WAAAM and Me

So, a few years ago, I visited the Western Antique Aeroplane and Automobile Museum in Hood River, Oregon.  I was  a pilot in my younger days.  Aviation has always been a personal passion. I love to fly.

Anyway, I took some nice images while I was there for a monthly Summer event they call, Second Saturday.  I recently reprocessed a couple of the images from my WAAAM visit.  I have pasted them in below.

The first image, I rendered purposely as a poster.  I just sent it to the Managing Director of the WAAAM Museum. I offered to donate the use of it to the museum for printing as a poster they could sell in their gift shop.

I've only had one opportunity to fly in an open cockpit biplane.   WAAAM has a slew of them, many still flying.   It's what you call, intoxicating for an airplane buff like me. 

The link for the Western Antique Aeroplane and Automobile Museum is www.waaammuseum.org

Michio Kaku on Hydrogen Power

At the 2015 Consumer Electronics Shown in Las Vegas, Michio Kaku, Physicist, author, and well TV science  personality, introduced Toyota's newest fuel cell powered car. The fuel it uses is hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe. Hydrogen is inexhaustible in supply, non-toxic, and pollution free. When used to power a car, the only exhaust byproduct is water.

I started making videos about renewable energy and hydrogen in the early nineties.  For the last decade,  all of the clean energy thunder has been sucked by a range of battery technologies. There is definitely an important place in our energy future for batteries, but they are not a panacea. 

In 2015, Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai will have production fuel cell cars available in showrooms in California.  The big limiting factor on these vehicles is the lack of a fueling infrastructure.  In the US, only Southern California currently has hydrogen available at public fueling stations.  Let's hope the political will with our elected officials is there to rapidly expand the hydrogen fueling infrastructure across the nation. 

I wrote a book called The Hydrogen Age was published in 2007. It is gratifying to see the kind of future I wrote about in that book coming to pass.

Here is Michio Kaku introducing Toyota's first production fuel cell car. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puvy6QxlPso

Solar Freakin' Roadways

This is such an amazing idea. Think of all the landmass around the world that is dedicated for use of of one kind of transport vehicle or another - roadways, parking lots, airport runways.  What if those paved places were resurfaced with tiles that produce solar energy.  It's a fantastic idea. 

Check out this video produced by a group that has a plan to make it happen... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlTA3rnpgzU





 

Hitler Hates the Tesla S

I pulled this off the Clean Technica website.  It seems this movie footage of Hitler has been twisted numerous times to deliver an effective message about something that Der Fuhrer might not have liked.

I actually think Hitler would have said 'Heil!'  to the Tesla Model S had it been around during the Third Reich. Very clever ad. The guy who plays Hitler is scary.

Here is the link to 'Hitler Hates Tesla' ... http://cleantechnica.com/2014/02/21/hitlers-response-tesla-takeover-video/?utm_source=Cleantechnica+News&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=6b92e0a5b4-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_term=0_b9b83ee7eb-6b92e0a5b4-331969041

Hydrogen Cars Arrive in 2014

Hyundai and Toyota have both announced that they will be introducing hydrogen fuel cell cars into the marketplace in the latter part of 2014.  In the U.S., it will begin in California, where the various car manufacturers have been testing fuel cell prototypes for years.  In the U.S., California has been a leader in clean, automotive technology. A number of hydrogen fueling stations are already in place and more are coming.   Europe has put much more effort into building infrastructure for hydrogen vehicles. Most likely, these clean running machines will gain a foothold in the European Union first, simply because European energy policy aggressively encourages  the adoption of hydrogen and other clean energy technologies.

Toyota Fuel Cell Car

The fossil fuel industry has long used its wealth and political influence to undermine the credibility of hydrogen as a clean energy alternative.  Despite the naysayers, hydrogen continues to emerge, because it works. It is nature's elegantly simple answer: clean, non-toxic, cost effective, and safe when properly managed.  I suspect by 2020, the transition into the hydrogen age will be well underway.

Here is a very engaging video from Toyota showcasing their new fuel cell car... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7xCbmkWKkw


Here is a link to the website for the California Fuel Cell Partnership... http://cafcp.org/

Hyundai's Hydrogen Fuel Cell Farm

Hyundai Motor Company is on the leading edge of fuel cell technology for automobiles.  They are the first to put FC cars into production on an assembly line.

Hyundai Fuel Cell SUV

This week, Hyundai is opening an exhibit in London, U.K. called the Hyundai Fuel Cell Farm.

The Europeans will be the first to put hydrogen powered vehicles on the road in large numbers, and Hyundai is one of the companies that is leading the way.

Here is a link to Hyundai's  Fuel Cell Farm website... http://www.hyundai.co.uk/about-us/environment/hydrogen-fuel-cell?goback=%2Egde_137901_member_5797067451594190851#fuel_cell_farm





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Creative Energy

Some of the greatest examples of creative energy come out of the world of product advertising.  

Here are two video commercials produced by Honda Motor Company that are remarkably clever and engaging. You can't help but smile when you see this kind of ingenuity at work.  I have to wonder how much the world could benefit if the people behind these two examples of advertising art were to turn their talents to subjects like global climate change, reproductive choice, or equal rights and opportunity.

