Ari Luis, Author at The Green Optimistic

Automated Electric Bill Payment Increases Power Consumption, Automatically

Ari Luis — Sun, 10 May 2015 19:08:09 +0000

Going for paperless billing is good for the environment because you kill less trees for paper, no fuel is burned to deliver your bill, and you don’t get a mini heart attack when you open your mailbox. However, it also helps you lose track of your electric bill as it gets covered in mounds and mounds […]

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How Global Wind Power Capacity is Set to Boom in 2015

Ari Luis — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 03:49:26 +0000

The global wind energy industry has been seeing robust growth, increasing capacity by 16.2% in 2014 from 318,644 MW in 2013 to 369,597 MW. Much of the increase is accounted for by China, Germany, the US, Brazil and India, although there have been a number of new installations in the rest of the world. Global […]

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Propane-Fed Genset to Provide Power on the Battlefield

Ari Luis — Thu, 09 Apr 2015 18:06:05 +0000

We know that propane is used to propel cars and cook food, but provide our peacekeepers’ power requirements on the battlefield? Well, today’s soldiers are more dependent on technology than ever. They need an increasing array of gadgets to keep the peace and get the bad guys – from radios, to rangefinders, to night vision […]

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Polar Bears in Jeopardy as Ice Caps Vanish

Ari Luis — Thu, 09 Apr 2015 08:48:11 +0000

Without snow you definitely won’t be able to build a snowman, especially without Elsa. Without the arctic ice, neither can you sustain the polar bears. I guess that that should be pretty darned obvious, but then let’s just think about it a bit. It’s not as if polar bears are as cute as Olaf, but […]

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eO PP03 – Megawatt Electric Car Could Conquer the Pikes Peak Hill Climb

Ari Luis — Wed, 08 Apr 2015 04:16:04 +0000

America’s second oldest car race kicks off on a Sunday, June 28, 2015 in Colorado Springs, CO. The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is staged on a 20 km (12.42 mile) course with 156 turns. Miley Cyrus said it best in her pre-“Wrecking Ball” days, in The Climb There’s always gonna be another mountain I’m always […]

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Long Beach Formula E Race – a Roaring Success for Electric Cars

Ari Luis — Wed, 08 Apr 2015 03:28:07 +0000

There were cars, girls and even stars at the track in Long Beach, CA last weekend for the inaugural Formula E race. But one thing was noticeably absent – the roar of engines. And it’s not for the lack of muscle. The single-seat, open wheeled chariots were set to reach maximum speeds of 140 mph […]

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Offshore Wind Now Competitive with Gas and Nuclear

Ari Luis — Tue, 07 Apr 2015 14:18:44 +0000

Some reports say that offshore wind is crazy expensive. In fact, an economist from Oxford University, Dieter Helm, was quoted in the Economist back in 2014 as saying that offshore wind is “among the most expensive ways of marginally reducing carbon emissions known to man”. That is probably old news, though, just like the Dutch […]

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Mushrooms – Nature’s Recyclers and Pollution-Zappers

Ari Luis — Sun, 05 Apr 2015 06:44:11 +0000

For ages, man has eaten mushrooms as a gustatory delight, some even to the point of intoxication like medicine men and other people out for a good time. But there is more to these wonderful plants than meet the eye. For one thing, they’re Mother Nature’s recyclers. After animals and plants die, they decompose them […]

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Zombie 222: 1968 Mustang Resurrected as an EV

Ari Luis — Fri, 03 Apr 2015 15:04:59 +0000

There are muscle cars, and there are exotic super cars. The Zombie 222 is a 1968 Mustang that was converted by Mitch Medford and his team at Bloodshed Motors into a high speed electric muscle car. The 1968 Ford Mustang comes from a line of muscle cars. The Shelby V8 version does 0-60 mph (0 […]

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Cats and Jelly to Revolutionize Transport?

Ari Luis — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 09:27:18 +0000

E.G. Labs discovers a new source of energy – cats and jelly, among other things. Scientists at the lab discovered that whatever the height a cat falls from, it always lands on its feet. They further discovered that jelly toast always lands with the jellied side down, especially when on top of a carpet. So, […]

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Daimler’s 12.2 MPG Supertruck Smashes DOE Fuel Efficiency Target

Ari Luis — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 18:39:00 +0000

The US Department of Energy (DOE) may not be looking for Optimus Prime, but they want his kind to be more fuel efficient. In 2010, the DOE launched their SuperTruck Initiative which aims to “develop tractor-trailers that are 50% more efficient than baseline models by 2015.” Currently, Class 8 trucks, the typical tractor-trailer used for […]

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Electric Vehicle Batteries Cheaper Than Expected

Ari Luis — Sun, 29 Mar 2015 19:22:13 +0000

One of the biggest things holding back sales of electric vehicles is the price of the battery. Sure, you save money on gas and maintenance in the long run, but the price is still not something to sneeze at, even after subsidies and all. But there is hope – battery prices are falling, and they […]

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Costa Rica Used Only Renewable Energy in 2015

