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).

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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.

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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.

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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.)

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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.

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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'.

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Vertigro

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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?

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REVA Electric Car

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

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IKEA's Bicycle Trailers

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

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