissions rules, which remain at the Euro 4 standard, mean the Type R can still be imported from its production plant in Swindon, UK. Australia is still to set a date for the adoption of the more stringent Euro 5 regulations, and has only recently adopted Euro 4.

The $39,990 Type R has been sold locally since mid 2007. Its 2.0-litre engine produces 148kW – impressively without the aid of a turbocharger.

The next-generation Civic is due in late 2011, and a new Type-R is likely to eventually figure in a range Honda plans to make lighter and cleaner than the current model.

Mazda’s RX-8 has also fallen under the emissions axe in Europe after the company decided against investing in an upgrade for the four-door sports coupe’s distinctive rotary engine.

Green Demon Eco Store Store Now Officially Open...

2010-07-30T21:29:00.000-07:00

GREEN DEMON ECO STORE NOW OPEN!

Yes, it's finally open!

A bit rough around the edges and still under development but the doors are open for business!

Green Demon Eco Store is at:

298 Sydney Road, Balgowlah, Sydney, 2093
02 8003 7339
info@greendemon.com.au
www.greendemon.com.au

Mon to Sat 10am-5pm

See you there!

Electric cars are finally here...a generation starts to change

2010-07-23T12:27:00.000-07:00

Electric vehicles are making their way on to our roads. We meet some of the people who have adopted the technology.

Bernie Hobbs is a pioneer of Australian motoring. The science broadcaster, best known as a judge on the ABC's New Inventors, is among the first people in this country to ditch her internal combustion-powered car for an all-electric set of wheels.

She is the proud owner of a Blade Electron, a car that starts life as a Hyundai Getz before Victorian-based entrepreneur Ross Blade and his team take out the petrol engine and replace it with an electric motor.

The Blade may be a small operation but make no mistake: electric is on its way. Mitsubishi will have 40 of its i-MiEV electric city car on the road by the end of the year. Nissan is likely to offer the Leaf electric hatchback by 2012.

All-electric plug-in cars are a different breed to petrol-electric hybrids, which use electric motors to supplement a petrol engine and don't require a power outlet.

All-electric cars run entirely on batteries and hence need to recharge regularly.

Electric cars aren't new - they've been around in some form for almost as long as motor vehicles have been on the road. But recent improvements in battery technology have made them a more realistic alternative to their petrol-engined cousins.

There are still big question marks over the charging infrastructure, long-term battery life, safety and resale value of electric vehicles.

But none of this matters to Hobbs; she's happy to have adopted EVs early and faces those challenges head on.

"I've been rabbiting on about the environment for 10 years," she says. "When my old car started getting the shakes I thought, 'I don't want to commit to buying petrol for another 10 years.' So I've put my money where my mouth is."

She admits she considered getting rid of a car altogether and joining a car-sharing program but decided to commit to the Blade and join the electric-car revolution.

"For me, part of the reason I'm doing this is because, with my work, I get to talk about it," she says. "It's normalising the idea of electric cars."

It came at a price, however - $48,000 to be exact - substantially more than a Hyundai Getz with a petrol engine.

But she says it's easy to justify that extra expenditure.

"For me $48,000 is a shitload of money to spend on a car," she says. "But I'm paying for my fuel upfront with the battery pack. So if I keep it for 10 years like my last car, that's $5000 a year. In 10 years I'll probably just give it to my nephew."

For critics of electric cars, Hobbs has switched her energy provider to get "green" energy instead of relying on coal-fired power.

"If you're going to use coal fire you're doing no good, you just have a feel-good car," she says.

"[Switching to green energy] takes you from three tonnes of CO2 per year to none."

She's not the only Australian driver ditching petrol power for electricity. The managing director of Adelaide-based internet service provider Internode, Simon Hackett, not only has a Blade parked in his garage but also just took delivery of the first right-hand drive Tesla Roadster in Australia.

To call Hackett a passionate believer in electric vehicles is an understatement. He has been a fan ever since he drove the GM EV1 in the mid-1990s while working in the US.

He ordered a left-hand-drive Tesla in 2006 but had to wait until 2008 for it to arrive. Last year he set a world record by driving the Roadster more than 500 kilometres on a single charge during the Global Green Challenge.

Hackett bought the Blade Electron as his daily driver because he couldn't register his left-hand-drive Tesla for road use. But with the new Tesla able to be driven on the road, it will replace the Blade as his daily commuter car.

It may have cost Hackett more than $250,000 but as far as he's concerned, it's better than buying a traditional sports car such as a Porsche or Ferrari.

"People say, 'How can it be a sports car if it doesn't go vroom vroom?' You get used to it really quickly," he says.

Home on the range

The first mass-market electric car into Australia, the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, has an official range of 100 kilometres to 160 kilometres before it needs a full recharge (the Hyundai Getz-based Blade claims 100 kilometres).

The challenge for Mitsubishi and its fellow car makers is to convince consumers that 160 kilometres is enough for them to live with.

The Drive team logged its driving habits for a week and found that all of us could comfortably use an electric car with a range of 100 kilometres each day.

But we found on the weekends that range might not be enough to satisfy us all.

Factors such as the weather, driving style and use of the heater and airconditioning all have an impact on the range; just like the fuel consumption in a traditional petrol- or diesel-powered car.

But, unlike a traditional car, topping up the battery of an electric car isn't as simple as ducking into your local service station. Charging an electric car can take up to eight hours and requires a special power outlet.

Both Hobbs and Hackett believe "range anxiety" won't be an issue for most people, providing they live close to their work.

"For the first few days I was shitting myself," Hobbs admits. "But I realised I really never drive more than 100 kilometres."

She does also admit to having a back-up plan.

"I carry a 30-metre extension cord," she says. "That gives me a bit of confidence." Hackett believes it is only a matter of time before electric cars boast a range to match a petrol car. He says he can get more than 300 kilometres from his Tesla regularly and the company's next variant, the Model S, will claim a range of more than 480 kilometres.

"There's this tendency with people to focus on what happens if you run out of electricity. Well, the same thing that happens if you run out of petrol: your car stops," he says. "But what people need to realise is that range, of 100 kilometres or 300 kilometres, is available every day."

Give it a plug

Infrastructure for electric cars is very much a case of the chicken and the egg. Car companies have the cars but there isn't any significant infrastructure in place yet. Not surprisingly, no one is interested in installing expensive public charging points for a handful of cars.

Unlike the Blade, some electric cars can't be charged using a regular household outlet - they require a 15-amp plug, the same type used for large airconditioning units.

You can get one installed in your garage or office car park for a few hundred dollars but there are a growing number of operators selling specialised charging points.

ChargePoint Australia is one of the first companies to install a commercially operated roadside outlet, in conjunction with car-sharing company GoGet.

The outlet, in inner-city Glebe, is not available for public use, though; only members of GoGet are able to charge the company's converted Toyota Prius EV.

The joint managing director of ChargePoint, Luke Grana, says the rollout of infrastructure will be a gradual process that will be tied to the amount of EVs on the roads.

"We really see it working with the early adopters like local councils, state governments and fleets," he says. "We won't be rolling out a network until 2013 and we'll be growing with the market."

He believes the most likely scenario will see shopping centres and parking stations emerge as the power provider for electric cars, potentially replacing petrol stations.

In theory, drivers will be able to take their EV to the shops, plug in while they doing their shopping and come back to a fully recharged car.

The first signs of this transition have emerged.

Special parking spaces with power outlets are beginning to pop up around major cities but they are few and far between. So far, shopping centres in Hornsby, Dural and Blacktown have become some of the first to offer electric-car drivers a place to recharge while shopping.

