by Bob | Jul 9, 2008 | Life notes, Local Tech Notes
The Eureka Reporter had an interesting article this week about Zero Motorcycles. These dirt bikes
are electric with no noise and zero emissions. Apparently you can view one at Bedliners Plus at 1326 Koster Lane off Broadway in Eureka.
But the real news is that the company expects to come out with a street legal version this summer. The current off road model costs $7450 (plus shipping) and you can order them from their web site. No information is on their site as to when exactly the new bikes will be available nor how much they will cost. The current dirt bikes can go up to 60 mph, have a range of 40 miles and take 2 hours to fully recharge. Of course, while you may not be making any noise or belting out pollutants, most of the electricty we use is still generated by burning fossil fuels (71.4%) so you will still be in the global warming tar pit.
by Bob | Feb 13, 2008 | Broadband/Internet, Local Tech Notes
In spite of the what seems like huge sucking sounds coming from massive server farms and data centers soaking up electricity it appears, according to a new study, that the “net” affect of the growth of the Internet is a savings in energy usage.
“Indeed, all America’s servers – the computers that direct traffic on the Internet – and the systems that cool them use about 1.2 percent of the nation’s electricity, according to a study last year.”
“But it turns out that for every kilowatt-hour of electricity used by information and communications technologies, the US saves at least 10 times that amount, the new ACEEE report found.”
Good news! One more reason to invest in improved broadband infrastructure. Doing so will help energy efficiency thus reduce our impact on global warming and reduce our dependency on imported oil. Let the bit torrents begin!
