Next-generation biofuels are viewed often as a transportation fuel panacea. A magic elixir that will wean the U s. off of foreign oil without sending the economy into the dark ages.
We ve seen the strongest movements around transportation. The Portland region--Cumberland County â has one of the highest rates of single-occupancy vehicle use.
So there s a movement to get the region to grow its public transit network. In 2008 there was part of a study the Department of transportation did to widen 295 through the peninsula,
which borders on downtown. There was a lot of protest against that. Eventually that activism led to a conversation that turned into the expansion of the Downeaster Amtrak service from Portland to Brunswick.
We got some stimulus funds to upgrade the rail. The activism we saw from the public was critical in that movement.
They plan to try building a two-compartment cell, with a cathode on one side and an anode on the other--to collect the hydrogen, Discovery News reported.
a  trade show in Buenos aires. Module at Expo Logistik-a show Designing modular and disaster relief housing is very trendy these days, especially in the wake of Katrina and the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti.
and easy to transport, says Alter, 35. Half-folded military module So, the friends thought,
what if you designed modular boxes with a hinge halfway up the wall, so they could be collapsed like accordions and stacked on the back of a pickup truck?
The materials and construction of the Modularflex modules is fairly standard. As is common in other modular units
Modularflex's modules are made of insulated thermal panels much like the walls of a supermarket cold storage room.
the basic module comes with electrical wiring and LED lighting. But the folding nature of the modules makes them unique,
says Don Carlson, who has owned the industry trade journal Automated Builder Magazine since 1974. Because the units are foldable, the 1,
000-pound modules can be put into place with a forklift instead of a crane. Then, by pushing
or three people can have a module up in under half an hour. I've never heard of any unit you could build that quick
Transportation is done with trucks, which has high financial and ecological costs. What's different about us,
Each truck moved one container and cost the company 20,000 pesos (about $4, 000), for a total transport bill of 200,000 pesos.
A basic 80-square-foot Modularflex module costs 38,000 pesos (about $7, 600 at the current exchange rate
and focuses sunshine via cone-shaped modules capped by the world's first optical concentrating lenses that are 100-percent glass (the lenses usually contain acrylic).
New research may bring solar thermal flat panels home Italy's road of solar power Abengoa Solar gets $145 billion for Arizona plant Hawaii says'aloha'to hybrid power plant Images:
Lamborghini SUV supercar may be a game-changerone good way of getting a better understanding of the kind of world we live in now is to take a look at the Lamborghini Urus, a SUV supercar concept vehicle unveiled yesterday at the Beijing Auto Show.
Super limousine is the world's fastest Superbus hopes to turbocharge mass transit Supertruck big rig design doubles fuel efficiency More game-changing car tech:
New electric car may signal the end of the road for gas guzzlers
Laser-etched'tattoos'an alternative to sticker labels on fruityou'd think there would be a better way to label
It's not much different than sharing vehicles or other assets within the built environment
The craft has received recently endorsements from authorities of both road and sky, meaning that the classic retrofuturistic dream of a dual-mode flying car is well within grasp.
Last June, the vehicle received a license plate from the Florida Department of transportation. This means what it sounds like it means:
that the Maverick Sport is a street-legal, air-legal vehicle. So, how'd the Indigenous Peoples Technology and Education Center (I-TEC) guide their creation through the narrow, winding halls of state and federal transportation institutions?
Quite cleverly: Rather than seek Federal Highway Administration certification for their vehicle â a process that requires boatloads of money for crash tests,
among other things â they've designed it as a kit car. These can be licensed in most states...
As for the hardware, it's a lithe, 900lb vehicle reminiscent of a dune buggy. Its creators say that it can accelerate from 0-60 in under four seconds,
but to solve practical transportation problems in the developing world. From CNN: What we're doing here at
Referring to the recent report Livestock s long shadow he argued that animal (livestock) production is a bigger contributor to climate change than all of transport.
