16 year-old builds electric pickup truck

Andrew Angelloti converted his very own 1988 Mazda pickup to run on electricity last year, using $6,000 he had saved up from his part time job as a life guard. He built his truck using 20 flooded lead acid batteries to create 120 volts, which he couples to a 60 HP 9” electric motor.

How does it perform? It reaches a top speed of 55mph, has an acceleration of “not too bad…,” and can get up to 40 miles on a charge (which is more than enough to get him to work and back, and coincidentally, will be something similar to what the Chevy Volt is supposed to be able to do).

What’s even more amazing is that Andrew is now working on a second EV conversion. This time he’s doing the same with a 1992 Toyota Tercel, but with a much bigger motor for a lot more speed. He’s hoping to use a 120HP motor to have the top speed up to 80 MPH with a bit of sacrifice of the range.

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Ireland bans incandescent bulbs

Ireland yesterday became the first country in the world to ban the traditional lightbulb. Householders will be forced to switch to new long-life low-energy bulbs in 12 months’ time.

New legislation is being introduced banning the sale of the normal incandescent lightbulb from January, 2009.

As the normal lightbulb expires, householders will have to replace them with the more environmentally friendly long-life bulb which uses far less energy.

Consumers will save €185m in electricity costs every year as a result of the measure.

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New invention turns co2 into fuel

A scientist who mapped his genome and the genetic diversity of the oceans said Thursday he is creating a life form that feeds on climate-ruining carbon dioxide to produce fuel.

“We have modest goals of replacing the whole petrochemical industry and becoming a major source of energy. We think we will have fourth-generation fuels in about 18 months, with CO2 as the fuel stock.”

Simple organisms can be genetically re-engineered to produce vaccines or octane-based fuels as waste, according to Craig Venter.

His team is using synthetic chromosomes to modify organisms that already exist, not making new life, he said. Organisms already exist that produce octane and the genetics of octane-producing organisms can be tinkered with to increase the amount of CO2 they eat and octane they excrete, according to Venter.

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Bike sharing is coming to London

We’ve already seen the massive success of urban bike sharing in Paris, but now the super-smart Velib Bike program is taking to the streets of London!

15,000 bikes, 1,000 stations and more than 7.5 million miles of combined biking later have already been implemented in London, and the new scheme will contribute £75 million and 6,000 shared bikes to the mass biking scheme.

Spearheaded by London Mayor Ken Livingstone, the new ‘granny bike’ sharing scheme will reduce traffic congestion and help clear up the air of England’s sprawling capital city.

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Bottom trawling devastation is visible from space

Bottom trawling for fish stirs up billowing plumes of sediment that can be seen from space and destroys entire sea floor eco- systems, new imagery reveals.

The technique, used all over the world, is a way to catch fish in deeper parts of the ocean with huge, deep nets, now that many near-shore fish populations have been virtually wiped out from over-fishing. Several studies have shown the significant impact that trawling has on ecosystems, killing corals, sponges, fish and other animals.

New and previously released satellite images show the extent of the plumes of material kicked up. And a video of the seafloor reveals how trawling denudes an underwater world.

“Bottom trawling is the most destructive of any actions that humans conduct in the ocean,” said zoologist Les Watling of the University of Hawaii. “Each year, worldwide, bottom trawlers drag an area equivalent to twice the lower 48 states”.

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The 1959 car that did 376 miles per gallon in 1973

You may be surprised to know that there was a car that could do 376 miles per gallon way back in 1973.

In fact it was the winner of a Shell sponsored contest.

Just think, we’ve had the technology for this long, so why can we now only get 60mpg tops with a hybrid?

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French shipping wine by sailing ship

It’s been over a hundred years, but soon a three-masted, 19th century barque will transport 60,000 bottles of French wine from Bordeaux to Dublin.

It will be the first of seven three-masted vessels planned to be in service by 2013, all apparently slated to transport French wines as far as Canada.

The delivery by ship will take longer than a flight, but will save 18,375lb of carbon.

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Top businesses move to act on emissions

Last Friday a dozen corporations including Sony, Nokia, Nike and Hewlett-Packard issued an urgent call for firms around the world to reduce the damage they inflict on the planet and to promote a “low-carbon lifestyle”.

The declaration reflects a growing trend by global corporations waging war on climate change by taking steps to reduce or offset the amount of carbon dioxide belched out by their offices and factories.

“There is no doubt that climate change is one of the most important issues of our time,” Sony chief executive Howard Stringer told a meeting here hosted by the Japanese electronics giant and the WWF environmental group.

“Governments are more easily distracted by the crisis of today than the crisis of tomorrow,” he said. “We need to act now.”

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Global warming could bring sharks to Antarctica

Global warming could make Antarctic waters more inviting to crabs and sharks that would threaten the frigid continent’s unique ecosystem, biologists warned Friday.

Antarctica’s waters remain too cold for crabs, sharks and other fish to survive in, but global warming has already caused temperatures to increase by one to two degrees Celsius over the past 50 years, said University of Rhode Island biology professor Cheryl Wilga.

Few predators capable of crushing shelled animals live in Antarctic waters, Wilga told a news conference in Boston, Massachusetts.

“As a result, the Antarctic seafloor has been dominated by relatively soft-bodied, slow-moving invertebrates, just as in ancient oceans prior to the evolution of shell-crushing predators,” she said on the sidelines of the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

“The water only needs to remain above freezing year round for it to become habitable to some sharks, and at the rate we’re going, that could happen this century,” Wilga said.

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Can we offset global warming with aerosols?

Concerned that energy system transformations are proceeding too slowly to avoid risks from dangerous human-induced climate change, many scientists are wondering whether geoengineering (the deliberate change of the Earth’s climate) may help counteract global warming.

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