Solar and Wind's blog

2013 Ford Focus Electric Test Drive
Electric Vehicle Association of Greater Washington

When I heard that Ford was bringing their 2013 Ford Focus Electric to offer test drives at the Maryland Volt/EV Meetup, I was eager to see if the car had improved from when I drove it several years ago when it was still in development. After a spin around FedExField in the new Focus EV, I think Ford has definitely upped their game.

I had test driven a very early pre-production version of the Ford Focus Electric when they brought it to the Newseum in Washington, DC in October, 2010. I didn’t have a very high opinion of the car back then. It was very sluggish and unresponsive to the accelerator. That early vehicle also had bad handling due to the odd weight distribution of the battery pack. The power steering, or lack thereof, made it hard to turn. The performance of the pre-production Focus Electric just didn’t live up to my expectations. EVs should have great acceleration and torque but that early development vehicle just didn’t have it.

The Future of Solar Energy
Reve
Concentrating Solar Thermal Power- a first generation technology, but now with the ability to concentrate solar power using parabolic trough plates unrestricted by scarce material availability, with rare earths and silvered mirrors replaced by common commodities such as stainless steel, aluminium and glass.

The Director of the Future Planet Research Centre- David Hunter Tow predicts that recent advances in solar technology may be sufficient to shift the balance from fossil to renewable energy just in time to save humanity from a likely heat death.

Solar technology is about to take off and may finally be on the threshold of displacing a large chunk of fossil fuel dependancy.

This is very good news indeed- for humans, life on Earth and possibly the Universe at large if we are the only super intelligent life form that calls it home.

Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. revealed back in May the highly anticipated all-new Toyota RAV4 EV at the 26^th annual Electric Vehicle Symposium in Los Angeles.

When a Chesapeake Energy land man approached him months ago with an offer to lease the Utica shale mineral rights beneath his meticulously landscaped 9.5-acre property in eastern Ohio, Neeley declined. That’s when, Neeley says, the land man told him, “We’ll just take it.”

Neeley and 23 of his neighbors are the first group of Ohio landowners forced to take part in Utica-shale drilling under a seldom-used state law. The law lets companies add properties to large “ drilling units” even if leases with landowners haven’t been obtained, to maximize access to deeply buried oil and gas.Even the state isn’t immune from the law. The Chesapeake Energy drilling unit of 959 acres in Portage and Stark counties includes a 4-acre corner of Quail Hollow State Park northeast of Canton. That makes it the first state park in line for “fracking.”

A neighborhood in Austin, Texas, designed to be a test bed for green technologies and that, according to General Motors, boasts the highest concentration of electric cars in the U.S. will become a laboratory for how the vehicles and their drivers interact with a smart power grid, homes and renewable energy systems.

Just one leaking faucet in your home can waste nearly 700 gallons of water each year Now multiply that by the  number of homes, offices, restaurants, hospitals, factories, etc. that have at least one leaky faucet and  we've got catastrophic waste. Every little bit adds up, and every little thing you do to improve your plumbing efficiency matters! Here are five ways in which you can go green with simple plumbing repairs and improvements.