Toymaker turns to bamboo for material and inspiration In Mexico city,'bamboocycles'make two-wheeled transport trendy California company offers sustainable packaging for meat,
But about a week ago, a new review in The british Medical Journal contradicts this guidance,
Why it matters The federal government has mandated that 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel be blended into transportation fuel by 2022.
Road transportation a'key driver'of global warminganalyzing impact by economic sector rather than chemical species, NASA scientists have determined that motor vehicles are the greatest contributor to atmospheric warming, now and in the near term.
on-road transportation is both low-hanging fruit and the most impactful change to implement.
By 2050, the study's authors suggest that electric power generation will overtake road transportation as the biggest promoter of warming.
Materials Packaging Product Manufacturing and Assembly Transportation and Distribution Use and Service End of Life There really isn't any timing yet as far as
a material taken from old vehicle tires
New irrigation system helps farmers conserve waterthe world is getting undeniably thirstier. Recent studies project that water demand in many countries will exceed supply by 40 percent by the year 2030.
Produce carriers could make decisions accordingly and decide which products to offer at a discounted value.
Meanwhile,  less than one-tenth of 1 percent of renewable fuels produced next year will come  from cellulosic ethanol-- the transportation fuel panacea expected to wean the U s. off of foreign oil
I had this vision of the superhighways, the freeways,  commingling  with trees, Davidson recently told Elissa Curtis of  The New yorker:
Ikea jumps out of the pallet pool Wooden pallets are starting to lose their longstanding reign over the transport world.
in order to reduce its transportation costs, since the pallets are lighter than their wooden counterparts. But because they're just as strong (holding up to 1
But by developing a depot system that makes the costs of returning insulated boxes competitive with onetime-use,
and road and sewer maintenance is sluggish, the non-cosmetic benefits of trees should be taken seriously:
There are young architects here looking to tear up roads and revive ancient rivers. There are young women teaching old women how to plant tomatoes in the grass between high rises;
promote lower-emissions vehicles, and improve public transportation. These vertical gardens may not be able to continue to improve Mexico city's air quality all by themselves,
but they do serve as a pleasant symbol of the city's pursuit of sustainability.
 We want denser, more pedestrian-friendly, transit-oriented development. We had a market research firm do market demand analysis for us.
and customers arriving by transit. We think it makes sense to build more housing along the corridor,
and install electric-vehicle charging stations in public parking ramps and on city streets, and working with the Department of Public works to develop a  Complete Streets manual to design streets to serve multiple modes of transportation:
cars and trucks, public transit, pedestrians and bicyclists. Make sure to come back tomorrow for the final edition of our four-part series:
Baltimore, Md. Illustration: City of St paul Planning Department More from the Built Environment issue: Restoring Honor Rethinking the row home The future of LEED The buildings are alive Video:
The original Rubbersidewalk, made from used vehicle tires; Terrewalk, a second-generation version which uses a less energy-consumptive manufacturing process,
Our systems require fewer people than needed for conventional sidewalks â Â fewer skilled crew, less traffic control, zero waiting time,
They are working on things like better batteries to replace oil used in transportation. And they are doing natural gas research.
Leavell and co-author J. Marshall Craig address topics including transportation, home building, alternative energy, renovation of our iconic buildings, community design and model growth. â Å With the incredible
We have 3 million miles of paved roads and 1. 4 million miles unpaved roads;
we have some 62 million vehicles driving on those roads; we have 276 cities with over 100,000 in population;
flying vehicle usebees are known to have great vision and now scientists have created a system that mimics
The system could be applied to flying vehicles like drones and robots. The lightweight imaging system, detailed in the Bioinspiration & Biometrics journal, features an artificial bee eye with a camera that aims to recreate an insect's processing and navigation skills.
Researchers at Bielefeld University in Germany created the eyes. According to the article, the artificial eye consists of a lightweight mirror lens attached to a USB video camera.