Ari Luis — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 21:23:05 +0000

Costa Rica is enriching our climate by getting all its electricity from renewable energy sources this year. Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE), Costa Rica’s national electric company says that the country hasn’t used any fossil fuel sources to supply electricity to its grid for since the start of the year, or for 75 days, when […]

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ProtCycler – Homemade Recycled 3D Printer Rocks on Indiegogo

Ari Luis — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 21:21:49 +0000

3D printers are getting cheaper by the minute, you can even take one home for as low as US$500. However, as with their paper counterparts, the cost of supplies is a whole different story. Spools of plastic “ink” retail for US$30 per spool, which may not sound so bad until you misprint and end up […]

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Engineered Yeasts to Soon Produce Biofuels

Ari Luis — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 04:06:11 +0000

Yeasts are wonderful microbes. Sure they can be annoying too if they cause you to itch in the nether regions. But then, they are responsible for making our lives livelier on occasion through bread and beer, champagne and other lively spirits. So what do you think about yeasts that convert sugars into fats? Well, that’s […]

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Self Driving Tesla Available Three Months from Now

Ari Luis — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 19:09:12 +0000

Do you fancy talking to your Tesla ala Knight Rider? Well, maybe not. But riding a fast self driving car like Johnny Cab in the latest Total Recall may be up your alley. It’s surely something that Elon Musk fancies so that is why he’s putting a self driving system in every Tesla three months from […]

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New Lithium Sulfur Battery is Cheaper, Lacks Titanium

Ari Luis — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 11:37:03 +0000

I don’t think that being bulletproof, and having nothing to lose, is a characteristic desired of batteries. But a revolutionary new material will soon make Lithium Sulfur batteries more reliable because titanium is removed from the base material. One of the limiting factors for the widespread adoption of electric vehicles are the batteries. Don’t get […]

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Artificial Photosynthesis Soon Coming to a Plant Near You?

Ari Luis — Fri, 20 Mar 2015 06:17:40 +0000

I’m not sure if there are a lot of fans of artificial plants, or of astroturf, but researchers from Yale are making artificial photosynthesis a reality. As reported in Nature Communications, PhD student Staff Sheehan and his team have come up with an iridium catalyst for water oxidation that can do the trick. The molecular […]

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Jet Stream Messed Up, Accelerating Climate Change

Ari Luis — Wed, 18 Mar 2015 16:23:02 +0000

The effects of man-made greenhouse gas emissions is worse than we thought. Not only is it melting the polar caps, there is also evidence that is messing up the jet stream, as pointed out by Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University. The jet stream is an air current that acts as a sort of conveyor belt. […]

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Tesla Model S P85D vs Snowmobile Drag Race on Ice

Ari Luis — Mon, 16 Mar 2015 04:55:42 +0000

We know that the Tesla Model S P85D is insanely fast, but just how fast is it really? The numbers speak for themselves – 0 to 60mph (100kph) in 3.4 seconds, a top speed of 250 kph (155 mph), 515kW (691 hp) of power, and 930Nm (685 ft-kb) of torque. These all sound impressive, but […]

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UNICEF Life Changing Predictions for 2015

Ari Luis — Sun, 08 Mar 2015 19:49:13 +0000

UNICEF’s new Innovation Unit is seeing a number of trends in the developing world for this year. So while 2014 was big data for “the world’s most marginalized citizens,” this year we will see the market’s invisible hand to do good for the world’s poor. UNICEF boldly predicts that “More companies will start to look […]

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Wrightspeed’s Ian Wright set to Electrify Trucking

Ari Luis — Sun, 08 Mar 2015 19:40:04 +0000

Ian Wright, one of Tesla Motors’ co-founders, is setting his sights on transforming the trucking industry. He and his company, Wrightspeed, are set to electrify trucks, and not just one truck at a time. Elon Musk and company have transformed the way we view electric vehicles. From glorified golf carts, we now see them as […]

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Solar Impulse 2 Set to Kick Off in the Middle East

Ari Luis — Sun, 01 Mar 2015 13:00:57 +0000

The Middle East is the first leg of Solar Impulse 2‘s record attempt to fly around the world without using a drop of fuel, only relying on solar power. Test flights were made in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, which holds 9% of the world’s proven oil reserves, and were an astounding success as can […]

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Apple Takes a Very Big Bite of Solar Energy

Ari Luis — Sun, 22 Feb 2015 13:15:24 +0000

He may have as well taken a page out of Steve Jobs book. We’re referring to Tim Cook’s response to a climate change disbeliever, nay, heckler when he said that if an Apple shareholder’s only concern was profit, then he might as well “get out of the stock.” Now the CEO of the world’s largest […]

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Tesla Home Battery to Drive Millions Off the Grid Soon

Ari Luis — Sun, 22 Feb 2015 07:00:01 +0000

The Tesla home battery will be a solar energy storage device intended for households everywhere. It turns out that they need not look very far, as Elon Musk also chairs the US top solar power company, SolarCity. For now, the best option for solar power system owners is to stay grid connected and make savings through offsets […]

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Individual Water Saving Measures Drive Up Overall Use

