Hybrid Living

Cree is a leading manufacturer of LEDs and the circuitry and components needed to bring them into our homes and businesses. They’ve been growing like crazy and, thankfully, have also managed to hire someone who knows something about social media. That someone decided to show, very clearly, the effects of incandescent lighting on the Easter Bunny. The result? Incandescent lights KILL THE EASTER BUNNY! So if you don’t want the Easter Bunny to die…you should consider investing in some next-generation lighting technology.

The EPA and the International Maritime Organization have announced stricter emissions regulations for ships operating in the waters off the coast of the U.S. and Canada.

Starting in 2012, ships within 200 nautical miles of the shores will either have to use cleaner, more expensive fuel that contains less sulfur or be equipped with scrubber devices that clean the sulfur dioxide from the exhaust.  By 2016, new ships will have to use advanced emissions control systems.

California already implemented an emissions control zone within 24 nautical miles of its shore last year and ships have tried avoiding the area.  These new rules extend the control zone along most of North America and much farther out to sea, so avoidance won’t be an option anymore.

The EPA says the emissions controls will reduce U.S. NOx emissions by 1.2 million tons annually and particulate matter emissions by 143,000 tons annually.

via Green Inc.

We’ve all been waiting to hear what exactly Nissan has meant by “competitively priced” when describing the LEAF.  Well, now we know.  The all-electric sedan will have a sticker price of $32,780, slightly more than expected, but still pretty cheap for an EV.

At that price, the LEAF is a good $10,000 more expensive than gas-fueled sedan models like the Honda Civic, Toyota Camry and Nissan Altima, but cheaper than announced prices for EV models like the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, Coda Automotive’s sedan and far below the nearly $60,000 Tesla Model S.  Plug In America calls the price a “game changer” and I’d have to agree.

Not convinced?  Here’s more to consider.  The price includes the installation of a home charging station, it will be available for lease for $349 a month (not too shabby when you compare it to the mortgage-sized lease payment for the Tesla Roadster) and once you apply federal tax credits, you’re actually looking at a $25,280 car.  If you live in a state like California that’s offering an additional $5,000 rebate, that price drops to $20,280.

Now you’re in the territory of a base model Toyota Prius.  The cost of a hybrid, but it’s all electric.  I have a feeling there are people at GM right now recrunching the numbers for the Chevy Volt.

via Nissan and Earth2Tech

The average price of a personal computer is somewhere in the neighborhood of $1300, according to CNET.com. That’s a rather hefty chunk of change, especially if you’re a recent high school or college graduate and don’t have a sizable bank account (who does in this economy?). Even spending $1000 or $800 on a computer could [...]

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FedEx says it will be the first U.S. delivery service to add all-electric trucks to their fleet.  Starting in June, the company will enter four EVs into service in Los Angeles.

Two of the trucks will come from Navistar, based on a design the parcel service already is using in Europe.  FedEx has 10 EV vans in London and five scheduled to enter routes in Paris.  The other two trucks are coming from a yet unnamed company.

FedEx plans to eventually have electric charging stations powered by solar arrays or even the Bloom Energy Server at its various locations for its electic fleet to juice up.

While it slowly transitions to all-electric vehicles, the company is making good use of hybrid technology.  They’ve been converting old trucks into hybrids and their Bronx, NY outpost exclusively uses hybrid vans.

via Press Release

Energizer’s DUO Charger is a battery charger for NiMH (nickel metal hydride) rechargable batteries. (This isn’t the same as USB batteries that have a built-in USB port on the batteries themselves.) Energizer provided a nice little desktop app for computers so that the user could see the charge status of their batteries along with the charger. We’re not sure what the point of this is, really. I mean, is the indicator light on the charger not enough for you?

Unfortunately, that app included a Trojan that would compromise security and open a back door for unauthorized access on Windows machines. The trojan allows files to be sent and executed on your machine without your permission. There are alerts about this from both the computer security company Symantec as well as from US-CERT (Computer Emergency Readiness Team). Energizer has an advisory notice on their site where the software was downloaded from.

Only users with Windows computers who downloaded the software are at risk; there is noting in the battery charger hardware itself that threatens computers. If you have installed this software, which you would have had to seek out and download separately, you need to uninstall it to prevent it from putting your computer system at risk.

[Edit to add: It's pretty clear that Energizer was not a willing party to this.  They have stopped providing the software for download and put out the announcement about the problem.  They also note they are "currently working with both CERT and U.S. government officials to
understand how the code was inserted in the software."]

My advice, never install software for a piece of hardware that obviously doesn’t need it. Battery chargers should charge batteries, there’s no reason to make that relationship more complicated.

Link: Energizer advisory (PDF)

Capable. Optimal. Sufficient.
(Coming Soon)

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A boat aptly called the Plastiki, made out of 12,500 recyclable plastic bottles filled with carbon dioxide, has set sail for a great voyage through the Pacific.  While it seems like an extreme stunt, the journey has more of a purpose than just seeing if a plastic boat can make the trip.

By now, many of us have heard about the giant collection of floating plastic known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.  The large aquatic dump is located in the North Pacific Gyre, one of the five major vortices of currents in the world’s oceans.  It is twice the size of Texas and contains billions of tiny pieces of plastic.

The boat’s crew including David de Rothschild, Jo Royle and David Thomson came up with this interesting way to draw more attention to the tons of plastic that make it into our oceans.  They constructed the Plastiki to tour the Pacific Ocean, teaching us about recycling and lowering our consumption along the way.

The team will take approximately three months to reach Sydney, Australia from San Francisco, heading straight through the garbage patch.  They will also visit other environmental hot spots including damaged coral reefs and low-lying island nations threatened by rising sea waters.

Read more…

Taryn, an EcoGeek reader, received her subscriptions to Wired Magazine as well as National Geographic this week. A very EcoGeek combination, I must say, keeping up on the beauty and diversity of our world as well as cutting technology. But what she found surprised her. Each magazine had an ad from the same company, from the same advertising campaign with some disturbingly different messages.

The ad in National Geographic brags about Kohler’s “commitment to creating water-saving products”. On the other hand, the full-page advert in Wired seems to indicate that true luxury can only be had in a shower that simulates the drenching power a category five hurricane…an experience Kohler will gladly provide you with.

So which of these is the Bold Look of Kohler: The one that promises “Bold Conservation” or the one that promises “Bold jets of watter hitting you with one gallon per second of fresh drinkable water from every conceivable angle”? Thoughts?