Hippyshopper

Is global cooling the answer to global warming?

Though increasing effort goes into combating the worldwide effects of pollution, will it be enough? And if not, then what? Roger Angel, University of Arizona Regents Professor and the Steward Observatory Mirror Laboratory's director, suggests not interposing a great big sci-fi type mirror between us and the sun, but trillions of tiny "flyers", in a glistering silver shield to break up the sun's rays and disperse them (or better still, in some future generation, absorb that power and turn it into something usable by man). Flyers are transparent sheets 60cm in diameter and vastly thinner than a human hair, each weighing about a gram, which would be launched in a cloud encircling the earth, with a diameter of about 100,000 kilometers. If we start now, and launch one every five minutes, by 2017 it would be entirely in place. Or, Angel says, we could just do a better job of cleaning up the place now. [GT]

Technology Review: Cooling the Planet

More energy saving

Intelliplug makes energy saving easy

Plug your computer into the Intelliplug master socket, and plug your, for example, monitor and printer into the slave sockets. Then when you turn off the computer, the Intelliplug automatically cuts power to the monitor and printer. Recommended by the Energy Saving Trust. £17. [GT]

Intelliplug [via EcoStreet]

More green gadgets

Flisom says thin film solar to wipe out fossil power

New thin film solar, so lightweight and flexible it can be stuck to the side of buildings (or clothing for that matter) is about to sweep the marketplace and provide power at half the cost of the current fossil-fuel generated juice, says Anil Sethi, the chief executive of the Swiss start-up company Flisom.  The thin film will be manufactured in rolls like cellophane tape, and within a decade, hit only 50p per watt - which is the tipping point.  The power is at about £2 per watt now, so it's getting close.  It'll also mean mobiles, mp3 players, etc, will carry their own power-generation sources so those nasty cables will be a thing of the past.  [GT]

Monday view: Cheap solar power poised to undercut oil and gas by half [via Treehugger]

More energy saving

Mean, green washing machines

They can't really talk, but Asda are urging us all to help the environment in 2007 by turning down the temperature on our washing machines. Care instructions on all items of the George clothing range will suggest a 30 degree wash instead of the now outlawed 40, and since I am reliably informed that George clothing is now acceptable even to supermodels, that could account for an awful lot of degrees...

More than you might think, in fact. The amount of power wasted by the UK's 'archaic' washing habits according to a recent study is an almighty 1.6 billion kilowatts, which is enough to power a time machine costs us £200,000 a year, and contributes 25% of the UK's CO2 emissions from homes. So perhaps we should listen to Uncle George after all...

What else can you do to avoid wasteful washing? You might want to get your hands on some of these Eco Balls which offer a greener solution to conventional detergents. But rumour has it they're selling out fast!

Lights out on 1st Feb!

News of a fun and inventive way to raise awareness of global warming has just landed in our inbox, and we'd like to ask readers to join us as we take part in what could turn out to be a very interesting experiment this Thursday...

French environmental group L'Alliance pour la Planète is urging people all over the world to turn out their lights and other electrical gadgets for five minutes at 19:55 (GMT+1hr) on the night of the 1st Feb. The group wants not only to 'give the planet a rest', but to draw attention to the seriousness of energy wastage and climate change. The 'blackout' has been timed to fall on the eve of the release in Paris of the fourth IPCC report on climate change; the most thorough such overview to date.

So spread the word, get your friends involved, have your candles at the ready, and prepare for darkness to reign, if only for a few minutes. And for us big-city dwellers, there's always the hope that we might actually get to see the stars!

One Billion Bulbs asks YOU to save money and power

How would the world change if one billion incandescent bulbs were removed, and replaced with compact fluorescents? One Billion Bulbs says, why sit around wondering - let's do it! Everyone who removes an incand and replaces it with a CF is asked to make note of it at onebillionbulbs.com, where they have a global map showing how much progress has been made. So far, over 9500 bulbs have been registered, primarily in North America, Sweden and Norway. Only 39 bulbs changed in the UK - so pop over to the store, come back, and register! [GT]

One Billion Bulbs

Related stories: Light prototype brights at 10% the power | Swap that hot halogen for a cool GU10 Hi Power LED | Getting the green light: Energy efficient LED bulbs

Solar Powered Monitors not ready for daytime

While we're interested in solar power breaching the computer-centric workplace, we agree with the assessment that the solar powered monitor system seemingly proposed by NEC is goofy. Anybody who has a window in their office is hardly going to want to block it off with a big black solar panel, and anyhow, solar panels can be used to power anything. But perhaps there's something to it that we're just Not Getting. [GT]

Solar-powered monitors not so bright?

