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There is a lot of buzz around eco-friendly passenger cars, however many manufacturers have also been working on fuel efficient and electric commercial vehicles. Here are some examples.

Navistar

Navistar has recently unveiled its first all-electric commercial truck, which is called eStar. It is a medium-duty vehicle with a range of 100 miles, and fully rechargeable in 6 to 8 hours. The truck will be used by FedEx in its Los Angeles fleet. What is important, the battery is a cassette-type one and can be changed in 20 minutes, which enables the truck to be used 24/7 if needed. Navistar has enjoyed a $39.2 million federal stimulus grant for the development of eStar as a part of the Transportation Electrification Initiative announced by President Obama. What is interesting is that in January 2010 Navistar received some federal funding again. This time the $37 million project is to help in development of a SuperTruck that is expected to provide a 50 percent improvement in fuel efficiency.

CNET gets a look at one of FedEx\’s eStar

Smith Electric Vehicles

Smith Electric Vehicles U.S. Corporation has been selected by U.S Department of Energy to receive a $32 million grant for a nationwide vehicle electrification program. The funding is used to support the production of all-electric zero emissions commercial trucks. Smith’s customers will also be able to participate in a commercial electric vehicle demonstration program with the goal being to gather data on vehicles placed in service in different regions of the country.

Smith is also proud to be the manufacturer of the world’s largest battery-electric-powered truck called Newton. The truck is equipped with Lithium-ion battery cell technology. It has a top speed of 50 mph, a one-charge range of 100 miles and offers a payload of over 16,000 pounds. Additionally, Newton runs without noise or vibration and stores electric energy during stopping thanks to regenerative braking. The manufacturer claims that when compared to diesel-fueled trucks, the vehicle can give savings of up to 80% on a per-mile basis.

CNN Money Highlights Smith Electric\’s eco-friendly truck

Electric Vehicles International

Based in Stockton, California, Electric Vehicles International is the manufacturer of  all-electric medium-duty truck, the EVI MD and the all-electric walk-in van, the EVI WI. Both vehicles can offer a bit higher performance than the trucks mentioned above with a top speed of 60 mph, a range of 115 miles. The battery requires 3 to 12 hours of charging, depending on its size and charge options (110v/220v).

Will the companies change they used trucks to new all-electric vehicles? The problem is that the green trucks are much more expensive to purchase. For example the eStar costs $150,000 – three times as much as a diesel truck of comparable size. For the time being the all-electric truck industry is supported by federal grants that make the vehicles cost-effective for buyers. In the future, when the production of green trucks reach economies of scale, the cost of the battery (which is the most expensive part) should fall, making the vehicle attractive even without subsidies.

Written by the team of Mascus.com. Visit our site to find various new and used trucks for sale.

Why go ‘Green’ with your choice of van

Nowadays it is de rigueur to discuss ‘going green’ with almost any topic imaginable. Here in the UK we have our first ‘Green’ party MP – the first of many I am sure. But in the emotive area of vehicle development, what is the availability of environmentally efficient cars, trucks and vans? With the price of petrol (gasoline) rising all the time, it becomes more and more important to conserve fuel consumption, because ultimately this means more money in our pockets. So how do you define a ‘green van? According to petrol prices.com: “a green van is a vehicle that is considered to be environmentally-friendly and to be less damaging to the environment compared with conventional vans”. So who cares, and why should anyone be bothered to ‘go green’ the next time they buy or lease a van?

The UK government (Department for Transport) is actively involved in encouraging the development of zero carbon and low carbon emission vans. Following competitive procurement, a process of selecting potential supplier, 4 companies were invited to submit proposals that showed new levels of performance, technical innovation and the potential for mass market commercialization.

Adrian Vinsome, Head of Programmes for Cenex (Centre of Excellence for Low Carbon and Fuel Cell Technologies): “Van use in the UK is rising more rapidly than for any other vehicle category, and van journeys are getting longer. As a result, CO2 emissions from vans are projected to rise rapidly over the next 10 to 15 years. A number of manufacturers have developed lower carbon and all-electric technologies, but these tend to be expensive in low production volumes and it is difficult for fleet operators to justify the additional cost. The LCVPP is helping overcome these initial cost barriers, paving the way for market development.”

