Right now a lot of people are worried about high home energy bills, including the costs of air conditioning, heating and electricity.

The good news is that there are a lot of easy, inexpensive projects you can do to bring your energy bills down immediately. But if you’re willing to invest a little more time and money, you can save even more, and one home improvement project that can make a big difference in your energy bills is adding insulation.

Yesterday, I was trying to find an answer to a specific question about insulation — how would you add insulation to a cement block wall? — when I ran across this extremely helpful fact sheet from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

I highly recommend checking it out. This fact sheet is a really good general introduction to the topic, but it also helps answer a lot of specific questions about when and how to add insulation. For example, it did include tips for installing insulation on masonry walls, which is what I was initially looking for. It also had a good suggestion about when to insulate your attic — wait until you’ve sealed other air leaks in your home, because once you’ve insulated the attic these drafts don’t go away, but they’re harder to find and fix.

For even more information on insulation, check out this Mother Earth News article All About Insulation. It’s got quite a bit of information about different types of insulation, including some interesting natural options.

Extreme weather, including hurricanes and flooding, not only wreak havoc on landscapes and homes, but also on the water supply. Recent flooding in the Midwest and residual flooding effects of Hurricane Katrina left flood waters laden with sewage contamination.

The most obvious form of water disinfection is boiling, but solar water disinfection is a way to use renewable energy to clean drinking water without using energy from the stove. All you need is a clear glass or plastic bottle and a sunny day. The sunlight cleans the water with radiation via UVA rays and by increasing the water’s temperature.

To disinfect water, fill the clean bottle with contaminated water and close the lid. Place the bottles out in the sun for six hours, from morning until evening. Some recommend using corrugated iron sheets to keep the bottles from rolling, but placing them on your roof also works well. This Web site has illustrated instructions.

Small cars get better mileage than big cars. 

I know that's a gross generalization. I know a Bugatti Veyron is smaller than a Toyota Prius, but ...

A what? Yes, the Bugatti marque, reminiscent of racers in leather helmets wrestling with steering wheels the size of the ship's wheel on the Pequod, has been revived by Volkswagen, which is positioning itself as a performance car company. Hence the Veyron, their flagship sports car, with a price tag about $1.25 million higher than their Karman Ghia of yesteryear. But the Veyron goes three times as fast: a blistering 250 mph.

The Veyron looks cool, too. The seats are real leather and it has attractive cup holders and everything, but it doesn't get particularly good mileage, despite its smallness. And there's no reason it should — its target market is people who may be deeply concerned about fuel economy in general, but are totally unconcerned about their own gas mileage.

I don't hang out with a lot of gajillionaires, but I do acknowledge their argument about how they personally use fossil fuel: there just aren't that many gajillionaires, and their personal energy consumption is a drop in the bucket compared to the energy consumption of the billions of less fortunate folks.

I think the greatest damage done by the gajillionaire lifestyle is they set a bad example for millionaires, who then set a bad example for the rest of us. Our culture has been telling us our whole lives that we should live rich, that the trappings of wealth bring happiness, and that the image of success equals success. And a powerful car makes some powerful image statements, such as, “I am wealthy enough to get what I want, and this is what I want. And those dollar signs at the gas pump don't matter to me, what matters is having a car that will skedaddle when I romp on it.”

Lucky for the MAX project, the ultimate street skedaddlers are sports cars. The sports car is so well-established in our culture as a symbol of success — an impractical frivolity, a flaunting of one's disposable income — that any two-seat car looks like a luxury, and anyone driving one seems to be living the good life. I think that will be people's first impression when they see MAX, even people who turn up their noses at economy cars.

So thank you, Veyron. Thank you, Ferrari and Lamborghini, for flying the small-means-money flag. Folks won't know I'm a bunnyhugger, pennypincher, eco-cheapo-creepo until they read the fine print.

Every time a Nissan executive gives a major speech, the automaker sounds more and more serious about electric cars. Last May the company announced plans to be the first automaker to sell a mass-produced all-electric and zero-emission car by 2010 (geez, hurry up and get here already!). But a recent speech from chief executive Carlos Ghosn provided more details.

“I want a pure electric car. I don’t want a range extender. I don’t want another hybrid,” Ghosn said after a dedication ceremony for the automaker’s new North American headquarters in Franklin, Tenn. “It’s not going to be zero emissions in certain conditions. It’s going to be zero emissions.” 

