There are an estimated 20,000-25,000 polar bears in the Arctic, but scientists from the US Geological Survey predict that two thirds of the world’s bears will disappear in the next 50 years because of a decline in the Arctic sea ice.

In a stark warning last year, scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre said that the total Arctic ice cover had melted to its lowest level in modern times, and that if melting rates continued the summertime Arctic could be ice-free within 80 years.

Sarah Palin, McCains new VP choice, is suing the Bush Administration over its decision last week to place the animal under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, claiming that climate models predicting the continued loss of sea ice - the main habitat of polar bears - are unreliable.

And we thought Bush was a science Grinch;  Ms. Palin promises to usher in a whole new era of ignorance.  Have a cold?  Just borrow my leeches for a week or so and you’ll be as good as new!

“There’s a real dilemma facing operators of coal powered plants,” said John O’Donnell, Ausra’s Executive Vice President. “The price of coal has exploded recently and it continues to rise rapidly. Long-term coal contracts are coming in at 4 times the price of the last iteration of the contract.”

Australia recently ratified the Kyoto Protocol and will begin trading carbon in about a year. Carbon is likely to trade for $30-$60 per ton, according to John O’Donnell. Ausra’s solar thermal retrofits are cost effective around $30 a ton.

“$30 a ton is $.03 a kilowatt hour [for electricity generated from coal],” said John O’Donnell. “For some of the older coal power plants, you are looking at a 30, 40, or 50% increase in the electricity price [due to coal's carbon output] all at once and an ongoing uncertain future.”

To their credit, Bank of America, Chase, and Citigroup are now considering climate change and carbon emissions among the risks in lending to money for electric power plant projects, so borrowing money for such projects may cost more for power generation options that result in a large carbon footprint.  This provides added incentive for local and federal governments to look towards clean and renewable energy sources.

Agassi reimagined the entire automotive ecosystem by proposing a new concept he called the Electric Recharge Grid Operator. It was an unorthodox mashup of the automotive and mobile phone industries. Instead of gas stations on every corner, the ERGO would blanket a country with a network of “smart” charge spots. Drivers could plug in anywhere, anytime, and would subscribe to a specific plan - unlimited miles, a maximum number of miles each month, or pay as you go - all for less than the equivalent cost for gas. They’d buy their car from the operator, who would offer steep discounts, perhaps even give the cars away. The profit would come from selling electricity - the minutes. 

There would be plugs in homes, offices, shopping malls. And when customers couldn’t wait to “fill up,” they’d go to battery exchange stations where they would pull into car-wash-like sheds, and in a few minutes, a hydraulic lift would swap the depleted battery with a fresh one. Drivers wouldn’t pay a penny extra: The ERGO would own the battery.

In 2007, Agassi quit his job at SAP. Many of Agassi’s colleagues from SAP joined him. They realized that what Shai was building was still essentially a software company. He needed a network that allowed cars to tell the grid how much charge they were carrying and how much more they required. The system had to know where the car was so it could tell the driver where to go to “fill up.” And it had to electronically negotiate with the local energy utility over when it could and couldn’t take power and how much to pay.

“For the car companies, we made it simple,” he says. “We separated the ownership of the car and the ownership of the battery. See, car companies don’t know how to assess the life of the battery. So they go through these complicated programs of testing them for a long period of time. And we told the car company, you know what? Just like you don’t sell a car with a card that says ‘Here is oil for the life of the car,’ you don’t sell cars with the batteries for the life of the car, because the battery is crude oil.”

Right now Agassi has a lot of venture capital, a company called “Better Place”, and an interest from the leaders of countries all over the world (not the U.S., of course).  It’s a novel and interesting idea.  Let’s keep our fingers crossed that this one might be the one to make it through the gauntlet.

But so far, no major energy bills have been passed. Is it possible all this money has been spent to maintain the status quo?

