(Video) Respect the Crosswalk – Rotary Club in Brazil Shows How It is Done

December 4, 2012 at 2:43 pm

How do you teach a disrespectful driver about road safety? Rotary Club from the city of Blumenau, Brazil, started a campaign aimed at drivers who don’t respect crosswalks. And here is the outcome:

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKWBDhTWiaU’]

Mother of All Road Rage Incidents Comes from Brazil and it involves a motorcycle

March 25, 2012 at 11:31 am

(Source: LiveLeak.com)

Moral of the story is clear as a crystal: Never mess with folks on Brazilian roads. These are some crazy drivers who will go to any extent to prove a point..Scary stuff! Glad neither party did not have a lorry or a freight truck (for that matter a gun) else this could have turned into a nightmare for many involved. Interestingly, the driver of the car is a woman, a fact that I did not even realize until I started reading the comments below the video. Drivers of Brazil, spare the poor motorcyclists.

One litre of biodiesel costs 14,000 litres of water

June 6, 2009 at 2:53 pm

(Source: Greenbang, Alpha Galileo & Green Car Congress)

Data: Gerbens-Leenes et al via Green Car Congress

The ‘water footprint’ of bioenergy, i.e. the amount of water required to cultivate crops for biomass, is much greater than for other forms of energy. The generation of bioelectricity is significantly more water-efficient in the end, however – by a factor of two – than the production of biofuel. By establishing the water footprint for thirteen crops, researchers at the University of Twente were able to make an informed choice of a specific crop and production region. They published their results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) of 2 June.

Researchers at the university analysed 13 crops to determine the optimal production regions for each based on water consumption and climate date. Their goal was to make it easier to prevent biomass cultivation from jeopardising food production in regions where water is already in short supply.

The researchers found, for example, that it takes an average of 14,000 litres of water to produce one litre of biodiesel from rapeseed or soya. However, the water footprint for rapeseed in Western Europe is significantly smaller than in Asia. For soya, India has a large water footprint, while the figures for countries such as Italy and Paraguay are more favourable. In the generation of bioelectricity, too, there are big differences between the crops: sugar beet has by far the smallest water footprint – jatropha is 10 times less water-efficient. For the production of bioethanol, sugar beet is again by far the favourite: one litre of bioethanol made from sugar beet takes 1,400 litres of water, as against 2,500 litres for sugarcane, which is widely cultivated  in Brazil.  A new report from Novozymes describes how Brazil could produce up to 8 billion liters (2.1 billion gallons US) of biofuel from sugarcane residues (bagasse) by 2020, representing additional export revenue for Brazil of up to US$4 billion. In Brazil, the proportion of bioethanol used in transport fuel is already at 50%; by comparison, the proportion is 7% in the US, 2% in China, and 1% in Europe, according to Novozymes.

Click here to read the entire article.

One litre of biodiesel costs 14,000 litres of water

June 5, 2009 at 5:20 pm

(Source: Greenbang, Alpha Galileo & Green Car Congress)

The ‘water footprint’ of bioenergy, i.e. the amount of water required to cultivate crops for biomass, is much greater than for other forms of energy. The generation of bioelectricity is significantly more water-efficient in the end, however – by a factor of two – than the production of biofuel. By establishing the water footprint for thirteen crops, researchers at the University of Twente were able to make an informed choice of a specific crop and production region. They published their results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) of 2 June.

Researchers at the university analysed 13 crops to determine the optimal production regions for each based on water consumption and climate date. Their goal was to make it easier to prevent biomass cultivation from jeopardising food production in regions where water is already in short supply.

The researchers found, for example, that it takes an average of 14,000 litres of water to produce one litre of biodiesel from rapeseed or soya. However, the water footprint for rapeseed in Western Europe is significantly smaller than in Asia. For soya, India has a large water footprint, while the figures for countries such as Italy and Paraguay are more favourable.

In the generation of bioelectricity, too, there are big differences between the crops: sugar beet has by far the smallest water footprint – jatropha is 10 times less water-efficient. For the production of bioethanol, sugar beet is again by far the favourite: one litre of bioethanol made from sugar beet takes 1,400 litres of water, as against 2,500 litres for sugarcane, which is widely cultivated  in Brazil. 

A new report from Novozymes describes how Brazil could produce up to 8 billion liters (2.1 billion gallons US) of biofuel from sugarcane residues (bagasse) by 2020, representing additional export revenue for Brazil of up to US$4 billion. In Brazil, the proportion of bioethanol used in transport fuel is already at 50%; by comparison, the proportion is 7% in the US, 2% in China, and 1% in Europe, according to Novozymes.

Click here to read the entire article.