‘Green’ vehicle technologies

Hybrid Vehicles: The current craze is for hybrid vehicles which were first released in the US markets by Honda with its ‘Insight’ model. The insight was able to boast 61 mpg in urban areas and up to 70mpg on the open roads. This vehicle was soon followed by Toyota’s version, the Prius. The hybrid technology uses a combination of a petrol motor and an electric motor that are connected via battery pack, featuring state-of-the-art energy saving measures such as regenerative braking.

Regenerative braking takes over some of the stopping duties from the friction brakes and instead uses the electric motor to help stop the car. To do this, the electric motor operates as a generator, recovering some of the kinetic energy and converting it into electricity that is stored in the battery so it can be used later to help drive the vehicle down the road. In order for the system to actually improve fuel economy, however, the vehicle must have a large enough electric motor operating at a high enough voltage to efficiently capture the braking energy.

Regenerative braking system

Hybrid vehicle and SUV’s are now offered by virtually every major automaker. Unfortunately, all the extra equipment involved in building a hybrid engine means that they are often more costly to buy than conventional vans and cars. That means that you may be driving for a few years before the money you realize the potential savings from the traditional method of transport.

High Efficiency fuel: In comparison to conventional combustion engines, high efficiency engines use much less fuel and therefore release less harmful emissions into the atmosphere. It is predicted that major advances in the technology of these engines will occur during the next few years, with potential increases of up to 30% in fuel economy. There is a cross over here with hybrid vehicles, as many are already using the highly efficient engines.

Going green is getting more important to a lot of people every year. As vans get better and better at conserving fuel, we all see the benefits: both to our environment ultimately in our pockets.

Clean Diesel: The ‘Greenest’ technology on the road at the moment is a variation of the diesel power plant that has been in production for a number of years. Known as ‘clean diesels’, these engines can average 50mpg under normal driving conditions. One of the advantages of this improved technology is that you do not have to sacrifice performance for efficiency. Clean diesel cars and trucks are now offered by Volkswagen, BMW, Audi, Cadillac, Saturn, Honda and Ford.

Bio
Peter is an internet marketer and enjoys writing about SEO and automotive topics, specializing in van leasing.

This post isn’t as boring as it sounds, trust me I will do my best to keep it interesting!  Your car tyres are made out of rubber (Der!) and they most certainly don’t last forever, in fact on average we have to replace out tyres once every 10,000 miles.  So for some this could be between 6 months and 2 years.  The main problem is, what do we do with them when we are finished with them?

Each year we take about 40 million tyres off of our cars because they have become to worn, or are damaged because of other reasons.  That’s around 350,000 tonnes of Tyre rubber being taken off all the cars in the UK.  However only about 75% of this is recycled, the rest of it is sent to land fill around 85,000 tonnes of waste!

The tyres that are recycled can be used on Aircraft or Trucks and buses, where they are remoulded to be the right size and shape (and have the correct amount of tread).  On average each tyre has a diameter of 2 feet (cars and trucks) obviously not included busses and HGVs.  If you were to lay all 40 million of these tyres together side by side they would be about 15,000 miles long, which is just over half the circumference of the planet (at the equator).

The main problem that we face in the future is that if all these unused tyres keep on mounting up, landfills will become filled in no time at all, so we need a better solution for recycling.   When you think about the Car Tyre generally you don’t really consider what damage it does when it comes off your car.

Burning rubber is not an option either, so creating a perfect recycling program is the best thing for us to do!

Bio:

Marcus travels all over the world in search for any information, he is a contributor at Top Travel Blogs, and enjoys Thailand holidays.

While most of the coverage of ‘green’ issues in the media and in environmental campaigns tends to focus on how an individual can promote a more eco-friendly lifestyle, arguably the biggest impact on the environment can be achieved by businesses and corporations addressing these issues. In this post I explore how a business can actually achieve environmental targets by keeping accurate records of their fixed assets – ie equipment, machinery, vehicles etc – and their carbon footprints.

Fixed asset management has many advantages. It allows your organisation to manage internal and external service providers to reduce administrative costs associated with asset maintenance and repairs. Software-based systems can capture data adrift in paper-based processes and provide asset-specific total cost of ownership information that can be analysed at a corporate level. However another dimension has been added that makes reliable asset management programmes even more essential. Whether you agree with the theory of man-made global warming or not, the UK government has decided to adopt a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% over 1990 levels by the year 2050.