Meanwhile, the renewable energy folks haven’t seen a big increase in funding.  Looking at the dollars spent lobbying Congress, that may not be surprising. The renewable industry and their allies in the environmental movement have spent a combined $19 million lobbying Congress this year - half what the oil industry has spent.

If cash equals friendship, then John McCain and the oil industry are best friends.  The Arizona Republican has taken $1.4 million from oil industry employees in the 2007-2008 election cycle, more than any other politician, according to CRP.  That’s over three times as much as Barack Obama, who ranks just below Hillary Clinton as the highest Democrat recipient.

The sad part of this discussion is that people know about, and even EXPECT their to be a corrolation between how much a special interest spends on lobbying and/or making campaign contributions.  You can ID this expectation in the rhetoric behind the report from CNN.  If the trend of “whoever has the most money wins”, then our democracy is doomed.  Progress in the interest of the majority will be slowed to a crawl, if it moves at all.  If our elected officials don’t have the moral strength to resist the implied extortion and “bribes” from these large companies (some do and some don’t, but I believe the majority do not), then we need to remove the temptation by making lobbying illegal, and campaign funds should be funded by, drawn from and distributed equally from our tax dollars.  That way, maybe the real voice of the people can be heard over the thundering din and deep pockets of special interests.

Kennington said he’s waiting for better battery technologies, like nickel-metal-hydride and lithium-ion, to become more affordable. Those batteries can provide more power with less weight for increased range, but currently cost $10,000 to $20,000 per set, compared with about $2,000 for lead acid batteries, he said.

Anyone who has basic mechanical skills can build one of these,” Horsley said. “But it takes time,” he said, about three months. Most of that period was spent waiting for the parts to be shipped.

He’s got the motor of his maroon S-10 pickup set up to run on 20 six-volt batteries, the same kind used in golf carts. The motor connects to an existing manual transmission to propel the truck up to 60 mph.

The US consumes about 140 billion gallons of gasoline each year. A team of researchers led by John Heywood has completed a five-year assessment of what can be done to slash that and save fuel for the nation.

They looked at how gas and diesel engines, as well as hybrid electric cars and plug-in cars, are likely to evolve between now and 2035. They also assessed what can reasonably be expected from new fuels such as hydrogen and biofuels.

“Improvements” in cars in recent years have largely focused on increasing performance, driven by the demand for ever-larger and more powerful cars. As a result, no significant fuel consumption gains have been realised over the past 25 years, says the team.

They call for car manufacturers to focus efforts on improving fuel savings over performance.

Lighten the load

A seemingly simple way of reducing the amount of fuel used by cars without a big change in consumer preferences would be to produce lighter cars. Heywood’s team estimate that the average US car 25 years from now could feasibly weigh between 20% and 35% less without compromising on security and convenience. This alone would cut fuel consumption by between 12% and 20%.

I’m always amazed to see that one of the obstacles constantly cited by developers of smaller, alternative, and more fuel-efficient cars is that they “don’t pass safety tests”.  Um, how about we reevaluate the safety tests?  Right now it seems to be a demolition derby mentality out there; in other words, who can own and drive the car (read SUV) that can smash into you and sustain little damage.  A kind of “my car can smash up your car” way of thinking when we go out to buy something new. 

So, how about we change the rules.  If everyone were driving lighter cars with less “protection”, then a hit from another car would be relatively OK.  “Relative” is the key word here.  A large heavy car (again, read “SUV”), running into a small car, say a Prius, could be very damaging to the Prius and it’s owner.  However, if most people were driving light, and hence more fuel-efficient cars, then a Prius hitting say a Mini Cooper would be relatively (their’s that word again), OK and undamaging.  So, why don’t we redo the safety rules, giving light weight cars a whole catagory of their own.  This would greatly lessen the bureaucracy that the innovators in transportation have to wade through, thus leading to more fuel efficient cars SOONER.  Make sense?