Related stories: Apple Patents Hybrid Low Power Computer Mouse | Green tips for computer energy savings | Tameside Council's £30 fine for leaving PCs on

Kitchen renovation the green way

I'm shortly to embark on the horrendous (in England) house-selling-and-buying process. Naturally I'll be looking out for green features but, to be honest, I'm a big fan of Victorian houses so I doubt I'll find much in that regard. My main concern as a foodie, is the kitchen, and I'm likely to end up ripping out any kitchen and replacing it with my own design.

Handily for me, Style Will Save Us Green Guru Penney Poyzer has shared a few thoughts on the eco-renovation of her house along with a decent contact list. It's a short read but interesting nonetheless.

Style Will Save Us: Kitchen Confidential [via Treehugger]

Related stories: eSpares: we keep appliances working | Waterless washing machine | The frugal fridge

Photo credit: The beautiful photo of design classic Frankfurter Küche - Frankfurt kitchen was taken by artemisia_owl and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence

DIY Solar Lighting From Baker Environmental

I was pretty cross this holiday season to not be able to find much for solar fairy lights. It seems Baker Environmental is at least headed in the right direction with their DIY solar lighting systems. Tailored to specific outdoor uses (garages, sheds, stables, car ports) Baker's goal is also to provide this kind of hardware at a modest price to everyone. Their basic kit is £110 (plus about £6 P + P) which gets you set up with a 5W panel, an 8W all-weather bulb, plus all the wirings and whatnots. After that, no more outdoor mains charges for the foreseeable future. Every two hours of sunlight the panel gets gathers enough power to light up for one hour at night, and the battery holds up to sixty hours. If your needs are greater, check out the deluxe kit at £229 (plus about £10 P + P) with two strip lights and a 10W panel. [GT]

Baker Environmental DIY solar panel installations [via Treehugger]

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Barnet Council tries to phase out the bath

Barnet council is consulting its residents about planning rules it's proposing that will encourage builders only to install showers and not to provide baths.

The rules would apply to house extensions and developments of less than 10 homes. Planning committees will look at whether water flows to power showers have been restricted, water meters have been fitted and a water butt installed, but ultimately the council could refuse planning permission to developments that unnecessarily include a bath.

Presumably the subjective term of 'unnecessarily' allows them to wave through things like housing developments for people of restricted mobility. As a new father, however, I might even argue that I need the bath to wash my daughter, since I doubt she would appreciate a shower at her tender age.  (Not that she enjoys baths either.)

No doubt there'll be a lot of hoo-hah made about this proposal (Vanessa Feltz was on the BBC this morning doing her 'outraged' thing, which put me right off my breakfast) but as Hugh Ellis of Friends of the Earth said: "I would hate the whole debate to get focused on baths... We have got some excellent local authorities that have led the way in addressing climate change and London should be very proud of that."

Fines and bath reduction - council level green action [via How to Save the World for Free]

Related stories: Tameside Council's £30 fine for leaving PCs on | Green Building Company's one stop shop for water saving |

Photo credit:  Bathtime Kitty - the plughole mystery by Prozacblues used under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence

Tameside Council's £30 fine for leaving PCs on

Tameside council "is to fine its own departments £30 for every computer left on overnight in a bid to save energy." The council reckons a computer left on all day costs £37 a year to run, £27 more than it would cost if users simply switched if off at nights and at weekends.

When the council left warning stickers on PCs which had been left on overnight in a kind of trial run, the resultant change in behaviour saved £4,000 in one building in three months. Leaving aside the obvious environmental benefits, I'm sure council tax payers will be happy to see that kind of saving.

The council's Labour-run, so naturally the Tory group leader couldn't just praise the initiative, he had to slag it off, claiming that it was "autocratic to treat employees this way".

Just because people are used to leaving an unused computer on all weekend, it doesn't make it an erosion of personal liberty to come up with a way of encouraging them to change their habits. It's not like the employees are being asked to pay the £30 fine out of their own pocket anyway. Councillor John Bell - you are an idiot. 