Image credit: johnb/uk

The Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) requires that companies must achieve energy efficiencies (or purchase allowances from the government) based on the amount of CO2 emitted. Companies that achieve significant reductions will be rewarded financially. Those that do not will suffer the consequences. Carbon taxes will inevitably become more significant mechanisms for the Exchequer and there’s likely to be an increasing emphasis on enforcing regulations governing the collection, treatment and recycling of all sorts of waste, especially electrical and electronic equipment as specified by the WEEE directive. The Carbon Reduction Commitment will affect approximately 20,000 organisations in the public and private sectors and the Environment Agency requires disclosures to be submitted by those companies by the summer of 2010.

Sustainable environmental management is not only concerned with supply chain resource or carbon emissions management. It also addresses the wider issues of sustainable planning and design, waste reduction, water management, the efficiency of electronic and electrical equipment etc. All these facets of business operations are inputs into an organisation’s environmental impact and ultimately its bottom line. From a sales and marketing point of view, companies are also going to have to prove their “green credentials” to consumers and who are increasingly demanding that green tinge of virtually every product or service. Doing all this will create a significant cost for business, unless they get their fixed asset register in order. Organisations now have to prove their commitment to green issues through information transparency and fully auditable policies.

At the core of this approach has to be consistent and detailed information about the life cycle of all fixed assets, from country of origin, maintenance schedules and carbon efficiency to final disposal details. A good, up to date central asset register therefore will not only streamline year end audits but will also provide highly detailed insight into corporate assets that will enable management to make more informed decisions. Until you truly know what assets you’ve got, which you own and the real operational/ownership cost of those assets, managers cannot make informed decisions about capital expenditure, carbon footprint reduction and how to “green” the business in the most cost effective and beneficial way possible.

About the author:
Tom is a blogger currently working for a company specialising in software for asset tracking and fixed asset accounting. He passionately believes that businesses can go greener at the same time as cutting costs.

Ever thought that it was possible to see a green cat – and I am not referring to some pampered pussy that’s passed its sell-by date. I am talking about roaring tigers – the two new Eco-friendly Catamarans commissioned by Wightlink ferries, and built in the Philippines by FBMA Marine.

The first of the new fleet of two catamarans was launched in the Philippines recently and after a successful period of sea trials, was given the green light. The vessels were named Wight Ryder1 and 2 respectively after the company held and internal competition. The winner of the competition, Mike Bristow, was an employee of the company based at Ryde Pier head, and claimed to have got the inspiration from ‘watching too many American programmes’.

But aside from the obvious aesthetic quality of the vessels, the thing that has really impressed the industry is the operational efficiency that has been worked into the design. Originally designed by Southampton based boat designer, BMT Nigel Gee, the new catamarans have been given greater stability during the journey, and improved berthing facilities. Both of these points have greatly reduced the anticipated cancellations, and have therefore improved the service on offer. Andrew Wilson, Chief Executive of Wightlink commented:  “Reliability is our overriding objective and, with these advantages, the new craft should enable Wightlink to reduce the instances of weather-related cancellations that affect the existing service.”

The key to the improved performance, and the reason the designers can lay claim to the environmentally-friendly credentials is the new advance electronic management system. This, it is claimed, will result in fuel savings of around 1.3 million litres per annum, compared with the existing FastCats vessels, with a reduction in emissions equivalent to over 3.4 million kg CO2.

But how does this translate to the ordinary man in the street? It is a clean and simple service, or do people encounter problems that end up resulting in the undoing of all the best practices established by the vessels themselves? I decided that the best way to find this out, was to take a trip on the ‘cats’ myself.

I arrived in the city of Portsmouth by car, not a good start I know, but I wanted to see how well the area was signposted. I was not disappointed. Both the regular car ferry service and the catamarans are well signposted, an important factor when you consider the extra petrol consumption used on futile searching for your destination. When approaching by rail, a much more sensible option, you will find the docking point of the catamarans immediately outside Portsmouth Harbour station. After a short walk, you are ready to board the catamaran, which runs a service every 30 minutes. The journey itself, takes only 18 minutes, but as you leave the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour, you can’t help but think of the historical magnitude of the area; the fleets that have previously left for battle and the famous commanders of those fleets like Nelson.

