Is the Prius design really a good compromise? Does it do itself justice by trying to accomplish so much in one vehicle?

To get to the root of this, I decided to seek out an expert opinion and contacted MIT professor, Mark Drela. Dr. Drela is a professor of fluid dynamics in MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and has been an adviser to MIT’s Vehicle Design Summit regarding vehicle aerodynamics. In a response via email, Dr. Drela had this to say:

“All common cars, including the Prius, are aerodynamic bricks. The lowest drag shape that you can wrap around a passenger cabin resembles the front half of a sailplane fuselage. The Aptera comes pretty close, assuming they designed it properly.”

To read more visit Gas2.org

by Petz Scholtus, Barcelona - December 27, 2007 via TreeHugger.Com

We covered the brilliant work of Bioregional before, such as the BedZED eco-housing project and the Laundry, a paper recycling system. Bioregional has developed another recycling scheme at a more local scale, specifically for London and has also applied it to Surrey so far. Local Paper for London is based on the simple principle of cycling the paper locally.

continue reading "Local Paper for London: Get your Own (Recycled) Paper Back"

By Michael Kanellos - December 20, 2007 via News.Com

It was another strong year for green transportation, but a lot of potential pitfalls in the industry became more apparent.

Just ask ethanol producers for the evidence. In 2005 and 2006, investors flocked to traditional ethanol makers, allowing companies like VeraSun Energy to go public. The high prices for the fuel, combined with the relatively low price of feedstocks it’s made from, made the industry look attractive.

Then the price of corn shot up, budding profits turned to losses, and ethanol makers started to merge.

continue reading "Growing pains for green transportation"

by GeekSugar - December 19, 2007 via GeekSugar.Com

If you want to pimp the outside of your house with a ton of Christmas lights but don’t want to spend a small fortune on the electricity bill, consider Solar-Powered Lights.

continue reading "Solar-Powered String Lights: Love or Leave?"

by Ian Rowley - December 19, 2007 via BusinessWeek.Com

Considering the environment for auto sales in Honda’s (HMC) two largest markets, Japan and North America, company chief Takeo Fukui looked remarkably relaxed as he delivered his outlook for the year ahead in Tokyo Dec. 19. It didn’t take long to understand why. During the address in Tokyo’s Shinagawa district, a confident Fukui predicted another year of overall expansion at the automaker in 2008, including a 3% increase in U.S. auto sales to 1.59 million vehicles despite concerns about the sub-prime crisis and stubbornly high fuel prices. He also predicted spectacular growth in several other key markets.

continue reading "Honda Targets Toyota’s Hybrid Dominance"

by Elizabeth Redmond - December 19, 2007 via SustainaBlog.Org

With the portfolio of commercial and urban green building projects happening across the globe right now, how is it possible to see them all? For those of us who are construction fanatics we like to see them in person but flying to location is definitely not the most or even a sustainable way to do things. Well, as with so most everything these days, there is a solution. To increase our remote access to ongoing and completed green building projects nationwide, Building Green Inc. has teamed up with Google and the Department of Energy to bring us an interactive way to view these projects.

continue reading "Green Building Sketch-Up Models Presented in Google Earth"

by Craig Webb as told to Jade Chang - July 20, 2007 via MetropolisMag.Com

Craig Webb, a partner and project designer at Gehry Partners, discusses several of the challenges and the innovative solutions involved in the creation of New York’s Inter­ActiveCorp headquarters. The full story from our June issue can be found here.
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On most of our buildings we start with a very cut and dry program analysis of the pieces and do relationship diagrams based on those. Most of our buildings are more complex in program; this is an office building—nine floors of typical office space that need to get subdivided and laid out. Because of that, the process was truncated a bit.

continue reading "Anatomy of a Building"

by RH - December 11, 2007 via ReclaimedHome.Com

An old article on Hudson Valley Magazine lead me to singer Peggy Atwood’s site about her monolithic dome in the Catskills. She decided to have it built after nearly losing a house to a tornado in Tennessee and another near miss Upstate due to a forest fire.

Granted, all dome homes are awesome, but when I came across the Solaleya website, I knew I had discovered my latest obsession. These homes, which have the added plus of totally looking like a spaceship, actually rotate with the sun. Need I say more? THE HOUSE ROTATES WITH THE SUN!

continue reading "Attack of the Dome Homes"

by admin - December 17th, 2007 via GreenTechGazette.Com

Phoenix Motorcars may just be the Next Big Thing in electric vehicles. And, these next big things will likely be produced in Mexico according to the latest reports. Last week, I talked about the promise for lithium iron phosphate batteries (LiFePO4) taking over the electric vehicle market.

continue reading "Phoenix Motorcars Titillating Lithium Titinate Batteries"

by DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory - December 17, 2007 via ScienceDaily.Com

Advances in fuel desulfurization and reforming lead to a successful demonstration of a portable fuel cell system using JP-8 military jet fuel.

continue reading "Fuel Cells Help Make Noisy, Hot Generators A Thing Of The Past"