Sustainable Conference

Friday, May 2
Sonoma Mountain Village, Rohnert Park, CA

-Understand sustainability and the challenges and opportunities it presents.
-Discuss environmental impacts and ways in which enterprises can reduce their impact.
-Offer tools that are strategic and practical - from generating a vision of a sustainable enterprise, to optimizing resource management, to metrics systems for measuring progress.
-Develop frameworks for producing or reformulating products and services that are
environmentally and socially sound.
-Illustrate, through experiences or cases, the rewards and risks of sustainability initiatives as an entrepreneur or within a larger enterprise.
-Explore strategies for communicating and creating alignment among coworkers and colleagues.
-Network with other organizations and people to successfully implement innovative sustainable operating practices and policies.

http://sustainableenterpriseconference.com/

Zap Alias Prototype

I saw the prototype chassis at ZAP HP in Santa Rosa. I understand the prototype is drivable, but test drives are not open to the public yet. You can put down a $5k deposit for when it comes out in 2009 for around $30k.

Several years ago I spoke with one of Zaps Execs as he were demoing
The Smart Car

inside Costco. He said that there was government regulation resistance to have these cars imported to America. I may be wrong, but this issue seems to be side stepped by simply importing the parts and assembling them it in the United States. This is what appears to be what will enable Zap to get these cars out the door sooner rather than later.

One thing to be said about Smart Cars is that I was not impressed by the demo I saw several years back. Although I applaud the engine being made by BMW the rest of the car was the quality of Saturn. I owned both both brands and will never buy one of them again. I understand that zap was not responsible for designing the product and I still applaud them for trying to give us something that gets 60+ MPG long before the Prius left the drawing board.

This time ZAP has the opportunity to do it right. Please, please don't skip on quality of the interior, convenience of controls on the steering wheel, sound insulation from outside noise, quality and functionality of plastic switches, sturdiness of all moving parts, and of course a good sound system with auxiliary input.

If ZAP does it right, at $30k people will be lining up to get one. If the quality is there I will be the first in line. I guess for now the only other cool option is Tesla for $100k. I am going to have to hold off, at least until ZAP releases their Allias.

Wi-Fi in Sebastopol, CA, USA

Two days ago while I was talking to someone at Windsor Chamber of Commerce, a remark was made about people in Sebastopol being stupid. It's unfortunate that such statements are made because some Sebastopol residents are outraged about the city's decision to ban sonic.net Wi-Fi. I was walking down Sebastopol's Main Street while asking a friend what he thought about the city council's decision, when a stranger sitting on a bench jumped in to answer. "It is stupid" he said. "They are stupid; They don't understand that there is a signal already all around us" He pulled out his keys with a hot-spot detector attached to the chain showing us signal strength. We nodded our heads and kept on walking. My friend says "That about sums it up". I respect people decision not to want to be exposed to 2.4Ghz frequency as much as I respect people who are afraid of the dark. I really do. Phobias are very real to those experiencing them.

We have to remember that radio frequency is all around us.
Most lights emit 60Hz.
The earth itself emits around 3kHz -8kHz signal.
Our brain emits a frequency (600Hz).
Our heart beats on an electrical signal from our brain (1.17Hz).
The SETI project is receiving signals from space across a huge spectrum.

To me, free Wi-Fi represents free sharing of knowledge. If you ever go to Sebastopol, you will quickly realize that people here are all about sharing. Sharing housing, sharing food, sharing bikes, etc... It's a community of openness. Most are open minded (except when absolute dogmatic statements are made). Sebastopl is home to O'Reilly Media. The poster child of open source book publishing. Zap(Zero Air Polution), an Electric Car pioneer of our time was founded in Sebastopol. Intuit's Quickbooks was started there also.

While the decision to cut Sebastopol's free internet access does not affect me, (my phone has EVDO internet connection and Wi-Fi, so I bridge the connection to re-broadcast my own hotspot for others can connect to), majority of residents are the ones at a loss. I think this can be summed up in 2 statements. They are loosing their option to connect. They are perceived as uneducated fools.

I think it would be interesting if there was a ban on electricity. It would be an experiment we can learn from.

Solar Trailer

One of my friends is building a solar trailer. Very cool. I took the Alpha version of the product for a test drive. It's promising but still needs extensive refinement. His purpose is to ride across the United States while making a documentary on sustainable living. Right now the batteries last about 2 hours and the motor tops off at about 15 MPH. It would be cool if he could ride up to 10 hours per day on a single charge. This would allow him to cover 150 miles per day before having to recharge. I realize the extra weight will reduce the top speed and add to strain of the batteries.