Hybrid Living

Filed under: Legislation and Policy

With the field of potential nominees to be the Republican candidate for president this year rapidly dwindling, the front runners at the moment are now hitting the most delegate-heavy states in preparation for next weeks “Super Tuesday” primaries. Twenty-one states will go to the polls next week including California where environmental concerns are one of the big issues. During a debate on CNN on Wednesday evening former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Senator John McCain both came out in favor of California’s attempts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

In December Romney held the opposite view, indicating that the federal government should be setting the limits for carbon emissions, a position in line with the domestic automakers. That however was before Michigan held its primary, which Romney won. It’s not that McCain, Romney or any other candidate shouldn’t support California’s efforts. However, given their party’s traditional recalcitrance on the issue, Romney in particular comes across as insincere at best. On air during the debate Romney agreed that states should be able to make their own decisions. Off-air when few people are likely to notice, the Romney campaign issued a statement that the federal government, not states, should set the limits.

[Source: Detroit News]

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.

Filed under: Green Daily, Automotive X-Prize

According to Michigan Live, the Auto X-Prize approached all the top auto makers but none has entered the competition. In fact, the major auto makers won’t even sponsor cars. Donald Foley, executive director of the Auto X-Prize, still holds out hope, saying, “we would very much like them to participate, and over the last year we’ve talked to many OEMs and our view is we want their participation.”

I guess one of major automakers might enter before it’s over. Why give up all that free press? I guess there are risks. Losing to some guy in a garage, for example, and they really don’t need the $10m prize money. It’s not like they need the inspiration either with things like the new 35 CAFE standard. Over 50 teams have already entered the competition to make a green car for a $10m prize, so who needs the Big Three anyway?

Related:

• Wired Magazine January 2008 cover: the race to make 100 MPG car
• SciAm names X Prize Foundation the “Policy Leader of the Year”
• Cornell University X-Prize team to base their car on a Geo Metro
• Overview: teams competing in the Automotive X-Prize

[Source: Michigan Live]

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.

Filed under: Diesel, Flex-Fuel, Natural Gas, USA

A look at the home page and press release section of Kenworth Truck Company’s website will show you that reducing fuel consumption and emissions is a very big deal to the trucking industry. The fact that these trucks are the vehicles which log the most miles on American roadways should tell you all you need to know as to why. By improving the aerodynamics of their vehicles, cutting down idling time and explaining how (.pdf link) to maximize your fuel economy, Kenworth seems to be trying hard to display their eco-minded credentials. In another move to reduce their trucks’ impact on the environment, they have teamed up with Westport Innovations Inc. to use their LNG fuel system on their Cummins ISX 15 liter engine.

In related news, the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have created a new $1.6 billion Clean Truck Superfund. Westport’s LNG fuel system is the only alternative fuel technology currently qualified for financial support under the port’s Clean Truck program. Funny how that works, huh? Additionally, PG&E in San Francisco has started to use new Kenworth LPG trucks.

[Source: Kenworth via Gizmag]

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.

The biggest desalination plant in North America just opened in Tampa, Florida, and is expected to provide 10% of the city’s 2.4 million inhabitants with fresh water. A plant twice the size has now been contracted for Southern California.

Which is good, because we’ve been guzzling our aquifers like petroleum. We’re using our aquifers at a rate that far exceeds their ability to replenish themselves –which leads to land instability and broken links between river/aquifer recharge cycles. Never mind questionable water security for us.

So why has there been a drought of desalination plants in North America until now? For the same reason Arizona isn’t covered in solar panels yet.

Let’s be real here – burning coal to boil fresh water away from seawater (thermal desalination) or using high pressure to squish salt out of seawater through selective membranes (reverse osmosis) are both more expensive and energy-intensive than digging a hole.

The Spanish company Acciona Agua, responsible for the two North American plants, has been working on increasing the efficiency of the reverse osmosis process. The plant currently running in Tampa will sell water for 1,100 dollars an acre-foot (enough for a family of four for one year), but the planned plant in California, because of rapid improvements in the technology, will sell water for only 950 dollars an acre-foot. Water currently goes for 700 dollars an acre-foot in Carlsbad.

And desalination technology continues to evolve, with Abu Dhabi recently touting plans for a solar-powered thermal desalination plant. Now that’s something we can really get behind.

Although reducing the drain on our aquifers would be a wise thing to do, the environmental impacts of injecting the salt back into the ocean (which is generally what happens with desalination plants) need more research before this particular process can be thought of as “green.” In any case, the simplest, cheapest, and greenest option will always be to create a society that uses less water. Hopefully we’ll move forward on that front as well.

