The bikes are stored in massive racks next to the train station. It costs 30 euros a year to get access to the bikes. You receive a card that looks like a credit card called an RFID-card. You swipe the card in a certain area of the control for each rack and it will tell you which bike to take. Bicycles can be used for the first 30 minutes with no extra cost, with subsequent half hour blocks (up to 2 hours) costing 0.50 euros each. Use of a bicycle for more than 2 hours at a time is discouraged with a penalty rate of 3 euros per hour, but also with the possibility of having your membership cancelled after a certain number of uses in excess of 2 hours.

To return a bicycle one simply places the bike in a spare slot at a Bicing station.  The bike is recognised automatically and is locked into place (as indicated by the small light at the slot turning red), so one does not need to swipe the RFID-card to return the bike.  3000 bikes are used throughout the system and the system is paid for through parking tickets in the city. There are a reported 90,000 registered members in the couple of years that the system has operated. That is 90,000 people that reduced their carbon footprint in a big way.  And 90,000 green earth friends.

There’s no secret to getting people to go green: make it easy, make it fun, and best of all, make it free. Beginning Earth Day (April 22nd), one company is doing just that. TerraCabs, a fleet of small, teardrop-shaped vehicles are hitting the streets with a mission: to get you where you need to go without emitting pollution, congesting traffic, or costing you a dime. They are launching in Seattle, Washington (TerraCab headquarters), with plans to expand nationally.

How exactly do TerraCabs work? They are pedal-powered by trained drivers and contain a rechargeable battery to power front headlights, back signal lights, as well as assist on hills. They use no gas and emit no pollution, which makes them completely emission-free. Forward-thinking companies sponsor them and even provide riders with free samples or coupons just for hopping on!

TerraCabs will be cruising the streets Wednesdays through Sundays beginning April 22nd until after Labor Day weekend, so if you see one, give your feet a break and jump on! Your conscious will thank you – not to mention your wallet.

Want to learn more? Visit TerraCab.com to learn about company sponsorships or how to adopt a TerraCab fleet and bring green to your scene!

This article was written and submitted to Green Earth Friend by Jamie Hall.

“Let me be clear: Our goal is not to further burden an already struggling industry,” Obama said about the automobile industry. “It is to help America’s automakers prepare for the future.”

He has also renewed his promise to invest 15 billion in finding an alternative energy. That investment will include solar, wind and nuclear power, as well as advanced coal technology. Obama had this to say . ‘‘I promise you this: When I am president, any governor who’s willing to promote clean energy will have a partner in the White House.  Any company that’s willing to invest in clean energy will have an ally in Washington.  And any nation that’s willing to join the cause of combating climate change will have an ally in the United States of America.’’  If he does keep his word this will be a victory for the world not just the USA, as emissions affect the world not just where the emissions emanate. 

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger seemed to be very happy with the actions of his chief saying:  “Of course I am very, very happy,” Schwarzenegger said. “This is so important for our country, because we have been the biggest polluters in the world, and it is about time that we as a country recognize that and that we work together with other nations in order to fight global warming.”

Once these reversals of Bush’s policies take effect, automobile companies will have to retool to produce vehicles that will get at least 35 miles to the gallon. There are  a lot of vehicles that already meet that challenge, but if the USA wants to stay in the race, they need to think a little greener from now on.  The auto companies are complaining, saying that they will have to produce two different types of cars.  One type that meet the new regulations and another polluting type for the other states.  It is difficult to believe that they would actually still plan on making vehicles that pollute more in other states because they can get away with it. The U.S. company that makes saving money, gas and the environment its priority, will be the one that will still be here in the years to come.

Billionaire oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens has a plan to reduce U.S. reliance on imported oil. His plan is to build fields of windmills across the Great Plains to generate electricity so that cleaner burning natural gas, which currently costs about $1.50 a gallon, and is used to power many electric plants, can be freed up for Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) automobiles. Windmills and a cleaner and cheaper fuel, sounds great, right? In fact it almost sounds too good to be true, which might explain why Boone is spending $58 million on an ad campaign pushing his “Pickens Plan” on TV, the internet and in town hall meetings where he touts that his plan would create thousands of new jobs, reduce foreign oil dependence and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

 

 

Could the Pickens Plan be nothing more than a con to bilk taxpayers into lining Pickens’ pockets even farther than they already have? As Richard Holober, executive director of the Consumer Federation of California said: “This is an attempt to divert public money away from zero-emission vehicles to a dead-end technology that gets us nowhere.” The Pickens Plan isn’t all bad however; windmills are an ideal method of power generation, especially if coupled with Electric Vehicles (EVs) for transportation because windmills produce so much more power at night when most EVs would be plugged in to charge

