Category Archives: penetrating ideas

I Was Trying To Find An IT Or A TI Automobile – That I saw in San Francisco

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The car looked like a Volkswagen on a Diet. It did not have the fulls curves of a modern Volkswagen and it appeared narrower. Still haven’t found it but I did find these folks and they are neat.

http://www.thegreencarco.com/about_us/contact_us.php

 

The Green Car Company
Sales Department

We Have Moved!!!!
Address: 345 – 106TH AVE NE, Bellevue, WA 98004
Telephone: 425-820-4549
Hours: Now Open 7 days a Week for your convenience!!!
Monday – Friday :  8am – 6pm
Saturday & Sunday – 9:30am – 6pm

Email: Sales@greencarco.com

The Green Car Company is located just off the NE 4th St. exit off of the I-405.  From the NE 4th exit, go west toward downtown Bellevue.  Turn Left at 106th Ave NE. We will be immediately on your right hand side.  The building has a funny round roofline and used to be Backstreet Frame and Art.  We are next door to Bellevue Auto House and two doors down from Taco Time.

The Green Car Clinic Service & Repair

We have Moved!!!!
Address: 345 106TH AVE NE, Bellevue, WA 98004
Telephone: 425-820-4549
Hours:
Monday – Friday :  8:00am – 4:00pm
Closed Saturday & Sunday

Email: Service@greencarco.com

“I think we have a very brief window of opportunity to deal with climate change… No longer than a decade at the most”

Xof1 Solar Car visits The Green Car Company 

———-

UPDATE:

The Xof1 Solar Car was on display here at The Green Car Company and the event was a blast. (Pictures and video to come!) 


The Solar Car will be on display again today! Come by and see it anytime this morning through early afternoon. Call: 425-820-4549 for more information.
—————-

Marcelo da Luz, who has been trekking across North America via solar car will be showing off his Xof1 Solar Car to the public here at the Green Car Company. Come by early Monday afternoon at 2:30pm to see this amazing car!

The Xof1 left Buffalo, NY in early June, traveled up through Northern Canada to the Arctic Circle and he is now on his way down the West Coast to California and beyond. His website www.Xof1.com is cataloging his journey and has a wealth of information about his car.

We apologize for the short notice. Come by early Monday afternoon if you can, otherwise watch this space for lots of photos/video of the event!

 xebra.jpg 

  

Xebra EV Electric Vehicle

XEBRAS do not attempt to behave like other vehicles. Unique, quite and surprisingly agile the Xebra is everything noisy internal combustion engines are not. The ZAP XEBRA electric vehicle is the offspring of more than three decades of thought and evolution. This vehicle was created as a breed by itself. Because the use and purpose of electric vehicles are different from gas cars, the wheel did indeed need to be reinvented.  

For 2008, The Green Car Company has taken the original Xebra and upgraded it to a new level. The Xebra EV has more power, speed, longer range and longer life!  This new level also includes a suspension upgrade with stiffer springs and shocks giving the Xebra  lower resistance and better handling! 

If You Want To Be Really Really Green – Here are 10 sites you must read daily

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So I will just list them. Since you HAVE to read them EVERY day, nuff said right?

 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-sites-to-keep-you-updated-of-green-news/

But not that one: it’s just the source…

I do the right thing:

http://www.dotherightthing.com/

 Care 2:

http://www.care2.com/causes-news/

Best Green Deals:

 http://greendealsdaily.com/

Environmental Graffiti:

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/

Tree Hugger:

(I borrow a lot from this one)

http://www.treehugger.com/

The Good Human:

http://thegoodhuman.com/

Green Options:

http://greenoptions.com/

Ecorazzi:

(rad man rad)

http://www.ecorazzi.com/

ViroPOP:

http://www.viropop.com/

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Of course if you just want to talk about the environment, while you puff your cigaret, eat your steak barely clothed in the winter with the thermostat set on 80 degree while scheming more uses for plastics, well then these sites are for you:

Lighter Footsteps:

 http://twitter.com/LighterFootstep

Greener Ideal:

http://twitter.com/greenerideal

Ecoprenuerist::

http://twitter.com/Ecopreneurist

Green News:

http://twitter.com/Ecopreneurist

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If you follow this regime everyday for a week you WILL be green. Good luck and may God Bless.