"I think it really needs to be led by the car-consumer marketplace," a spokeswoman for Westfield, Julia Clarke, says.

There are exceptions, though. A new multi-storey structure in downtown Perth has 12 parking spots hard-wired for charging.

To ensure the electricity is sustainable, it's sourced from roof-mounted solar panels.

The car park is overseen by the director of business units for the City of Perth, Doug Forster. He says it will serve as a test ahead of further charging points being set up. The council owns 30 parking stations across the city.

Crucially for the rollout of infrastructure and EVs, federal and state governments have so far shown little tangible support for electric cars. Overseas, governments have offered free parking, access to transit lanes or cash incentives to support early adopters of EVs.

The all-important question, however, is: will car fans miss the vroom of a petrol engine?

"I thought I would but I don't," Hackett says. "I've got an old Ferrari, a 1985 308, that's a real work of art. But I can't get motivated to drive it. Once you drive an electric car, you realise you are in a generational-changing vehicle. And I don't miss the generation I'm leaving."

Electric cars on the way

City cars, hatchbacks, sedans and even supercars; there is an electric car suited to almost every need under development somewhere in the world.

Mitsubishi i-MiEV
NissanLEAF
TeslaRoadster
Tesla ModelS
SmartED
MiniE
Holden/ChevroletVolt
Renault Fluence Z.E.
VolvoC30Plug-In Hybrid
Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid
VolkswagenEup!
BMWMegacity
CitroenC-ZERO
Peugeot iOn
Ford Focus BEV
Audi e-tron
Mercedes-BenzSLSE-Cell

New Eco Shop almost Ready...

2010-07-20T04:49:00.000-07:00

Opening soon on Sydney Road Balgowlah..... http://www.greendemon.com.au/.... watch this space!

First Day and night solar flight

2010-07-08T02:06:00.000-07:00

Day and night solar flight
The first manned day and night flight by a plane powered exclusively by solar energy begins in Switzerland.
Video feedbackVideo settings
A solar powered aircraft emerged from a night flight high over Switzerland today, on course to making history as the first plane to fly around the clock on solar energy.

More than 24 hours after it took off, Solar Impulse was still flying in spectacular early morning clear skies in northwestwern Switzerland after dawn.

Pilot Andre Borschberg was set to land at Payerne at about 8:30 am (0630 GMT), after being confined to the cockpit of the single seater experimental aircraft for about 26 hours, team chief Bertrand Piccard said.

Solar Impulse's pilot Andre Borschberg flies during sunset in the solar-powered HB-SIA prototype airplane during its first night flight attempt near Payerne airport. Photo: Reuters
Applause and cheers broke out at mission control as the sun rose over Payerne airbase at 5:43 am (0343 GMT) with Solar Impulse still in the air.

"It's the first time ever that a solar airplane has flown through the night," said Piccard, who himself headed the first round the world ballon flight in 1999.

"That was the moment that proved the mission was successful, we made it," he told journalists.

Flight director Claude Nicollier said that the flight had gone well overnight as Borschberg guided the experimental aircraft towards a landing after dawn.

"It went better than that," Nicollier said.

The plane's flight during the overnight hours of darkness was powered by the charge its batteries had stored during the 14 hours of daytime flight thanks to its array of 12,000 solar cells on wings the size of an airliner's.

"It's a super flight, better than nominal," added Nicollier, a former space shuttle astronaut.

Nicollier said 57-year-old Borschberg was "very positive" after more than 22 hours in the air in the single seater, having been forced to stay alert for the full period.

"He is in very good spirits physically and mentally," said Nicollier.

Borschberg's impassive expression broke into a broad smile as the crew announced that dawn had officially broken at Payerne, live images from a cockpit webcam showed.

The high-tech single-seater aircraft took off on the historic attempt in the early hours (0451 GMT) of Wednesday.

The controllers decided as darkness fell later to press on with the night flight, despite fears that a sudden burst of strong high altitude wings at dusk had deprived Solar Impulse of some of the stored energy to last the night.

However, Piccard revealed early Thursday that the aircraft had emerged from darkness with three hours of energy left in its batteries, a far bigger margin than expected.

The solar panels spread over the wing of the high tech craft were switched back on as the sun bathed the plane, fuelling the four electric motors and recharging batteries.

"Nothing can prevent us from another day and night... and the myth of perpetual flight," an elated Piccard told journalists, as his sights shifted towards the prospect of transatlantic and round the world flights in 2013-2014.

The first prototype, shaped like a giant dragonfly, is clad with solar panels across a wingspan of 63 metres (207 feet), the size of an Airbus A340 airliner.

The solar cells and nearly half a tonne of batteries provide enrgy for four small electric motors and propellors -- the "power of a scooter", as the crew put it -- and weigh little more than a saloon car.

Solar Impulse took off into clear summer skies at 6:51 am (0451 GMT) on Wednesday.

The team is also driven by a desire to demonstrate that clean energy is technically feasible and should be developed and used more widely for transport, in the household and at work.

"We didn't really have credibility until today," admitted Piccard. "What we have done today in the air is an example of what should be done on the ground."

Oil companies out of control

2010-06-22T13:53:00.000-07:00

Think the current BP spill is bad?

"More oil is spilled from the delta's network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico"

Oil spills have become a fact of life for people living in the Niger delta, writes John Vidal.

We reached the edge of the oil spill near the Nigerian village of Otuegwe after a long hike through cassava plantations. Ahead of us lay swamp. We waded into the warm tropical water and began swimming, cameras and notebooks held above our heads. We could smell the oil long before we saw it - the stench of garage forecourts and rotting vegetation hanging thickly in the air.

The farther we travelled, the more nauseous it became. Soon we were swimming in pools of light Nigerian crude, the best-quality oil in the world. One of the many hundreds of 40-year-old pipelines that crisscross the Niger delta had corroded and spewed oil for several months.

Forest and farmland were now covered in a sheen of greasy oil. Drinking wells were polluted and people were distraught. No one knew how much oil had leaked. ''We lost our nets, huts and fishing pots,'' said Chief Promise, village leader of Otuegwe and our guide. ''This is where we fished and farmed. We have lost our forest. We told Shell of the spill within days, but they did nothing for six months.''

That was the Niger delta a few years ago, where, say Nigerian academics, writers and environment groups, oil companies have acted with such impunity and recklessness that much of the region has been devastated by leaks.

In fact, more oil is spilled from the delta's network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico, the site of an ecological catastrophe caused by oil that has poured from a leak triggered by the explosion that wrecked BP's Deepwater Horizon rig in April.

That disaster, which claimed the lives of 11 rig workers, has made headlines around the world. By contrast, little information has emerged about the damage inflicted on the Niger delta. Yet the destruction there provides us with a far more accurate picture of the price we have to pay for drilling oil today.

On May 1 a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline in Ibeno in the state of Akwa Ibom spilled more than 4.5 million litres into the delta over seven days before the leak was stopped. Local people demonstrated against the company but say they were attacked by security guards. Community leaders are now demanding $US1 billion ($1.1 billion) in compensation for the illness and loss of livelihood they suffered. Few expect they will succeed. In the meantime, thick balls of tar are being washed up along the coast.

Within days of the Ibeno spill, thousands of barrels of oil were spilled when the nearby Shell Trans Niger pipeline was attacked by rebels. A few days after that, a large oil slick was found floating on Lake Adibawa in Bayelsa state, and another in Ogoniland. ''We are faced with incessant oil spills from rusty pipes, some of which are 40 years old,'' said Bonny Otavie, a Bayelsa MP.

