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Electrification of Transportation (Alan Drake interview) (audio)
Krys Boyd, KERA
[2008-10-27 12:00:00]
How should North Texas cities meet the public transportation needs of the near and distant future? We’ll spend this hour with engineer Alan Drake and Jay Kline, interim vice president of planning and development at DART. They both participated in last Friday’s SMU Environmental Science and Greater Dallas Planning Council symposium – “Electrification of Transportation: Meeting Air Quality Standards, the Petroleum Challenge, and Public Transit Needs in the Metroplex.”
(28 October 2008)
Jeffrey Brown notified us that this interview with Alan Drake (peak oiler and national treasure) has been archived here. Scroll down to this entry, or go directly to the MP3 file. -BA
Global pile-up ahead as US auto industry loses its drive
Tim Webb, Observer
Ford, General Motors and Chrysler were once supreme; now with consumers rejecting gas-guzzlers and car loans drying up, the outlook is bleak for Detroit – and the rest of the world will soon feel the pain too.
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For sale: four-bedroom detached bungalow, some work needed, cost: $800. The catch? It’s in Detroit, home to the once mighty Ford, General Motors and Chrysler, and not many people want to live in the Motor City now that the American car giants are laying off tens of thousands of workers.
The bungalow is not the only bargain basement property up for grabs: thousands of others are on the market for $10,000 or less. One estate agent who has sold 50 properties – mostly foreclosures – in Detroit is trying to remain upbeat but admits: ‘It is a blue-collar town like a lot of other American towns, but it has been hit harder than most.’ He says there are houses are going for $5,000 while homeowners next door are struggling to pay a $60,000 to $70,000 mortgage on an identical property. ‘It’s obviously devastating for them.’
The Detroit property market and the US car industry are mirror images: both are in freefall. Speculation is mounting that the government is planning a bail-out of the giant ‘Detroit Three’. On Thursday, Presidential candidate Barack Obama added to the clamour, calling for a doubling of the $25bn in government loans recently approved by Congress to help the industry make more fuel-efficient cars.
Washington is also said to be trying to engineer a merger of GM and Chrysler as analysts predict that the latter’s new owner, private equity firm Cerberus, could pull the plug on it. Without dramatic government intervention, analysts predict all three companies will run out of money some time next year.
… It’s hard to exaggerate the scale of the crisis facing the Detroit Three; in many ways, they are in a more parlous state than the banks.
… European car makers no longer look on at the plight of the big three with the sense of detachment they had a year ago: the question now being asked in boardrooms across the continent is: ‘Could it happen to us?’
(2 November 2008)
As temperatures rise, is there a future for movable homes?
The Guardian
Moving house can be stressful. But can a moving house take the stress out of modern life?
Danish artist collective N55, which advocates a nomadic way of life, certainly thinks so. Their Walking House has been tramping the fields of Bourn near Cambridge this week using solar energy to power its hydraulic legs at a leisurely speed of 60 metres an hour…
…But behind the eccentricity of the project is a more serious message. The module is solar-powered, collects its own water, has a compost toilet and a wood-burning stove for carbon neutral heating comes as an optional extra…
(28 October 2008)
Spooky Eco House: The Dragspelhuset Accordion House
Bridgette Steffen, Inhabit
While this cabin looks spookily lizard-like, its unusual structure was created in response to Swedish environmental building regulations. The solar-powered off-grid cabin is owned and designed by Maartje Lammers and Boris Zeisser of 24H Architecture as a family summer vacation retreat in southern Sweden’s Glaskogen nature reserve. The locals of the lakeside area affectionately call the house “Dragspelhuset,” or Accordion House because a room of the house is capable of extending outwards over the nearby stream.
… Inspired by Frank Loyd Wright and Fallingwater, Zeisser wanted a house that extended out over water. To meet all the Swedish regulations and their own requriments, Lammers and Zeisser designed for a moveable room that can be rolled out along two steel rails with a series of ropes and pulleys. This living room area extends out while the family is in residence, and returns into position when they leave. This way, the extension has no foundation and is really a part of the main footprint, which circumvents the size restrictions on additions and set-back lines.
… Reindeer hides were nailed to the walls and ceiling to provide extra insulation, which was inspired by the Sami culture in Northern Scandanavia. Additionally, the cabin has no running water or phone lines and is not tied to the electric grid. The off-grid cabin is powered by solar panels on the roof.
(31 October 2008)
Wonderful photographs of this strange-looking house at the original. Pointed out by Big Gav.
