OK, so one 3 wheeler has 2 wheels at the front, the other has 2 at the back, but somehow I feel that after 23 years since Clive Sinclair’s hilarious C5, the Aptera suffers from the same fundamental problems – it looks ridiculous.

In a recent promotional video, an Aptera marketing boss went as far as to say that the Aptera turns head like a Lamborgini. It’ll turn head for sure, but not for the same reasons.

If it doesn’t follow the C5 into total obscurity I’ll happily eat my biodegradable hat. I mean, where do I fit the golf clubs, the groceries? And exactly how safe will I be when a cast member from Laguna Beach drives over me in his dad’s Humvee?

Should I live long enough on the merciless roads of LA, I think I’d feel about as fashionable driving one of these things as walking into my local Trader Joe’s with a black sparkling glove and a rolled up trouser leg. If someone can persuade me to the contrary I’d love to hear.

The first time nuclear powered tankers were proposed was back in 1961, when the Atomic Energy Commission and The Maritime Administration awarded a contract to General Electric. The plan was to install boiling water reactors in conventional T-5 tankers.

The plan was eventually shelved because they were considered uncompetitive against conventional ships running on oil, which back then was just $15.30 a barrel adjusted for inflation.

Times have certainly changed, and with oil prices currently on the wrong side of $100 a barrel, and the world’s tanker fleet consuming more fuel (and expelling more CO2) than the global aviation industry put together, plans are underway to seek out ways to reduce rising costs and environmental concerns.

Shipping is highly sensitive to even modest rises in oil prices, and recent increases have had a significant impact on inflation as the cost of imports has increased sharply throughout America.

Recent developments to cut costs have included tankers powered by a computer-guided kite. The technology steals the principal from the popular water sport ‘kite surfing’. The 132 meter long kite could cut daily fuel costs by up to 20% or $1,600 a day, assuming there’s no head wind of course.

The cost advantage of a nuclear powered fleet is receiving growing attention, forwarded by proponents such as Adams Atomic Energies and the BNFL group.

They advocate several reasons why future merchant ships should consider going nuclear.

• Lower cost fuel. At current prices, reactor fuel costs 85 percent less than bunker fuel.
• Zero emissions. In crowded port cities, air pollution laws are becoming more stringent and costly.
• Concentrated fuel. Nuclear reactors can be built with fuel supplies lasting for many years.
• High power to weight ratio. Merchant ship owners are increasingly interested in rapid transits over long distances.
• The US Navy’s nuclear powered fleet of aircraft carriers are testament to their superior power and capabilities.

Nuclear Tankers aren’t something environmental pressure groups would relish, but with the cost of imports only set to increase further, and presidential candidates notably keeping an open mind on nuclear (Exelon, a leading nuclear-plant operator is a big donor of Obama), atomic tankers on the horizon can only be a matter of time.

Mozilla Firefox is going organic, Asus are making bamboo computers, Chevron is becoming the new Greenpeace. In my days in advertising, countless man hours were spent mulling over the perfect green pantone at the bequest of stressed out corporate executives.

They’d spend small fortunes sending our work back and forth, re-shading their logos, desperate to capture that quintessential perfect green goodness – it’s too earthy, no, now it’s too bright, can’t we make it paler without being too soft?

Now greenness is in the hands of specialist PR consultancies and the true spin has really started taking shape. Comfy feely advertising (Chevron being perhaps the most recent culprit) now embellish our screens, lovingly symbolizing the beauty of humanity, embodying the spirit of our collective conscience – cue planet earth, cue little girl holding hands with daddy, cue forest, edit out villagers slaughtered by troops on Chevron’s payroll to intimidate local populations in Nigeria (upset that their drinking water is now a refinery’s sludge dump).

Chevron’s Story:

The Stories they don’t talk about:

If there’s one thing I have learned in advertising, symbolism is one of the most effective tools to master. Get this right and corporations will throw money at you like confetti and an illustrious career as a creative director is guaranteed.

I admire the Chevron adverts for their sheer beauty, thousands of man hours were lovingly spent on each and every one of them.
But like other religions at their conception, this one is starting to get out of hand as organizations jostle for position at the right hand of their new green deity.

I don’t want to get too cynical about green issues but it’s getting harder these days to see the wood from the flees. Environmentalism has it’s place in corporate America and the more they realize there’s a buck to be made, the more green they’ll become. This is all good.

But like the Catholic Church in the middle ages, who spent more embellishing fine cathedrals than doing the good that they preached, much more is being spent today embellishing the images of corporations than actually doing good for the planet. Is greenness following a religious path? Well, the unifying symbolism has already emerged… hallelujah.

Safe, clean, renewable… well not quite as safe a you thought. Following last month’s spectacular wind turbine self-destruction, which prompted the Danish climate minister to launch an investigation, 10 wind energy companies have formed a consortium to make wind turbines more reliable. A noble effort, but a little late for the 36 and counting instances of turbine failure, which the folks at the Industrial Wind Action Group are assiduously keeping track of.

But just think of the potential for having super-strength wind turbines and the power they could generate of we could keep them facing the wind? Ideas like this could pave the way for super massive jet turbines to harness predictable storm conditions such as the Katabatic wind in Antarctica.

