Gas 2.0 |
- Electric Rolls Royce On Road Within The Year?
- Tesla’s Model S Plant 99% Certain to Be Built in Downey, California
- Electric Cars Are Better Even When “Fueled” with Coal
- Top Gear Chaps Build Their Own Chevy Volt Killer—It’s a Good Laugh
- How Centuries-Old Flywheels Can Improve the Electric Grid
| Electric Rolls Royce On Road Within The Year? Posted: 24 Nov 2009 12:06 PM PST
You know electric cars are serious when even Rolls Royce is considering ditching fossil fuel for electrons. The maker of luxury cars renowned the world over for their opulence is seriously considering having an electric version of its luxo-bargo Phantom on the road as early as next year… just in time for the 2012 Olympics being held in its native London. But will an electric Rolls work? |
| Tesla’s Model S Plant 99% Certain to Be Built in Downey, California Posted: 24 Nov 2009 12:00 PM PST
If the city council of Downey, CA, approves it tonight, Tesla’s new factory to build the upcoming Model S sedan will be at the site of Downey Studios, just outside of Los Angeles. The plant is expected to initially create up to 1,200 much needed jobs in a city with high unemployment. |
| Electric Cars Are Better Even When “Fueled” with Coal Posted: 24 Nov 2009 11:43 AM PST
Due to the fact that our current energy grid is roughly 51% coal-powered, electric cars and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) have taken some heat as being more polluting than their manufacturers claim, and as we get closer to the release of actual mass-market electric cars, the debate seems to get more intense. Although studies have shown that electric cars and PHEVs are cleaner than pure gas cars even when run off of mostly coal power, the debate still goes on—ad nauseum. But from my perspective, that debate is a completely irrelevant smokescreen. |
| Top Gear Chaps Build Their Own Chevy Volt Killer—It’s a Good Laugh Posted: 24 Nov 2009 09:35 AM PST
Top Gear is one of my all-time favorite shows. It never ceases to provide laughs and good entertainment while simultaneously managing to actually deliver useful content as well. My only gripe with it is that here in the States, we are always at least one season behind. So, while season 14 starts up on BBC in Britain, we’ll be lucky if we see the start of season 13 by February on BBC America. That lag especially sucks right now because in episode two of season 14, which just aired in Europe, the Top Gear crew has built themselves a “car to save the world”—the Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust. Due to the fact that BBC in Britain restricts video viewing from their website to Europeans, I can only bring you a mish mash of bits and pieces of the episode from youtube… but even without the full episode, there are plenty of laughs to be had. Cheers and enjoy. |
| How Centuries-Old Flywheels Can Improve the Electric Grid Posted: 24 Nov 2009 09:03 AM PST Beacon Power is working to build a smarter grid with a technology that has been around since Leonardo Da Vinci’s time. Here is how the simple, ubiquitous flywheel may become the next best hope for the U.S. electric grid.
This post originally appeared at Popular Mechanics. You can read the full post on their website. Written by Chris Ladd. The 2000-pound cylinder of fiberglass, resin and carbon fiber, glossy as a vinyl record, hangs from a mechanical winch above its thick steel chamber. For millennia, flywheels have powered everything from potter’s wheels to steam engines, storing kinetic energy in their momentum as they spin. Now, the flywheel has found a higher purpose in the electrical grid: Wound around a 500-pound rotor, this 5-foot-tall, 3-foot-diameter flywheel assembly at Beacon Power’s plant in Tyngsboro, Mass., appears poised to be the great green hope of that unsung, unsexy, absolutely essential energy niche that is frequency regulation. |
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