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http://csl.illinois.edu/news/green-gps-calculates-most-fuel-efficient-route
Green GPS calculates most fuel-efficient route
by Kim Gudeman, CSL Green GPS technology May 3, 2011 – 3:14pm
A new software interface reduces energy consumption in transportation systems.
Green GPS, developed by computer scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, works like general GPS navigation, except that in addition to calculating the shortest and fastest routes, it also projects the most fuel-efficient route.
“Currently at least 30 percent of total energy in the United States is spent on cars,” said Principal Investigator Tarek Abdelzaher, associate professor of computer science and researcher in the Coordinated Science Laboratory. “By saving even 5 percent of that cost, we can save the same amount of total energy spent on the nation’s entire information technology infrastructure.”
The technology runs on cell phones, which links to a car’s computer using an inexpensive, off-the-shelf wireless adapter that works in all cars manufactured since 1996. The car’s onboard diagnostics system uploads information about engine performance and fuel efficiency to the phone, which uses the data to compute the greenest route.
A grant through the National Science Foundation to Abdelzaher and Robin Kravets, also a member of Illinois’ computer science faculty, is funding a large-scale deployment of the service via the University of Illinois’ car fleet. The Office of Naval Research is funding research related to the technology’s networking component. Researchers — including Dr. Omid Fatemieh, graduate student Hossein Ahmadi and research associate Hongyan Wang — also are collaborating with IBM through its “Smarter Planet” initiative.
Pete Varney, who oversees some of the approximately 500 vehicles used by the Urbana-Champaign campus, hopes research will help maximize fuel efficiency for the fleet. The units will be installed on up to 200 vehicles, including full-size vans that could be carrying 1,000 pounds or more in tools and equipment.
“The less money we can spend on fuel, the more money we can direct toward maintaining other things on campus,” said Varney, director of Transportation & Automotive Services.
In addition, researchers are developing a social network of drivers who can share information about their cars. In the future,
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Before the Industrial Revolution of the 1890s, human beings had only a moderate need for energy. Man mostly relied on the energy from brute animal strength to do work.
Thousands of years ago, human beings also learned how to use wind as an energy source. Wind is produced by an uneven heating by the sun on the surface of the earth because of the different specific heats of land and water. Hot air has lower pressure than cold air and since high pressure tries to equalize with low pressure the current called wind is produced. Around 1200 BC, in Polynesia, people learned to use this wind energy as a propulsive force for their boats by using a sail.
Electric energy was discovered by a Greek philosopher named Thales, about 2500 years ago. Thales found that, when rubbing fur against a piece of amber, a static force that would attract dust and other particles to the amber was produced which now we know as the “electrostatic force”.
Around 1000 BC, the Chinese found coal and started using it as a fuel. It burned slower and longer than wood and gave off more heat. It served as an excellent fuel and continued to be used for centuries thereafter. When Marco Polo returned to Italy after an exploration to China in 1275, he introduce coal to the Western world. 
