The Green Wrap-up 28.February, 2013

This week marked the start of the civil trial against BP over its role in the 2010 explosion at the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that killed 11 men and caused the worst spill in U.S. history. District judge Carl Barbier warned of a lengthy trial…BP is in for a battery of tough questions about its safety record and procedures.
The grain of salt one should take this post with is that Wayne Gerdes is just one man, and that his personal test results may not be applicable to everyone. Still, Gerdes is well-known in the green car community…so when he and his crew tested a Ford C-Max Hybrid, the results are worth paying attention to.
There is a land speed record for just about everything, from unicycles to semi-trucks, though “speed” is a relative term. Gasification, a method of powering vehicles using superheated biomass to create hydrogen fuel, has a land speed record category, and a bunch of Brits have broken their own record with a coffee-powered pickup truck.
Car dealerships tend not to be the greenest of buildings; they’re typically located in strip-malls outside of town, and of course, they are made to hawk gas-guzzling vehicles. But Kia Motors is charting new territory in car dealership design with the opening of a new solar-powered dealership in Weltevreden Park, South Africa.
President Obama has vowed that in the absence of congressional action, he will use his executive privileges to combat climate change.
GM sold about 30,000 Volts and Opel Amperas (basically a rebadged Volt) in 2012, and according to what anonymous sources “who didn’t want to be identified because the target isn’t public” told the Washington Post, the company is planning to increase that number by about 20% to 36,000 in 2013.
You may not think that the space under a bridge would be an ideal place to call home, but a group called Under Bridge Action is proposing to transform the unused space under Hong Kong’s overpasses into affordable shipping container homes.
  • GreenJoyment(Ally): Green, affordable housing? I think this is a great idea. Noise pollution and traffic are legitimate concerns about under-bridge housing, but I think that those are things that any urban dweller has to contend with.