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So You Think I Hate Coal Companies – Well actually I do but apparently they have their uses

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http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/12/10/heerlen-minewater-project/

Old Coal Mines Adapted

to Generate Geothermal Energy

by Bridgette Steffen

December 10, 2008

 Recently the town of Heerlen in the Netherlands repurposed an old abandoned coal mine into a brilliant source of geothermal energy. The project takes advantage of flooded underground mine shafts, using their thermal energy to power a large-scale district heating system. Dubbed the Minewater Project, the new system recently went online and provides 350 homes and businesses in the town with hot water and heating in the winter and cool water in the summer.

 In the Netherlands, coal was one of the main sources of energy from the turn of the century up until around 1959, when large amounts of cheap natural gas were discovered in the north. The coal industry lost market share and mine after mine was closed down – in the city of Heerlen, for instance, the coal mine was closed and the shafts were flooded with water and have been unused for the last 30 years

Five new wells were drilled in various locations around town to access the underground mine shafts. Each well is 700 meters (2,300 ft) deep and can pump out nearly 80 cubic meters (2,800 cubic feet) of water per hour. The water temperature at the bottom of the well is 32 C (89 F) and gradually cools to 28 C at the surface. Warm water from the mine is brought to the surface where a heat pump extracts the heat in order to supply hot water to households in the area. Meanwhile the Minewater is pumped back down 450 meters to be reheated. In the summer, to provide cooling, water will be pumped from a much shallower depth of 250 meters, where it is not so warm.

 The area supplied by the Minewater is a relatively new development and includes a supermarket and a brand new cultural center and library as well as many homes and businesses. While the cost of the heating and cooling is not much different than before, customers can be assured of stable prices in the future compared to the cost they could incur by using fossil fuels.

minewat-lead01.jpg

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There Is More Happening in Louisiana Than Brad Pitt – Go BeauSoleil

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No offense meant because Pitt, Branford Marsealus and Harry Connick Jr. are doing great things in New Orleans but this is amazing…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsuziBrNeO4&feature=rec-HM-fresh+div

http://www.beausoleilhome.org/

solar-home.jpg

Welcome home

BeauSoleil, meaning “Beautiful Sun” in French or simply “Sunshine” in Cajun French has provided the inspiration and name for the University of Louisiana at Lafayette‘s Solar Decathlon Team. The BeauSoleil Louisiana Solar Home will serve as a culturally resonant, uniquely regional work of architecture and eventually a marketable prototype for the 2009 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon competition held on the Mall in Washington, DC. The competition will showcase the BeauSoleil Louisiana Solar home’s role as not only a cultural expression but a technological hybrid that advances the traditional homebuilding in our region.

The BeauSoleil Louisiana Solar Home team mission is to design and build a Solar Decathlon house that uses renewable energy sources in a culturally resonant form that also serve as a building model for other locations throughout the world facing similar climactic and natural challenges to those we face in Louisiana. Join us and our sponsors as we bring together the Cajun culture with the future of homebuilding, energy consumption and design. The Solar Decathlon is a worldwide competition between 20 colleges and universities to design, build, and operate the most attractive and energy-efficient solar-powered home.

New City Hall In San Francisco – Why can’t Springfield do stuff like this? replacement post for 12/2/08

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Clinton Global Initiative Money in Springfield? Interesting idea.

http://www.baycrossings.com/dispnews.asp?id=2100

S.F. Plans Historic Green Makeover for Civic Center

By Bill Picture

A green makeover is being planned for San Francisco’s historic Civic Center area, thanks to a partnership forged by the City with the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). The brainchild of former President Bill Clinton, CGI brings together leaders from communities around the world to come up with solutions to global challenges.

