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Well, I do tend to purchase clothes from Goodwill as much as I buy clothes new. I also get around by a bicycle and a diesel vehicle. Now, I was using straight used cooking oil and homemade biodiesel, until in 2006 a man in South Carolina was charged with Failure to pay the Fuel Tax for making his own biodiesel... although the fine was suspended because the judge did not want to give the impression that seeking alternative fuel sources was a bad thing. Can't find the article I read back then, but here is a similar link... http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/03/illinois_man_fi.php and a related link http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d08_1181765099

And I rent. From the home owner.... on their family land. You got me on the tools, but i guess I could spend more time in the barn with the forge and anvil leaning how to be a blacksmith... it's just so damn hot back there.

The horses and pigs supply the manure we use for fertilizer. Good soil here though... in the part of the country where just about everyone grew their own tobacco as their cash crop.

I know we aren't self sufficient. I know I can be if pressed. And I don't see the people in power doing anything to repair the economy. I only see them doing what they can to maintain a status quo for the upper class.

No taxation without representation. It is what the country was started for... among other things. Our current government does not represent me, but I'm paying my taxes none the less. No desire to go to jail and avoid paying taxes that way.

that stuff used to be in hardware, try scanning and printing a dollar bill in ubuntu, with supported hardware.

better yet, try building a home made iphone scanner http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/09/turn-your-phone-into-a-scanner.php then transfer pic to an ubuntu machine with a supported printer, and try printing.

Prius vs. BMW M3: The Test

Now the actual test: The Prius drove ten laps as fast as possible on a race-track, and the BMW trailed behind. It is so meaningless as to be funny. Much worse than Prius vs. Jeep Patriot Diesel.

Driving the Prius with the pedal to the metal (probably around 100 mph, a speed at which 99.99% of Priuses will never go - the exception is Al Gore Jr. who got caught doing over 100 mph) is taking away almost everything that makes the car fuel efficient. At that speed, electric motors don't help, regenerative braking doesn't help, and the stop-start anti-idling feature is useless. Only the low drag coefficient and low rolling-resistance tires are of use, but that is more than offset by the small 1.5 liter gasoline engine that has to hit RPMs way above its efficiency sweet spot.

On the BMW side, the M3 was designed to be driven fast on the German autobahns and its engine certainly wasn't breaking a sweat trying to keep up with the Prius.

So What Does 'Prius vs. BMW M3' Tell Us?
Well, if most of your driving is going to be done on a closed circuit racing track with the pedal to the metal, a Prius probably won't save you that much gas. If that's not the case, you can forget about this useless, misleading Top Gear segment. It would be good entertainment if they had explained why it's a flawed comparison, but they played it straight, so thumbs down.

No idea whether it'll actually come true, but I believe that both GMC and Ford are set to release hybrid trucks next year.

GMC Sierra Hybrid
It's to be a 'light' hybrid, with a full size V8 to maintain towing capacity.

Ford F-150 hybrid
Hydraulic?
Note: Closer to vaporware, it's an older article, may have been canceled. Though with current gas prices, might be starting up again.

As others have noted, electric motors are actually quite good at providing low RPM torque, and it's not like you don't have plenty of mass and area with a truck to put a big battery and electric motor in capable of doing things like pull a stump out of the ground. If nothing else, all the proposals I've seen are for 'mild' hybrids, with full size engines.

Naturally, it's too expensive to produce.

Most manufacturers actually have this technology, it's just something VW pursues a bit more intensively.

Who said the Prius has to be wimpy?

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/08/sweden-extreme-toyota-prius-pimped-out-mods.php

"Are you telling me that as a computer geek, when you lay out money to purchase a computer you do not expect profit to arise from it?

I think that's a very dangerous statement. Everyone who uses their computer for work 'invests' in it. Everyone who uses their second-hand car to drive to work 'invests' in it.

