Powering your home with your car

May 17th, 2012 by Richard Lord

Mark Little, Chief Technology Officer for GE is interviewed at the SAE 2012 World Congress in Detroit, Michigan, USA.

He said “electric vehicles supporting grid infrastructure is here now. It is just going to get a lot better.”

“Thinking that you could power your home for a couple of days through your car is a really amazing connectivity that we have not had before” said Deb Frodl, Global Alternative Leader, GE.

Mark Little continues “today you can buy GE appliances that have the ability to connect to a home device that we and others make – the GE device is called the Nucleus. It allows you to look at energy flows around your home. It allows you to turn your appliances on and off at times that are good for energy use. It will apply to electric vehicles as well.”

For more information visit GE’s ecomagination website.

Glorious Guernsey Bicycle Group summer evening rides for 2012

May 17th, 2012 by Richard Lord

The Guernsey Bicycle Group arrive at the Grantez Mill to admire the view of Guernsey's west coast (click image to expand - ©RLLord)

One of the most pleasant ways of spending a Guernsey summer evening is exploring Guernsey’s quiet country lanes with the Guernsey Bicycle Group during their Summer Evening Rides.

These free, guided rides promote the joy of cycling, its low cost, and its health benefits, without harm to the environment.

The Guernsey Bicycle Group’s ten scheduled summer evening rides for 2012 begin in a different part of Guernsey on each occasion. Continue reading

British Gas trialling Nissan electric NV200 test van

May 13th, 2012 by Nissan Motor Company

The Nissan e-NV200 test van in British Gas livery (click image to expand - image courtesy of Nissan ©Paul Marriott Photography)

Nissan’s e-NV200 test car has played its part in helping British Gas kick-start its ambition of switching 10% of its 14,000 light commercial vehicle (LCV) fleet to electric over the next three years.

British Gas has been trialling a Nissan e-NV200 test car for a few weeks at its Leicester and Newbury depots, the first OEM van of its kind ever to grace the fleet.

Its job has been to help British Gas determine which of its 14,000 drivers’ daily travel patterns are most suited to an electric van’s typical working range, including getting to and from work.

The van was run at maximum gross vehicle weight during the trial which shadowed drivers from British Gas’ national network of trained engineers as they carried out their daily Continue reading

Top ten bicycle maintenance tips

May 11th, 2012 by Bike Week

Helen Pidd, author of ‘Bicycle – The Complete Guide to Everyday Cycling‘ offers the following ten bicycle maintenance tips.

1. Keep it clean. If there is one thing you can do to prolong the life of your bike, it is keeping it clean. Tedious, but true. No fancy cleaning kit required – a bucket of soapy water, a sponge and an old toothbrush is all you need, though a proper degreaser will help break down the oil and grit in the chain and gear sprockets.

2. Keep your tyres inflated properly. Poorly inflated tyres are prone to punctures. Forget flimsy hand pumps – you need a standing track pump with a pressure gauge to do the job. Nice bike shops will let you borrow theirs. Look on the side of your tyre for a number followed by the letters PSI. That tells you how much air to put in.

3. Check your brake pads. Worn brake pads equal rubbish brakes. You can tell they are worn if you can hardly see the grooves any more. Fitting new brake pads is a very cheap and easy fix and any number of websites can show you how. You just need a set of Allen keys and some patience. Continue reading

Bike Week from 16 to 24 June 2012 encourages everyday bicycling

May 11th, 2012 by Events

Bike Week from 16 to 24 June 2012 is Britain’s biggest mass participation cycling event.

Last year almost half a million people participated in events across Great Britain.

Bike week demonstrates the social, health and environmental benefits of cycling, and shows how bicycling can easily be part of everyday life by encouraging ‘everyday cycling for everyone’.

There are events all over the British Isles, offering something for families, schools, and companies, and seasoned cyclists, and those who have never cycled before.

Take part by hosting a Guernsey Bike Week event for friends and colleagues, and inform the Guernsey Bicycle Group.