Via the Wall Street Journal and Cleantech.com

Filed under: Hybrid, GMC, Green Daily

We wrote yesterday how GM was wavering on placing Super Bowl ads for the Malibu and Vue hybrids because the company wasn’t sure there would be enough supply to meet an expected increase in demand. Looks like GM ad buyers don’t have the same worries about the GMC Yukon hybrid. Automotive News (subs req’d) is reporting that a 60-second Super Bowl ad for the 21-mpg hybrid SUV will air this Sunday. It’s the first GMC ad to air in a Super Bowl in six years. AN says that the animated GMC spot will replace a minute that had been set aside for Chevy.

You can catch a preview of the ad in the video above. This video is called Sisyphus and is a 1976 short by the Hungarian animator Marcell Jankovics. GM will use the imagery from this classic video and adds a narrator who says: “Why push? Why change? Why grow? Why dream?” according to AN.

Related:

• Malibu, Vue hybrid Superbowl ads might not air because of low inventory
• Win a GMC Yukon hybrid and, oh yeah, a $2 million house too!
• EPA makes it official: 2008 Chevy Tahoe and GMC Yukon hybrids get 21 mpg

[Source: Automotive News / Mary Connelly]

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.

Filed under: Hybrid, MPG

Edmunds.com is one of the go-to sites on the net when people are shopping for a car and they want to compare specs and prices without having to visit a dozen different car dealers. With all visits they get, Edmunds has a lot of data on what people are looking for and when. With all that data stored on their servers it was natural for them to do some analysis on it. They compared what vehicles were being shopped for and when against the price of gas at the same time.

The results were shocking. You might be surprised to learn that when gas prices go up, people shop for more efficient cars. Actually the relationship is not quite that simple. With prices below $2.80 a gallon the relationship is fairly linear. Above that price point, things change much more aggressively. The consideration of vehicles like hybrids goes up dramatically while mid-sized SUVs plummets. This would seem to correlate well with the declining sales of vehicles like the Ford Explorer and Chevy Trailblazer. There’s nothing here that anyone should find to terribly shocking, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

[Source: AutoObserver, thanks to Srini for the tip]

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Geneva Motor Show

In a little over a month, Pininfarina will reveal its Sintesi concept vehicle at the Geneva Motor Show. All we know about the Sintesi right now is that it’ll look something like the pencil sketch to the right. We also know that Pininfarina wants to build an all-electric car sometime this year. Put those two tidbits together and you’ve got some juicy speculation on what will sit under the hood of the Sintesi. Top Gear is into it. And tipster Domenick is eager to find out. Anyone else ready for another sweet-looking EV concept?

[Source: Top Gear, h/t to Domenick]

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.

Filed under: Emerging Technologies, EV/Plug-in, AutoblogGreen Exclusive, Japan

Who says you have to use chemical batteries in electric cars? Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage System or SMES is a way storing electrical energy in magnetic fields. Chubu Electric Power and Furukawa Electric are creating an SMES not for long term storage, which SMES are not great at right now, but for quick energy bursts. SMES can store and release lots of energy very quickly like a capacitor. You can see a demonstration video of SMES below the fold.

Who says you have to use magnet motors in electric cars? Also below the fold is a video of a Spherical Ultrasonic Motor developed by the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. The motor uses ultrasound and has multiple degrees of freedom of movement. The compact motors may be a part of robot joints and seems to use vibration and brushes. Another video below the fold is a sonic motor that uses a reverse-piezo effect.

Today, a vehicle with a SMES battery would not have a good range. Although it might be interesting to see if it could replace capacitors to output energy more power quickly. The low torque output of sound-powered engines won’t replace regular magnetic motors any time soon. I would really like to hear that test drive anyway. Who knows, if the sonic motor cars work out, you could ditch the battery altogether and get energy wirelessly through the air.

Related:

• Cool videos: air propelled train, personal street car
• Cool videos: street lamp electric bubble car, Disney’s 1958 hovering solar car
• More details about the flywheel ‘kinetic energy recovery system’

[Source: YouTube]

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.

European Commission lawyers have stopped Poland’s move to ban trade and plantings of genetically modified (GMO) seeds, saying it had no scientific justification, the EU’s Official Journal said on Monday.

Poland’s plans for what amounts to a national GMO ban, announced last year, quickly drew criticism from experts at the EU executive who routinely scrutinize any such proposals to check that they comply fully with EU law.

America’s headlong rush to tap its enormous coal reserves for electricity has slowed abruptly, with more than 50 proposed coal-fired power plants in 20 states canceled or delayed in 2007 because of concerns about climate change, construction costs and transportation problems.

Coal, touted as cheap and plentiful, has been a cornerstone of President Bush’s plans to meet America’s energy needs with dozens of new power plants. Burned in about 600 facilities, coal produces more than half of the nation’s electricity.