My current 'object of desire' is the absolutely gorgeous Fisker Karma. Built by Fisker Coachbuild, and powered by a powerplant from Quantum Technologies, the Karma is an eco-geek's dream machine. It is a plug-in-hybrid, which operates exclusively off of it's batteries, with a gasoline engine to power the electric plant in the event that the driven range exceeds 50 miles between charges. If your commute is less than 25 miles in each direction, the gasoline engine never kicks on, and you end up with an effective 100MPG. When you have returned home (or if you have an AC outlet at work), you plug it in and charge the batteries and you are ready to roll after work or the next morning.
The clever folks at Fisker Auto also have the option of a solar array on the roof of the car to keep the cabin (and batteries) cool during idle periods, thereby boosting the batteries' efficiency. Rumor has it that there is also a garage-roof-solar-panel option with the car as well, to allow it to charge using solar while parked. Of course, if you drive home from work in the evening, that doesnt give you much time to harness the sun to charge the battery unless you have some sort of fuel-cell that stored it up all day.
In my case, with two young children, it is the perfect pairing of exotic sportscar (it goes 0-60MPH in 5.8 seconds) and family sedan. Granted, the estimated retail price is somewhere north of $80,000, so it is unlikely that my smarter-and-better-half will green-light the pre-order in these harsh macro-economic times.
Never one to be deterred, I set about trying to justify the value to myself (in preparation for the harder sell to my wife), and was surprised to discover some nasty facts about electric power in the United States that caused me to think twice about a plug-in hybrid.
I'm going to lay out some data that I uncovered, and hope that some astute readers can point out the holes in my concerns, or new data, so I can justify this after-all:
This isn't my first electronic book reader. I have been reading books on laptops, my old Newton, various Palm and CE-based PDAs, Smartphones (including my iPhones), and my Sony Reader. I think the idea of electronic access to my absurdly large library of books makes as much sense as electronic access (via my iPhone/iPod) to my library of music.
I think the Kindle, as aesthetically unpleasing as it is, may finally be a step in the right direction.
Rather than sprout a bunch of platitudes about how fantastic it is, let me just illustrate some uses I have put it to and let those speak for themselves:
I had written previously about the opportunities to reduce air travel by substituting virtual meetings for physical meetings, however reading through the excellent work already being done for Blog Action day has really got me motivated to make a change today.
I'd like to make a bargain with you......
For the remainder of the year, don't fly. Neither will I. Instead, we will use the amazing array of tools at our disposal, from Telepresence to WebEx to avatar-mediated communications, to approximate the magic of physical proximity.
What's the bargain? I promise to pay $1000 out of my own pocket per airline trip that I take between now and the end of the year. Where does that $1000 go? The Nature Conservancy. So the result is a win-win, either I fund the Nature Conservancy to look into solutions for combating rising emissions, or I reduce my share of airline-related emissions. I don't drive to work or else I'd suggest the same for cars. If you are game, then publicly promise to do the same.
There are a number of us in the virtual world space that travel from virtual world event to virtual world event to speak and do business, and the question always arises 'why cant we do this virtually?'. Well, if 30 or more speakers were looking at $1000 fines each for flying, I bet you'd see a really big virtual world event conducted in the virtual world.
Feel free to track me on Dopplr to confirm I am keeping my side of the bargain. How do I reach you again?
I was mulling this chart over today, while the excellent presentation by Dr. Tim Foresman was still fresh in my mind from Coventry last week. Tim referenced one point in particular with regards to the amount of actual water on the planet (see right) as a percentage of the entire earth's mass. More detail about the picture (from the Science Photo Library).
Global water volume. Conceptual computer artwork of the total volume of the Earth's water, seen as a sphere, centred over Europe. It dramatically shows how finite the water supply on Earth actually is. The sphere measures 1390 kilometres across and has a volume of 1.4 billion cubic kilometres. These figures were calculated by adding the volumes of water in the oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, ground water and water in both ice caps and the atmosphere. The largest percentage (97%) of water is held in the oceans, with ice caps & glaciers accounting for a further 2%. The average depth of the ocean is 3.8 kilometres.
You can't help but be concerned. I will save the short-shower and small-flush dialog for some other post.
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