Your destination is the historical Ryde Pier head, where the Cats are moored. Ryde Pier is quite long, about a quarter of a mile, but providing you are up to the walk, this is another great way of saving costs and therefore energy. A service is available for disabled and senior passengers, but I preferred to walk and take in the emerging view of the town ahead of me. All in all, I was impressed by the service offered by these vessels and the way that the ferry company, Wightlink, have integrated it into their system. It indicates to me, that they are serious about issues concerning the environment, which I hope in time will spread to the larger car-carrying vessels.

Bio

Peter is an internet marketer and SEO, and enjoys writing about issues that concern the environment, and travel and accommodation on the Isle of Wight.

At some point we are going to run out of our fossil fuels like oil and coal and will need resources that can sustain us in the future!  So what are these wonderful renewable energies that will help take us into the future?

• Wind Power:  This is already in use, although not as much as it should be.  The idea is that by turning a turbine using the Earths natural wind energy can generate electricity.  It works and very well, especially in countries that have a windy climate or a high above sea level.  However the main drawback is that the amount of turbines needed to power even a village would be massive.  A Nuclear Power Station can power many towns and cities, whereas in order to power many towns and cities with wind energy you would need millions of air turbines.  This is still potentially one of the best forms of renewable energy resource to utilize.

• Next we have the Solar Power of the Sun.  Our most powerful energy source in the solar system is our Sun.  We use solar panels to store the energy that the suns rays give off and then store it to in an electrical form that can be used when we wish.  The power generated by these solar panels is much like the Wind turbines, as in it is very low.  This is also something we must utilize to great effect as well, as the potential here is also great, in vast amounts the energy that can be gathered is immense, and we need to use vast areas of land!

• Next up is Hydropower!  This one is utilised best in massive dams that have a huge amount of water flowing through them.  Much in the same way a windmill works but on a much larger scale, the water is driven through a turbine at immense speeds.  This can generate large amounts of electricity, but plenty of water is needed and required in a specific way, so it is difficult to place all over the world!

Bio:

Marcus works with a Caribbean holidays tour operator and enjoys blogging about all of his personal experiences around the world.

Natural Cleaning Techniques: “But…how did they do it 100 years ago?”

This is a common question that I ask myself and my fellow community members here at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, a striving-to-be-sustainable community. How did they do this or that before electricity? Before mass production? Before everything came in plastic? More often than not we adopt the old way of doing things here: canning or root cellaring our food for preservation, heating our homes with wood, and making butter with a hand cranked, turn-of-the-century churn.

When it comes to cleaning, there are certainly many old fashioned ways of cleaning that one could easily choose to use. From baking soda to lemon juice, there may be simple ways to save yourself from adding too many products to your life. I know at least a few folks who believe that you can clean just about anything with white vinegar and newspaper or an old rag. And while we do employ a number of very simple cleaning techniques here at Dancing Rabbit, even we are not free of mass-produced cleaning products… but we stick to those that meet our standards for sustainability.

That’s why you’ll find a number of Seventh Generation products under our sinks. We’ve been known to use their various spray bottle bathroom cleaners and those squirty-topped dish soaps, because we know this company shares our vision of living more lightly on the Earth. Having replaced toilets with a simple humanure system, we don’t need to use any of their toilet cleaning products (though we do still use Seventh Generation toilet paper).

You will also find a number of citrus-based cleaners used for anything from mopping the floor to washing our clothes. Citric acid can, in almost all cases, be used in the same way as bleach. Mixed with salt, citrus becomes especially powerful. And just think of how much more pleasant the smell of lemon is compared to the smell of bleach!

Personally, I have, at one time or another used Dr Bronner’s Magic Soaps for just about everything. From its inception, Dr. Bronner’s has listed “eighteen-in-one” potential uses for their product on the bottle, and it can really be used for every one of them. Along with body wash and hand soap, Dr Bronner’s also makes great laundry soap, and is even safe to use on your pets!

I have no doubt that some people look at our way of life, and think that we’re trying to return to the 19^th century. With some specific practices, they’re right! But we don’t reject progress… we just want to see it achieved sustainably. These natural cleaning products allow us to enjoy a bit of convenience, while still maintaining our values.

