The Tesla Roadster: Who could argue with its sex appeal? (Tesla photo)

The financial establishment is getting bullish about electric cars. I just talked to a Bank of America/Merrill Lynch analyst who told me that EVs will need "sizzle," or maybe the right phrase is sex appeal, to triumph in the marketplace.

"Cost is not the only factor driving the purchasing decision," says analyst Steven Milunovich. "EVs need to appeal to consumers on a psychological level, such as prestige and driving enjoyment." I totally agree. The good thing is that many EVs already have sizzle to burn. Or is sizzle already burning?

The car magazines are stuck in the past with high-performance dinosaurs, but most of the cars that attract buzz in the financial media today are green. The Fisker Karma, for instance, is a visual outrage--it makes Megan Fox look like a nun. And it's bristling with cool eco-features, including interior wood sourced from river bottoms and a rooftop solar panel to run the heating and cooling systems. And it's not surprising that Fisker is working on some kind of proprietary noise--a Formula One car crossed with a spaceship--so that pedestrians will know it's there when in battery mode.

The Tesla Roadster is, of course, off the charts in sizzle factor, and the forthcoming Model S is the Maserati of electric sedans. General Motors would love to pay for the positive publicity Tesla gets for free.

Another reason Wall Street likes EVs is that it can make money on them. When the battery company A123 (a supplier to Chrysler) went public, its stock--one of the few "pure plays" an investor could buy (most battery makers are either not public or part of large conglomerates) doubled in price on the first day.

Given that Christmas has become a $400 billion annual spending spree here in the U.S., sometimes I think Scrooge had a point during his "bah humbug" period. Certainly a little spending moderation can't hurt this holiday season, and it might even put us back in touch with the true spirit and ideals of the season. Here's how to enjoy the holidays and avoid a financial hangover come New Years Day:

* Agree on a sensible gift exchange plan with family and friends: Don't be shy about broaching the subject of having a scaled-back gift exchange with family and friends. Many times, others will thank you for having the courage to bring it up. Consider setting a spending limit -- and sticking to it -- and adopting a "secret Santa" plan, whereby each person in the family draws a name and buys a gift only for that person rather than for everyone in the family. Or consider an alternative gift exchange plan, like only giving homemade items, re-gifted items, gifts of your time, or just exchanging cards instead of gifts. Remember, it's the thought that counts.

* Make entertaining more about special people and activities than about expensive food and drink: Celebrating with family and friends need not leave your bank account as empty as Santa's workshop after the holidays are over. Put the focus of holiday entertaining back where it belongs -- on enjoying good times with good people. Make meal events a potluck or progressive dinner, so that everyone can share their favorite recipes (and some of the cost). Host a brunch rather than a dinner party; brunch-foods like egg dishes, breads, and salads tend to cost less than dinner fare. And deemphasize food and drink by planning fun group activities, like an old fashioned caroling party or playing games instead of having a traditional - and costly - cocktail party.

* Decorate with creativity, not credit cards: It's easy to overspend when it comes to decking the halls, but simple elegance usually trumps glitzy glamour when decorating for the holidays. Take an inventory of decorations you have on hand before you shop for more; it's easy to forget about items you have in storage or bought last year at after-Christmas sales. Incorporate inexpensive greenery and other natural materials as much as possible, including those you might collect from your own yard or swap with neighbors. If you buy a real Christmas tree, buy the largest one you can find for the price and cut off unneeded lower branches to use in wreaths and garland. Or consider buying a truly "live" tree -- one with the root ball still intact -- and plant it in your yard after the holidays; according to the U.S. Department of Energy, as few as three strategically planted trees in your yard can significantly reduce household heating and cooling expenses.

I'm surrounded by newly pregnant people. Like too-early-to-tell-anyone early. But I'm the happy keeper of their wondrous secrets. Don't ask for hints on who I'm talking about. I won't tell.

It's funny how short that newly pregnant moment is, because when you're in it, it feels so long. And it's amusing how no one would ever guess because it's so not apparent bump-wise even if inside your own head it's the LOUDEST thing that has ever happened, and ever will again. Well, maybe until your own kid(s) tells you they're pregnant.

