racetoinfinity said:
"I want to simply say, that at this late date, I can't believe the deniers of human caused climate change. Willful ignorance!..." [read]
Kylie Wrath said:
"Whether or not leather is a product or by-product is irrelevant: there are tons of people who buy it regardless. I think the fact that this company..." [read]
thespyofcharles said:
"hmm... perhaps i shall reconsider my excessive gift packaging gag i was planning... or maybe do it out of old boxes that would otherwise simply hav..." [read]
mike said:
"I think it is humerous at the record losses posted at GM. They really had the jump on technoligy with the EV1 but decided to put all their effort i..." [read]
Louise White said:
"I have a 2002 Prius with 143,000 miles on it. Recently I started checking on my trade in value for a new Prius. Every sales person told me that I..." [read]
Lori said:
"Regardless of whether or not this "soup" exists, the fact is that we need to all be aware and responsible for how we treat this planet. We have to..." [read]
This monster 24-cylinder engine, powered by natural gas, will achieve a total efficiency level of more than 85% when it goes into service growing tomatoes. GE Energy will deliver two 4-MW Jenbacher J624 GS engines delivered to Royal Pride Holland's Middenmeer greenhouse operations 50 km north of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
The installation is a "pilot project" to demonstrate the viability of the new engine. The 24-cylinder engine endured nearly a year of bench testing at GE Energy's gas engine manufacturing center in Jenbach, Austria.
A small team composed of young apprentices at Bentley were given pretty much carte blanche, and this cute electric vehicle is what came out after many weekends and evenings of hard work. We doubt that regular Bentley customers would be interested, but it's still a cool project.
"With a positively gorgeous carbon fiber composite body riding on a four-wheel single-wishbone fixed suspension and 1 x 16-inch Michelin low-rolling-resistance tires, the Continental DC (as in Direct Current) moves under the power of a 24-volt electric motor (from a motorized wheelchair, in fact) producing 0.5 horsepower and 5.1 pound-feet of torque and juiced by a pair of 12-volt batteries."
Evisol makes "integrated solutions" for electric and hybrid vehicles (including boats). Drivetrains, batteries, that kind of stuff. How better to demonstrate their skills than by making an electric car of their own? Meet the Thorr electric roadster, a proud relative of the classic Lotus Super 7 concept.
Simplicity is the name of the game here. Low complexity, low weight. A car stripped of all the bells and whistles, except for the state of the art electric drivetrain. No ABS, power assisted braking, gearbox, power assisted steering, any form of sound absorption, not even a roof and a windshield (okay, that might be a bit overkill, but they'll probably tweak it some more). See below for specifications, a video and more photos.
While the Japanese are trying to produce electricity from train station gates (!?), entrepreneur Terry Kenney is going after a bigger target: Trucks.
It took him eight years to get a working prototype, but now there's one working at the Port of Oakland which Kenney calls the "Dragon Power Station". Special plates are set on the road, and as big trucks drive over them (about 2,500 of them per day at the port), they compress a tank of hydraulic fluid under the road, which in turn creates a series of pumping actions that turns a generator to produce electricity.
Forget about Formula 1, Nascar and monster trucks... Here comes chair racing!
Okay, we admit it's a bit silly. But we're pretty sure that it provides a lot more entertainment per kilojoule than anything else (anything that you do with clothes, anyway). It shows you don't have to burn fossil fuels to get a lot of people to gather and have fun. Our favorites are the contestant in the pink bunny suit and the one spinning uncontrollably... ::Chair racing in Germany. If you're looking for a chair (to race or just to sit), see our BuyGreen guide for green office & desk chairs.
The Motor Industry Research Association (MIRA), a British automotive design, development and certification consultancy, has done what many TreeHugger readers have been suggesting in the comments of many posts about plug-in hybrid cars: Removable battery packs that can be swapped for full batteries that have been charged from the grid.
Their test vehicle is a modified Skoda Fabia which they call the H4V (Hybrid 4 wheel drive Vehicle) because the gasoline engine powers the front wheels while two 35kW electric motors power the rear wheels. The regular gasoline version of the car gets 32 mpg (7.24 L/100km) while their 'plugless' plug-in hybrid prototype returned 53 mpg (4.4 L/100km).
