We’ve reviewed a bunch of motorized bikes recently, so I put together a list of some of the best ones.

All of these bikes are hybrid bikes, providing motorized assistance to traditional peddle power. None of these directly emissions (although some are electric, which indirectly create emissions), making these bikes a great green method of transportation.

So why continue paying for gas and producing emissions? Get yourself a green bike and save both money and the environment!

Reviews and links for the bikes after the break.

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Well it seems the green trend is percolating all the way down to the beer industry.

You’ve no doubt read about New Zealand’s Green Man eco-beer, but if beer imported from New Zealand is a little rich for your blood, there’s another option a little closer to home.

The Sierra Nevada brewery of Chico, California is aiming to 100% off-grid. Currently, they are running on fuel-cells, which account for about 75% of their power usage. They’ve been installing a brand new solar system however, and plan to be 100% off-grid very soon. In addition to solar power, they have several other green initiatives in place.

Already a model of sustainability, the brewery also focuses efforts in recycling, heat recovery, carbon-dioxide recovery, water conservation, energy efficiency, and byproduct recycling.

Wow, I have to say I’m impressed. Drink a beer and save the environment at the same time? What could be better?

Check out their environment page for more info. They’ve got a fantastic outline of all the green aspects of their brewery.

via Treehugger, Sierra Nevada Brewery

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 There’s a lot of buzz around hydrogen fuel-cells, but until now it’s been mostly focused on cars.

Chinese company “Pearl Hydrogen” is aiming to bring fuel-cell technology to the already green realm of bicycles. Why mess with an invention that already boasts one of the greenest methods of transportation? Sometimes you need a bit of motorized help.

This fuel-cell bike has a range of up to 100km, and a top speed of around 25km. Pretty good for a bike. It’s a little expensive right now at $2600, although that’s about the same as other motorized eco-bikes we’ve reviewed. The company claims they expect to reduce this price by up to 80% however, bringing the price to just over $500. Not bad.

These motorized bikes are fantastic methods of transportation, and with hydrogen fuel-cells, are 100% green as well. Hydrogen is a bit hard to find at the moment, as there is little in the way of distribution, but Pearl Hydrogen claims they have a distributer set up to sell hydrogen to it’s customers.

If the price really does come down to around $500, we could finally see a motorized bike that could gain some mass adoption. A lot of people will not likely want to give up their cars completely, but if you can make the majority of your short and medium length trips on a bike, you’ll be saving a huge amount of money in gas, and saving tons of emissions as well.

Now I’d like to see a fuel-cell powered Shopcycle, then almost all of my trips could be green!

via Treehugger, Green Options

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Toyota has made some great progress with fuel-cell vehicles lately, and it’s just tested the newest version of it’s next generation fuel-cell vehicle, the FCHV.

The hydrogen fuel-cell car has a reported range of a whopping 480 miles! In tests, it was able to make a trip from Osaka to Tokyo, a 350 miles trip, and finished with 30% of it’s tank left.

While a lot of this range is based on a large tank (about twice as big as it’s predecessor), Toyota has made great strides in efficiency as well, improving 25% over the previous model.

A 480-mile range is a great advancement in fuel-cell vehicles, as it approaches the range of modern hybrid car. Just doing some quick math, we see that a 45mpg 2008 Honda Civic Hybrid, with a 12.3 gallon tank, has a maxiumi potential range of about 553 miles.

So it appears hydrogen has finally reached the efficiency of modern gas vehicles. Now that the technology is finally here, the infrastructure is now the biggest hurdle to a consumerized version, but we’re on our way!

via Engadget, Reuters

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