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Taking The Plunge
-- Pete -- 11/08/2008
We took the plunge in 2006. It wasn’t easy but we felt we needed to put our money where our mouth is. We have kids and we are concerned about the world we are leaving them. I’m talking about buying a hybrid. With two kids we needed the space of an SUV so thank goodness
The mileage was advertised at 38 miles per gallon which is great for that size of car. Unfortunately, that was a bit of an overstatement and 30 mpg’s is more accurate. To get 38 mpg’s you would have to drive about 20 miles an hour under the speed limit and risk getting a ticket for going too slow, not to mention getting shot at by the people behind you trying to get somewhere.
As it is, you have so much information at your fingertips about how you are doing on gas mileage it becomes a game. For the first week after we bought it we hardly looked up. I want to take this opportunity to apologize to anyone unfortunate enough to be driving near me at that time.
During the last year, with gas shooting up over $4 a gallon it was a life saver to get 30 miles a gallon. It still cost $50-$60 to fill up but you didn’t have to fill up quite as often.
The best part of the hybrid is the fact that there is a sticker on the window that says, “This is a SULEV” This means that we are driving super-ultra-low emission-emission- vehicle. and that feels pretty good. The sticker was designed to come off soon after you buy the car. The sticker is staying.
A simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process
-- Amanda Meade -- 11/03/2008
"Sunlight has the greatest potential of any power source to solve the world's energy problems. In one hour, enough sunlight strikes the Earth to provide the entire planet's energy needs for one year."
The problem has always been how to store all that energy. Until now. Two MIT scientists have finally figured out how to use a system that mimics photosynthesis.
From MIT News:
"Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Daniel Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera's lab, have developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night."
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html
This paves the way for large scale solar use by allowing traditional photovoltaic use during the day, and then harnessing the excess solar energy into a fuel cell during the night. Nocera said this may end the need for electric wire from a central source within 10 years.
“Blah, blah, blah”
-- Amanda Meade -- 10/30/2008
A 1998 ruling by the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus states that the Nuclear Energy Institute should "discontinue" its "inaccurate" advertisements that claim nuclear power is clean.
In their decision, the NAD noted that nuclear energy cannot be considered "environmentally clean". First, the uranium enrichment process relies heavily on electricity generated from coal-burning plants that produce "a significant amount of greenhouse gases." And perhaps most importantly, unlike other forms of energy, nuclear power produces toxic, radioactive waste, for which no safe method of disposal has been approved.
The NAD called on NEI to terminate its advertisements to "avoid any potential for consumer confusion and that broad, unqualified claims that nuclear energy is 'Environmentally Clean' or produces electricity 'without polluting the environment' be discontinued".
“HEAT” asks tough questions
-- Amanda Meade -- 10/27/2008
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