Why Car-Free Streets May Be Here to Stay. A Bus with a Rooftop Garden - What a Great Idea. If you ever wanted to roll up a fistful of ethical practices into a single unit of living, breathing, carbon-neutral mass transit, try this one on for size: A landscape artist in Spain has put a garden on the roof of a bus. "My mission is to expand the garden area in urban environments, increase the absorption of CO2 and give public transport a new ecological and tourist attraction," says designer Marc Granen of his concept, which he's confusingly calling Phyto Kinetic.
(When in doubt, keep it obvious, dude: Snakes on a Plane, mustard on a hot dog, Garden on a Bus—see a pattern?) Reports The Sunday Times : The “autocultural” single-decker has small shrubs and herbs sprouting from its roof. It can be watered naturally or better still, this being the blazing hot city of Girona, near Barcelona, by water from the vehicle’s air conditioning system. If I was the head of public transit in a perennially-rainy city, say Seattle, I'd have ordered a fleet of these garden buses yesterday. Hear, hear. MEGA CORPORATION BUYS OUT INVENTION THAT WOULD PUT OIL AND GAS OUT OF BUSINESS. Zurich: Where People Are Welcome and Cars Are Not. This Bus Is Going Viral Because of a Very Unusual Feature. A bus in Britain is giving a whole new meaning to alternative fuel vehicles.
The eco-friendly bus runs on an unexpected source of gas – human feces. The brand new "Bio-Bus" took to the roads Thursday to run its route between Bristol Airport and the city of Bath. The aptly nicknamed "poo bus" runs on biomethane gas, which comes from the breakdown of human sewage and food waste. Essentially, anaerobic bacteria breaks down the waste to create methane-rich gas. The bus' combustion engine is akin to that of normal buses, except "the gas is stored in dome-like tanks on the roof. " But just because there's poop involved doesn't mean that it smells like, well, shit. Who knew poop was more than just waste?
Considering all of the upsides of this alternative fuel, there's a chance it will become a big thing in public transportation. All aboard the poop bus. Becca Stanek Becca is a Mic Editorial Fellow writing for the politics section. NASA's electric car pilot program is 10x better than expected at reducing CO2 emissions. NASA is running a pilot program at its famous Kennedy Space Center to track real-world data on how much CO2 reduction can be gained by having employees drive plug-in vehicles and charge them at work. 10 employees get free charging in return for filling out spreadsheet each day documenting how many miles they drove, along with road and traffic conditions.
NASA/Public Domain NASA had some estimates of what the benefits would be, but they apparently greatly underestimated the difference that going electric would make: "The numbers are 10 times better than we thought we’d ever see," said Frank Kline with Kennedy's Sustainability office. "No one's ever done a pilot where you get actual numbers.
It’s always been estimates only. 10 times! That's not quite in the usual ballpark of a 5% margin of error... "The numbers are really insane," Kline said. Above: A different kind of electric vehicle driven by a NASA employee! "What we're trying to capture is fully electric plug-ins," Kline said. Via NASA. E-Fox: The Electric Assisted, Human Powered Vehicle. MOVILIDAD Archivos. Making a Difference: Two Wheels at a Time.