It is not solely necessary for the capital expense to appreciate for it to be an investment."

first off, most people who 'work' on a pc, have one the company paid for in the office, in some cases they even have loaner laptops one can bring home... so you don't 'need' a PC at home to do work.

secondly, before 'everyone' had a car, there were these things called 'trains' that could carry people a vast distance, without having to 'invest' in the purchase of an automobile.

there are also these things called 'bicycles' they're very common methods of transit in china, and i know, you get hot and sweaty riding a bike, but there are restrooms, they have sanitary wipes made specifically for commuter bikers, and quick drying towels, and it's easy to carry a laptop and a briefcase in a good commuter bike bag.

did i mention, biking to work will help you get your vitamin d (15 minutes of sunlight per day minimum is recommended) it will help keep you in better health, and by keeping you in better health help you avoid those dreadful 'weight gain' wardrobe changes.

oh hey, and a good quality bike, all the accessories, and maintaining it will cost less than one month of using a car easily.

'investment' you call a $10,000 cash sink an investment? compared to a $300 bike? which is not just an investment in your transportation, but one in your overall health!

once you're in shape 30 miles a day is easy, the entire course of the tour de france is 2,255 miles, through some of europe's hardest mountain trails. the race takes exactly 21 days, btw that is 107 miles a day, on average the flatter sections get more miles per day than the worst of the mountain sections.

if your vehicle gets 20 MPG and you have a 12 mile commute (each way) and you work 5 days a week. at $4 a gallon that's $24 a week, just for the gas, if your vehicle lasts 6 years, at $10,000 with an average of $3,000 a year in repairs, maintenance, and insurance (a realistic value considering the price of replacement parts, and maintenance, and insurance costs) that's $90 a week, not including interest payments, so it's costing you $114 a week to drive a car to work. Vs maybe $1 a week for bicycling. Bicycles can easily last 20+ years, common replacements will be tires and breaks and lines, and adjustments to and possibly chain break, and possible seat replacement, obviously a lock and any equipment you need, like a rain slicker and snow tires if you plan to bike all season in winter regions.

let's say you own a car for say vacation driving, and grocery trips, the cost per week drops greatly, since a car only needs to be run once a week to keep from having issues, and the maintenance costs are directly proportional to your driving habits. eg: the more you drive the faster things break down.

how fast can you ride a 21-speed bike? I personally have hit 24 MPH on flat level terrain, so commuting on bike does take more time, although in gridlock, a bicycle has the advantage greatly.

if you live in the sticks, you can opt to get a horse and buggy, and grow the fodder yourself if you have enough land. horses have numerous troubles, so they're no where near as cheap as bicycling, but they're basically natures cellulostic ethanol powered vehicles.

if gas prices go up a dollar a year, the horse and buggy are going to become very popular, especially if they have Solar powered A/c units http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/08/greencore-solar-powered-air-conditioning-ac-cooling.php

"There is no rule against rigid sails, it's just too hard to bring dozens of huge metal foils on a boat."

besides which converting a modern ship from diesel to sail powered is very hard, that's why they're using kites, which can easily be added to a conventional freighter, to reduce the fuel consumption. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/03/beluga-skysails-cargo-ship-kites.php

Even with solar-driven steam turbines, you can't generate any power at night and afaik, there's no effective way of storing energy.

Yes, there is.

Not saying this discovery wouldn't be useful, though.

Mr. Burns?

"or promote the use of small diesels (which can run on bio-diesel 99% using 1% diesel to prevent fungal growth (it's that toxic) and release almost no harmful emissions, except a slight burned grease smell)"

There fixed that for you. and if we use algae to produce all that diesel, we can simultaneously use up a lot of waste water processing requirements (algae loves human sewage) as well as have a totally local, totally green energy source. as well as have a huge source of starch/dextrose for production of ethanol for those who want to run e-85.

the downside of bio-diesel production is it totally killed the glycerol market. but new ways of using glycerol, and new methods for using glycerol from bio-diesel show a promising chemical market for the future of 'green' energy companies. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/07/biodiesel-bypoduct-could-yield-valuable-chemicals.php

frankly I think that using a product so toxic that using just 1% of it is enough to prevent fungal growth, as a combustible fuel is awful, no matter what price has been paid in the past. Diesel fuel hasn't gone down in price even with the price of oil going down either. this makes clean mass producible algae based bio-diesel even more attractive. it certainly hasn't made soy-diesel any more attractive, because soy uses more 'energy' in fertilizer, farm equipment, and transit fuel, as well as processing cost. algae needs water, which means in general it can be grown near aquifers, that means it can be shipped over water from growing to processing plants. this drops costs incredibly, because fuel per tonnage is so low over aquatic lanes.

