Kookaburra

Al Gore visits Sydney

Carbonsink is an excellent new blog from my long time correspondent, "David from Manly". There's lot of great back reading to be had on the oil/energy/climate crisis but it's worth visiting right now to get the latest on what Al Gore is up to while in Sydney Mon & Tues this week.

Al Gore will appear on The 7.30 Report at 7:30pm and on Enough Rope at 9:30pm on ABC TV tomorrow night (Monday 11 September)

Fast, frugal petrol VW challenges diesel

What happens when you mix a supercharger, a turbocharger, a sophisticated gearbox and a 1.4 litre petrol engine? You get a zippy petrol engine which is considerably zippier than a 2.0 litre turbo diesel, much cleaner at the exhaust pipe yet has fuel consumption that rivals a diesel.

Read the Independent's road test of the new Volkswagen Golf GT TSI and judge for yourself.

In anticipation of Dave from Manly championing the lot of diesel ... a diesel is perfectly fine in performance (though cloudy around the exhaust) and does use in percentage terms quite a bit less fuel. But it does not have the exhaust note or high-end performance of VW's TSI - diesel's don't rev and aren't a complete antidote for us recalcitrant revheads (I am still in therapy and while I do love my Prius I am sorely tempted to get a V8 something or other and drink my full share of oil while there's still some left!)

The TSI does show there's still much room for improvement in the eons old four-cycle petrol motor - bring on the innovation. Now what happens if you blend a TSI petrol engine with a hybrid electric system (sounds like Frankenstein's hotrod)? More realistically if we moved the TSI performance to be closer to the diesel (in 0-100 km/h terms) it should be as economical as the diesel and pump out less greenhouse gas (and noxious substances) to boot? That's what we're looking for - though what is the cost overhead of supercharger and turbocharger? Who would pay the premium?

A plug-in solution for charging a Prius

Given my daily commute is well under 50 miles (that's 80 km for most of the world) this 'hacked' Prius sounds enticing. "Using a normal house outlet, a nightly re-charge of about $1 worth of electricity cuts the Toyota Prius gasoline consumption in half for over 50 miles the following day." It's experimental and early days but read more at Green Car Congress.

No doubt there's still a cost for largely coal-fired powerplants (as is the norm in Australia) but you can always buy 'green energy' (like this and this or this ) and drive further adoption of alternate energy.

Sticking sunrise & sunset in your e-calendar

As we (in the southern hemisphere) move into Spring and the longer days it's great to see virtually an extra minute of daylight every day. That also means the excuses for me not getting on with the gardening are also diminishing - though I don't believe the neighbours will appreciate my leafblower running at the crack of dawn.

It's a pain to have to periodically remember to look up somewhere on the net (usually sunrisesunset.com) to find when sunrise and sunset fall. It's also useful to know when a full moon is rolling around as it does provide great sunset photo opps. Essentially the full moon is so bright that the best time to photograph it is as it leaps over the horizon on the eve of the full moon. On this day the virtually full moon crests the horizon just before the sun goes down. This means there is more balanced light and you can more easily capture the beauty of the full moon.

Anyhow figured there should be an easy way to get this info into a iCal file so I can easily import it into Apple's imaginantively named Ical. There is -- it's called TideCal. It's not very flashy but it does just the trick and it's freeware. Marvellous. If you are a non-Mac user you can turn to XTide which is on various flavours of *nix and has been ported to Win32.

Note I have pondering my garden over winter (hence not many postings) and watching excess amounts of Gardening Australia - I fear that I will soon take on the vocabulary of it's venerable host - Peter Cundall. "And that's your blooming lot for this week". Oh well I seem to have lived my life by leaping from obsession to obsession. Pottering around in the garden should keep me out of trouble for a bit, actually my garden is large enough to consume me for many years. I am looking forward to it.

Juice Bags - back packs with solar panels

Reware - Force Feeeding Pop Culture Since About Six Minutes Ago: Juice Bags are versatile, all-purpose daypacks that convert solar power into electricity.Clean, free electricity everywhere you are, anywhere you go.

Daughter inspires equity man's jump to animal rights.

Brian Sherman (founder of Equitlink funds manager) was inspired by his eight year old daughter to start considering why we eat animals and whether there was a smarter, more ethical alternative.

Many years later and post-Equitlink Brian and his daughter Ondine have founded Voiceless - a non-profit organisation which aims to promote respect and compassion for animals.