Ari Luis — Sun, 08 Feb 2015 13:15:53 +0000

It’s ironic that the drive for efficient use of water through water saving toilets, showers and even garden plants actually INCREASE the overall use of water within the community. Yup, you heard (or rather read) right, measures that we take to save water have in fact the unintended consequence of increasing its use. This doesn’t […]

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Amphibious Electric Rickshaw Produced in Philippines

Ari Luis — Mon, 26 Jan 2015 13:26:40 +0000

A Philippine manufacturer took the electric auto rickshaw a step further by making an amphibious version. A new company called H2O Technologies recently introduced the Salamander amphibious tricycle. Anyone who’s been to developing countries like India, Thailand or the Philippines will certainly not miss the auto rickshaws (aka tuktuks or tricycles, depending on where you […]

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Spinlister Helps Bikers Share their Ride in CA

Ari Luis — Mon, 26 Jan 2015 11:58:00 +0000

California based startup Spinlister wants to promote bicycle sharing, among other things. Spinlister’s bike sharing concept is simple enough, you need a bike for a few hours or a few days, all you need to do is whip out the app, book and you’re pretty much good to go. For cyclists, it looks like bike heaven. […]

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Mall Developer Cuts Trees For “Green” Sky Park

Ari Luis — Sun, 18 Jan 2015 23:49:46 +0000

A mall developer in the Philippines may as well have “paved paradise to put up a parking lot” as it cut down trees to build an eco-friendly wing (sic). This was done even as Pope Francis proclaimed en route to this country, ahead of an unusually timed typhoon, that man has “slapped nature in the […]

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Polish Company Offers Electric Bus with Fuel Cell Option

Ari Luis — Sun, 18 Jan 2015 13:57:53 +0000

After launching a new line of buses at the Hanover fair last September, Polish bus maker Solaris plans to make a 24 meter long (79 foot) electric bus that also uses fuel cells for power. The train of a bus will be jointly developed with the Poznań University of Technology and Warsaw University of Technology. […]

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BMW Mobile Storage Program Charges into Tesla Territory

Ari Luis — Sun, 11 Jan 2015 13:33:47 +0000

BMW announced the BMW i ChargeForward Program at the recently concluded CES 2015. It is a two-part program to help stabilize the PG&E’s franchise area, an area which covers Tesla’s headquarters in Fremont. The first part allows PG&E to delay the charging of selected BMW i3 cars during times of peak demand in order to […]

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EV Finishes Stages in Dakar Rally

Ari Luis — Sun, 11 Jan 2015 13:33:01 +0000

Acciona’s entry in the Dakar Rally made history last week as the first electric vehicle to finish a stage in the world’s toughest off road endurance race. The AccionaDakar 100% EcoPowered was sent off by a “huge party with thousands and thousands of people lining the streets of Buenos Aires”. It ran through 833 km […]

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Kyocera to Build 7.5 MW Solar Power Plant in Japan

Ari Luis — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 07:25:10 +0000

On the coattails of the announcement by the government of Kawajima-machi’s plans to develop a 7.5 MW solar power plant at Umenokifurukori reservoir comes the announcement of Kyocera to develop the world’s largest floating solar power plant in the Chiba Prefecture, also in Japan. In a Joint Venture with Century Tokyo Leasing Corporation, Kyocera TCL […]

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EVs and Biofuel Powered Cars Worse for the Environment?

Ari Luis — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 21:55:02 +0000

A research team composed of members from the University of Minnesota and NREL recently evaluated the overall impact of different fuels we use in our automobiles, or light-duty transportation as the study authors call them, on the environment. They compared various conventional and renewable energy sources – from using corn ethanol as biofuel, coal-based electricity […]

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Different Kind of Solar Power Helps Steer Kepler Spacecraft

Ari Luis — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 08:33:03 +0000

‘Tis the season for recycling – gifts, food and what have you. ‘Tis also the season to be jolly as well, as dead satellites are reborn and reveal to us faraway planets and stars, not just the one in the East. Last year, NASA wrote off the Kepler space telescope. However, astronomers and scientists found […]

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Fresh Water for Seaside Communities this Christmas

Ari Luis — Mon, 22 Dec 2014 01:05:36 +0000

Probably one of the most frustrating situations to be in is being marooned on an island in the middle of the ocean without fresh water. That is why the ancient mariner says, “Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.” It’s a worse feeling than being in the middle of the desert, because according to […]

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Graphene Charges Atmosphere with Battery Running on Thin Air

Ari Luis — Sat, 20 Dec 2014 09:28:34 +0000

Graphene, the wonder material made of carbon that’s impermeable to gas and liquids, could one day be used for hydrogen batteries, based on research at The University of Manchester. The material that was first isolated and explored by a research team at the same university was found to allow protons to pass through, opening up […]

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Milan Makes it Fashionable to Leave Car at Home

Ari Luis — Wed, 17 Dec 2014 00:14:01 +0000

Ancient capitals in Europe struggle with dealing with vehicular traffic. The narrow, bumpy streets that were laid out literally by oxcarts are having trouble accommodating modern chariots. The cities of the Old World are adopting different approaches in dealing with the problem. Hamburg is planning to ban cars by 2050, while London is charging car […]