Right -- Phosphate free soaps have been on the market for environmentally minded people for years: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/03/ask_treehugger_whats_the_dirt_on_phosphate-free_soaps.php

The City of Chicago even banned (but can't enforce) phosphates in soap since the 70's: http://whoshomewithyourkids.blogspot.com/2007/07/dish-washing-detergents.html

Planktos went under, but didn't Climos take it's place?

Iron seeding. Generates algae blooms and feeds the fish and sucks down carbon.

Planktos went under, but didn't Climos take it's place?

Iron seeding. Generates algae blooms and feeds the fish and sucks down carbon.

well, how about a luxim plasma light? http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/04/luxim-plasma-lifi-light-bulb-led-cfl.php

considering that you could potentially replace streetlights with those bulbs, and they're the 2nd most energy efficient form of lighting that has produced at least a working example... nano crystal coated LEDs (the nano crystal coating is expensive though) are the theoretical #1, if only we had vast factories in space to produce the stuff for a mass market...

there is a shocking amount of research about lighting, what i like about this approach, is that it can theoretically be mass produced and here on earth. if only a few problems are solved first.. but researchers are predicting a 2 year turnaround until these silicon wafer LEDs are practical. so at least, we don't have long to wait to see if it catches on and if it does how much the price will be.

Luxim Plasma

Ok.. Answering my own post. Found this: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/05/solar_hybrid_ca.php It's time the industry starts making this as a serious option.

T. Boone is using the wind power scheme so he can pump the fossil water out of the Ogallala Aquifer. The easements will allow him to run pipelines as well as power lines. He gets 10 points for wanting to develop renewable wind energy. He gets minus 100 points for wanting to pump out essentially a non-renewable water resource.

Pickens may not be quite the renewable resource hero he'd like everyone to think he is. Anyone following this needs to understand the linkage between Pickens' interest in wind power and the water pipeline he'd like to build in Texas.

Pickens has long pumped water from the Ogallala Aquifer through his company Mesa Water, but has recently formed an itsy-bitsy eight acre water district (populated not coincidentally by people firmly in Pickensâ(TM) pocket) which will finance the construction of a $2.2 billion water pipeline running into the the Dallas-Ft Worth metro area from the Panhandle. Electric transmission will run above this.

Up until last year this wouldnâ(TM)t have been possible under Texas law, but during the last session of the state legislature a new law was passed which allows renewable and clean-coal energy projects to obtain public rights of way by piggybacking on a fresh water districtâ(TM)s ability to claim land for water pipelinesâ"by eminent domain if necessary. A water transmission pipeline can be built underground and the transmission lines can run above it.

Basically I think that T. Boone is on the right track but there may be more to the story and it isn't just PR for the oil industry (Pickens is an independent oil man; probably doesn't care a whit for the image of big oil as long as they buy the crude he produces). Matthew McDermott at treehugger.com has linked the Pickens' wind strategy to another company that Pickens has in north Texas. It involves using right of way for green power transmission and a new law passed by the TX legislature. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/06/water-not-wind-behind-tboone-transmission.php

I don't know if this is all it seems to be but: Free paper hangers.

Again, I know nothing about it, or the business really. So it may be completely wrong for what your needs are.