This point was backed by Williams Mkpa, a community leader in Ibeno: ''Oil companies do not value our life; they want us to all die. In the past two years, we have experienced 10 oil spills and fishermen can no longer sustain their families. It is not tolerable.''

With 606 oilfields, the Niger delta supplies 40 per cent of all the crude the US imports and is the world capital of oil pollution. Life expectancy in its rural areas, half of which have no access to clean water, has fallen to little more than 40 years over the past two generations. Locals blame the oil that pollutes their land and can scarcely believe the contrast with the steps taken by BP and the US government to try to stop the gulf oil leak and to protect the Louisiana shore from pollution.

''If this gulf accident had happened in Nigeria, neither the government nor the company would have paid much attention,'' said the writer Ben Ikari, a member of the Ogoni people. ''This kind of spill happens all the time in the delta.

''The oil companies just ignore it. The lawmakers do not care and people must live with pollution daily. The situation is now worse than it was 30 years ago. Nothing is changing. When I see the efforts that are being made in the US I feel a great sense of sadness at the double standards. What they do in the US or in Europe is very different.''

Nnimo Bassey, the Nigerian head of Friends of the Earth International, said, ''We see frantic efforts being made to stop the spill in the US. But in Nigeria, oil companies largely ignore their spills, cover them up and destroy people's livelihood and environments. The gulf spill can be seen as a metaphor for what is happening daily in the oilfields of Nigeria and other parts of Africa.

''This has gone on for 50 years in Nigeria. People depend completely on the environment for their drinking water and farming and fishing. They are amazed that the President of the US can be making speeches daily, because in Nigeria people there would not hear a whimper,'' he said.

It is impossible to know how much oil is spilled in the Niger delta each year because the companies and the government keep that secret. However, two big independent investigations over the past four years suggest that as much is spilled at sea, in the swamps and on land every year as has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico so far.

One report, compiled by WWF UK, the World Conservation Union and representatives from the Nigerian federal government and the Nigerian Conservation Foundation, calculated in 2006 that up to 1.5 million tonnes of oil - 50 times the pollution unleashed in the Exxon Valdez tanker disaster in Alaska - has been spilled in the delta over the past half century. Last year Amnesty calculated that the equivalent of at least 9 million barrels of oil was spilled and accused the oil companies of a human rights outrage.

According to Nigerian federal government figures, there were more than 7000 spills between 1970 and 2000, and there are 2000 official major spillages sites, many going back decades, with thousands of smaller ones still waiting to be cleared up. More than 1000 spill cases have been filed against Shell alone.

Last month Shell admitted to having spilled 14,000 tonnes of oil last year. The bulk of it, the company said, was lost through two incidents - one in which the company claims that thieves damaged a wellhead at its Odidi field and another where militants bombed the Trans Escravos pipeline.

Shell, which works in partnership with the Nigerian government in the delta, says that 98 per cent of all its oil spills are caused by vandalism, theft or sabotage by militants and only a minimal amount by deteriorating infrastructure.

''We had 132 spills last year, as against 175 on average. Safety valves were vandalised; one pipe had 300 illegal taps. We found five explosive devices on one. Sometimes communities do not give us access to clean up the pollution because they can make more money from compensation,'' a spokesman said.

''We have a full-time oil spill response team. Last year we replaced 197 miles [315 kilometres] of pipeline and are using every known way to clean up pollution, including microbes. We are committed to cleaning up any spill as fast as possible as soon as and for whatever reason they occur.''

These claims are hotly disputed by communities and environmental watchdog groups. They mostly blame the companies' vast network of rusting pipes and storage tanks, corroding pipelines, semi-derelict pumping stations and old wellheads, as well as tankers and vessels cleaning out tanks.

The scale of the pollution is mind-boggling. The government's National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency says that between 1976 and 1996 alone, more than 2.4 million barrels contaminated the environment.

''Oil spills and the dumping of oil into waterways has been extensive, often poisoning drinking water and destroying vegetation. These incidents have become common due to the lack of laws and enforcement measures within the existing political regime,'' a spokesman for the agency said.

The sense of outrage is widespread. ''There are more than 300 spills, major and minor, a year,'' Bassey said. ''It happens all the year round. The whole environment is devastated. The latest revelations highlight the massive difference in the response to oil spills. In Nigeria, both companies and government have come to treat an extraordinary level of oil spills as the norm.''

A spokesman for the Stakeholder Democracy Network in Lagos, which works to empower those in communities affected by the oil companies' activities, said: ''The response to the spill in the United States should serve as a stiff reminder as to how far spill management in Nigeria has drifted from standards across the world.''

Other voices of protest point out that the world has overlooked the scale of the environmental impact. Ben Amunwa, an activist with the London oil watch group Platform, said: ''Deepwater Horizon may have exceeded Exxon Valdez, but within a few years in Nigeria offshore spills from four locations dwarfed the scale of the Exxon Valdez disaster many times over. Estimates put spill volumes in the Niger delta among the worst on the planet, but they do not include the crude oil from waste water and gas flares. Companies such as Shell continue to avoid independent monitoring and keep key data secret.''

Worse may be to come. One industry insider, who asked not to be named, said: ''Major spills are likely to increase in the coming years as the industry strives to extract oil from increasingly remote and difficult terrains. Future supplies will be offshore, deeper and harder to work. When things go wrong, it will be harder to respond.''

Judith Kimerling, a professor of law and policy at the City University of New York and author of Amazon Crude, a book about oil development in Ecuador, said: ''Spills, leaks and deliberate discharges are happening in oilfields all over the world and very few people seem to care.''

There is an overwhelming sense that the big oil companies act as if they are beyond the law. Bassey said: ''What we conclude from the Gulf of Mexico pollution incident is that the oil companies are out of control.

''It is clear that BP has been blocking progressive legislation, both in the US and here. In Nigeria, they have been living above the law. They are now clearly a danger to the planet. The dangers of this happening again and again are high. They must be taken to the International Court of Justice.''

Shark expert honoured for conservation

2010-06-14T19:30:00.000-07:00

Underwater adventurer and shark expert Valerie Taylor has been appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for her service to conservation.

Together with her husband Ronald, Ms Taylor has fought for more than 50 years for the protection of underwater creatures, in particular the great white shark, the grey nurse shark, sea lions, the potato cod, the southern right whale and marine turtles.

She has also fought for the conservation of habitats, such as the Great Barrier Reef and Ningaloo Reef Marine Park in Western Australia.

Born in Sydney in 1935, Ms Taylor spent her teenage years living near the sea in Cronulla, in Sydney's south, and met her husband when they were both members of the Sydney's St George spearfishing club.

After they both became champion spearfishers in the early 1960s, they decided to switch from killing fish to filming and photographing them.

"We saw what a terrible thing we were doing," Ms Taylor told AAP.

"I could speak about it because I was there.

"We were both champions and I knew that if we went out to a reef, we could take every good fish off it.

"We were decimating reef life."

Ms Taylor went on to became a multi-award winning underwater cinematographer and photographer, working on dozens of documentaries and major feature films, such as as Jaws, Orca and Sky Pirates.

Her fascination with the underwater world and admiration and respect for sharks has prompted her to risk her life on occasions.

In 1979, Ms Taylor was the first to test a stainless steel mesh suit designed by her husband as protection from sharks.

