Emerging Ideas Roundup

Article Tools

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Going Solar in the Gulf
For more than three years, American troops have been frustrated in their efforts to deliver on one of the U.S. government's promises to the Iraqi people: to repair the country's rickety electrical grid and bring power (of at least one kind) to the people. According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Jan./Feb. 2006), students at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, have proposed a novel solution: Go solar. Cheap photovoltaic panels installed on rooftops throughout the country could provide a more reliable, secure source of power than the current centralized system, which is an easy target for insurgent attacks.

Pay-Per-Mile Car Insurance
Pay-per-mile, or pay-as-you-drive (PAYD), car insurance policies are catching on in the U.K., Japan, and a few U.S. states, according to WorldChanging.com (Jan. 5, 2006). Not only does PAYD make sense for the environment and consumers, it helps reduce gender and socioeconomic disparities. According to the National Organization for Women's Cents Per Mile Now website (www.centspermilenow.org), women drive 40 percent fewer miles a day than men, but their lower rates don't fully reflect that difference. Also, PAYD should boost insurance companies' bottom lines, since less driving means fewer accidents. Privacy is a concern, however. Users will need to install a proprietary odometer or GPS tracking chip with an embedded phone that periodically calls in mileage or tracks their route.

Crimp My Ride
Officials in Newport, Wales, devised a novel way to get people out of their cars and onto public transport: They offered free rail and bus passes, good for a year, to any drivers willing to have their cars crushed and sold for scrap. According to a BBC report cited in Transportation Alternatives (Fall 2005), the city cooked up the scheme as part of its contribution to European Mobility Week, a continent-wide celebration of sustainable transportation that takes place every September.

Mario Andretti: Environmentalist
"Planet Earth is being flooded with cars from manufacturers all over the world, year, after year, after year. . . . So, what you're doing is putting millions more cars on the road every year that weren't there the year before. Somewhere along the line you just have to be proactive and think of the environment, to some degree. It would be irresponsible not to."
-- Mario Andretti, interviewed in Green Car Journal (Winter 2005)

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print