News feeds:

IE Blog - for keeping track of what MS is up to on the browser front
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/atom.xml

Standards Blog - not as many posts now days, was very important during the height of the ooxml/odf war
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/backend/geeklog.rss

I keep OSNews for completeness, but it is pretty useless - software news
http://osnews.com/files/recent.xml

Anandtech - hardware news and reviews
http://www.anandtech.com/rss/articlefeed.aspx

Ars Technica - tech news and commentary
http://arstechnica.com/index.rssx

Phoronix - linux graphics news and info
http://www.phoronix.com/rss.php

Linux Weekly News
http://lwn.net/headlines/rss

KDE announcements
http://www.kde.org/dotkdeorg.rdf

Open Source Software Planets:

http://planet.debian.org/rss20.xml

http://planet.fedoraproject.org/atom.xml

http://planet.ubuntu.com/rss20.xml

http://planet.gnome.org/atom.xml

http://planetkde.org/rss20.xml

http://planet.freedesktop.org/rss20.xml

http://planet.mozilla.org/atom.xml

http://planet.jabber.org/atom.xml

mostly software releases and XEP updates
http://planet.jabber.org/news/atom.xml

http://maemo.org/news/planet-maemo/atom.xml

environment feeds:

Good Pacific Northwest environmental news
http://www.sightline.org/daily_score/rss

Best environmental news and discussion on the web
http://www.worldchanging.com/index.xml

I keep Treehugger for completeness, but I mark 90% of their posts as read without looking at them.
Really too "light green/consumer green" for me
http://www.treehugger.com/index.xml

other feeds:

Dive into Mark - not what once was, but good enough to keep around
http://diveintomark.org/feed/

Loooong posts on software
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Bruce Scheier knows Alice and Bob's shared secret
http://www.schneier.com/blog/index.rdf

The intersection of Science (especially Evolution), Liberalism, Atheism, and Squid
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/index.xml

"Your comment has too few characters per line" - what a load of bull. Taco, I know this and the timer are supposed to cut down on spam, but I think they annoy legitimate posters more than they reduce spam. You should really reconsider these "features".

point exactly. sophistication is needed to enrich nuclear materials.

Which was actually my point. You suggested that it was "easy" for individuals or militant groups to obtain nuclear weaponry. Yet they can't do it without a heavy industrial base to create Uranium and/or reactors. In the grand scheme of things, it's a lot easier to enrich uranium than it is to make an implosion bomb. (If any of the aspects of construction are off by even the slightest bit, the bomb will NOT fission.)

P.S. 10 PPM of uranium in coal is hardly "loaded"

It's more than enough. Any more and it would Uranium, not coal. :-P

There is 350% more roof top space on buildings alone than is needed to supply all US electricity given current technology.

You need to provide cites for this and the other statements you made. Because I can tell you right now that your figures are WAY off. At best they sound like back of the envelope calculations that rely on best-cases and ignore the realities of real-world solar and wind usage. At worst, they sound simply made up.

Think of it this way: If there is 350% more rooftop space than necessary to power the power entire infrastructure, then there is enough power in an ideal situation for a single home to convert. What is the ideal situation? A single-story family home with a roof. That home must be capable of generating at least 350% of the home's energy needs to meet your figures. Once you factor in tall structures like skyscrapers, family homes will need to generate far in excess of 350% in order to make up the difference of the non-power producing surfaces of these buildings.

Running features like computers, monitors, TVs, heaters, air conditioners, stoves, refrigerators, and lights can easily place the average home's power requirements in the area of dozens of kilowatts. Some back of the envelope calculations might suggest that it's possible to power a home using solar panels on the roof (e.g. an 80x16 ft manufactured home would have a theoretical output of 61kW using the "new" 40% efficient solar panels), but those calculations ignore a great number of problems with solar power.

For one, roofs aren't flat. You will get different power outputs at different points of the roof at different times of day. Secondly, the light fall on the earth (1.3kW/m^2) is significantly reduced by atmospheric reflection and is thus not consistent in all locations. Areas along the equator will receive a greater amount of light energy than areas in the United States. Thirdly, solar panels are high maintenance. Unless they are kept 100% clean at all times, the power generation will drop significantly from the time of install. Fourthly, any obstruction (shadow from a tree, leaves blowing, birds, clouds, etc.) will reduce the power generated. Fifthly, power generation is significantly impacted by seasons where the Earth's distance from the sun impacts the amount of solar radiation we receive. Finally, we have such a thing as nightfall. Unless you have a method of easily storing terajoules of energy for when power production drops off, you can forget about Solar being the primary driver of the electrical grid.

