A Diesel Powered Future?

	Diesel Power was a revolution that still inspires new innovations even today. Bridging the gap for Industry and Transportation as they seek out a sustainable Future. Check the Green History of Diesel!

Upon operating his first successful engine design back in 1897  Rudolph Diesel changed the world in ways that most people still don’t fully appreciate today. Especially now, as we begin the long process of moving out of the petroleum-powered era, we should pause to take lessons from visionaries like Tesla and Diesel, and consider how they harnessed natural forces and physical phenomena to revolutionize existing technologies, and enabled enormous leaps into the Future by allowing others to build upon the solid foundations that they laid. The venerable diesel engine was an innovation of the internal combustion engine that continues to be improved upon even today, with the new methods and materials that are offered by modern science.

Many of us associate diesel power with loud smelly trucks and buses, so it might come as a great surprise that Diesel technology is actually still being improved upon after all this time. In fact, in just the past few years we’re seeing a level of improvement to efficiency and emissions that are actually positioning diesel as a sustainable interim solution for our transportation needs…While other options continue to be researched for that quantum leap in technology that will slingshot both Industry and Society towards the next century. So If you’re ready to see how diesel power still holds a few tricks up it’s sleeve, then let’s start exploring, by looking at railway locomotives as our prime motivator!

BTW: If you’re curious about Rudolf Diesel’s sense of environmental and social responsibility, as it was well over a century ago…Just pop-open another window by clicking HERE for further insights.

Diesel’s Vision

	At one time, Diesel power was poised as an alternative to big Coal and Oil… Today it could once again bridge the sustainability gap, offering Industry and Transportation the time to find its renewable power for the Future. Learn More Here

At the World’s Fair of 1900 in Paris France, Rudolph Diesel demonstrated the virtues of his new pressure-ignited “rational heat motor”  which came to bear his name to the world then, and has done so to the present day. We’ve come to also know Rudolf Diesel as an eminent mechanical and thermal engineer, a multi-lingual and knowledgeable patron of the Arts, and not least of all a highly progressive Social Theorist. Although his legacy is inestimable, his rise to fame was as quick as it was brief…and leaves us with some unanswered questions about how Diesel’s vision may have offered us a different world than the one ruled by Oil and Big Banks.

Hemp Diesel

	A century ago, it looked like Diesel Power and Hemp Products could have combined to side-track (eliminate?) our current dependencies on Oil and Forestry…Funny how things could still come full circle! ♦ CLICK HERE to learn how Diesel is cleaning up it’s act, and kicking the forced Oil habit!

In 1893, German inventor Rudolf Diesel published a paper entitled “The Theory and Construction of a Rational Heat Engine” which described a motor in which air is compressed by a piston to a very high pressure, causing a temperature spike where injected fuel is auto-ignited and efficiently burned in the expanding compression during the down-stroke. This basic concept results in a simple, safe, cool, highly efficient engine that could run on locally produced vegetable oils – and therefore level the playing field for those who otherwise couldn’t compete with the large steam-powered Industries and Shippers of the day.

Unfortunately, in the early 20th century Big Banks and Financiers were already doing everything in their power to support their Oil and Forestry interests, ,and thus assure the dominance of Petro-Chemical industries. So instead of seeing how Diesel’s vision would have played out, we’ve had to wait until the combined and destructive effects of Financial, Energy, and Environmental crisis’ here the 21st Century, would obviate the ideals and benefits that Rudolf Diesel had envisioned for Society over a century ago…When he built his first engines to be run on the same types of Bio-Fuels that we now have available today, and which could have cut Coal and Oil out of the picture from the very start…

Global Warming: Who’s the Real Enemy

- SOCIAL REPORT –

	Political strategy is a moving target in any debate, but can we at least be sure that our Leaders have selected the right objectives in their bid to win the battle against Global Warming?

