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But with its fleet of aging delivery trucks -- and
limited funds -- the agency needs another innovation.
Starting this summer, the Postal Service, which operates
the world's largest civilian vehicle fleet, will begin
a year-long pilot program of electric mail trucks
in the Washington area, using vehicles converted by
five manufacturers. (read
more)
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A local company will unveil its first converted
all-electric car in the coming days. Advanced Mechanical
Products has been working for three years on converting
cars into fully electric-powered vehicles. Although
the cars they convert, Saturn Sky and Pontiac Solstice,
are no longer manufactured, the Blue Ash company has
tripled its workforce in the past year.(read
more)
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Concerns over peak oil — that moment when
oil demand exceeds global oil supply — has produced
little more than a disdainful eye roll from Saudi
Arabia. After all, the largest oil producer in the
world has far more pressing problems — like
peak demand, for example.(read
more)
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Today, a bunch of legislators and business people
plan to show their support for three solar related
bills being considered by the General Assembly by
gathering in a state office building and explaining
how they will make it easier to use solar power, how
they will create jobs and how they will lessen dependence
on fossil fuels, according to Environment Maryland
and the Maryland Energy Administration. Environment
Maryland says a quarter of Maryland homes are ready
for solar panels that could capture energy that is
now going unused. The group cites information from
the International Center for Sustainable Development
that shows the state gets about 196,000 gigawatt-hours
of solar energy on a sunny summer day. That's more
than what's produced at the state's mostly coal-fired
power plants here in a year. (read
more)
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A-Power will begin shipping wind turbines in March
and deliver all units by the same month of 2011. Its
subsidiary, Shenyang Power, is contributing $36.6
million to the project, which is expected to produce
about 600 megawatts of energy. (read
more)
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In Monday’s New York Times, Clifford Krauss
and I wrote about the ways cities are preparing for
the rollout of electric cars later year. West Coast
cities like Portland, Ore.; Los Angeles; and San Diego
are vying to become electric car capitals. But the
San Francisco Bay Area is already a center of the
nascent battery-charged economy, thanks to a concentration
of Silicon Valley electric car infrastructure startups,
as well as companies like Google and Pacific Gas and
Electric that are eager for a carbon-free future.
(read
more)
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The International Energy Agency said Thursday it
expects consumers globally, led by China, to burn
more crude oil this year than previously forecast
as the economic recovery deepens. The Paris-based
agency expects world oil demand to average 86.5 million
barrels a day in 2010, an increase of 170,000 from
its January report and growth of 1.8% from 2009. All
of the annual increase in consumption comes from emerging
markets. (read
more)
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On it's face, the blockbuster movie "Avatar"
would seem to be good for the renewable energy/sustainability
camp. For the few remaining earthlings who haven't
yet seen "Avatar," here's a quick recap
... (read
more)
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While theories differ on when the world will experience
the hard hitting times of peak oil, Virgin boss Richard
Branson is boldly predicting that will happen in the
next five years. In the foreward to a new report being
released shortly, Branson urges UK leaders to be proactive
rather than reactive to peak oil. “The next
five years will see us face another crunch –
the oil crunch. This time, we do have the chance to
prepare. The challenge is to use that time well,”
Branson will say. “Our message to government
and businesses is clear: act,” he says in a
foreword to a new report on the crisis. “Don’t
let the oil crunch catch us out in the way that the
credit crunch did.” (read
more)
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On January 28th the DOE announced the closing of
a $1.4 billion ATVM loan to Nissan North America,
a unit of Nissan Motors (NSANY), for the purpose of
retooling a factory in Smyrna, Tennessee to produce
the Leaf, a zero emission electric car that will be
released later this year. (read
more)
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"The concern about peak oil is behind us,"
chief executive Khalid al-Falih told a session on
energy supplies at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The peak oil theory that oil supply is at or near
its peak gained currency when prices zoomed to a record
of nearly $150 a barrel in 2008. The issue remains
a concern for many in the industry. (read
more)
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Will technology leapfrog depletion and save drivers
from the cost of triple-digit oil? Every auto producer
in the world has an electric car in the works; General
Motors, of course, will start producing its Volt later
this year. But in actuality, the car of the future
is really a throwback to the past. In 1899, an electric
car was clocked going over 60 miles an hour. And a
little over a decade later, a Detroit Electric managed
to travel 211 miles on a single charge (by comparison,
General Motors’ Volt will go just 40 miles on
a single charge before its back-up gasoline engine
kicks in.) (read
more)
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America, prepare to pay $3 a gallon for gasoline
again. Many energy experts expect gasoline prices
to return to $3 a gallon, saying gas prices will rise
this year with oil prices. Oil prices have been recovering
since the U.S. economy crashed in 2008. Energy experts
say gas prices are bound to hit that threshold sometime
this year as oil prices rise. But please spare the
filling station manager your wrath. He's not the reason
that pump prices across the country are rising.
(read
more)
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WASHINGTON — Wind could replace coal and natural
gas for 20 to 30 percent of the electricity used in
the eastern two-thirds of the United States by 2024,
according to a study released Wednesday by the Energy
Department.But doing so would require a reorganization
of the power grid and a significant increase in costs.
And it would have only a modest impact on cutting
emissions linked to global warming, the study found.
(read
more)
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Reputed companies are always conscious about their
brand image and what a great way to build great brand
by taking clean and green route! Bell Lab is the division
of the Alcatel-Lucent. Currently Alcatel-Lucent is
trying to invest in their communications networks
to make it 1,000 times more energy efficient. They
have launched a five year program known as “Green
Touch.” Members affiliated with the Green Touch
are AT&T, and China Mobile from industry; MIT
and Stanford University from the academic world; and
The French National Institute for Research in Computer
Science and Control from government. Industrial laboratory
members are Bell Labs, the Samsung Advanced Institute
of Technology and Freescale Semiconductor. The project
has received the nods of ascent from United States
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and the British, French,
South Korean and Portuguese governments. (read
more)
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