Not only does that statement set a substantial goal, but it’s a challenging distinction between Nissan’s direction and that of General Motors and Toyota, with their focus on gasoline-electric hybrids, which can still use fossil fuels to varying degrees. 

Another Nissan executive, senior vice president for finance Dominique Thormann, stressed that the automaker isn’t on this track for green credibility. Thormann said Nissan won’t sell the cars unless it can do so at an affordable price, and make a profit. 

For decades, Nissan has built reliable, high-quality cars that are fun to drive. The automaker does what it does very well, without overextending itself. I still fondly recall my college car, a Nissan 240SX. Oh, how I would love to have an electric version of that now! 

While many automakers talk green but don't necessarily back it up, I have little or no reason to suspect this from Nissan. If this talk of affordable, zero emissions, all-electric cars comes to fruition, it’ll be a monumental shift for the auto industry. 

Thanks to AutoblogGreen for the head’s up. To read more about Nissan’s plans, check out the two articles below from The New York Times.

Nissan Plans Electric Car in U.S. by ’10

Nissan Says Electric Cars Will Be Quickly Profitable

Reading this article in The New York Times, I was struck by this example of old-think (trucks, SUVs; entrenched executives) vs. new think (small, efficient cars; relatively new chief executive Alan Mulally) at the notoriously financially troubled Ford: 

As recently as 2004, two-thirds of Ford’s United States sales were of truck-based products. Many people in the company were skeptical that Ford could be profitable with more small cars in the showroom.  

But Mr. Mulally has challenged those notions.  

At a town hall-style meeting this year, he expressed frustration when one employee suggested that making small cars was a money-losing proposition.  

“Why can’t we make money on small cars?” Mr. Mulally said, according to two people in attendance. “Do you think Toyota can’t make money on small cars?”  

At virtually every management meeting, Mr. Mulally would repeatedly refer to charts showing that smaller vehicles constituted 60 percent of the global automotive market.  

Each time an executive suggested that Ford’s future lay in expanding its truck business, Mr. Mulally pulled the charts out.  

“Let’s see, the global share of large vehicles is 15 percent,” he said at one such meeting, according to people in attendance. “And you’re telling me you want to invest more in them?”  

Details are few and far between, thus far, but today Ford announced it is shifting its longstanding focus on trucks and SUVs to small cars and crossover vehicles. The automaker will convert three plants in North America from truck and SUV production to produce six new cars, according to this report.

Which countries have installed the most wind power? It used to be Germany, followed by Spain. But the United States is now in the lead, according to estimates from the American Wind Energy Association. You can read more about it here in the Financial Times, or here, on Live Science.

 Looking for more statistics on wind energy around the world? A good source for this kind of information is the Global Wind Energy Council. Here’s their 2007 Global Wind Report (pdf).

Texas is already the U.S. leader in wind power with about 5,300 megawatts of installed wind capacity, but that lead is likely to get even bigger thanks to a new multi-billion dollar transmission upgrade that was just approved by Texas regulators.

Transmission capacity is a frequent stumbling block for windy parts of the world that want to put up more wind turbines. That’s because utility-scale wind projects require high voltage lines to carry the electricity where it’s needed. The transmission upgrades in Texas will make it much easier to build new wind power projects because they will help connect windy West Texas with the state’s largest cities.

Read More:

Texas Approves a $4.93 Billion Wind-Power Project, New York Times, New York Times

Texas to Spend $4.93 Billion on Transmission Lines for Wind Power, EERE

Research & Development Magazine announced that an ultra-light, highly efficient solar cell and use of ink-jet printing to manufacture thin-film photovoltaics, the production of electricity from sunlight, will be included this year’s most significant innovations.

According to its Web site, the R & D 100 Awards have been helping companies provide the important initial push a new product needs to compete successfully in the marketplace. Both technologies were developed in part by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the NREL has won a total of 42 of R & G’s awards, which the magazine has been presenting annually since 1969.

The new solar cell, called the Inverted Metamorphic Multi-Junction solar cell, has already set three world records for solar conversion efficiency, and the new photovoltaics are efficient enough to turn entire buildings and other structures into small, self-sustaining power plants, according to a press release from the NREL.

These two technologies are progressive steps taken toward incorporating solar energy into the everyday marketplace. Here a few articles on solar energy:

Get Your Hands on Solar!
News From Mother: Why Solar Power is Our Best Solution
Photovoltaics Today

I've been asked why I've ended my romance with biofuels. It's a fair question, particularly because I used to be a biofuels buff back in the ’70s — an era I expect we'll remember fondly as Energy Crisis Lite — and even wrote glowingly about biofuels in Mother Earth News.  