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Tin-Oxide Promises to Give Battery Charging a Boost

Ari Luis — Mon, 15 Dec 2014 23:44:12 +0000

One of the things seem to be holding back the adoption of electric vehicles is the time it takes to charge the batteries. For example, a 30 minute charge for 130 miles (209 kilometers) is already incredibly fast for an electric vehicle, but for a car owner who can fill up a tank in five […]

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Turning Turd into Fuel is Officially Rocket Science

Ari Luis — Mon, 15 Dec 2014 01:38:58 +0000

They say that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. The human waste from the International Space Station and ALL space missions have always been a headache for rocket scientists since the inception of the space program. The practice of all space programs was to dump the astronaut’s err, dump, together with all other trash. […]

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ACCIONA 100% EcoPowered Champions EV Cause in Dakar

Ari Luis — Mon, 08 Dec 2014 05:29:53 +0000

Unlike the Toyota Mirai FCV, which participated in the Shinshiro Rally as the Zero Car, an EV will actually race in the Dakar Rally. Also, unlike the Shinhiro Rally, the Dakar Rally isn’t a rally but rather an endurance race where the terrain is much tougher. Because of this, only true off-road cars can be […]

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Hold Your Horses, Ferrari Releases Hybrid Supercar this Holiday Season

Ari Luis — Sat, 06 Dec 2014 01:04:47 +0000

As it is, the LaFerrari was already a beast of a car at 963 horsepower. But the folks at Ferrari had other ideas, they put it into the XX Program and came up with this beast of a brother, the LaFerrari FXX K, that they will unleash during the Finali Mondiali at the Yas Marina […]

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German Researcher & Team Debunk Room Temperature Superconductors

Ari Luis — Fri, 05 Dec 2014 13:17:51 +0000

I remember reading about how superconductors were to revolutionize transportation, computing, telecommunications, energy and industry. I also remember with amazement the time I made a superconductor float on a magnet in a pool of liquid nitrogen. That was cool, both figuratively and literally, as the temperature of the superconductor dropped to −196 °C (77 K; […]

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Is the Quadrofoil the Tesla of Boats?

Ari Luis — Mon, 01 Dec 2014 05:07:47 +0000

We have a bunch of electric vehicles driving around, but none are as iconic as the Tesla Model S. In its current incarnation, the P85D, it resembles a gas-guzzling sports car more than the golf cart which it shares its fuel with. Now a company is trying to electrify boats in the same way that […]

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Smart Watch Made of Paper?

Ari Luis — Sun, 30 Nov 2014 15:16:04 +0000

The smart watch is seen as the next big thing. That is why Samsung, LG, Sony and Pebble beat Apple to the punch in introducing their respective Android-based smart watches, they tried to gain market share ahead of the Cupertino-based tech giant’s release of the Apple Watch. The early incarnations of the smart watches don’t […]

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Universe Conspires to Keep Us Cool with Photonics

Ari Luis — Sun, 30 Nov 2014 03:07:57 +0000

Every cloud has a silver lining, or so they say. So these researchers from Stanford University took a cue from that and tried to make a paint to help keep buildings cool with photonics radiative cooling. Say what? It’s basically a mirror that reflects heat from the sun away from buildings. But it doesn’t stop […]

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Tesla, Aiming for the Stars, or at least Mars

Ari Luis — Sun, 30 Nov 2014 01:15:01 +0000

A generation ago, the only electric vehicles around were golf carts, fork lifts, and bumper cars. It’s probably this kind of lineage that Tesla came from. Or maybe not. After all, it’s cool to drive any of the aforementioned vehicles only when it’s winter or fall, and it has nothing to do with style. But […]

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EV Fleet Makes Skies Clearer in Sunny California

Ari Luis — Thu, 27 Nov 2014 00:03:43 +0000

It’s not exactly Top Gun, but the top brass at Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo, California are aces in my book. After the University of Delaware proved the concept that electric cars can be used as mobile storage for the grid last month, the air force base rolled out a vehicle-to-grid fleet […]

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Biogas Digesters to Save Lives, as well as the Environment

Ari Luis — Wed, 26 Nov 2014 16:15:19 +0000

A cesspool exploded in the central Chinese city of Zhangjiajie, causing a building to collapse and injuring 15 people, according to state news agency Xinhua. The incident happened last November 23, as a man tried burning waste beside the cesspool that caused the methane from the pit to explode. Three of the injured had to […]

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Big Battery to Power Up Renewable Use in LA

Ari Luis — Wed, 26 Nov 2014 00:15:10 +0000

We may not have elemental power crystals, but we’re now able to build big batteries that can power huge robots like Voltron, or even a big county like LA. AES Southland was recently awarded a contract by Los Angeles county power utility, Southern California Edison (SCE), “to provide 100 MW of interconnected battery-based energy storage.” […]

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The Wind Farm Rush South of the Border

