“The Menace is loose again, the Hell’s Angels, the hundred-carat headline, running fast and loud on the early morning freeway, low in the saddle, nobody smiles, jamming crazy through traffic and ninety miles an hour down the center stripe, missing by inches. . . like Genghis Khan [...]
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The jury is still out on the Cash for Clunkers program. The last paperwork was filed on Monday, August 24, 2009, but crushed cars still waiting to be [...]
Just about everyone I know has one of these iPhone things. I played around my nephews the other day and was amazed at all the colorful, useless apps that he had on the thing. I think there were a dozen “flashlight” apps alone.
But the iPhone really does [...]
There really hasn’t been any significant increase in the number of diesel cars available on the US market since our 2009 diesel car post from last year. While common in Europe, stricter emissions requirements in some states and the recent temporary bout of high priced diesel fuel [...]
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Here at the Practical Environmentalist, we’re green news junkies. We keep an eagle eye out for the latest science, social, and environmental developments and try to [...]
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Poverty has drastic effects on the natural world. People living without access to treated water, sustainable fuel supplies, or adequate food can have a huge impact on their surroundings. [...]
The number of hybrid cars keeps increasing, and while it is definitely a step in the right direction for emission reduction and fuel economy, the real importance of the hybrid car is in the evolution of transportation in general.
Technology, when it first comes out, isn’t always immediately [...]
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Over time, solar panels will get covered with dust, grime, and even bird droppings. These obstructions block sunlight and will reduce power production. The solution [...]
This year, June 15th was “Ride Your Bike to Work” day. When I saw other people riding to work, I decided to give it a try.
Photo courtesy of sportpictures [...]
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Everyone loves a well manicured yard, and there are a multitude of power tools that make short work of trimming, mowing, and edging. A surprising number of green options also exist, and [...]
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When you think of environmentally friendly groups, Greenpeace, REI, the Sierra Club, New Belgium Brewery, and Seventh Generation are some of the green companies and organizations that are likely to come to mind. But what about [...]
Photo courtesy of London Permaculture
Under new Federal laws, you can get tax credits for 30% of most solar panel installations. Some states have additional incentives, and many utilities are also encouraging customers to install solar panels so that they don’t [...]
Photo courtesy of Saw You On The Flipside
For some people, travel is an unpleasant necessity. They travel to meet clients or commute. For other people, travel is a joy and the reason that they work. They save up money for vacations and [...]
Photo courtesy of Shira Golding
Earth Day has come and gone, but there are still a lot of contests going on that focus on environmentally friendly ideas. If you have green skills or an innovative idea, here are some fun contests that offer [...]
Photo courtesy of Vagawi
Every year, approximately 1 Billion tires are replaced due to wear and tear. Many of these tires end up in landfills, but the majority are burned or converted into Tire Derived Fuel. A growing number of tires are [...]
The Environmental Working Group just completed a new study of pesticides in produce. Here’s their http://www.foodnews.org/fulllist.php">list of pesticide levels in fruit and vegetables, which may come in handy the next time you go to the grocery store. Foods at the top of this list can have high levels of" [...]
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Once a year, environmentalists around the world turn out the lights for an hour. This year, Earth Hour falls on Saturday, March 28th, and many different homes, offices, and government buildings are taking part. [...]
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Everything old is new again. This is doubly true for trends that never went completely out of fashion, like vinyl records and Victory Gardens. Originally conceived during World War I as a way to ensure food supplies for troops, [...]
Photo courtesy of Brewbooks at Flickr.com.
Mountain ranges, oceans, deserts, rivers, and other landforms divide the world into different regions and zones. These natural barriers isolate plants and animals from each other, and allowed many different species to evolve. Over millions of years, nature found different [...]
Photo courtesy of From A Second Story at Flickr.com.
Here at the Practical Environmentalist, we’re green news junkies. We keep an eagle eye out for the latest science, social, and environmental developments and try to sum up the big picture on your screen. A lot of [...]
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For years, auto designers have been using wind tunnels to improve car designs. Wind tunnels make it easy to see how different features affect aerodynamics. Hoods, spoilers, and even mirrors have been engineered and re-engineered due to wind tunnel [...]
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The Kyoto treaty is in the news again as the Obama administration considers implementing a cap and trade system for carbon dioxide. It turns out that a lot of participating countries have fallen short of their Kyoto commitments, [...]
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The ocean covers more than 70% of the earth’s surface, and it’s a major part of the ecosystem that we rely on. Phytoplankton are responsible for about half of the oxygen produced worldwide. More than 1 billion people [...]
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The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative held its second auction for carbon credits in December. This was the first auction where all 10 states in the initiative took part, and the sale price rose about 10 percent from the previous [...]
Photo courtesy of HckySo at Flickr.com.