One pregnancy I'm spending a lot of time thinking about is a third. The first two times, the mom was severely nauseated. She threw up for months on end. And she's expecting to be so again. But until that nausea comes on, she's cramming herself full of all sorts of great and crucial food and sleeping when her kids will let her. These are weeks to take care of yourself as much as you possibly can. While we were on the phone strategizing about how best to get the nutrients in before she started hurling them up, I went back to my personal notes plus my lists published in The Complete Organic Pregnancy.

The smell of cooking food is particularly awful to the nauseated (mildly or very) pregnant person. Roasted meat scent in particular killed me when I was pregnant so I remember doing all sorts of things to get protein sans smell - protein rich grains like amaranth went down ok, so did beans (sometimes). Avocado worked. Eggs also smelled when scrambled or fried but boiled eggs worked (no smell cooking but sometimes unbearable when I cracked open the shell post boil). I remember having people cook me meat at their houses so I wouldn't have to smell the cooking. My friend has family that lives nearby. I suggested she have her husband cook their meat (they belong to a great pastured meat collective, like a CSA for humanely and ecologically raised animals) over at their houses, and to bring it back into their apartment after it cools off and the scent is less intense. Sounds crazy but when you only have a short period of time to get animal protein and nutrients in before months of barfing, you do what you have to do. If eating seafood, make sure to eat fish and shellfish with the lowest contaminants (PCBs, mercury) and the highest omega-3s and other crucial nutrients found in fish.
]]> Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:35:00 EST http://www.thedailygreen.com/living-green/blogs/recycling-design-technology/countries-pollution-461109?src=rss http://www.thedailygreen.com/living-green/blogs/recycling-design-technology/countries-pollution-461109?src=rss

The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen is only a month away, and soon all the world -- particularly the embattled developing world and low-lying countries -- will be focused on the specter of global warming. Massive challenges remain when it comes to building consensus on action, and there is a great deal of work to be done.

Yet in order to build a way toward a cleaner future we also need a good handle on the present. One place to start is with this handy new chart at The New Ecologist, mapping out the world's biggest polluters based on carbon dioxide emissions.

Note how coal-heavy China surpassed the U.S. in total emissions, yet lags far behind in per capita releases. Personally I was surprised to see Saudi Arabia and Iran as such big emitters, and it baffles me why Australia has higher per capita emissions than the U.S. or Canada, which are so much colder (a friend of mine who lived Down Under said she rarely even saw furnaces in homes, at least as far north as Sydney and beyond).

It's good to get a sense of the relative emissions we have now, and to look at which economies are booming and are likely to emit more carbon in the coming years. Still, it's frustrating that many Americans have been so resistant to any attempts to reduce emissions, when it's clear that we are responsible for a disproportionate part of the problem. I always thought it was a silly argument to complain that the U.S. shouldn't cut back if developing countries didn't automatically promise to do so. It made me think of the rich man who says he won't give a dollar to charity until every poor man on his block does so first. Had we taken an early lead, businesses would recognize the competitive advantage of doing the right thing (and reducing their exposure to future risk), technologies would be further developed, and we would have served as a good example to the rest of the world, instead of coming across like a greedy braggart (even if we were only acting in the name of preserving jobs, it didn't come across that way to many of our global citizens).

Maybe Copenhagen offers a chance to set things in a more sustainable direction.

See the article and graphics at The New Ecologist.

Elizabeth James (left) told ABC that her Prius hit 90 mph in a case of sudden acceleration. (Photo courtesy ABC/Elizabeth James)

Do you remember the exploding Pinto? Or the murderous Fords that the Center for Auto Safety said popped out of "park"? Toyota is now wrestling not only with lawsuits and the legacy of multiple deaths from a similar defect that it says is about nothing more than some poorly secured or inappropriate floormats inadvertently shoving down the gas pedal.