Ari Luis — Tue, 25 Nov 2014 00:43:02 +0000

People are rushing south of the border and it’s not because they’re fleeing the law. They’re actually investors who are trying to cash in on Mexico’s renewable energy sector opportunities. In the period from 2003 to 2013, the country received US$11 billion in foreign direct investment in renewables, buoyed by wind power projects. Investors from […]

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Chocolate Factory Helps Environment to Have a Break

Ari Luis — Mon, 24 Nov 2014 15:16:10 +0000

A chocolate factory in the United Kingdom has been running a 200 kW generator for at least a year now by feeding it candy. Well, sort of. Nestlé’s factory in Fawdon, UK feeds 200,000 liters of waste and wash water per day plus 1,200 MT per year of residues and other waste into in a […]

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Offset Carbon Emissions with Geothermal Heat Pumps

Ari Luis — Sat, 22 Nov 2014 00:58:38 +0000

The Geothermal Exchange Organization (GEO) is asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to recognize geothermal heat pumps (GHPs) as carbon offset equipment. Geothermal, or ground-source, heat pumps (GHPs) are a way to hit two birds with one stone – they reduce energy demand while at the same time encourage the use of renewable energy […]

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A Different Way of Having Turkey for Thanksgiving

Ari Luis — Fri, 21 Nov 2014 23:37:14 +0000

So what’s Thanksgiving without the turkey? I guess that vegans are missing out on the fun, or then again maybe not. And we’re not talking Tofurkey here. It turns out, you don’t need to get elected president to give at least one of these big birds a pardon. The folks at Farm Sanctuary are giving […]

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Tron Comes Alive in the Chevy Chaparral 2X Vision GT

Ari Luis — Fri, 21 Nov 2014 11:08:00 +0000

Well, sort of. Instead of a Light Cycle, you get into a four-wheeled car that goes from 0 to 60 mph (96.6 kph) in 1.5 seconds thanks to a 671 kW laser. Yup, a big @ss laser propels the car and gives it 900 bhp, propelling the car to a whopping top speed of 240 […]

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EV Supercar’s Production Greenlighted With €10M Investment

Ari Luis — Fri, 21 Nov 2014 09:15:22 +0000

Have you ever felt the rush of getting from a dead stop to 100 kph (62 mph) in 2.8 seconds? Turns out, even Ferrari owners haven’t. Future owner’s of Rimac’s Concept_One soon will, thanks to a €10 million investment in the Croatian car maker. Initially dismissed as vaporware, the 1,088 horsepower Concept_One is ready for […]

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Make Waves with an Open Source Tidal Power Simulator

Ari Luis — Fri, 21 Nov 2014 00:21:25 +0000

This is probably news for geeks, but have you ever considered developing your own wave power generator? If what is holding you back is your distance the ocean or the price tag of the systems then worry no more, the DOE through SANDIA and NREL released an open source wave power simulator. The National Renewable […]

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Solid State Batteries the Basis of Extended Range Audi EV?

Ari Luis — Thu, 20 Nov 2014 12:54:00 +0000

One of the biggest fears of EV owners is getting stuck in the middle of nowhere with a dead battery. Volkswagen, the makers of Audi, plan to address this by a new all-electric Audi Q8 sports SUV, with 700 km (435 mi.) range on a full charge. This is easier said than done, after all […]

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A Skyscraper on Its Side that Could Be Greener?

Ari Luis — Thu, 20 Nov 2014 07:24:45 +0000

The past few years has seen a game of musical chairs as to who claimed the title as the world’s tallest building. Unfortunately, like the Tower of Babel, their time may soon be over. As one builds a taller building, the wind shear, not to mention earthquake susceptibility, increases exponentially. As a result, more concrete […]

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Ironman’s Heart is Closer to Reality than you Think

Ari Luis — Thu, 20 Nov 2014 04:24:16 +0000

The semi-official name of the blue thing on Tony Stark’s chest is the Repulsor Tech node. And it’s more of science fact than fiction – nuclear batteries have been around for decades! Nope, these babies aren’t nuclear reactors like those in Fukushima and Chernobyl, rather they are real batteries that rely on radioactive decay of […]

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Fuel Cell Uptake to Charge Platinum Demand

Ari Luis — Wed, 19 Nov 2014 00:28:21 +0000

We’re not talking album sales here, though we wouldn’t mind getting a million hits. We’re referring to the rare shiny metal that’s more expensive than gold. If 80’s band Spandau Ballet sang about gold, platinum producers are counting on fuel cell manufacturers to fall head over heels over the metal. It’s not as if they […]

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Virus Turns Starfish to Goo All Across Pacific West Coast

Ari Luis — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 23:30:14 +0000

This year hasn’t been good for Patrick Star. Starfish from Mexico to Alaska have been melting mysteriously for over a year now. The illness called the “sea star wasting disease” has been spreading like wildfire across North America’s Pacific coast last year. It’s not a great way to go. The arms of the starfish curl up […]

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World’s Largest Truck is a Frankenstein of a Monster