Volkswagen Golf Turbo-Diesel Hybrid too Expensive to Make
Volkswagen introduced a turbo-diesel hybrid-electric Golf concept car at the Geneva Motor Show, and the specs were impressive: 70 miles per gallon (3.3 liters per 100 kilometers), a 7-speed direct shift gearbox (DSG) with a twin-clutch, minor modifications to reduce aerodynamic drag, CO2 emissions of 89 g/km (lower than a Toyota Prius hybrid), and Tier 2 Bin 5 tailpipe emissions. And of course, the ability to run on biodiesel (waste cooking oil or algae, preferably).
But it was too good to be true. VW contradicted its earlier statement in the March 27 issue of Auto, Motor und Sport and said that the Golf turbo-diesel hybrid would be too expensive, so they're not going to make it (not as specified above, anyway). It's stillborn, in other words.
Some people find wind turbines ugly, others say they kill birds (read more about that myth here and here), but New York based artist Andrea Polli likes them so much, she wants to see some on top of Queensboro Bridge. She believes that integrating clean, renewable wind power can enhance the beauty of a city and suggests combining the landmark architecture of one of New York’s bridges, with wind power.
BYD, China's biggest battery maker, isn't wasting any time carving its niche in the new world of electric cars and plug-in hybrids. It all started with the F6DM plug-in hybrid sedan, followed by the smaller and less expensive F3DM plug-in hybrid compact car.
Now BYD has introduced its E6 electric car at the Beijing International Auto Show. It takes the shape of a crossover, or MPV, and will be built on on the F6's platform (same as the F6DM, which could be sold in Europe by 2010)....
Mike Millikin, the uber-editor of Green Car Congress, played professor and handed out grades to 12 battery and ultracapacitor companies in an article published by EnergyTechStocks. Because the article was written for a financial site, we can assume that part of the criteria used to rate the companies has to do with commercial potential, but that's not necessarily a bad thing since to make an environmental difference, these companies need to get huge and stay profitable.
The 12 companies that got report cards are: A123 Systems, Altair Nanotechnologies, Compact Power, EEStor, Ener1, Hitachi, Johnson Controls, Lithium Technology, Maxwell Technologies, Automotive Energy Supply, Panasonic EV, Valence Technology. Notable omissions are BYD and NEC (maybe he doesn't like three-letter acronyms?). See below for a few highlights....
The Mitsubishi i MiEV is gaining fans outside of Japan; it was well received at the New York Auto Show and many are hoping that the company will keep to its word and launch the small electric car globally. There's even a petition asking Mitsubishi to bring the EV to the US.
The nice folks at Autobloggreen have found Japanese commercials that are, as far as we know, running in Japan. The first two can be found here and the third one here. They're cheesy, but show the car in action and confirm what we already knew (14 hours full charge with 110V, 7 hours with 220, 30 minutes to 80% at charging stations, 160 km range). More captures from the videos after the jump....
At 140 lumens/watt, these pill-sized plasma light bulbs by Luxim are a pretty awesome contender for "light of the future". They are almost 10 times more efficient than traditional incandescent light bulbs, twice as efficient as current high-end LEDs, and they also beat CFLs, most of which are around 50-80 lumens/watt. Only the prototype 300 lumens/watt nanocrystal-coated LEDs can hold a candle to them.
And the light from Luxim's LIFI bulb is not ugly either: color rendering index (CRI) is 91. Lifetime for a bulb is estimated at 20,000 hours, and a relatively large amount of power can be pumped through them, allowing a tiny bulb to produce 30,000+ lumens (not something LEDs can do)....
Last week Australia launched what was called the Southern Hemisphere's first large-scale geosequestration project. The media release further suggests it is one of the one of the most comprehensive commercial scale carbon dioxide storage projects on the world stage.
The Co-operative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (a public-private partnership) believe they can pump 100,000 tonnes of CO2 into a depleted natural gas reservoir two kilometres beneath farmland, about four hours west of Melbourne, Victoria. All this for the paltry sum of $40 million AUD. Unfortunately that money is just to test the process with naturally occurring carbon dioxide and methane. It will not, alas, be storing the byproduct of that state’s coal fired power plants....
"I bought an 8hp Briggs & Stratton ETEK motor used through Craigslist," said Benjamin Nelson. "Then I mounted the motor to the frame using the existing engine mounting holes and a piece of scrap aluminum plate. I found a sprocket and chain in the tractor repair isle of the farm store."
And Mr. Nelson even admits that he doesn't own any power tools other than a drill, doesn't know how to weld and only took one metal shop class in high school. But he loves to learn new things... Now that's the DIY ethic!...
