.

Ever volatile fuel prices, security of supply, renewable energy cost reductions and environmental-climate concerns are dramatically accelerating the demand for greener alternatives.

It has become a global imperative that we break our addiction to fossil fuels. Providing for the ever increasing energy and transportation needs of the planet is going to take a wide range of alternative energy sources, cleaner fuels, the smart grid and advanced storage solutions.

These technologies are finally establishing themselves in the energy mix and becoming mainstream .....an emerging multi trillion dollar market rapidly becoming one of the most significant industrial sectors this century. The future is bright for renewable energy sources and a greener sustainable world.

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« Ahead of G20, climate… | Home | Schwarzenegger leads … »

Trabant revived as electric car

03 10 09 - 01:05 By Patti McCracken


It had a lawn mower engine and a Duroplast body made of plastic resin, paper, and cotton. The back windows didn't roll down, it had no side mirrors, and blinkers and windshield wipers were optional.
You could jog around the block in the time it took the Trabant to get up to highway speed, but this little engine that couldn't became the square icon of a generation of East Europeans trapped behind the Iron Curtain. The Trabi is pushing for a comeback. A repackaged, retooled, and refined Trabi concept car will premiere this month at the Frankfurt Auto Show.

The last model tumbled off the assembly line in 1991. By that time, the Berlin Wall had completely crumbled, and East Europeans had forsaken the trusty Trabi (often abandoning them on the side of the road) for used Western cars.

Yet the cult following of the sputtering little classic picked up speed on the heels of the flick "Goodbye Lenin," a film that takes a nostalgic look back at growing up in East Germany.

Herpa, the German toy carmaker, has sold hundreds of thousands of toy models of the Trabi since the 1990s, one of the most successful scale model cars on the market.

Driven by the success and sentiment of the toy model, Herpa snapped up the trademark a few years ago. Together with German busmaker IndyKar and engineering firm IAV, along with designers from Volkswagen, they have created an ecological, economical, electric car.

This is not your father's Trabant.

The old joke about the Trabant goes something like this: How many workers does it take to make a Trabi? Two. One to cut and one to paste.

Not so the new one. The new Trabi is designed with an electric engine, and operates on lithium batteries that can stay charged for 200 miles. It has solar panels on the roof, which provide the energy for air conditioning. And wipers and blinkers are standard. Used tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

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Industry leaders propose new energy efficiency standards

Friday 23 October 2009 at 12:21 pm By Emily Mullin

Washington - Leading energy-efficiency advocates and appliance manufacturers signed an agreement Tuesday to create new regional efficiency standards for air conditioners, furnaces and heat pumps.

"Energy-efficiency standards may not be sexy, but they are incredibly effective," Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., said at a press conference.

If the Department of Energy adopts the standards, households could save about $100 a year. more

Controlling the paths of light could produce better solar cells, scientists find

Wednesday 14 October 2009 at 07:32 am AEN News



Gainesville, FL - University of Florida chemists have pioneered a method to tease out promising molecular structures for capturing energy, a step that could speed the development of more efficient, cheaper solar cells.

"This gives us a new way of studying light-matter interactions," said Valeria Kleiman, a UF associate professor of chemistry. "It enables us to study not just how the molecule reacts, but actually to change how it reacts, so we can test different energy transfer pathways and find the most efficient one." more

Schwarzenegger leads governors' summit on global warming

Saturday 03 October 2009 at 01:30 am Schwarzenegger leads governors' summit on global warming


By Daniel B. Wood


Los Angeles - Some 1,200 representatives from more than 70 states, provinces, and countries are meeting here this week for California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Global Climate Summit 2.
Three years after Governor Schwarzenegger won global attention for signing legislation committing the world's eighth largest economy to reduce its greenhouse gases 25 percent by 2020, the gathering is trying to pave the way for a United Nations conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December to establish new, worldwide emissions targets. more

Trabant revived as electric car

Saturday 03 October 2009 at 01:05 am By Patti McCracken


It had a lawn mower engine and a Duroplast body made of plastic resin, paper, and cotton. The back windows didn't roll down, it had no side mirrors, and blinkers and windshield wipers were optional.
You could jog around the block in the time it took the Trabant to get up to highway speed, but this little engine that couldn't became the square icon of a generation of East Europeans trapped behind the Iron Curtain. more