Ari Luis — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 00:12:55 +0000

The world’s largest truck is a monster of a contraption. It’s 20.6 meters (60.6 feet) long, 8.16 meters (26.8 feet) high and 9.87 meters (32.4 feet) wide. Tipping the scales at 360MT, the BelAZ 75710 carries a 450MT payload, a hundred tons heavier than that of the previous world’s largest truck, the Terex MT 6300AC, […]

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Wireless EV Charging Hits the Right Spot

Ari Luis — Sat, 15 Nov 2014 06:35:35 +0000

Filling up is a chore, so much so that gas stations with service attendants are a standard feature in my part of the world. Topping up an EV can be much more of a pain, Supercharger stations notwithstanding. But then again, maybe not. That is if the people at Evatran will have their way. They’ve […]

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New Molecule Developed To Absorb GHGs

Ari Luis — Sat, 15 Nov 2014 02:01:43 +0000

Scientists recently developed a molecule that can capture wayward fluorocarbons, known to be a class of very potent greenhouse gases (GHGs), like a sponge. In a paper recently published in Nature Communications, Ognjen Miljanic and his team from the from the University of Houston said that the molecule that they developed comes together as a […]

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Your Next EV, Batteries Not Included

Ari Luis — Fri, 14 Nov 2014 01:45:55 +0000

It’s been said that the next big thing is a better battery. However, researchers at Queensland University of Technology in Australia and Rice University in Houston beg to disagree. The research team developed a flexible supercapacitor, one that can be put in every nook and cranny of the car’s hood, roof and even doors. Not […]

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Eating Local, As in From Right in Your Kitchen

Ari Luis — Thu, 13 Nov 2014 02:54:34 +0000

While eating local is a fuzzy idea, the Urban Cultivator takes the cake in any definition of eating local because you grow your own food right in a cabinet in your kitchen. You hear the doctor or your mom tell you to eat more greens because it’s supposed to be healthy for you. But then, […]

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Solar ATMs Show that Solar Power is Bankable

Ari Luis — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 10:13:29 +0000

Imagine life without an ATM. Or better yet, imagine life with an ATM that doesn’t work. Well, that was the situation for some people in Mpumalanga, South Africa were ATMs went offline for lack of electricity. Thanks to solar power, however, the banking industry is starting to shine brighter. Call it fate or serendipity, but […]

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Robotic Dolphins Measure Polar Melting and More

Ari Luis — Tue, 11 Nov 2014 09:09:16 +0000

Robots the size of dolphins are measuring how fast the ice in Antartica is melting, demonstrating revolutionary ways of collecting data in remote polar regions. The international research team led by Caltech used three robots measuring 2 meters (6 feet 6 inches) long and costing $240,000 each to measure the salinity and temperature in the […]

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Herbie Now an Electric Dream

Ari Luis — Tue, 11 Nov 2014 00:05:28 +0000

Well, it’s really not Herbie but his younger sibling, a 1966 Volkswagen (VW) Beetle, that becomes an electric vehicle. The VW Beetle, the original “people’s car”, has always stood for reliability and simplicity. And in Herbie, the German automobile found a way to live the American Dream and compete in the most American of all […]

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The Middle Kingdom Finds Treasure in own Trash

Ari Luis — Mon, 10 Nov 2014 22:55:47 +0000

As they say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. With recycling, that meant that garbage crosses seas from industrialized nations to developing countries so that recyclers can sort the trash for stuff that can be reused. Until recently, that was the case in China as its spectacular growth coupled with its status as the […]

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Sunflower Shaped Concentrator to Banish Fossil Fuel Zombies

Ari Luis — Mon, 10 Nov 2014 01:23:55 +0000

Like a giant 10 meter (32.8 foot) sunflower, a new kind of solar concentrator developed by IBM Research together with Swiss-based solar supplier, Airlight Energy, promises to make the most of the sun. The High Concentration PhotoVoltaic Thermal (HCPVT) system concentrates the power of the sun 2,000 times and aims it all at a solar […]

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Artist Cooks up a Storm in Resto Made of Recycled Materials

Ari Luis — Sun, 09 Nov 2014 13:55:12 +0000

Artist and Chef Claude Tayag’s home cum restaurant, Bale Dutung, feels like a museum. The house is patterned after the traditional Philippines rice barn or “kamalig”. The dining area is set in the first floor and is pretty much open as there is only a single wall that separates it from the kitchen. It was […]

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FRP Rebar Helps Save Mountains from Turning into Molehills

Ari Luis — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 04:01:20 +0000

Reinforcing bars or rebars are necessary to keep our structures up. Engineers usually use steel rebars because of cost, but some have explored the use of fiber rebars. If you’ve seen some exposed rebars at seaside structures, you will understand why. Steel rebars rust, hence compromising the home, or even wharf that they are trying […]

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Robotic Fish Saving the World by Saving Fish

Ari Luis — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 03:19:21 +0000

We earlier featured a robotic fish that can detect pollution. Now, if that robot is trying to save humans from themselves and the pollution that people generate, this one is trying to save other fish. So while hydroelectric dams help us displace fossil fuels, they were often opposed by conservationists because they kill some salmon […]