When we first spied Potenco's pull-cord power generator it was a 3D rendering and not much more. Since then, we got to see one up close at chat with Colin Bulthaup, the startup's CEO, about where they were heading, and were glad to see they were making progress; the device had even been tapped to provide juice for the One Laptop Per Child project (now also known as the XO laptop). It's always a good thing when we see products go from the drawing board to real life existence.
Now, thanks to the guys at Wired, we can see they've made even more improvements. Perhaps most notably is the amount of energy generated by the device; before, it averaged between 12W and 15W, peaking at about 20W. Thanks to some engineering improvements, the average is up to about 25W, peaking at about 40W; with these numbers, one minute of pulling nets 20 minutes of cell phone talk time, one hour of LED flashlight use, or 3 hours of play time on an iPod Shuffle (that's about one pull per song). Hit the jump to see Wired's video of it in action....
Not so long ago, we reported that the Beluga Skysails' maiden voyage was a success. But that was just a first step for Skysails. We've learned that the next cargo ship to have a kite auxiliary propulsion system will have a sail twice as big (320 square meters), and "two additional larger ships are currently under construction that are to be equipped with 600 square-meters of sail". Wow!
Here are two videos that show you the Beluga Skysails' kite in action. The second one is in German, but the images speak for themselves....
The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has created thin film solar panels that are very close to competing with their more traditional silicon-based cousins. "The copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) thin-film solar cell recently reached 19.9 percent efficiency in testing at the lab, setting a new world record."
19.9% refers to how much of the sun's light is converted to electricity by the panel. Multicrystalline silicon-based solar cells have shown efficiencies as high as 20.3 percent (without concentrators...), so thin film is very close. Any fraction of a percent makes a big difference over the decades of useful life of a panel. :: NREL Sets Thin Film Record See also: ::Solaria: Finding Clever Ways to Make Cheaper Solar Panels, ::Hairy Solar Panels Could Result From Nanowire Breakthrough, ::Moth Eyes May Hold Secret to Better Solar Panels...
Plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles (EVs) are coming, slowly but surely. But how will we recharge them? Many people will be able to plug them at night in their driveway or garage, but others such as apartment dwellers and people who need the extra range during the day will need some new infrastructure.
That's what the problem the Smartlet is trying to solve. Coulomb Technologies will unveil it at the Plug-In Car Show in San Jose, California, this July. We're not sure what they're planning exactly, but we can imagine that people would either be able to pay directly for power, or use smart cars and be billed later. Maybe some cities would even find it profitable to offer free juice as an incentive for more plug-in hybrids and EVs because reduced air pollution would save more money than the cost of the electricity. ::"Smartlets" could charge plug-in vehicles from sidewalk...
The Automotive X PRIZE's goal is to "inspire a new generation of viable, super-efficient vehicles [100+ MPGe] that help break our addiction to oil and stem the effects of climate change." At the New York Auto Show they announced that they have found a new sponsor, Progressive, a big insurance company. Knowing how climate change can drive up costs for insurers, it's probably not a surprising choice.
Progressive is giving $10 million for the prize (which will be split 3:1 between the "mainstream" and "alternative" categories of cars), and in return the Automotive X PRIZE will now be called the Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize. ...
What the heck were they thinking? The Ford Transit Connect that was unveiled at the New York Auto Show looks good at first glance. Lots of headroom and a comfortable backseat. Memorable styling, kind of British, even... What about fuel economy? They estimate it at 19 miles per gallon (city). Does Ford not get it? Do they need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing?
It doesn't matter if it's 30% more fuel efficient than those old Crown Vics. Going from the low 10s to the high 10s is far from enough. In fact, it's kind of pathetic considering that New York has just announced that it will require its "black cars" to get hybrid-level efficiency and that taxis everywhere are looking at hybrids, plug-ins, EVs, etc. Come on, Ford. You have thousands of engineers. Listen to them and build a taxi that won't get you laughed at. ...
At the end of January, we wrote about the Beluga Skysails, a commercial cargo ship that was testing the use of giant kites as auxiliary power - a kind of hybrid wind/fossil-fuels system.
We're pleased to learn that the Beluga Skysails trip was successful: The ship set sail (literally) to Venezuela from Germany on January 22nd and reached the Norwegian port of Mo-I-Rana on March 13th after traveling a total of 11,952 nautical miles. "In even moderate winds, the first flights of an initial 160-square-meter towing kite propulsion system from the Hamburg-based manufacturer SkySails demonstrated how this innovative auxiliary propulsion system was able to substitute for 20% of the engine’s power." After the pilot phase, the towing kite will be replaced by one that is twice the size, providing twice as much energy and saving twice the fuel (which could mean $2000/day)....