In multiple venues, including Good Morning America this morning and World News with Charles Gibson and Nightline tonight, ABC News is reporting on an "owners' rebellion" in which hundreds of Toyota drivers are saying that their cars are running away from them, and that it has to be more than floormats that are responsible.

Brian Ross, one of several ABC TV reporters who worked on the broadcasts, told me that the network's reporting is "anecdotal evidence based on dozens of cases in which problems with the floormats doesn't cover what happened. The people we interviewed don't accept the explanations they're getting from Toyota and from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). They say they've been dismissed or blown off."

The owners speculate--and it really is speculation--that the real cause of their problem is in the electronic engine control system, in the braking system, or even the result of electromagnetic interference. The latter has been the stuff of endless Internet speculation. My own report on it in the New York Times was inconclusive, and it would be far more likely in hybrid cars with high-voltage electric systems than in standard gasoline cars.

Toyota isn't really "blowing people off." It's far too smart for that. Instead, the company is sending customers letters that state, "Toyota has determined that this defect does not exist in which the driver side floor mat is compatible with the vehicle and properly secured." There's even a chart so you can make sure you have the right floormats.

The letter went out to owners of the Toyota Camry, Avalon, Prius, Tacoma, Tundra; and Lexus ES350 and IS250 and IS350. Toyota also posted NHTSA's most recent denial of a petition in a case involving Jeffrey Pepski of Plymouth, Minnesota and his 2007 Lexus ES350. Pepski's written testimony is gripping.

"Driving home from work, I experienced a sudden uncontrollable surge in acceleration causing my speed to increase from about 60 to 80+ mph," he wrote. Pepski says his brakes started smoking from the effort of trying to get the car slowed down. The tachometer soared to the redline as he finally put the car into neutral and was able to stop safely.

But NHTSA concluded, "[F]urther investigation of the issues raised by the petition is not warranted." The petition was denied.

Editor's note: We were delighted by Lauren Weber's new book In Cheap We Trust: The Story of a Misunderstood American Virtue, and we weren't just flattered that she mentioned The Daily Green, or Jeff Yeager's own book The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map to True Riches. Weber writes with style and humor about a topic dear to us: getting more out of life with less impact on the planet. We noticed some similarities in suggestions and outlook between these two thrifty authors, and also noted amusing ways in which they diverge in their habits.

So we put them to a Cheap Off of sorts, volleying the following questions their way. Weber's answers are in regular text and Jeff's are in italics.

Gloria Dawson, The Daily Green: What do you splurge on?

Is health insurance a “splurge”? Probably not, but it sure feels like it every month when I write that $360 check. I’m lucky to be very healthy (knock on wood, throw salt over the shoulder), so in purely monetary terms, I don’t get a lot for my money. However, the peace of mind is ultimately worth it.

Aside from that, I buy some insanely expensive skin-care products (see below). And I love to travel, so I’ll fork over big dollars to fly to India, Vietnam, Turkey or France. Once I’m there, though, I get around on public transportation, eat street food, stay in hostels or inexpensive motels and try to focus on having great experiences rather than buying a lot of souvenirs.

I agree with Lauren -- a true Sister of the Cheaphood -- when it comes to health care. We need to radically reform our system and catch up with the rest of the civilized world. But until then, readers can rest assured that I’ll continue the groundbreaking work I’ve been doing here in the Ultimate Cheapskate Lab to make do-it-yourself home surgery a practical alternative. Why am I guessing that if I could get a couple of politicians under my homemade scalpel, our health care system would be fixed overnight?

My splurges? It’s all relative. A cheapskate neighbor of mine is aghast that I pay a service $85 every couple of years to clean out my septic tank. To him, that’s a splurge. He cleans his septic tank out himself, by the bucketful. (And he wonders why we never have him over for dinner).

*********

Lately there has been lots of chatter around eating on $10 a day. Is it really possible? How?