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A Cool Way to Play with DOLL

Ari Luis — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 02:28:46 +0000

No, we’re not talking about Barbie, nor are we talking about GI Joe. Oh, okay, GI Joe is not a doll, it’s an action figure. We get it. In either case, we’re not talking about toys but rather a lighting laboratory in Denmark. The Danish Outdoor Lighting Lab, or DOLL, has streetlights that brighten and […]

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HS Students Assemble their Own EV for Under US$1,600

Ari Luis — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 14:57:13 +0000

The price tag of the Tesla Model S, or other EVs for that matter, did not deter these students from Rhode Island from getting their own electric vehicle. Alec Figueiredo, Tiverton High School student, and graduate Zachary Silveira, built their own EV which they named Apotheosis, with the help of their teacher and their local […]

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New Material on the Cutting Edge of Alternative Energy Produced

Ari Luis — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 00:14:46 +0000

A compound that is used for lubrication has found a new application, err, actually at least two – as a supercapacitor and hydrogen catalyst. Chemists at the Rice University, led by James Tour, took molybdenum disulphide and turned it into a thin, nanoporous film. While it was nonreactive on its flat sides, it was found […]

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Toyota FCV Company’s Hero as Zero Car in Japanese Rally

Ari Luis — Wed, 05 Nov 2014 15:25:40 +0000

The Toyota Fuel Cell Vehicle (FCV) participated in the Shinshihiro Rally as the Zero Car. It was the final race of the Japanese Rally Championship that was held last October 31 to November 2 in Shinshiro, Aichi, although the FCV was not competing. The FCV rolled through the race track to check road safety. Just […]

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Former Tesla Part Owner Discreetly Uses Their Tech

Ari Luis — Wed, 05 Nov 2014 13:47:25 +0000

So while Daimler Benz cashed out its remaining 4% in the Silicon Valley automaker, pocketing US$780M in the process, they had a trick up their sleeve as a result of their association with Tesla – first dibs on cutting-edge electric vehicle technology. That was part of the deal back in 2009 when the German automaker […]

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Painting A Green Future with Decorated Wind Turbines

Ari Luis — Wed, 05 Nov 2014 09:21:25 +0000

Australian-based wind farm, Hepburn Wind, has a unique way of drumming up support for renewable energy. Probably finding inspiration from the lyrics of Windmills of Your Mind, or maybe not, they are raising at least AU$10,000 in funds to promote wind power. The funds raised will go to the painting of their second wind turbine, […]

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Solar in Your Grocery Cart? PV Panels Sold in IKEA

Ari Luis — Wed, 05 Nov 2014 02:09:30 +0000

IKEA, the DIY-furniture giant, is offering you a way to make your own solar array by selling solar systems through its stores. The English can already buy panels at IKEA Bristol, according to their website. Soon, they will be available in the Netherlands starting in stores in the Haarlem region, to be followed by its […]

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A Tesla to Power Your Home?

Ari Luis — Tue, 04 Nov 2014 03:19:24 +0000

It’s no secret that Elon Musk serves as chair Solar City, the biggest play in residential solar in the US. That puts the Tesla and Solar City in a very unique position that could transform the residential solar industry. What is the similarity between homes and cars? Nothing right now. But hopefully high capacity and […]

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Principle Behind Stained Glass Colors Solar Future Bright

Ari Luis — Mon, 03 Nov 2014 00:41:34 +0000

Researchers from the FOM Institute AMOLF in the Netherlands and Caltech recently made a breakthrough in solar power, by drawing inspiration from stained glass. For centuries, cathedrals and castles were adorned with stained glass windows whose colors mesmerized worshippers and adorers with their vivid hues that did not fade with time. These works of art […]

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Toyota FCV Revs Up for Japanese Rally

Ari Luis — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 00:50:08 +0000

The Japanese automaker announced that it will enter a custom Fuel Cell Vehicle in the final leg of the Japanese Rally Championship today, November 1. They gave no specifics but described the car to have a white paint adorned with silver, blue and black graphics and will come with mud flaps and lightweight wheels, as […]

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Free Wi-Fi on Buses and Trains to Curb Car Use?

Ari Luis — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 00:12:50 +0000

There are few experiences that are more frustrating than driving through bumper to bumper traffic – you waste fuel, time and a lot of money burning gasoline getting nowhere. Taking the bus or the Metro are some of the ways of getting cars off the road, and who wouldn’t ride mass transit if it was […]

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Solar Stocks in the US Up on Bright Prospects

Ari Luis — Sat, 01 Nov 2014 15:11:30 +0000

According to Deutsche Bank the falling cost of solar panels plus cheaper cost of finance is set to dramatically alter the US market. These trends will allow solar power to sell at the same price as all other power sources on the grid (that is achieve grid parity) in all 50 states of the USA […]

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Last Nail in the Tesla – Toyota Partnership?

