Pic: Tesla plug

You plug this bit into your Tesla motor to give it juice.

Tesla not working…

This little Tesla is out of order. Actually, it’s one of the prototypes being fixed up for a drive.

Tesla pics…

A picture says a thousand words, after all…

Photos by Greenbang crew - shot on a Canon 30D with a pants lens.

Danger, danger - high voltage. The charging point for a Tesla. Apparently this is what you need in your house to charge a Tesla car.

Punters pick on poor eco-creds to cut better deals

This is another naff survey.

It’s quiet, it’s Christmas…

More than one in three (44%)(1) of UK adults say they would use poor environmental ratings in Home Information Packs (HIPs) to try and negotiate a discount on the asking price of a property.

In addition, 14% said a poor HIPs energy report would make them think again about buying a house and a further one-in-four (25%) said they’d use the energy efficiency information as a guide for improvement works post purchase.

The findings, from the Hyder Consulting Environment and Home Survey, suggests that house buyers are increasingly using HIPs reports on energy efficiency when buying a home, and planning improvement works post purchase, something that looks set to continue now HIPs have been introduced for all property sales.

Just 9% of those polled said they’d take very little notice of the HIPs report energy efficiency ratings.

Climate-change art hits hills of Yorkshire

Greenbang’s mate, Jason Elliott, has been busy preparing an art exhibition in Yorkshire.

Check out his latest work and read the blurb…

Yorkshire artist Jason Elliott’s exhibition about the effects of climate change on the Pennine town of Hebden Bridge has converted the “dark satanic mills” into a surreal and dazzling array of tropical colour in an exhibition at the Alternative Technology Centre.

From palm trees along the canal and monkeys on the rooftops to tropical storms brewing over the Co-op, the exhibition presents familiar urban vistas in an unfamiliar way as the artist’s imagination projects the town 25 years into the future in a world where climate chaos is rife.

“I wanted to draw attention to the fact that change is happening, but this kind of tongue in cheek approach has made it much more accessible for a large section of people who often switch off when faced by bad news.” said the artist.

“Holding the exhibition in the Alternative Technology Centre has provided the perfect opportunity to get across the idea that there are not only problems surrounding this issue, there are also a great number of solutions and practical ways that individuals can actually make a difference, however small,” he added.

After seeing the images, local MP, Christine McCafferty commented “The images certainly do make our town look exotic and I think it is an excellent way to engage, inform and raise people’s awareness of the issues without preaching to them.”

The exhibition is open seven days a week until the end of January 2008 at the Alternative Technology Centre on the banks of the Rochdale Canal in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire and the images can also be seen online at www.climatepics.org.

Kite-powered ocean liner takes to the sea

It may sound like nonsense, but check this out: a cargo ship is sailing the oceans using a kite to aid its movement.

Damned cool, don’t you think? SkySails is responsible…

Apparently, a source in the maritime business (who isn’t Captain Birdseye) tells Greenbang the industry is “seriously looking into clean ships”.

Apparently, our source says, “90% of all transport globally is via the oceans and you don’t want to know the stuff they use for fuel”…

Still looks a bit weak and flimsy though, doesn’t it?

The first commercial cargo ship with additional propulsion by a towing kite system will be commissioned by the Beluga Group. On Saturday, 15 December 2007, the Multi Purpose Heavy Lift Carrier MS “Beluga SkySails” was ceremonially christened at the “Landungsbrücken/Überseebrücke” in Hamburg. All components of the SkySails-System have been installed on deck. The cargo vessel can now “set sail” for the very first time – starting with a towing kite of 160 square meters in size.

Unisys boasts of ‘green’ data centre…

Really Greenbang is a bit bored of green data centres.

“Woo, we’ve got a green data centre that uses less electricty than usual.”

Well surely that’s something you should be doing in the first place? It’s like saying, “Yeah it’s really good, we don’t leave 50 hairdryers running while we go shopping.”

And the pictures are hardly awe inspiring, are they? What a pile of arse.

But if it is your bag, then check out the info on the data centre in Eagan, Minnesota.

According to the American Institute of Architects (AIA), studies show that buildings produce 48% of dangerous greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change, and that they consume 71% of electricity produced at U.S. power plants. Unisys wanted to address these environmental issues and created sustainability features to emphasize and enhance the local environment and surrounding community. These include:

Inside the data center:
Recycled more than 150,000 pounds of building materials during renovations in a local facility.
Built a 30-inch raised floor to increase air flow around servers and to cooling efficiency on the floor.
Added an energy-efficient glycol air conditioning system that improves cooling efficiency by 44% over the levels normally found in data centers.
Outside the data center:
Removed buckthorn, a non-native plant species that overwhelms and kills native plant life.
Partnered with the City of Eagan to convert 19 acres adjacent to the Eagan facility to natural prairie containing wild grasses and flowers.

Reallocated maintenance costs to plant 12 two inch trees on an annual basis over the next 10 years, helping to offset the carbon footprint of the facility.

YAWN…

Economics of climate change - podcasted…

Bloomberg Radio’s Tom Keene interviews John Llewellyn and Elizabeth Economy on the economics of climate change.

If you want to listen, do a little dance and go here…

Dr. Llewellyn, senior economic policy adviser for Europe at Lehman Brothers Holdings, spoke from London about the search for global warming solutions that don’t dampen worldwide economic growth and elaborated on his own climate strategy involving a combination of greenhouse-gas emissions regulations and expansion of carbon-trading markets.

Dr. Economy, senior fellow at Council on Foreign Relations, continued speaking on the carbon-credit industry and pollution in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Film: Greenbang visits Tesla factory

This has been one of the highlights of the year for Greenbang - getting under the hood of a Tesla, an electric sportscar that is set to vastly improve the standard of the average electric motor.

Tesla cars not only look good, but can get from 0-60mph in four seconds, have a range of 220 miles and take three hours to charge at home.

That’s not bad, but they’re not ready to go on sale yet. The company reckons next year (for $100,000 each), but they’ve still got a couple of things on the transmission to work on…

Greenbang visited the factory in California last week.

Two things you should know - we weren’t allowed to drive one because all the prototypes were being fixed. And we weren’t allowed to film too much of the battery technology.

Take our word for it though - it is very cool…

Hydrogen gets into solid state for fuel cell

It seems boffins can’t get enough of tinkering with hydrogen. And God bless them, every one. Today’s latest silicon breakthrough takes us Grenoble, where French scientists have come up with a way of storing hydrogen in solid form for use in fuel cell propulsion.

Like water and most cheeses, some things are just better in solid form and hydrogen is no exception. The scientists have discovered by getting hydrogen into a solid state, fuel cells can be made even more efficient.

Says Flightglobal.com says:

“Only half as much hydrogen is needed to deliver the same power output as hydrocarbon fuel, but in its normal gaseous state it requires double the volume of kerosene.

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.