The City and County of San Francisco, a CGI member, responded to the organization’s call for ideas to address global climate change with a three-year proposal to transform the area surrounding City Hall into the country’s first civic center sustainable resource district. The “Commitment to Action” calls for significant reductions in water use, energy use, wastewater discharge and carbon emissions, and specifies that 35 percent of the energy used during peak hours must come from renewable sources.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom believes that, by transforming the City’s municipal and cultural heart into a showcase for resource conservation, the City can inspire communities around the world to follow suit. “Civic Center sits at the core of one of the most visited cities in the world,” he told reporters at a September press conference.

Check, please!

 

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is footing the bill for most of the already-identified building retrofits, including the installation of the solar panels on the roofs of City Hall and the Main Library. The cost to retrofit the other city-owned buildings and public spaces will not be known until a list of projects for those properties is finalized. Once that list is completed and expenses tallied, the next step will be finding the money to cover those projects, some of which may extend beyond the initial three-year deadline.

The goals of the sustainable resource district are:

80% potable water use reduction

45% wastewater discharge reduction

35% peak power demand met by renewables

33% annual energy reduction

2,225-ton reduction in greenhouse gas emissions

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For the full details please see the rest of the excellent article by Mr. Picture

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Novel Uses Of Energy – People are always thinking

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To finish up the week of silly (stop this skit) uses of energy, we bring you the life sucking essence, the Data Center. Or really big computers using really really big amounts of power.

http://www.cio.com/article/415119/Data_Centers_Explore_Novel_Ways_to_Cut_Energy_Use

Data Centers Explore Novel Ways to Cut Energy Use

By James Niccolai

June 27, 2008 — IDG News Service

Putting data centers on decommissioned ships and reusing hot water from cooling systems to fill the town swimming pool were among the wackier ideas floated at the Data Center Energy Summit on Thursday.

Data center operators came together to compare notes about the best ways to tackle rising energy consumption at their facilities. Ideas ranged from the exotic to the more down to earth, like improving air-flow management and using outside air in colder climates to cool equipment.

After a brief lull a few years ago, a new wave of data center construction and expansion is under way, stretching the power and cooling capacities of existing facilities and putting pressure on utilities’ electrical grids, speakers here in Santa Clara, California, said.

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Instead of making them more efficient, they just treat the problem as extenalities.

That’s forcing some data centers to consider unusual solutions. One large health-care center is looking at reusing hot water expelled by its cooling systems to do its laundry, Bapat said. A hosting company in the Northeast is freezing water overnight, when the cost of electricity is cheaper, and then blowing air over the ice during the day to provide cold air for cooling systems.

Another company hopes to put portable data centers on ships docked at port, giving it “the biggest heat sync in the world [the ocean] to get rid of waste heat,” Bapat said.

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Have a really good weekend.

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5 Environmentally Friendly Entrepeneurs Get Awards – Invest now

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http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4290905.html?nav=rss20

5 Award-Winning

Green Technologies from

 the Clean Tech Open 2008

The envelope, please—the California Clean Tech Open, the Oscars of the green business world, took place at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts last week. Standout clean-tech startups in six categories received $100,000 “startup in a box” packages to help bring their sustainable visions closer to fruition. Here’s a glimpse at some of this year’s luminaries.

By Elizabeth Svoboda

Published on: November 10, 2008

 http://www.bottlestone.com/

 BottleStone

Winner of California Clean Tech Open! We would like to give a special thanks to the CCTO Green Building category sponsors: Argonne National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. President and CEO Michael Looney speaks to ABC News.

BottleStone is a beautiful, new green surface material made of 80% post-consumer recycled glass. BottleStone provides a green alternative to stone slabs offering the same warm aesthetics of natural stone materials.

http://www.electradrive.net/

Winner of the Transportation Award at the 2008 California Clean Tech Open, ElectraDrive is commercializing an invention to enable the mass conversion of existing cars and light trucks to electric drive.With ElectraDrive, you can benefit from the size and functionality you need from your vehicle, without being tied to the pump.

