Welcome - Please Contribute

By Kurt Colpan

Hi,

Are you interested in current changes in the world and environment?

If so, add your thoughts or articles here. Help us build up the awareness of what's happening in our world and universe.

Tesla Motors Are Here

By Kurt Colpan

Who needs petrol cars anymore? Tesla Motors have done it with the new Roadster.

The EV1 from GM was killed, so let's make sure it doesn't happen again.

www.teslamotors.com

The Electric Alternative - A Little Will Go A Long Way

By Matthew Smith

With all the reports of Global Warming, it’s a wonder how we have survived this long. It’s a shame that we as a race have become so farsighted when it comes to the health and stability of our environment. We all need to do our part to conserve what little natural resources we have left, while at the same time being more earth friendly conscious. If lawmakers would stop playing to the hands of lobbyists and honor their election pledges, we would be a lot better off as a planet.

What little thing we can do as part of our obligation to preserve this planet is to get away from the gas guzzling monsters the not only use too much of our natural resources, but also are heavy contributors to the eradication of the protective layer called the O-Zone layer.

I’m taking about electric scooters. Electric scooters only run on electricity, and minimal amounts at that. Electric scooters have come a long way and some can reach speeds of 20 to 30 miles an hour with distances reaching 20 (+/-) miles on a single charge.

With an electric scooter, you can save lots of money too. If you need to fill up an automobile, it can range from $25.00 - $40.00 or more a tank. That tank will get you 300 to 400 miles. With every fill up and every time you accelerate you are contributing to the destruction of our planet.

Electric scooters rely on 4-6 hours of charge and you can get 20 to 30 miles on a charge. No need to get gas, no emissions and a lot cheaper. It’s literally pennies to run your electric scooter. This makes it perfect for those short trips that you waste the most gas on.

Every time you start your vehicle or take off from a stop, you waste gas and blow more carbon monoxide into the air. With millions of vehicles on the road these days, we are contributing to the accelerated destruction of our planet. I’m not saying to get rid of our cars totally. I’m saying that since most of our trips are less than 5 miles away, that we should be more conscious about what we are doing to the planet and hop on our electric scooters rather than starting the car.

A big obstacle that some states are taking into consideration is that electric scooters are not D.O.T approved and are not allowed on most roads. We need to get the powers that be to stop looking the other way and either make them legal to ride in bike lanes, or just change the basic definition of moped. With these simple changes, electric scooters will be more prevalent and the fear of being harassed by the authorities will be a thing of the past.

Sales in electric scooters have risen dramatically as the cost of gas has risen. With the new reports of the state of our planet, more and more people are taking notice and are parking their automobiles. The Hybrid models are going to help, but do not completely do the job, and until they come down in price, the only cost effective alternative form of transportation for your short trips remains to be an electric scooter. Of course, you can always take a walk. When is the last time you did that?

M.S. owns TM-MotorWorks Scooter Store and has been servicing electric scooters for several years. While featuring electric scooters he spreads his message about how good they are to the environment. You can find out more about the kids electric scooter or see the new X-Treme X-560 Electric Scooter by scooting over to ScooterHaven.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Matthew_Smith

http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Electric-Alternative---A-Little-Will-Go-A-Long-Way&id=475689

Solar Panels - Why So Long to Hit the Shops?

By Alistair Siddons

THE SEPTEMBER 2006 ISSUE OF SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN was dedicated to exploring the future of energy beyond the carbon era.

The editors shared a sobering outlook: 'Decades may pass before hydrogen-powered trucks and cars relegate gasoline-and diesel-fueled vehicles to antique auto shows.' Until that happens, we’ll 'muddle-through' somehow.

But why does it take so long for some energy technologies to get from the lab and industrial applications to the service of consumers?

Take solar panels, for example.

A high-street electronics chain in London now sells educational solar-power kits for around the £20 mark. Serious, roof-dwelling solar panels that will power equipment in your home sell in DIY superstores at around £2,500. That’s a price-tag for the wealthy or very committed, but at least consumers can push their trolleys past the technology.

SOLAR PANELS HAVE ONLY RECENTLY APPEARED on the shelves of retail outlets, so you'd forgive them for posing as new technology.

But they're not. While England was priming itself for what was to become its most famous World Cup, a contributor to the July 1966 edition of Wireless World faced a copy deadline for the magazine. His name was D. Bollen, and he provided a circuit for a solar-powered battery charger. As he put it: 'The ability of solar cells to convert sunlight directly into useful electrical energy has been well demonstrated in satellite applications.

An advantage of the solar battery is that is allows true, unattended operation in locations remote from a power supply and…promises an outstanding degree of reliability.

Over four meticulously-illustrated pages, Bollen goes on to provide a blueprint for a circuit that will trickle-charge a battery from a solar cell. Bollen shows that you can run something that uses one milliamp of current for '2.74 hours' in a 24 hour period.

He leaves us guessing what application he had in mind for this tiny current, but the rig could also have powered the bulb of a toy torch for a few seconds a day. Still, the circuit is there and the date is mid-1966.

Don’t be distracted by Bollen’s talk of ‘satellite applications’. His circuit is a million miles from rocket-science – in fact it’s the simplest of the bunch in this edition of a magazine that was pitched at everyone between novice constructor and electronics professional.

Someone with barely any experience could have thrown a demonstration version of this circuit together in fifteen minutes flat.

And all the parts were available from specialist suppliers in London and south-east England. The listed supplier for 'assorted selenium and silicon cells' is International Rectifier.