Subaru will test its R1e electric vehicle in New York City this summer. It will provide two R1e electric cars to the New York Power Authority (NYPA), something similar to its partnership with the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).
The R1e is a small two-seater city car (50 miles range, 65 mph top speed). We're guessing Subaru's using it mostly as a learning platform; its first mainstream electric car will probably be based on the G4e concept, a hatchback very similar to Nissan's Versa that will have a longer range (124 miles/200 km) and carry 5 passengers. You can see a photo of it lower in this post. A cool thing about Subaru's battery packs is that they can be charged to 80% capacity in 15 minutes, or in 8 minutes with a special charger made by Fuji Heavy Industries....
As the first step in what they hope will eventually become an entrepreneurial version of the successful Doctors Without Borders and Engineers Without Borders models, Beena Sukumaran, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rowan University, and several students have developed a pedal-powered grain crusher. Their aim in building the simple add-on was to create an effective device for people in developing countries to use to process a variety of grains on the cheap. Moreover, it could also help generate income for individuals traveling from village to village.
Still in the development stage, the aluminum grain crusher attaches to any bike mounted on a stand; when a rider begins to pedal, the back wheel turns a pulley that moves plates in the crusher that process the grains from large pieces into smaller ones suitable for cooking. ...
We’ve had a few comments recently saying we should post on the Cannondale ON bike, a full wheel folding bicycle, with single sided front and rear ‘forks’ and an enclosed maintenance-free drive train. Err... we have. In it’s early development phase it was known as the Jacknife and then later we linked to the rejigged bike trade show concept version. Following what Cannondale decribe as: “overwhelming positive response from the cycling community and beyond” the company has “committed to bringing the ON concept bike into production in the near future.”
Torgny Fjeldskaar, Director of Industrial Design for Cannondale worldwide keeps the tease going: "Urban transport as we know it is about to change forever. In fact, we are currently working on bringing products with similar technology to the market so it's an exciting time for cyclists everywhere. This is technology you're going to want to own." ::Cannondale Sketchbook...
MIT, light of my life, fire of my brains. My sin, my soul. Em-eye-tee: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Em. Eye. Tee. Or so might russian writer Vladimir Nabokov say if he had as much interest in electric cars as we do. Why? The Lab for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems (LEES) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is getting close to a big breakthrough in capacitor technology.
Currently, ultracapacitors can only hold a small fraction of the electrical charge that batteries can hold (about 5%), but they do have many very important advantages over their chemical cousins, such as no battery memory caused by partial discharging, no reduction in capacity with each charge (they last almost forever), and much faster charge-discharge times. If only we could improve their capacity... Well, we're getting there. Read on!...
Konarka Technologies, Inc., an innovator in development and commercialization of Power Plastic®, a material that converts light to energy, today announced the company successfully conducted the first-ever demonstration of manufacturing solar cells by highly efficient inkjet printing. The company discusses and analyzes the performance of highly efficient inkjet printed organic bulk heterojunction solar cells in a paper recently published in Advanced Materials, entitled, “High Photovoltaic Performance of Inkjet Printed Polymer:Fullerene Blends” by Dr. Stelios A. Choulis, Claudia N. Hoth, Dr. Pavel Schilinsky and Dr. Christoph J. Brabec, all of Konarka.
Tannis Toohey/Toronto Star
Using "a million years of field tests" to their advantage, Toronto-based WhalePower Corp. is using the fins of humpback whales to help design a better fan (and, hopefully, wind turbine). After US scientists discovered that the tubercles -- the little bumps on humpback fins -- result in 32 percent less drag and an 8 percent rise in lift when compared to a smooth fin. That means a fan blade that "makes the fan quieter, more efficient, and better at pushing down the air," according Monica Bowden, chief executive officer of Envira-North, the company that has licensed the WhalePower design.
...
Having adopted a noticeably greener tack - unveiling both the Remade and Evolve 3110 phones within the past 3 months - Nokia is pushing the envelope with a new nanotechnology concept to be launched alongside MoMA's "Design and the Elastic Mind" exhibition - the Morph. A joint collaboration between the Nokia Research Center and the University of Cambridge, it promises to provide a versatile user experience: its flexible materials would allow you to stretch and bend it to your heart's content, and its self-cleaning surfaces would help make upkeep much easier. ...
