Strada Group

"The Industrial Era is ending. Its extraordinary successes—advances in literacy, life expectancy, human rights, and technology—have propelled us headlong into a myriad of side effects: food and water shortages, cyclonic destruction, prolonged drought and rising sea levels. To delay acknowledging the need for lifestyle and business changes—'The Necessary Revolution'—risks our very survival.

What only a couple of decades ago was still a vigorous scientific debate has become as close to a consensus as scientific communities ever achieve: human-induced climate change from greenhouse gases concentrating in the atmosphere has reached a threshold of significant social and economic impact—and we are only now at the start of experiencing the effects.

Stabilizing atmospheric carbon dioxide will require a profound reversal: a 60–80% reduction in growing worldwide emissions in the next twenty years. This is the '80–20 Challenge,' and this manifesto presents inspiring, real-life examples of how this is starting to happen."

Take a few minutes to view the Power Point presentation...Click Here.

We have probably all seen a wind turbine, they are huge, heard of wind farms, and have an idea of how it works. Here is a better idea of how a wind turbine works...we know that the wind powers the turbine...a few additional details from National Geographic...Click Here.

What is RMI..?

RMI is Rocky Mountain Institute...?

Yes! We had the same reaction Rocky who?...Click Here you will be interested and impressed...its cool.

If you are a fan and follower of the evolution of Tesla and the Roadster, you are familiar that Martin Eberhard waited some time to take delivery of his personal car.

If you have been following the various blogs and forums you are or should be familiar with an individual that uses the screen name TEG.

This is the story of TEG driving Martin's car...Click Here.

A brief excerpt:

My impressions:

• It looks spectacular. There really isn’t a bad angle on the car, and I find the custom paint job very appealing. It ads more excitement to an already exciting car.

• It still isn’t perfect (yet). I found a number of little detail problems, but they were all minor things that can still be worked out. At one point I did something that apparently exposed a possible “firmware bug” that Martin intends to report back to Tesla for further investigation. (The founder series cars are perhaps still in final beta, and not quite FCS in SV lingo).

• The car drives like a dream. I don’t think there is another car on the planet that you can drive so quickly and feel so relaxed doing it. The electric motor just goes NOW when you want it and the acceleration is so linear and quiet that you can squirt through traffic with little drama. The Lotus engineered handling is just without compromise.
• As many of you know, Tesla is still working to integrate “drivetrain 1.5″ into upcoming production to correct some transmission issues that have plagued the program so far. Martin’s car, unfortunately, has the interim transmission locked in 2nd gear, so the “off the line” performance isn’t yet up to the supercar standards that will come with the drive-train retrofit coming some months down the road. Hopefully Martin invites me for another drive when that day comes!
• Should I say that it is easy to drive again? This car opens up a whole new world of performance opportunities to those who don’t have the coordination or training to eek out everything a traditional sports car offers. It just felt “right” to drive it. No learning curve. Just jump in and go-go-go. Well, speaking of “jumping in” that is a bit literal. Even with all that Tesla has done to make “ingress/egress” better on this car (compared to the Elise) it is still one of the biggest shortcomings of the Roadster. Those with leg problems or with limited upper body strength may find the “climbing in and out” a bit much. Sorry folks, this isn’t the perfect car for everyone, but I am sure Tesla’s next model will widen the audience substantially.

In case you have not heard of the Pickens Plan from T.Boone Pickens or seen the televised ads its encouraging to see an individual take a pro active position on energy...Click Here.

Ever hear of Mindset?

Take a look its an imaginative site with thought provoking ideas spend a few minutes exploring...Click Here.

In case you missed it!

Yes...a few months ago High Performance Efficiency Economy (HPEE) did not resonate as LOUDLY as today. Interesting how quickly "things change".

Our white paper on High Performance Efficiency Economy...Click Here.

From Portfolio....a picture is worth how many words? This one says it all.

A thought provoking article from The Economist, and a special report...Click Here.

The future of Energy

Jun 19th 2008
From The Economist print edition

A fundamental change is coming sooner than you might think

SINCE the industrial revolution 200 years ago, mankind has depended on fossil fuel. The notion that this might change is hard to contemplate. Greens may hector. Consciences may nag. The central heating's thermostat may turn down a notch or two. A less thirsty car may sit in the drive. But actually stop using the stuff? Impossible to imagine: surely there isn't a serious alternative?

