Journey Towards Green Vehicles

Watch the movie and Hulk says, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry just before he turns green. Cut to the real world and some of the biggest car manufactures are trying to make Green cars to cash in on the enormous market share to be gained as the world becomes more ECO conscious. Living in the real world you start to realize that Greed not green is a far better motivator of Human Response to adversity, or maybe its just the cynic in me.
Seldom have we stumbled on to a viable solution at the first attempt, there are a number of possibilities which have so far been created and demonstrated within which we will be replacing the traditional petrol/diesel burning car. Just because a car is running on an alternate fuel does not necessary makes it a solution viable enough to replace the fossil fuel.
There are still a number of factors that will determine how efficiently we can manage resources. It is always wise to remember that there are no miracle cures to a century old ECO problems.
Alternate fuels which replaced fossil fuel in our fuel tanks so far are Electricity, Ethanol & Bio diesel, Hydrogen, kinetic energy, air & steam power...

Let's look at how alternate energy has been fighting its way into the tarry market of fossil fuel.


kinetic energy, air & steam power:

Trams before WW2 were being run on air and steam engine. Paris operated trams that were powered by compressed air using the Mekarski system in 1876. These were replaced in 1911 by cheap fossil fuel based electricity which is now taking its toll on people of Paris with cost of producing electricity using Eco enemy fuels.....trams have been running on steam & kinetically powered engines as well in past. India has been working on Air engine and Tata intends to run taxis powered by air.



Image Above: A bouillotte mounted on the front of a tram built by Mékarski and used in early trials in Paris. (Drawing 1875)


Image Right:La Nature of a New York air loco 1882.


Image Below: German electric car, 1904, with the chauffeur on top.

Electricity:

We all know that our vehicles can be driven on electricity but we are not satisfied with the speed, but electricity is one of the greenest most Eco friendly options we have..provided electricity used for charging our plug-in's has been produced with renewable energy. Electric vehicles also seem to be the most commercially viable option at the moment.


Image Right:The Henney Kilowatt, a 1961 production electric car.


Hydrogen:

A hydrogen vehicle is an alternative fuel vehicle that uses hydrogen as its onboard fuel for motive power. The engines of such vehicles convert the chemical energy of hydrogen to mechanical energy either by burning hydrogen through internal combustion , or by reacting hydrogen with oxygen in a fuel cell to run electric motors.
Hydrogen fuel does not occur naturally on Earth and thus is not an energy source, but is an energy carrier. Currently it is most frequently made from methane or other fossil fuels. However, it can be produced from a wide range of sources (such as wind, solar, or nuclear) that are intermittent, too diffuse or too cumbersome to directly propel vehicles. Hydrogen as fuel is not commercially viable..at the moment.


Ethanol & Bio diesel:

No good words for Ethanol and Bio diesel from me.... i hate the idea and find it utterly non sustainable. in fact the impact of producing and using Bio diesel & Ethanol is a hundred times deadlier then fossil fuel. Firstly because it is produced from food..... making farming land and agriculture yet another highly captalistable industry....leading to even more food insecurity & deforestation......and lets not forget there are still fumes involved....

Our commitment with electric vehicles & mass transports like Maglev trains from Germany & Japan can lead us to cleaner, breathable future....

Sustainable living

Sustainable living or sustainable life style, for many is just environment friendly living, the true séance & meaning of sustainable living can be understood only if we can understand the denotation of the word sustainable it’s self. Anything that can survive and can be rejuvenated after the test of time and every day direct and indirect factors is sustainable. Sustainability of a nation a social set up or simply the way we spend our lives depends upon how independent are we when it come to fulfill our daily needs on personal and national level both. Thus sustainable living is all about being independent when it comes to mobility, food production, health care and so on, sustainable living also depends highly upon sustainable production of mother of all leisure and production Energy.
Sustainable living amazingly is also environment friendly living. Every step taken by us towards sustainable living is also a step towards a cleaner carbon free environment around us. Not every family can have there own coal mine along with there personal coal power station, generating electricity for there home only, but every family can have there own wind turbines and solar panels on there roof tops generating electricity for individual units in a very sustainable manner. There is so much that can be done when it comes to sustainable living from growing some bit of our own food to producing a portion of our energy needs independently at little or zero cost. Many Americans should be able to learn about sustainability from there grandparents who struggled through the great depression of 1930s as sustainable living is 90% about consuming less or at least consuming consciously, only if we would squeeze our tooth paste tubes hard enough to utilize that last bit of cream we trash out most of the time. Sustainable living depends on consuming consciously, what if fuel hits $10 a litter how many of us would walk to the super market and catch subways to work.
Switching to sustainable living and environment friendly life styles should be much easier for North Americans and Europeans, as the consumption is these developed parts of the world is already very high in terms of energy, fuel, food and daily use commodities, while poorer and developing nations of Africa and Asia should be able to speeded up there development and real growth simply through adopting sustainable living.
Let’s be a bit hypothetical about sustainability, now only if every Iraqi and Afghani family had there own solar power panels instead of central grid based power system, United Sates would have had to literally bomb every single house in these countries to cut the power of these countries along with there communication. Sustainable living is not only green it can also be a nations most powerful yet peace full defense system.