Fines and bath reduction - council level green action [via How to Save the World for Free]

Related stories: Google spces standards to save power - LOTS of power | Energy saving for your Mac

Photo credit: 4 am PC glow taken from slapjack's Flickr photostream under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs licence.

Magno-Fuel

Magno-Fuel says it will save you petrol and reduce the CO2 emissions from your car. All with the power of magic! Or, more accurately, magnets.

You fix Magno-Fuel to your fuel line using cable ties (provided) and, apparently, oxygen molecules become embedded between the fuel molecules for better combustion.

Has anyone tried one of these? I'd love to know if they work.

Magno-Fuel costs £21.50 from Carbon Neutral.

Related stories: Green car insurance | Fitch Fuel Catalyst

Yay or Nay: Is nuclear power not so bad?

[A] risk/benefit analysis of nuclear power indicates that it is a safer choice than the fossil options that now dominate electricity generation.

In a nutshell, the proposition is that given no large-scale alternatives to current fossil fuel energy generation, the long-term risks posed by nuclear waste are not as serious as the present damage being done.  If fossil fuels burned today result in global climate change in 50 or 100 years, there will be no way to reverse these effects.   So should we switch over to nuclear power today, positing that it will fix today's problems, and stave off tomorrow's to a point where we can figure out what to do about them?  Is that a step toward responsible behaviour, or continuation of a trend of robbing Peter to pay Paul?  Read Nuclear Waste and the Distant Future and also how the IEA Energy agency backs nuclear power and post your responses.  [GT]

Nuclear Waste and the Distant Future | Energy agency backs nuclear power

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[Don't forget to vote at Trashionista, Bridalwave, Corrie Blog, Kiss and Makeup, The Bag Lady, Shoewawa and Shiny Shiny too!]

Getting the green light: Energy efficient LED bulbs

This week, Katie Lee, editor-in-chief of Shiny Shiny, swaps energy guzzling halogen for some long life LED alternatives - but do they really offer a usable alternative?

When I saw Gabrielle's post the other week about GU10 bulbs I headed straight over to the grammatically ambivalent Your Welcome website to make a quick purchase. Until recently I hadn't even heard of these damn GU10 halogen bulbs, and I could have quite happily kept it that way had I known just how evil they are.

It all started when I foolishly bought a light for our bedroom. I'd looked at quite a few lights in our local 2nd hand furniture store, but all of them seemed on the dodgy side (requiring a full service from an electrician and various wire checks). After too long spent dithering and living without a bedside light, I eventually made an impulse purchase on a trip to the hell that is Ikea, picking up a lamp with two movable spot lights and separate flick switches. And boy did I come to regret it.

Evil  bulbs
The lights came with GU10 halogen bulbs. I hadn't really checked what bulbs they took, assuming I would be able to replace whatever was in there with some of my long life screw-in numbers. It was only when I got it home I discovered those idiosyncratic GU10 connectors make swapping to normal bulbs impossible. Not only did I get to feel foolish about that, once I switched them on I also got to feel foolish about the amount of light they churn out.

All I wanted was a couple of gentle bedside lights that would allow a spot of bedtime reading without disturbing my boyfriend (and vice versa). Instead, we were drenched in light, so that even just with one bulb on it almost outshone the main light.

Then there was the heat. I burnt my hand within the first fortnight, reaching up to switch my light off. Just a week later, one of the bulbs blew, obliging me to hand over some ridiculous sum for a replacement. It was about at this time I started to contemplate relegating the lamp to the dustbin (hardly a sustainable way to deal with bad impulse purchases). So these LED bulbs appeared in the nick of time.

And are they any good?
Well, the light is a whole lot less bright, taking us down to around 15 Watts instead of the glaring 40 Watts the halogen bulbs provided. They stay cool, so I'm not longer a burns victim, and they'll last longer and consume less energy, making them both energy and purse efficient. The light is much whiter than halogen light, which won't suit everyone. I quite like it though - it gives the room a moonlit glow, which works well in the evenings. They're not all that bright, and while that's perfect for what I wanted, you may want to look at the brighter alternatives over on the Your Welcome low energy bulb page.

If you use these sorts of halogen bulbs to shine very bright light onto your work or similar, these LED bulbs probably won't live up to your standard. But if you just want a bit of mood lighting that means your partner won't trip over all your stuff when coming in late of an evening, I'd definitely recommend them.

