You are eligible to receiving a $1,500 rebate when buying certain electric motorcycles. California has ambitious plans for reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, specifically 25% by 2020. This program is aimed at fostering more sustainable transportation.
The first electric bikes to have qualified for the rebate are Zero Motorcycles, which Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger helped promote.
He said: “I love the financial side of these motorcycles because they cost less then one cent per mile to operate and you get a 10% federal tax credit plus a California rebate of $1,500. That equates to a 25 percent price reduction making these electric motorcycles affordable for anybody.”
I’m interested in your opinion. Do you think this rebate system will encourage the buying of electric bikes? Do people trust them enough?
VIA: Inhabitat
Who can deny it? GoogleMaps is a fantastic tool. It includes information on directions, addresses, how to get from one place to another by car, walking or using public transport. For a while now, people have been asking Google to add biking information, and they’ve finally done it.
Biking information for 150 cities in the United States is now offered.
Some of the criteria considered while designing the routes include avoiding freeways and high-traffic areas, as well as giving preference to gentle terrain. Ideally, hills are avoided.
Plus, Google is developing a mobile version.
There is also information about bike trails, lanes and recommended roads. You can customize your journey, including places you want to visit along the way to your final destination.
Basically, you just need to insert your starting place and where you’re headed and the software will do the rest.
There are three types of lines, with different colors.
-Dark green stands for dedicated bike-only trails
-Light green indicates a dedicated bike lane along a road
-Dashed green indicates roads designated as preferred for bicycling, but without dedicated lanes
Hopefully, Google will take this to other countries, helping bicycles grow as a sustainable transport alternative.
To start using it, click here
For more information, click here
The World Solar Challenge is a race that has been run every year since 1987. It was created by Swiss pioneer Hans Tholstrup, who crossed Australia from west to east in 1982 in a solar car he made with his own hands.
This is how Hans defines the race: “Propelled by the spirit of friendly competition, the World Solar Challenge rewards creative integration of technology and scientific knowledge in a wide range of disciplines, providing a common focus for young and brilliant minds.”
The challenge consists of the following: Construct a car fueled exclusively by solar power and drive it 3010 kilometers from Darwin to Adelaide, in Australia.
The three basic rules are:
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The car should be fueled exclusively by solar power.
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The size of the vehicle is limited. It may be a maximum of 5 meters long, 1.8 meters wide, and less than 1.6 meters tall. Since 2007, the surface of the solar panels has also been limited to 6m². The driver must be seated in an upright position.
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It is driven exclusively from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The driver spends the night under the stars in the exact spot where the car stopped at 5:00 p.m.
In February 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was passed by the Congress, and signed into law by President Barack Obama. Its main goal is to spur economic activity and growth, creating and saving jobs. Recovery funds are around $787 billion. The Act also took into account the environment as a means of creating jobs and strengthening the economy.
Today we will analyze the case of the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), which was awarded $16.8 billion for its programs and projects.
The funds are being allocated into either energy efficiency projects or renewable energy ones.
We’ll start with energy efficiency. There are several projects in this area.
1) Solid-state lighting
$37 million have been awarded to more than 15 projects. Some of them will research,
others will manufacture, and develop this type of lighting which includes LEDs (light-emitting diodes) and OLEDs (organic light-emitting diodes). This solid-state lighting system has the “potential to be 10 times more energy-efficient than traditional incandescent lighting”, according to the EERE. Besides, lighting consumes around 24% of the electricity generated in the US.
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To solve the environmental crisis we are in, we need to work in different areas, from transportation, to education, to politics, to industrial production and agriculture. An innovation in one particular area means we are moving along in our quest for a sustainable society.
Global shipping generates between 3 and 4% of all greenhouse gas emissions. It is fantastic that innovations are being made in cargo ships, to reduce their carbon footprint. One impressive case is the B9 cargo ship, which will be powered 60% by the wind, and 40% by engines that run on liquefied methane. It is being developed by a clean energy company called B9 Energy.
The ship will set sail in 2012. It will weigh 3,000 tons, much smaller than the ordinary cargo ships, which weigh between 15,000 and 30,000 tons.
The engines will run on methane, which will come from the anaerobic digestion of food waste.
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Some cities wait for legislation to be passed before starting to evolve to a more sustainable way of functioning. And some others lead the way, and I dare say they will even be an inspiration for those future laws I keenly await for.
One of the latter is Malmo, a city located in the south of Sweden, with a population of about 280,000 people. Malmo has set itself the target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 25% between 2008 and 2012. By 2030, the city plans to run entirely on renewable energies. To achieve this, different measures are being applied.
To start with, sustainable transport is being promoted. Public transportation is being fostered, as well as car-pooling, a more eco-friendly way of driving, and more sustainable cars and buses. Regarding buses, these are connected to traffic lights, so as to get green lights faster than cars, and they have separate lanes. 42% of them run on biogas created from the city’s waste.
Eco-driving is taught to municipal employees; it is also offered in several driving schools, and it has been spread to some of the largest truck companies.
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