Such a failure of imagination has been at the heart of the debate about climate change. The green message—use less energy—is not going to solve the problem unless economic growth stops at the same time. If it does not (and it won't), any efficiency saving will soon be eaten up by higher consumption per head. Even the hair-shirt option, then, will bring only short-term relief. And when a dire prophecy from environmentalism's jeremiad looks as if it is coming true, as the price of petroleum rises through the roof and the idea that oil might run out is no longer whispered in corners but openly discussed, there is a temptation to believe that the end of the world is, indeed, nigh.

This time it's serious

Alternative energy sounds like a cop-out. Windmills and solar cells hardly seem like ways of producing enough electricity to power a busy, self-interested world, as furnaces and steam-turbines now do. Battery-powered cars, meanwhile, are slightly comic: more like milk-floats than Maseratis. But the proponents of the new alternatives are serious. Though many are interested in environmental benefits, their main motive is money. They are investing their cash in ideas that they think will make them large amounts more. And for the alternatives to do that, they need to be both as cheap as (or cheaper than) and as easy to use as (or easier than) what they are replacing.

For oil replacements, cheap suddenly looks less of a problem. The biofuels or batteries that will power cars in the alternative future should beat petrol at today's prices. Of course, today's prices are not tomorrow's. The price of oil may fall; but so will the price of biofuels, as innovation improves crops, manufacturing processes and fuels.

Electrical energy, meanwhile, will remain cheaper than petrol energy in almost any foreseeable future, and tomorrow's electric cars will be as easy to fill with juice from a socket as today's are with petrol from a pump. Unlike cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells, of the sort launched by Honda this week, battery cars do not need new pipes to deliver their energy. The existing grid, tweaked and smartened to make better use of its power stations, should be infrastructure enough. What matters is the nature of those power stations.

The price is right

They, too, are more and more likely to be alternative. Wind power is taking on natural gas, which has risen in price in sympathy with oil. Wind is closing in on the price of coal, as well. Solar energy is a few years behind, but the most modern systems already promise wind-like prices. Indeed, both industries are so successful that manufacturers cannot keep up, and supply bottlenecks are forcing prices higher than they otherwise would be. It would help if coal—the cheapest fuel for making electricity—were taxed to pay for the climate-changing effects of the carbon dioxide produced when it burns, but even without such a tax, some ambitious entrepreneurs are already talking of alternatives that are cheaper than coal.

Older, more cynical hands may find this disturbingly familiar. The last time such alternatives were widely discussed was during the early 1970s. Then, too, a spike in the price of oil coincided with a fear that natural limits to supply were close. The newspapers were full of articles on solar power, fusion and converting the economy to run on fuel cells and hydrogen.

Of course, there was no geological shortage of oil, just a politically manipulated one. Nor is there a geological shortage this time round. But that does not matter, for there are two differences between then and now. The first is that this price rise is driven by demand. More energy is needed all round. That gives alternatives a real opening. The second is that 35 years have winnowed the technological wheat from the chaff. Few believe in fusion now, though uranium-powered fission reactors may be coming back into fashion. And, despite Honda's launch, the idea of a hydrogen economy is also fading fast. Thirty-five years of improvements have, however, made wind, solar power and high-tech batteries attractive.

As these alternatives start to roll out in earnest, their rise, optimists hope, will become inexorable. Economies of scale will develop and armies of engineers will tweak them to make them better and cheaper still. Some, indeed, think alternative energy will be the basis of a boom bigger than information technology.

Whether that boom will happen quickly enough to stop the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reaching dangerous levels is moot. But without alternative energy sources such a rise is certain. The best thing that rich-world governments can do is to encourage the alternatives by taxing carbon (even knowing that places like China and India will not) and removing subsidies that favour fossil fuels. Competition should do the rest—for the fledgling firms of the alternative-energy industry are in competition with each other as much as they are with the incumbent fossil-fuel companies. Let a hundred flowers bloom. When they have, China, too, may find some it likes the look of. Therein lies the best hope for the energy business, and the planet.

If you have been following our Think Verde blog, you know that the F700 captured our imagination from the moment we saw photos. Its a bold and compelling statement on the future orientation of the luxury car.

The F700 captures and transmist the essence of what luxury cars will be in the near future.

From Autoweek an informative video...Click Here.