Archive for Automobiles

Green Driving Tips

October 24, 2010 · Filed under Automobiles, Efficiency, People

All of us that can drive love it; especially when you drive 100 mph down the street and riding down hills. But now that you are trying to go green, you don’t know exactly what you should do. But anyways here are some tips to green cargo green while driving your car:

  • Drive at 55mph. It might be painful, but you lose 10% fuel efficiency, so keep your speed down when you can.
  • If you stop your car for more than two minutes, you should turn your car off. It leads to fuel efficiency of 19%. An example would be if you are a parent or friend waiting for somebody to finish doing what they are doing at the school or work or whatever. Instead of waiting for 5 minutes with the car on, turn it off.
  • You should accelerate and hit the brakes at the next light so much. Accelerating less aggressively and slowing down moderately for stops can increase your fuel efficiency by over 30%.
  • Traffic lights are aimed for efficient traffic flow, so if you maintain a constant speed and will hit more green lights.
  • Change your plugs regularly, keep your engine tuned up, and your filters clean. Empty your car of any extra items you’ve been hauling around to lighten your load.
  • Find co-workers, friends or family to carpool with.
  • A tire’s roll resistance alone uses 20% of your fuel consumption. To save gas and drive smart, purchase quality, top of the line tires.  It may cost you more out of pocket but they will perform better and save you more in the long run.

You can also find ways that see if you’re wasting gas by installing a fuel saving application like MyMPG on your iPhone. If you have an iPhone it is good to install this application or others like it because it lets you know if you are wasting gas. Driving smart is really just common sense. If you really need to drive, then drive smart and save green. If you can walk, ride a bike, or use public transportation, do so. You’ll be helping the earth even more. Well until next time.

~Christine Umeh

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Ridin(g) on Air

September 13, 2010 · Filed under Automobiles

On September 3, Colorado had it’s very alternative fuel showcase. It displayed various innovations and breakthrough in the alternative energy field. But Ford’s latest invention caught the exhibit’s attention. It was Ford’s latest invention, the shuttle bus that can hold up to 12 passengers that got everyone’s attention. Now what’s so different or even special about this shuttle bus? Well consider this, it’s the first shuttle bus that has a hydrogen-powered internal combustion engine and that Ford is planning to start mass producing it all over the country. Now this is a definite breakthroughs in field of green-er transportation. Similar break through has also been established, like the Leaf, a Nissan car that runs on 100% electricity. This proves that non-gasoline powered cars are achievable and that if we keep funding and innovating, one day cars that runs on gasoline will become a thing of the past

~Phil Pham

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Shocking Record

June 19, 2010 · Filed under Automobiles, People, Technology

Okay, I’m going to seriously stop with the puns now.

Recently, a very important Guinness world record was broken! The previously held distance record for an electric car on one charge!

In Tokyo, the car was able to drive about 623 miles on a single juice up, beating the previous record and showing promise for the future of electrical car batteries.

Granted, much more work will still have to be done before such vehicles will be able to be used commonly within the United States, or anywhere for that matter. The biggest problem with electric cars is that electricity, like all other energy, requires a source before it can be used.

And unfortunately, the infrastructure within the status quo is mostly powered by coal power plants, not alternative green sources as we should be hoping for.

But still, these kind of achievements are what makes it possible to believe in the green ideal, and that we should all keep doing our best to promote green technology in order for it to fight its way to the top of the marketplace against the oil king.

Let’s try to get a stable electricity output system in before we do that first though, alright?

~Jay Meza

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Green collar jobs

June 2, 2010 · Filed under Automobiles, Efficiency, Global, Global Warming, People, Pollution, Recycling, Solar, Wind

Now a days hundreds of Americans are trying hard to find jobs, but without success. The jobs that they eventually get are just one of the reasons why the earth is getting sick everyday. Why don’t we try to resolve this problem by finding a way to help clean up the earth from the dirty polluted air, and at the same time benefiting our selves? Guess what, there is way of doing just that, which is getting green collar jobs. The term green collar jobs refer as a job that not only do you get paid for but you also help the environment. The green collar job started from a woman named Alan Thein Durning, who wrote a book in June 1999, called “Green Collar Jobs”. This book influenced green jobs for the people, and the government paid $125 million dollars to train the people for those jobs. Right now in the U.S. we have the three green economy sectors that growing rapidly, and with that in mind we need more, well trained employees. There are green jobs that need lots of workers, for example, solar companies are growing so rapidly that they need more installers to meet their need. The wind power companies need workers to build the wind fans, and the green building contractors need workers for construction. These are opportunities that we as Americans need to take advantage of, because if we don’t we won’t just be hurting our financial life, but we will also be disturbing our world.