It's simple: I wasn't encouraging biofuels in general, I was encouraging home-brewed biofuels (or as the revenuers called it, moonshine).

So what's the difference?

The difference is, stuff that folks make for themselves gets valued, and stuff that folks buy is just stuff. 

Growing, fermenting and distilling your own fuel-grade ethanol is a lot of effort per gallon, enough effort to make anyone an instant convert to efficiency. Thirty-some years ago, people put their home-brewed ethanol in economy cars and work trucks, and they didn't take two trips to town when one trip would do. Nowadays, people put store-bought corn ethanol in their flex-fuel muscle cruisers and treat it just like gasoline — except it’s a little cheaper because it's subsidized by us taxpayers — and feel smug while they're doing it. Hey, not only are they saving the world, they're saving themselves a pretty penny by not paying a gas guzzler tax. So what if they're driving an ethanol guzzler ... ethanol doesn't count.

Well, in quantity, ethanol counts. The ethanol industry has become a lucrative market for corn growers, lucrative enough that many food farmers are becoming fuel farmers. A tank of E85 in a flex-fuel Chevy Suburban requires enough corn to keep a bicycle engine running for a full year, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

What's a bicycle engine? You're one, and so am I.

Overconsumption of ethanol auto fuel could pit people who want to drive against people who want to eat. That's one reason the MAX project is focused on minimizing fuel consumption, rather than focusing on what fuel gets consumed. Future technologies will cut the link between biofuels and groceries. But for today, I'm favoring fuel conservation, no matter what we're burning. Cellulosic and algae ethanol may be just around the corner, but conservation works right now.

Look for much more on the infant days of MAX in Here Comes the 100-mpg Car, from the August/September 2008 issue. And follow our progress through this blog, the Green Energy & Great Homes e-newsletter and my Kinetic Vehicles Web site.

Yesterday, Al Gore gave a speech challenging the United States to set a surprising new goal: To produce 100-percent of our electricity from renewable and carbon-free sources within 10 years.

Here’s the text of the speech, and you can check out video highlights below. It’s already gotten a lot of attention, and there’s a nice roundup of reactions to the speech from the blog Gristmill.

Tell us what you think. Is this goal far too ambitious, or is it achievable? Is setting this kind of challenge just the thing we need to start thinking seriously about renewable energy, or should we be aiming for more realistic goals?

More on this Topic:

An Inconvenient Truth

What You Can Do To Help Solve the Climate Crisis

Can you afford solar-electric panels, or a backyard wind turbine? For a growing number of people, the answer is yes.

But how you answer that question depends a lot on your state's net metering laws, because this one policy makes it much easier to pay for home solar or wind-electric systems.

That’s because net metering policies allow you to sell any extra electricity you produce back to the utility at the retail rate. It’s a simplified billing process where when you’re drawing electricity from the grid, your electric meter spins forward; when you’re producing electricity that you’re not using, your meter spins backward.

If you don’t have net metering, the utility can charge you more for the electricity you buy than you get for the electricity you produce. For a grid-connected wind or solar system, that makes a huge difference in how quickly the system pays for itself in reduced electric bills.

Currently, most U.S. states have net metering laws, although they don't all make it equally easy to connect to the grid. For more specifics on state policies, check out this list from the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE). Only eight states don’t have net metering laws: Alaska, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina.

Fortunately, more states are passing net metering laws all the time. So if you want net metering and don’t have it, let your state legislators know!

Photo by Michael Braun/Istockphoto

I bought gas last night. Cost me $42.96. Ouch.

When I saw the low-fuel light come on in my 2001 Honda Civic, I feared I was going to get hit with a $50 fill-up. But thankfully it wasn’t quite that bad.

What I got was 11.017 gallons at $3.899 a gallon. The car before me at the pump took about 18 gallons for about $70. Although rare, I have seen $100-plus totals this summer at my neighborhood gas station.

As usual, I wrote down the numbers I would need to do my mpg math. I jot them down on my receipt, which already lists the amount of fuel I bought.

354.4 miles on my trip meter divided by 11.017 gallons comes to 32 mpg. Ouch.

