Electric car uses hemp composite to reduce weight to 2500 pounds

Fast Fiber Plastics and hemp make for a strong, light, fuel-efficient body by Motive Industries

Introducing Kestrel, The First Road-Ready Car Built Out Of Hemp | Popular Science

In 1941, Henry Ford developed a car body made from organic fibers, including hemp. Today, the first production-ready bio-composite electric car will be released. The Kestrel is a three-door hatchback, manufactured by Motive Industries. The hemp composite, which is as strong as marine-grade fiberglass, cuts the weight of the car including battery to 2,500 pounds. By 2012, thousands of these hemp-mobiles will be on the road. The price will be around $25,000.

To make this resilient, lightweight compound, hemp stalks are combed and rolled into a mat that is infused with a polymer resin. the hemp makes the biocomposite’s flexibility similar to the carbon fiber used in racecars.

Tags: hemp, kestrel, organic fibers, electric car, motive industries

Stop Defunding of Clean Air Act

Stop the defunding of the Clean Air Act! Tell your Senators that defunding would do nothing to reduce the deficit but would serve to promote short-term polluter profits over the health and economic benefits for the rest of the country.

The health benefits of the Clean Air Act have netted profit to the American economy. Environmental technologies industry currently generates nearly $300 billion per year in revenue, producing $40 billion in exports, and employing 1.6 million Americans.

Click here to take action.

Clean Air Act by the Numbers

92% = Drop in airborne lead levels since 1980. The Clean Air Act called for an end to use of lead — an acute neurotoxin that lowers IQ in children and shortens lives — as a gasoline additive. (source)

60 = Number of U.S. metro areas that, without the Clean Air Act, would have higher total suspended particulate concentrations than present-day Moscow. Particulate pollution causes lung cancer, asthma, cardiovascular issues, and premature death. (source)

295 million = Skin-cancer cases averted by 2075, courtesy of the Clean Air Act program eliminating use of ozone-depleting CFCs. (source)

$42 = Quantifiable benefits generated by each dollar invested in Clean Air Act programs during the law’s first 20 years — that’s $523 billion in, $22 trillion out. (source)

30:1 = Benefits-to-cost ratio EPA expects from Clean Air Act programs, 1990–2020. (source PDF)

5% = Amount of tailpipe pollution produced by a typical late-model car, compared with older models. Clean Air Act programs spurred automakers to develop and deploy catalytic converters, computerized emissions-control systems, and other innovative technologies. (source)

13,000 = Lives still cut short each year by pollution from coal-fired power generation. The nation’s coal-burning power plants are the leading source of toxic mercury emissions, and half of them still lack scrubbers and other basic pollution control technologies. (source 1, source 2)

$100 billion = Annual cost of continuing adverse health impacts — deaths, hospitalizations, heart attacks, acute asthma attacks, lost work days — from dirty coal. (source)

2.5 million = Days of missed work or school averted by tightening the “smog rule,” which establishes allowable levels of ground level ozone, from 0.075 ppm to 0.060 ppm.

1.85 billion = Barrels of oil saved over the lifetime of model-year 2012–2016 cars and light-duty trucks, under landmark greenhouse gas standards issued by EPA in April 2010.

960 million = Tons of greenhouse gases conserved by these tailpipe standards, which stem from the Supreme Court's 2007 ruling that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases do meet the Clean Air Act definition of an air pollutant, and EPA's subsequent finding that greenhouse gases do indeed "endanger both the public health and the public welfare of current and future generations."

93% = Percentage of Congressional lawmakers — Democrats and Republicans both — voting Yes on 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, subsequently signed into law by President George H. W. Bush. It remains to be seen if, in today’s polarized political climate, this bipartisan tradition can be preserved or will crumble at the expense of all Americans.

via Environmental Defense Action Fund

Tags: defunding clean air act, clean air act by the numbers, take action, health first, environmental defense action fund

Sea Live Cannot Live on Plastic Soup

Five Gyres in World's Oceans (NOAA)

Gyres exist in the North and South Atlantic, the North and South Pacific and the Indian oceans. Gyres are formed by winds and currents in the oceans.

Every piece of plastic ever manufactured still exists today. The molecular weight of long chain polymers is so heavy and rigid that there is NOTHING that will break down petroleum based manufactured plastic. The bonds in plastics are so strong that the individual molecules must degrade, which could take hundreds of years.

Plastics accumulate in all five of the world's oceanic gyres. Scientists estimate that almost half of seabird species, all sea turtle species, and 22 species of marine mammals are harmed or killed by plastic waste, either from ingestion, entanglement or strangulation before the debris has been broken down into tiny fragments.

Six-Pack Ring Necklace

Plastic chips absorb an inordinate amount of persistent organic poisons (POPs), like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) and other materials that resist degradation. Many POPs are proven carcinogens. POPs may contribute to problems with reproductive due to hormone disruption.

Please stop using plastic bags and reduce your use of single-use bottles and containers.

Please watch the video below.

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The Algalita Marine Research Foundation (AMRF) is a recognized authority in the study of plastic marine debris in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. Plastic marine debris in the North and South Atlantic Gyres, South Pacific Gyre, and Indian Ocean Gyre, has received little attention relative to the greater studied North Pacific Subtropical Gyre.

Want to know more? Algalita Marine Research Foundation has partnered with Pangaea Explorations to offer an opportunity to be part of a scientific study expedition. From Hawaii to Vancouver, British Columbia on board the Sea Dragon, participate in studies being conducted on the impact of plastic waste accumulating in our oceans. Ten crew openings for the trip July 7–27, 2011. Reserve your spot now.

Tags: algalita marine research foundation, 5 gyres, plastic ocean soup, no more plastic bags

Gasland : Water, Air and Ground Pollution

I watched Gasland on HBO today. You have a chance to see it on HBO. If not, you can buy the video on the Gasland Movie website. I am sure libraries will be stocking at well. It is an educational documentary, so your children may see it at school.

The Gaslandmovie website is good place to learn more about gas well fracturing and the problems it is causing to wells in the drilling area. Take action if you think all Americans deserve clean drinking water and clean air to breathe.

There are people who have brain lesions, difficulty breathing, pancreatic cancer, persistent GI upsets and permanent brain damage from drinking water and breathing the air outside their home. God knows what legacy their children will inherit. I think we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg. The chemicals in the fracking fluid are hazardous and volatile and they are leaching into the groundwater and wells.

The gas industry has already put up a website to refute allegations made in Gasland. If you want more lies with your morning coffee, visit The Truth About Gasland website.


Put up a solar plant or windmill farm. Oil, gas and coal will soon be a thing of the past. Clean, truly clean, energy is what we need. We must stop poisoning ourselves and our children.

Tags: gasland, drinking water pollution, air pollution, halliburton loophole, cheney, gw bush