GM reveals Vauxhall electric car

Vauxhall has revealed the first image of its version of the electrically-powered Chevrolet Volt, which will be shown at the Geneva motor show in March.

Known as the Ampera, the five-seat, four-door hatchback will go on sale in 2011 in right-hand-drive form shortly after the Opel - also part of General Motors - version appears in Europe. The car is based on the Vauxhall Astra, with a 400lb, T-shaped lithium-ion battery positioned under the body floor. The Ampere shares the same battery/electric hybrid driveline as the Volt, which General Motors terms an extended-range electric vehicle. The advanced 16kWh lithium-ion battery can be charged via mains electricity to provide a 40-mile range with zero tailpipe emissions. When the battery is exhausted, the specially-modified 1.4-litre petrol engine will generate electricity to supply power to the 111kW electric drive motor and provide a similar range to that of a conventional Vauxhall Astra. The car recycles about half its battery capacity and the recharging time, using a household 240 volt supply, is claimed to be about three hours.
GM says that 80 per cent of European motorists drive no more than 31 miles a day, so in most cases the Ampera's petrol engine will never need to be started

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Scientists to stop global warming with 100,000 square mile sun shade

According to astronomer Dr Roger Angel, at the University of Arizona, the trillions of mirrors would have to be fired one million miles above the earth using a huge cannon with a barrel of 0.6 miles across.
The gun would pack 100 times the power of conventional weapons and need an exclusion zone of several miles before being fired.
Despite the obvious obstacles - including an estimated $350 trillion (£244trn) price tag for the project - Dr Angel is confident of getting the project off the ground.
He said: "What we have developed is certainly effective and a method guaranteed to work.
"Tests are ongoing but we expect to be ready to launch within 20 or 30 years time. Things that take a few decades are not that futuristic."
Dr Angel has already secured NASA funding for a pilot project and British inventor Tod Todeschini, 38, was commissioned to build a scaled-down version of the gun.
He constructed the four-metre long cannon in his workshop in Sandlake, Oxfordshire, for a TV documentary investigating the sun shield theory.
He said: "The gun was horrendously dangerous. This was the first gun I'd ever built.
"I knew I could put it together safely but at the end of it all I didn't know what I was going to get.
"It was immensely dangerous. I was attempting to build a gun to produce 1,500G of force but it ended up creating about 10,000G and we had to turn the power down.
"Most weapons used by the army produce 100Gs of force so our gun was about 100 times more powerful.
"The main danger was electrocution because it used enough power to boil 44,000 kettles.
"If you were working with normal levels of electricity you could get a shock and be fine, but if you got a shock off this you would be dead - no question.
"We've proved it's possible to build a scaled-down version of the gun needed to get these lenses into the air so it's just a matter of scaling up the designs for the real thing."
If Dr Angel's sun shield is successful he says the mirrors will last 50 years before needing to be replaced.
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US toilet paper 'worse for planet' than gas guzzling cars

The vast majority of the paper used by American consumers is produced from virgin forests, while Europeans are more open to using recycled lavatory paper.
Greenpeace this week launched a guide about the ecological impact of the use of toilet paper. Lindsey Allen, a forestry expert with the envirnmental campaign group, said: "We have this myth in the US that recycled is just so low quality, it's like cardboard."
More than 98 per cent of the toilet paper sold in the US is from virgin forests, with the figure just under 60 per cent in Europe.
US consumers consume significantly more of the paper than Europeans - reportedly three times as much. They are said to use 100 times paper per head of population than the Chinese.
Allen Hershkowitz, a scientist at the Natural Resources Defence Council, said: "Future generations are going to look at the way we make toilet paper as one of the greatest excesses of our age. Making toilet paper from virgin wood is a lot worse than driving [petrol-thirsty cars] in terms of global warming pollution."
American producers of the products maintain that there is ample choice for consumers, with recycled toilet paper - which involves less use of chemicals when manufactured - available widely in the US.
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Centrica set to report bumper £2 billion profits

CENTRICA, the owner of British Gas, will court fresh controversy next week when it reports annual profits of about £2 billion and an increase to its dividend while steadfastly refusing to cut household electricity prices.

Chief executive Sam Laidlaw is expected to justify the profits by giving details of a multi-billion-pound investment programme that the company plans for the coming years in renewables, nuclear and gas production and storage.

He will also be grilled by investors and analysts over his determination to complete the controversial £3.1 billion acquisition of a 25% stake in the nuclear operator British Energy from its French owner EDF Energy.

Since the deal was struck last year, power and gas prices have collapsed, making what was a generous top-of-the-market deal look even more costly. A minority of investors and some analysts have called for Laidlaw to abandon the deal or negotiate a lower price. EDF and Centrica have said they hope to close the deal by the end of next month, and Laidlaw is expected to reiterate his support for it this week.
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