The Star. Toronto, Ontario Mayor David Miller has announced a project to prove that plug-in hybrid electric vehicles can operate in an urban setting on a single charge for more than 50 kilometers (31 miles) with little need for gasoline. During the first phase of the Toronto Plug-In Hybrid Vehicle... Read more →

Advanced Battery Technologies has delivered the first 200 of 3,000 polymer lithium-ion battery cell packs to Beijing Guoqiang Global Technology Development Co. for use in electric garbage trucks specially designed for the 2008 Olympics Games. Separately ABAT announced that it has begun shipping its first batch of portable recharging units... Read more →

Solera, Veridian and Hymotion recently completed the second phase of the conversion of a Prius to a solar-augmented, V2G plug-in hybrid with the addition of the solar panel sunroof. (Earlier post.) Three roof-mounted solar panels will generate up to 240 watts in full sunshine. The panels utilize cells manufactured to... Read more →

The relative merits of gasoline hybrids and diesels. Click to enlarge. Source: Ricardo estimate, Schommers, DaimlerChrysler, GM, Aachen, October 2005 Although hybrid gasoline technology currently appears to be the preferred route to increased fuel efficiency in the US, new investment research published by UBS and Ricardo predicts that sales of... Read more →

Shell Hydrogen, LLC and Virent Energy Systems announced a five-year joint development agreement to develop further and commercialize Virent's BioForming technology platform for hydrogen production. Virent is the developer of an aqueous phase reforming (APR) process for the conversion of readily available biomass-generated feedstocks, such as glucose, sucrose, sorbitol and... Read more →

CO2 Emissions through 2006 by end-use sector. Click to enlarge. US carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels decreased by 1.3% in 2006, from 5,955 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (MMTCO2) in 2005 to 5,877 MMTCO2 in 2006, according to preliminary estimates released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA).... Read more →

The Cobasys NiMHax 336-70 Battery System. Cobasys is supplying its patented Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) NiMHax battery systems to Enova for integration into 13 GMC 2500 service vans being retrofitted with hybrid drives for Verizon. (Earlier post.) The service van program will make Verizon the first major US company to... Read more →

Verdens Gang. A group of Norwegian lawmakers are drafting a proposal that would eventually lead to a ban on the sale of gasoline-only fueled cars by 2015 or 2020. Flexible-fuel vehicles would be permitted under the ban. Norway’s Transport Ministry is determining whether or not the ban could be legal,... Read more →

Imperium Renewables, Inc., currently the West Coast’s largest biodiesel producer, has filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission relating to its proposed initial public offering of up to $345 million of its common stock. Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated and Lehman Brothers Inc.... Read more →

Dr. Ted Barna, who led the Pentagon’s efforts in supporting and promoting the development of Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthetic fuels for military use, has joined Integrated Concepts & Research Corporation (ICRC) as manager for that company’s Assured Fuels Initiative programs. Dr. Barna served five years in the Office of the Secretary... Read more →

GE will introduce a one-of-a-kind hybrid road locomotive tomorrow at Union Station in Los Angeles to demonstrate the progress that GE’s Transportation business is making in developing a freight hybrid locomotive that is capable of recycling thermal energy as stored power in on-board batteries. The 4,400 hp Evolution Hybrid diesel-electric... Read more →

Ford Motor Company and the State of Florida today announced that they are putting a fleet of hydrogen-fueled Ford E-450 buses on the road in Orlando, the first US city to take delivery of these vehicles. (Earlier post.) Florida Gov. Charlie Crist marked the occasion at a Chevron Hydrogen station... Read more →

Toyota do Brasil Ltda. introduced two new Corollas, the locally-produced, 100% bioethanol-compatible Corolla Flex and Corolla Fielder Flex. Changes in the fuel system and engine specifications allow the E100 Corollas to achieve engine performance that surpasses that of the currently available 1.8-liter gasoline engine Corolla and Corolla Fielder on which... Read more →

The new structure for DENSO’s PCU handles the greater cooling requirements of the high-output unit. DENSO Corporation has developed a new high-output power control unit (PCU) and battery cooling system for hybrid vehicles. The products are installed on the Lexus LS 600h and the Lexus LS 600hL (earlier post). The... Read more →

Sun Star. The alternative fuels division of state-owned Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC) has signed a US$1.3 billion (€966 million) deal with UK-based NRG Chemical Engineering Pte. to establish a joint venture to build a biodiesel refinery, a jatropha plantation, and two ethanol plants. NRG Chemical will own a 70%... Read more →

