Every Toyota to sell with hybrid option

It is assumed by many that hybrid cars are the puppy’s privates when it comes to eco-friendly cars.

Not so, according to a Scandanavian study we’re about to blog about.

But first - this gem from AutoBlogGreen - a very good resource on eco-cars.

During his New Year’s Speech, Toyota’s CEO Katsuaki Watanabe announced some highlights about the future plans of his company. The most spectacular is the one we used as a headline: Each Toyota model will have a hybrid powertrain available so that Toyota can reach the goal of selling a million hybrids per year. Watanabe stated that since 1997, Toyota has saved 5 million CO2 tons from the atmosphere thanks to the marque’s 1.25 million hybrids already on the road.

Five things we’ll see in 2008

Here’s a prediction then…

1. Larger rounds of VC funding for clean-tech projects
2. An increase in green legislation, or at the very least, a move towards it (it takes years to pass legal bills in the UK)
3. Someone will find a way to store hyrdrogen so it can be used for cars
4. The hype for crappy green gadgets and widgets that aren’t really green will go away, leaving the real stuff behind.
5. And polar bears will take up arms with the humans. They will wear armour and tell people to stop melting their ice caps, please.

Nanosolar makes thin-film solar panel

GigaOM has this one -

“Nanosolar CEO Martin Roscheisen tells us that the company has reached that goal with production at its San Jose, Calif., manufacturing facility. We’re not sure to what extent production is being done, but Roscheisen says there will be more info coming soon. The fact that Nanosolar is producing on schedule is a big step for the thin-film solar industry, as many thin-film companies have faced setbacks and delays.
“

Australian agricultural sector in danger. Climate change to blame

Australia’s agricultual industry is in serious danger of being ruined due to climate change, according to reports by Stuff

The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) warns that production of wheat, sugar, dairy and beef could fall by about 10 per cent by 2030 if predicted climate change takes effect, Fairfax said.

By 2050, Australia’s total economic output could fall by five per cent, with agricultural exports cut by up to 79 per cent.

ABARE chief economist Don Gunasekera said that climate change could ruin the agricultural sector without innovation such as genetic modification.

“But I think the message has to be not just doom and gloom, it’s about how we can convert these challenges into opportunities,” he said.

Join the group - supermarkets fail to act on waste

Greenbang has made a Facebook group - “Supermarkets could do more to cut packaging waste”.

The plan is to get enough members, get some MPs on board and then take it to the supermarkets and the papers.

So join up…

Pimp my hybrid ride

Just when you think hybrid cars can’t get any cooler, those scientific types step right up and come up with another top idea.

Here’s the latest update from the Seattle Post Intelligencer: scientists in Idaho are working on some Toyota Priuses (should the plural be Pri-i?) with batteries that can be plugged in at the wall socket alongside your telly and the rest of those cable-generating consumer electronics.

From the article:

“We’ve done some testing where we’ve seen over 200 miles per gallon” under laboratory conditions, said Jim Francfort, who leads the INL’s Advanced Vehicle Testing Activity program. “Where you’ve got a lot of city driving, we’re seeing 125 miles per gallon, plus.”

Treat yourself to the full article here. Go on, you deserve it.

Ford Canada to recycle dirty air

Continuing Greenbang’s car themed week – a great use of technology and recycling in Canada will see one of Ford’s assembly plants running on fumes.

Paint fumes.

To lesson its environmental footprint the clever Canadian beans are installing a ‘fumes-to-fuel’ system in Oakville, Ontario.

The Edmonton Sun has the story and Ford is hailing the idea as ‘environmentally responsible technology’ and the ‘first of its kind in the world’.

Of course, the company then uses the technology to build more internal combustion engines…

“There’s nothing like this in the world,” Kit Edgeworth, a manufacturing expert with the Ford Motor Company, told Sun Media. “You couldn’t ask for anything greener in terms of technology.”

For years, paint-shop emissions - known as volatile organic compounds or VOCs - have been siphoned and incinerated in natural gas-fired furnaces that are costly and consume huge amounts of energy.

In contrast, Ford’s complex eco-friendly system, which is slated to be in use by the end of the year and at full capacity by late 2008, is expected to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 88% and eliminate nitrogen oxide emissions, Edgeworth said.

Solar power’s boom beckons

Solar power is apparently gaining momentum here in Europe, Reuters says:

Solar power could be the world’s number one electricity source by the end of the century, but until now its role has been negligible as producers wait for price parity with fossil fuels, industry leaders say.

Once the choice only of idealists who put the environment before economics, production of solar panels will double both next year and in 2009, according to U.S. investment bank Jefferies Group Inc, driven by government support especially in Germany and Japan.

Small town’s big carbon reduction journey

Greenbang just stumbled across an inspiring story about a little town in England, Ashton Hayes, which has made some huge strides towards its ultimate goal of carbon neutrality.

 In England’s Ashton Hayes, a not-so-sleepy town of about a thousand people, one man convinced his town to go carbon neutral and save the planet for their grandkids. How’d he do it? On a cold night, he promised them sparkling wine and warm apple pie, and about 75 percent of the town showed up to his presentation.

We always knew bribery worked, but the results sound great: locals switched light bulbs, recycled more, put in solar panels–and even the local pub cut down on night-time refrigeration. Net result? Emissions down by 20% in year one. What an effort. Read a bunch more stories on the town’s site here.

Data centres = 1/4 of IT CO2

The big beasty analyst Gartner says data centres account for 23 per cent of global ICT CO2 emissions.

Its estimate follows its finding in April 2007 that the ICT industry produces 2 per cent of global CO2 emissions, placing it on a par with the aviation industry.

This from the press release…

Speaking ahead of Gartner’s Data Centre Summit this month, Rakesh Kumar, research vice-president at Gartner said: “Although the figure compares favourably with the 40 per cent of emissions from PCs and monitors, it is much more concentrated and rising more quickly. Not enough attention has been paid to reducing the data centre’s carbon emissions. Organisations should aim to keep their data centre CO2 emissions constant. This will help curb excessive data centre growth and act as a counterbalance to deploying energy-inefficient hardware.”

“Data centres account for such a large portion of ICT CO2 emissions for three main reasons,” Mr Kumar said. “There is a lack of floor-space, a failure to house high-density servers and increased power consumption and heat generation. These three issues will affect the cost of running a data centre. For example, Gartner predicts energy consumption of microprocessors alone will rise for the next ten years.” …

Greenbang tracks the explosion of the environmental industry, reporting on news of green innovation and thought leadership.

We blog on this rather than the environmental problems of the world because we are interested in the answers to climate change.