While wearing the suit, Ms Taylor enticed sharks to bite her by placing tuna under the mesh. Her husband filmed the encounters, enabling them both to gain insights into how different species of sharks feed and attack.

The Taylors' long-lasting relationship and adventurous careers have also been the subject of several films, including Sea Lovers and In the Realm of the Shark.

Easy to be lean when you're green

2010-06-09T23:10:00.001-07:00

The no plastic diet ... packaged foods are often the most fattening.
Saying no to plastic packaging can have an unexpected benefit - weight loss.

When she goes to the supermarket, Bea Johnson takes along a sealable glass jar so the butcher can slide in a pork cutlet. In the bulk aisle, she fills reusable bags she makes from old bed sheets to carry rice, pasta, oatmeal or nuts.

In fact, everything she and her husband buy is without packaging: they make their own household cleaning products, buy soap that comes unwrapped and return milk bottles to suppliers for refills.

At least three times a week, Johnson phones marketing companies in her unrelenting war against junk mail.

"The amount of money you can save by just carrying your own water bottle is huge. Plus, the more you get away from plastic, the more likely you are to buy fresh," said Johnson, who blogs about her lifestyle in Marin County, California, at zerowastehome.blogspot.com.

The health benefits of a wrapper-free life are also a major theme for Colin Beavan in New York. He wrote a book, No Impact Man, which was about a year that he and his family spent without electricity and living with as little waste as they could. Although their experiment ended in November 2007, they have committed to staying packaging free.

"Most of the fattening foods, the bad stuff, come heavily wrapped. If you confine yourself to fresh products from the supermarket or farmer's market, your family is going to be a lot healthier," he said.

Beavan buys most of his food at the local farmers market. He returns his egg cartons and milk bottles to the farmers and buys round blocks of cheese that come without packaging.

"I think my family is a lot happier now," he said. "It's not simply about less packaging; it's about changing your whole outlook, about wanting less and getting so much more as a family."

I wondered if I, too, could live without any packaging, except for plastic bags I reuse during trips to the supermarket.

For the past month, every grocery item I've purchased has been without wrapping. I go to the bulk aisle of my local food co-op for pasta, rice, beans, flour, oatmeal, nuts and anything else that I can pour into my own bags, which are then weighed at the checkout counter.

I now have ten reusable bags, including a plastic one I use to buy loose spinach and broccoli. One of the strangest byproducts of this experiment has been my newfound respect for plastic; it is no longer discarded after a one-night stand, but has become more like a long-term relationship.

Apart from saving vast amounts of chemicals and oil that go into making shopping bags and reducing the giant soup of plastic clogging oceans, saying no to packaging has improved my waistline and my wallet.

With no more sad looking, single-serving microwave meals, and my coffee from a paper cup replaced with a drink from my water bottle, I feel more energetic and less stressed. Because I bring broccoli and carrots to work and do not touch additives, my skin is clearer. The sudden arrival of middle age spread has completely disappeared from my waist.

I also find myself cooking less. I have my plastic container of spinach and broccoli at work every day, so I feel less of a need for big meals.

Finding cage-free eggs and dairy products can be a problem, but many local farmers markets will refill your egg boxes and replace your milk bottles. I was almost overcome with joy when I found a supermarket steps from my home that sold chocolate and dried apricots in bulk, so dessert was back on.

Financially, all of this has been a major boost. Carrots and onions unburdened by plastic are a lot cheaper, and making my own shampoo saves money.

The major downside is that I am now a crushing bore. Where once my conversations might have been about sports and cinema, now all my sentences seem to begin with, "Did you know ..." followed by a list of places you can get refills on shampoo, honey or milk, or the best type of reusable bags for buying flour.

Electric car goes 1000km on a single charge

2010-06-09T14:57:00.000-07:00

Electric car goes 1000km on a single charge
A Japanese group has managed to travel 1000km in an electric car without recharging.

A group of Japanese electric car enthusiasts has broken its own Guinness world record by driving a modified Daihatsu Mira more than 1000km on a single charge.

Japan's Kyodo News says the Mira was powered by a bank of 8320 Sanyo lithium-ion batteries commonly found in personal computers.

The current Guinness record stands at 555km for a journey between Tokyo and Osaka, but the group has asked record keepers to recognise the new effort, achieved at a race track in the Ibaraki Prefecture.

But the new effort was not without compromises. The team of 17 drivers managed an average speed of just 40km/h and the effort took 27-and-a-half hours.

Range remains one of the biggest barriers to consumer acceptance of electric cars, with most mass-market EVs due on the market in the next couple of years restricted to a range of just 160km.

New insulated Bottles for winter and summer

2010-05-28T20:56:00.000-07:00

Cheeki - Stainless Steel Insulated Drink Bottle

The Cheeki insulated series are double-lined to help you keep your drinks warm and toasty or fresh and cold all day long!
Stops condensation - ideal for cars, bags and well, pretty much anywhere really. Fits all Cheeki lids.

Throw them in your bag and keep hydrated. Safe, Healthy, BPA-Free – No nasty toxins to leach into your drinking water; pure stainless steel inside with BPA-free lids. Notice how the water tastes fresh and clear! Non-toxic inks used on art.

600ml bottle

1000ml bottle

Houses of the Future

2010-05-25T14:30:00.000-07:00

Available now in the UK, costs a couple of dollars to run, is based on a modular system and made from glass and steel.
Can be added to as

Have a watch at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8704307.stm

Similar projects in Aus:

http://www.modscape.com.au/
http://www.prebuilt.com.au/

Very interesting design: http://www.domeshells.com.au/

New Hexagon8 Water Filter produces 'real' water

2010-05-17T13:39:00.000-07:00

New Hexagon Water Purifier

The amazing new 8 Stage Hexagon water purifier effectively removes chlorine, impurities, pesticides, flouride, volatile organic chemicals and heavy metals from water.

Designed to sit on your kitchen worktop and connects to your tap with simple maintenance. New 8 stage filter lasts approx. one year (every 10,000L)! Allows simple cleaning of components & can sit up to two metres away from the tap. Healthy water for 2c per litre!

Go to: http://www.greendemon.com.au/hexagon8stagewaterpurifier-p-590.html

Household makes $5544 from 5.6kw Solar System....

2010-04-15T16:15:00.000-07:00

Silver lining ... Mr Cooper checks the solar panels on his roof, which generate both electricity and income from selling power back to the grid. Photo: Dean Sewell

WHEN NSW brought in its generous solar panel subsidy scheme late last year, Aaron Cooper went big.

''As soon as we found out this policy wasn't means-tested, we just jumped,'' said the 37-year-old boilermaker. Last month Mr Cooper installed 32 American-made solar panels which take up most of the roof on his Berowra Heights home.

The 5.6 kilowatt system will run the lathes and welding equipment in Mr Cooper's shed, and heat an enclosure for 100 snakes he and his wife Ruth will keep out the back.

Mr Cooper, who studies venomous snakes as a hobby, has a licence from the National Parks and Wildlife Service to sell the reptiles, which can no longer be collected from the wild. He will also breed food for them such as crickets, frogs and mealworms.

Energy Australia estimates it will pay the Coopers $5544 a year under the state government's feed-in-tariff, at a rate of 66¢ per kilowatt-hour (kwh), based on the amount of electricity solar panels typically generate in Sydney. That should cover the couple's power bills well into the future, even though prices are expected to rise by up to 64 per cent over the next three years, and even assuming their power use doubles. Their bills were about $430 a quarter until now.

