Julia Roberts wants car that runs on veggie oil

So Julia Roberts and main squeeze Danny Moder were caught at a gas
station with their Prius. That warrants an army of paparazzi to
surround the pumps and record the action. PopSugar picked up on the
event to link to an interview with Roberts in Life & Style where
she says wants a car that runs on vegetable oil. "I think it's a small
price to pay to smell like a french fry," she quips.

Skip the gas station, fill up at fast food joints

High fuel prices don't bug Chuck Danley of Peyton. He drives every day, but hasn't been to the pump since December. Instead of paying to fill up his diesel pickup, he fills up with used vegetable oil.



Danley gets the used oil from restaurants around town, filters it to remove the food particles, then puts it into his truck. Danley raves about the oil, saying it lubricates the truck's engine better than regular diesel. "I've done no modifications to the engine," said Danley. "All I have done to the truck has added a separate fuel tank that holds the vegetable oil separate from the diesel."



He said he does not lose any power, and he gets about the same gas mileage--not that it matters, since the oil is free. Of the 96,000 miles he has put on his truck, 90,000 were on vegetable oil.



Technorati Tags: oil, bio+diesel

Speed Limit Has German Blood at 178 m.p.h. Boil

With a stretch of empty road ahead, Mr. Bongers floored the gas pedal, and within seconds the speedometer registered 286 kilometers an hour (178 m.p.h.) — something that is still legal here. That, by way of comparison, is about the speed of a commercial jet taking off.



Few things are closer to the German heart than the freedom to drive like Michael Schumacher, the fabled Formula One champion. Rule-bound and risk-averse in so many other ways, Germans regard driving on the autobahn at face-peeling speeds as close to an inalienable right.



Now, though, Germany’s love of speed is colliding with its fears about global warming, as it becomes clear that its Sunday race-car drivers are spewing tons of carbon dioxide into the air.







Technorati Tags: green, environment, green+house+gasses

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Look, no carbon footprint

It was a night for partying. Fireworks fizzed across the sky as half a million people celebrated Brisbane's annual Riverfestival last September. Then came a deafening roar. An Australian air force F1-11 swooped over the revellers, leaving behind a stream of flame hot enough to be felt below. Within a second it was gone, and cheers went up as the DJ announced the completion of the highlight of the evening, a "dump and burn".

The aircraft had jettisoned most of its fuel into the sky and ignited it. Later, the festival organisers announced that 300 trees had been planted outside the city to soak up the estimated 68 tonnes of greenhouse gases released by the stunt: dump, burn and offset.

That tree-planting was a small part of one of the fastest-growing businesses in the world: the sale of promises to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, often at bargain-basement prices.