In the ongoing heavy-weight bout against Global Warming, the tag-team proposals for pricing CO2 emissions (primarily either via Taxes or Carbon Cap and Trade) both took serious blows to the head at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference and were allowed to drop to the mat. Rather than standing back up in desperation, and vowing to take the fight into the streets, the proponents of these (so-called) “solutions” seemed content to just hang onto the ropes and wait for the bell to end the Copenhagen round. This event has now fallen apart with little to show for it than promises that things will be settled at the next U.N. Climate Change Conference, that nobody can even be bothered to set their forward sites upon at this point. Hell…Even the Copenhagen Conference website was dismantled less than a month after things wrapped up in Denmark, with little of value being forwarded from the defunct address.  Luckily there are still lots of excellent resources out there to explain the functions and perceived benefits of such complex concepts as Carbon Cap and Trade, for example…

One can’t help feel as though the Post-Copenhagen letdown has left us to either take this fight to a more personal level as the Media moves on to it’s next ‘cause celebre’, or otherwise just allow Human Nature to overtake us, and simply focus on our more immediate needs as we sub-consciously recoil from the unknowns of an uncertain Future.

Autonomously Automated Automobile

	Future forms of highway transport could be driven on current roads, without changing any existing infrastructure! Whatif this Change started within each car instead… Starting with each Driver’s behaviour!

It was Jean-Paul Sartre who said;  L’enfers c’est les Autres, or “Hell is Others”.
So it seems more than just a little bit ironic to use the name “Sartre” for an automobile guidance system which requires you to join others in a convoy, or  “train”. Once in this train, drivers cede control of their cars to a lead driver through a combination radio telemetry, remote controls, and GPS (called ‘telemetrics’) to enable this automated form of road travel. Perhaps the philosophical tie-in offered by the “Sartre” system is that by willingly choosing to give up some of our cherished egotism and autonomy, we can become more socially aware (safer?) on the road in the process.

At the very least, it might encourage nervous or downright bad drivers to just group themselves together, and free up some time/space for those who can more effectively navigate the mildly ordered chaos of our shared roadways.

CLICK for MORE

Highway 401 in Ontario: Flickr / David Vincent Johnson

Sightings: Irony Falls Like Snow in Copenhagen

- SIGHTINGS REPORT –

The Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen is getting precipitously close to it’s closing remarks, and we’re now learning what we’ve already suspected, which is that the best we should hope for from COP15 is just a few pages of a framework to be further negotiated and ratified at the NEXT COP conference…We would hope! The irony of making positive forward statements on the effects of Future climate talks, even while a disappointing cause is still unfolding, is further emphasized by the following video fragments…

As World leaders were arriving in Copenhagen on December 17th, we were treated to a decidedly inopportune time for Mother Nature to show us her hand, with a solid covering of up to 10 cm. of heavy snow falling on the city just as the world turned it’s eyes to Denmark to see how this conference can manage to produce something of value at the 11th Hour. In a time when legions of dissenters and skeptics are seizing upon every conspiracy imaginable, perhaps this is a chance for Climate Change supporters to suggest that it is the Imperialistic interests of Big Oil and Coal that have seeded this snow for maximum effect! After all…Russian officials have allegedly claimed that they can prevent snow from falling in Moscow this winter, and China has already had some seriously damaging results from it’s own efforts to seed precipitation in it’s drought stricken regions!

While we possibly consider just how far some people will go to assure an orderly progress to establishing a New World (uhm) Order….Here’s a quick roundup of some of the other bitter ironies that unfolded during this same 24 hour period:

Let’s start with a couple of serene and peaceful moments…

…before facing the ironies of fighting against Global Warming, while shoveling through any of the heavier consequences that follow:

IR: EPA Kicks Tires on Airliners and Automobiles?

- IMPACT REPORT -

	The following potential points of Impact have been derived from : Where’s the EPA Going with Airliners and Automobiles? See: below for RELAYABLE remarks and info

So what will the immediate effects of this event be upon air and ground transport as we know it?

What does this mean for the Automobile, Aereonautic, and Airline industries?

Is this the kickstart they they need to start participating in building the Future? Or will the EPA simply try to entrench itself in a political imbroglio, that some right-wingers are already threatening to tie up in endless litigation?

The jury is still out on just how ecologically friendly electric cars really are, once you factor everything in like the increased production of rare and heavy metals for batteries, and the added GHG’s produced to generate that electricity needed to recharge. Surely there is no ‘electric alternative’ out there for the airline industry, which presumably has nothing but the purchase of dubious carbon credits to fall back on in order to stabilize itself in whatever turbulence will be generated from this event in a very rapidly changing climate for business and travel.

ER: Where’s the EPA Going with Airliners and Automobiles?

	This Event has also generated the following Impact Report : IR: EPA Kicks Tires on Airliners and Automobiles?

