Why the Porsche 911?
There's nothing inherently special about being faster than the Porsche 911 which can get from 0 to 60 mph in 4.5-5.0 seconds (I'm talking about the regular 911s, not the $194k GT2). It's not like you actually need that kind of acceleration in regular driving... But, it does strike the imagination of gearheads everywhere and create a halo effect. If that can help make eco-cars more desirable, why not?

Lets check out 5 green cars which are actually faster off the line than the Porsche 911.

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Back in September, Jaymi reported on San Francisco-based GreenVolts raising $30 million in series B funding for their 2 MW concentrating solar photovolatic (CPV) pilot project. In her post there were some photos of GreenVolts’ innovative technology, but they don’t really give you a sense of the scale. Which is why I was happy to get a chance to snap the photo above at Solar Power International.

In case you missed it, here’s how GreenVolts touts some of the benefits of its variety of CPV:

Judging by the three most popular posts in TreeHugger, it seems that much of our readership wants to green their sex life in front of a pellet stove in a shipping container house. And why not? Shipping containers are cheap, plentiful and strong. I grew up surrounded by containers (and helped my dad design the Kalkinesque warehouse shown above for Northern Canada in the seventies) and always thought the interior dimensions too small, the floors too toxic and the problems of insulating and making them comfortable too challenging, but dozens of architects and shipping container designs have proven me wrong. Let's count the ways.

Tyler Hamilton at Clean Break reminds us of what Bob Lutz said a month ago when I asked him if a recession could kill the Volt, much of which seems to be coming to pass a lot more quickly than anyone might have anticipated:

"Let us say that over the next 18 months the world goes into a major recession, car sales and fuel use drop dramatically, the steel companies produce less steel and therefore use less energy, China finds it main export markets drying up, so they are into a contraction and use less steel and aluminum and plastic. And at the same time Canadian tar sands come onstream, and coal-to-liquids come onstream. All of a sudden there is a reduction in primary demand in petroleum plus all these additional new supply sources… And the oil barrel drops to $25 a barrel and we’re looking at gas pump prices at $1.25 a gallon. I personally don’t think that’s going to happen, but that would be a dramatic event for the Volt because everybody would say, ‘Ha!, why should I bother?’"

Today is Blog Action Day, and we'll be using our forum as a green blog to talk about this year's theme: poverty. Check the end of the post for links to all our Blog Action Day posts. Photo credit: laszlo-photo

The intersection of green and poverty might be the most dramatic when it comes to water issues; no resource is more precious on this planet, and, yet, no resource is more abused, misallocated, polluted, or otherwise undrinkable; 2.6 billion people in the world lack access to sanitary toilet facilities and 1.1 billion people have no access to safe drinking water. Yet, some solid green projects are underway, bringing design to the forefront of green and poverty, around the globe, helping impoverished folks get their hands on the precious resource.

In honor of Blog Action Day, here are five projects and designs that have the potential to help end poverty and insure everyone has enough clean water to drink.

BBC News video segment: The UK government faces court action over claims millions are in fuel poverty despite a pledge to eradicate it.

Old age pensioner Philys Webb says fuel is more of a worry for her than food. It's estimated that 5 million people in the United Kingdom are living in "fuel poverty," meaning they need to spend 10 percent of their income on gas and electricity. In 2000, the UK government committed itself in law to eliminating fuel poverty for vulnerable households (those with children, pensioners, or disabled people) by 2010 and for everyone by 2016. It is widely believed the government will miss these targets outlined in The Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act 2000. Friends of the Earth thinks energy-efficiency and renewable powers sources are the solutions to fuel poverty as well as climate change.

Civilian Conservation Corps Working With Bricks

We keep saying that the best source of energy is conservation and efficiency; by coincidence, Franklin Roosevelt set up the Conservation Corps to build ditches, plant crops and reforest America in the Great Depression. Now leader of the free world Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the UK is doing the same, creating a new Conservation Corps to conserve energy- training thousands to insulate attics.

"We are expanding in a very radical way our insulation and draught-proofing central-heating provision for the elderly and other people in our country. We are training large numbers of additional people to do that work in insulation. That will be one of the employment programmes that will grow."

Strip malls are in trouble across North America as the economy tightens and people aren't filling their new houses with junk any more. Even when they were busy, they were not exactly the most efficient use of resources. Late last year the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA) invited architects to determine what ideas they had for urban farming, live/work, revitalization of strip malls in Scottsdale, Phoenix and Tempe. MOS architects of New Haven, Connecticut of all places, took first prize with its Urban Battery that charges us up with wind and solar power combined with a vertical algae farm.