Present Day Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Tonight, I watched the Imax movie, Arabia, at the Fernbank Museum and enjoyed the history lesson in the Two Golden Ages of Arabia. The first was led by the Nabataean culture and the natural resource that created their empire was frankincense and other spices. The Roman Empire’s polytheistic worship drove the insatiable demand for the exotic spice trade dominated by the Nabataeans. Continue reading
An open letter to Erich Marx, Director of Marketing and Media for Nissan Motors
Dear Mr. Marx,
I would like to offer a suggestion for a new marketing program to help promote the upcoming Nissan Leaf electric vehicle this winter. For each Nissan Leaf sold, offer to donate a percentage of the purchase price to the Gulf Oil Spill relief effort. Give the purchaser the choice of either directing the donation to the cleanup effort or to the relief effort for the many people affected by this environmental catastrophe. This program will not just promote a great new vehicle, it will give Leaf owners the opportunity to help those affected by our addiction to petroleum. Continue reading
Seagull Coated in Gulf Oil - Louisiana
As the toxic slur of oil and dispersants drift ashore across the American Gulf Coast, I wonder if this will be enough to make us change our ways? Over the past hundred years, we’ve accomplished a lot. We made the internal combustion engine the mainstream choice for transportation. We’ve built roads and super-highways that link every state together in the United States. We have a fueling infrastructure that has very few areas where you don’t have at least three or four choices of fuel stations. We’ve developed advanced fertilizers and pesticides from petroleum that allows us to feed hundreds of millions of people. We synthesize oil into olefins for making advanced polymers and plastics that allow us to carry disposable plastic water bottles wherever we go. Continue reading
One of my Biodiesel Jetta TDI's
This title is a little misleading if you have read my post on “Using Biodiesel in your Vehicle.” In reality, I’m going to provide information on how you can prepare your VW TDI to run on biodiesel.
In general, there are two issues to overcome when running a vehicle on biodiesel: Continue reading
My 1970 Mercedes 220D Veggie Car
As part of my “no nonsense” series on bio and alternative fuels, I covered biodiesel and straight vegetable oil (SVO) and waste vegetable oil (WVO) diesel conversions. Since I believe in experimenting first-hand with topics I discuss, a few years ago, I worked with a local company to convert a restored 1970 Mercedes 220D to run on vegetable oil. I have had one other veggie car before “Helga” the Mercedes and you can read about the “Veggie Ranger” conversion on Greasology.org. Continue reading
Biodiesel is a Clean Alternative to Petroleum
Any diesel engine can run on biodiesel. Is that a true statement? Are there any issues to deal with or do you just dump the “biodiesel” into the engine? What is biodiesel anyway?
There are lots of questions that should be answered when you begin to peel back the onion on running your vehicle on biodiesel. This article will attempt to demystify biodiesel and answer some of those questions. This is part of our “no nonsense” series on biofuels as a partial solution to wean us off of petroleum. Continue reading
Electric Light Rail System in Salt Lake City, Utah
While visiting Salt Lake City this week, I rode one of UTA Trax’s electric light rail cars. I didn’t have a place to go or somewhere I had to be at the time. I just wanted to go for a ride because an electric streetcar is fun to ride for a clean energy enthusiast. We don’t have streetcars in Atlanta anymore so this was my opportunity to experience what was a part of everyday life for city dwellers in the early 1900′s. I couldn’t wait to buy my ticket and go for a ride! Continue reading
Bloom Energy and the Electric Car
Bloom Energy, after operating in secrecy for more than eight years, has now unveiled a fuel cell that could change the way we think of energy and the grid. Bloom introduced a potentially game-changing product that could provide us with a local, on-demand power source with the potential to help us power new devices that will wean us from dependence on petroleum. Today, mass adoption of electric vehicles is a threat to the stability of our centralized power grid. Local power generation solutions will help reduce the load on the grid as we shift to alternative sources of power and mobility. Continue reading
When thinking of ways to help kick our petroleum addiction, it’s hard not to be thinking of the Middle East and their grip on the World’s energy supply. Sheiks pump oil, we pay for it, sheiks get rich and powerful. Some sheiks use the funds to bolster Taliban-ese societies that oppress their people and help spew anti-American rhetoric throughout the world. Some of our dollars make it back to terrorists that kill our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of our gas dollars probably funded the flight training and logistics terrorists used to kill thousands of civilians at the WTC in 2001.
While reducing our dependence on foreign oil is by far the most effective method of diffusing this vicious cycle, I can’t help but ponder how the current wave of democratization of the Middle East will affect this? Thomas Friedman posted a very informative opinion article on the NY Times Wednesday that describes a wave of change happening throughout the Middle East. If anyone has their pulse on the Middle East, it is Friedman. From his firsthand knowledge of the political environment (through living and reporting there for years as a journalist and correspondent) and through his Pulitzer Prize winning book on Middle East politics and social environment, From Beirut to Jerusalem
Unlike the elections of the 80s and 90s in the Middle East where most autocratic leaders that allowed elections always received 99% or more of the vote, covering elections today has more uncertainty and is a more interesting story. A story that keeps voters up at night awaiting election results. In the case where there is concern of fraud, it is no longer the status quo. Today, you will find voters protesting the injustice in the streets using technology such as Twitter, IM, Facebook and other social media tools to organize.
There is a wave of change moving through the Middle East fueled by the taste of Democracy and the enablement of technology that gives people the social media tools to organize like no other time in history.
