Yokohama Tires Thinks Green For The Future
During the next decade, Yokohama Rubber Company (YRC) will plant 500,000 rees, creating nearly 25 acres of new forest. The sites for tree planting will include the Hiratsuka, Japan, factory community, as well as 6 other Japanese facilities, and 11 overseas affiliates.
In the United States, Yokohama Tire Corporation's Salem, Virginia, facility will expand the existing forested area by almost a full acre by 2014. The tree planting is part of Yokohama's Forever Forest, a long-term project being carried out as part of the YRC's environmental preservation activities. As forests are created around factories and similar facilities, they will absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and will contribute to their local communities in many other ways, including providing an evacuation site at the time of a potential earthquake.
At its Hiratsuka factory, located 38 miles southwest of Tokyo, 30,000 trees have already been planted as part of this initiative. The ceremonial planting, which was supervised by Professor Emeritus Akira Miyawaki of Yokohama National University, attracted more than 3,500 people to the facility.
Dr. Miyawaki is a biologist known for the concept of potential natural vegetation, which is choosing plants that are supported by existing conditions without human intervention. He has guided more than 1,500 tree-planting efforts worldwide and helped plant 30 million trees. Yokohama is doing its part to save the environment, are you?
Fast 411 Facts About Gas Prices
,*Companies can't alter the basics of supply and demand: Prices go up when people buy more of a product, and they go down when people buy less of a product.
,*A boycott of specific brands won't result in lower overall prices: Prices at all the non-boycotted outlets would probably rise, due to the temporarily limited supply and increased demand, and would actually make the original prices look cheap by comparison.
,*The only practical way for consumers to help bring about a decrease in gasoline prices is by decreasing demand; buying less gasoline, not just shifting where it's bought.
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A 7-Second S-10!
Dialed in with a new torque converter and some fine tuning, the Duramax-powered S-10 is now the first diesel truck in the 7s. Gale Bank's racing team just set a new record with its diesel Sidewinder S-10 drag truck that ran a quarter mile in 7.96 seconds at 167.34 mph on December 18, 2007, at the NHRA-sanctioned Speedworld Motorplex Dragstrip in Wittmann, Arizona.
Turning an astonishing 7.96 seconds at 167.34 mph, the Duramax-powered Banks Sidewinder S-10 became the first diesel truck into the sevens on only its fifteenth and fastest-ever pass down a 1/4-mile drag strip.
The S-10 ran this new record with the same roadracing specification engine that it used at the ACDelco Nationals. A new (stronger) drag race specifi-cation engine is on the engine stand at Banks right now.