Ari Luis — Sat, 01 Nov 2014 02:39:16 +0000

While all other major car makers are either improving or developing battery electric vehicles, the world’s largest automaker seems to be going the opposite direction. After hinting that they are pursuing hydrogen fuel cells, the Japanese car maker is unloading its stake in Tesla (TSLA). The move comes on the heels of Daimler-Benz’s divestiture of […]

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Make Cycling Safer, Report on Bike Deaths Recommends

Ari Luis — Fri, 31 Oct 2014 10:04:09 +0000

It seems that the Grim Reaper has been busy collection cyclists, based on a report released by the Governors Highway Safety Association. From 621 deaths in 2010, cycling fatalities increased to 680 in 2011 then to 722 in 2012. It is obviously a source of concern considering that that is a 16% rise as compared […]

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Don’t be Scared to Solar Power Your Car

Ari Luis — Thu, 30 Oct 2014 04:21:54 +0000

You may not be Frankenstein nor Dracula, but things new like electric vehicles and solar power can be a bit scary, especially since they are usually pricey. But while electric or plug-in hybrid cars aren’t cheap, and neither are solar panels, more and more solar roof owners are turning to the sun to propel their […]

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Ideas for an Eek-O-Friendly Halloween

Ari Luis — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 00:04:08 +0000

While Halloween is one of the all-time favorite holidays on the calendar, it can be a nightmare for the environment. Consider the toilet papered trees or even houses, candy wrappers and single use decors and costumes – you have a whole lot of stuff that fills the landfill all for a one night event. The […]

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A Model S type of Car To be Made by the Model T Maker?

Ari Luis — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 00:02:42 +0000

In one of his first reports as Ford Motor Company’s new CEO, Mark Fields seems to have trained his sights on Tesla. He told USA Today that the company had the know-how and the resources to build an electric vehicle that can match the Tesla Model S in technology, performance, size, and even range. The […]

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Chinese Cooking to Help Keep Jets Airborne

Ari Luis — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 06:51:12 +0000

Have you had Chinese food lately? The oil used to stir fry your vegetables or fry your wanton will someday lift a jumbo jet or a Dreamliner if Boeing had its way. But they couldn’t wait for you to order all that takeout and instead went were literally billions of people eat Chinese food. Where […]

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2016 Nissan GTR Hybrid Supercar Promises to Kick @ss

Ari Luis — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 03:50:32 +0000

If you get a kick from driving the Nissan GTR hybrid, at least virtually on Need For Speed, the latest incarnation of this iconic super car from Japan is gonna whoop some serious @ss. Again the guys from Nissan plan to revolutionize the Grand Touring world with the 2016 Nissan GTR hybrid, codenamed R36. Although […]

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Keeping Up with the Joneses A Factor in Solar Installation

Ari Luis — Sun, 26 Oct 2014 13:20:45 +0000

You might think that solar roof owners tended to be upper middle class liberals, but a study shows that that might not be the case. According to a study published by two researchers at Yale and the University of Connecticut, the most important factor influencing a household’s decision to go solar is if other houses […]

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Capital of the Dirty South Clears Up Road for Bike Lanes

Ari Luis — Sun, 26 Oct 2014 06:57:59 +0000

The Capital of the Dirty South is gonna get a little cleaner, thanks to its new bike lanes. The Green Lane Project, a program of PeopleforBikes, recently chose Atlanta as one of the second batch of six cities in the US to assist. Part of the recently inaugurated Atlanta BeltLine trail is a 2.5 […]

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A Married Couple’s Sweet Music – A Graphene Battery Printing

Ari Luis — Sun, 26 Oct 2014 04:52:57 +0000

This couple is making beautiful music together – they’ve printed a battery made of graphene. Dr. Elena Polyakova and Dr. Daniel Stolyarov, originally from Russia, founded Graphene 3D Lab and have since moved the company to Calverton, New York. They spent more than five years researching raw materials that can be used to make a […]

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The Way to the Twilight Zone? Nope, it’s the Smart Highway

Ari Luis — Sat, 25 Oct 2014 07:16:44 +0000

If you find yourself at route N329 in the city of Oss in the Netherlands at night, don’t worry, you’re not on your way to the Twilight Zone. The road was painted with photoluminesecent paint along its edges to guide drivers driving in the dark. The three stripes absorb light during daytime so that it […]

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Solar to Brighten Christmas for Typhoon Haiyan Survivors

Ari Luis — Sat, 25 Oct 2014 00:06:35 +0000

It’s almost been a year since the deadly typhoon Haiyan (locally called Yolanda) hit Tacloban and several other towns and cities in central Philippines. It ended thousands of lives and disrupted millions of others, not only in the Philippines but in neighboring Vietnam. While the Philippines is used to typhoons, with around two dozen hitting […]

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Plug-In Car Sales Breach 600,000 Units

Ari Luis — Fri, 24 Oct 2014 04:33:25 +0000

Barely four years after their debut, the sales of plug-in cars zoomed 20% in the last four months, reaching at least 600,000 worldwide, according to Hybrid Cars. This number excludes commercial vehicles (except small vans), electric motorcycles and buses. Though just a drop in the bucket compared to the 68.69 billion cars sold worldwide for […]

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