Car To Traffic Light: "Turn Green"

Anybody out there read Robert A. Heinlein's Methuselah's Children? I read it as a teenager, and have been drawn back since, because it's such a creative and visionary sci fi novel, full of the unbelievable, and yet full of the completely possible at the same time. I remember being fascinated by his concept of an automobile/infrastructure interconnection that went far beyond just tires meeting pavement. Drivers entering the highways could turn the operation of their cars over to a traffic management system, and a central control would "drive" them to their destination. The system could take into account all the other cars and destinations and speeds and routes, and plan out the best possible combination, picking the lanes and turns, when to accelerate and when to slow, putting everything together to let everyone arrive at their destination in the fastest and safest way possible, with the added bonus of a chance to take a nap en-route. When it was time to leave the highway, control was switched back over to the human driver to take those last few side streets where traffic was less of an issue. (This was probably just to give the humans the illusion that their lives weren't being run by a computer.)

I found the notion of the road driving the car absolutely fascinating, and rather desirable. Of course, there are a lot of people who really enjoy driving, and might not take too kindly to giving up control, and you'd have to have a lot of faith that the system could handle the load and that it wouldn't suddenly break down, stranding a highway full of motorists, or worse, crashing all the cars. On the other hand, how many of us haven't driven home late at night, fighting sleep over miles of Interstate, and longed for the ability to take a snooze and still cover ground at the same time? No more accidents from drivers falling asleep at the wheel would be good. Wouldn't it also be a good thing for the perennial cellphone addict to just go ahead and concentrate on the conversation when Buffy calls to talk nail polish, or Johnson calls to finalize the big merger details? It would be better than having workaholics trying to dig through a pile of documents and make a left turn without signaling at the same time, don't you think? Parents of teenagers might also really like the notion of their kids having to plug in a destination and let the system do the driving, instead of trusting their kids and vehicles to the judgement of drivers temporarily inflicted with HIDIOUS--Hormonally Induced Decision Impairment Of Underage Scatterbrains. (Yes, I do know hideous isn't spelled that way, but I gave it my best shot. If you can do better leave it in the comments.)

I can think of all sorts of reasons why a computer/road/car symbiosis would be bad, but also any number of reasons why it would be good. It doesn't really matter, though, since we have no such system, and unless sci fi becomes reality again, we aren't likely to, are we? Okay, you know I'm not just teasing you, and this has to be going somewhere, so why don't I just cut to the chase? Nissan is testing a system, in the Kanagawa prefecture in Japan, that, while it doesn't quite live up to Heinlein's vision of automated driving, still takes us a significant step in that direction, by getting the infrastructure and the cars talking to each other. From Gizmag:

March 15, 2007 Nissan’s intelligent transportation system (ITS) project, which employs vehicle-to-infrastructure communication to enable synchronized communication between vehicles and traffic light signals, is about to begin the next test-phase. Nissan is installing the advanced traffic signal infrastructure within its Nissan Technical Center in Kanagawa to collect real-world vehicle data from several hundred employee cars participating in the project. The new advanced traffic system is designed to reduce accidents as well as ease traffic congestion, leading to improved on-the-road fuel consumption.

Nissan certainly has a lot of goals in designing a system that lets traffic lights and cars communicate. Besides reducing accidents and traffic congestion, Nissan is looking to lower CO2 emissions, by enabling cars to use less gas, and as we all know using less gas is a valuable aim in its own right. All things considered, this traffic light system is a pretty perceptive and creative way to go about achieving those ends, especially as regards fuel consumption. What takes a lot of fuel? Acceleration. What makes cars have to accelerate? Among other things, stopping at traffic lights. (Unless the driver just wants to sit there when the light turns green, which does occasionally happen.) What would make for less stopping at traffic lights? Having cars announce that they are coming, and from what direction, so the signals can be turned red or green depending on the flow of traffic. That's where Nissan's system is headed. Spiffy, huh?