We'll be working on better category archives soon. In the meantime, take a look at the weekly archive if you really want to dig around, or use the search box at the top of the page.
TreeHugger breaks it down for you in a series of in depth how-to articles that will help you green your life. No time like the present!
BYD, China's biggest battery maker, isn't wasting any time carving its niche in the new world of electric cars and plug-in hybrids. It all started with the 
Mike Millikin, the uber-editor of 
The 
At 140 lumens/watt, these pill-sized plasma light bulbs by Luxim are a pretty awesome contender for "light of the future". They are almost 10 times more efficient than traditional incandescent light bulbs, twice as efficient as current high-end LEDs, and they also beat CFLs, most of which are around 50-80 lumens/watt. Only the prototype 
Last week Australia launched what was called the Southern Hemisphere's first large-scale geosequestration project. The media release further suggests it is one of the one of the most comprehensive commercial scale carbon dioxide storage projects on the world stage.
The Co-operative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (a public-private partnership) believe they can pump 100,000 tonnes of CO2 into a depleted natural gas reservoir two kilometres beneath farmland, about four hours west of Melbourne, Victoria. All this for the paltry sum of $40 million AUD. Unfortunately that money is just to test the process with naturally occurring carbon dioxide and methane. It will not, alas, be storing the byproduct of that state’s coal fired power plants....
"I bought an 8hp Briggs & Stratton ETEK motor used through Craigslist," said Benjamin Nelson. "Then I mounted the motor to the frame using the existing engine mounting holes and a piece of scrap aluminum plate. I found a sprocket and chain in the tractor repair isle of the farm store."
And Mr. Nelson even admits that he doesn't own any power tools other than a drill, doesn't know how to weld and only took one metal shop class in high school. But he loves to learn new things... Now that's the DIY ethic!...
When we 
The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has created thin film solar panels that are very close to competing with their more traditional silicon-based cousins. "The copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) thin-film solar cell recently reached 19.9 percent efficiency in testing at the lab, setting a new world record."
19.9% refers to how much of the sun's light is converted to electricity by the panel. Multicrystalline silicon-based solar cells have shown efficiencies as high as 20.3 percent (without concentrators...), so thin film is very close. Any fraction of a percent makes a big difference over the decades of useful life of a panel. 
The Automotive X PRIZE's goal is to "inspire a new generation of viable, super-efficient vehicles [100+ MPGe] that help break our addiction to oil and stem the effects of climate change." At the New York Auto Show they announced that they have found a new sponsor, Progressive, a big insurance company. Knowing how 
What the heck were they thinking? The Ford Transit Connect that was unveiled at the New York Auto Show looks good at first glance. Lots of headroom and a comfortable backseat. Memorable styling, kind of British, even... What about fuel economy? They estimate it at 19 miles per gallon (city). Does Ford not get it? Do they need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing?
It doesn't matter if it's 30% more fuel efficient than those old Crown Vics. Going from the low 10s to the high 10s is far from enough. In fact, it's kind of pathetic considering that 
At the end of January, we 
Subaru will test its R1e electric vehicle in New York City this summer. It will provide two R1e electric cars to the New York Power Authority (NYPA), something similar to its partnership with the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).
The R1e is a small two-seater city car (50 miles range, 65 mph top speed). We're guessing Subaru's using it mostly as a learning platform; its first mainstream electric car will probably be based on the G4e concept, a hatchback very similar to Nissan's Versa that will have a longer range (124 miles/200 km) and carry 5 passengers. You can see a photo of it lower in this post. A cool thing about Subaru's battery packs is that they can be charged to 80% capacity in 15 minutes, or in 8 minutes with a special charger made by Fuji Heavy Industries....
As the first step in what they hope will eventually become an entrepreneurial version of the successful Doctors Without Borders and Engineers Without Borders models, Beena Sukumaran, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rowan University, and several students have developed a 
We’ve had a few comments recently saying we should post on the Cannondale ON bike, a full wheel folding bicycle, with single sided front and rear ‘forks’ and an enclosed maintenance-free drive train. Err... we have. In it’s early development phase it was known as the 
MIT, light of my life, fire of my brains. My sin, my soul. Em-eye-tee: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Em. Eye. Tee. Or so might russian writer 
Konarka has stayed on a highly innovative path since we first posted about them in 2005. For some background on their thin film work, see Tim's posts, "
Tannis Toohey/Toronto Star
Using "a million years of field tests" to their advantage, Toronto-based 
Having adopted a noticeably greener tack - unveiling both the 