  • Mile-for-mile, electric power is less than one-tenth the cost of gasoline.
  • We are already energy-independent when it comes to electricity production.
  • An ElectraDrive conversion will liberate your vehicle from foreign oil, and reduce pollution.

At a Glance
ElectraDrive replaces a vehicle’s gas drivetrain.
All-electric traction provides instant torque.
Drive electrically around town, plug in to recharge.
Never worry about running out of juice on longer trips: an onboard generator charges the battery pack.
Fill up only six times a year.
Improve reliability, extend vehicle life.
ElectraDrive will adapt to cars and light trucks of all sizes.
Configure the system to meet your driving needs: performance, efficiency or a blend.

http://www.viridisearth.com/

VIRIDIS EARTH TECHNOLOGIES

Viridis means green. Located in the San Jose Environmental Business Cluster, Viridis Earth Technologies seeks innovative solutions that encourage human activities with minimal impact   on the fragile environment.

Currently, we are developing simple but environmentally effective technologies to reduce the energy consumption of air conditioners. Please contact us for more details.


 

 http://www.cleantechopen.com/app.cgi/teams/directory/view_team/1/242

Focal Point Energy

Solar Hot Water and Steam Generation for Industrial Applications

Competitions

2008 Renewables Winner

Address

1450 Koll Circle, Ste. 105

San Jose, CA 95112

Contact

Taber Smith
1450 Koll Circle, Ste 105

San Jose, CA 95112
Please login to see email and phone information

Description

Focal Point Energy is making a solar hot water and steam generator for industrial applications. In the western US alone, roughly 18 Billion Dollars is spent heating hot water and steam for industrial applications, such as pasteurizing milk. Most of the time, the sun is blaring down on a nearly empty rooftop. Heating water and steam with the sun is very efficient, which can provide the short payback necessary for many of these low-margin businesses. But these industries need large roof systems that are easily installed, maintained, & repaired. Focal Point Energy has developed a roof-mountable, large-scale, high-temperature solar water and steam heater that is low-cost, light-weight, and easily connected into existing industrial boiler systems to provide clean heat without interruption or contamination. Focal Point is changing the way industries generate heat!

 http://www.cleantechopen.com/app.cgi/teams/directory/view_team/1/254

Solar Red

We dramatically lower the cost of residential PV

Competitions

2008 Green Building Runner up

Contact

Joe Augenbraun
609 Gloucester Lane

Foster City, CA 94404
Please login to see email and phone information

Description

Solar hardware costs scale with volume and innovation, while installation costs do not. Because of this, installation will soon become the dominant cost of residential PV systems. The current trend is to lower installation cost by making small evolutionary changes to the existing process. Solar Red disrupts the residential and small installation ecosystem by cutting the cost of installation in half.

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No To 100 Nukes – Thanks for that.

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We waited breathlessly last night to find out if we would be building 50 nukes with a goal of 100. The answer NAH. Energy drenched America may have finally woken up.

http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/lyrics/happydays.htm

[Music and Lyrics by J. Yellen and M. Ager]

So long sad times
Go long bad times
We are rid of you at last

Howdy gay times
Cloudy gray times
You are now a thing of the past

Happy days are here again
The skies above are clear again
So let’s sing a song of cheer again
Happy days are here again

Altogether shout it now
There’s no one
Who can doubt it now
So let’s tell the world about it now
Happy days are here again

Your cares and troubles are gone
There’ll be no more from now on
From now on …

Happy days are here again
The skies above are clear again
So, Let’s sing a song of cheer again

Happy times
Happy nights
Happy days
Are here again!

Contact NIEHS (NIH, DHHS)
Children’s Privacy and Other Disclaimers
NIEHS Sing-Along Index
NIEHS Kids Page Main Index

Gas Prices In Springfield Illinois Fall To 1.85$$ – We are all going to die!

