Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Continuum Ubicycle



The Ubicycle public bicycle service system by design firm Continuum (who worked on the Hundred Dollar Laptop project) will give commuters a new way to get around town. The unmanned bike rental kiosks are topped with solar panels for power, and use RFID-embedded Smart cards for tracking and security. The distinct look and green color of the bikes will also make them easy to spot on the street, so they'll be harder for thieves to sell or ride around on freely.

Link to the article

Electric Bike Pilot Option

    TORONTO, Oct. 4 /CNW/ - The McGuinty government is testing a clean,
healthy transportation alternative with the launch of a pilot allowing the use
of e-bikes on Ontario roads, Transportation Minister Donna Cansfield announced
today.

Link to the article

Galileo: Energy and Transport




Link to the webpage

Monday, September 29, 2008

Green Car Congress



Link to their website

In Tokyo, tracking kids using train passes



In Tokyo, the PASMO card lets residents pay for train fares quickly using a RFID-embedded card and reader. They simply wave the card as they enter or exit the station and it does all the work. But now PASMO is starting to do much more than that, handling transactions and acting as a credit card. And now it even helps parents keep track of their kids.

Link to the article

Israel takes on the electric car



Link to the article

Mori Building Co




Link to their website

New Dynamic Transport



A revolutionary way of looking at cost effective, zero emissions, and a fun way of getting around. With gas prices on the rise, traffic congestion, and the rise of carbon emissions... why not look into cleaner, healthier and convenient modes of transportation. New Dynamic Transport offers plenty of solutions with its wide selection of Bikes and Trikkes.

Link to their website

New OLPC laptop to bring sexy touchscreens



The One Laptop Per Child program — the program that aims to put cheap but functional notebook computers in the hands of children in impoverished countries — has been shipping the distinctively green XO laptop since the end of 2007, but the people behind it are already looking to the future. Program founder Nicholas Negroponte revealed yesterday the next-generation XO-2, and it looks pretty rockin'.

Link to the article

Friday, September 19, 2008

Honda Insight Concept Hybrid Vehicle to Debut at Paris International Auto Show

09/04/2008 - TORRANCE, Calif. -

Honda will reveal a concept version of its new small hybrid vehicle, to be named Insight, at the 2008 Paris International Auto Show, October 2, the company announced today. The new Insight Concept shares styling cues with the Honda FCX Clarity fuel cell vehicle and will provide an early look at the highly-anticipated five-passenger hybrid vehicle.

Link to the article.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

BEST makes a smart move

In a bid to make transport services passenger friendly, the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking on Friday installed the smart card system, the PCO system, CCTVs and drop boxes by Hutchison Essar in its buses.

StreetFilms Looks at Bus Rapid Transit in LA

LA isn't exactly known as the most transit-friendly city in the world. Built around the motorcar, and lacking the density of cities like New York or Washington DC, it's hard to imagine how Los Angeles can remedy this situation either. However, if this video from the ever-productive StreetFilms is anything to go by, then they are certainly trying.

Link to the article and video.

Virgina Tech Sustainable Mobility website

Link to their site.

Tall ships make a comeback as oil price hits exports



A British schooner docked in Penzance yesterday carrying 30,000 bottles of wine on a voyage that enthusiasts believe will herald a return to wind power in merchant shipping.

Link to the article.

Michigan Green Cabs


Detroit Airport - Detroit Hotels - Detroit Sports - Detroit Night life

The Michigan Green Cab vehicles use hybrid technology. A fleet of 150 cars using hybrid technology saves 1,200,000 gallons of fuel annually and REDUCES pollution and GREEN HOUSE EMISSIONS by 70%!

Link to the website.

Monday, August 25, 2008

China's Powerful New Emission-Killing Trains



They won't look much different, but the first of 300 fuel-efficient locomotives are about to hit China. Using a lighter weight design, the China Mainline Evolution Series locomotive by GE achieves a peak output of 6,250-horsepower, which is 40% more power than the top-of-the-line Evolution locomotives currently being used in North America. At the same time, the 16-cylinder diesel-electric engine generates 84% fewer emissions and increases fuel efficiency by 3% to 5%. So impressive, it even makes the guys in Erie who manufacture it break into renditions of that song from Top Gun (see video below).

Link to the article.

Methane Power For Metro System



In Mexico, methane from landfills, a natural byproduct of decomposing organic matter known as landfill gas, or LFG, makes up 10 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. Beginning in 2001, Monterrey, Mexico—a modern city of nearly four million people that disposes of over 4,500 tons of municipal solid waste a day in the Metropolitan Solid Waste Processing landfill— attempted to harvest methane from the land­fill for electricity while reducing methane emissions. It's a solid ecological one-two punch: reduce gas emissions from solid waste while improving solid waste management.