I know it’s summer and I’m using the air conditioning often, but 32 mpg isn’t good enough for me, nor my car, which definitely can do better. Looking at my gas mileage spreadsheet  (yes, I’m an mpg nut) back at home, I can see that my green Civic’s fuel economy has been slowly moving in the wrong direction over the last several weeks. The car does have 130,000+ miles, but I ought to be able to get about 34 mpg in the summer and up to 38 mpg in cooler weather.

So it’s time to check my tire pressure and do more sleuthing. I’m probably overdue for a tune-up. Hopefully I’ll find something and can raise the mpg result next time. But if gas prices continue upward, I might face that $50 fill-up after all.

How much have you paid at the pump? Share you pain by posting a comment below.

Naming our high-mileage project MAX was half in jest. The serious half is it's a condensed acronym for the Mother Earth News Automotive X Prize entry. The jest half is the implication that the car is big, a MAXimum car. The truth is it's really more of a MIN.

In my designs, I'm always thinking small. The pessimist says the glass is half empty, the optimist says the glass is half full. I say we're using twice as much glass as we need. It takes less energy to move small things than big things, and human transportation is one area where it pays to use the right amount of glass.

Need to move lots of people long distances? You can't beat railroads, though for person-miles per gallon, there are some busses that are pretty good. Need to move one person a short distance? You can't beat a bicycle, though there are some interesting electric vehicles that are close behind.

But our culture and our infrastructure — our millions of miles of roads, our cities and suburbs, our feed stores and tack shops that you can't get to by horse — are designed for cars, and that's not going to change overnight. We can, however, change our cars.

MAX is sized to perform the majority of automotive tasks, which is to move one or two people a moderate distance. For most driving in America, a four (or more) seat sedan is twice as much glass as we need.

A two-seater is not the solution to all automotive needs, we all know that. A 40-mpg minivan is more efficient than a 75-mpg two-seater, but only when the van actually carries four or more people. There are no points for potential efficiency because Car A could carry a bigger load than that of Car B. Actual usage is what determines efficiency.

If you have a crew cab truck that carries six passengers and a half ton of river rock while towing a 28-foot fifth wheel travel trailer and gets 11 miles to the gallon, that's pretty dang efficient when you're actually doing that stuff. But it's way too much vehicle for a trip to the grocery store. Unless you're picking up an awful lot of groceries.

Look for much more on the infant days of MAX in Here Comes the 100-mpg Car, from the August/September 2008 issue. And follow our progress through this blog, the Green Energy & Great Homes e-newsletter and my Kinetic Vehicles Web site.

San Francisco is paying its way to become a more energy efficient place by helping its citizens afford solar panels. The city’s board of supervisors recently approved the Solar Energy Incentive Program, GoSolarSF, which is now the country’s largest municipal solar program. With an annual budget of $3 million for the next 10 years, the program offers up to $6,000 to residents and up to $10,000 for businesses in the form of tax incentives for private solar installations. It will give out even more than that to low-income San Franciscans and nonprofit, multi-family residences. The program’s goal is to eventually have 10,000 solar rooftops in the city compared to the 770 they have right now. The program started accepting applications on July 1, 2008. Once they begin building, other cities will hopefully start to spend a little also.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, they may have discovered a cheaper and more efficient way to produce electricity from solar cells. Researchers have developed solar concentrators that use dyed glass. They work in three steps:

1. Pushes captured light to the edges of the glass.
2. Concentrates the light.
3. Squeezes out more than double the electricity as typical solar cell output.

This new technology is expected to be available within three years.

For more information, check out the following articles:

See-Through Solar Hack Could Double Panel Efficiency
MIT Spin-off Dyes Glass to Make Solar ‘Windows’
MIT Researchers Develop Windows to Channel Solar Energy

Hello, I'm Jack McCornack, and this is the first blog entry in the chronicles of MAX, the Mother Earth News Automotive X Prize entry.

The Progressive Insurance Auto X Prize is a competition to develop high-mileage vehicles. You can read more about it here and here, but in brief, the target is 100 miles per gallon, and the cars have to be suitable for mass production. 

Oh, sure, the $10 million in prize money is attractive, but the big outfits say that's a drop in the bucket compared to what it takes to develop such a car. But then again, for an automaker, the publicity of winning would be worth much more than the prize money.

