The blimp was being touted as a rich person's toy, but there are a number of real useful applications for this kind of craft. It could be used by researchers investigating things such as the diversity of life in tree canopies, places that researchers cannot now easily reach. As we noted previously, "no other aircraft can accomplish the seemingly straightforward task of picking off the top-most leaf from a particular tree."

It also could help solve "last mile" problems in a instances of shipping heavy, bulky items where roads are not in place and the cargo is too heavy for helicopters to handle. Logging, done using these blimps, could be done with far fewer roads cut through the forest. More selective logging of non-farm forests could be carried out with a greatly reduced impact on the surrounding area. Similarly, airships like this would allow larger pieces of equipment or segments of buildings to be fabricated at a factory and delivered directly to the site. At present, transportability limits many things to a size that can be carried down the highway. We're making pieces that are not more than one lane wide. But if wider and larger pieces could be delivered more directly (transported either from the factory or from container ships or other sources where the size is not constrained), less field fabrication and assembly would be needed and costs could be lowered.

Ron Hochstetler: When I graduated from college I saw lots of people going into major technical fields where pretty much everything had already been developed and the technologies they’d be working on were very mature. Not much room for a new guy to make a new mark. But then I read an article about a little company in Britain (Airship Industries) that wanted to build modern technology airships. I figured here was a part of aviation that was cool, was still pretty much unexploited, and was made up of such a small cadre of people that just about any contributions I could make would have some significance. The short answer is: if you pick a small pond a lot of the splashes you make will be big ones.

EG: In as brief a list as possible, what kind of advantages does airship travel hold over traditional air travel?

The CleanEra project is a recently formed group is seeking to Their goals include a plane that would emit 50 percent less carbon dioxide, as well as producing less noise and fewer pollutants than current planes do.

In addition to the more fanciful and exotic image of green flying saucers, the engineers are also looking at more prosaic elements as part of their approach. The current design of airplanes remains fairly unchanged, even through new generations of aircraft. Engineers are concerned that new and radically different approaches are needed to get the improvements they are looking for. Some elements that are being explored include using propellers instead of jets, using more composite materials, and exploring the use of biofuels for aircraft. Another option is one of our favorites here at EcoGeek, airships:

"One solution might be to save fuel by shuttling vacationers in a slower, lower-flying aircraft, but then "start the party on board," de Haan suggested. It wouldn't be a flying saucer, but rather a cruise ship in the sky. "

via: Bruce Sterling's Beyond the Beyond

See Also:
-Aircraft Design 3000 Times Quieter, 35% More Efficient-
-9 Steps to Green Flight-

How much power did the Zonbu consume?

I confirmed that I had rolled exactly 5h 0m on the Kill-a-watt time counter, and I looked at the total KWH used. As you might have guessed, since the box runs ~10W, it used a paltry 0.05 KWH of power over the last five wall-clock hours.

That is impressive.

Not only has it used virtually no electricity, but it has been blissfully silent. It is warm to the touch (not surprisingly, given the box is one big heat sink), but not uncomfortably hot.

Please include lm-sensors

If the lm-sensors package is installed so that environmental variables can be read, then I can’t find it. I hope the Zonbu team add it so we can more closely monitor the fan speeds, system temperatures and so on. I use it on some other VIA C7 boards that I have in my data center and it comes in handy.

Conclusion

I’d like to write a big long post about how nice and efficient and green the box is, but I think we’ve covered all the key poitns. The box is small, it is silent, and it often uses even less than the 15W rating they talk about on their website. What a pleasant discovery. I’ll let you return to the other, more scintillating topics on this blog.

- Mr. Zonbu

Over time it is estimated that several hundred million batteries could be saved annually on a global scale. The net environmental benefit is still restricted by the high energy content of current PV cells. However the introduction of new types of cheap and energy-extensive PV cells, on which TU Delft and partners are working, would eventually yield an even higher environmental gain.

Not ready to lay down $11,000 for the Electric Vectrix? Well, an electric dirt bike might not be as stylin' as the Vectrix, but what if you could cut that price in half. Zero Motorcycles is working on the Zero X Electric Motor Cycle, the "Zero" stands for zero emissions, zero noise, and "almost zero maintenance." The bike should be ready for purchase early 2008.

The bike's drive train is configurable via the manufacturer; you can get the street version with 16" tires, or the off-road version which comes with 20" off-road tires. The bike's max range is 40 miles, and the max speed is 60 mph. It plugs into a normal 110V/220V outlet, and charges in about three hours.

One of the truly unique features of this bike is the configurable on-board "ZBrain" computer. You can tweak the max speed, throttle response, max output current, and more. This is another of the many advantages of electric vehicles. If you want to make it more efficient, program it to be more efficient! If you want it to jump off the starting line but only go 20 miles on a charge, you can do that too! The bike connects directly to any Microsoft Windows computer via USB 2.0 cable.

They are in the production phases of their "2008 Zero X", but you can reserve yours at their website. If you don't believe the power of this dirt bike yet, then check this out, the bike has even been used in the Mini Moto Competition.

Spotted at GreenBang

The Vectrix zero emission vehicle wants to offer us performance, style, comfort, and convenience. It has a top speed of 62 miles per hour and can accelerate from 0-50 in 6.8 seconds. It's rated to have an average range of 40-60 miles with a maximum range of 68 miles on a single charge.

Power is generated to the Vectrix in two different ways. The primary method is an on-board charger which plugs into any standard 110/220V electrical outlet for a full charge within a reported two hours. Plus a regenerative braking system helps extend battery life. The battery pack itself has an estimated life of 10 years.

Is America ready for a high performance electric scooter? It may well be a hit in urban areas but most folks will probably still want the convenience (and range) of a regular old car. Plus, at over $10,000, you'll definitely feel the cost of emissions-free transportation.

Of course, it's not as simple as turning off all power coming into the house. Almost every home has some loads that they want to keep constantly connected, whether those are small, such as clocks, or larger ones like a refrigerator. The household heating and ventilation system also needs to remain powered in order to function. Even though it appears as just a single button, this switch needs to be connected to equipment to turn off each circuit in the house, except for those which are reserved for constant power. Specially designated "safe" plugs throughout the house could also be used for devices that would not be disconnected when the off button was pushed.

At present, this appears to be a purely conceptual design, but a real implementation of this could be an easy way for some people to use their homes with far greater energy efficiency.

via: Ramsay Home

The end result provides some interesting data on companies. Amazon, for example, scored a big fat zero because it has made no information public on its climate changing practices. Canon, by contrast, scored a 77 out of 100 because much of its information is public, revealing the company has measured its global warming impact since 1990 and that it has set strong guidelines on how to reduce this impact.

For those who really want to know on the go, Climate Counts has also made its data available in a mobile offering.

Dear EcoGeek,
Who killed the electric car? Seriously, why can't I buy one yet and when will I be able to?

Alan Carney
Dallas, Texas

Hey Alan, Much love to the people who made Who Killed the Electric Car, because they got a lot of stuff right. It wasn't any one person, corporation or technicality that killed the EV1. As with all product failures it was a combination of tons of factors.

The reason major auto companies aren't making electric vehicles look like this. First, Americans were looking for SUVs, not ultralights. Second, the technology was primitive, the biggest problem being that batteries could only take cars a hundred miles before they needed to spend hours at a charging station. Third, major car companies were too foolish to see that, in the next decade, electric cars could quickly become technologically viable and extremely appealing, so the abandoned their projects completely.