Link to the article.

Inexpensive Solar Using Nail Polish and a Pizza Oven



An Australian PhD student has found a cheap way to make solar cells with nail polish, a pizza oven and an ink jet printer. 23-year-old Nicole Kuepper's invention, named iJET, doesn't require the pricey clean rooms and high-temperature ovens of traditional solar panel manufacturing plants, thus dramatically lowering the cost of solar and paving the road for introducing the technology to third-world countries.

Link to the article.

Yahoo knows where you are

SAN FRANCISCO - Given all the drama surrounding Yahoo’s corporate activities, it’s easy to forget that there is a business still to be run and new products to launch. On Tuesday at Yahoo’s San Francisco-based skunk works - known as the Brickhouse - the embattled Internet company unveiled a new location services platform dubbed Fire Eagle. (Yes, it’s a silly name but say it 10 times fast and think of Firefox and it begins to sound OK.)

Link to the article.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Ford Fiesta ECOnetic Diesel



At the British International Motor Show, Ford has introduced the ECOnetic version of its Ford Fiesta. The engine is a 1.6-liter Duratorq TDCi (diesel) that has been tweaked for efficiency. Fuel economy for the ECOnetic Fiesta is 3.7 L/100km (63.6 mpg US) combined, or 3.2 L/100km (73.5 mpg US) on the highway! It's not exactly a race car, with 0 to 60 mph in 12 seconds, but those who will buy it won't care, the mileage will more than make up for it.

Link to the article

School Bus Tricycle in India



In human history, poverty is the default state. Only in the recent past did the average person (and only in certain countries) emerge from what we would now consider 'abject poverty' (back then it was just normal). This tricycle 'school bus' from India is an example of 'getting by with what you've got'.

Link to the article

Vertigro



Link to vertigro's website

Israel-world’s leader in electric cars?

What would happen if you cross-bred J. R. Ewing of “Dallas” and Carl Pope, the head of the Sierra Club? You’d get T. Boone Pickens. What would happen if you cross-bred Henry Ford and Yitzhak Rabin? You’d get Shai Agassi. And what would happen if you put together T. Boone Pickens, the green billionaire Texas oilman now obsessed with wind power, and Shai Agassi, the Jewish Henry Ford now obsessed with making Israel the world’s leader in electric cars?

Link to the article

REVA Electric Car



The electric company Cam (a branch of Spanish Endesa) has just launched the Indian electric car REVA in Santiago de Chile.

Link to the article

IKEA's Bicycle Trailers



IKEA of Denmark is now starting a new concept at their Danish stores.

Link to the article

Monday, July 21, 2008

Mayor of London Announces the 'Summer of Cycling'



Link to the article

Walking school bus .org



Link to walkingschoolbus.org

Building a Better World, One Delivery at a Time



More Cargo Biking


Link to the article

Hybrid Taxi in Vancouver



Link to Flickr

Barcelona’s Bike Sharing System



Link to the article

Finding Liberté on Two Wheels



MY plane landed at Charles de Gaulle airport. I took the RER train into Paris, dropped off my bag and, two hours after landing, I was riding a bicycle down the Boulevard Saint-Germain.

read more: Link to the article

S.F. moving to catch up with European bike-share programs

San Francisco is one push of the pedal closer to offering residents and visitors a bike-sharing program in an effort to ease traffic congestion and to promote health through exercise.

Link to the article


The Train That Never Stops



Link to the article

Cargo bikes



Link to the article

Smart Parking



Can't Find a Parking Spot? Check Smartphone

Link to the article

Green Bombardier Jet



Analysts predict Bombardier's new CSeries jet to sell like hotcakes

Link to the article

"Vetrolium"

junctionvin writes "The company Sustainable Power Corp. claims to have created a form of bio-crude oil from agricultural refuse. They use agro-waste from cracked soy beans, rice and cotton seed hulls, grain sorghum, milo, and jatropha and turn it into bio-crude oil. This crude can then be further refined into everything from gasoline to jet fuel and just about every petrochemical in between. The CEO is quoted: 'Our biggest problem is that we are too good to be true. We can literally replace every gallon of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel in the United States using just 12 percent of the waste byproducts in the country.' They also claim that their fuel burns to near 100 percent efficiency."

To the original article

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Bikes Ahoy



UW grad students win $25,000 environmental prize for play to start innovative sharing program that could be a North American first.

Link to the article