And it's not bad looking, either.

The entire car is made of carbon fiber to keep weight down, and obviously it's extremely streamlined to limit drag. Unfortunately this also makes it very expensive, but VW expected the price to come down to a level at which it makes sense to build the car by 2012. Thanks to sky high gas prices, they now think it makes sense to build starting two years from now, in 2010.

It uses an 8.5 horsepower diesel; the production model may have about twice that amount of power to satisfy consumer's desire for acceleration.

No word on what the acceleration will be but the car looks very cool and I think a lot of people will want it -- even at the anticipated prices of about $30-50k.

Filed under: cars, green, and mpg

Just like everything nowadays, fireworks are bad for you.

Explosions, strange chemical combinations, danger, all that sort of thing.

So what can we do about it, while retaining some semblance of Fourth of July fun?

This article tells all.

At the end, of course, it admits that fireworks are not that bad a pollution problem compared to all the others we already have ... but every little bit helps.

Filed under: fireworks, green, and environment

This compressed air powered car is a cool innovation from India. You can fill the tank at filling stations with special compressed air pumps for about $2 or fill it with a home air compressor in about four hours. It doesn't say how much that is, but it sounds comparable to an electric car which is very, very cheap.

How cheap? At $2 to fill up and a 125 mile range, it would cost about $0.016 per mile in fuel. A Toyota Prius feels like a fuel hog - at $4 per gallon and 50mpg, it would cost $ 0.08 per mile in fuel.

And if you didn't guess already, compressed air is, well, compressed air and so there is no tailpipe and no emissions. Cost in India is about $12,700.

Unfortunately this car is made of extremely lightweight materials that would not be durable in crashes and so it's unlikely to be legal in the US.

At least not yet.

Filed under: air, car, green, energy, and electric

When you think of motor yachts, you probably think of powerful, fuel-guzzling diesel engines, creating enormous amounts of pollution and ever-higher operating costs. Surely we can do better, but still enjoy the water.

An interesting answer is here, in the form of the DSe Hybrid, essentially a 40' yacht with every square inch of its decks covered with solar panels. During a sunny day, you can cruise indefinitely at up to 6 knots (this is about 8 mph) using solar power alone.

How does it do it? Well, to start with, the boxy vessel has a lot of room on it for solar cells, so it's in a perfect position to grab the sun's energy.

Second, the catamaran design has two thin hulls as the only part of the boat that's actually in the water. This makes it extremely easy to push and so it can use low power engines to operate.

Third, six knots just isn't that fast. In fact, it's about the same speed as sailboats typically run. Because of the mathematics of water resistance, pretty much any vehicle, including this boat, is more efficient the slower it is driven. At the same time, this is not an outrageously slow speed - as I pointed out, many sailboats run more slowly, even under power.

So what happens when there is no sun, or if you want to operate at night? The yacht has twin diesel engines which can generate power for the electric motors to run the boat to 13 knots, which again is a fairly respectable speed on the water.

This is a really clever idea. They have made the world's first viable perpetual motion machine, as long as you let it stop at night. As long as the sun shines, you can dawdle along.

After all, who's in a hurry when you're in the sun?

The DSe is expected to be available in Fall 2008, for about $500,000. Pre-production discounts are available.

Filed under: yacht, green, and hybrid

We race Go-Karts to have extreme fun, but they are also extreme pollutants. With their inefficient two stroke engines, they spew as much pollution into the air as ten cars.

So how can you have your fun and stop the excess pollution? An electric go-kart would seem like a promising start, but could it win on the track?

Check the article for details and results.

Filed under: go-kart, green, and electric car

Every day, thousands of trucks rumble through Oakland, spewing pollutants on their way to the giant port.

Inventor Terry Kennedy decided to do something about that. He invented a clever device that takes advantage of the weight of the trucks to apply pressure to a plate. This pressure creates a liquid flow that turns a turbine and generates electricity.

Enough for the equivalent of 1,700 homes.

So as the trucks spew their pollutants, they are also contributing energy that helps the Port of Oakland go green. The invention now furnishes about 5% of their electricity needs, which may sound like nothing - but still amounts to a pretty penny each year.

The "Dragon" is spreading fast to other ports and communities, as the idea literally makes something out of nothing, and costs relatively little to install.

Great idea!

Filed under: dragon, trucks, pollution, traffic, energy, and green

You see them in third world countries ... black smoke drifting up from a group of food stalls, with the acrid odors of burning mixing with delicious chicken smells.

But what if you could get rid of the acrid odors? You'd probably sell a lot more chickens, thought vendor Sila Sutharat. So he developed a clever system - literally of smoke and mirrors - to heat chicken through the sun.

Very ingenious, very green, and saves him money on fuel!

Filed under: green cooking, green, environment, and street vendor

This article was originally titled "craziest" but to me a lot of these are pretty cool.

My favorite is the air conditioner that freezes water during the night, when it's cooler and electricity is cheaper, and lets it melt during the day, feeding the heat exchanger to cool the house. Users have experienced around a 30% energy savings with this technology.

Visit the link to see a solar powered cellphone, bamboo clothing, an electric roadster and more. (The image is of the solar cellphone, since the green air conditioner doesn't look like anything special.)

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Filed under: green technology, green, and energy