Hope you had a fantastic and relaxing Thanksgiving Day. While enjoying my turkey day something crazy happened! I saw a commercial! Yeah, that’s not the crazy part. The content of the commercial was what made me look at the T.V. with my head cocked to the side with a confused look the same way your dog does when it hears something odd. 

This commercial went completely against my logic. It claimed that the 50% of power plants in the USA are powered by coal. But still this did not surprise me. I knew this is a problem that we were trying to solve by moving away from coal. After all coal is one of the dirtiest forms of power and the destruction that mining coal causes nature can be extreme. extreme. But here is the kicker, this commercial said that coal is the clean alternative. 

It is true that there has been much advancement in coal power, decreasing emissions. There is still a tremendous amount of power plants that do not use these efficiencies. Another thing they are saying is that they “contain” carbon dioxide emissions and store them. We can only sweep our problems under the rug for so long, but one day we will need to shake the rug some day and will find a mountain of problems that we cannot control. 

What should be done cannot easily be defined as picking one fossil fuel over the other. We need to find clean renewable energy such as solar or wind or the combination of both if we want to save the planet. The new efficiencies should be applied to current coal power plants, but we should not keep investing more and more money into non-renewable resources. The individual has to become self-reliant. We need to find a source of power that does not require us to burn something! 

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Clean Coal Commercial 
Coal Strip Mining 
America’s Power 
Business Week

It has been six months since my last article about the Tesla Roadster, so I thought it was about time for a quick follow-up. Tesla Motors has since sold out of their 2008 model due to huge demand. Among big name purchasers of the first Roadsters were Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Google Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Tesla Motors is now keeping a waiting list for anyone hoping to get a chance to buy a 2008 Roadster if one becomes available or for anyone hoping to be a lucky owner of the 2009 model. In case you have not heard of the Tesla Roadster you can see more pictures of it here and read more about its specifications here. It is truly one amazing looking vehicle, but most importantly is what you don’t see… emissions. It is 100 percent electric with zero emissions. I know there are many people probably thinking they wish they could afford to buy one of these electric beasts and luckily for all of us that cannot afford a $100,000 car, Tesla Motors has said that next they plan to design a car with the average person in mind. We just have to hope that the trend of buying alternative fuel vehicles continues, so that the price can keep heading down so that more and more people can have the opportunity to buy them. And as the buying of these types of vehicles goes up, our negative impact on the environment as a society goes down. 

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Greener Thinking Article about Tesla Roadster 
Tesla Motors Website 
Arnold 
Waiting List 
Pictures 
Specifications

The greatest advancements in technology are when you create a product previously though impossible at a price that seems impossible all while making a profit not thought possible. These things don’t come around too often but when they do, they stick out like a sore thumb… well a happy sore thumb. 

An example of this is the Wii which allows the player to experience a game as if they are part of it, while selling at a low price point compared to its competitors and making a profit in the process. There are many of these cases that change how the game is played in that market, making it difficult for traditional companies to catch up to the new innovative ideas. 

Another example is Nanosolar. Although Nanosolar has not started to ship their product yet, they seem to be on the right track. They have just completed their manufacturing facility and are preparing for production of their new solar panels. What makes them different you ask? Well they have gone and changed the game. They figured out a way to make solar panels cost effectively. These new solar panels are created using a similar technique to a computer printer. You start with a roll of foil and some ink and end up with a super large rolled up solar panel. 

The beauty of this new design is that it makes the creation of solar panels much much cheaper, which in turn makes them cheaper for the consumer. Also these new solar panels do not require silicon that is increasingly hard to find. This new solar panel is also so thin that it will create a new market for solar energy that never existed before. This could create markets such as solar shingles or a solar panel that could be built into the roof of your car. 

This new technology promises many things including some of our favorites. These solar panels should be cheep and allow people to get them easily while also making your electric bill go down. As with all new cool technology that has not actually gotten to the market yet, there is a possibility that it will not be all that it is said to be. This new solar technology is said to be launching late 2007 to early 2008. So lets keep our eyes pealed for this awesome new advancement. 

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Nanosolar

The book “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” was very popular among women, but no one ever questioned that women are from a lava encrusted planed that would cook any normal man. 

At 863.33 degrees Fahrenheit, Venus is a very hot planet. Not nearly as easy to get a close look the way we are with the Mars Rovers. Some experiments have tried to get to the surface of Venus but failed to last very long. The Venera 8 used a refrigeration system on entry of the atmosphere to extend the life of the craft. The extreme heat caused the lander to fail after only 50 minutes. But efficiency changes everything. 

According to New Scientist, some NASA research groups may have found a way to make a rover able to survive for 50 days. This new idea is based on some old technology that can efficiently cool the electronics. This technology was patented in 1816 and is called the Stirling engine. This “Engine” works by using the difference in air temperature to drive pistons and work as a heat exchanger. Some new advances on this new technology would make the device small enough to create a manageable rover that can withstand the heat of the Venusian surface.

New, efficient technology does not only help save the environment but can also help us reach goals that we never though possible. For example without the advancement of transistors we would still be stuck with the Vacuum Tube, and you would not be reading this article right now. 

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Mars Rovers 
Venera 8 
Stirling engine 
Vacuum Tube

Have you ever seen those videos of tornadoes destroying everything in their path on The Weather Channel? You know, the ones where you’re wondering how it is that the person is actually able to stand there and continue videotaping it when all logic says they should be ducking for cover in their basement… Well, have you ever thought of how much energy could be generated by these massive forces of nature if we only had a way of harnessing it? One man did, and he has set his sights on doing just that. Louis Michaud of Canada has come up with an idea to generate a man-made tornado in a controlled environment. This tornado would be then used to generate massive amounts of energy that could power nearby homes. This idea is still in early conceptual stages, but Michaud is a long way from where he began with experiments in his garage. He has received interest from many scientists all over the country with his idea and plans to demo a much larger version soon. Who knows, maybe someday in the future, we’ll all be getting our power from these feared towers of destruction. 

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The Weather Channel

What would happen if there was a car that could take you to work and back without ever going to the gas station. Or if you could drive the distance of Michigan’s Lower Pennisula from Ohio to the Mackinac Bridge… and then all the way west to Wisconsin on one tank of gas. Or even better, drive from Detroit, Michigan to Daytona Beach, Florida on less than two fill-ups.

Well it sounds like a good plan to me. According to the latest information this car may be available in the year 2010 –2012. But according to the way that every product gets delayed these days it will probably be around 2013. This car is called the Chevy Volt. 

The Volt has the potential to turn the car industry around with its unique way of getting power from electricity, biodiesel, gas and E85. This will give consumers a ton of choices for alternative fuel and make everyone less dependent on fossil fuels. 

The car looks rather sporty too, so you will not stick out like a sore thumb. You will be forced to brag to your friends so that they know how much money you are saving because you are using the electricity that you have at your house. 

As much as the outlook for this new form of car looks there are still some things that will be hard to predict. The car looks nice and it promises quite a bit but will it be able to deliver? Will they still be able to hit their goals of 40 miles on pure electricity and 640 miles on one tank of gas? Will Chevy be able to make the car ready for production by 2010? Currently Chevy has not given a price but says that it will be “Priced Competitively,” but competitive to what still remains to be seen. 

As long as Chevy can deliver on most of the goals they have set out for the Volt and keep the price low the car will turn out a huge hit. I am starting a savings account for 2010, I am ready to put the regular gas station visits in my past. 

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Chevy Volt