Or at least that’s the rumour. I’ve read that Prius in 2009 will have the option to upgrade to solar powered A/C.
Toyota has not confirmed or denied these plans, but given the state of the economy, fuel prices and overall green thinking thanks to global warming, you can only assume this will be a home-run.
I have compiled a few sites and tools I have found to be invaluable during my research online. Hopefully you get some use out of them also.
These are just 4 of thousands of sites and tools out there to help you get going. Next I am going to catalogue a bunch of very small changes you can make in your life to make a MAJOR impact. I want to share my day to day ideas on recycling, saving money on gas and electricity and much more.
I was doing a random search today and I ran into a sign that suggested motorists shut off their engine when idling at long rail crossings. I come from farm area and 150 car trains are not uncommon and they do take forever to pass. Sometimes 5-10 minutes. You could save yourself some coin and the air by turning off your engine during planned or unplanned LONG idle periods.
I think we need to begin adopting more ideas like this to place green ideas inside of people’s heads without them thinking about it.
“Yea, so what if I am accelerating way too slow? Don’t bother me, I am hypermiling.”
This is my tone recently, as I begin to notice the gas crunch on myself. My father always said “Fuel and food is part of life, I just put it in and deal with it.” but even he is frustrated with prices not matching inflation.
As a result of the recent spikes in everything in life, I find myself on a diet and hypermiling. This is simply a fuel economy maximizing behavior that people have been doing for years, but only recently has it hit the mainstream media. So what exactly is it?
Using inertia as your ally. Slowly reach optimum cruising speed by shifting at the low end of your gear spectrum and not braking. Braking causes you to need more energy (fuel) to bring you back up to speed. At cruising speed you maximize MPG. This means you need to be more aware of your surroundings. Don’t tailgate. Don’t accelerate too fast. Don’t stop and go.
This behavior leads to better gas milage and in my opinion a better driving experience. Anyone with common sense knows racing to the next light doesn’t get you anywhere any faster and is stressful. For one tank, try hypermiling and ignore the angry drivers around you. See how many more miles you can stretch that tank. You probably will never want to brake again.
The hobby makers of biofuel and the industry members alike are noticing the hard economy along with the gas drivers. Gone are the days of $1 per gallon b100 biodiesel.
What is biodiesel? It’s the biproduct of taking WVO (Waste Vegetable Oil) or SVO (Straight Vegetable Oil) or any other combination of oils and breaking it down to a useable form in a diesel engine. That is the very very skinny of it. If you’re interested in biodiesel I would suggest visiting the BioDiesel and SVO Forums which has an endless number of topics discussing alternative fuel and biodiesel.
The cost of the supplies needed to produce the diesel for the homemakers is becoming insane and they can’t easy aquire the oil needed to make the diesel. Large companies are coming in and buying up the oil from restaurants before they can get to the free sources - or people are stealing the oil.
When a company buys SVO/WVO and produces biofuel, the costs involved force them to raise prices beyond what a home hobbyist would rate the final cost at (between $1.50 - $2 per gallon right now). After searching prices I found a popular bio fuel seller with rates at $5.69 + a required $75 membership to buy the fuel at that rate. Good Guys Biodiesel which to me is out of this world crazy. Sure there are more benefits to using this alternate fuel source such as reducing carbon footprint and smog, but frankly at almost $6 per gallon this sort of defeats the entire purpose of the biodiesel experiment.
Many home makers are now assuming biodisel is now a trend and thus will rise as with other commodities such as gas and diesel. It’s unfortunate that is has come to this point.
Don’t be discouraged though. As a hobby biofuel maker, you can still secure great sources of Waste and Straight vegetable oil and make your own at home. The hardest part is finding a steady source that will allow you to make enough to use on a regular basis. With diesel now at $5+ per gallon, making your own for $2 is NOT a bad thing, it’s just twice as expensive as it was 2 years ago.
