Best 6 Green Transportation Stories of 2010

 
Today, green technology become a most important thing because of our global warming crisis. We need more ecofriendly technology to exchange the common technologies that in fact "help us" to broke our lovely earth.
In about 20 years, our engineer have discovered many kinds of green technology, in many field. Green technology in power plant, transportation, communication, and many others.
This morning, I found a great list from inhabitat.com. It's about the most sophisticated and greenest transportation technology in 2010.
I imagine if all of that vehicles can be used and exchange all of our "bad" vehicle.. :D

1. MIT Team Unveils Airplane that Uses 70 Percent Less Fuel

A team of researchers at MIT unveiled their latest feat of engineering — an airplane that uses 70% less fuel than conventional aircraft. The MIT team was one of six groups — and the only university led team — across the US chosen by NASA to help redesign current aircraft to increase fuel efficiency, lower emissions and allow planes to take off on shorter runways. The team accomplished all of NASA’s set goals with their innovative D-series plane, lovingly referred to as the “double bubble”. 

NASA is calling this government-funded initiative the “N+3″, signifying that the planes are meant to revolutionize the aircraft industry in three generations. MIT, Boeing, GE Aviation and Northrop Grumman were given the task of rethinking the subsonic commercial aircraft market while teams from Boeing and Lockheed-Martin were entrusted with creating supersonic commercial aircraft — passenger planes traveling faster than the speed of sound! NASA’s goals were to reduce fuel consumption while taking into account that in 3 decades air traffic is set to double. Now that the designs have been revealed the teams are awaiting news in the next few months of which designs will receive funding to go on to the second phase of the program.
MIT designed their D-series as a 180 passenger aircraft meant to replace the domestic 737 market. Conventional airplanes utilize a single fuselage design, while the D-series uses two partial tubular shapes placed beside each other — which accounts for the bubble nickname. The plane utilizes a host of technological advances to decrease its fuel consumption. It has thinner longer wings and a smaller tail and engine placement at the rear of the plane instead of on the wings. All of these features account for part of the reduction in fuel usage. The MIT team also unveiled their H-series — a “hybrid wing body” plane that seats 350 passengers and could replace the 777 overseas market. NASA expects designs from this program to take flight in 2035.

2. Street-Legal Electric Tron Lightcycles

Street-legal and built for everyday use, each of the collectors-edition bikes will consist of 22″ x 12″ dual hubless wheels with custom tires. A hardened steel frame supports a carbon fiber and fiberglass body. The colored LED light trail can be turned off and on with a switch. You’ll also get a Tron-style helmet, which the makers are careful to note is not DOT-approved.
A great part here is you can buy it on Ebay!!

That’s right, the fortuitously named Parker Brothers Choppers in Melbourne, Fla., will build five working lightcycles in five different colors, with the option of a high-powered electric drivetrain. You can get yours for a mere $35,000.

3 . High Speed Rail All The Way To Europe

China already has the most advanced and extensive high speed rail line in the world, and soon that network will be connected all the way to Europe and the UK! With initial negotiations and surveys already complete, China is now making plans to connect its high speed rail line through 17 other countries in Asia and Eastern Europe in order to connect to the existing infrastructure in the EU. Additional rail lines will also be built into South East Asia as well as Russia, in what will likely become the largest infrastructure project in history.

4. Bendable Bike Can Tie Itself

We Inhabitat writers have had our fair share of bicycles and bicycle parts stolen on the mean streets of New York City. It seems these days you’ve got to lock everything down (even the brakes!) in order to keep your cycle intact. That often means buying more than one lock and disassembling your bike every time you leave it unguarded. Kevin Scott hopes to change all of that. He just unveiled his revolutionary bendable bike. That’s right, with the push of a lever the cycle becomes bike-Houdini and can wrap around any post making it easy to secure all its parts with just one lock.

5. Shweeb’s Pedal-Powered Bike Monorail 

Shweeb is an innovative form of alternative transportation that places people in plastic tubes so that they can cycle to their destination whilst hung upside down from a rail. It may sound crazy, uncomfortable and tiring, but Google believes that it could transform the way we get around cities — as such, they have invested $1.05 million into the scheme. 

6. Black Widow Supercar that Gets 2752.3 MPG

 Think claims of electric vehicles that get over 200 MPG are impressive? Try this on for size: a group of mechanical engineering students at Cal Poly have developed a vehicle that can get up to 2752.3 MPG — and it doesn’t even use batteries.

The Cal Poly Supermileage Team‘s wondercar, dubbed the Black Widow, has been under construction since 2005. The 96 pound car has three wheels, a drag coefficient of 0.12, a top speed of 30 MPH, and a modified 3 horsepower Honda 50cc four-stroke engine. It originally clocked in at 861 MPG and has been continuously tweaked to achieve the mileage we see today.
Want to see the Black Widow in action? The car is being entered for a fourth time in the Shell Eco-marathon along with a new three-wheeled Urban Concept vehicle. Who knows? Maybe this one will break the 3,000 MPG barrier.




source : inhabitat.com