"My" Idea

I say that because this came to me a little while back. I certainly claim no sovereignty over it, just explaining why I thought this was so neat.

The article

On a beautiful, crisp late fall afternoon, rock icon Neil Young took his 1959 Lincoln Continental for one last spin before a team of mechanics ripped out its gas-guzzling engine to make way for an electric motor.

What a great idea! Reminds me of the high school I posted about a few months ago. I love the idea of switching such a great, old car into a symbol of sustainable transportation. It's also nice to see celebrities doing the right thing.

Car in question (not actually his):



The article goes on to quote Neil as saying it will get 100 MPG and runs off of biodiesel. Transformation apparently takes 45 days... I'm sure Neil has a replacement.

More interesting than this specific car is the idea itself. I was asked a while back what my dream job would be and I said "CEO/owner/prez of a company that either built sustainable cars or modified current cars to be sustainable." I feel like that would really stretch my business sense, let me work individually with people, keep me in the auto world, let me be an innovator in terms of technique, and really work my entrepreneurial spirit (which really has not had a chance to be seen at this point). It's the perfect job, IMHO. In fact, being the CEO may not be exactly what I want but having something to do with a company like that would be ideal.

Well, the company that is changing this Lincoln is doing just that:

Goodwin is making a name for himself -- and his company, H-Line Conversions -- by turning gas-guzzling behemoths like Hummers, Cadillac Escalades, Jeeps and other big American cars into clean-power machines. The first thing he does is remove the old inefficient engine -- even if it's a brand new vehicle -- and replace it with a diesel engine that can run on biodiesel. What's the drawback of his method? You guessed it. Cost. "It's not cost-effective for someone to run out and spend $40,000 to double the fuel economy, but I have no shortage of customers," Goodwin says. Including California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who's having his Wagoneer converted to biodiesel. Goodwin, 37, drives a 1987 gas burning Wagoneer, rents his home and will sheepishly tell you he didn't graduate from high school. Expect to hear a lot more about Goodwin in the future. Companies are knocking down the door to work on projects with him.

I'm torn between seeing this as a massive opportunity for the future or scared that someone is already doing it....

What do you do when you see someone else living your dream and it's suddenly very clear to you how real that dream could be??

Sh*t.............................................................

Zero inspiration

Final exams are impending and, with that, comes comprehensive, suffocating exhaustion. No longer am I tired or happy,or good when asked, I just am. This sentiment is both very familiar and not at all unique to me. All around, the incontestable signs of impending, permanent, official critique are popping up. Attendance, which dropped last week, is quickly climbing back up. Faces I'm not quite familiar with are appearing in class. The black-circle-under-the-eye plague is spreading unchecked across previously fresh-faced young whatevers-to-be.

Finals bring out the soldier in some, the beggar in others, and nothing at all in a third segment on campus. Some beg, borrow, and plead for a passing grade, suddenly feeling regret for the last 3 months of letting things slide. The library and computer lab are now both full of inconsiderate asses, completely mindless to what could and should be a quiet environment. The population there doubles; the regulars still remain but now they are joined by a new contingent, a platoon of slackers, procrastinators, alcoholics, and others who treat school like it starts and ends in the same month.

Much like the roles we take, the dress code around campus also splits into thirds. Suits and ties and dresses and blouses appear as everyone gets ready for that final group presentation in This Won't Help You Later 110. At the same time, old T-shirts and track suits and pajamas and helter-skelter hair dos also propagate, the product of a complete lack of interest in anything but the task at hand. Appearance, hygiene, laundry, and other typically essential components of society easily take a back seat to your future which, invariably, rides on your receipt of a vowel or a consonant. Some, like myself, didn't care, still don't and won't next semester either. About appearance, of course. My future rests in the letter, just like everyone else.

Still, despite the morose turn the campus takes this time of year, there is a small glimmer of hope in the student body's heavy and bloodshot eyes. With the end of finals comes a respite from the regular regimen. Some of us leave, some of us work, some of us stay and do nothing, but the bells aren't ringing, the tests aren't being passed forward, and the heavy books are on the shelf. Combine all of these together and you have something, however small, to celebrate. I plan to double the amount of hours I'm working, learn how to use a publishing software, spend a while at home half-relaxing, and catch up with my schedule-estranged girlfriend (who's name, unfortunately, escapes me for the time being). I call this celebration.

So good luck to you in whatever you do and Happy December to all.