I contacted the company to find out how much a similar solar-cell cost at the time Bollen wrote his feature. A single cell measuring about a centimetre by two centimetres cost four dollars, right up to 1966. In his feature, Bollen describes various combinations between one cell and four, so the most expensive part of his circuit cost between four and 16 dollars, or about $25-100 dollars in today's money.

World's first solar-powered car: 1912

But what came back from International Rectifier (IR) proved far more interesting than price information. It turns out that the company had demonstrated the world's first solar-powered car - a 1912 model of the Baker Electric - as early as 1958. They achieved the stunt by making a high-output solar panel - less than two metres long and just over a metre wide - from a whole bank of little solar cells. Commercial, industrial and military customers went on to buy solar panels from International Rectifier.

SO WHY HAS IT TAKEN ALMOST FIFTY YEARS for solar panels to reach our shops? Southface, a non-profit, sustainable-living organisation based in the USA, point out that solar-cell technology has had been uselessly competing against the relative fall in price that occurred in the fossil-fuel market in the nineties.

But Southface believe that major orders of consumer solar cell units in countries such as Japan may finally signal the start of an era when solar cell production will benefit from economies of scale. I hope so. In the meantime, it's anyone's guess how long will it take for the consumer-led technology revolution to swat our energy problems.

©Alistair Siddons, 2006

Historical note

International Rectifier (IR) was formed two years after the end of the Second World War, and was producing selenium photocells in 1947, as well as selenium diodes. By the fifties, IR had begun producing germanium diodes and rectifiers (germanium was the basis for the first transistors.) By 1958, IR began to produce solar cells.

That year, a 1912 model Baker Electric car was used as a means of promoting silicon solar cells. It was named 'The Solar King' and was powered by a panel roughly two metres long by a little over a metre wide.

Military, industrial and commercial customers went on to buy low and high-dollar variations of the panels.

Alistair Siddons lives in London. He is the editor of the trip flare: http://www.thetripflare.org

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alistair_Siddons
http://EzineArticles.com/?Solar-Panels---Why-So-Long-to-Hit-the-Shops?&id=477203

Polar Bears and Climate Change

By Varughese Rajan

Many organization and many individuals have been in the forefront of many battles won and lost in the history. But not in our so called illustrious history an animal has been in the forefront of a struggle. A struggle in which it is unknowingly dragged into, A struggle that will define its existence. The photo provided below taken by Dan Crosbie have sent cripples all over the world.

The picture looks like a Mother and cub resting in the top of a ice sculpture done by waves have sent ripples all over the world. Let me remind you that Polar Bear are extremely decent swimmers. But yet they may be in sight of being endangered. What makes them so attractive is the their cute and innocent face, which make them so lovable compared to their bear brothers.

Anything that is cute and innocent we humans have more affection to it. The traditional threats to the polar bear - hunting, toxic waste, offshore drilling - have been overshadowed by a new one: the ice around them is melting, and we are to blame.At the end of December, the US Secretary of the Interior revealed the US Fish and Wildlife Service was considering adding the polar bear to its list of threatened species.This is a more significant addition to the at-risk list than a rare gazelle or panther: it is an admission, after years of denial, of the existence of global warming. Every country in this world is coming to a point where they have to admit the existence of Global Warming and take necessary steps to reverse it. Otherwise may be in the far future we will have ourselves being listed in the endangered species. Some days before I was watching the construction of the famous Ice Hotel in the National Geographic Channel.

Usually the construction of the Hotel will begin in beginning of November and end by end of December. Not the last time, it started after a delay of 3 weeks - because the outside climate was too warm for the construction of Hotel. The construction of Ice Hotel should not have any significance in common man's life but the shifting of the winter by 3 weeks surely going to have significant effect.

The impact of the melting ice on polar bear become more severe in coming years. Earlier melting of spring ice and the later formation of autumn ice has an immediate impact on their ability to feed. In some areas there is evidence that sea ice breaks up three weeks earlier than it did 30 years ago.More young cubs are found dead each year; adults have lost weight, from an average of 650lb in 1980 to 507lb in 2004; there have been instances of cannibalism; and in western Hudson Bay the polar bear population decreased from 1,200 in the mid-Nineties to less than 1,000 in 2004. There are thought to be between 20,000 and 25,000 polar bears in the world, and all but one member of the PBSG(Polar Bear Specialist Group) believe global warming poses a critical threat to their long-term survival. The exception, quoted by contrarian writers, is Dr Mitchell Taylor from the Government of Nunavut, who remains sceptical about the climate modelling projections and their impact. 'I'm not sure I understand his logic,' Stirling says. 'However, at the last meeting of the IUCN PBSG in Seattle in June 2005 the group [including Dr Taylor] unanimously agreed to classify the polar bear as vulnerable.

If we don't add quickly these cute and innocent looking creature will become a thing of past. These big creatures who was adopted by Coca Cola to spearhead their Cola campaign will become a very distant memory.The Cola Bear reinforced the notion that Coke was best served ice-cold, and it was a drink that spread the love: the bears, who made deep and reassuring guttural noises and never had seal blood on their fur, were represented in family groups playing with penguins and admiring the Aurora Borealis. There was no cuter or more deceptively cuddly anthropomorphism on the tundra - the little ones even wore red scarves - and merchandise followed; keyrings, soft toys, pencil toppers, now quite big on eBay. The only downside for the polar bears was they didn't own their image rights.

Please visit the article to see the images given
Click Here

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Varughese_Rajan
http://EzineArticles.com/?Polar-Bear-and-Climate-Change&id=478195