In the meantime, the Reliawind Project led by Gamesa is seeking ways to enhance safety.

The world’s computing power should be moved from desktop computers and company servers to remote outposts where renewable energy such as wind and solar power is abundant, according to a Cambridge University computer expert.

With carbon emissions from computing set to rise rapidly in the coming decades, he said his idea could significantly reduce the contribution made by computers to climate change. “There’s something very special about computing power which is very different from heating your house,” said Prof Andy Hopper. “Computing power can be moved around the world and can be done anywhere in the world where the energy is available.”

According to UK government figures, business computing is responsible for 2.8m tonnes of CO2 emissions a year. The UK’s total emissions are just over 554.5m tonnes. Office equipment (of which computers make up about a third) is responsible for 15% of the emissions from a typical office.

Moving energy via the national grid entails significant losses. Hopper’s scheme would work by shifting computer operations to servers close to wind farms that are working at full tilt. On a global scale a network of energy producers could be called upon depending on where energy was most abundant at any time.

“I think it is very interesting to contemplate a world with a smallish number of server farms, huge ones, which are deployed in places where the energy is produced,” he told a conference at the Royal Society in London yesterday. “The whole point is that we are using energy that would otherwise be lost. It is more efficient, more appropriate, cheaper to use it in situ.”

Norwegian electric-car company says it aims to bring a five-seater vehicle to the United States as early as late 2010. Norwegian electric-car company Think Global, who are partnered with battery startup A123Systems and have General Electric among its investors, plans to bring its five-seater crossover concept, called the Think Ox, to the U.S. market as early as 2010, said Don Cochrane, the company’s U.K. sales and marketing director. “With a top speed of 85 mph and a 125 miles range, the car has been designed with the United States in mind, but will also be sold globally”

Cochrane added that the company may add a serial hybrid powertrain, which would pair the electric motor with an petrol engine for unlimited range. General Electric has invested $4 million into Think and $20 million in A123 Systems. Think have signed an agreement to buy batteries from lithium-ion manufacturer A123 Systems. Last week, Think Chairman Jan-Olaf Willums said the electric-car company would likely partner with a large automaker to build a bigger vehicle.
The funding brings GE’s total stake in the battery startup to $20 million, making it the largest investor according to the announcement (also see Earth2Tech).
A123 has had a relationship with GE since 2006, when the bigger company invested in the startup’s $30 million second round of private-equity funding. In October, Willums told Greentech Media that Think was in the process of signing a development deal with A123Systems after its deal with Tesla Motors fell through. Last month, Think said it had signed a deal with Enova Systems to provide at least 1,000 power-control units for its small Think City electric cars this year (see Green Cars Cruise Forward).
In February, Gartner analyst Thilo Koslowski said the stream of announcements of alternative-vehicle partnerships shows that companies are “heading in the right direction” because they are focusing on setting up supply and distribution chains — an important step toward mass production and distribution.

Hydrogen fuel cell cars are unlikely to be affordable to the likes of you or me anytime soon. BMW’s glamorous launch of their new Hydrogen 7 ‘hybrid’ serves as a very important PR objective for the company, but downplays the huge expense of the technology for the short and medium term.Honda’s two FCX models, which are currently being leased as a PR exercise in Washington for $500 a month actually cost about $1 Million each to build.

BMW’s Hydrogen 7 is dual fuel, running also on petrol, which gives it a mediocre 25% efficiency advantage over the gasoline equivalent. Toyota, Honda, Hyundai and GM, who all use direct fuel cell technology, can claim up to a 50% improvement in efficiency.BMW’s strategy is more practical though for the short term, and offsets the problems of finding the nearest hydrogen pump. In California, where Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger champions hydrogen fuel cell technology, there are currently just 17 test pumps with a further 120 planned by the end of 2010. That’s a far cry from the 40,000 service stations currently in the US.This slow introduction of hydrogen at the pumps reflects the reality that few corporations in the hydrogen business predict affordable hydrogen transportation in the short to medium term for the masses.Timm Kehler, Vice President of Marketing Predevelopment at BMW, stated that hydrogen fuel cell technology for the masses is probably about 20 years away. See his interview in a test run f the Hydrogen 7 below.  

 Hidden costs of hydrogenAs a general rule, a kilogram of hydrogen in a fuel cell will get twice the mileage of a gallon of gasoline, however, it can cost anything up to $20 a kilo depending on where you can find it.And is hydrogen really green? According to the Bush administration’s National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap, drafted last year in concert with the energy industry, up to 90 percent of all hydrogen will be refined from oil, natural gas, and other fossil fuels…So even though there won’t be much mileage done by you or me in a hydrogen vehicle any time soon, there’ll be plenty of mileage made by the car and petroleum giants in terms of clean green publicity.  

  What can we do in the meantime?Want to be green? Like I said, we’re here to encourage you to think about buying pre-owned consumer electronics so that there’s less demand for new ones to be made in China, Want an iPhone? Buy one off someone who’s trading their one in for the 3G model.

Very soon trade 2 save will be launched, where you can buy pre-owned discounted products with a warranty that have been checked and graded so that you can feel confident in buying them, and where you can get them for free if you trade products in too. This isn’t as glamorous as hydrogen fuel cell technology, but for the moment it’s a lot more effective at fighting global warming.