It is suited also well for mobile robots, in particular on flying vehicles that need lightweight sensors
the government keeps kicking the can down the road, refusing to publicly release its findings,
Ton packs by the side of the road. Nathalie-Kyoko Stucky
Scotts Miracle-Gro, U s. mayors partner for more urban green spacegreen spaces have enormous benefits for cities:
Shoppers buy real Xmas trees to save doughhome Depot and Lowe's are reportedly stocking fewer fake Christmas trees this year as consumers look to save money.
Artificial trees At home Depot are $79. 97 to $269; cut trees are $9. 97 to $100.
Farmedhere employs local workers to reduce transport requirements. Local youths in the Windy city Harvest urban agricultural training program also get the opportunity to work on the farm.
These modules will be melded with other software to form what the team call a"Green Brain,
Transportation The industrial world addiction to cars is costly and will become more so. The U s. uses roughly 21 million barrels of oil per day.
The Texas Transportation Institute has found that in the United states alone 2. 3 billion gallons of gas is wasted each year in traffic jams.
Globally, the number of vehicles on the world roads will grow from 800 million now to 1. 1 billion in the next 15 years.
Public transportation is cited often as a cure for oil addiction. In the United states, rise of disabled elderly Americans will strain public transportation systems.
Futurist Fixes 1. Non Human (Robotic) Transportation: The same drone technology that the U s. military is using in Afghanistan could be put to use in the United states to transport goods between locations safer and faster than human drivers.
This could potentially free up roadways for humans as robot drivers could take a different route,
The U s. military hopes to soon use drones for cargo transportation and refueling. This is certainly a realistic hope according to Missy Cummings, director of the Humans and Automation Lab at MIT.
Cummings reports that oeseveral U s. government agencies are seriously considering how to use unmanned vehicles in first strike or initial invasion settings.
In the unmanned vehicle invasion scenario, oethe UAVS do the initial strike; we send in robots on the beach
With support from Shell and inspiration from air-powered car concepts in Europe, the project aimed to develop a compressed air engine that would power a vehicle:
and even Star trek-like transporters. In quantum mechanics, a particle, such as an electron circling the nucleus of an atom,
With sections focusing on food, water, shelter, health and sanitation, energy and transportation, and education, oedesign for the Other 90%focused on problem solving for the vast majority of the world people who survive under the poverty level
research director of the clean vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.""There are a lot of people diving into this right now,
"Still, consumers will need some way of getting that fuel into their vehicle. Less than 1 percent of the nation's 170,000 gas stations sell E85, said Mike Omotoso, senior manager of the global power train group at J. D. Power & Associates."
IFPRI researchers found areas with highly dense roads also had a lower rate of land degradation and deforestation."
and in such areas, the roads were not affecting deforestation as we would expect.""Degradation of forests
Low-cost sensors, clever software and advancing computer firepower are opening the door to new uses in energy conservation, transportation, health care and food distribution.
but provides a suite of technologies to meet a variety of farming needs like forage harvesting vehicles, automated feeding systems,
but Australia lack of control of the transport and slaughter process after the animals have arrived at their destination port.
either a heavy, ungainly contraption put out by a cash register manufacturer or the special sled-equipped ipod Touches at the Apple Store.
to be replaced with the ipod Touch-based mobile terminals. Nordstrom Rack is hardly alone; it's following an industry trend of dumping the aisles of cash registers seen in stores for decades.
I suspect many small stores will keep their counters but dump the large cash register in favor of the mobile payment terminal,
The use of a sled around the ipod Touch means that the clerks can swipe credit
a merchant need just replace the sled with a new one that supports the technology--much cheaper than replacing today's point-of-sales terminals.
Instead, it has a QRC sticker the clerk scanned to tell his mobile terminal what printer to send the receipt to over the network.
closer to their workforce and rapid transit. oethis trend will not mean an overall decline in office demand,
¢Accessible by foot, bicycle or mass transit;¢¢Built to harvest all of the water and energy from the site;¢
accounting for more than the entire transport sector, and it is also one of the sectors most at risk from climate change,
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