Dryer Balls reduce static, lint, drying time

I'm guessing the way these Dryer Balls work is, by bouncing around they keep the clothes from getting into knots that can't dry properly. (Assuming they do in fact work: post any experience with them in comments, please!) Made by Ecozone, Dryer Balls are supposed to act like dryer sheets (without the incredibly toxic perfume and waste) in that they soften clothes and prevent lint and static, and also apparently reduce drying time by a whopping 25%. Wow! If they really are all that, £7 for two would be a real bargain, considering how much electricity that would save you. But I'd really like some impartial comment. Meanwhile, check related stories for some definite energy saving bargains. [GT]

Dryer Balls

Related stories: Swap that hot halogen for a cool GU10 Hi Power LED | Build your own solar heater for under £200 | Water saving gadget roundup

Swap that hot halogen for a cool GU10 Hi Power LED

Equipped with a standard halogen GU10 fitting, the GU10 Hi Power LED features 18 LED bulbs to use only 1 watt of power instead of 15. It also lasts a whopping 50,000 hours! That's over ten years even if you leave them on most of the day (but at less than 10% of the power of regular bulbs). £6 each individually; buy 10 or more and get a 20% discount. [GT]

GU10 Hi Power LED

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Urban Mover folding AND electric bike

The days where electric bikes are huge and clunky - nearly motorcycles - are long gone.  Find proof in the UM 24 from Urban Mover, which has a battery charged from mains power at a cost of about 6p per 25km.  Then when you arrive at work - or your 3rd story flat - it folds up for convenient carrying.  (Although it's still 22.5kg, which is not so convenient!  Better build up those muscles!)   £700.  [GT]

UM 24 electric bicycle

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Aussies ditch low-energy light giveaway, cite hoarding

Usually it's just a handful of bad apples spoiling the basket for everyone else, but in this case, the apples were over half bad.  The Australian government was giving away packages containing coupons for 5 free low-energy light globes and a low-flow showerhead, but have now had to cancel the program on discovering that only 46% of the hardware was actually being installed.  Where the remainder went is unclear, but in a Newspoll survey, 15% of households admitted they'd applied for multiple sets and hoarded the bulbs.  That being the case, the lights will eventually make it into use as the householders need them... eventually.  Meanwhile, North America is slated for its warmest winter on record.  [GT]

Lightbulb giveaway is switched off

Related stories: Sunlight Direct Hybrid Solar Lighting | Google specs standards to save power - LOTS of power | Build your own solar heater for under £200

Sunlight Direct Hybrid Solar Lighting

Away with the drab fluorescents of sealed office buildings! Sunlight Direct uses plastic optical fibers to harvest and distribute honest-to-gosh sunlight into the veriest corporate depths. They also qualify for a 30% tax credit, which ought to get your green motor running. It's also great for indoor horticulture, which suggests they may have a booming business with people who are into stuff that, er, looks like hemp. [GT]

Sunlight Direct [via OhGizmo!]

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Mobion fuel cell: more power, less metal waste

The idea of the MTI Mobion is to let you go really wireless with your gadgets - just plug them in to the power pack instead of the traditional lithium-ion battery. It is designed to increase run time (time until a recharge is needed) two to ten times over the status quo of existing battery technologies. Methanol-based, instead of the heavy metals in typical rechargable batteries. [GT]

MTI Micro's Mobion® cord-free power packs [via EcoGeek]

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Google specs standards to save power - LOTS of power

Your computer uses a lot of power, much of which is wasted.  Some adapters are so bad as to produce only 20% efficiency - and the good ones still lose at least 10% of your power.  Consequently, Google, which has thousands of computers, proposes we go over to a 12 volt standard - not just for computers, but for pretty much everything that doesn't have a high demand (microwaves and fridges would be exempt).  That would lead to economy of scale (like how you can get USB cables for under a pound in the right high street shops now) and a huge efficiency boost.  How huge?  Google's plan shows a savings of $5bn USD in America alone, annually.  The ERPI consulting group is slightly less optimistic: Currently, EPRI said, power supplies account for more than 2 percent of the nation’s electricity consumption and that more efficient design could cut use in half, saving nearly $3 billion in electricity costs.  Either way, that's a lot fewer rolling blackouts, and standardization would make converting gadgets wholesale to solar power that much easier.  [GT]