There are just so many positives to the idea, not the least of which is getting us all to our destinations quicker, and with less grump-factor. Hasn't everybody been frustrated at sitting at red lights when there is no other traffic, just because the lights are timed that way? Even the little sensors they have now on some signals make you come up and stop at the red light before it registers your presence, and by then the frustration and gas usage are already written in the history books (very long boring ones.) It would be so cool if the car could warn the signals ahead of time that you were coming, clearing the way for your unhindered progress toward your destination.

What they are doing in Kanagawa is gathering data from employees' cars, on a limited infrastructure that they put on their Kanagawa campus, to work out the kinks before expanding the system to work on a larger scale. Their plans include public roads eventually:

This next phase of Nissan’s ITS research aims to optimize communication between vehicles and traffic signals to create an advanced traffic system where traffic signals operate in tandem with the vehicle-data input according to varying traffic conditions. Nissan hopes to help reduce traffic accidents and road congestion. Looking ahead, the company will continue working closely with the relevant government agencies in bringing the current experiment onto public roads under the existing ITS project in Kanagawa.

Now, I know that having the lights change to adapt to traffic conditions isn't exactly like having the road drive your car, but it's a cool first step, don't you think? Heinlein released Methuselah's Children as a magazine serial in 1941, and then rewrote and republished it in 1958. I wonder if he figured we'd have made more progress toward the future he envisioned by now, with fully automated driving whisking us from place to place, or if he really only saw it as fantasy, or maybe whether he would figure we were right on schedule. Whichever it is, I'm pleased as punch with the progress, and hope Nissan's system is a smashing success--although, maybe smashing isn't the right word, since that's part of what they're trying to avoid.

How Cars Help The Environment

Here's an interesting article that goes along with my theory that technology will be the solution to our environmental issues, and has already contributed greatly to environmental improvements, despite the blame it gets for modern day pollution. Dwight R. Lee, at TCS Daily, spends some time delving in to one of the main sources of the environmental woes of yesteryear, and concludes that one of our most prevalent current technologies, the internal combustion engine (ICE), is a Godsend when compared with the primary sources of horsepower from the past--i.e. horses, and oxen, and mules. Those of us who grew up with cars instead of wagons don't contemplate very often how much of a difference the automobile has made to the pollution levels of cities, or, I should say, we tend to think that the effect has been negative. All that car exhaust is dreadful. There used to be fresh air, by golly! We think of that pollution and forget that before the car, when folks rode into town on noble steeds, there was pollution of an entirely different sort.

Livestock flatulence, according to a report from the U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization, cited by Lee, accounts for 18% of today's greenhouse gases, and all the cars, planes, trucks, trains, boats, and every other form of transportation in the world added together don't equal that level of greenhouse gas output. Livestock produce methane, too, which Lee points out is a much more potent greenhouse gas than the carbon dioxide which gasoline engines emit. Greenhouse gases, as we all know, are the favorite whipping boy for those concerned about global warming, so this should make the world look more favorably on modern transportation. Gasoline engines produces less gases, and less potent gases than their animal counterparts. Score one for the ICE.

Now, if livestock flatulence produces 18% of the greenhouse gases of today, imagine what they were producing a hundred years ago, when horses filled our cities and our farms. Indeed, the general level of pollution created by a culture dependant upon animals for transport and food production, as well as food, goes beyond just dealing with the gases. The manure itself was a pollution nightmare:

Consider the effects of horse emissions in our towns and cities at the beginning of the last century. The air and water pollution from horse manure contributed to a death rate far greater than that generated by the pollution from cars and trucks. No one denies that photochemical smog from gas powered vehicles is a health risk, but it is not nearly the health risk of cholera, typhoid, typhus, yellow fever, diphtheria and malaria. These diseases killed tens of thousands of Americans in the early 20-century and these deaths began to decline as cars and trucks replaced horses and wagons.

And the improvements in the environment weren't limited to just the towns and cities. Before gasoline power arrived, beasts of burden were polluting agricultural communities along with meat producing animals such as cows, chickens and pigs. By eliminating horses, mules and oxen on farms, tractors and other types of gas-powered farm machinery greatly reduced the problem of animal waste that environmentalists, with justification, still complain about. This also eliminated the need to grow the food required by millions of farm animals. It has been estimated that it took about 93 million acres of land in 1900 to grow the food to fuel the farm animals that were soon replaced by motorized farm machinery. Much of that land has now gone back to woodlands.

