Though we’ve known for quite some time now that Santa’s sleigh is run by magic, the folks over at General Electric thought it might be cooler to commercialize the hell out of it with some of their new technology. In the spirit of the holidays, we’ll go along with it — but if Santa sells out to GE, Christmas is officially canceled. Treehugger gives us the details saying,

GE’s new sleigh for Santa includes nano-coatings to prevent ice build-up and improve fuel efficiency (nano materials, however, are not necessarily green or healthy), self-powered OLED lighting (props on using OLED versus LED…talk about looking towards the future), sodium batteries for storing energy harvested from the reindeer working hard to pull the sleigh, and a wearable RFID sensor that can detect airborne chemical agents in the air…to be used to detect if the milk he drinks hasn’t yet spoiled. Clever.

“In the spirit of the holiday season, we thought it would be fun to imagine what our scientists and engineers could do if we put our technology achievements together to design and build a concept ‘Sleigh of the Future’ for Santa Claus,” said Senior Vice President Mark Little.

You can spin Santa’s new sleigh around here. And, uh, what’s with the helmet?

In other Chris Kringle news, a petition has been started in a California neighborhood urging a man to take down his display showing Jesus murdering Santa Claus. The life-size scene features Christ pointing a double-barrel shotgun at Santa’s dead body as Rudolph lays sprawled across the hood of a pickup truck nearby. Only in America.

Categories: People.

About Michael dEstries

Michael has been blogging since 2005 on issues such as sustainability, renewable energy, philanthropy, and healthy living. He regularly contributes to a slew of publications, as well as consulting with companies looking to make an impact using the web and social media. He lives in Ithaca, NY with his family on an apple farm.

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