Overcome inertia. Turn this ship around!

So the main motivators driving individuals towards sustainable transportation are:

(1) Education and planetary ethics brought forth through individual and group choices.

(2) Superior Qualities of green cars.

(3) The role of governments as supporters of scientific research to uncover truths, and to then act accordingly on our behalf.

(4) Enlightened voting with our money; the power of purchases to drive change.

(5) Actual savings over time.

=========================================================

Forces presently stalling rapid adoption of green car technologies:

(1) Inadequate funding for, or lack of quality in education.

(2) Translating our understanding into policy which promotes adopting green car incentives.

(3) Government corruption via certain corporate interests with effects on policy.

(4) Habitualized behaviors favoring familiarity over innovation.

(5) Marketing which encourages current purchasing patterns for maximized profitability over ethics-driven marketing and sales.

 

Car purchases are a pretty big deal, so it's one of those things where people are keen on how the car feels and looks, with the senses being enhanced by advertisements. And how it suits the purchaser for a particular purpose. Some would say we need to change our outlook, come down to earth, and rise to higher ground, to put aside competitive individualism in favor of collective conscience and protection of the commons. I tend to agree.

Perhaps both are possible, since in some cases, it's useful to have a vehicle handy, and families need something that suits their needs. But if available, safe pleasant bike paths can be most enjoyable for shorter trips, and get us all back in shape. Longer trips can be better coordinated with rail transit, so the automobile is available handily to and from rail stops, with less hassles in-between. Better transportation synergy will make everything better.

The psychological gap to be bridged is dealing with this sense of upward mobility, that the automobile confers in the mind, in society, and in some practical ways. It is one part display feathers, one part comfort zone, and one part speed. So to keep the warm fuzzies without the downsides is the challenge.

What?!!:stunned:

Seems a bit odd, but I suppose they want to ensure a good payback over time. Even so, 25 years - that's quite a long span of time.

Who does the maintenance if something goes wrong in that time period? All sorts of problems may arise in 25 years, such as the soldered connections coming loose, or storm damage, tree limbs clobbering the panels, or gradual power loss. What if, let's say, the output goes down so that in 22 years, it would make more sense to replace the panels?

 

The company does the maintenance on it so in 22 years if the output goes down it will be up-to them if they want to put a new panel on for the remaining 3 year contract before the ownership gets handed over to the householder.

Sounds good to me, David. And in 25 years, the panels are all yours!!! :wacky:

Not a bad deal for someone who's staying put, even for someone who's not - either way, the electricity is free!

If we go with grid solar, I'm happy to have learned that thermal storage has become a viable method for storing daytime power for evening and night use. A 50 MW parabolic trough facility in Granada can store 7 hours of heat sufficient for electric generation. Molten salt, hot liquids, or graphite are commonly used, will have to do a little research into which it is in Granada.

So the future for the grid sources looks bright too! Sunny Spain will be cruising on the sun soon!:sunny::sunny::sunny:

Power from the Spanish Sun!!:sunny:

Solar Power in Spain - Climate Lab

 

Leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of us!! Quoting the site for the #1 reason why Spain is so far ahead, here is the answer: "But the most important factor is a strong, almost aggressive, public policy of incentives in renewable energies and especially in photovoltaic and thermal solar energy."

Government does have a constructive role to play in fostering successful solar initiatives, markets only behave well when all external factors are included in the market system, and that meets great resistance here. Getting a government that actually does what is best for its nation, we here in the US need to learn from the Spanish experience.

Then, the electric car can run more off the sun! :cool:

 

(Molten salts are used to store the heat energy over several hours, making for available energy on-demand up to 7 hours from the sun's setting. This will no doubt be improved upon - a matter of 24 to 48 hours storage would be much more helpful in places with intermittent sunny days..)

Germany leads in making solar progress, quite an amazing transition, something the US & Canada could learn valuable lessons from, even for the less sunny regions of the globe: Solar power in Germany - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The best form of nuclear energy is the sun - safely 93 million miles / 150 million kilometers away, with plenty of planetary magnetic and atmospheric shielding - stable, guaranteed for millions of years to be there, and the power available dwarfs our current global energy needs.