True, for awhile, until all the SUV’s in the world are retired, it will be a little hairy out there.  But, hey, this state of affairs will be temporary, and the carnage can’t be any worse than Iraq, can it?  And the long range benefits to the death and destruction would be FAR more tangible!

“As the highly competitive fuels marketing business in the U.S. continues to evolve, we believe this transition is the best way for ExxonMobil to compete and grow in the future,” said Ben Soraci, U.S. director of retail sales for ExxonMobil.

Sorry Ben, I don’t buy it. Big Oil has been making record profits, have have more money floating around than they know what to do with. I realize that the retail end is different from the “manufacturing” component, but gas stations as a loosing proposition? I doubt it.

To me, this is good news. I think the big oil boys see something coming they don’t like, and want to get rid of their stations before a “certain something” is mandated by the Feds, or virtually “demanded” by market forces. I hope this “certain something” is something like: compressed air refill stations, hydrogen refill stations, and or biofuel pumps. Wouldn’t that be fantastic?

the United States by late 2009 or early 2010, and better yet, it is expected to be for sale for less than $18k. One of the planned Air Car models, reaches 68 mph, and goes for a range of 125 miles. It will take only a few minutes to refuel at gas stations equipped with custom air compressor units, and it should cost only around $2 to fill the car up with 340 liters of air!

Hmmmm. You know the saying, “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”. I can’t help but wonder what energy expenditure is required to compress the air. Electricity, I suppose, so that opens up that can of worms. But, hey, any candle is a bright light in total darkness. Lets keep our fingers crossed that this is real, and the developers of this technology don’t get run over (literally) by big oil. Rock on folks, and be sure to check under your hood before starting your car in the morning. Watch the video on the next page…

The plane, that got its certification in April, features a 5.6 kWh lithium battery with a projected life cycle of 1,000 cycles (before the battery needs replacing). The battery has a max weight of 78 pounds and can be custom-built to fit the available space in an airplane. It provides juice for a motor driving a 45-inch superlight propeller made of carbon fiber and glass fabric.

The plane cruises at 70 miles per hour. Top speed is 90 mph and the stall speed is 45. The plane can fly for 90 to 120 minutes before the battery needs recharging. When the battery needs charging, just plug it into any 110V outlet in six hours you are ready to hit the sky. With a 220V outlet you’re flying again in two hours.

The motor is nearly silent, and the dramatic improvement in “neighbor relations” — no droning engines to drive them nuts. Electric motors don’t produce soot or pollution, and overhauls are a snap. And by combining this motor with the ElectraFlyer’s slow turning propeller, you’ve got a flight that is practically vibration free.

The ElectraFlyer wont empty your wallet when its time to refill, at only $0.60 per charge you will be enjoying the sky a lot longer then those gas guzzlers.

Billions of gallons of fossil fuels could be saved if it was possible to dramatically increase the fuel economy of the hundreds of millions of fuel inefficient vehicles that will be around for quite awhile. That’s what Chicago-based Hybrid Electric Vehicle Technologies (HEVT) is attempting to do with its plug-in hybrid electric conversion kit.
HEVT recently unveiled this technology in a Ford F-150 pickup retrofitted to operate as a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV). It’s great choice, since for years the F-150 has been America’s best-selling vehicle and there are literally millions of these pickups that could be converted. How important is this? HEVT claims that the economy of the standard engine in the F-150 is increased from about 16 mpg to 41 mpg in a typical day’s driving.
The technology is a scaled-down version of the drivetrain HEVT has developed for transit buses. HEVT’s Adaptive Control Unit (ACU) uses sophisticated electronics and software to control the hybrid drivetrain. An electric motor-generator is integrated with the existing drivetrain through a modified differential for electric traction. The ACU controls the electric motor and gasoline engine to optimize fuel economy and performance. An in-dash display unit monitors performance, indicating the charge remaining in the 12 kW-hour battery pack and the energy recovered through regenerative braking.

[via - Green Car]