...Voiceless says its approach is "mainstream": they use a grants program to support the work of existing animal protection organisations, they have a legal arm which works on public policy and law and they have an educational arm which promotes compassion for animals to school-aged children.

..."[We need to be] able to put out a very professional image so we can talk to the corporate sector, we can talk to the industry, we can attract people that perhaps aren't as comfortable being associated with the more protesting style."

...With a growing number of corporate backers, the Shermans say Voiceless aims to lift the veil of secrecy to show the Australian public what is happening with modern industrialised farming practices.

..."If I was driving though the country in 20 years' time, I'd like to see the sheds gone, the secret sheds, the animals returned to the field and a lot less animals," Ondine said.

...So I think for those that do [still eat meat], they will be buying meat and animal products that are humane and come from farms that are open and are transparent and industries that we can trust.

'The Sherman Fortune' will screen on Australian Story on ABC TV on Monday July 18 at 8pm. The program will be repeated on Saturday July 23 at 12.30pm.

[Summarised from http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200507/s1415933.htm]

Oh and as a bit of editorial ... factory farming of animals is bad, bad, bad. Bad for the animals, bad for the planet (an environmental disaster) and bad for those who feast on the carcasses - sitting on top of the food chain means omnivorous humans consume what their 'food' consumed. In the case of factory farmed animals that's an unhealthy mix of growth hormones and antibiotics.

Bottom line: there is no need to eat animals. You won't die if you don't eat meat. Alternatively, hundreds of animals will die just so you can 'enjoy' their flesh. For me it was an easy choice to simply not eat animals. Haven't eaten an animal since 1990 (feeling guilty that I ate quite a few before that date)

(It's my blog and I will rant if I want to)

Hybrid Center: New guide portal for Hybrids

The Union of Concerned Scientists is promoting its Hybrid Center.
It's a great place to research hybrids like the Toyota Prius and get 'under the hood' at the technology.

US hybrid sales soar - motor city plots their downfall

From Green Car Congress:

Sales of hybrids in the US increased 2.3 times in May 2005 to 16,887 units from 7,275 units the prior year. However, results for all automakers were down from the torrid pace set in April.

Sales of the market-leading Prius dropped back below 10,000 to post the car's third strongest month to date. Combined with the 2,931 units of the Lexus Rx400h -- the strongest of its two months of sales -- Toyota captured 73% of all hybrid sales for the month. (GCC)

In fairness of reporting I should also make mention of some issues related to Prius cars in the US - I have not been affected, nor heard of any Australian reports. The US reports are of the engine (ICE) shutting down at high speed. No accidents have occurred. The ICE is designed to shut off when not needed, such as when coasting down a hill.

Should I be smelling a rat? Is someone in Detroit trying to kill the Prius? After all motorcity secretly bought up Los Angeles' public transport system (electric trolley-buses) and shut them down in the 1940s. General Motors and friends were convicted in Chicago in 1949 and fined $5000. (Details) . Update: Wikipedia offers a broader perspective on this.

The Sargasso Sea

The Times (UK) has an article on the proposed use of sea weed as a carbon sink and as a source of biofuels. Like the various proposals for generating biodiesel from algae, this seems a much more practicable way of creating biofuels than sacrificing farmland (or rainforest). From Peak Energy (feed)

Head over to Peak Energy - an Aussie blog that does a great job of covering 'the coming energy crisis and renewable energy technology'

Hybrid cars take hold in US

BBC NEWS | Americas | Hybrid cars take hold in US:
The United States - land of the brave and home of the SUV, sport utility vehicle.

But now the gas-guzzling gargantuans are being challenged by fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly hybrids like the Toyota Prius and hybrid versions of popular models from Honda.

The hybrids could one day help to reduce the United States' output of greenhouse gasses, but despite the buzz surrounding them, they still make up a relatively small percentage of auto sales.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, the US spends $200,000 every minute on foreign oil.

Last year, about 80,000 hybrid cars and trucks were sold out of some 17m total sales in the US, according to David Friedman, research director for the Union of Concerned Scientists' Clean Vehicle Program.

"Hybrids are becoming a mainstream product," he said, adding that if anyone would have said five years ago that hybrid sales in the US would be approaching 100,000 per year, it would have been thought "inconceivable".

Mr Friedman said that Americans would have to buy 40m to 60m hybrids over the next 10 years to stall greenhouse gas emissions at 2010 levels.

"If the government continues its vacuum of leadership, nothing will happen" to address greenhouse gas emissions, he said.

(hat tip to Dave from Scotland for spotting this one)