Fuel Cell Hybrid Bus from Mercedes

mercedes benz fuel cell hybrid bus
Renown auto maker Mercedes-Benz will start offering hybrid buses under the brand of "Citaro" soon. The bus will be be manufactured under the initiative of Daimler's "Shaping Future Transportation" with an aggressive target of zero emission.

The initiative started in the mid 90s first with diesel-electric hybrids and continued with today's fuel celled ones (lithium-ion) as part of a research project called NEBUS.

The reason I am interested in this technology is because I favor hybrids more than hydrogen-based vehicles where food supplies are at stake. It seems to me using plants or crops to generate energy is a bad idea. They are scarce or will be so in the near future.

I am not into car tech and I could get it all wrong. So, take it with a grain of salt.

Comments

  1. IntelligenceApril 22, 2009 at 4:32 AM

    I saw this study that proved a lot of environmentally friendly technologies actually produced more pollution while they were being made than they actually offset once they are sold to consumers. I wonder if this is the case. I couldn't imagine how much these buses cost. Mercedes makes NICE buses.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ArchiverApril 23, 2009 at 3:14 AM

    An interesting article pointing to the pitfalls of blindly adhering recycling by Michael Munger, Chair of Political Science at Duke University also discusses the issue you mentioned:

    Think Globally, Act Irrationally: Recycling.

    Excerpt:
    "The claims for recycling rest on an assumed, if not always articulated, moral imperative rather than on trade-offs or costs. But underlying this claim, for many people at least, is some murky idea that recycling 'uses up' fewer resources than making things from scratch."

    A good read, recommended.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

National Drag Queen Month

Image
Sun Sentinel reports that January 2009 marks the first-ever celebration of National Drag History Month! This month-long event salutes the richness of drag culture and pays tribute to the courageous queens & kings who have fought for equality while inspiring, educating & entertaining us all. More Gay & Lesbian Video Taking this opportunity, let me recommend you a movie, if you have not watched it before of course: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert [B&N]. Directed by Stephan Elliot, with Terence Stamp, Hugo Weaving, Guy Pearce and Bill Hunter in leading roles, it is a beautiful road movie across Australia. The performances of Stamp and Pearce are not easily forgettable. The film received a best costume award in Oscars if I am not wrong.
Read more

Pros of Short Domain Names

Life is a good teacher. Up to now, it has never occurred to me a short domain name could be an advantage. I have always assumed, because I do it that way, people could bookmark a site when they like it regardless of the length of its name. Though I do not use it, social networking sites like Twitter changed my mind. I suddenly realized how difficult it must be to write a tweet about an article on this site without the aid of URL shortener services. Just writing the part "experimentsincyberspace/2009/04/" with the protocol prefix consumes 52 characters. I am not saying you will not be found. I am talking about the extra step, often tedious, of the necessity of shortening the URL. A very good idea could be having a short URL handy beneath or above your articles so that people can easily use it. Rather than having your visitors do it, you can take the extra step and place a short link yourself. In addition, keeping your URL intact can be a marketing and branding advantage.
Read more

Most Popular Searches of 2008

It is customary to compile a list of events when the New Year is near. As most of you know, Google makes a similar list of popular searches every year on a country by country basis. I have taken the liberty of picking the most interesting queries among them. Here they are: "my" from Australia - This is definitely my number one. When you don't have a mirror, what do you do? Yes, you ask Google. "qq" from China - It probably means something in Chinese; then again, it might not. "you" from Chile - Another intelligent search item. Were they talking to Google bot? It was also the number eight of the Colombians and number nine of the Spanish. I am beginning to suspect you is a nick for a new drug. "danmark" from Denmark - Apparently the Danish like to see how many times their country is indexed by the search engines. "google" from Germany - I have nothing to say. "hong kong" from Hong Kong - The Danish were not alone. &
Read more