Month: May 2007

Air Car Rolling Along

- Adam Clare

The Air Car is hitting the production line! Last time we mentioned it on ThingsAreGood, we were aware that Indian car maker Tata had signed on to make the vehicle.

EcoGeek is reporting that the Air Car is about to roll out in India. The company behind the car have also signed a deal to bring the car to 12 more countries including Germany and South Africa. Something I missed (or forgot about) this car is that it was developed by an ex-Formula One engineer named Guy Nègre.

Refueling is simple and will only take a few minutes. That is, if you live nearby a gas station with custom air compressor units. The cost of a fill up is approximately $2.00. If a driver doesn’t have access to a compressor station, they will be able to plug into the electrical grid and use the car’s built-in compressor to refill the tank in about 4 hours

A Wonderful Life in 5 Ways

- Adam Clare

Life is complicated, confusing, and often fun. Now you can ensure taht you have a wonderful life by following these 5 steps. (There are actually 6 reasons but the headline says 5.)

A sample:

3. Educate Yourself
Education builds over time. It might feel like the bits of wisdom you acquire don’t mean much, but over the years they add up to form a wiser, kinder, more interesting person.

Thermal Inertia for Free Heating and Cooling

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

How does not needing an air conditioner or a furnace sound? To me, it sounds great.

The Enertia home uses thermal energy to cycle cooling and warming the house. It achieves this by delaying the thermal patterns of the planet, it’s like slow motion but in real life.

Once completed, even before you move in, these new homes will have come alive with a natural atmospheric cycle, like the Earth, on which they are based. A built-in “biosphere,” in gradual but constant motion, draws energy from the sun, and geothermal stability from the ground, creating a temperate climate that buffers the primary living space.

Toronto Begins Implementing Clinton Cities Challenge

- Adam Clare

Shortly after returning from the meeting of 16 mayors who are getting support from Clinton et. all to green their cities, Toronto mayor David Miller has announced a hybrid car campaign. Toronto will begin testing plug-in hybrids to test the feasibility of a mass rollout of the cars. The testing phase will start small but get progressively larger over time.

“The key purpose is to determine if plug-in hybrid technology is suitable to Toronto’s climate
and roads,” Miller said in Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square on Saturday, at the launch of the program.

There are suggestions that the converted vehicles would be able to feed electricity back into the grid, serving as mobile power stations to homes during a blackout. Or they could be plugged into the electricity grid during periods of peak demand to supply power and prevent blackouts.

U.S. stops breeding chimps for research

- Adam Clare

Good news for those who like animals! The U.S. National Institutes of Health has decided to stop breeding chimpanzees for biomedical research. Chimps that are already being used for research remain as test animals, but the fact that more chimps won’t be used in this way is a step in the right direction for the ethical treatment of animals.

“This decision is a huge step towards a day when chimpanzees are no longer used in invasive biomedical research and testing,” Kathleen Conlee of the Humane Society said in a statement.

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