Score two for the ICE. Lee isn't finished with his defense of the engine, either. He addresses one more aspect of the flap over flatulence, and how the ICE isn't getting the credit it deserves when it comes to protecting the environment:

Instead of giving credit to internal combustion for its contribution to environmental quality, the news on the harmful effects of animal flatulence has resulted in another culprit being blamed for global warming; meat eaters. According to a recent article in the "Christian Science Monitor," some environmentalists are urging people to become vegetarians to combat global warming. There is no mention that this vegetarian solution, if taken seriously, would make the internal combustion engine even more critical to environmental protection. Imagine the amount of animal manure and methane that would be produced growing all those extra vegetables without motorized farm equipment.

Score three for the ICE. Lee goes on to discuss improvements in ICE technology which are reducing transportation's pollution production all the time. He also predicts that someday a superior technology will come along to replace the combustion engine, further limiting the pollution cost of human transport. My prediction is that his prediction is correct.

Affluence Or Poverty--Which Is Better For The Environment?

I was going to stay away from the brouhaha surrounding Al Gore's energy bill, and his proclivity to preach about reducing greenhouse gas emissions while himself producing a ton of them, but I read a piece by James H. Joyner Jr., at TCS Daily, that was such good common sense that I had to pass it along. He basically gives Gore a pass on the question of hypocrisy, saying that he doesn't know enough about Gore's stated policies, and carbon offsets and whatnot to render a judgement. His focus is more on the question of whether affluence or technologically backward poverty is better for the environment, and humanity. Here's a snippet:

Where Gore and I differ is that my aim is for more people to get to live like Gore. While environmental degradation in general and global warming in particular are real problems, certainly a serious case can be made that they pale in comparison with the ravages of poverty. Further, if millions of people not starving to death isn't its own reward, UC-Berkeley professor emeritus of energy and resources Jack Hollander explains in The Real Environmental Crisis: Why Poverty, Not Affluence, Is the Environment's Number One Enemy, that, contrary to conventional wisdom, as societies become more affluent, they produce less pollution. That's not particularly surprising, when you think about it, as those whose basic human needs are met have both the inclination and resources to worry about cleaning up their environment.

Joyner makes the case for something that I have believed for a long time; the solution to our environmental problems lies in more and better technology, not less technology. He quotes Jesse Ausubel, the director of Rockefeller University's Program for the Human Environment:

Inefficiency always costs much. Around the year 1000, before the invention of good chimneys, people in cold climates centered their lives around an open fire in the middle of a room with a roof louvered high to carry out the smoke, and most of the heat. Open fireplaces demanded constant replenishing and thus a large woodpile behind every house. A smart stove did not emerge until 1744. Benjamin Franklin's invention greatly reduced the amount of fuel required and, thus, the size of the woodpile was reduced for those who could afford the stove.

Advancing technology is constantly moving us forward in our efforts to preserve our environment, giving us more energy efficient, and less polluting wood stoves, cars, light bulbs, factories, furnaces, sewage treatment, batteries, water heaters, commuter trains, photographic equipment, and even nuclear power plants. That's just off the top of my head. New technologies are also taking things that once would have gone to landfills and giving them a second life, making more and more use of recyclable materials. Have you seen some of the decking materials and fabrics they are making out of old milk containers? The key to environmental responsibility does not lie in turning off all the amenities of modern life. (Heck, if it weren't for technology, most of us wouldn't even know there were global environmental issues.) It lies in promoting prosperity and creativity which will continue to address the rightly-raised environmental concerns of society--with technological progress. Joyner's got a bit more to say. Go have a look.

The Hummer: Environmental Champion?

