Three years of aerodynamics research has created the Bloodhound supersonic car design, unveiled recently at Farnborough:

It looks just like The Blue Flame to me, which set the land speed record in 1970.

The Blue Flame reached 1014.513 km/h (630.388 mph), a record that lasted 27 years.

This post might reveal my lack of expertise in rocket cars, I realize, but I had hoped for a much more radical design than just a rocket with wheels. The Thrust2 and ThrustSSC broke The Blue Flame record but they also did it with new designs. The Thrust2 looked like the BatMobile. The ThrustSSC looked like an F-4 fighter jet without wings, perhaps because that is what it was.

When I say I want to see a more radical design I really wonder about efficiency. How much fuel is used to reach these speeds? What would the records look like if they had to account for input? I have similar questions about output in terms of emissions and air quality.

I am unable to think of a single good reason to have a gasoline-powered lawn mower. Perhaps someone can enlighten me.

In the meantime, I noticed an excellent tutorial on how to convert gasoline mowers to electric, and recharge them with solar.

Compare the silent, clean and simple electric/solar model to even the smallest lawnmower gasoline engines that pollute 93 times as much as an automobile engine.

The NYT points out that 6 million gasoline mowers were shipped into California in one year. That is the equivalent of 600 million car engines pumping toxic fumes and noise into residential areas. Why?

What do you get when you cross a Volkswagen modern diesel engineer with an electric vehicle engineer from GM?

If you guessed a hybrid electric-diesel we have all been waiting for, you are wrong. No, this dynamic duo has reinvented the two-stroke engine using the horizontally-opposed piston concept from diesel engines of the early 1900s.

Interestingly, the OPOC engine design was conceived by Peter Hofbauer, the former Volkswagen powertrain engineer that designed the German automaker’s first high speed diesel engine. Additionally, EcoMotors’ CEO, Don Runkle, is a former employee of General Motors and one of the key men behind the EV1 all-electric car.

They call it the OPOC (Opposed Piston Opposed Cylinder)? Heh. Sounds like they have a sense of humor. I wonder if EcoMotors International will allow anyone to name a vehicle the Alypse.

The article suggests the OPOC will run diesel or gasoline. Who would bother with gasoline? That might be the biggest news of all. Small efficient diesel engines everywhere! Most excitement right now seems to be directed towards the efficiency of the engine (50% higher) and the big money backing the company ($23mil from Bill Gates and Vinod Khosla). Maybe they had to include gasoline in the business plan to get support.

Ethiopia Insight reports that a Kenyan green group seeks ban on Ethiopian power

A Kenyan conservation group has appealed to the nation’s high court to prevent the government and an energy company from buying power produced by the vast Gibe 111 hydropower dam in neighboring Ethiopia.

The impact of the dam is in question. This is a familiar tune. The conservation groups in this scenario represent risk managers who are concerned that the dam will affect 500K people and their ability to live without aid.

A typical way to avoid this situation is for security and risk assessments to be done up front and with the support of risk managers. That does not seem to have been done here; risk assessments left until the project is underway are likely to bring significant new costs/impact into focus. At least concerns have been raised now instead of 2013, the expected completion date.