Google to Push for More Electrical Efficiency in PC’s [via TreeHugger]

Related stories: Water saving gadget roundup | Alternate Energy Sources For A Flourishing Future | France shames high-emissions vehicles

Light prototype brights at 10% the power

Although compact fluorescent bulbs are a great step forward compared to traditional incandescents - lasting five times as long and using 20% the power - one can always hope for better, and better is in the prototype stages in Canada. Solid-state lighting uses 10% the power of incandescents - or half as much as compacts - and lasts 50 000 hours, not just 5 000. The trick is that they use semiconductors instead of tubes or filaments, and semiconductors are so efficient that they convert the vast majority of the power channeled through into light, with very little heat. The lights could save the equivalent of double the energy used by Toronto homes each year if it replaced incandescent light bulbs nationwide, said Group IV Semiconductor Inc. on Wednesday in Ottawa. [GT]

'Solid-state' light uses one-10th energy, maker says

Related stories: Solar Crystal Ball Garden Lights | Alternate Energy Sources For A Flourishing Future | Energy saving for your Mac

Build your own solar heater for under £200

If building your own solar panel just got you interested, it may be time for you to go to the next level: a DIY thermosyphon solar heater. Total cost on the materials is around £175, so it pays for itself fairly quickly under current heating prices. Click here for a free and quite readable PDF of the instructions. [GT]

DIY thermosyphon solar heater [via Treehugger]

Related stories: DIY solar - even in Wales! | Build your own solar thermal panel for £2 | Boston goes solar with... garbage collection?

Solar Crystal Ball Garden Lights

You can pretend its Christmas in July, er, August, with this fairy-string of Solar Crystal Ball Garden Lights at a very modest sale-priced £18 for 9 balls of white light.  Use them now in the garden, and string them around your favourite conifer in December.  One day's charge powers them for six hours at night, and as usual, they turn on at dusk and turn off either at dawn or when they run out of juice.  From The Green Shop.  [GT]

Solar Crystal Ball Garden Lights

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R3project: sustainable household renovation

The R3 Project is a blog documenting how a couple of guys in Barcelona are renovating a flat "based on the 5 Rs of eco design:" recycle, reduce, reuse, recover and respect.   Includes a well-illustrated post on how to do an eco-move and another good set of reminders on how to reuse what you already have.  The most recent entry, Disposing of Debris for Recycling, notes something interesting about garbage disposal in Barcelona: when you buy the garbage bag, you also pay for the pickup as part of the fee.  Brilliant - love it.  [GT]

Whirly hanging candleholder

I completely dig this cute little whirly hanging candleholder, and at $4 USD, it'd be pocketbook-reasonable to outfit, say, a whole Christmas tree, or a component allowing you to improvise a neat modern chandelier that you can actually wash when it gets dusty.  With a 5" diameter, each ball is also sizeable enough to hold a decently large candle, so by mixing and matching colours you could co-ordinate with your other decor.  Or you could string them on trees outside, full of citronella insect-repellent candles say, and have a very romantic floating flame effect.  [GT]

Related stories: 
Blackout bulb
21st century candles
Oil-free candles light up the healthy alternative

Water saving gadget roundup

Given that hosepipe bans and water conservation are the way of the future, and summer is pressing down hot upon us, we're revisiting water conservation gadgets.  Here's a really small and clever place to start: with the EcoKettle.  I was lucky enough to get one from the lovely folks at Toastess and absolutely love it.  Minimalist packaging, clean and easy design, pleasant to use.  It's cordless, meaning it has a base that it sits in while boiling, but you can easily move the carafe around.  The cord wraps nicely into the base so it isn't dangling about to trip over.  The best part, though, is that it has two compartments: you fill one with up to 1.5 liters of water, and then press a button on top to release as much water into the second chamber as you'd like to boil.  Only want one cup?  Then only release one cup.  Only that one cup gets boiled.  Saves power and water.  At £40 it's a bit expensive for how simple it is; I hope it takes off and hits mainstream so that all kettles end up being made this way.  The technology is so simple that we could've had kettles like this 50 years ago - but sometimes the simplest, most elegant solution takes half a century to think of.  Bravo, EcoKettle!

More ways to cope with the looming water crisis after the jump.