Or take part by joining a Bike Week 2012 event near you.

(please click on Bike Week 2012 logo to go to Bike Week website)

Popularity of Cycle to Work scheme

May 11th, 2012 by Cycle to Work Alliance

The UK Government supported Cycle to Work Scheme has seen a 9% increase in take-up during the first quarter of 2012 compared to 2011.

Members of the Cycle to Work Alliance (Cyclescheme, Cycle Solutions, Evans Cycles and Halfords), have seen a growth in the number of UK employees signing up to the scheme, reversing recent trends.

From January to March 2012, over 23,400 UK employees signed-up to the scheme through members of the Alliance, indicating that 2012 is set to be a very popular year for cycling. Continue reading

Walk to Work Week from 14 to 18 May encourages a healthier lifestyle

May 9th, 2012 by Living Streets

Michelle Duquemin walks over six miles every work day from her home to work in St Peter Port. (click image to expand - ©RLLord)

This May, people across the British Isles will be leaving their cars at home and taking to their feet for national Walk to Work Week from 14 to 18 May 2012.

British charity Living Streets works to create safe, attractive and enjoyable streets where people want to walk. With funding from the UK’s Big Lottery Fund, we work to highlight the role that walking can play in bringing some much needed activity into our daily lives.

The latest figures show that a quarter of UK adults are now classified as obese, and that a growing number of us jump in the car for over a fifth of journeys shorter than one mile.

Walking to work is the easiest way to reintroduce some crucial healthy activity into your work-day. Continue reading

Is sitting in your car killing you?

May 8th, 2012 by Elsevier

Bumper to bumper traffic on Vauvert heading to the St Peter Port waterfront on 8 September 2010

As populations move even further away from urban centers, more people spend longer hours behind the wheel on their way to and from work.

While sedentary behavior is known to have adverse effects on cardiovascular and metabolic health, the impact of long commutes by automobile are less understood.

A new study on “Commuting Distance, Cardiorespiratory Fitness, and Metabolic Risk” has found that greater commuting distances are associated with decreased cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), increased weight, and other indicators of metabolic risk.

The results are published in the June 2012 issue of American Journal of Preventive Medicine Volume 42, Issue 6 published by Elsevier. Continue reading

Regular jogging increases longevity

May 4th, 2012 by European Society of Cardiology

Undertaking regular jogging increases the life expectancy of men by 6.2 years and women by 5.6 years, reveals the latest data from the Copenhagen City Heart study presented at the EuroPRevent2012 meeting.

Reviewing the evidence of whether jogging is healthy or hazardous, Peter Schnohr told delegates that the study’s most recent analysis (unpublished) shows that between one and two-and-a-half hours of jogging per week at a “slow or average” pace delivers optimum benefits for longevity.

The EuroPRevent2012 meeting, held 3 May to 5 May 2012, in Dublin, Ireland, was organised by the European Association for Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation (EACPR), a registered branch of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).

“The results of our research allow us to definitively answer the question of whether jogging is good for your health,” said Schnohr, who is chief cardiologist of the Copenhagen City Heart Study, speaking in the “Assessing prognosis: a glimpse of the future” symposium on 5 May 2012. Continue reading

How to make daily journeys fun

May 3rd, 2012 by Island Press

(click on book cover to go to publisher's page)

As part of the new Island Press E‐ssentials program featuring short electronic‐only publications on timely environmental issues, transit and food writer Darrin Nordahl asks the question: What if getting to work, going to the grocery store, and riding the bus around town could be fun?

With Making Transit Fun!, he gives a taste of what that world would look like.

In this innovative new e‐book, Nordahl, author of My Kind of Transit and Public Produce, argues that buses, streetcars, monorails, cycling, and walking can be just as inviting, exciting, and even as seductive as the car, if designed with the passenger or walker in mind.

In Making Transit Fun! Nordahl contends that life is as much about the journey as it is about the destination, and a little fun along the way makes a big difference. Continue reading