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September 2008

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Crazy guys jumping off our turbines

September 29, 2008 by dale

Filed under: Energy, Transport

Wind turbines - love ‘em or hate ‘em, would you jump off the top of one?

A bunch of crazy guys have been doing just that this weekend, from our turbine at Ecotech Swaffham, the world’s first ever legal base jump off a windmill apparently. ;) In fact this is the final round of UK Pro Base championships 2008.

Hot off the virtual press is this video:


Modern parachutes are amazing, just 80m to open and land - on a target!

A bunch of us have abseiled of the turbine at Ecotech before, and we thought that was pretty cool, and ‘out there’… but this is whole nother level.

Even if they do make it look easy. Fair play.

Source video by Hot Under The Collar
Music ‘Carcinogens’ by Sawtooth

5 Comments

Carbon Offsetting just went mad

September 18, 2008 by dale

Filed under: Energy

The subject of Carbon Offsetting seems to have come up recently as a result of the Greenbird record attempt, and the trip to Oz I didn’t make. I’ve never been a fan of it (offsetting) that’s for sure. Continue reading “Carbon Offsetting just went mad”

53 Comments

Why green electricity prices go up when brown prices do - Part 2

September 16, 2008 by dale

Filed under: Energy

A better explanation of our recent price rise

You may remember a post I wrote entitled “Why green electricity prices go up when brown prices do” in which I first attempted to explain this seemingly counter-intuitive situation.

I also recently wrote to all of our customers explaining that we needed to follow the recent price rises (of the Big Six) and why. In it I tried to provide a simple explanation of why green electricity prices go up when brown electricity prices do. I received a number of e-mails and letters from customers who had further questions about that and related issues.

I’ve spent the last few nights considering how best to approach this and writing what follows below – it’s a more detailed explanation of why our prices need to follow the market (for now). I hope in the process to better explain the way the electricity market works, how this affects what we do and at the same time cover the majority of questions asked.

Here we go… Continue reading “Why green electricity prices go up when brown prices do - Part 2″

32 Comments

The Wind Car is on its way - Part 1

September 15, 2008 by dale

Filed under: Transport, Wind Car

Work started in earnest on our wind powered car about 6 weeks ago. We’re making good progress, close to plan and budget so far.

Here’s a short video showing our progress so far:


Video production: Tim Walter Associates Limited

Should be posting one of these a month now as we count down to the day we get this ‘wind powered car’ on the road. Continue reading “The Wind Car is on its way - Part 1″

61 Comments

Can the Grid take it?

September 5, 2008 by dale

Filed under: Energy, Transport

I posted a couple of visions of garages of the future recently.

The first vision was of an internet café style ‘park and surf while you charge’ kind of thing. Looked cool, not a bad first stab, but on further examination - it wasn’t it.

The second vision is an abandoned, moss grown relic. The gist of this vision is that with modern battery ranges of 200 miles + and given that 99.5% of car journeys are less than 100 miles – all we need is some destination charging, in supermarket and public car parks, motorway services, that kind of stuff for long journeys and when we get caught short - and for the most part we’ll be able to plug in at home. We won’t need garages.

This raises the very important question – can the grid take it? Continue reading “Can the Grid take it?”

32 Comments

Our record attempt thwarted by climate change

September 4, 2008 by dale

Filed under: Transport

This year’s Greenbird land record attempt is a washout. I didn’t even get to Australia…
The lake is normally dry in September, but this year it’s wet due to uncharacteristic rain fall. There was over 29 mm more rain in July and August this year than 2007. And July had twice its monthly average fall in 2 days at the end of the month. Plus August had its monthly average quota fall over just 12 hours. These unusual and changing weather patterns, typical results of the impact of climate change, have scuppered our record attempt. Continue reading “Our record attempt thwarted by climate change”

15 Comments

Zero Carbonista

Dale Vince This blog is about answers to the big questions - how will we keep the lights on, what kind of cars will we drive (will we drive?) and how will we feed ourselves - in a post oil world, and a world where we can't afford to keep burning things and throwing things away. Energy, Transport and Food are the three big issues.

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