Gas 2.0

China To Make 1 Million Electric Vehicles By 2020
FEEDER Highway Grows Food On Former Roads
Which States Are The Best/Worst To Drive In?

China To Make 1 Million Electric Vehicles By 2020

Posted: 18 Oct 2010 01:36 PM PDT

I’m not one of these “America is in decline” types I see on television all the time. I believe we remain a strong, fundamentally sound country that like every other country has its share of problems. We just have so many television stations that our problems seem amplified when there are fifty thousand talking heads yammering about it.

That said, I also know that the next twenty years won’t be like the last twenty, and we’ll have to share the stage with several emerging superpowers who could surpass us in several important fields. Case in point, the Xinhua news agency reports that China expects to make 1 million electric vehicles a year by 2020. Can we keep up?

There are a lot of benefits to running a communist country, such as being able to better dictate the course your country takes. Here in America, the two major political parties are essentially duking it out for America’s future, and the future of our energy policy. The shift so far has been slow, loud, and painful, and I expect it to only get worse after the mid-term elections. China, on the other hand, basically just says “You will make electric cars!” and presto, electric cars. Same deal with their high-speed trains, solar and hydro plants, so on, and so forth.

Of course, our government doesn’t censor the Internet or imprison dissidents for speaking their mind. So don’t think I’m advocating communism here.

Besides, China needs to make some drastic changes in their transportation system, as many cities are constantly covered by smog. Then there are the days-long traffic jams, which is just the surface of their problems. Thus, China is embarking on a number of initiatives to get more electric cars on the road, including a 60,00 yuan (about $9,000) subsidy for hybrid and electric car buyers. A pilot program in 25 cities is also subsidizing alt-energy public transportation vehicles, and over the next ten years they plan to spend about $15 billion to get the green car industry up and running. Then again, 1 million electric cars a year would be but a drop in the bucket if some speculations about the soaring Chinese car market (50 million new cars a year by 2030) turn out to be true.

Where will our electric car industry be in ten years, I wonder?

Source: Xinhua via Green Car Advisor

FEEDER Highway Grows Food On Former Roads

Posted: 18 Oct 2010 10:38 AM PDT

I don’t buy into the whole “cities are the greenest places to live” argument for one main reason; food. Cities import 99.9% of the food they consume, often from great distances away. It takes something like 12 acres of food to feed a single person for one year. Multiply that by the millions that live in mega-cities like New York or Los Angeles, as well as the fuel and logistics it takes the transport that food so far, and you’ve got one argument you simply cannot ignore. Cities are not as green as some people would lead you to believe, I don’t care how much you walk!

However…there is an idea out there that could one day flip the switch. Called “FEEDER”, the concept proposes to take under-used highways and the land in between roads as a sort of urban farming. I think it has merit.

The FEEDER idea is proposed by the Studio Gang, an eccletic group of architects, and designers, and thinks who come up with some rather interesting ideas. FEEDER is one of them. The group proposes to use the underutilized space by highway interchanges as a place to put hothouses that could grow food for the nearby cities, in this case Chicago. A hothouse can produce 36 times more food than an open acre of land, and having it located in space that is otherwise wasted (and easily accessible to highways to boot) is an idea I can get behind.

Do I expect this to actually happen? Not really, at least not anytime soon. Looking fifty or even a hundred years into the future though, if we’ve somehow managed to shrink the number of cars dramatically, it could be a great way to use old, empty highways. It is sort of like urban farming, only out on the open road.

Source: Studio Gang via Inhabitat

Which States Are The Best/Worst To Drive In?

Posted: 18 Oct 2010 09:03 AM PDT

This summer I drove through 29 states in just six weeks, covering over 12,000 miles. That…is a lot of driving, and I got a little taste of each state when it came to how it was to drive. While I don’t much care for the heat, I found the Southwest to be largely devoid of traffic and aggravation. California, on the other hand, nearly drove me into a murderous rage because it seemed like I couldn’t go more than 10 miles without hitting traffic. Now, I know why.

Forbes has released their annual ratings of the best and worst states to drive in. California was by far the worst state to drive in…though the best state for drivers might surprise you.

Every year, Forbes releases ratings for driving in all 50 states, basing their analysis on gas prices, infrastructure/safety, and insurance. California managed to rank amongst the worst in all three categories, with the third-highest gas prices, third-worst infrastructure/safety ratings, and the fifth-highest insurance. For a state so car-centric, one would think it would be more driver friendly, but many of Cali’s laws do not work to the benefit of drivers. Illinois was next on the worst-list, followed by New York. I feel vindicated…though my home state of Connecticut was tied for 7th place (with Rhode Island) for worst states to drive in, which comes as no surprise to me.

So which state is the best place for drivers? Surprisingly, South Carolina. I’ve been to South Carolina before, though not on my most recent excursion. N.C. has low gas prices, good infrastructure, and some of the best insurance rates in the country. I can dig it, though personally, I enjoyed blasting through the mountains of Montana. Those were some of the best, most-fun roads I’ve ever been on…though I guess “fun” isn’t an objective measurement, is it?

Check out Forbes to see where your state sits…some of the choices are quite surprising.

Source: Forbes