Best of luck combining simplicity, sustainability, and practicality, and happy cleaning!

Mary Beth Bishop is a resident of Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in Northeastern Missouri, and a freelance writers currently under contract with long-running green blog sustainablog, which now features an eco-friendly shopping portal that carries a full range of cleaning brands, including Dr. Bronner’s.

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Anyone who has been reading this site for any period of time, knows that I am very interested in creating my own rainwater harvesting system. In fact I think we will end up with 3 separate systems.

Ideally all of these systems would tie together into one larger one, but with 3 different structures on the property several hundred feet apart, it just isn’t practical. Also with our property sloped it makes sense to have separate systems at different levels to allow us to irrigate by level without the need for pumps.

We recently had new gutters put on the house from Mastershield. These gutters have micro mesh screens that keep ALL debris out, and they work phenomenally well. Our house sits near several old growth Douglas Fir trees. These trees drop several hundred pounds of needles every month. Most of which seem to land on our roof, and it being a metal roof, promptly fell into our gutters. Before the new Mastershield gutters I would clean the gutters no less than once a month, and by then they were packed full of needles. Needless to say the new gutters were a good investment, even if we weren’t planning a rain barrel system.

We are planning to capture the rain water. The gutters help in that regard as well, because now we don’t need to filter the water before putting it into the storage tank. one less thing to worry about.

the next step for us is finding the right “rain barrels“, and I recently came across a website that just made that search easy, http://www.simplyrainbarrels.com. They have a ton of rain barrels for sale. From small 55 gallon drum sized containers to 3000 gallon bladders, they have a very wide array of choices. I am very impressed with the variety, and quality of choices. The tough part will be on choosing one.

I recently came across a site that I find tremendously useful, ShopWiki. It reminds me of the game changer that Google was when it came into being, however rather than organizing the web into a search-able structure, shopwiki puts every product sold on the Internet in one place. This is huge, I am always trying to find gardening tools or hoses or a wide variety of other products needed in my quest to turn my home into a self sustaining “homestead” and this tool just made it much simpler to do that. it is a game changer.

The first question you have to be asking is “How is this green?” It is not overtly green, however not having to drive all over town to track down a particular product is very much a green shopping ideal. Another way this is helpful is giving the little store around the corner the ability to compete with large Internet retailers and big box stores. All the Mom and Pop needs to do is get their products online and there they are.

With the ability to search all products listed on the Internet you can find very specific things, and to me this is the greatest benefit. I want to find locally sold, owned, and manufactured products first. Better yet are they done in a sustainable fashion out of reclaimed materials? Just imagine how Google has changed the web, and now imagine finding tools, and products with that same unimaginable depth and refinement. That is exactly what Shopwiki.com is.

The Green Expo taught me a very important lesson. Green Entrepreneurs need a place to pitch the world on their unique vision. So in the hopes of furthering their cause I humbly offer Mindzle as a place to make the pitch.

It has been a long held passion of mine to help other people reach their goals and dreams. In 2000 I started a technology incubator with a business partner. Soon after we started a networking event, that allowed idea people to mingle, and collaborate. At this event we created the “Pitch Box”, which was a streaming video feed that also displayed on big screens at the event. Any attendees could get up on the “Pitch Box” and deliver a 3 minute presentation. This opportunity was very popular, and helped many entrepreneurs find partners, and investors.

Given this passion, and past experience I want to help spread the word of any business or person doing good for the larger world. So do you have a great green story? Do you know of a business or product who’d like to tell the world? If so I’d love to help get the word out.

What I am looking for:

1) Tell us about your green, organic, or sustainable product, idea or business. I don’t want to know about market caps, and the fuzzy number projections. I do want to know why I as a potential customer would feel good about it. What is special about the service or product?

2) Photos of the product, people involved, services in jpeg format. Again this is an opportunity to tell people about your business, so make the images tasteful and relevant.

3) Include a “head-shot” of the author and a brief (20-50 word) bio.

4) Send this as an email with 200-800 words to hammer@mindzle.com Make sure to include relavent email and web addresses, and contact information.

If you have a home or personal project, I’d also love to hear from you. If it is green, organic, sustainable and helps me decrease my reliance on foriegn oil, and imported food or just something you are truly passionate about, send me an email at hammer@mindzle.com.