NSW's gross feed-in tariff, the highest in Australia, is guaranteed for seven years and should also quickly repay the almost $30,000 up-front cost of the system (not including renewable energy certificates worth about $7000, which the Coopers transferred to installer Blue Sky Energy).

''We wanted to cater for extra rises,'' Mr Cooper said. ''As long as we've got no bill, we're happy.''

But Mr Cooper is annoyed by his new smart meter - installed as a condition of connecting solar panels to the grid - which has seen his peak rate jump from about 16c/kwh to about 35c/kwh under a ''time of use'' regime.

He said that peak rate, charged between 2pm and 8pm weekdays, could jump to 64c/kwh by 2012 - almost as high as the feed-in-tariff. So-called shoulder and off-peak rates are much cheaper, of course, and Energy Australia said around 75 per cent of customers are better off under time-of-use metering, if they can switch to largely using dishwashers, dryers and pool pumps at night.

A typical saving would be $60 from a $1230 annual bill, an Energy Australia spokesman said.

Households are rushing to install solar panels to take advantage of the solar bonus scheme, which was announced last November.

A spokeswoman for NSW's Energy Minister, John Robertson, said the government hoped to treble solar panel installations in NSW, which would take the total to 33,000 homes.

Eco Friendly Fashion....

2010-04-14T16:07:00.000-07:00

Green to a T ... the label Gorman is devoted to sustainable fashion.

As the world of fashion takes a reality check on the state of the planet, Natasha Silva-Jelly presents a guide to the best in eco-chic.

In the lightning-fast, churn-and-burn world of planet fashion, what's hot and what's not changes practically every nanosecond. However, in recent years, a trend has emerged that is built to last. As sustainability tightens its grip on all things fashionable, the industry is involved in a game of catch-up.

"Green is not a trend," says retail expert and founder of Country Road Steve Bennett. "Over the next 10 years, the focus will be even more on sustainability and the planet."

Certainly nowadays, the evidence green is the new black is everywhere. In Melbourne's recent fashion festival, there was an entire runway show devoted to "slow" fashion.

Maserati's "It" bag is made from recycled brochures.

On the international runways, globally renowned labels such as Stella McCartney are blazing a trail for eco-chic with a message that sustainability is the future, a mantra that's been adopted even by royalty.

Yes, the heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, is on a personal mission to stamp out landfill caused by synthetic materials and throwaway fast-fashion by reinvigorating the lust for a product that was once Britain's most important commodity: wool.

The plan is to create a new "green" woollen collection to be unveiled at the first ever "wool week", scheduled for September to coincide with London Fashion Week.

Creating clothes that last and have less environmental impact is also high on the priority list for a growing list of local designers - including Gorman, New Zealander Kate Sylvester, Fleur Wood and Arabella Ramsay - who know the key to survival is via the implementation of sustainable business practices and enviro-friendly products. This is especially so in the post-GFC climate and when you consider the facts: new clothing purchases make up 14 per cent of our eco-footprint; it takes 2000 litres of water to make one cotton T-shirt; and we blow more than $1300 a year on items we never use or wear, according to the Australian Conservation Foundation. So to help you enter the green new world and in honour of April being Earth Month, here is the most up-to-date eco-chic shopping guide you'll find anywhere.

GORMAN

Credit must go where credit is due and the name that instantly springs to mind for eco-chic is Gorman. Globally praised for her devotion to forging a totally sustainable business and fashion-forward clothing label, Lisa Gorman is a true pioneer in the green movement in Australia. The Gorman organic collection, which uses organic-certified yarns and recycled fibres, accounts for 20 per cent of the range, though the eco-ethos runs much deeper - garment packaging has been reduced by 90 per cent, shopping bags are made from 100 per cent recycled paper and if a customer refuses one, the bag's value is donated to Friends of the Earth; $5 from every green and serene T-shirt also goes to the organisation. As a promoter of pedal power, a one-off Gorman bicycle is set to be designed and sold in store.gorman.ws.

STELLA McCARTNEY

Leading the charge at the height of high fashion is eco-crusader Stella McCartney.

A long-time vegetarian, environmentalist and animal rights activist, McCartney is well known for her stance on sustainability and has vowed to incorporate organic products as widely as she can. She does not touch fur and pays 70 per cent more to have her handbags made without leather.

McCartney is also the creator of a sporty collection for adidas, where the same green ethos is applied. Stella McCartney designs are available from robbyingham.com.au.

ELSOM

Another respected name on the green landscape is Sydney designer Sam Elsom, whose eponymous label Elsom creates high-quality directional fashion for men and women, using age-old hand-tailoring techniques and sustainable fabrics. A supporter of organic farming and the push towards organic textiles, Elsom works alongside sustainable farmers in India to source organic cotton. elsom.com.au.

BASSIKE

Bassike has built a global brand on its use of organic fabrics (including Australian-made jersey) and local manufacturing.

The luxe basics brand, which sells on net-a-porter.com, is set to stage a sustainable show at the upcoming Australian Fashion Week.

Aveda will be doing the hair, organic food will be on offer backstage and plastic bottles, fur and leather will be banned.

Bassike's aim is to create a completely carbon-neutral business.bassike.com.

JIGSAW

When quizzed, many of our chain stores weren't able to provide evidence of a green philosophy, so it's good to see at least one is doing something.

In Jigsaw stores now is a chic jewellery collection produced by Kenyan artisans, which supports fair trade practices and is made from sustainable materials. jigsaw-aust.com.au.

DIESEL

Even your trusty denim jeans have been caught up in the sustainability act.

Armani was the first to create an eco-friendly jean and now Diesel has produced Keever. Made from cotton paper denim using the ancient Chinese technique of crafting paper, each pair is made from 65 per cent cotton, 35 per cent paper and organic indigo dye. $669, diesel.com.

ECOFASHIONISTA.COM.AU

You can now find a lot of eco-friendly brands in one place.

This chic online boutique stocks a mixture of sustainable fashion items, shoe labels and accessory brands such as Skin and Threads, Ciel and Good Society Organic Denim. Click with your conscience clear. ecofashionista.com.au.

E.C.O. (Environmentally Conscious Optics)

As their name suggests, these cool designer-esque shades tick all the right boxes when it comes to green. Made from 100 per cent plant-based renewable materials, the frame is derived from plant oil instead of petroleum. Also, $5 from every sale is donated to SurfAid. (03) 5261 6660.

MASERATI

Introducing the "It" bag made from brochures that have been recycled. Instead of tossing out several pallets of its old brochures, luxury car maker Maserati handed them over to Momaboma and the result was a chic eco-bag, $595, Ferrari Maserati Sydney, (02) 8577 8105.

THE REUSABLE BAG

Considering that 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide each year (which is enough to fill 10,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools), accepting one at a store these days is a serious social no-no. In a bid to change mindsets, Target and Officeworks charge for theirs. Moving on from the style-free green Woolies bag are brands such as SAKitToMe by Envirotrend, Envirosax and Fizbag, which have created fabulous reusable shopping bags from recycled products and materials like bamboo. envirotrend.com.au; envirosax.com; fizbag.com.

ECO BEAUTY

It's not just fashion getting its green on. After identifying organic and natural products as its fastest-growing area, Mecca Cosmetica founder Jo Horgan flew into action. Last year, Horgan assembled a panel of green and retail experts, including eco-warrior Craig Kimberley and retail consultant Steve Bennett, to discuss the green movement and encourage change. "Wellness is the holy grail of our times and the shift towards more natural cosmetics is being driven by consumers who want quality and effective products; a natural claim is no longer enough," Horgan says. Putting its money where its mouth is, Mecca has added to its line-up brands with a solid eco/natural philsophy such as Ren and Nude Advanced Probiotic Skincare, from the founder of Fresh and Wild organic food emporiums in Britain. As part of Mecca's commitment to wellness, Horgan will educate staff beyond products and enlist the skills of dietitians and naturopaths in-store.