Wind has even more problems that I won't go into as I've already used up way too much space.

Cite sources for your information. Otherwise it's as good as made up.

And? The point was reactor grade plutonium can be, and has been, successfully used in nuclear weapons.

No, the point was that you claimed nuclear materials other than Uranium and Plutonium have been used. Now you're doing an about-face. Which is it?

No, the whole point is the only thing complicated is making the material, and simple weapon, is VERY easy.

That was never a que

"Gas prices dropping below $1.00 a gallon here during that time frame probably didn't help but I would at least think that GM would have liked to have sold those cars rather than destroy them if they did not have some other incentive not to."

GM destroyed them for a number of reasons... tax benefits as a write-off for one, and GM was advised that there were some extra liability issues because of the battery technology. Also, they were a nightmare to service. While GM could have required buyers to sign waivers of non-liability for safety and maintenance, it's likely that it wouldn't have stood up in court. When you take into account the fact that GM lost 2 billion dollars on the project, they just decided to cut their losses and scrap them.

There's a pretty good account of all the EV1's problems here. Apparently, working on the battery could be very dangerous, which explains the liability concerns.

I actually think Geothermal will be the only dependable energy source over the long haul, but we need to work out a few bugs first.

Electric powered cars will lower oil dependence for a bit, but since so many other products are made from oil it will continue to be an important resource regardless of whether people burn it or not.

In fact we depend on plastics so much now, that in my mind burning it as fuel makes as much sense as burning the food supply for fuel.

"And what, it's your belief that technology is only going to slow down from here?"

I've heard that some people believe the price of gasoline will go up around a dollar every year because of the post peak problem. if energy prices do go up, then technology, which depends on energy, and the availability of cheap energy will slow down. it takes a lot of money to 'research' new technologies, using technology already researched is cheap. for an example, consider modern CPU pricing, multi-core designed processors have allowed cpu vendors to rely on the same basic die technology for their cores, even while following moore's law. this is why a high end quad core costs only $400 while long ago far away in the past a 'brand spanking new' 1 ghz chip cost over $1,200. designing new chips has been hit or miss, the itanium is a perfect example of how redesigning something, doesn't always create a viable product.

the point being, if energy prices go up and up, people will have less disposable income, making technology higher and higher risk. making existing technology work better will always be cheaper and safer, than designing new technology.

to keep energy costs lower(and thus keep technology moving at a rapid pace), there are 3 solutions i can think of, off hand.

1. Under Sea Drilling platforms off both arctic and antarctic coasts (under sea so they don't break when the ice forms every winter) the cons are, that nobody (that i know of) has a working undersea drilling platform that is practical. you could go with a telescoping design only producing oil in summer months, or have undersea pipelines to beyond the icy region where tankers can fill up so the 'undersea platforms' can produce year round, underneath the sea.. and possibly a few ideas i haven't though of, the problem with this is it's still dependence on fossil fuels, and putting more co2 into the environment is the last thing we need to be doing.

2. bio-fuels could start taking up the slack, this is really only feasible if large scale bio-fuel from algae is started, and so far at least one texas energy company is starting a major bio-fuel from algae product cycle. How that company does, might drastically change the face of bio-fuel as an alternative to fossil fuels, if they're successful and profitable.

3. use less energy. it's simple, just push aside the American car safety standards, so vehicles can be lighter, and use cheaper engines, and mandate fuel efficiency. sure, a lighter car is a death trap if you hit a big truck, or a heavy car, but if all the cars on the road have to meet higher fuel economy targets (like they have to in japan and china) then they're only more dangerous when hitting old 'legacy' vehicles.

you can easily design an ultralight car that would get well over 120 mpg(without being a hybrid) these guys did. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/10/loremo_lives_su.php

i don't know how the car does for safety, in crashes. in general, concept cars that get over 120 mpg tend to be labeled as 'death traps' in a crash with conventional cars, and some use expensive technology that will never scale to the mass market.

cars aren't the only place where we can save energy, but they are a big one, if we'd just say cars can be a lot lighter, even if they're not as safe, just to get better fuel economy. when i owned cars i owned the kind that would have been fatal in any highway collision, yet the type of car accidents i did have, were generally ones involving only me, with 3 exceptions (1 was completely not my fault) and the 3 i did have were at city speeds, not highway.

the point is we could stop the rise in gasoline prices, just by pushing fuel economy.