Some of the simplest yet effective things we could do to reduce our carbon foot print, sustainable living are easy to adopt, some effortless changes made around our houses and work places can have a very positive impact towards our local ecology.

Sustainable living and the CF bulb

Only by replacing one 60 watts incandescent light bulb with one CF bulb in every home of North America we could get rid of the pollution equaling to removing one million gas guzzling cars off the road, but this is half of the advantage think all light bulbs in USA replace with CF bulb’s and the natural cut down in power needs.

Sustainable living and Eco friendly commute



Staying fit and healthy is the base to sustainable living; walking and cycling to work are the perfect ways to stay fit for our busy urban life style. Not only by doing so we stay fit but also save money, help air pollution and save soil. In one of my article about my personal experience of paddling to work I’ve mentioned about just how we can save up to 2 tons of carbon emissions per annum one can save and how fit one can stay.

Sustainable Living and vampire voltage


Every time we switch off our AC’s, TV’s, Micro wave oven’s and many other devices we tend to leave them hooked in the power socket, and tiny red light stays. These tiny red light indicate the vampire voltage being consumed by these devices, if all North Americans start controlling these vampire volts they can shutdown about 10 to 15 coal power stations.

Sustainable living and organic food



We are what we eat, so we are weaklings as we eat week food produced with an aid of fertilizers and pesticides, organic food is now in demand and it production is still low, producing organic food is not only easier but also dirt cheap for farmers and they save on pesticides, and fertilizers and use insects and natural organic wastes to aid there crop. Organic food is a back bone to sustainable living, the concept of sustainability is all about healthy life, every organic vegetable and fruit helps reduce cancer risk, organic red grapes for example are know to reduce cancer risk to almost half as the plant fights against the fruit fungus thus creates an immune to fight cancer.

Sustainable living and reclaiming


Many fashion designers are reclaiming fabric, many product and furniture designers are reclaiming materials such as wood and fibers. I would not mind reclaiming an iron or wooden trunk for a coffee table with a lick of paint on our old furniture we can follow the thrifty green path of sustainable life style.


Sustainable living is all about sitting together at family meals, traveling together and enjoying together. Sustainable living totally depends on small conscious steps taken by us like preferring a hybrid vehicle over a gas guzzler, investing in solar water heaters and photo voltaic cells, planting vegetables instead of flowers in the yard, creating paper free environment at work and switching to CF bulbs all this is sustainable living, and economical living as well as non of this should be chucking our pockets in fact sustainable living starts returning money to our pockets in about two to three years of our investment.

Peak Oil Moments

During one hour meeting between the Saudi King Abdullah, and the UN representative on Saturday June 14, 2008 both parties agreed upon lowering the cost of the oil barrel which is drilling holes in the pockets of US citizens and other nations all over the world lately.

With all the recent development in the renewable energy resources, nations are looking forward to meet there energy need through, green and natural resources such as wind, solar, geothermal and biomass. Unfortunately all these very productive and free resources are being kept out of the reach of the common man. In United States, and Europe some subsidy is being provided by the governments if one tends to install any type of renewable energy source for domestic energy production. For example in FL & CA, they offer about 50% subsidy in form of cost sharing which is not bad at all, while its even batter in Germany, France and Spain. Just recently San Francisco decided to take the largest solar initiative. But unfortunately in the third world countries in Asia and Africa installation of solar panels or wind turbines is not really some thing common man can consider affording. Although local use of Biogas plants using dung digesters to produce methane gas is getting common in rural settings.

Monopolistic Capitalists have developed there web of financing R&D of renewable energy resources and patent them to ensure an earning out these natural resources, turning the concept of free green energy into a dream. So what should be done about it and how can we get out of the control of these oil giants, answer simply lays in adopting sustainable living. In other words we need to reduce our dependability on the fossil fuel and cut down our energy needs.