Water butts are a great way to pick up rainwater for your garden, but if you've got £3000 to invest, you can get a full-on rain harvesting system from Freerain.  Rainwater is collected from the roof and stored in a tank hooked into your water system, for use in washing machines, WC's and garden watering.  Allows you to save around 50% on your water consumption (and therefore 50% on your bills, in the long run).

If you're willing to invest in free water, but your budget is a bit lower, the Waterex from Pure Water Technology goes for £1000 and condenses 38 liters from thin air every day.  It's most suited for areas where plumbing is impractical to install (remote areas or people who are traveling) but if the water rationing takes off, that thousand quid for a free bathtub's full of water a day may start sounding like a good deal.

An easy one is the Water Hippo, a heavy gauge polyethelene box shape that sits in the cistern under the float, which takes up space in your toilet tank in such a way that you end up using less water per flush.  At £1.20 from the EcoStore, how can you not give it a try?  If you're willing to spend a bit more - £20 - there's the Interflush which can save about half the water per use - the tank only drains as long as you hold down the handle.

Aerating showerheads are a terrific way to stretch your water pence and also get a brisk morning shower.  They force oxygen into the stream to give the effect of a power shower at a quarter of the consumption - 25 liters per five minutes versus 100 liters per five minutes for the non-aerated version. 

If you heat your house with a radiator, you're using a non-trivial amount of water that you may not even be considering that you're consuming.  The good news is that for £200 you can outfit with 'knockonwood' radiators from B&Q that use 1/10th the normal amount of the wet stuff to achieve the same effect - they react to the environment faster so they optimise how much heat they release.  Available in luscious natural oak, beech or maple.  Plus the company plants a CO2-inhaling Robina tree for each radiator purchased.

With all of these options, you're sure to find something to suit your pocketbook and lower your water bills.  Also don't forget the good-old-fashioned water meter idea so you know how much you're using - and how much you're saving when you get through with the above improvements.  [GT]

Alternate Energy Sources For A Flourishing Future

We all know how important it is to find non-fossil energy sources, but some have a clearer view of it than others.  Dr Erik Leipoldt is one such: he is a quadriplegic with a PhD in philosophy and a keen interest in renewable resources that he is documenting at Alternate Energy Sources For A Flourishing Future. 

When you live with a pain disorder (as I also do) your priorities shift; you often gain a much keener sense of what is really important, and likewise a desire to share information in hope that it will perhaps ameliorate someone else's troubles. Dr Leipoldt has channeled this into developing very readable and accessible pages on renewable energy, solar energy, nuclear energy and Kyoto. He also has a newsletter for updates on this very pressing subject. [GT]

eGo Helio rechargable moped

You commute less than twenty kilometers to work, but for various reasons it's not practical to take public transit, so you've been stuck driving a car, getting tangled in traffic snarls, paying huge amounts for parking and even more for petrol. Well, has eGo got a solution for you! The Helio electric scooter can go up to 25 miles on a charge (optional extra battery pack available to double that range) and since it's as small as a bicycle, you'll find it way easier to find somewhere convenient to stow it that won't have quite so dear a cost. It's also got a nice little government grant to help you defray the cost.

The Helio officially costs £1400 (and is available online from the eGo store) but is eligible for the Government Grant of 200.00 through the Energy Saving Trust PowerShift Register, bringing it down to £1200. It also has a basket so you can take it to the grocery store, but if a little bit of storage isn't enough, you can (also optionally) get a little trailer attachment that lets you tow an additional 250 lbs (around 100 kilos - more than I even take on an average vacation with my dearest John). [[GT]

Autopia on zinc-powered shuttles, burning SUVs, and more

The Autopia blog from Wired has a bunch of interesting little pieces right now, ranging from the top story on how China will be using zinc-powered shuttles to move athletes about during the 2008 Olympics to notes on a short documentary titled Who Killed the Electric Car, on the GM EV1, to developments in plug-in hybridization technology for conventional automobiles.  But my favourite is from a few days ago, on how how SUV owners are trying to make money from their gas guzzlers.

Apparently there's been a spate of SUV owners - well, if two plus one caught in the act can be called a spate - who are so tired of paying usurious rates for gasoline that they're just torching the vehicles so they can collect on the insurance and pick up something smaller. While we would never support such nefarious activity, I do admit to a sneaking admiration for the motivation. (Although god knows how many VOCs were released from those flaming carcasses, no pun intended.) [GT]

How to Build a Wind Turbine

Hugh Piggot of