Saturday, December 27, 2008

Best performance Tofu: Trader Joe's

Good quality Tofu is determined by its texture and the flavor of soy bean which should be just right.

Among those that are easiliy available at grocery stores, Trader Joe's is best considering its price (I think it's $1.29~1.49) and the fact that it's organic. Thank you TJ.

Japanese major brand "House" is probably the most widely available Tofu in the US, but I am not a big fan of it. It is either too soft (silken) or too firm (firm), and it's waterly and flavorless.

Another option is Korean grocery stores. Korean brand Tofus are not bad at all, and best of all, you might find locally produced (possibly hand-made), fresh Tofu.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Yamaha fuel cell scooter: FC-Dii

Yamaha unvailed its fuel cell scooter "FC-Dii" at Eco-products 2008, Tokyo, Japan.

Fuel cell use methanol as fuel and it can also be charged by external li-ion battery.
Well I don't know well about the true eco-friedliness and feasiblity of this technology, but the product looks sort of cool. Probably postman can use this to deliver mails?

Thursday, December 11, 2008

California AB 32 Scoping Plan adopted, Toyota iQ is coming to US

Today, California Air Resources Board adopted its historical AB 32 Scoping Plan. This is a huge milestone for California to shift toward low-carbon society.

Yesterday, Toyota decided to launch their new concept car "iQ" to US market. I think iQ is a next generation Prius, not in terms of functionality but in terms of concept -- to (possibly) change people's perception as to how a cool car should be. This is a big and nice surprise because small cars were traditionally thought to be the last choice by the American consumer and automakers haven't tried to sell them here. If people just choose to drive smaller cars, it's such a simple and easy way to reduce GHG emission at a considerable scale.

AB 32 Scoping Plan is highly praised for its "comprehensiveness", but it's missing one critical concept: Small.

Being smaller is less footprint, both ecological and carbon.

Yes, small is not a bad thing at all. Small is a beautiful thing.

Find more about iQ...
http://www.toyota.co.uk/cgi-bin/toyota/bv/iq-blog.jsp
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/2214/