A change in social and individual behaviors is needed, walk or maybe ride your cycle to the market instead of pulling your gas guzzling vehicles out for a 10 min journey, some argue about how to carry the shopping, well pull your four wheel drive out, but not the one with an engine, i am talking about your own shopping cart. How about insulating the water tank with black colored insulation in winters to harvest passive solar energy and with silver and white insulation in summers to reflect light to prevent heating. Last year i pasted CD’s on my water tank in summers to reflect the sunlight, but never considered a base between the tank and the CD’s so the difference was not considerable, this year I’ve place some hardy shrubs on and around the tank in large earth pots and they are being watered with the excessive water pumped to the tank and off course rain, reflecting CD’s along with the plants are keeping the water inside the tank cool. Consider a tower of potatoes made out of large rubber tires placed on top of each other five such towers produce enough potato to feed a family of 6 for 6 months, and can be placed easily on a terrace at a sunny spot. Every electric switch left open and plug left in the socket use vampire voltage, all those appliances the have a small red light on them but we think they are turned off are consuming vampire voltage, and these vampire voltage contribute significantly towards our electricity bill every month. With a little care and we can reduce our dependability on the barrels that are pulled out every day to feed our hunger of consumption toped with our convinces.

Cellulose Ethanol Second Generation Biofuel

In the search of renewable energy, turning low volume materials such as switch grass and corn husks into ethanol to fuel cars in some thing of a holy grill. In theory these raw materials should replace the corn grain from main feed stock of ethanol in United States, thus reducing the pressure farmland that played a role in increasing food prices and put drivers into compaction with human hunger.
Front line researchers and investors are finding it hard to market this process commercially and environmentally viable.
Microbiologist Anthony Clarke at the University of Guelph in southwestern Ontario sees the future of renewable fuel but dose not find corn kernel feasible. Anthony states that we have all the other parts of a corn plant, leaves stalk and the husk to produce cellulose ethanol and he also mentions the acid and energy required in the process... turning plant waste into cellulose ethanol is not an simple procedure as acid and stem required in the processing both need energy to be made. So more energy in going in at the moment then the amount being recovered. With the current technology cellulose delivers less energy then corn. But if the scientists succeed in developing there dream technology cellulose ethanol can be 3 to 8 times more efficient then corn ethanol.
Clarke and his team are working on micro organisms that produce cellulose enzymes that can munch on these raw materials the way bacteria in cow help break down and digest grass.
This bio-technology should allow production of cellulose ethanol on commercial scale, resulting into a cheep bio-fuel not directly linked to food grain. This research is being funded by Logen an Ottawa-based market leader of second generation biofuels.There is another very common negative approach towards biofuels. Canadian energy coordinator David Martin, aggress to the fact that plants provide a cleaner source of fuel compared to fossil fuel as no new CO2 is added to the atmosphere.
Last 1 year of reviews portrayed biofuel manufacturers as a space goat or giant maggots graving away all the food grain holding them responsible for inflation in food. Price of a bushel in the past three years raised thrice with a record of $6 and above.
Canadian produce and distributor of Greenfield ethanol Robert Gallant aggress to the fact that the height cost of grain is directly related to the high cost of fuel in USA and even in Pakistan where energy scarcity is common. It should be clear that the lift in the cost of grain has very little to do with the actual cost of the grain. Robert also foresees corn ethanol as a step stone towards cellulose ethanol, and hope that cellulose ethanol should be able to take place of wheat & corn ethanol which s a major source of ethanol production in north America.
Hopes are that when cellulose ethanol comes into the market it should be able to replace not only grain ethanol but also quite a few petroleum products, this also means a promise of a positive environmental impact with this second generation of biofuels . Biofuel is also promising as already they are working on its third generation in which raw material for production is algae.

Air-Powered Car

Ladies and Gentlemen: Imagine a vehicle that will runs on air, would do over 100 gas-equivalent mpg and over 90 mph, with zero C02 emissions, seats six, with plenty of space for luggage, no safety corners, and costs no more than an average economy to mid-size vehicle. The vehicle is powered by the Compressed Air Engine (CAE) developed by Motor Development International (MDI), a 15-year old company based in Nice, France, and headed by inventor and Formula One race car engineer, Guy Negre. ZPM is the exclusive representative for MDI in the United States.

Now this is cut throat environment friendly product, which should prove to be hole in the fat pockets of fossil fuel trading vampire capitalists. I’m not being rude these oil merchants deprived the mankind from not only cheap transportation solution but also contributed directly and indirectly towards air pollution, thus causing lung cancer, and many other ENT diseases, by making sure that air powered engines and this technology was eliminated from the text books for ever. If this ugly crime was not committed by these capitalists this might have been a much cleaner and environment friendly era.

Air powered engines is nothing new, traces of this technology can be easily ford being practically implemented in 1872.

It time to show our commitment towards environment and betterment of mankind by making sure that we order are air cars as soon as they are launched in USA during the financial year 2009-2010.
Read more: http://zeropollutionmotors.us/
http://www.theaircar.com/acf/