transportation

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Carbon Mitigation Through Carbon Fiber?

August 18, 2008 in carbon mitigation, transportation by nils | Add your comment

Here's an idea - let's just suck the excess CO2 out of the atmosphere and turn it into carbon fiber to build superlight cars! These superlight cars would significantly reduce our demand for gasoline in the short term, and enable a right-sized hydrogen-based transportation fuel economy in the long term! Sounds great, right? But it's a pipe dream right now - today carbon fiber is made from PolyAcryloNitrile (PAN), which is made from petroleum, and it's an expensive and time-consuming process to make the fiber, and to make automobile parts from it.

High Fuel Prices Turn Out To Be A Good Incentive For Carpooling

August 14, 2008 in consumption by nils | Add your comment

Image via Wikipedia

It's fun to see the articles and news reports on the upside of high gas prices - last night on the KTVU news was a report on how the air is getting a bit cleaner in the Bay Area because people are driving less.

Along these lines, Technology Review had an article the other day about technology-enabled car-pooling. On both general advertising sites like Craigslist and carpool-specific sites, drivers and riders are getting together to get together.

Although some people turned to these sites long ago to help reduce pollution or take advantage of faster, high-occupancy vehicle lanes that require at least two occupants, the pocketbook has been the largest influencer of all.