I wrote earlier this week about the "green" score of various electronics manufacturers, from an article which I read at the Greenpeace website. I acknowledged at the time that I was surprised by the results of the Greenpeace rankings. I expected Apple to be more environmentally responsible, and Dell less so. I put my error down to an unreasonable preconception, with no real basis in evidence, or even common sense. It was just my own mental slant. Well, a reader left a comment at that post which has led me to another surprising article, and contradicted another preconception that, before this, I would have told you was based very solidly in the world of evidence, common sense and rationality, and that I was completely unbiased in that assessment. I had a hard time believing what I read.

Would you believe, on it's face, that a gas-guzzling Hummer would consume less energy over the course of its life than a gas/electric hybrid Toyota Prius? I didn't think so. The Hummer is huge. The Hummer is heavy. The Hummer gets something like three gallons to the mile, right? (Well, maybe that last is a bit hyperbolic.) The Prius, on the other hand, is small. It is lightweight. It will drive cross country and back again several times before you have to refill the thimble-sized gas tank. (Slight hyperbole here, but in my own defense, I didn't say which country. Perhaps it was Monaco.) Any reasonable person would conclude that the Prius has the Hummer beat in a big way for energy consumption and its resultant pollution.

Not so, according to Shikha Dalmia at Reason.org. She compares the two vehicles in total energy consumption, cradle to grave you might say, drawing on a two year study by auto analyst and President of CNW Marketing Research, Art Spinella, which examined what he calls "Dust to Dust" data, including, among other things, the energy it takes to design and produce them, the energy they require to operate, and the energy it takes to dispose of them. Dalmia says how "fancy" a car is really affects its total energy cost. In this case fancy doesn't seem to mean how many cup holders it has. She points out several factors that gain the Hummer ground in the head to head competition with the Prius.

One such factor is vehicle life. The Hummer is designed to last three times longer than the Prius. That's three times less vehicle production, thus less energy (and pollution) used in manufacture, materials, and disposal. Sophistication plays a role. The Hummer's engine is much simpler than its hybrid competitor, as it doesn't combine gas and electric systems. Not being as complex, "it takes much less time and energy to manufacture." Materials also shift the balance toward the Hummer. Made of steel, which costs less and is easier to make than the specialty light-weight materials that compose the Prius, its production is not nearly as complex and costly. The same materials also give the Hummer the advantage in disposal. This manufacture and disposal all requires energy, and creates pollution, thus driving up the true cost of both vehicles, but less so with the Hummer, thereby giving it the real energy edge.

Dalmia says this comparison doesn't just hold up with the Prius, but with other small hybrids as well:

For instance, the dust-to-dust energy cost of the bunny-sized Honda Civic hybrid is $3.238 per mile. This is quite a bit more than the $1.949 per mile that the elephantine Hummer costs. The energy cots of SUVs such as the Tahoe, Escalade, and Navigator are similarly far less than the Civic hybrid.

All of the factors I've listed above affect the total energy consumption of the vehicles, but Dalmia lists one final factor as having the most impact:

But the biggest reason why a Hummer's energy use is so low is that it shares many components with other vehicles and therefore its design and development energy costs are spread across many cars.

It is not possible to do this with a specialty product like hybrid. All in all, Spinella insists, the energy costs of disposing a Hummer are 60 percent less than an average hybrid's and its design and development costs are 80 percent less.

This is where I believe hybrid buyers who have purchased their vehicles because they want to save energy and do something for the environment can take heart. Dalmia's article, and Spinella's study, examine environmental and energy costs as they stand now, but I couldn't help but draw some different conclusions from the one's that Dalmia determined. She proposes "...a catchy slogan for the next Save the Earth campaign: Have you hugged a Hummer today?" However, the thing that struck me as I read the piece (besides the obvious shock that a Hummer could in any way be better for the environment than a Prius) was that some of these costs were based on the economies of scale principle.

Part of what makes the hybrids cost more, economically and environmentally, than their exclusively gas-driven counterparts is that they are, in fact, still specialty items. Part of the Hummer's advantage comes from the fact it uses long-employed systems, technologies, and materials. Hybrids don't benefit from the economy that comes from sharing many components with other vehicles at this point, because there aren't that many vehicles yet which work on the same principles. They will be better able to spread the energy costs for design and development out across many cars when there are more cars in this category. As light-weight alloys become more common, they will be able to take advantage of refined production techniques, and larger-scale manufacture to bring the total cost for them to a more competitive level. Also, as these materials become more common, human ingenuity should figure out better ways to dispose of and recycle them, thus reducing that cost as well.