Have you ever noticed that alkaline batteries seem to work better in digital cameras, handheld games, and other high drain devices? That’s because alkaline batteries put out electricity at a higher voltage. They offer 1.5 volts, while rechargeable technologies such [...]
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A lot of news about the environment lately has been good news - there are huge solar arrays being built, energy efficiency is improving by leaps and bounds, and more people are recycling today than even knew what [...]
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The price of gas is down sharply from it’s peak around $4 a gallon, but the spike in gas prices has left a lasting impact on the way that many consumers feel about fuel efficiency. Manufacturers are responding [...]
Unless you have been living on Pluto for the past five years, you will know that hybrid cars are the biggest innovation in mainstream automotive development in the United States since the Model T Ford. A “hybrid” is a vehicle that has both an internal combustion engine and one or [...]
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Even if you have a high-tech, earth friendly toilet, how many times have you heard someone say “Light a candle” after you use the bathroom? Not only does lighting a candle reduce the unpleasant smell, but it [...]
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With all the news coverage focused on the election, there are a lot of important and/or awesome things that have escaped attention. Here’s a quick overview of environmental news that’s worth following:
First off, it’s common to get a craving [...]
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Bottle caps are surprisingly difficult to recycle. Many curbside recycling programs ask that you remove any lids or caps from bottles. For one thing, this allows the bottles to dry out (reducing transportation costs by [...]
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Around the country, times are tough. The US economy is losing more jobs than it’s creating, and retail sales are down sharply from last year. There’s been a run on piggy banks and belts are getting tight. [...]
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A man in Georgia was recently called out on news shows around the country for being the biggest water hog in his county. News vans parked in his driveway, his behavior caused the city to introduce new rates [...]
Photo courtesy of Gemma Kate Thorpe at Flickr.com.
The $700 Billion bailout bill has stirred up mixed emotions. On one hand, relieved sighs have been heard from Wall Street, but many people are spitting mad. In the aftermath of the bill’s passage, some [...]
While the rest of the world is crazy about diesel technology for its fuel efficiency, the US’s stringent emission regulations introduced in 2008 are preventing several otherwise great diesel cars from being marketed in this country.
Diesel cars typically have higher exhaust levels of nitrogen oxide than gasoline cars. Automakers cite [...]
H.R. 6049 (warning, PDF) was passed today: Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008 which gives us tax incentives to the tune of 18 billion dollars for
“investment in renewable energy, carbon capture and sequestration demonstration projects, energy efficiency and conservation”.
It also provides for extensions on expiring [...]
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Last week, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative held the first auction for US Carbon credits. This was an important milestone because the auction may set the pattern for a federal carbon tax. Funds raised at the RGGI [...]
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Keeping warm is hard work. When the days get shorter and cold weather creeps up on us, there are many different ways to keep winter at bay. The most common sources of heat are natural gas, heating [...]
The red headed stranger has always been a major supporter of bio-fuels. Start a conversation anywhere in Texas and Willie Nelson will invariably wind up with at least a casual mention. So Nik Bristow and Brian Pierce, a couple of copywriters for Fitzgerald, have launched an attempt [...]
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Pollution has been blamed for a wide variety of health ailments, including heart disease, asthma, various forms of cancer, and toxic shock. New evidence suggests that pollution may also be contributing to the worldwide obesity epidemic. The research focused [...]
Photo courtesy of Anthony L. Solis at Flickr.com.
Here at the Practical Environmentalist, we’re green news junkies. We keep an eagle eye out for the latest science, social, and environmental developments and try to sum up the big picture here. This week, a lot of [...]
Photo courtesy of Drunken Monkey at Flickr.com.
When you visit the buffet line, how often do you think of the planet? If you visit the cafeteria on a regular basis, the choices you make can really add up.
At the soda fountain, are styrofoam cups the [...]
Photo courtesy of abrunglinghaus at Flickr.com.
Many of us have a blind spot for extension cords. We tend to treat these power cables as interchangeable parts, but not all extension cords are the same.
Length is important. The longer the extension cord you [...]
Photo courtesy of DanielKHC at Flickr.com.
Droughts are a worldwide problem, with water in short supply in many different countries. Australia and Spain are both suffering through record breaking droughts right now. It hasn’t gotten much attention in the US, but rainfall in [...]
Photo courtesy of Mayank Austen Soofi at Flickr.com.
Here at the Practical Environmentalist, we’re green news junkies. We keep an eagle eye out for the latest science, social, and environmental developments and try to sum up the big picture here. This week, a lot of [...]
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Ikea, Home Depot, and the Green Exchange are just a few businesses that now offer preferred parking for hybrid owners. Apparently, IKEA’s Canadian stores offered hybrid only parking spots for more than a year… so it wont [...]