Absolutely! In fact, $10 seems extravagant to me -- that would include at least one meal out for me. On most days, I probably feed myself for around $3 to $5. I eat lots of lentils and beans, two of the healthiest and cheapest foods imaginable. And I hardly ever cook meat at home. Instead, I hold my diet mostly to legumes, vegetables, eggs, tofu and pasta. For a treat, I’ll get a $2 taco at the Mexican food stands under the elevated train in my New York City neighborhood.

That’s not to say I don’t like a pricey meal now and then. I once took a friend out for a $200 sushi dinner, and it was worth every penny.

Are we talking $10 a person?! If so, that’s a further indication of how out of touch many people (including many self-proclaimed personal finance gurus) are with money: According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American currently spends only about $4 a day on food. Yet, particularly with the recession, we have people writing articles about the “challenge” of spending ONLY $10 a day on food? Okay, so maybe it’s $10 for a household? If so, the average household is about 2.5 people, so that’s still not a “challenge,” just the national average. $10 for a family of four or more, maybe, but it’s still easily doable.

Be all that as it may, I try to buy mostly foods that cost under $1 a pound, primarily because those are often the healthiest foods (e.g. whole grains, legumes, fresh fruits and vegetables). My “under $1 a pound” approach channels you toward eating lower on the food chain, which is better for your health, the environment, and your bank account.

If you’re a smart shopper and plan your menus around the “loss leaders” advertised at the grocery store, you can have an extremely healthy, enjoyable diet for (generally) under $1 a pound. Many people don’t believe this, but I’ve proven it time and again -- all around the country -- on TV challenges and elsewhere. Also, FYI, I live in the Washington, DC metro area, with one of the highest costs of living in the country, and this is how I shop and eat.

Give it a try: “Under $1 a pound, year round.” (Of course, as my long-suffering wife likes to say, “If you are what you eat, my husband should be reduced-for-quick-sale.”)

********

Describe your ultimate cheap vacation (and you can't stay at home!). Where would you go? What hotels do you like? How would you get there?

My boyfriend and I have been thinking about taking the Trans-Siberian Railway from Moscow to Beijing, via Mongolia. We’d hop off at cities along the way and spend our days as tourists, then get back on the trains at night, using them as both transportation and lodging. That would save us the cost of hotels every night. And if the TSR trains are anything like the ones in India, there will probably be food-sellers at every stop, plying inexpensive fruit, snacks and local specialties through the windows to locals and tourists alike. Of course, the expensive part is airfares to and from home. But I don’t mind suffering through a couple of layovers if it means saving a few hundred bucks.

I write a lot about how travel is a responsibility, not a luxury -- to get out and meet the people of the world and see where and how they live. The thing is, if you spend a lot on luxury travel or tour groups, you defeat the whole purpose of travel: You’ll be staying in American-style hotels, eating American food, and associating only with American tourists, even though you’re half way around the world. Why not just stay home? Only by traveling on the cheap can you truly capture a sense of place and the people who live there.

Yes, so for me, it’s a lot of bicycling, hiking, public transport; youth hostels, CouchSurfing.com, and local/cheap hotels (you know, the kind of places where they ask for a $10 deposit to turn OFF the porno movies in your room); and street food and self-cooked meals along the way.

By stretching our travel dollars in this fashion, my wife and I travel both in the U.S. and abroad for about four months out of every year. Not a bad life, living on the cheap.

If I spend a bit on any one piece of clothing this winter, it will be a gorgeous knit. I've found that over the years, the pieces I've kept the longest from the cold seasons have been sweater-dressing separates; a great wool dress, a chunky knit vest, fine-gauge tights from Germany, my favorite scarf. Below are top contenders for space in my closet.

I love a great red sweater, and this one from Stewart & Brown has a beautiful asymmetrical button-front and a cable knit throughout. I especially like the detail at the collar and those fantastic pockets. Made from 100% Mongolian cashmere (and seen on Michelle Williams in Vogue).