:sunny:

http://www.care2.com/causes/build-your-own-solar-powered-vehicle-for-less-than-600.html

 

 

Build Your Own Solar-Powered Vehicle For Less Than $600

 

by Beth BuczynskiAugust 7, 2011 7:58 pm

 

A student at the University of Engineering and Technology Lahore in Pakistan recently designed, built, and drove a solar-powered vehicle in 18 days…and he wants you to do the same.

 

Farrukh Khan’s Solaron three-wheeler was built with parts of an old bike and a 40 watt photovoltaic canopy that charges the onboard 12v/80Ah dry cell solar battery. All in all, the materials cost Khan less than $600: a much friendlier price tag than most alternative-fuel vehicles on the market today.

 

Khan claims that the Solaron can achieve a top speed of around 20 mph (30 kph) and travel a little over 43 miles (70 km) on a single charge.

 

And the best part? The young inventor has posted detailed instructions for building the trike online at the popular Instructables website–making it possible for solar enthusiasts around the world to improve upon the design.

 

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PAQqdvuSyM&feature=player_embedded]‪Solar powered vehicle‬‏ - YouTube[/ame]

 

 

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/build-your-own-solar-powered-vehicle-for-less-than-600.html#ixzz1URCpnJyF

Neat!!:):):) Perfect for short trips and commutes, one could add bike pedals to get exercise while commuting!

I ran across a site touting an environmentally safe chlorine free process for ultrapure silicon production, and if this process is what it claims to be, we may be on our way to a much safer greener way to make the all-essential photovoltaic cells without all the high risk chemical intermediates: Ultra-pure monosilane and semiconducting polysilicon

:sunny::sunny::sunny::sunny::sunny:

For a quick overview of the current process, check this out: Endress+Hauser - Process automation in production of photovoltaic cells

 

It just always fascinates me, how we turn sand into semiconductor silicon, how any sufficiently developed technology is like magic. (after teams of smart people labor enormously to work the bugs out, their work deserves great recognition)

>So, the solar to get the car to go is looking cleaner and greener all the time!!:hat:

Really Interesting Green Developments in automotive biofuel technologies, engine design, and power storage devices:Green Car Congress

Graphene nanosheet electrode Lithium air batteries show tremendous promise in solving the energy density problem of electric car batteries. Energy densities greater than 8 Amp-hours per gram at 2.4 volts are possible, that's an almost unimaginable amount of energy to be packed into one gram of matter! "Extremely high theoretical energy density" - they're not kidding! Just imagine, running a 20-watt compact fluorescent bulb from a battery with a mass a little over one-gram for a full hour - that's wildly powerful!

Here's a peek at what Western Ontario's researches have been up to: Green Car Congress: Univ. of Western Ontario researchers develop graphene nanosheet electrodes with high energy capacity for non-aqueous Li-air batteries

For countries to develop they need to be able to survive climate change, and the softer a landing we provide for them in terms of lessening weather related disasters such as prolonged droughts, the better a place our home planet will be for all its inhabitants.

Lowering greenhouse gas emissions is part of that hope for a better world.

Slowly emerging technology out of the holocene and into the greencene: Green Car Congress

Green Cars Rule!:cool: CK

No, Blue cars rule :P

No, Blue cars rule :P

Blue Cars are really Green if the Blue is from Solar Cells!!:P

Blue Cars are really Green if the Blue is from Solar Cells!!:P

 

Chuck 1 - David 0

I want an Audi estate:D.

I want an Audi estate:D.

What does that have to do with Green Cars??:confused: How cooked do you want the planet to be? Hurricanes more frequent, more powerful from climate change & a warming tropical region - you know, like the one that just ripped through the east coast here..

I might buy one in Green:P.

I might buy one in Green:P.

Which planet do you live on again? :thinking2: Good, do that, and then move to New Orleans or Down East, and just wait for the next category 4 or 5 Hurricane, cause' if it's a boat you be drivin', it's a boat you'll be needin' honey! ;)

Which planet do you live on again? :thinking2: Good, do that, and then move to New Orleans or Down East, and just wait for the next category 4 or 5 Hurricane, cause' if it's a boat you be drivin', it's a boat you'll be needin' honey! ;)

 

 

Coruscant, I commute during the week.No need to get pissy about someone buying a new car, a 2 litre diesel estate car is hardly a gas guzzling monster, way to come across like a massive jerk,still it's what generally alienates the green brigade to so many people.

 

P.S.

 

Maybe you should think about the fact that a great deal of the worlds emissions are caused by other means like factories and industry and ponder a way to make them 0 CO2.

