Diesel is the New Look in "Green"

The eco-friendly-minded woman is confronted everyday with an assortment of “green” items. Clothing companies devoted to making garments without any synthetic fibers, recycled cardboard cup sleeves at Starbucks, even make-up that comes in biodegradable boxes with flower seeds mixed in. (The add says that you can plant the used boxes in the ground to grow a garden.) Not that I’m against saving the environment but, honestly, I think some things go too far.

And then there are the cars. At first it was the cute little “girly” cars like the Honda Insight. Then the family sedans started “going green” with cars like the Toyota Camry Hybrid and now, the Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid is soon to make every soccer mom “green” with envy. Although these cars make great strides in fuel efficiency and lower emissions, they come up short on power and towing capacity. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for breathing clean air. I understand the need for lower emissions vehicles, but what’s a horsepower hungry girl to do when all the low emissions cars just won’t give the performance she craves? Enter: BlueTec.

BlueTec is the clean diesel technology that Mercedes is beginning to use in their diesel engines. Until recently diesel engines have not been able to meet the increasingly rigorous emissions restrictions in the U.S. European countries have been using diesel-powered vehicles for more than 65 years. Diesel cars get 20-30 percent better gas-mileage than conventional gasoline engines without sacrificing horsepower. Hmm... sounds good to me. So why hasn’t the U.S. jumped onto the diesel engine wagon? It’s because the U.S. has stricter emissions regulations (1/8 of what is allowed in Europe to be exact). On top of that, the diesel fuel available in America had higher sulfur levels than that in Europe until last year, meaning that our diesel fuel would clog the filters that make the European versions more efficient.

Last October, the U.S. switched its diesel to a cleaner, less sulfuric version, making cleaner diesels possible. This is where BlueTec comes in. The problem with diesel has been high Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) outputs. What BlueTec does is it takes a catalytic converter that targets the NOx and stores it and then eventually transfers it to a second catalytic converter which converts the chemical into water and safe nitrous gas. This whole process gives up little if any horsepower. A few car companies have already begun making cars with BlueTec technology for the U.S. market. Carmakers such as Honda, Mitsubishi, and General Motors have all made promises of cleaner diesels after the year 2009.

So, while it may take a few more years for these new diesels to hit the market as hard as the hybrids have, I definitely don’t mind waiting a little while longer before I “go green.”

The University of Constant Technology

This is not your parents’ college. Today college kids are bombarded with technology not ever imagined 30 years ago. While it was virtually unheard of for a college student to have their own computer a decade or so ago, a student without a computer now wouldn’t stand a chance in today’s college courses. Not only do students carry a computer with them from class to class but they also carry a cell phone, an Mp3 player, and maybe even a Blackberry.

Yesteryear’s students would leave the “real” world for a few hours to go to class and concentrate on the notes their professors would scratch onto those sea-sick green chalkboards. Today, most chalkboards have been replaced by whiteboards, and those few historical artifacts that remain make wonderful backdrops for the new power point presentation screens.

Students learn to type fast because if they slow down for a minute the presentation screen may change to the next power point slide and those un-typed notes will forever be lost in that land where all old digital presentations meet their untimely demise. While the students are typing madly away at their laptop computers, they are simultaneously receiving text messages from friends and relatives giving them a constant stream of social information. One hand on the computer keyboard and the other wearing away the tiny buttons on their cell phones, now that’s multi-tasking.

And then there are websites like Myspace and Facebook. Students often have one laptop window open to a word document for notes and another open to these social networking sites. Students are given more information at one time than any earlier generation.

While they aren’t at school, students are at their jobs or doing homework or sleeping (if they get the chance). If you add up all of the time each student spends doing these activities it equals well over 24 hours. That’s not taking into account time for the student to drive from school to work or any free time to see family or friends. How do the cram all of these events into one day? They must be multi-tasking geniuses.

It may seem like a great thing to have so many multi-tasking protégés ready to hit the workforce after graduation, but there may be some unforeseen toll it will take on these students. What about exhaustion? Depression? Or other stress related problems?

Sure, the students of today have amazing technology at their fingertips; more informational power than ever before… but is it too much for them to handle? More importantly, what is the point? Where is this constant stream of information taking us? There has to be some culmination right? What happens when this information hits so hard and so fast that our brains simply can’t register it any quicker? Is that the point we really want to reach? The flow already strains students today… what about the next generation?