Lutz and Patmos (available at Barney's and through their own site) is synonymous with sustainable sweaterings; I heard the design team there speak a year ago and their passion for waste-free and long-lasting, high quality yarns was impressive. And their cuts and colors are that perfect cross between modern and classic that means they're wearable forever. My neck always gets cold in the Winter, even when no other part of my body is, so a chunky neckwarmer that can go as well over a thick sweater for a hike, or over pajamas when I set the thermostat low is an ideal piece. Made from 100% eco friendly Merino wool from Uruguay.

I am in love with this vest, but like you, wonder how practical it could be for regular wear. But what is life if one is practical all the time? Some of my oddest clothes have made- and stayed- in heavy rotation. One statement piece like this one makes the rest of the ensemble simple; Made from organic wool by Thieves Boutique.

Simon Hackett's Tesla Roadster on the Global Green Challenge in Australia. (Photo via Simon Hackett)

Simon Hackett is the managing director of Australia's national broadband company Internode, but he doesn't spend all his time behind a computer. He is the proud owner of a Tesla Roadster, which he just drove 313 miles on a single charge -- at least a tentative world record.

The record was set on the Global Green Challenge, an Australian solar car race (from the Northern Territories to southernmost Adelaide) that goes back to 1987, when it was won by a General Motors/AeroVironment entry called Sunraycer. The solar car race, open to electric vehicles charged by photovoltaics, was won by a team from Tokai University in Japan. American teams from the University of Michigan and MIT did well, too, but that's another story.

The Challenge also includes a division for production cars, and that's where the Tesla was competing. Hackett points out that his drive smashes a record set last April by another Tesla Roadster, which completed the 241-mile Rallye Monte Carlo d'Energies Alternatives on just one charge (with more than 38 miles left, apparently).

From the road, Hackett and co-driver Elilis Prelgauskas sent Tesla an email: "Emilis and I have decades of experience flying gliders competitively, and we applied the same energy conservation techniques to our driving, with significant results! The car had about three miles of range left when the drive was completed. We traveled 501 kilometers [313 miles] on a single charge. Let that sink in for a minute."

On his blog, Hackett said, "We wanted to prove a point about the ability of EVs to drive truly large distances--and we have done so! This ends any contention that EVs aren't practical cars. They're more than that--they are the future of motoring."

[In his ongoing but sporadic series Don't Throw That Away!, the Green Cheapskate shows you how to repurpose just about anything, saving money and the environment in the process. Send him your repurposing ideas and challenges, but whatever you do, Don't Throw That Away!]

I was a bank robber, the first Halloween I can remember. That involved carrying a burlap bag filled with stacks of newsprint "loot" over my shoulder, wearing a black turtleneck sweater like Illya Kuryakin wore in The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and -- most memorably -- sliding one of my grandmother's worn out silk stockings over my head.

That memory (the last part, in particular) is etched upon my mind. And, my therapist says, no amount of counseling is ever likely to erase it.

Silk stockings are of course as long gone as my dear grandmother; truly sad to say, in both cases. But here are 20 creative ways to repurpose today's worn out nylon pantyhose, even if you're not planning to rob a bank:

• Gift wrap storage: Keep rolls of gift paper neat and tatter-free by storing them in old pantyhose -- one roll per leg -- and hanging them in the closet.
• Green Cheapskate soap on a rope: Put bath soap slivers in the foot of a pair of pantyhose to get every last bit of suds out of them in the shower. Rub-a-dub-dub, there's a cheapskate in my tub. (See more "Recycling Oddities.")
• Plant ties: Use lengths of pantyhose to stake up tomatoes and other plants in the garden; because of its elasticity, it's easier on tender plants than string.
• Mold and mildew stoppers: Partially fill pantyhose with kitty litter and place in shoes, luggage, closets, dressers, etc. to absorb moisture and reduce mold and mildew.
]]> Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:26:00 EST http://www.thedailygreen.com/living-green/blogs/recycling-design-technology/pop-up-house-461009?src=rss http://www.thedailygreen.com/living-green/blogs/recycling-design-technology/pop-up-house-461009?src=rss


With a name like Pop-Up House, we were envisioning some kind of 3D greeting card. But it turns out that House Port's design for an affordable home is a "cost–effective, energy-efficient package that can be finished and upgraded to one’s personal taste, on any budget, large or small."