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Here at the Practical Environmentalist, we’re green news junkies. We keep an eagle eye out for the latest science, social, and environmental developments and try to sum up the big picture here. This week, a lot of exciting things [...]
Photo courtesy of Mista Fitz at Flickr.com.
There’s currently a bit of a corn shortage, driven by rising food consumption, ethanol consumption, and changes in diet in developing countries. Luckily, corn isn’t the only alternative to oil.
While ethanol made from corn gets the [...]
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Here are five big environmental stories that you might have missed this week:
1) Saudi Arabia is planning for a future without gasoline. The Kingdom is investing in education and hopes to develop new industries and exports [...]
A few months back the US Bureau of Land Management announced a two year halt to granting permits for solar farm development on federal lands. The bureau had expressed concern about the possible unknown effects of large footprint solar farms on wildlife in undeveloped areas.
As an environmentally aware individual, I [...]
Photo courtesy of Gulf Restoration Network at Flickr.com.
Fertilizer doesn’t belong in the ocean.
Every time it rains, excess fertilizer washes off into rivers that eventually feed into the sea. Unnatural levels of phosphorous encourage algae to grow, and algal blooms suffocate fish or [...]
Photo courtesy of MarketingDirecto.com - marketing y publicidad at Flickr.com.
With minor changes to their driving habits, some drivers have achieved hybrid-like performance from fuel guzzling vehicles. These drivers, known as “hypermilers”, are pushing the limits of existing technology without using any aftermarket devices. Since [...]
Back in the 1800s, a Dallas businessman wrote that Fort Worth, Texas was so boring that a panther was seen sleeping on main street “undisturbed by the rush of men or the hum of trade.” Fort Worth citizens rallied behind this and Fort [...]
Photo courtesy of Tim Giles at Flickr.com.
High fuel costs are pushing many trucking companies to consider radical changes. UPS and Coca Cola have recently placed orders for 18 wheelers that use hybrid technology, as found in the Toyota Prius and other gas-electric models. [...]
Photo courtesy of efusco at Flickr.com.
Hybrid cars make me drool. The idea of getting 50 miles per gallon instead of 25 is almost enough to make me run out and get one today. But, hybrid cars are expensive and there’s an environmental case [...]
Photo courtesy of George Morris at Flickr.com.
I recently rode an Amtrak train from Chicago to Dallas, and every seat was full. Compared to my previous experiences on Amtrak, that was an amazing change. Just 6 months ago, I remember that there were 4 empty [...]
Photo courtesy of jen d. cox at Flickr.com.
Are you fascinated by bats? Have you ever wanted your own Batmobile, Batphone, or Batarang? If you’re counting down the days until the new Batman movie premiers (July 18th, 2008), now is a good time to [...]
Photo courtesy of ♥Lauren♥ at Flickr.com.
Is your company looking for energetic, talented, motivated, hip, and intelligent workers? If so, that’s another reason to develop green policies and brag about them. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119492843191791132.html?mod=blog">Companies with green cred spend less on recruiting and have better retention rates. [...]
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Staples really bite. If you’ve ever caught your finger on the teeth of a staple or ruined important documents with a hungry stapler, you probably don’t appreciate these sharp little metal doodads. Well, the planet doesn’t appreciate them either. [...]
Photo courtesy of danilion at Flickr.com.
There are plenty of things you can do to save gas while driving. Check your tire pressure. Remove antennae balls. Drive slower. But, in the real world, we’ve all got limited attention spans. Changing habits is hard work, [...]
The Wall Street Journal reports that Honda is moving forward with a new generation of hybrid cars that will hopefully have just a small price premium over regular cars. This would allow them to pay for themselves through gasoline savings much more quickly.
Honda’s goal is to sell 500,000 hybrids [...]
As entrepreneurs turn their attention to second generation, non-food biocrops, a new potential issue arises. Many of these plants, like Jatropha, are basically weeds that can grow anywhere. Will these weeds escape from biofuel harvesting areas and become invasive species, like kudzu?
California based OptiSolar has announced the construction of a new eco-friendly solar operation that will produce a staggering 550 megawatts of electricity from thin film solar. The current largest solar plant in the US is at Nellis Air Force Base, and produces 14 megawatts of [...]
Sungri, California based solar panel company has announced the development of a new concentrated photovoltaic panel that should revolutionize the solar energy industry. The XCPV system (Xtreme Concentrated Photovoltaics) is designed to provide whole electricity cost at the rate of 5 cents per kilowatt hour. [...]
Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that Nissan plans to introduce a number of electric cars in the United States by 2010.
Nissan, an alliance partner of Renault SA of France, will launch electric vehicles in the U.S. and Japan in 2010, and globally by 2012, Mr. Ghosn said at [...]
