Outlining Toyota’s response to rapidly changing global market conditions, growing environmental issues and increasing material costs, President Katsuaki Watanabe said that the company was accelerating its development of hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and all electric vehicles. Watanabe said that Toyota would advance its delivery of plug-ins for fleet deployment to 2009 from 2010, and was planning series production of a next-generation electric vehicle in the early 2010s.

Watanabe characterized the rapid change is the US market toward more fuel-efficient vehicles as structural. Click to enlarge.

Modern society depends on mobility to sustain modern lifestyles.  Personal transportation facilitates individual freedom and transportation services distribute goods and services all over the world.  Without this mobility the modern lifestyle we have all quietly become accustomed to would simply not exist.  Most of this mobility has been provided by the efficiency and reliability of the internal combustion engine which powers the vast majority of our vehicles.  Each day it becomes more clear that, if we wish to perpetuate a high quality of life on planet earth, we are going to need an alternative to the internal combustion engine.

Internal combustion engines require fuel to burn in order to produce power.  This process has two serious drawbacks; 1. Most of the fuels that work well in internal combustion engines are becoming more expensive and the increasing demand for these fuels will eventually outpace supply, and 2. Combustion produces heat, greenhouse gases and other pollutants.

Modern life is powered by electricity.  We are reminded of this fact each time we experience a power failure.  Nearly all our activities and comforts depend either directly or indirectly on the availability of electricity.  Last year in the wake of a particularly intense hurricane season some residents in Southern Florida experienced an especially unpleasant reminder of just how dependent we have become on electricity.  It seems that many of these communities are situated below sea level and their sewage treatment plants are located on higher ground.  Large electric pumps are used to pump wastewater up to the treatment plants.  As power failures lingered the back up systems began to fail.  Soon resident were waking up to toilets overflowing and filling their homes with raw sewage.

Problem:  Solar energy technology offers a clean renewable alternative to conventional energy production.  The main barrier to implementation of solar technology in electrical power production is the cost and availability of the materials used.

Solution:  Concentrator Photovoltaic systems concentrate the sun’s energy onto a relatively small surface limiting the amount of expensive materials required to build these systems.

Concentrator PV systems are not new.  There is a Concentrator PV power plant that has been operating in the Mojave Desert for over 25 years.  This older design takes up a tremendous amount of space and is not practical for most applications.  The following article describes a new design that is much more efficient and can be used in a relatively small amount of space.

Imagine a world where every time you flush the toilet the lights in your house turn on. Well you’d better stock up on laxatives because with biomass, imaginary is becoming reality. The burning of municipal waste along with other organic items is becoming increasingly beneficial for both the environment and Oregon’s economy. Biomass is found in two main forms, biofuels and municipal solid waste (MSW).

The public commonly knows biofuels in the form of biodiesel, bioethanol and biogas. These cleaner burning fuels contribute less pollution compared to fossil fuels, boasting other favorable impacts on Oregon’s atmosphere, lowering almost all harmful emissions and toxic pollutants. Even with the benefits of biofuels, this form of renewable energy has not become widespread enough to support Oregon’s growing industries. Municipal solid waste (MSW), as we mentioned earlier, can be burned to create electricity using heat and steam to turbines. When brought to full efficiency the burning of MSW can total around 200 times more energy, Oregon uses in a year. This reduces side effects from waste treatment and landfills that harm ecosystems. However the process creates a toxic ash containing many harmful metals. Precautions can be taken to solve this problem, causing much of the ash to be safe in the use in the building of roads, cement blocks, and artificial reefs for wildlife.

Biomass is a resource that we already have at our fingertips. What people need to know is all it takes is a little effort to utilize its power for our needs. Your imaginary renewable resource world is soon to be a reality. As long as there’s garbage there’s biomass.