The Pop-Up House ships flat–packed, ready–to–assemble, which means substantial savings on labor, shipping costs and waste. It comes with parts and written and DVD instructions, and is user-friendly enough so anyone with building experience should be able to put it together. Naturally, the owner is responsible for preparing the site and the foundation, and finishing fixtures are also not included (plumbing, lighting, etc).

The core of the Pop–Up House consists of prefabricated SIPs (Structural Insulated Panels), which are designed to deflect heat. The space between the roofs of the Cubes and the House Port allows for air circulation for natural cooling. The price for a Double Cube Pop-Up House and port is $160,000, not including any labor, fixtures and sliding doors.

Get a visual tour of the Pop-Up House in a new eight-part web series, following Hally Thacher’s five-week adventure in developing the first Pop-Up House in Northern California. She creates a beautiful home in the desert for a budget of $250,000 from start to finish.

Here's the first webisode (I don't care for the term "webisode" btw):


]]> Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:18:00 EST http://www.thedailygreen.com/living-green/blogs/recycling-design-technology/kate-pokorny-knit-yurt-461009?src=rss http://www.thedailygreen.com/living-green/blogs/recycling-design-technology/kate-pokorny-knit-yurt-461009?src=rss


We've seen knit toys, sculptures and graffiti, and even an abandoned gas station covered in stitching. But an actual house made out of yarn? Isn't that inviting trouble from the Big Bad Wolf?

Kate Pokorny doesn't think so. The youthful crafter, who blogs at Yurt Alert, said she was living in NYC in 2006 when she started experimenting with crochet (in part because she was inspired by Margaret Wertheim's TED Talk on how the technique "can be used to represent hyperbolic space and coral reefs"). Further inspired by knit and crochet work by artists like Kwangho Lee, Claudy Jongstra and Christien Meindertsma, Pokorny developed an affinity for the shape of yurts, and discovered that Mongolian nomads had made felt for their homes "via a labor intensive process that still required an internal structure at the end of the day."

And so her project began. The goal is a self-supporting crocheted yurt, made out of hand-felted cording approximately 1.5 to 2 inches thick. The material will be sourced from wool produced locally in New Hampshire. It will be hand cleaned and prepped with aid from a local mill. It will take about 500 pounds of wool, and Pokorny is fundraising to purchase the stuff, as well as cleaning and processing supplies. "I already have 200 pounds of the wool and I've made the prototype, which came out terrific by hand-felting 40 feet of cording and crocheting it with my arm as the 'hook,'" she told me. "Visualize a woolly igloo."

Pokorny is raising money through Kickstarter, a crowdsourced funding platform for creative projects. Donate now or learn more about it. She currently has $1,767 pledged, out of a goal of $5,500, with 65 days left to go on the campaign. Some 31 people have chipped in. There are different levels of sponsorship, starting at $1, with higher amounts scoring you some crocheted scale models, photos and even the chance to spend a couple of nights in the finished dwelling. Donors can also help crochet part of the structure.


]]> Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:36:00 EST http://www.thedailygreen.com/living-green/win/eos-sweet-mint-lip-balm-rules-102809?src=rss http://www.thedailygreen.com/living-green/win/eos-sweet-mint-lip-balm-rules-102809?src=rss Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:04:00 EST http://www.thedailygreen.com/living-green/blogs/cars-transportation/smart-grid-technology-47102705?src=rss http://www.thedailygreen.com/living-green/blogs/cars-transportation/smart-grid-technology-47102705?src=rss

The DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center: needs a smart grid. (Florida Power & Light rendering)

The DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center in Florida will be large enough to serve the entire city of Arcadia, whose very name suggests some kind of modern-day post-oil paradise. Here's what the 25-megawatt facility, the largest solar installation in the U.S. with 90,000 solar panels, looks like on video:





But there are clouds in the solar sky, and its name is the electric grid....

]]> Tue, 27 Oct 2009 05:49:00 EST