Eghosa Okundaye

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Saving Money = Saving the Environment?

May 20, 2010 · Filed under Automobiles, People, Recycling

Us, like most people spend our money on many things. It may be something as minor as groceries or something as major as a vehicle, purchasing has a large impact on our lives. I am about to propose a secret that will make your lives much easier.

Conserve. This is imperative because if you conserve money, not only are you saving your money and fattening your wallet, you are also saving the environment. Take for example, purchasing a car. Indeed, cars are expensive and it is not necessary to spend all funds on impressive cars with intimidating rims. A car like that will cost well over a hundred thousand dollars.

If one is wise in money management, he would know to spend money on a used car that is more years in age and will be kept for more than two years. Furthermore, daily routines can be cut down for prudency. For example, if a person starts off a day with a donut, if he does not buy a donut from the donut restaurant anymore and eats his breakfast at home, he will be saying lets say $1.00 a day. Multiply this for every day in a year and the man will be able to save $365 dollars. Multiply this for years on end and even more money will be conserved.

Likewise, let’s say a woman starts off every day with a hot cup of coffee from McDonalds. If she quit this habit and started taking coffee self-made from home, not only would she save money, but the environment would be helped out in this symbiotic deal- less resources used to make those plastic cups and lids.

So, with finality, I can say that we ALL should take small steps like these to not only conserve our money, but also to conserve our environment, ultimately resulting in a greener wallet and a greener earth.
- Flaviu Delczeg

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Driving Green

March 5, 2010 · Filed under Alternative Energy, Automobiles, Efficiency, Global, People

                        Gas prices have been rising higher after Hurricane Rita. The damage wasn’t severe, but during that time the gas prices began to rise. With the economy going bad, driving a fuel efficient car will be the best choice to make. The gas prices aren’t the only thing we should worry about, but we should also pay attention to how it’s effecting our environment. The exhaust pipe on the cars you see everyday are also harmful to us. They produce gases that are harmful to the green house gases, such as carbon monoxide. Breathing too much of it can kill you, so using cars that run on electricity, will help the environment to become much healthier. The car capable of running on electricity is a hybrid, and if we could all own one, the air we breathe will be cleaner than before. Another benefit is, with a hybrid we can save about 37% in gas fuel. The only problem is, they are expensive, but we can use our cars that we have now efficiently by not accelerating and hitting the breaks so much when we see the red light.

Eghosa Okundaye

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Finally Some Clarity

January 8, 2010 · Filed under Alternative Energy, Automobiles, Efficiency, Emissions, Hydrogen, Technology

The hopes of new automotive technology that will not only reduce fuel emissions but also drastically sever our dependence on foreign oil, has become a reality. But fuel cell vehicles will also have other benefits as well. Fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) are propelled by electric motors. But unlike a battery-electric car, which uses electricity from an external source and stores it in the battery, FCVs will create their own electricity through a chemical process using hydrogen fuel and oxygen from the air.

In 2008, Honda introduced a hydrogen fuel call automobile in Japan, known as the Honda Clarity. In 2009 the mid-sized 4-door sedan was released in the United States, but only in the greater Los Angeles area. Honda engineers are hoping to mass-produce the car by the year 2020.

Not only is this car stylish, but it is also 20% more fuel efficient (something everyone loves nowadays), over 397 pounds lighter than the average mid-sized sedan, has 120% better power-to-weight ratio, and is 45% more compact and 10% more energy-efficient.

If it’s safety you’re worried about, then worry no more. The FCX Clarity comes with six airbags, a reinforced unit-body structure, and a Collision Mitigation Braking System (CMBS). The CMBS helps alert the driver to certain potential collisions and, through the use of visual and audio alerts plus an automatic tug of the seat belt, prompt the driver to take action. If a collision cannot be avoided, the system automatically retracts slack in the front seat belts and applies braking force to reduce the vehicle’s speed and help lessen the force of the collision.

The bonuses with this ride just keep rolling.

~Almayra Porrata-Doria

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My CAR lowers CAR-bon Emissions!

November 18, 2009 · Filed under Automobiles, People, Policy, Technology

For many of us the cash for clunkers program was a hectic time of signing papers, saying good bye to our best friends, shopping for new friends, and getting our cars denied because they were too old. Dealers took the cars, and you took your $4,500 or whatever amount of money that you got. So what did you do with it? Did you buy a “new” used car that has the same MPG that your old car had? Well if you did, congratulations you completely missed the point of cash for clunkers!

