Daily archives: May 10, 2005


“Middle Of the Road and Off the Grid.” You could call them Moogs, Wired coins the term “hygrid”. Ordinary households across the US are aiming for energy independence with solar power, wind turbines and wood burning stoves. They’re still connected to the power lines, because sometimes they can’t produce quite enough power and sometimes they have a surplus to sell back, but their bills have plummeted.

This is energy policy I want to see my government backing. One or two Smith or Patel families in each neighbourhood slashing their energy bills by over a half would do more to speed uptake of energy saving and micro generation than any amount of woolly promises Tony could make. Once again- don’t waste money trying to sell nuclear power- fund a few power stations in Acacia Avenue and see the benefits roll in.

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Trickle up

“Middle Of the Road and Off the Grid.” You could call them Moogs, Wired coins the term “hygrid”. Ordinary households across the US are aiming for energy independence with solar power, wind turbines and wood burning stoves. They’re still connected to the power lines, because sometimes they can’t produce quite enough power and sometimes they have a surplus to sell back, but their bills have plummeted.

This is energy policy I want to see my government backing. One or two Smith or Patel families in each neighbourhood slashing their energy bills by over a half would do more to speed uptake of energy saving and micro generation than any amount of woolly promises Tony could make. Once again- don’t waste money trying to sell nuclear power- fund a few power stations in Acacia Avenue and see the benefits roll in.

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Rotary

The Rand Cam rotary engine is lighter, more efficient and easier to maintain, with only two moving parts, the vanes and rotor, compared to 40 in a simple four cylinder engine. It also works particularly well with clean burning fuels such as hydrogen and propane.

One of the most anticipated uses for the new technology is among the blossoming hydrogen-powered automobile industry. The development of the Rand Cam(TM) engine has sparked considerable interest among environmentalists and eco-friendly manufacturers because of its ability to operate using a clean-burning hydrogen fuel cell. “Hybrid electric vehicles and engines that run using cleaner-burning fuels such as hydrogen, propane and natural gas are the future of the automotive industry,” said John Robertson, CEO of Reg Technologies and its US subsidiary, REGI US. “Our society has recognized the benefits of exploring hydrogen-based technologies, and we are happy to be contributing towards the development of more sophisticated engines that operate using hydrogen and other clean burning fuels.”

via Jalopnik

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I guess I'm not the Queen after all

I had been planning to have an “official” birthday barbecue this weekend, trying to make a tradition of something I started for my third of a century. However, with Daz and Emily away, Clare in revision mode and Damian and me needing to practice climbing hills in advance of an assault on Sca Fell Pike I guess I’ll put it on hold.

You might have noticed that Spinneyhead has been a bit subdued for the last week and a bit. Basically I came back from a lot of travelling over the Bank Holiday weekend to go onto a bullshit Gateway to Work course. I shouldn’t be there. It’s useless to at least three of us (out of ten) but it’s in the rules of New Deal so we have to go. I should have been on a course preparing me for going self employed (as a professional blogger[!!??] it’s one of those things that confuses people more the more I try to explain it) but the funds were cut. It seems that, now that Tony’s back in, the funds have mysteriously reappeared. Pisses me off lots.

The one good thing I’ve gained from this course is an understanding of why I’ll need to get away from the PC when I go back to doing this full time. Between the “how to do an interview” videos and awful time filling quizzes I have managed to write up a press release and business plan. If I were at home I’d be fulfilling my first duty as a problogger- delivering lots of timely information garnered from teh Internets but I’d be slacking on the sitting down and writing original stuff because it’s just too tempting to go and check the RSS feeds every hour or so.

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Motes

Swarms of small, wirelessly connected sensors are to be deployed in forests and other habitats to provide deeper, more consistent readings of the environment. They’ll give longer term data, can track animal movement through body heat and are to be deployed throughout America (maybe the rest of the world can roll out their own versions, I’d love to be able to log on to a real time sampoling of the barrier reef for example) for a “long-term investigation of temporal, climate or human impact”.

“The potential for environmental science is amazing,” said Dr. Alexandra Isern, a program director at the National Science Foundation. “With this technology, we can start to understand what is an event and what is normal. We’re recognizing more and more how different processes in the environment operate at different frequencies. To comprehend that, you need to take measurements all the time.”

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The Results are in

GreenHybrid.com provides lots of information about owning a hybrid vehicle, including fuel consumption figures garnered from over 5 million miles of driving. It looks like the Honda Insight is the way to go, with Ford and Lexus’ offerings doing no better than a normal car (though, to be fair, the Lexus data is based upon the mileage of only two vehicles, a larger pool of data would be preferable).

via Slashdot

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