Well said

From the WWF (World Wildlife Foundation) "Deeper Luxury" report found here (it's a 52-page PDF, FYI).

If everyone were to live like the average European, three planets would be needed to provide adequate quantities of natural resources – for the average North American, five planets would be required.13 It would be physically impossible for all the world’s poor to achieve greater wellbeing in the same ways that Europeans and North Americans have managed so far. Such wasteful development is possible only for a minority, and for a limited time. This is neither morally nor environmentally sustainable. Our challenge is to find ways to improve human wellbeing within natural limits; to stop living as though we had another planet to go to.

So freakin cool

Man, it took a while for someone to do this... so neat!!! Just a regular CFL (compact fluorescent light) bulb in a gorgeous shape. Ever just see something that makes you stop for a second and appreciate? It doesn't have to be as ostentatious as a Ferrari or cliche as a model... it can be something simple, like this.

Dig a little deeper into the producer and you'll find some rather disturbing other products: a lizard-skin bluetooth handset that makes it look like you're on a normal phone. Can we PLEASE, as a species, move beyond killing animals just to make things like pretty? Totally senseless and unnecessary, IMHO.

Light bulb is still sexy though...

Maybe E85 not a miracle? Shocker...

Link is here:

A recent study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development concluded that biofuels "offer a cure [for oil dependence] that is worse than the disease." A National Academy of Sciences study said corn-based ethanol could strain water supplies. The American Lung Association expressed concern about a form of air pollution from burning ethanol in gasoline. Political cartoonists have taken to skewering the fuel for raising the price of food to the world's poor.

They have this very telling little graphic as well:


^^^ That says a lot to me. It says beware of fads, particularly green ones. It says don't have the "short sell" mentality and try to make that fast buck if you have no idea what you're doing.

I found this to be quite interesting... did you know this?

The U.S. gives oil refiners an excise-tax credit of 51 cents for every gallon of ethanol they blend into gasoline. And even though it's the oil industry that gets this subsidy, the industry dislikes being forced to use a nonpetroleum product. The U.S. ethanol industry is further protected by a 54-cent tariff on every gallon of imported ethanol.

How did ethanol get all of this help so fast? It was interesting to see how fast the idea of ethanol made it into our collective consciouses. At first it was rarely talked about, then it was all over the place, and now people are asking questions.

But here is what REALLY bugs me:

Ethanol's opponents also began to highlight reasons why ethanol might not be such a boon to the environment, citing some recent research studies.

Look at ANY objective research and this will be blatantly clear to anyone. I spent a total of maybe 20 minutes going through scholarly journals (electronically of course) and found that ethanol not only frees up 10% extra energy (i.e. if it takes 100 joules to make a gallon, that gallon produces 110 joules), it uses a whole lot of fresh water, something else we need to conserve, and really does a number on the soil. It has been a total mystery to me why people were pursuing this fuel. Now I know, it was probably...
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Hybrid Choo-choo

Taking us one step closer to that hybrid jet I've been designing on the weekends, GE announced that they are working on a hybrid powered locomotive. "Wow, cool," you might be saying and I am saying the same except it's more like "HOLY SH*T! COOL!" and it's probably for a different reason. First, an interesting fact from their site:

The energy dissipated in braking a 207-ton locomotive during the course of one year is enough to power 160 households for that year.

That fact is probably one of the coolest I've heard in a while (and I live an existence bombarded by facts). First, that is a helluvalotta energy which makes sense because trains, because of their weight, generate a lot of momentum (the product of speed and mass). Now add in deceleration (reducing speed) and you have energy, joules of power. Second, the comparison to 160 households is simply incredible. I'm floored... in a good way.

But here's why I'm so excited:

GE's hybrid locomotive's lead-free rechargeable batteries will be able to provide superior performance by allowing operators to draw an additional 2,000 horsepower when needed.

What a great way to test, research, and develop high-horsepower and high-torque applications for electric motors! Right now, there's not a lot of propulsion methods that will work for a semi-truck or a bulldozer or, well, a train simple because big, heavy things need a big push. It is difficult to get an electric motor to push that mind of weight around which is why you'll find a lot of weight-saving features on hybrids and EVs. GE is going to have a fantastic, constant lab to try new things in the high-load realm.


Getting big, thirsty, heavy, dirty diesels off of the road, whether we clean up diesel fuel and engines and replace everything or find a new method, is an important piece of the sustainable transportation puzzle. You better BELIEVE that if these hit tracks, I will replace some/all of my air travel with them.