According to Jeff Bingaman, senator from New Mexico, the point of the program was to encourage Americans to go out and buy fuel efficient cars, cars that lowered carbon emissions. Yet so many people have not realized the full potential of the program. The program is long gone now, and you’ve probably used all of the money. But now is still the time to think of using fuel efficient cars. It’s your turn to motivate yourself to buy hybrid. Your carbon footprint depends on it. And the more you put it off, the more polluted the world becomes. So save up some money, look in your piggy banks, or actually plan to buy a car, because really do you want your car to put the car in carbon emissions.

-Jesse Anyalebechi

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The Economist Host an Online Debate on Fossil Fuels

September 28, 2009 · Filed under Alternative Energy, Automobiles, Efficiency, Kerr's Green Efforts, Technology

economist_logoOur Extempers have brought to our attention that the Economist Magazine is hosting a great online debate on Climate change, asking the question, “are we running out of time in our decision to use Fossil Fuels and  whether the world should try to make fossil fuels greener, or abandon them as quickly as possible.”

 The format is similiar to the parliamentary format we will be using soon in our very own climate debates, so log on comment on this very hot topic.

The proposition is: “This house believes that tackling climate change means leaving fossil fuels behind completely and quickly.”

 The moderator, Robert Lane Greene, is the International Correspondent at The Economist, and he explains why the world needs an answer–and soon:

 ”The world’s dependence on traditional fossil fuels–particularly coal and oil–must change. But many proposed solutions would simply use fossil fuels in a cleaner or more efficient way. Carbon capture and storage holds out the promise of turning coal-fired electricity clean.

And the world may have more natural gas than previously thought. But spending scarce research and development dollars on these and other fossil-fuel technologies means not spending them on renewables and risks technological dead-ends that will lock in possibly dangerous levels of carbon-dioxide emissions for decades to come.”

 The Green Debate team encourages everyone to join Dr. Gerd Leipold, Executive Director of Greenpeace and Amy Myers Jaffe, Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in Energy Studies, James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy as they argue for and against the motion.

 The closing arguments will be on September 30th and you can vote for your winner October 2nd when the Debate winner will be announced

 Join the debate at:

http://news.economist.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/eBy6T0N5POS0Mo0F5y70EG

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Green transportation

September 15, 2009 · Filed under Automobiles

tailpipe

There are many different ideas for ‘green’ transportation. For cars, many people think it would be best to develop more sustainable vehicles in order to combat fuel costs and the harmful environmental effects of petroleum as a fuel source, while others think it would be best to use what we already have and just make it better. I think it would be best to use the cars we have and come up with ways to have cars transfer kinetic energy to ‘speed bladders’ to generate energy. We should have high-speed bladders for highways for cars traveling between, 55-80 mph, speed bladders that acts as a speed bump for cars slowing down to take exit ramps off the highway and / or into small towns, city speed-bladders that help regulate trafficking and collect energy in a design to optimized to capture energy at lower-speed/higher-frequencies. This will really help on sharp turns on highways; it will reduce the risk for car crashes that will save resources. This is an idea that lets us stick to the way that we have been using, but we can conserve energy. Not saying that building new hybrid cars isn’t a good idea, but we will waste a lot of money and resources on test runs, and building the perfect car; we could use that money for other stuff. Adopting new habits will take a long time, and will be forced. It would be asking a lot of the consumers because the cost shouldn’t be outweighed by the gain. Here are some pros and cons to buying a hybrid car

 

Pros:
* better HP and acceleration than a comparable car
* better (lower) emissions than a comparable car
* better fuel economy than a comparable car
* own a neat techy car
* long warranty (depending on model, the hybrid battery or system is warrantied in the US a minimum of 8 years/80,000 miles, up to the AT-PZEV models in CA-emission states out to 10 years/150,000 miles, and it is NOT pro-rated but a full coverage.)
* you do not plug it in (charges off of the gasoline engine and recaptured kinetic energy while braking)

Cons:
* slightly higher initial purchase price
* own a neat techy car (should you need unscheduled maintenance (break down), you’re mainly stuck paying dealer rates)
* many ill-informed people stopping you and asking questions about your car, telling you untruths about your own car, or even telling you how stupid you were for buying it…
* you cannot plug it in

*does not have is its braking system

*Consumer advocate testing has shown that hybrid savings in fuel economy usually fails to offset the extra purchase price

* Always return to the dealer for repair

 

When you stick with the old habit idea, you get to keep that car that you love, don’t have to spend loads of money on a hybrid, parts for your car are easily accessible, and you won’t have to worry about new updated versions of hybrid cars.

- Christina Williamson

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