I want this car! Aptera’s concept car has a range of 300 miles per gallon and starts at $20,000. There will also be an all-electric version and plugin hybrid models for $26,900 and $29,900. It is planned for release next year.

President Bush finally signed the energy bill into law today increasing vehicle fuel efficiency standards to 35 mpg. The law also enforces the use of biofuels and more energy efficient homes and appliances. By 2020, automakers will need to have a 35 mpg average fuel efficiency for all vehicles sold in the US. The current standard is 27.5 mpg for passenger cars and 22.2 for trucks which was established in 1975. Refineries also have to replace 36 billion gallons of gasoline with biofuel by 2022. The Bill however, left out two provisions, leaving out $20 billion in funding for renewable energy, and a requirement for utilities to buy 15% of their power from renewable resources. It is obvious that President Bush doesn’t care to make cars more fuel efficient and use biofuel since his family got rich in the oil business. He has done a pretty good job preventing this bill from happening throughout his career but I guess the demands have finally made him to give in since it was going to happen sooner or later.

The bill also phases out the incandescent light bulb by 2012. Sales of CFL(compact fluorescent bulbs) only sell 5% of the light bulb market. Incandescent light bulbs waste 90% of its energy due to the wasted heat. As of now, there are not too many alternatives to incandescent light bulbs, but with the new law in place, there should be a lot more alternatives. Some of the cons of CFLs are that they have a toxic substance(mercury) in them, they aren’t as bright, they do not come in as many sizes, and there are not any with dimmers and 3-way settings. Most of these actually do exist now and there will surely be a lot more choices and variety. You can read more about bulbs and some frequently asked questions here.

via CNN 

Nanosolar Inc has begun selling the world’s lowest cost solar panels for about a dollar per watt. The company got early stage financing from Google and uses a technology that only requires a fraction of the amount of silicon needed for regular solar cells. One of the reasons solar panels are not that common is because of its cost. This could be an impressive breakthrough that will finally allow more solar panels to be installed all over the world. Nanosolar is based in San Jose, CA and develops cost-efficient 100x thinner solar cells in mass quantities at a faster rate.

via Reuters 

A new 14,000 sq. ft Yahoo! data center was open in Quincy, Washington and had a welcome ribbon cutting by David Filo as well as Wylie Gustafson, the original guy who yodels “Yahoo!” at the end of commercials. Quincy, Washington was chosen as the prime location due to its fiber connectivity, network availability, affordable power, land and operations, and welcoming community. The best part about this data center was that it was custom built as opposed to all the other data centers that are usually rented. This allowed Yahoo! to put energy efficiency as a top priority in the design and construction of the data center. One advantange of being in Washington was the ability to draw in the cold air outside to cool the servers without using air conditioning. Carbon-free electricity using hydro and wind power the facility and all the lights operate on motion sensors. This is a great step in Yahoo!’s step in reducing energy consumption and becoming carbon neutral by the end of this year.

Read more at Columbia Basin Herald Online

Although all the christmas lights and decorations are very pretty during the holidays, it is a uneccessary asthetic use of electricity. Well, now you don’t have to feel bad about it anymore with solar christmas lights! There is a website called Solarsanta.com that sells solar holiday lighting. A set of 4-100 red, white, and blue lights costs $99.99. A set of 104 red, white, or blue LED solar string lights start at $79.99. They come with a heavy-duty rechargeable 6v battery that recharges with sunlight. It is also great because you do not need to worry about finding a power outlet or setting up a timer to have it turn on and off at a certain time. It automatically turns on at night and a day of charging will power it for the whole night. Obviously they are a little pricey compared to your normal $.99-$9.99 set but at least you can feel good about not wasting electricity. Maybe after 30 years or something, you can make it back up in the electricity costs that you save! Of course, if money is no issue, it really is a cool alternative to show that you care about the environment. Maybe I should request for a free sample to test out how good they work.