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Conspiracy theoriests say that this is the result of collusion between, Big Oil, Dick Cheney, President Bush, the Big Refiners, the Gasoline Dealerships and certain Rich Republicans (you know who you are) to artifishally lower the price of Oil and Gasoline to steal the election from Barack Obama and hand it to John McCain. Damn that was a long sentence.

It’s not because the Oil Markets were destabilized by speculators for the first time in nearly 100 years and prices are going to swing widely as a result. I bet Oil Prices go to 40$$ per barrel, before they skyrocket out of sight again. The Saudi’s are getting soaked. That sucking sound you hear is billions of Saudi $$s flowing into the US. I imagine at some point the Saudi’s will take murder contracts out on the hedge fund managers, the super wealthy, and the currency traders who caused all this craziness in the first place. Which is fitting I suppose.

I am busy with the election so maybe no energy post to follow but Dan Piraro asked me to pass along a couple of cartoons that were rejected by a really really famous magazine that ethics prevents us from naming (Time):

 http://bizarrocomic.blogspot.com/

 piraro_time_01sm.jpg

 piraro_time_02sm.jpg

If you find the titles too hard to read the first one says “mommy is too tired to run her hands under your bed clothes tonight, honey” and the other one says “let me put my glasses on because it doesn’t look as big as you said”

And if you believe that well you probably believe the conspiracy theory above. Oh go to dan’s web site and click on the cartoons. They magically get bigger and then you can read the print.

GET OUT AND VOTE!

For Halloween I Give You Trolls – Ok this is not the ElectroLux story

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So what is the ElectroLux Story anyway? Well it seems that in the 1960s a Swedish firm bought the ElectroLux vacuum cleaner company. They told the advertising firm in New York that they wanted to design the first advertsing commercial  for the new company themselves and then have the New York firm buy the airtime. When the Swedish developed Ad arrived the Ad Execs took one look and sent it back with a message that there was no way such an Ad could run in the US. The Ad read, ElectroLux! A vacuum cleaner that really sucks.

On that order these Trolls are not what you would expect but the idea of being fluent in both Norwegian and English really frightens me. Do you think they meant Dr. In? below or Dr. Eng.? below.  Happy Hallos Eve:

http://eng.trollpower.no/?history=search&news=23

Dr.Ing/PhD/ Chatered Engineers/ Electrical Engineers
31. august 07

A constant increase in the demand of our expertise has led to the requirement to hire more co-workers in our Trondheim office.

Troll Power has, since early 2004 established itself as one of Norway’s leading experts in power systems. The company is localized with the headquarters in Bergen and a division office in Ørsta and Trondheim.

The market for Troll power is traditionally within the supply of energy inside and outside of the country as well as within industrial and offshore activities.

Troll power As offers its clients skills connected to:

  • Calculations, planning and theoretical evaluations connected to power stations
  • Testing and commissioning of bigger electrical systems
  • Condition Assessment of electrical components

Required Qualifications:

  • Dr. eng./ PhD/ Chatered Engineers(MSc) in the line of Power systems. The tasks will be related to Project management, design, theoretical analyses and optimization of big and small power stations.
  • Chatered Engineers(MSc)/ Engineers in the line of Power systems. The tasks will be related to project management, design, commissioning, maintenance- and condition control of power systems.

Troll Power As wants to get in contact with qualifying candidates who wish to be employed now or at a later point in time. Newly qualified persons will also be considered. Commencement will take place after further agreement.

The following applies for both positions:

  • Some traveling operations must be reckoned upon
  • Emphasis will be placed on personal qualities
  • Can speak and write both Norwegian and English language
  • Good co-operation abilities

Troll Power As can offer:

  • Competitive salaries and good insurance schemes.
  • Projects with technical challenges.
  • Further development of one’s workplace.

For more information, contact our division manager Børre Johansen on tlf. 93261567 or by email Borre.Johansen@TrollPower.no,  or the Office manager Lene Christin Kjørlaug on tlf. 55382032 or by email Lene.kjorlaug@TrollPower.no  Our general manager can also be contacted ( Yngve.aabo@trollpower.no )

Application with a CV and references to be sent to:

Troll Power