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We often make poor decisions about the future. When we buy cars, choose careers, or plan dinner, people are often motivated by short term goals and overlook long term implications. We buy cheap cars [...]
Photo courtesy of the.voyager at Flickr.com.
The radar system that monitors airplanes has changed very little in the last 50 years. Due to this, there’s a pretty large “fudge factor” planned into routing all air traffic. Very bad things can happen [...]
Photo courtesy of Berni Beudel at Flickr.com.
Whether they’re transporting a package across the world or just across town, shipping companies use a lot of fuel. As more consumers become carbon conscious, these companies are facing customers with new priorities.
For those of you not familiar with the Fort Worth/Dallas Metroplex (or if you live in Dallas it’s Dallas/Fort Worth…but what do they know), the area is like one big city managed by a couple of big city governments and an absurd number of smaller [...]
Photo courtesy of hugoahlenius at Flickr.com.
The oceans are in trouble. Fish catches are starting to fall despite an increase in the number of people fishing and despite advances in fishing technology. Many fish that were once plentiful, such [...]
Photo courtesy of jolengs at Flickr.com.
American car manufacturers love pickups and SUVs. These high end vehicles have been lavished with elaborate advertising, intensive research, and promotional test driving campaigns because of high profit margins. As a result of this [...]
Just when you think the electric car stories can’t get more exciting than Wired magazine’s story about Zap, the company that constantly announces and never seems to make anything, the NY Times writes about a lawsuit filed by Tesla against Fisker.
The Tesla lawsuit contends that Mr. Fisker and his [...]
School Buses are nearly a perfect fit for biodiesel. They travel local, well planed short routes so they can always be refueled from a biodiesel facility so that the driver doesnt have to settle for fossil fuels in a crunch.
A couple of years back Gloucester Co. started a trial [...]
Minas Basin Pulp and Power Company Limited is a Canadian company started in 1937 to produce ground wood pulp, adding paperboard in 1946. Today they make 100 percent recycled paperboard products with power generated from their own hydro power plant. It’s estimated that their plant saves over 10 million [...]
Previously we talked about Jatropha as a new biodiesel source here, here, and here. Now The Naples Daily News reports that My Dream Fuel LLC is has been cultivating a Jatropha SW Florida. Jatropha produces four times the fuel per acre than [...]
Photo courtesy of millwhistle at Flickr.com.
One of the criticisms of organic food is that pesticides, chemical fertilizer, and hormone injections are necessary to produce enough food to feed the world. Naysayers often regard organic food as an indulgence of the wealthy and argue [...]
Photo courtesy of spisharam at Flickr.com.
Despite what the Chinese zodiac says, 2008 is officially the year of the frog. Nearly 6,000 frog species are threatened with extinction, and there’s no time like the present to take action.
Frogs are under intensive pressure - [...]
I’m not detail minded enough to make my own Biodiesel for my old Mercedes Diesel. I occasionally have dreams about driving for free and going around siphoning WVO (Waste Vegetable Oil) from the waste tanks at the local fast food restaurants. But then I remember how I had to buy [...]
Photo courtesy of brentdanley at Flickr.com.
Where some people see heat mirages on a highway, others see potential energy savings. A company in the Netherlands has developed a way to use asphalt roads to produce energy. Considering the number of miles of blacktop [...]
As many of you already know, the amount of consumer electronics being purchased is growing astronomically these days, and one writer has written a blog about a few “tech habits” that get him riled up — and we love it!
From Good Clean Tech, Erik Rhey made a list of [...]
Photo courtesy of laure_et_carlos at Flickr.com.
Green wine sounds about as appealing as green eggs and ham (which, coincidentally, IHOP is currently offering), but a group of wine producers in the Languedoc region of France has come up with an unusual and [...]
It’s that time of year again - HGTV is giving away a custom built home with amazing features. This year, the dream home embraces a number of green technologies.
These features include:
In Oakland, California there exists a non-profit organization with an emphasis on collaboration between art, industry and community.The Crucible serves as a studio for sculpture and a foundry and metal fabrication shop teaching classes in art…both the gallery and industrial kind.It’s a very special educational facility [...]
Photo courtesy of floridapfe at Flickr.com.
An increasing number of scientists and activists are raising concerns about the impact of biofuel production. The ethanol boom has its roots in a corn surplus that depressed prices - now, shortages of corn are causing [...]
Growing up in the rodeo buckle of the Bible belt, beer manufacturers were often viewed as cartoon villains rather than responsible members of the business community.But it’s been a few weeks since we had a post about Hawaii making all the rest of the US look like [...]
According to this article on the university website, the University of Delaware’s Institute of Energy Conversion will receive $3.75 million in grant money from the Department of Energy under the Solar America Initiative over the next three years.
Out of nine Universities receiving funding, Delaware is [...]