Solar Powered Plane First Flight

2010-04-07T15:22:00.000-07:00

Solar plane test flight success

A solar plane with wings as wide as a Boeing 747, but the power of a small motorboat, takes to the skies for the first time.

Video -

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO

10% discount to new customers for Easter....

2010-04-04T15:26:00.001-07:00

NEW CUSTOMERS 10% DISCOUNT (Australia only offer): Enter code '1stwebdiscount' on checking out

Happy Easter!

http://www.greendemon.com.au/

Mazda Hybrid coming in 2013

2010-03-30T20:13:00.001-07:00

Mazda will build a new hybrid vehicle in 2013 based on petrol-electric components borrowed from the Toyota Prius.

The Japanese car maker has signed an agreement with its domestic rival that will see Toyota supply hybrid technology that will be combined with Mazda's new-generation 'Sky' engines.

Mazda has previously snubbed hybrids and stated it would improve its vehicle fleet's overall fuel efficiency by 30 per cent by 2105 using a combination of lighter construction materials, stop/start engine technology and more efficient petrol and diesel engines.

The company, however, says it hopes to reach its self-imposed efficiency deadline even without the contribution of new hybrid models.

Mazda Kiyora concept.

Mazda is developing both petrol and diesel versions of its new direct-fuel-injection Sky engine for 2011, though it hasn't revealed whether the Sky-G (petrol) or Sky-D (diesel) will be mated to the Prius's components that would be expected to include its electric motors.

With electric assistance, Mazda says the four-cylinder petrol engine will improve fuel efficiency and torque by up to 15 per cent. The diesel engine will bring a consumption improvement of up to 20 per cent compared with a current version.

A Sky-G engine featured in Mazda's striking 2008 concept car, the Kiyora.

Mazda's new deal means the company has decided against pursuing the hybrid systems used by Ford, which reduced its stake in Mazda from 33 to 13 per cent in 2008. The US market Mazda Tribute borrows the petrol-electric drivetrain used in the twin-under-the-skin Ford Escape.

Toyota already supplies hybrid technology to Nissan in America, and says it will consider similar requests from other car makers.

Mazda has worked on hydrogen-powered prototypes but has previously ignored petrol-electric vehicles despite Toyota and Honda having first sold hybrids more than a decade ago.

Holden (GM) Car runs on nappies (Diapers)

2010-03-23T22:02:00.001-07:00

Holden hopes to have a car fuelled by household waste within a couple of years.

Australia’s most popular car could soon be running on dirty nappies and food scraps.

Holden has formed a consortium with Caltex, the Victorian Government and three other technology companies to explore the viability of an ethanol plant in Victoria that would convert household rubbish into fuel.

And the car maker has committed to launching a Commodore that is capable of running on 85 per cent ethanol by the end of the year.

Caltex will support the introduction of the new E85 Commodore by installing E85 pumps in 30 metropolitan and regional service stations later this year and increasing that figure to 100 within 12 months. The E85 Commodores will also be able to run on regular unleaded or E10 petrol.

The ethanol plant would take two years to build and would be capable of producing 200 million litres of ethanol a year from a variety of waste, including building materials, paper, cardboard and household food scraps. It would cost roughly $300 to $400 million to build.

The technology to convert the waste into fuel has been developed by US firm, Coskata. The process uses bacteria that feed off carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and hydrogen and excrete ethanol. Local waste management company Veolia will be responsible for providing the household waste to the plant.

Holden’s energy and environment director, Richard Marshall, said the technology would provide environmental benefits as well as reducing Australia’s dependence on foreign oil.

“Our vision is that this technology will, in time, cut Australia’s dependence on petrol by up to 30 per cent and make a contribution to sustainable motoring and greenhouse gas reduction,” Mr Marshall said.

Marshall said using household waste rather than food sources meant ethanol production could be significantly increased without raising any “food for fuel” issues.

“This process can use anything from dirty nappies to food scraps,” he said.

Australian ethanol is currently developed from waste by-products of sugar cane and wheat, but to increase production substantially, the current suppliers would need to convert food-producing agricultural land to ethanol crops, which would attract criticism.

“What we’re trying to do here is to move [ethanol] from a boutique fuel into the mainstream,” he said.

To move the fuel into the mainstream, however, the consortium will need to overcome the fact that E85-capable cars use substantially more fuel than petrol cars.

To attract buyers, petrol stations will have to heavily discount E85, but Marshall believes the price will be “very competitive” with petrol, especially in the longer term as petrol prices rise.

“We know that if petrol is about $1.50 a litre we need to be selling E85 for about $1.20 a litre.

“We’re expecting over the next year or so that the price of petrol is steadily going to go up. Even if ethanol right now at the bowser mightn’t be cheap enough to make it financially neutral we expect that over the next few months or year that will certainly change,” he said.

He said that converting waste to ethanol was a cost effective solution, because people would actually pay to supply the plant with its raw materials.

“You’ve actually got people paying you to take it away,” he said.

The plant would also help the environment by converting waste into fuel rather than landfill, which produces methane.

General Motors has a big commitment to ethanol fuels in the United States, with more than 3.5 million E85-capable cars on the road. It has committed to making more than half its vehicles E85 compatible by 2012.

Caltex Australia’s general manager, marketing, Andy Walz, said the company was committed to expanding beyond its traditional fuel mix.

“Caltex already has about 400 service stations that sell E10 and a growing biodiesel market. We believe the biofuels industry has a vital role in a sustainable transport fuels future and that biofuels are a good business opportunity for Caltex,” he said.

Marshall said ethanol would form part of a multi-pronged “sustainable motoring” strategy for Holden.

“We’re not saying this is the only solution. We’ve always said there are multiple solutions. There’s no silver bullet. I think people are now starting to talk about silver buckshot. Ethanol is very much an important piece of that buckshot, LPG is another and then electricity is part of it as well and conventional petrol will be important,” he said.

Earthlust Stainless Steel Bottles now in...

2010-03-21T19:09:00.000-07:00

Earthlust Stainless Steel Bottles now in...

EarthLust products are stylish and safe!

EarthLust bottles are hand made from high quality #304 (18/8) food grade stainless steel, which is naturally safe unlined. Our bottles are a custom design - not stock bottles. Most of our line is limited edition - new art will arrive soon! We use non-toxic paints and BPA-free safe polypropylene #5 caps. Select from our 380ml, 600ml and 1L Bottles.

Each bottle comes with a high quality carabineer and optional sports tops are available for all sizes - every bottle helps to eliminate waste and gives you a safe and stylish way to have a cold beverage near you at all times!

Sports caps (tops you don't have to take the tops off to drink from) are also available!

http://www.greendemon.com.au/stainlesssteelbottlesearthlust-c-63_99.html

1-3 appliances has exaggerated environmental credentials

2010-03-19T12:45:00.000-07:00

ONE in three electrical appliances audited for energy efficiency is either unfit for sale or has exaggerated environmental credentials, a Herald investigation reveals.

Of the 171 appliances tested from January 2007 to June 2008, 38 per cent failed the federal government's minimum energy performance requirements or understated the item's energy consumption on initial screening.