For Mother Earth News and me, the prize money doesn't matter because we aren't going to win any of it. We're in this to show what concerned do-it-yourselfers can do on a small budget, with readily available materials and present day technology. And if that's only 90 percent as good as the winners, well heck, I wouldn't mind driving a 90-mpg car that I built myself. Will it be suitable for mass production? You bet. In fact, it'll be so suitable for production that when we're done, we're going to tell you how to produce one of your own.

Last summer, I showed up at the Mother Earth News headquarters for the first time in a quarter century. While the faces had changed, the spirit felt the same. I met with Cheryl Long (the editor in chief) and John Rockhold (the green transportation editor) and we talked about old times. Even though this time I was the old-timer, the conversation followed a familiar path: what can we do to make things better?

Personally, I think Mother Earth News’ greatest contribution (cue the violin music) has been seeding our nation with (stirring trumpets enter here) folks who are happy with conservation (kettle drums, muffled snares), despite living in a culture where highest honors are given to (rim shot) waste and excess (whoopie cushion). Seriously now, how can people take pride in houses with 4,000 square feet of floor space per resident, and cars that get 11 mpg, and ...?

So after I stopped jumping up and down and foaming at the mouth, the editors said, “Yes! Let's do it, let's demonstrate that dramatic improvements in fuel economy are within reach. Jack, you’re the project manager — go for it! But please wipe that foam off your mouth, it looks creepy.”

And that's how MAX got started.

Look for much more on the infant days of MAX in Here Comes the 100-mpg Car. And follow our progress through this blog, the Green Energy & Great Homes e-newsletter and my Kinetic Vehicles Web site.

Stay tuned, this is going to be a heckuva fun ride.

Hybrids, electric vehicles, public transportation, bicycles and walking are good options for green transportation. But a small vehicle that gets up to 72 mpg and can go as fast as 45 mph seems like a good transitional step, too. Priced at less than $6,000, the Wildfire WF251-T deserves a closer look, even if it burns gasoline in its 248cc engine.

If you already have a Wildfire, please share your experience in the comments section below. And post photos at cu.motherearthnews.com.

The state of Hawaii just passed a new law requiring all new homes to have solar water heaters installed starting in 2010. The bill, signed by Republican Governor Linda Lingle, will not allow building permits to be issued for homes that do not have solar water heaters.

Hawaii is the first state to require such a law and Hawaiian Electric Co. estimates that about 85, 000 households, or roughly 20 percent, already have solar water heaters installed. The law is a big move for a state that relies heavily on imported fossil fuels for 90 percent of its supply.

A traditional water heater is the most electricity-consuming appliance in a home and it accounts for about 40 percent of all home energy use, according to an article from the Associated Press. Solar powered water heaters reduce energy use by about 30-35 percent and with those savings the initial expense of the water heater can be paid off in three to four years, says MSNBC. Solar water heaters cost about $7000 on top of already sky-high Hawaiian mortgage costs, but supporters are confident that the benefits to the environment and foreign energy independence will be worth it.

Similar to a wind-powered town in Missouri, Hawaii’s new law takes the initiative in having its citizens partake in renewable energy practices, rather than just giving them the option. In January, Lingle announced the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, which seeks to have at least 70 percent of Hawaii’s energy come from renewable sources by 2030.

For those living outside the Aloha state, here’s an article on how to build your own solar water heater:

 Build Your own Passive Solar Water Heater

According to the Energy Information Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy, the national average price of gasoline is still higher than $4 a gallon, $4.165 specifically. That's for all grades. The average price of regular octane is $4.114.

In late June, the averages were $4.146 and $4.095, respetively.

Here are a few other averages of note:

National average for regular gas, May 19, 2008: $3.791. That's 32 cents less than today's average.

National averages for regular gas, by region:

New England: $4.143
East Coast: $4.079
Midwest: $4.059
Gulf Coast: $3.958
California: $4.550
West Coast: $4.440

Some specific cities:

Boston: $4.058
New York City: $4.179
Denver: $3.974
Miami: $4.173
Seattle: $4.350

How bad is the price of gas in your area? Share you pain by posting a comment below.

A recent editorial from Car & Driver editor-in-chief Csaba Csere makes a “fearless prediction” that plug-in hybrids will be “the hot rods of the 21st century.” 

Csere acknowledges that we still need a breakthrough in lithium-ion battery technology to make plug-in hybrids feasible, which is certainly true. But he adds that plug-in hybrids will “quickly proliferate” after that breakthrough happens. Csere is dead-on when he argues that plug-in hybrid development is ahead of that for fuel-cell vehicles. He says: 

“A reasonable person might conclude that once plug-in hybrids become common and their batteries become inexpensive purely battery-powered vehicles will leapfrog the fuel-cell machines and leave them stillborn.” 

