The Grass is "Greener"

Tesla Model S

Tesla just announced its (planned to be) world’s first mass-produced, highway-capable fully electric family Sedan.

The design is great.

And the specs even more so:

• 300 Mile range
• Only 45min for full charge (which BTW costs only $4 for a full tank)
• 0-60mph in 5.6 seconds
• 17 Inch, Touch screen TV, with in-car 3G connectivity (so you can use apps such as Pandora, Google Maps, etc)

 

Does any one need any more convincing?!

You can place an order on their website here.

 

But just before you do... take note of two caveats:  

1. $50,000 base price. I guess that with the minimal options it would come closer to $60,000 or more...

2. Deliveries start in 2011. So unless you work on Sand Hill Road and have invested in the company, prepare to wait. (consider that Tesla has delivered 300 of its Roadsters to date with nearly 1,000 more customers still on the waiting list)

 

So...

I decided to pass on the car, and just buy the T-Shirt.

But they are out of stock...

 

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: Tesla,Model S,electric Car

A link between UFOs and renewable energy?...

I found this one quite amusing... Are extraterritorial  beings drawn to renewable energy as well?

 

 

Technorati Tags: Wind energy,UFO

Green Kites

Here's one of the more awe inspiring developments in renewable energy that I've seen - Super Kites for harnessing wind energy:

Its exciting because this is a totally new way of thinking about wind energy production. It even seems a bit science fiction. If successful in scaling and achieving performance, it would present a real paradigm shift.

In many ways this reminds me of the shift from sails into steam engines for propelling ships (a case in which the further addition of sales did not provide sufficient power gains). Ironically, here the shift is moving in the opposite direction: Back from a rotating blade design and into a sail / wing design.

 

But back to reality... Achieving such solution will take many years, and significant funding to get to commercial scale.

As with many of the early stage, disruptive innovations in the energy space, this is a good example of the many hurdles a project must overcome, as it moves from the drawing board, to a pilot system, and through to a commercial grade system. These include proving the technology works, its performance, the full system reliability (across various conditions and time periods), the lifetime system costs (including ongoing operations and maintenance which seem high in this case), etc...  Even once all these are achieved, there is still the challenge of finding appropriate locations, permitting, accessing grid transmission (a huge problem, which I'll try to touch on separately), air space permits (beware low flying planes), and so on.

Not an easy task - but if you're going to change a paradigm - I guess that's what it takes. 

And there's one great thing in going after the wind energy space - The potential is so great that there's room for any successful and economic solution.

 

Technorati Tags: Saul Griffith,super-kite,Wind Energy,TED,Paradigm Shift

Gas Station of the future

With some gas stations around here already selling alternative fuels... this photo might not be too far in our future.

(Source: Wired magazine  creative concept)

 

Seeing this I was reminded of a great scene from "Back to the Future"... (one of my childhood favourites) - back in the 80's this really seemed science fiction to me.

 

Technorati Tags: renewable fuel,back to the future