WTF. Defensive body language? What are you, a behavioral psychologist and a whiney mac fanboy? Can you whistle Beethoven's 5th with your nose as well?

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/04/stateoftheart_m.php

So if this is an improvement up to 40%, then it is FAIL. If it can be applied to the existing 40% cells to make them even more efficient then Solar power is about to take off in a big way.

I thought this article would be more on the lines of a giant hybrid, maybe a modification of this: 400 hp Hybrid mini Cooper Most of that tech was on my father's truck years ago; onboard logs, gps tracking, etc.

But Indians don't count as humans as much as Americans do. (Apparently. I think that's awful, and I'm going to hit submit before ranting about it.)

Those poor birds.

Chirp. Chirp. Chirp. WHACK!

Birds were killed by older wind turbines, which spun fast. New designs have them spinning slowly, so they don't kill a lot of birds.

Of course, CFL bulbs are not without a down-side, namely the mercury in side. Power companies are also stepping up to recycle those, but I bet most end up in the trash.

The mercury "downside" is usually overblown. When compared with the amount of mercury (or any other toxin) that would be released into the environment due to a standard incandescent's power requirements, the CFL actually comes out ahead. And for older folks, the mercury amount is magnitudes less than the amount in the old thermostats and thermometers. Did you call Hazmat when you broke a thermometer? I doubt it, even though we all knew about mercury poisoning.

Ask TreeHugger: Is Mercury from a Broken CFL Dangerous?
Urban Legends Reference Pages: CFL Mercury Light Bulbs
Why Use CFLs? Environment

Do handle light bulbs with care. However, clean-up procedures are fairly simple if one breaks. And bring old bulbs to a recycle center.

Also, don't forget to recycle all your appliances, electronics, and batteries. The chemicals and elements contained in those are just as hazardous to your health and to the environment, if not more so. The places that take these items also take the CFL bulbs.

Just a little?

Microsoft's new storage solution was put to good use.

The larger the area you intend to cover, the taller your central tower needs to be. Obviously, there are some scalibility issues here.

Kind of like how the larger the area you intend to cover for wind power, the larger your wind turbine needs to be? :)

Take a look at one (of several) of the 100MW plants going in in California.

• They kill sea turtles and other wildlife.
• They can spread malaria, and have been banned due to this in Uganda
    and other African countries.
• They are very unsightly.
• They require people to clean them up.

• They kill sea turtles and other wildlife.
• They can spread malaria, and have been banned due to this in Uganda and other African countries.
• They are very unsightly.
• They require people to clean them up.

Actually they're trying. I remembered reading about the rooftop gardens they were implementing a few years ago. I didn't realize at the time that they were for the olympics, but I googled and found a few articles about them.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7911618/
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/01/beijing_to_plan.php

You mean like this?

Or maybe you wanted a 150 MPG, 5 passenger car.

But then, manufacturers don't always want to sell efficient cars.

The Opel Eco Speedster can already do this:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/02/the-opel-eco-speedster.php

just increase the storage space and you have a winner!

I dream of a city of the future. Big forward thinking tech companies find some land at some highway crossing somewhere, invest in offices and infrastructure:

• green buildings
• pleasant new-urban architecture and space-planning
• zip-car-like service for out of city travel
• agrarian roofs
• underground transit system for deliveries
• pebble-bed reactors for power, or:
• divert small portions of a large local river to a series of graded undeground vortex turbines as needed for provisional power, combined with solar and wind. A mid-western location would be best, as it provides for both small-unit-scalable hydro and wind
• prohibit fossil fuels for transportation within the city by providing suitable zip-car-like service for electric cars within the city limits, and hybrid cars for out-of-city travel; efficient public transportation system; efficient underground delivery-on-rails for freight
• utilize cradle-to-cradle philosophy where possible

What you end up with is:

A beautiful, livable AND dense city for technology-oriented companies to open offices in. Optimal outdoor space use generates congregating areas that people actually want to go to. Easy to use and clean (in terms of power) public transportation with private transportation for those who want it; sustainable agrarian supply of perishables - imagine buying groceries from the corner store and having them be delivered from forty feet away instead of a thousand miles..

