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Category Archives: Energy

Car pollution, noise and accidents ‘cost every EU citizen £600 a year’

Wednesday, January 16th, 2013 | warai03p | No Comments

Original article by Peter Walker at The Guardian.

Cars in traffic

The perennial complaint from drivers that they are excessively taxed has been challenged by a study which concludes that road accidents, pollution and noise connected to cars costs every EU citizen more than £600 a year.The report by transport academics at the Dresden Technical University in Germany calculated that even with drivers’ insurance contributions discounted these factors amounted to an annual total of €373bn (£303bn) across the 27 EU member states, or around 3% of the bloc’s entire yearly GDP. This breaks down as €750 per man, woman and child.

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Development Banks Invest Billions on Sustainable Transport

Monday, July 16th, 2012 | warai03p | No Comments

Original article at www.slocat.net

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL (20 June, 2012 )—The eight largest multilateral development banks (MDBs) announced today that they will invest US$175 billion to finance more sustainable transportation systems over the coming decade, boosting equitable economic development and protecting the environment and public health across the developing world. The pledge by the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and six other MDBs was made at the start of United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (also known as Rio+20).

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Underwear Protest on Wellington Trains

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012 | warai03p | No Comments

Original article by Michael Forbes, at the Dominion Post

Generation Zero – Young people at work on Transportation Choice!

There were more than a few raised eyebrows on the train from Ngauranga to Wellington today as 40 young people did the morning commute in their underwear.

They were part of a youth environmental group called Generation Zero, which fights for climate change action and inter-generational justice.

Group organiser James Young-Drew, 22, said the stunt was designed to launch their 50:50 campaign, which is protesting the government’s plans to spend $14 billion on highway projects over next decade but not nearly as much on ”smart transport options” such as light rail, buses and cycleways.

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Easing Off the Gas

Tuesday, April 17th, 2012 | Editor | No Comments

Original article by Tom Murphy, at Do the Math

Another great article from Tom Murphy’s brilliant blog, “Do the Math” where he uses critical quantitative thinking to approach our energy challenges and policies. Here he  discusses adaptations that will have an immediate impact on transportation and liquid fuels.

– Editor

“Again, I come to the conclusion that one thing we can do—totally under our own control—is to reduce our demand of liquid fuels faster than the naturally-imposed decline rate. And again, I look for factor-of-two level solutions, rather than piddly few-percent window-dressing. Let’s kick this problem in the teeth!”…

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MPG of a Human

Tuesday, November 29th, 2011 | Editor | No Comments

– by Tom Murphy
Do The Math

On Do the Math, three previous posts have focused on transportation efficiency of gasoline cars, electric cars, and on the practicalities of solar-powered cars. What about personal-powered transport—namely, walking and biking? After stuffing myself over Thanksgiving, I am curious to know how potent human fuel can be. How many miles per gallon do we get as our own engines of transportation?

Okay, the “miles” part is straightforward. And we can handle the “per.” But what’s up with the gallon? A gallon of what? Here we have all kinds of options, as humans are flex-fuel machines. But food energy is not much different from fossil fuel energy in terms of energy density.

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