It sounds to me, too, like hybrids could use some of those new-fangled nanotube-based ultracapacitors we were talking about a couple of weeks ago here at the Meow. Taking some of the chemical processes out of the battery energy storage for hybrid vehicles might help shift the balance again a little more toward the hybrid's favor. Since this study took into account the total environmental and energy cost, including disposal, not having environmentally damaging chemical batteries on the "we have to get rid of this now" list when the car finally kicks the bucket (seat) would help. Working on car longevity would be in the best interests of hybrid auto makers as well, at least if their motives for producing hybrids in the first place really are centered around environmental responsibility. One assumes, however, that some of these improvements will happen as the industry matures. One hopes, anyway.

Dalmia's article goes more in depth into exactly how the environmental and energy costs are calculated. I drew my own conclusions from her report, as I'm sure will you. I came away surprised, but not despairing for the hybrid industry. My husband and have two vehicles, an SUV and a smaller economy car, and neither of them are hybrids. They both do the job we need them to do, and I can't say I feel guilty about either of them. Although, if they come up with an affordable hybrid SUV that can tow our travel trailer, I will be happy to consider one in the future, contributing to that economy of scale thing that I already mentioned. All in all, I'd say SUV drivers and hybrid drivers both can come away from this study feeling relatively self-satisfied. SUV drivers can say that their car is better for the environment than the Prius and its hybrid companions. Hybrid drivers can say they are on the forefront of change, and paying the costs now for future benefit. Both can be happy with their choice on some level, which is convenient, since most people are going to do what they want to anyway--at least if my husband and I are any example.

p.s. Thanks Danny.

Computing The Green

There's an interesting little blurb at the Greenpeace website that ranks electronics manufacturers based on their "Green" quotient. Considerations such as chemicals used in production and whether the company in question takes back its own product for recycling were the criteria used to calculate the score. The results actually surprised me. I don't know why, since I have no real basis for my preconceptions, but for some reason I expected Apple to perform better on the green scale than Dell. I guess you can't judge a Notebook by its cover.

Hat tip: Futurismic

Nuclear Reactions

I've been following mental rabbit trails today. I read a couple of articles at TCS Daily, one about global warming alarmism and greenhouse gas emissions trading schemes, and the other about energy constraints in America, in the face of recent heat waves, that are being met with pleas for conservation rather than policies aimed at generating more energy. The two articles seemed inextricably linked to me. The fears of global warming and other environmental consequences are really a complicating factor in the search for the cheap, abundant energy solutions that developed nations already need and developing nations are growing to need more and more. (The same environmental consequences apply to underdeveloped countries as well, but since their situations are complicated by their limited financial resources and lack of infrastructure, let's stick to talking about the more technologically advanced nations, shall we? After all, if you count China and India as at least rapidly up-and-coming, these are the countries most to blame for the carbon emissions which some scientists fear will upset the climate balance of our planet.) Every form of energy currently available to man comes with some environmental cost. Were there no environmental constraints, petroleum, natural gas, bio-fuels, coal, hydroelectric, solar and nuclear energy would all be competing unfettered for their place in the power pantheon. As it is, they're all still players, but regulation determines more and more how affordable and plentiful they are.

Regulations aren't all bad. I like clean air. I'm sure you like to breathe too. There's a story in my husband's family about a particular time when he was a small child, three or four years old. He lived with his parents in Riverside, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. This was in the late sixties, before low emission vehicles were a Californian passion. While on a family vacation, they came up north, to western Washington State. Legend has it (and from my understanding this is a pretty accurate legend) that upon looking up at the open sky, my cute and adorable husband innocently inquired, "Mommy, what's that blue stuff?" Living in the Los Angeles basin of the sixties, he had not known the sky was supposed to be blue. Like I said, regulations aren't all bad, even if some of them do go overboard.