The poorest performing categories were fridges and freezers (59 per cent), airconditioners (59 per cent) and dishwashers (27 per cent).

Since the six-star rating system began in 1992, more than 1900 appliances have been audited to verify their advertised energy rating and consumption in response to tip-offs or complaints.

Despite the alarming rate of failure, the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency and Water failed to provide a list of offending companies.

The federal government administers the star rating scheme, and the states are responsible for enforcement. Serious breaches may be referred directly to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

But, since 2003, the ACCC has taken action in just three cases.

Consumer advocates and testing laboratory operators have called for tighter enforcement to rein in offenders, many of which are based overseas.

Catriona Lowe, of the Consumer Action Law Centre, said harsher penalties were needed. She supported a name-and-shame list for multiple offenders.

''Perhaps for a first offence it's appropriate [for the manufacturer] to remedy but, when companies are doing it on a serial basis, consumers have a right to that information,'' she said.

This week, as the Herald reported, the electronics giant LG was forced to pay more than $400,000 in electricity rebates and offer refunds to 1259 customers who bought two models of fridge that were doctored to give lower energy consumption readings. The ACCC is reportedly investigating the matter.

Ian Jones, of Vipac, which performs efficiency tests for manufacturers and the government, said the self-regulatory aspects of the star rating scheme meant items ''could end up on the market without any testing''.

Testing costs could run into the tens of thousands of dollars and manufacturers sometimes made modifications to improve results, he said.

A spokesman for the Consumer Electronics Suppliers Association, Ian McAlister, said the majority of manufacturers complied with the requirements.

''They have their reputations to protect … we only hear about the ones that fail. It's very rare for the companies to be pinged.''

He said discrepancies between stated and actual energy consumption could result from variations in testing conditions.

There are more than 31,000 appliances on the federal government's energy efficiency register. More than 75 per cent of consumers used star rating labels to help choose an appliance, a 2006 survey found.

A spokesman for Choice, Christopher Zinn, said increased running costs made the star rating system more relevant.

''As the price of electricity goes up, consumer demand is going to be for more energy star-style disclosure on more and more products,'' he said.

LG puts illegal 'Green' device in fridges

2010-03-16T12:32:00.000-07:00

AN ELECTRONICS manufacturer with a history of making false environmental claims has been caught doctoring fridges to make them appear more energy efficient.

LG Electronics has agreed to compensate potentially thousands of consumers after two of its fridges - models L197NFS and P197WFS - were found to contain an illegal device that activates an energy-saving mode when it detects room conditions similar to those in a test laboratory.

The so-called circumvention device was discovered last month by the consumer advocacy group, Choice.

The device detects test conditions - typically 22 degrees - and activates the energy-saving mode, creating the impression of lower running costs and energy usage. The devices have been banned in Australia since 2007.

In reality the fridge, which has a 3.5 star energy rating, costs an extra $250 to run over 10 years and can severely affect food quality because the fridge can shut off when opened.

Choice's tests found the energy consumption of the fridge was 876 kilowatt hours a year, compared to the advertised 738kWh.

Yesterday, the chief executive of Choice, Nick Stace, said the fridge was an extreme example of a company making false or misleading environmental claims, known as ''greenwashing''.

''This fridge is both a potential danger to your food, your wallet and the environment,'' Mr Stace told the Choice National Consumer Congress at Luna Park.

LG Electronics has agreed to pay affected customers $331 to cover the unexpected increase in their power bills, but has not agreed to refund the purchase price of the fridge.

It is the third time LG Electronics has been caught making false claims about the environmental credentials of its products.

In 2008, it had to repay $3 million after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission ruled it had inflated the energy-efficiency star rating of five models of air-conditioner.

The Herald understands the ACCC is investigating the latest matter. An ACCC deputy chairman, Peter Kell, would not comment on the investigation, but said consumer laws due to be introduced this year would give regulators greater powers to police claims.

He said the new legislation, the biggest overhaul of consumer law since the 1970s, would give the ACCC the power to force companies to substantiate environmental, health and other claims, as well as the power to enforce harsher penalties.

From April 1, a new star rating labelling system and energy rating calculation will be introduced for all fridges.

A spokeswoman for electrical retailer, The Good Guys, said it received a manufacturer's recall notice from LG for the L197NFS fridge on February 26.

She said the company would offer customers a full refund and would pursue the matter with LG Electronics.

US to be 10% solar powered by 2030

2010-03-11T13:12:00.000-08:00

US to be 10% solar powered by 2030

Updated: 08:57, Thursday March 11, 2010

The United States could source 10 per cent of its electricity from solar power by 2030, a report said on Tuesday.
The report, produced by the independent environmental group Environment America, was presented to Congress with backing from Senator Bernie Sanders who in February introduced legislation to install 10 million solar panels across the United States within a decade.
Sanders praised the report, which said the United States could get 10 per cent of its electricity from solar power by 2030, up from just 0.1 per cent in 2008, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Sanders' bill, which has gained the support of several other Democratic senators, proposes 'rebates for the purchase and installation of an additional 10,000,000 solar roofs ... by 2019.'
'At a time when we spend $US350 billion ($A383.14 billion) importing oil from Saudi Arabia and other countries every year, the United States must move away from foreign oil to energy independence,' Sanders told a media conference on Tuesday.
The legislation introduced by Sanders, who heads a sub-committee on green jobs, would offer a rebate of $US1.75 ($A1.92) per watt of installed capacity in 2010, an offer that would fall to 25 cents per watt by 2019.

SKY NEWS

Apple using child labour

2010-02-28T16:17:00.001-08:00

At least eleven 15 year-old children were discovered to be working last year in three factories that supply Apple.

The company did not name the offending factories, or say where they were based, but the majority of its goods are assembled in China.

Apple also has factories working for it in Taiwan, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, the Czech Republic and the United States.

Apple said the child workers are now no longer being used, or are no longer underage. "In each of the three facilities, we required a review of all employment records for the year as well as a complete analysis of the hiring process to clarify how underage people had been able to gain employment," Apple said, in an annual report on its suppliers.

Apple has been repeatedly criticised for using factories that abuse workers and where conditions are poor. Last week, it emerged that 62 workers at a factory that manufactures products for Apple and Nokia had been poisoned by n-hexane, a toxic chemical that can cause muscular degeneration and blur eyesight. Apple has not commented on the problems at the plant, which is run by Wintek, in the Chinese city of Suzhou.

A spokesman for Wintek said that "almost all" of the affected workers were back at work, but that some remained in hospital. Wintek said n-hexane was commonly used in the technology industry, and that problems had arisen because some areas of the factory were not ventilated properly.

Last year, an employee at Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that is one of Apple's biggest suppliers, committed suicide after being accused of stealing a prototype for the iPhone.

Sun Danyong, 25, was a university graduate working in the logistics department when the prototype went missing. An investigation revealed that the factory's security staff had beaten him, and he subsequently jumped to his death from the 12th floor of his apartment building.

Foxconn runs a number of super-factories in the south of China, some of which employ as many as 300,000 workers and form self-contained cities, complete with banks, post offices and basketball courts.

It has been accused, however, of treating its employees extremely harshly. China Labor Watch, a New York-based NGO, accused Foxconn of having an "inhumane and militant" management, which neglects basic human rights. Foxconn's management were not available for comment.

In its report, Apple revealed the sweatshop conditions inside the factories it uses. Apple admitted that at least 55 of the 102 factories that produce its goods were ignoring Apple's rule that staff cannot work more than 60 hours a week.