-  EVENT REPORT  -

Where’s the EPA Going with Airliners and Automobiles?

In decisive and well publicized move to strengthen the U.S. position on Global Warming, just in time for the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, the United States Environmental  Protection Agency (EPA) threatens to upstage the U.S. Congress by stepping in (with a compliant Department of Transport) to begin placing regulations of it’s own on Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions in America.  This event has also allowed Barack Obama to maintain his political poise and environmental commitments when assuring the World that the United States is indeed prepared to take clear and decisive actions against Global Warming. The significant risk in establishing this alternate legal route to the regulation of  Greenhouse Gases (GhG’s) via the EPA, rather than waiting for any similar Bills to finally clear Congress, means that a political gauntlet has been tossed down that could either spur U.S. lawmakers to regain their role in this fight, or possibly generate a severe backlash from those who see this as an affront to their authority and who can also control the EPA’s funding and functions, depending upon who picks up this tossed challenge and rises to the occasion.

This bold opening move is based in a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling (from a deeply divided decision) that the Clean Air Act granted EPA the authority to regulate automobile emissions, and furthermore that GhG’s could fit within the Clean Air Act definition of air pollutants according to subsequent EPA reports.  At the risk of sideswiping industrialists and lawmakers throughout the land, on December 7/09, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) came forward to issue its formal findings that greenhouse gasses (GhG’s), including carbon dioxide emissions, do indeed “threaten the public health and welfare of the American people”. This statement effectively sets the stage for the EPA to regulate a list of GhG  under provisions of the 1970 Clean Air Act, and CO2 is now at the top of that confirmed list.

Under the provisions of the 1970 Clean Air Act, EPA is obligated to address declared pollutants. Jackson explained that the “premise” of the Act is that “once you know you have a pollutant and you know it’s endangering public welfare, then EPA must act.” The question remains what is teh EPa’s next move?

A New Mission…

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Greening the Rustbelt

Simplistically speaking, someone, somewhere might just call it “Corporate Welfare” (or worse), but a couple of smaller renewable energy players are planning something really big in the State of Michigan

Look up...Look waaaayyyyyy up!

The central hub to these plans would be a sprawling 320 acre facility in Wixom Michigan where the Ford Motor Company has held silent watch over its shuttered auto plant since the huge facility was shut down in 2007. Now in 2009, two renewable energy players have stepped up with a bold plan to change the state of affairs in Michigan.

Xtreme Power of Kyle, TX is a 5 year old company employing 90 people that provides solid-state power management and storage systems, which would dovetail very nicely with it’s larger partner in this grande venture. Clairvoyant Energy of Santa Barbara, CA is the American presence for a Spanish solar panel company that has already deployed a 12-Megawatt installation on top of a General Motors plant in Zaragoza, Spain, and expects to generate big change from the derelict infrastructure in Wixom

Xtreme expects to directly create some 2,500 jobs, with 1,500 of these being either right in Wixom, or within a 10 mile radius. An impressive topspin is added to this proposed venture with 10,000 additional supplier jobs supposedly being created – under their best projections of course. Anyone familiar with UAW negotiation tactics and PR strategy might be able to determine (and share with us) how such “spin-off” job figures are actually derived, because clear sources for such things just never seem to be credited, much less readily available in support of such claims. I presume this figure includes the extra morning drive-through attendants at the local McDonalds, or something equally distended.

From it’s own side of the venture, Clairvoyant expects to run one solar panel manufacturing line initially to employ 300 people, with projections to operate 3 more lines eventually. We are left to presume that they ultimately expect to employ 1200 people, but I’ve not found any sources at this early stage of the proceedings.

You see both companies have been fairly reserved in the dealings with the Press thus far, since they are both seeking State and Federal loan guarantees and tax incentives to move ahead with the project. When the timing is right however, there would be several prominent politicians involved who’d certainly like to (at least) share in the enormous PR value, if not the actual economic impact associated with the very first venture to transform a mothballed auto plant into a new Green manufacturer. Of course, brandishing the bragging rights to being the first political leader to get ex-autoworkers in the “rust belt” back to work in the new jobs of a budding Green economy, is made even more pointed by the piercing irony that the Wixom Ford plant had previously been rolling out the legendarily luxurious, gas-guzzling Lincoln Town Car.

How does this line get re-tooled now ?