The rest of Csere’s column is a technical, but interesting discussion of the keys to plug-in hybrid development, the horsepower from advanced batteries and electric motors, and the advantages of series hybrids (in which the electric motor and internal combustion engine are separate) over parallel hybrids (in which the electric motor and internal combustion engine are intertwined). 

And — in case you’re wondering — Csere’s name is pronounced something like “Chabba Chedda.” At least according to the forums at caranddriver.com.

Whether you’re interested in an energy retrofit, remodeling a kitchen or bathroom, or completely gutting a house to prepare for a green remodel, you’ll want to read the ReGreen Residential Remodeling Guidelines. The American Society of Interior Designers’ Foundation and the U.S. Green Building Council has assembled this 182-page manual that has great ideas, practical illustrations and beautiful photos. Downloading the PDF is free.

More than 25 years ago, MOTHER EARTH NEWS reported on how to run a truck with wood chips. The idea is still sawin’ after all these years. 

As reported yesterday in The New York Times, Robert “Chip” Beam of Williamsport, Pa., converted his 1988 Isuzu Trooper SUV to run on wood chips (see photo). The Trooper runs 20 miles on 25 pounds of wood chips, which Beam gets for free. Visit the Beaver Energy website to learn more about the Trooper.

Beam tells the Times that in the summer of 2005 he was inspired to figure out how to run cars on a fuel aside from gas. So he got to work, crafting his system from our articles and various other online resources. Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like he found the conversion plans we offer. 

Like the original MOTHER EARTH NEWS woodburning truck, Beam’s system has a furnace that sits in the back of the vehicle. He can use just about any type of scrap wood, which is burned to produce carbon monoxide and hydrogen, which burns in the Trooper’s original engine without modifications. The Trooper can go up to about 45 miles per hour and emits a faint smell of charcoal barbeque. 

Beam says he’s now working to create “the fastest wood-powered car on the planet.” Specifically, he’s modifying a 1991 Mercury Cougar. I'm curious to hear how the sysytem will fit in the trunk!

I hope to contact Beam to learn more about his setup. And we’re also going to soon post a detailed report prepared for the Federal Emergency Management Agency by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Department of Energy called "Construction of a Simplified Wood Gas Generator for Fueling Internal Combustion Engines in a Petroleum Emergency." Stay tuned. 

In the meantime, here’s a comprehensive list of our articles and plans related to wood chip power: 

Wood-Gas Generator Plans

You can use wood chips to power a truck or other gas or diesel engine by using this wood-gas generator fabricated from recycled water heaters. The generator converts the energy in the wood into a gaseous form that can be using instead of gasoline.  The plans include a materials list, step-by-step instructions and black-and-white photos. Advanced mechanical and metalworking skills recommended. 

Mother’s Woodburning Truck

Mother is Going to the Races!

Wood-Gas Update

Homemade Motor Fuel … from Firewood

They Run Their Truck on Wood!

Ajax … The Woodburning, Steam-Powered Truck

Can We Use Wood to Beat the Gasoline Shortage?

Dear Mother: Producer Gas Vehicles

How to Run Your Own Car on Wood

Photo: Robert "Chip" Beam drives his wood-powered Isuzu Trooper in the Green Grand Prix in Watkins Glen, N.Y.

Photo by David Duprey/AP Wide World

UPDATE, 6/9/2009:

I have finally tracked down a digital version of the FEMA report. You can download the report (NOTE: this is a 25 MB+ file and thus may not be feasible to download over a slow Internet connection) via the following link: Construction of a Simplified Wood Gas Generator for Fueling Internal Combustion Engines in a Petroleum Emergency.

Over at Greenversations, the official blog of the EPA, there’s a lively discussion going on about what it’ll take to get us to change our driving habits. It’s a good question, one that’s becoming more front and center for most Americans.

The post notes that the pressures of rising gas prices and increasing pollution have many people wanting to drive less, but not necessarily everyone can, at least easily so. 

For me, I’d take public transportation in a heartbeat. If it were available for my commute. I yearn for high-speed light rail of some sort to run between where I live and where I work. In the meantime, I’m thankful I’m at least able to carpool with three or four other people. 

To share the pain of record gas prices and post your thoughts on what it would take to significantly change your driving habits, click here.