Tesla Roadster revs (quietly) into Fermilab

Tesla representatives will bring the Tesla Roadster, an electric sports car with an environmental conscience, to Fermilab's Sustainable Energy Club meeting today.

Electric cars have long been seen as green but unglamorous. Today’s visit from Tesla Motors could change that. Tesla representatives are bringing their zero-emissions all-electric sports car, the Roadster, to a meeting of Fermilab’s Sustainable Energy Club.

“We invited Tesla because the Roadster is a technologically innovative piece of machinery,” said Jim Zagel of the Fermilab Sustainable Energy Club. “It’s fun to drive, too.”

Zagel test-drove the Roadster last month in Geneva, Ill., an experience that inspired him to ask Tesla representatives to speak to the club at Fermilab. The Sustainable Energy Club promotes and discusses environmentally conscious technologies, such as electric cars, alternative energy production and solar panels.

“The Roadster is something we’ve all read about, and this is an opportunity to see it in person,” said Sustainable Energy Club President Brian Chase. “Seeing something and putting your hands on it make it a lot more real.”

Sustainable Energy Club members have a number of questions for the presenters regarding the technologies and future of transportation. Many club members have built their own emissions-free vehicles, including electric bikes and automobiles. Member Rick Mouche has built his own electric car that he hopes to drive to the presentation.

“I hope that people get the idea that you could do a lot of what you need to do, like most short trips around town, with an electric car,” Mouche said.

Those interested in seeing the Tesla Roadster can attend the Sustainable Energy Club’s meeting today, outside of the User’s Center at 5:10 p.m. The Sustainable Energy Club’s September meeting will feature representatives from the city of Naperville who will discuss the Smart Grid Initiative. Club members hope to get Fermilab involved in Naperville’s grid system, which will allow individuals to monitor their energy consumption with electronic meters.

-- Daisy Yuhas

Paving resumes on A1 today

Paving on A1, from B Road to the Training Center will resume this week. Crews will prepare the area today and pave the stretch of road on Wednesday and Thursday. Paving might result in traffic delays.

Osprey protect their nest

CD's Eric Vaandering submitted this picture of territorial osprey near the Main Injector.

Energy research takes a hit in House spending bill for 2011

from ScienceInsider, July 16, 2010

Not-so-happy days may be here again for scientists supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). In a mark-up of the budget for 2011, a spending panel in the House of Representatives has trimmed the budget for DOE's Office of Science from a requested $5.121 billion to $4.900 billion. That $221 million drop is actually $4 million less than the office is getting for the current fiscal year, which ends September 30. House appropriators also reduced the amount allotted for the new Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), which received $400 million in last year's $787 billion stimulus package, from a requested $300 million to $220 million.

Researchers within the DOE science complex say they do not know which specific programs would get less than they have sought. But some officials are bracing for the worst. A laboratory budget stuck at this year's level "would be a disaster," says Pier Oddone, director of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois. The last dedicated U.S. particle physics laboratory aims to start new projects while continuing to run its Tevatron collider through 2011. But doing both things will be difficult if the lab's budget remains at the 2010 level of $410 million, Oddone says.

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