 

I also used to live and still have family in California so I can relate to how much impact a natural disaster can have and would obviously rather we did not have them, sadly sometimes they happen.

I want an Audi estate:D.

 

 

At least you won't have to fork out £7,000 for a new battery pack in 5 years time

Coruscant, I commute during the week.No need to get pissy about someone buying a new car, a 2 litre diesel estate car is hardly a gas guzzling monster, way to come across like a massive jerk,still it's what generally alienates the green brigade to so many people.

 

P.S.

 

Maybe you should think about the fact that a great deal of the worlds emissions are caused by other means like factories and industry and ponder a way to make them 0 CO2.

 

I also used to live and still have family in California so I can relate to how much impact a natural disaster can have and would obviously rather we did not have them, sadly sometimes they happen.

Sorry, I did go at that all wrong, but it's just when a hurricane powered by a warming tropics rips up the coast here and washes away homes and cars and people get clobbered and killed with blowing pieces of roofs & drowned that I kinda get upset at the jump towards fancy cars and jump away from really truly advanced efficient cars, when the connection is clear. Callous regards we all have towards the atmosphere, the biosphere, and our fellow human beings on the planet - the more remote the connection, the less we care - we need to change that, don't you agree? Severe droughts that kills hundreds in the Horn of Africa and other planetary effects are happening. So 29 is better than 20, but we really ought to be aiming for 60 or 100 MPG if we are aiming for a livable planet, given everyone's desires to own automobiles. It's really more an issue of why the obsession with cars as symbols, shiny carriages with horsepower and peeling rubber to show off in the endless horse races we run amongst ourselves to put our tail feathers in the air, all prodded by the marketing departments through their persistent mind games which we fall for that worries me - blinded by immediate personal gratification and savvy marketing, where the environment always takes a distance second in consideration - and half measures just won't do, we're moving at a snails pace while a billion more people want cars.

Sure, a 2.0 Liter engine is much more efficient than a 4.0 Liter, but I am frustrated by the obsession we seem to have with defining ourselves by what we own, not by who we are or how we are and how we treat one-another. Our value system is upside-down. Wouldn't it be better to show off how earth and human friendly your car is, or your options to take the train are, than to show off how big an engine or how fast your car peels away off the line when the light turns green?? That, and we settle for much less than what is possible from our auto makers - the wastefulness of autos today is obscene, but then it all seems to be driven by money & image rather than by ethics.

The fact that a great deal of the CO2 emissions are from factories doesn't escape me, but the fastest gains we can make in reducing CO2 emissions may be through vastly improved auto efficiency standards and building efficiency standards - manufacturing efficiency is another aspect certainly as well, making them carbon neutral is a laudable goal yes, important as all slices of the energy pie are. But this is a green cars thread, and not a green factory thread! (maybe one of those is needed too...)

Yes, well I'm glad you have lived in California and have family there (I have family there as well), I would imagine that increases your awareness of these issues, especially with the air quality issues in some of the cities, and the sheer volume of car and truck traffic. And I agree, natural disasters will happen, sadly so, no matter what we do. But it's like gambling, and we've been stacking the odds against ourselves through our collective actions. We need to protect our commons - the impacts are real, the odds of severe hurricanes and more frequent hurricanes is but one consequences of our inability to prioritize our overall safety over our individual desires.

I guess what I'm saying is that it's nice to have some fun with fun stuff, but the well being of all comes above our personal desires, and we've got a long long ways to go in many aspects, but especially in auto efficiency and earth-friendliness of the auto. What car companies want is to do as little as possible, to drag their feet, and hype the racing aspects of the car - they sell to our egos, our impulses, our sexual desires to display feathers, not to our altruistic deep social and ethical needs to rise above and act as socially conscious responsible human beings. It isn't radical to break from consumerism, it's a necessary survival mechanism. We only have one home planet, and most of us are on it.

 

 

 

At least you won't have to fork out £7,000 for a new battery pack in 5 years time

So what's your solution to the ecological and ethical problems we're faced with? I agree, the eco-friendly choice needs to be the economically attractive one as well - how do we get that to happen?

Maybe engines & liquid fuels are one of the the answers - let's say one could easily double or triple the economy of this car - how do we best get that to happen?

My car is green and green :D

My car is green and green :D

 

:thumbsup: