I find it a bit bizarre that we as a nation go through so much strife to fuel our comfort levels. Some may disagree, but I believe some of the reason we’ve been involved in war in the Middle East is because of oil. Thousands of soldiers have died. But it’s ok, because we’re still roaming the expansive highways here in our country with big gas-guzzling SUVs.
Now, without any wars whatsoever we have millions of gallons of oil just floating to our shores in the Gulf of Mexico. Hallelujah! Oh wait a minute, it’s killing the environment and is an ecological disaster. Oops. We got what we wanted, just not quite in the way we wanted it.
I happened to spend a lot of this weekend at Ikea in Baltimore. I’m not a frequent Ikea shopper so I was not aware of this until check-out but Ikea is a bag-free store. At check out I was asked if I’d like to purchase a bag to use for my items. They had boxes available if needed, but no plastic bags. This is actually a pretty cool idea. I just used the cart to get the items to the car and returned the cart. No plastic bags needed or wasted so it is better for the environment. I believe some grocery stores are similar where you can purchase a bag to use for shopping at their stores. Now that I was actually confronted with this decision I may look at changing the habit for saying “plastic bags are fine” when I check-out. Just trying to do what I can to help the environment.
I’ve been noticing a lot of automobile commercials on TV lately that sound like they are trying to make a point of the car and it’s outstanding fuel economy. They state that the car gets 32 miles per gallon! And I think to myself, “My 1998 Honda Civic gets 32 miles per gallon highway.”
Let’s take a look at this. The website www.FuelEconomy.gov has a nice feature that lets you look up the fuel economy on select vehicles. I used this to compare my 1998 Honda Civic with a 2008 Honda Civic. A 2008 Honda Civic with 5-speed manual transmission gets 34 miles per gallon highway. My 1998 Honda Civic with 5-speed manual transmission gets 32 miles per gallon highway. This tells me that in 10 years Honda has only improved the fuel efficiency in the Honda Civic by 2 miles per gallon.
I’m sure comparing other manufacturers will be very similar. Why after 10 years have we made such little progress in fuel economy? Is it as simple as 10 years ago we were not concerned with fuel economy? I remember filling up my car with fuel for roughly $14 or $16. Those were wonderful days.
I seem to be on an architecture kick lately. I’ve always been fascinated with architecture and even wanted to become an architect at one point in my life. Recently I learned about LivingHomes. These homes are designed by architects but are built in factories to very precise standards. They also use natural, non-toxic and sustainably-derived materials and because they are built in a factory, the waste material is very minimal compared to the average stick-built home.
Not only do I find these homes absolutely stunning to look at, but they are also built with the environment in mind. When you “configure” your home, you can choose to harvest rain water which traps rain water and uses it for irrigation of plants around your house. LivingHomes recommends choosing land for the home in an urban area which is already close to waterlines, sewers, electrical lines, community resources and mass transit. That would make Harrisburg a prime area to build. I wonder how much a small vacant lot in the city would cost. Hmmm…
There are many models to choose from. Or you can select to have one custom designed to suit your needs. My house is a nice first home for me. But I still dream of one day owning the “home of my dreams”. The LivingHome looks like it just may fit my dreams rather well.
I watched this movie over the weekend. I’m a sucker for documentaries and such. It was very interesting.
I remember back around 2000 a co-worker told me his mom had leased an electric car. And I was always curious if these cars had heat and air-conditioning. Anyways, I didn’t hear too much in the news or advertising regarding electric cars.Now this movie sheds some light on the situation. Let’s look at a few things.
Infrastructure for fossil fuels: Fossil fuels are running out and fuel prices are steadily rising. We have this backbone already in place but hurricanes still take out refineries and oil rigs. Wars slow the import of fossil fuels. And there is the environmental impact on obtaining fossil fuels.
Infrastructure for hydrogen: Until there are as many hydrogen stations as gas stations in our country this just isn’t going to work. You would need to plan every trip around where you could fill up. And I believe the current process of creating hydrogen uses more fossil fuels than if we just used fossil fuels to begin with.
Infrastructure for electricity: It is already here. It’s in all of our homes and businesses. Now we could always work on the way our electricity is generated. Let’s try to get away from coal and move towards hydro, wind, and nuclear.
Some people say that the electric car can’t go far on a charge and is not very fast. This is not true. Look at the Tesla which gets 220 miles per charge and goes 0-60 mph in 3.9 seconds! Just imagine what could be done if all of the big motor companies were working on developing electric cars and were not being funded by the oil companies.
The automobile companies like to say that there is no demand for electric cars. But maybe that’s because there is no advertising drive done for such a vehicle. That’s what happened to the electric cars of a few years ago. They didn’t advertise them and then said that there was no demand. But that is exactly what advertising does. It build demand for a product. If the auto companies really wanted to sell these vehicles all they needed to do is market them. In fact, after the auto companies pulled their existing electric cars from their leases, they sent them to be destroyed. Protesters stood outside these lots and raised over 1 million dollars to purchase the remaining 70 cars. But they were denied. In fact, they had a waiting list with several thousand people who wanted them.
Something I learned and didn’t really think about until after watching this movie is how this would effect the parts industry. It would certainly hurt the parts carriers as electric cars did not use air filters, oil filters, motor oil, and other maintenance parts that the average car uses. This makes any maintenance on electric cars minimal and umm… clean to work on!
Imagine a world where super-efficient cars are desirable, affordable and everywhere… where gasoline no longer makes history, but is history…
On a related note. The X Prize Foundation has recently announced the Progressive Automotive X Prize with $10 million dollars to be won. This contest will award $10 million dollars to the first team to bring a car to market that gets 100 miles per gallon. So far none of the large auto makers have shown any interest.