WILD ATTRACTION WILD ATTRACTION - Earthstar

Renault Bucks Trend with Electric ‘Model T’Renault SA plans to introduce100,000 electric cars to Israeland Denmark by 2016 as ChiefExecutive Officer Carlos Ghosn bucksthe industry trend and focuses on battery-poweredvehicles.The agreement with distributorBetter Place will make Renault’sFluence sedan the world’s first massmarket,zero- emission auto, Ghosn saidtoday at the Frankfurt Motor Show.Carmakers including Toyota MotorCorp. are developing smaller, cheaperversions of road-proven gasoline-electrichybrids as their answer to globalwarming and high oil prices. Ghosn’sfour billion-euro ($5.8 billion) bet onelectric autos may pay off if he can producea long-range, affordable model thatrenders hybrids and the internal combustionengine obsolete.“The outlook for investors in electriccars is extremely perilous, but if oilprices take off again there may be a significantcommercial opportunity and bigrewards,” said Peter Schmidt, managingdirector of Warwick, England-basedconsulting firm Automotive IndustryData.Paris-based Renault is unveilingfour all-electric prototypes at theFrankfurt show, where they’re goinghead-to-head with hybrids includingToyota’s revamped Auris hatchback.“Our electric vehicles are a breakthroughbecause they are designed to bemass-marketed,” Ghosn said during apress conference at the Frankfurt show.“This will bring environmental soundnessat a price everyone can afford.”No BreakthroughFrance’s second-largest carmaker isalone among major manufacturers inconcentrating solely on battery-poweredmodels, with Ghosn’s peers opting toEarth Star Up Frontdevelop electric and hybrid cars in tandem.Spokesman Olivier Floc’hic saidRenault isn’t working on hybrids andviews the technology as unlikely todeliver a “real breakthrough” on carbondioxideemissions.Japanese affiliate Nissan MotorCo., also headed by Ghosn, unveiled itsown all-electric car last month andbegan developing a gasoline-electricpowertrain only last year, a decade afterthe first Toyota Prius hybrid went onsale. —Bloomberg.comCellphone Radiation Levels Vary Widely, Watchdog Report SaysSome cellphones emit severaltimes more radiation than others,the Environmental WorkingGroup found in one of the mostexhaustive studies of its kind.The government watchdog group onWednesday releases a list ranking cellphonesin terms of radiation.Concerns about radiation and cellphoneshave swirled for years. Scientificevidence to date has not been able tomake a hard link between cancer andcellphones. But recent studies “are showingincreased risk for brain and mouthtumors for people who have used cellphonesfor at least ten years,” says JaneHoulihan, senior vice president ofresearch at the Washington-based group.CTIA, the wireless industry lobbyingassociation, disagrees. In a statementit noted that “scientific evidencehas overwhelminglyindicated that wireless devicesdo not pose a health hazard.”That’s why the AmericanCancer Society, World HealthOrganization and Food andDrug Administration, amongothers, “all have concurredthat wireless devices are not a publichealth risk,” the CTIA statement says.Houlihan acknowledges that “theverdict is still out” on whether cellphonescan be linked directly to cancer.“But there’s enough concern that thegovernments of six countries”—includingFrance, Germany and Israel—“haveissued limits of usage of cellphones, particularlyfor children.”Houlihan says her group is “advisingpeople to choose a phone that falls onthe lower end of the (radiation)spectrum” to minimize potential healthproblems. The Samsung Impression hasthe lowest: 0.35 watts per kilogram, ameasure of how much radiation isabsorbed into the brain when the phoneis held to the ear.— USA Todaywww.earthstarmag.comOCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2009 EARTH STAR 17