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Pickens plan

Pickens commercial

UPS and HP have worked together for 18 months to develop a mobile, wireless printing/scanning solution called the HP Handheld sp400 All-in-One.  UPS then built a custom business application to support the device.  HP worked with them to develop a practical solution that improves processing time and reduces the rate of mislabeled packages to virtually zero.  UPS will save 1,338 tons of paper per year, once the printer is fully deployed and millions of dollars in annual operating costs. There are probably millions of companies around the world that could implement similar plans or just simple ideas that could save a little paper, here and there, that would grow into saving millions of trees every year. 

UPS is also the first in the Industry to Purchase Hydraulic Hybrid Vehicles. The technology behind these vehicles should raise gas mileage from 8 miles to the gallon to 12 to 13 miles per gallon.  When you think about how many delivery trucks UPS has and the millions of miles driven each year, the amount of energy saved could be staggering.  The videos below explains in detail how the hydraulic hybrid vehicle works.

Jatropha

This relatively unknown plant produces more oil than soy or palm oil which are the preferred plants used today.  Estimates of Jatropha seed yield vary widely due to a lack of research data.  What is known about the plant is the genetic diversity of the crop, the range of environments in which it is grown, and Jatropha’s perennial life cycle.  Seed yield under cultivation can range from 1,500 to 2,000 kilograms per hectare, corresponding to extractable oil yields of 540 to 680 litres per hectare (58 to 73 us gallons per acre.

Air New Zealand is planning a  747 jumbo jet flight from Auckland on Dec 3rd, 2008 (local Spring Northern Autumn) with one of the four engines being powered by fuel refined from the seed of the fast-growing Jatropha plant.  The three-hour test flight could mark another promising step for the airline industry to find cheaper and more environmentally friendly alternatives to fossil fuel.  Air New Zealand announced plans to use the new fuel for 10% of its needs by 2013. 

View video of Jatropha Project.

Jim, the owner of the Newfoundland company, says that the cans have an excellent heat transfer capability and are a very sustainable material.  The system supplies about 2Kw of heat circulating through your home which will feel warmer than a 2Kw electric heater because the electric heater does not blow air.  The only problem with this heater is that it only works when the sun is out, however when installed during the day it will prevent your conventional heater from running all the time, saving you money and making your wallet happy and green.  Watch the video below to see it in action.

Green your vehicle with an efficient, eco-friendly tune up that will also save you money in the long run.

Give your vehicle a tune up. A real tune up consists of changing spark plug wires because if they are worn and not functioning properly, the gas which should have been burned will come out your tail pipe and hurt our environment.

Change your distributor cap and rotor if you have one.

For your Fuel Filter, cleaning injectors is recommended and replace your air filter, this is very important.  By changing your air filter you can improve efficiency by 10%.

Check your tire pressure.  Running your car with your tires under inflated is dangerous and uses up more gas to get you where you need to go. 

Check your catalytic converter.  If your catalytic converter is plugged up your car will do fine up to a certain speed and then will bog down.  The same thing happens when your fuel filter is plugged up.

Also getting an alignment is recommended.  If your wheels are not aligned, they are fighting each other, reducing mileage.

By making sure all these things are done when you take your car to the garage, you can improve your gas mileage up to 5 miles per gallon.  So if you drive 5 miles, that is 5 miles you did not have before your tune up.

John Kanzius, a retired TV station owner and broadcast engineer, was looking for a cure for cancer. He got up in the middle of the night, with a revolutionary idea, to eliminate cancer cells from the human body. By injecting small amounts of metals into the body which are attracted to cancer affected cells and exposing them to radio waves. The radio waves superheat the metals and the surrounding cancer tissues thus killing the cancer. After much experimentation he found that his invention could also burn salt water. Conventional hydrogen generators require electrically charged metal plates submerged into salt water to release the hydrogen. What he had discovered is another way to extract the hydrogen from salt water.

Could a car running on radio waves and hydrogen be in our future? Only time will tell. Is building a piece of equipment that emits enough radio waves to be effective, going to be cheaper and more efficient than a battery and some electrodes. The problem with electrodes is that they corrode during the process of extracting hydrogen. So having a separate unit that has no contact with the salt water could be invaluable. Therefore, a car running on radio waves and hydrogen maybe the way to go.