The new Automobile market in US is collapsing, and more and more companies are investing in the "Economy" models for the emerging markets.

Consider the key data "motor vehicles per 1,000 population":

- United States (815)
- Germany (605)
- Japan (600)
- France (595)

compared with under-sold nations with money to spend:

- Russia(220)
- Brazil (125)
- China (25)
- India (25)

We will see the innovations in low consumption vehicles would take place in these countries to satisfy the market.

Read: BusinessWeek

Here is a top-ten list of Most and Least polluted cities (metro areas) in United States:

Areas with the highest CO emissions:

1. Lexington-Fayette, Ky.
2. Indianapolis
3. Cincinnati-Middletown, Ohio-Ky.-Ind.
4. Toledo, Ohio
5. Louisville
6. Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro
7. St. Louis
8. Oklahoma City
9. Harrisburg-Carlisle, Pa.
10. Knoxville

Areas with the lowest CO emissions:

1. Honolulu
2. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana
3. Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, Ore.-Wash.
4. New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, N.Y-N.J.-Pa.
5. Boise-Nampa, Idaho
6. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Wash.
7. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara
8. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont
9. El Paso
10. San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos

Source: Brookings Institution

Read: The complete report

Try to listen to Coalby Clean's explanation of how burning fossil fuels is cleaner than renewable energy and not come away with a changed perspective.

This video is a great example of the battle lines that are being drawn right now about the future of energy.

On the one hand, you've got Big Coal who obviously want to stay in business. On the other, you've got the Sierra Club types who pretty much oppose any kind of coal power project anywhere. Do you buy the argument that there is such a thing as "clean coal" ?

You can also read Coal is Dirty.

A new ALL ELECTRIC car from AMP Motor Works:

AMP is taking orders for a limited run of 300 converted Saturn Sky Roadsters, which will be ALL electric. The cars will have a range of 150 miles on a single charge, go 0 to 60 in under six seconds, and can reach a top speed of 90 MPH. The cost of the conversion and vehicle comes to around $50,000.

Every AC-powered device uses a common cable and connector. Yet, DC-powered devices use so many incompatible, device-specific cables and connectors that the cables and connectors are normally useful only for one specific device, and thrown away at the end of the device's life. In United states only, over 400 million of such adapters are thrown away every year.

Green Plug is leveraging the universality of the USB connector for delivering power to low-power devices. Unmodified, standard USB cables can be used to connect Green PlugTM-enabled power supplies to low-power devices that get power over their USB connectors. Since USB provides for low-power only, Green Plug has extended the connector in a very innovative way such that high-power devices can all use the universal connector for power.

Recently, I've been reading about Electric Vehicle Technologies. More and more I'm realizing the "in-wheel-motor" is the future. Potentially, we could keep our current cars, and just install some batteries in trunk, and add these custom wheels! The conversion could only take a few hours, and we could double or triple the car's MPG.

Visit the Website Story of Stuff for a fantastic documentary about Stuff we buy and consume. Here is a YouTube teaser:


(Direct Link: YouTube )

Amazon today announced its long-anticipated wireless Kindle e-book reader.

The Kindle,Amazon's first foray into making its own hardware, weighs 10.3 ounces, can contain up to 200 books, has a keyboard, and uses electronic ink display technology.

Kindle operates without ever connecting to a PC. Instead, the device can download books--any of 90,000 at launch--directly via the built-in EvDO radio connection to Amazon's new Whispernet service.

The service runs on the Sprint EvDO network; it carries no service charges or contracts--that's all covered in the background by Amazon.

In addition to books, Kindle can automatically download newspapers and blogs, in a return of "push" technology. The device also has a dictionary and Wikipedia access.

The Kindle service also includes newspapers, magazines, and blogs. Publications that you subscribe to are delivered directly to the device. Choices include The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Houston Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, Time, Fortune, The Atlantic Monthly, Le Monde, and Slate.

More than 300 of the most popular blogs with their full content also are available. You subscribe to the blogs you want, and they're updated throughout the day.

This is a very long video 1 hr 14 min (you click on Google Video to see it in a larger format).

Basically, its a very slick documentary (How many millions of dollars did Exxon pour into this project? ) revoking Al Gore's claim of the Global Warming. It's so interesting that they target Al Gore and politics more than the science. But, they do have many scientific facts to support their view as well. It's worth watching.

Great Technology. Using Compressed Air as a fuel with Zero toxic emissions and Great mileage ;-)

(via: Infoshrew Blog: A Car that runs on... Air? )