The technology company's own guidelines are already in breach of China's widely-ignored labour law, which sets out a maximum 49-hour week for workers.

Apple also said that one of its factories had repeatedly falsified its records in order to conceal the fact that it was using child labour and working its staff endlessly.

"When we investigated, we uncovered records and conducted worker interviews that revealed excessive working hours and seven days of continuous work," Apple said, adding that it had terminated all contracts with the factory.

Only 65 per cent of the factories were paying their staff the correct wages and benefits, and Apple found 24 factories where workers had not even been paid China's minimum wage of around 800 yuan (Pounds76) a month.

Meanwhile, only 61 per cent of Apple's suppliers were following regulations to prevent injuries in the workplace and a mere 57 per cent had the correct environmental permits to operate.

The high environmental cost of Apple's products was revealed when three factories were discovered to be shipping hazardous waste to unqualified disposal companies.

Apple said it had required the factories to "perform immediate inspections of their wastewater discharge systems" and hire an independent environmental consultant to prevent future violations.

However, Apple has not stopped using the factories.

In 2008, Apple found that a total of 25 child workers had been employed to build iPods, iPhones and its range of computers.

London Sunday Telegraph

NSW Government writes off renewable energy

2010-02-24T23:01:00.000-08:00

TWO new fossil fuel power plants that will increase the state's greenhouse gas emissions by between 5 and 15 per cent will move a step closer to construction this week after developers claimed renewable energy cannot feed a growing hunger for electricity.

The carbon emissions from the power stations, which would be added to existing plants at Mount Piper near Lithgow and Bayswater in the Hunter Valley, would equal a doubling of the number of cars on NSW roads.

But the two government-owned developers, Delta Electricity and Macquarie Generation, say they are essential to meet demand and replace older, less efficient coal-fired generators.

Their responses to public submissions dismiss the idea of investing in solar or wind power instead. Macquarie Generation says NSW will have trouble meeting the national 20 per cent renewable energy target by 2020 because ''other states have better renewable resources".

The environmental assessment reports for the two power stations say ''clean coal'' technology will not be available to them in the medium term, although they expect that the technology will eventually emerge and the stations are fitted out for future carbon capture and storage.

Building coal-fired power plants, which would lock in high-emissions infrastructure for decades, is a touchstone issue for environment groups, which argue future energy needs can mainly be met with better energy efficiency, wind turbines and solar stations in the outback.

A decision by the Planning Minister, Tony Kelly, on the future of the plants, deemed ''critical infrastructure'' under state planning laws, is expected this week.

The key decision facing the utilities is whether to run the two, 1000-megawatt plants on coal or gas. Burning gas generates slightly less than half the emissions of coal, but is likely to be more expensive and would require the construction of a pipeline to Mount Piper.

The government is unlikely to express a preference for either gas or coal in its assessment.

The NSW Greens believe the need for new sources of baseload power have been overestimated.

"The NSW government has written off the state's renewable energy future, preferring instead to rely on outdated and inaccurate predications of a shortage of baseload power to justify their expansion plans,'' the Greens MP John Kaye said.

"Massive wind development in the state's west and possibilities for solar thermal generation in the central west put paid to the Keneally government's myths that NSW lacks renewable resources.''

Sydney's solar ferries go globa

2010-02-14T16:52:00.001-08:00

Sydney's solar ferries go global

Solar powered ferries currently sailing in Sydney are soon to become a frequent sight in and around Hong Kong's harbour.

http://media.smh.com.au/news-video/environment-news

Honda 's new home Hydrogen Solar Station

2010-01-29T10:17:00.000-08:00

Click for more photos

Honda has developed a hydrogen re-filling station for the home - and it’s solar-powered.

If Honda has its way, your home will soon be transformed into a service station.

Honda has developed a next-generation solar-powered hydrogen fuelling station in the US that can be installed in your home - effectively removing the need for regular retail refilling stations.

The prototype is designed to refill a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle in an eight-hour overnight cycle. It produces half a kilo of hydrogen in that time, which is enough to replenish the supply sufficiently enough for the average everyday commute.

One of the biggest benefits of Honda's new system is that it doesn't require the costly and bulky compressor of the previous solar hydrogen refilling station. The compressor with a high differential pressure electrolyser.

The new system can also pump energy back into the grid, allowing the owner to "sell" unused electricity to an energy supplier.

Honda says that the key to getting hydrogen stations into people's homes is to make it convenient, clean and energy efficient - the 48-panel solar powered system runs on off-peak energy and Honda says it wants to push the use of fuel cell vehicles forward.

"The combination of fuel cell electric vehicles and solar hydrogen stations could lead to the establishment of a hydrogen society based on renewable energy, resulting in a major reduction of CO2 emissions and greater energy sustainability."

According to Honda, it's all part of the plan to make hydrogen - in particular, the company's FCX Clarity fuel-cell vehicle - a mainstream option for the future.

"With fast fill public stations providing 5-minute fuelling time for longer trips, and the opportunity of convenient night-time slow filling at home... the Honda FCX Clarity can cover a wide range of driving demands from the daily commute to weekend trips."

The Honda FCX Clarity is currently only available in America and Japan as a lease vehicle, though it has been reported that Honda plans to offer affordable hydrogen cars to the mass market within ten years.

(SMH)

Mini-Prius Concept - Eight new Hybrids on the way

2010-01-12T13:50:00.000-08:00

Toyota has unveiled a compact hybrid concept that will be cheaper and more fuel efficient than a Prius and spawn a new family of Prius-badged models.

The Japanese brand's new FT-CH has yet to be confirmed for production, but the company said at the concept car's reveal at the 2010 Detroit motor show that it plans to introduce a new range of petrol-electric models to capitalise on the strength of the Prius brand.

"We know we need to offer a wider variety of hybrid choices," says Toyota Motors Sales USA president Jim Lentz. "This is a car that our dealers and customers have been asking for.

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Radical Toyota FT-CH hybrid

"We're developing a Prius family to take advantage of the Prius brand. There are more models planned and FT-CH is a concept we are considering."

Toyota says the FT-CH production version would be smaller lighter and more fuel efficient than the Prius, and that it will appeal to a "younger, less affluent demographic than Prius" and be priced below the world's most famous hybrid car.

The FT-CH is 560mm shorter (3886mm) and 25mm narrower than a Prius, though Toyota says the concept still seats four passengers in comfort.

Toyota says it will launch eight new hybrids over the next few years, none of which will be next-generation versions of existing petrol-electric models.

The Prius badge will be applied to a number of these new hybrids, though says Prius won't necessarily be considered a sub-brand within the company as with Scion that's used for Toyota's US range of models targeted specifically at younger customers.

Toyota says, however, that it is considering how it will apply model names to the different Prius models - including the current Prius itself.

It is hoping the new family of hybrids will help establish the Prius name as a global household name as great as Apple.

"I think the best analogy [for the range of Prius models] is that it's like the iPod with the Nano, the Shuffle, etc. The iPod name ... we're not trying to steal Apple's thunder, but it's incredibly strong branding," said Mike Michels, Toyota vice president of communications.

"What's prompting this is that our research shows that the Prius recognition is incredibly strong ... and it's probably higher than any of our brands except the core brands of Corolla and Camry. So we're trying to leverage that."

Petrol-electric hybrids will become the core drivetrain for Toyota and the company plans to sell one million hybrids annually.

It sold 530,000 hybrids globally in 2009 and Toyota is working on having a hybrid version of every model in its range on the market by 2020.