This video from Honda went viral on You Tube.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFko-_pVKwg

Here is Honda's version of a Rube Golkdberg classic...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiQ7Auo-Q6s

Pin Ups and Hot Rods

I've been attending local classic car meets for the last few years,  photographing some very cool hot rods and custom restorations.  This past August, I went to a meet and talked with Don Owen, who built his own custom hot rod based on the 1927 Ford Model A.

Don Owen - T-Bucket Ford

The same day, I met John Brandt, who had a beautifully restored and customized 1940 Plymouth Delivery Wagon.

John Brandt - 1940 Plymouth Delivery Wagon


So, I arranged to to meet Don at Reed College early on  a Sunday morning to photograph his beautiful Ford custom car. I had two models with me.  My first time photographing a model with a car.  We got some nice photos, but ended up cutting the session short when the Reed College police came by and kicked us out.  Anyway, I like the way things turned out that day.




T-Bucket Ford - Model: Penny Lane

Two weeks later,  we set up a session with John Brandt.  I learned a lot from the first session with Don Owen.  We shot John's car behind a big warehouse.  With the non-descript building as a backdrop, it was easy to layer in a different background.   I also pushed the color saturation, contrast, etc., to get a distinct look for the best image that came out of that session.





1940 Plymouth - Model: Janessa Wright

 

Pin-ups and hot rods are fun.  Hope to do a lot more when the weather improves next year.



Car Pix

Late Spring through mid-September, there are car meets on most weekends in the Portland area.  The vehicles on display are usually very impressive.  It's tough to get clean images with so many people around and the vehicles packed in so close together. Here are a few of the better ones that I got...

1937 Mercedes Touring Car



1937 Mercedes



1940 Ford Coupe

1940 Ford Coupe

I don't know the year or make of any of the rest of these cars. I just like the images...

 

 

 

 

 

Antique Cars and Planes in Hood River

The Western Aeroplane and Antique Automobile Museum  (WAAAM) is located at the Ken Jernstedt Airport in Hood River, Oregon. The collection consists of hundreds of autos and planes from the early days of aviation and the motorcar. All have been beautifully restored. The planes are flyable and the cars are driveable. Moreover, they do fly them and they do drive them regularly.  Pasted in below are some photos I took the last time I was at WAAAM.

In the Summer, the museum has an event on the second Saturday of each month where they roll out some of the planes and fly them. They also drive some of the cars and give museum visitors rides in them.  Lots of fun. Highly recommended.

Here is a link to the WAAAM Museum's webpage.

http://www.waaamuseum.org/default.html

Electric Cars

I read a piece on the net today that said electric cars are not selling well. Maybe not now, but it's only a matter of time. The price of gas is hovering around $4/gallon at the moment.  It can only trend upward from there.  The world's petroleum supply is in permanent decline.  The days of cheap gasoline are over.

I like electric cars.   They are efficient, and if you get your electricity to charge them from renewable sources, they are pretty much pollution free.   My guess is that by the end of this decade, most of the personal use vehicles sold in auto showrooms will be either plug-in hybrids or all electric.  The combination of high prices at the pump and the urgent need to stop polluting the atmosphere will force the transition away from the gasoline powered vehicles we've depended on over the last hundred or so years.

Nissan Leaf All-Electric

Eventually, the car companies will sell a lot of  their all-electric models.  They are ideal for smaller vehicles that only require a limited range on a daily basis.  For larger vehicles that require a lot of power and/or long range and quick fill ups,  the most efficient choice will be an electric vehicle powered by a device called a fuel cell. These vehicles will run on hydrogen, or possibly methanol or ammonia, both of which are really hydrogen carriers.

Honda Clarity Fuel Cell Car

Why hydrogen? Because it's the simplest, most abundant element in the universe. Because it can be produced in limitless quantity by using electricity to split water molecules, each of which contains two hydrogen and one oxygen atom. When the electricity comes from renewable sources, you have a pollution free source of energy. Hydrogen is non-toxic, and it's no more hazardous to use than the fossil fuels we've long depended on.

Plug-in hybrids (PHEV), a variation of the electric vehicles that are just now arriving in showrooms for the first time, also run on electricity. There is a small gasoline engine on board to keep the batteries charged, giving it the same kind of range as cars powered by gasoline.  Within a decade, we'll see PHEV models available that replace the gasoline powered generator with  a small fuel cell for recharging the on-board batteries.  These fuel cell hybrids will run on hydrogen.

Chevy Volt Plug-In Hybrid

The European Union, Japan, South Korea, and China are spending billions to develop the hydrogen fueling infrastructure required to complement the arrival of  fuel cell vehicles.  The U.S. and Canada are not.  Why? Because our energy policy is controlled by the fossil fuel and nuclear power industries.  Despite their efforts to obstruct the transition to clean, renewable forms of energy,  the momentum is undeniable.  Like the rest of the world, we will make the transition to these clean automotive technologies,  but we will not be the leaders. We will be followers, and the leaders will be selling their technology to us.