Matchmaking, Better Place and the Mileage Fee

June 21, 2009

Here's a little marriage that wants to be arranged: the Mileage Fee and Better Place's software platform.

The Mileage Fee offers a unique opportunity to put the traffic jam on a diet, and it is gaining traction as a way to deal with dissappearing gas tax revenues as people drive less, drive more fuel efficient cars, or eventually drive cars that don't use gas at all (read the preceding link commentary to feel the gaining traction part). To be deployed broadly, however, the mileage fee needs GPS systems to be manufactured into new vehicles.

Dawn of the New Energy Order

October 26, 2008

How will America change the way it uses energy? Last month we offered a draft speech that would let the new US President to tell us how. Here's the speech updated with the most excellent insights of our readers.

Wright Brothers Cleantech Redux - the ElectraFlyer

August 07, 2008

First lift off at Kitty Hawk was 1903 and within a few years the Wright Flyer could take to the air, and remain in flight with less drama. One hundred years later, a very lightweight plane from the Electric Aircraft Corporation called the ElectroFlyer-C is making some remarkable achievements of its own. Most notably, featuring an 80 pound, 5.6 kWh lithium polymer battery, this all electric plane:

• Cruises at 70 miles per hour
• Has a top speed of 90 mph
• Goes 90 to 120 minutes on a charge
• Recharges in 6 hours from a 110V outlet and in 2 hours with a 220V source

It may seem like an infinitely long path before passenger and transport planes can go electric, but remember what the original Wright Flyer looked like, and how fast we progressed to the planes of WWI, WWII, jets, etc. The electric planes of 2008 are light years ahead of where the Wrights were with gas power in 1908, so I wouldn't count electric planes out just because the first prototypes can't go head-to-head with the F-35 ... or 787.

Also:  be on the lookout for an all electric planes from another Wisconsin company: Sonex
Aircraft LLC and others. One thing we can say with confidence, however. For the next few years, no fat pilots need apply!

Photo courtesy of the Electric Aircraft Corporation

$4 Gas Brings at Least 10 Good Things

July 15, 2008

Amanda Ripley and Maya Curry, writing for Time Magazine, recently collected 10 adaptations (with sometimes-unintended benefits) Americans are making to maximize their efficiency or salvage their lives with gasoline now over $4. Some are technological in original (like accelerating improvements in electric lawn mowers, new bikes, scooters, hybrids, etc.). Others are related to work and work flow adjustments (like working fewer but longer days, less reliance on transportation-heavy outsourcing, more police on foot patrol vs. in cruisers, etc).

But no matter how you slice it, if your life involves lots of driving to/from work with no public transit options, and you were already on the edge financially, high gas prices are a disaster. Ditto for independent truckers and a slew of other occupations and situations. But this article makes it clear that there is some very desirable upside to gasoline becoming more expensive in America.

Photo courtesy of Gabi @ Flickr / Creative Commons

 

Spanning the Globe

June 07, 2008

The globe continues to shrink, and some of us are trotting the little ball at a torrid pace. Business demands it when your boss is in Europe, your direct reports are in China, and you are in the U.S. (the real world situation of one I know). Thus far, video conferencing has not effectively replaced the good ol' face-to-face meeting. Wikipedia cites these impediments to effective communication and interaction:

• lack of eye contact
• appearance consciousness (the inhibiting effect of being 'on stage')

With travel costs mounting, videoconferencing (or telepresence as it is newly called) could become more prevalent as a sensible substitute. Especially if its negatives can be overcome.

Travel is expensive. If a group of four travel business class twice a month at $8,000 per trip each, this racks up an eye-popping $768,000 annual travel budget. Add the intangibles:  loss of production while getting from place to place, the circadian rhythm and blues, diet and exercise challenges and the attendant effect on health, employee attrition...you start to see a staggering cost to trot the globe.

Cisco's leading edge videoconferencing system is the Telepresence 1000 at about $60,000 a copy (see this video: Download next_steps_in_global_business_cisco_telepresence_system_1000_cisco_systems.flv ).  If it cost $100,000 to put the system in place, and you needed three setups for four travelers, the teleconferencing installation could be funded by halving the travel of one team in one year. 

Heck, at this price differential, you could put the system in the employee's home, let them roll out of bed at 6 am for the 1 pm meeting in Budapest, go run, turn the wash, and eat a healthy breakfast before getting back to a satisfying day's work and a restoring night's rest in their own bed.

Photo:  Atila Bezdan