Given that none of us want to breath toxic fumes, nor kill off all the Salmon, nor experience a Chernobyl-style meltdown, what are our energy options? Is conservation the only ecologically and morally acceptable alternative? Are we simply supposed to get used to a little more heat in summer, and chill in winter, as we adjust our thermostats to avoid further straining power grids already pushed to the limit? Are we all going to be ultimately driven to turn in our driver's licenses for bus passes? Is the energy gobbling technology that makes our lives more comfortable going to become less and less supportable as more of the world's populations can afford it? Are we out of options? (I think that is the most questions I have ever asked in a single paragraph.)

All these questions prompted me to do a little searching online for clean power alternatives. One thing I kept coming back to was nuclear power. Nuclear power doesn't have the best reputation in the States, or in Russia either, for that matter. No one wants to see a nuclear disaster, and most of us are pretty aware of the problem of nuclear waste. Nor are the sane among us really keen on the idea of the by-products of nuclear processes being used to create weapons of mass destruction for proliferation among the terrorist set. (I do not count anyone in power in Iran as sane.) However, there have been a lot of advances in nuclear technology since the rather memorable accidents that have shaped our views of nuclear power's potential for providing our daily energy needs.

One such advance is the development of the pebble bed reactor. I remember reading some time back about pebble bed nuclear technology. I can't remember where, but I do recall being impressed with the great improvements in safety that have been achieved over the last two decades. Since I don't know where to find the piece I originally read, I'll send you to the Wikipedia entry about pebble bed reactors. It's a good place to start if you find the topic interesting. Other concepts developed over the years continue to work the fringes of making nuclear power more palatable to Americans. I've read, for example, about ways to eliminate the danger from nuclear waste. One such notion being a scheme to bury nuclear waste deep in the earth where things are pretty much radioactive anyway. I have no link, but a Google search ought to provide you with a wealth of information. I've never really seen a foolproof answer about how to keep nuclear by-products from falling into to hands of the power hungry. In any case, I've seen a lot of approaches to nuclear power that address one problem or another of the list I mentioned above, but what if there were a way to address them all at once?

What I read about today, was a new approach to nuclear that just may deal with all those issues that currently keep it from appealing to those of us who don't want a meltdown, waste with an intolerably long radioactive half-life, or a by-product that can be turned into Earth-destroying bombs. It even eliminates some of the waste we already have lying around. Tim Dean, writing in Cosmos, examines the potential of the thorium reactor:

What if we could build a nuclear reactor that offered no possibility of a meltdown, generated its power inexpensively, created no weapons-grade by-products, and burnt up existing high-level waste as well as old nuclear weapon stockpiles? And what if the waste produced by such a reactor was radioactive for a mere few hundred years rather than tens of thousands? It may sound too good to be true, but such a reactor is indeed possible, and a number of teams around the world are now working to make it a reality. What makes this incredible reactor so different is its fuel source: thorium.

Thorium is also much more abundant here on Earth than uranium, and according to the blog Advanced Nanotechnology, there's even a plentiful supply on the Moon. (The post at AN also informs me that thorium reactors could provide energy that's five times cheaper than that from natural gas.) Sound intriguing? Dean's article is long, but I'm not going to try to synopsize it. If the topic interests you enough to have read this far, maybe you'll find it worth the time to read the rest of Dean's piece. If not, maybe it will merely comfort you to know that strides are being made all the time to come up with viable, environmentally sustainable, affordable energy sources. I hope that Americans don't turn their backs on a potentially clean power source just because it bears the dreaded name of nuclear. We do need power. I don't want to return to the days of my husband's youth, when a kid could live in LA and not know the sky was supposed to be blue, but I don't want to return to a world without air conditioning and convenient travel, either--and I definitely don't want to give up my laptop. Perish the thought. Perhaps, if scientists continue to investigate every avenue, and we retain (or acquire) an open mind about the "n" word, we won't have to choose.

