A small circle of friends including myself have been looking at all the various ways we might transport ourselves to work efficiently. Electric bikes, scooters, mopeds, gas scooters, etc. Unforunately we live in a cold climate half the year with a lot of snow (well, except this past winter…) so these options are limited in use. Here’s a cool, if somewhat primitive (not necessarily bad) site devoted to electric personal transport.

We also have an extensive paved trail system in the greater Rochester area, much of which runs along the Erie Canal and a lot of old railway beds.

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That’s right, $200 Billion with a B. They plan to fulfill 10% of their energy needs with alternative sources by 2010 and 20% by 2020, a very agressive schule given the sheer size of their need.

This is a huge story for the US because it indicates that our largest competitor for fossil fuels understands that the supply is limited and they are willing to start moving away from it. Meanwhile we have no real national energy policy except that put together behind closed doors by Cheney and his oil company pals in 2001. Obviously that has worked out well (for them)…

This Wired article gives a peek into a major energy innovation project at MIT. Check out the list of things they’re working on: organic solar based on spinach proteins, cars that run on light, silicon superstrings. This is real egghead stuff. I’m glad the superbrains are on the job because it’s pretty obvious that the government isn’t.

Can I attach a wind mill to my suburban house? Should I?

My neighbors probably would say no! But people are starting to consider adding wind power to their homes. Find a wind map of your state (this is a commercial site with tons of good information, unfortunately it is built with ancient frame technology that doesn’t let me pick URLs for specific areas of the site- very bad SEO strategy guys!). It doesn’t show my area of NY (Rochester) being a good candidate for wind power.

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