It would probably never happen, but who knows :) I wouldn't live there until a suitable artistic / musician culture blossomed...

Another article: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/08/cubas_organic_r.php

The other thing that is no explained is the seemingly sudden appearance of certain species which is why there are so many missing links.

Another things is that no one has explained species wide mutation for example turning off of the enzyme that produces vitamin C.

In Infinite Play the Movie http://www.infiniteplaythemovie.com/ they claim that viruses are a way the one member of a species propagates a change to other members of the species. They also claim that DNA is software programmed by something intelligent. But not some personalized God.

A lot of people don't know that 40,000 years there were only 1,000 members of our species based on mitochondrial DNA. The standard theory of evolution is destroyed by a very white beetle, correlation The Beetles White album. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/01/beetle_biomimic.php The Cyphochilus beetle has a highly unusual brilliant white shell. New research by the University of Exeter and Imerys Minerals Ltd. and published in journal Science (19 January), reveals the secret to this beetle's bizarre appearance. The Cyphochilus beetle has evolved its brilliant whiteness using a unique surface structure. At one 200th of a millimetre thick, its scales are ten times thinner than a human hair. Industrial mineral coatings, such as those used on high quality paper, plastics and in some paints, would need to be twice as thick to be as white. According to ISO accredited measurements for whiteness and brightness, the beetle is much whiter and brighter than milk and the average human tooth, which are both considerably thicker. 'This kind of brilliant whiteness from such a thin sample is rare in nature. As soon as I saw it, every instinct told me that the beetle was something very special,' said Dr Pete Vukusic of the University of Exeter's School of Physics. 'In future, the paper we write on, the colour of our teeth and even the efficiency of the rapidly emerging new generation of white light sources will be significantly improved if technology can take and apply the design ideas we learn from this beetle.' Colour in both nature and technology can be produced by pigmentation or by very regularly arranged layers or structures. Whiteness, however, is created through a random structure, which produces 'scattering' of all colours simultaneously. Using electron microscope imaging, Dr Vukusic studied the beetle's body, head and legs and found them to be covered in long flat scales, which have highly random internal 3D structures. These irregular internal forms are the key to its uniquely effective light scattering. By balancing the size of the structures with the spacing between them, they scatter white light far more efficiently than the fibres in white paper or the enamel on teeth.

...just like my watch!

...and it's called diesel. However, we have politicians too stupid to see that diesel powered vehicles can get the gas mileage consumers demand while burning cleaner than gasoline combustion engines can like environmentalists want. Stupid states like California and Massachusetts outright ban these vehicles for new car sales. If diesel is so awful, I saw no evidence of that on a recent trip to Paris where diesel cars are everywhere. Diesel also offers a path to biodiesel through conversion kits which could ultimately smooth the transition to a renewable energy source that a)helps the U.S. economy and b)helps lower carbon emissions dramatically.

There is apparently a bridge in Fukui which does just this.

Sorry for that link to Treehugger, they are a black hole of links and I would not normally link, but they had the best English language article I could find in 3 seconds of googling.

CFLs aren't the solution. They're full of mercury, which is highly toxic for the environment. The solution is LEDs, but they're not quite ready to replace 100w light bulbs. 2012 is way too soon for LEDs as powerful and inexpensive as 100w bulbs. Give it until 2020.

Besides, do we really need legislation? Walmart already aimed to sell 100 million CFLs for 2007 and forced manufactures to reduce mecury in CFLs, all without legislation.

Now, solar energy comes 'for free', but fertilizers, pesticides, harvesting and processing don't. As it stands, we can't feed the 6 billion people on this planet without chemical fertilizers. Furthermore, production of biofuels competes with food production. George Monbiot was one of the first people to write about this, and we can see effects in the rising price of food staples such as tortillas and pasta.