Saving The Planet, One Island At A Time

Here's some more of that human ingenuity stuff. Way cool. According to an Associated Press story at FreeNewMexican.com, by Mike Stark, a farmer in Montana named Bruce Kania has come up with an innovative method to remove excess fertilizers and other pollutants out of waterways. He's created artificial floating islands, with abundant plant-life suspended so their roots can reach the water:

The islands, acting as a sort of floating filter, are designed to improve water quality with plants that suck up excess nutrients. They also create wildlife habitat, function as small-scale wetlands and add a little visual spice to waterways.

Kania doesn't lack ambition when it comes to the islands. He believes they could sop up pollution and toxic spills, produce more land for farming or wildlife, and even hold onto some of the industrial gases that are warming the Earth.

Kania's company is coming up with new ideas for his invention all the time, and the ideas are getting bigger. The article goes on to describe how the floating island option could be an affordable solution to performing such varied tasks as treating the overabundance of waste at stockyards, buffering hurricane battered coastlines, and even sequestering some of the carbon dioxide that's feared to cause global warming. No, I'd say we're not talking about a lack of ambition here.

Kania has some interesting examples of the islands' versatility on his own property:

The largest _ more of a floating pier, because it connects with the shore _ stretches nearly across the pond. Down the middle is a black, cobblestone-like walkway that's made of recycled pop bottles. On either side, he's planted tomatoes, brussels sprouts and other vegetables.

Other islands are growing robust patches of reeds, grasses, sedges and flowers.

The islands, once deployed, are designed to be maintenance-free. They can be anchored or a series can be strung together to create an archipelago. Not long ago, 22 people crammed on to a 250-square-foot island and stayed afloat.

Wouldn't it be fun to have a picnic at some lovely lake spot, only instead of picnicking by the lake, you're picnicking on the lake, floating around on a charming patch of garden, complete with its own strawberry beds? The saving the environment stuff is important, but really, the picnicking potential is the best part, don't you think?

Hat tip: Futurismic

The Downside Of The Clean Air Alternative

There's a rather depressing piece at TCS Daily today, by Tim Carney, all about the environmental cost of ethanol, the "clean air" alternative/additive to gasoline. It seems that while ethanol does reduce carbon monoxide emissions, there are a myriad of other environmental costs to factor into the equation. Figures, doesn't it? Why does there always have to be a trade-off? On the bright side, there are still plenty of other energy options in the works that we can pin our hopes on. (Getting power off the blacktop is looking quite appealing at the moment.) Even with the added environmental complications of ethanol, it's doubtless something we want to keep in our bag of tricks--it's probably still a better alternative than relying exclusively on gasoline, which pollutes and puts money in the pockets of despotic regimes. Wouldn't it be nice if some perfect energy solution just marched off the drawing board somewhere and rewrote the menu of energy choices completely, making the right decisions obvious and easy, with no dish of guilt on the side? I know, I know--wishful thinking, but a girl can dream, can't she? Until that unlikely event occurs, we'll just have to do the best we can to choose well. It's hard being grownups and having to decide what's best. So many moral conundrums, so little wisdom...

Bottled Water Without The Guilt

Here's an advancement in the world of environmentally-friendly modern convenience. My husband and I have been watching the Food Network tonight, and we just saw something really unexpected and cool. I bet you'll be surprised when I say it's bottled water. I remember when bottled water first came into vogue, and my husband and I used to laugh and mock the people who would spend a dollar for a bottle of something that you could get out of the tap for practically free. (Back when a bottle only cost a dollar.) Well, in the ensuing years we have discovered that sometimes there's a lot to be said for the convenience of just grabbing a bottle when we're heading out the door for a hike, and have to admit that bottled water usually tastes better than the stuff coming through the city water system. Still, all those bottles have weighed on our consciences all these years, and I cringe at the landfills I'm sure are overflowing with the plastic we've used and discarded. Well, now there's an alternative I hope catches on in a big way. Have you ever heard of biodegradable plastic? There's a company in Colorado called Biota that bottles water in plastic made from corn, plastic that holds its form indefinitely on store shelves, but when exposed to high heat, high moisture and micro-organisms can actually be composted in 80 days. It burns cleanly, too, producing no soot. I knew it was just a matter of time before alternatives to petroleum based plastics started showing up. It's nice to be right.