Comparing electric cars to gas powered cars

Following is an interesting article on the comparison of electric cars to gas powered cars:

Busting the electric car myth

The main point: The Tesla is at worst as pollutant as the Toyota Prius, if you consider that the Tesla's power comes from coal plants. This comes from the more efficient electric motor that the Tesla has, compared to a combustion engine.

First Solar: Quest for the $1 Watt

This months IEEE Spectrum has an interesting article on a start-up company called First Solar. They are very close to the $1 per Watt solar cell with their thin-film production process. This mark is the so called tipping point where solar energy becomes about as expensive as regular grid energy. Thus, if you can produce such a product, you can freely compete with any regular energy provider. The article can be found here:

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/aug08/6464

Don't forget to have a look at the links in the: "To Probe Further" section on page 4. They are very interesting!

Household Energy Monitoring going Mainstream

Household Energy Monitoring start-ups pop up everywhere. Here is an interesting article from Wired that mentions some of them:

Flash Creators Reveal App for Saving Money on Energy

I wonder, if I should do my own start-up based on the research I am doing:

NAWMS: Nonintrusive Autonomous Water Monitoring System

New Way of Getting Oil Independent

The summer is over, I am a married man now, and it is time to get back to work. Here is an interesting article from Wired on Shai Agassi. He has a very interesting vision on how a country can get its oil independency:

http://www.wired.com/cars/futuretransport/magazine/16-09/ff_agassi

The key idea is that similar to cellphone providers, a Electric Recharge Grid Operator (ERGO) the batteries and provides charging stations pretty much everywhere. He also provides car at a substantial discount. The ERGO makes money by selling the power. Read the article if you are interested in more details.

UCLA Biotech Lab goes Green

Not directly a science article, but an article on a research lab that wants to go green, and faces some difficult challenges:

Teamwork helps lab go green

IEEE Power & Energy Society

A colleague pointed me to the following IEEE society:
IEEE Power & Energy Society

Looks very interesting. I have to see what kind of paper's they published at their conferences...

Paper or Plastic?

Who doesn't know this question after you went shopping for groceries? This is not a 100% academic science article, but still an interesting read and breakdown on how paper and plastic bags are produced:

Paper Bags or Plastic Bags? Everything You Need to Know

The conclusion in short: Both are bad. Use reusable cloth bags!