The synthetic metabolic pathway for conversion of polysaccharides and water to hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Click to enlarge. Researchers at Virginia Tech, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and the University of Georgia have developed a novel method using multiple enzymes as a catalyst for the direct, low-cost production of hydrogen... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has selected five next-generation vehicle research projects which will receive up to $19 million in DOE funding to further the development of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), and fuel cell vehicles (FCVs). Combined with industry’s cost share, projects selected for... Read more →

The nominal (unadjusted for inflation) price for regular gasoline (green line) and average gasoline demand (blue line) in the US since 1991. The dotted yellow line is the trend line for demand. Click to enlarge. The average price per gallon for regular gasoline in the US reached an all-time nominal... Read more →

The Oryx GTL (gas-to-liquids) plant in Qatar (earlier post) is currently operating at levels lower than planned, according to a 3-month update released by Sasol. The plant is designed to produce 34,000 barrels per day of liquid hydrocarbons (primarily synthetic diesel) from about 330-million cubic feet per day of natural... Read more →

Cutaway drawing of the Sanderson engine. Sanderson Engine Development Company (SED), which is developing a new engine that allows the conversion between reciprocating and rotational motion without the use of a conventional crankshaft, has been awarded three patents on critical elements of its technology. The patents cover a piston assembly,... Read more →

Asahi Shimbun. The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan has set up a study team to spur commercialization of genetically-modified crops for biofuel instead of food, which has been largely shunned by the Japanese public. By promoting the commercialization of GM fields for fuel, the ministry hopes to... Read more →

New York’s taxi fleet will go all-hybrid by 2012, according to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The mayor made the announcement on NBC’s Today show. Mayor Bloomberg (left) announces the hybridization of the taxi fleet. Currently, there are 375 hybrids in the 13,000-strong taxi fleet. That number will increase to 1,000 by... Read more →

by Rafael Seidl Germany’s automobile association ADAC reports that this past weekend, drivers in that country faced gasoline prices of €1.41 per liter (US$7.10 per gallon). This is just €0.03 below the historic high reached after hurricane Katrina. The recent rise in the price of oil does not, in ADAC’s... Read more →

The Globe and Mail reports that Royal Dutch Shell is considering nuclear power to support an experimental technology to extract bitumen trapped in hard-rock limestone, rather than in conventional oil sands. Shell, through Calgary-based subsidiary Sure Northern Energy Ltd., paid the Alberta government C$571-million to acquire exploration rights 100 kilometers... Read more →

The second-generation TH!NK. Tesla Energy Group, a newly-formed division of Tesla Motors, announced an agreement to supply Think Global with lithium-ion battery packs for their line of “TH!NK city” electric cars. (Earlier post.) Tesla CEO Martin Eberhard had alluded to the pending deal at the Clean-Tech Investor Summit in January.... Read more →

UPS is adding 50 hybrid electric delivery vehicles to its fleet. The new hybrids feature two different sized vehicles from Workhorse Custom Chassis and Freightliner, LLC and a medium-duty hybrid power system from Eaton Corporation. (Earlier post.) The hybrid system uses a parallel, pre-transmission design. Primary components are the Hybrid... Read more →

Projected CO2 emissions by fuel. Coal’s share is 43% percent in 2030. The most carbon-intensive fossil fuel, coal is the fastest-growing energy source in the IEO2007 reference case projection. Click to enlarge. World marketed energy consumption is projected to grow by 57% between 2004 and 2030 to 702 quadrillion Btu,... Read more →

The Los Angeles Times reports that Tesla Motors will announce a $43-million, two-year deal on Tuesday to supply lithium-ion battery packs to Th!nk, the resurrected Norwegian manufacturer of electric city cars. Tesla integrates and manages 6,831 commodity 18650 cells into the 56 kWh Energy Storage System (ESS) pack for its... Read more →

Fossil-fuel CO2 emissions for nine regions. Data source is EIA. Click to enlarge. An open-access paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that worldwide CO2 emissions increased between 2000 and 2004 at a rate that is nearly three times the rate of increase... Read more →

Process diagram for the CTL plant. Click to enlarge. The US DOE Office of Fossil Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) has issued a report that examines the feasibility of a commercial 50,000 barrel per day coal-to-liquids (CTL) facility in the Illinois coal basin. The report, Baseline Technical and Economic... Read more →

Tonen’s new separator films (in red) offer significant improvements in porosity (Gurley units—lower is better) and meltdown temperature (°C—higher is better). Click to enlarge. The new separator film for lithium-ion batteries being introduced by Tonen Chemical, an affiliate of ExxonMobil Chemical, features significant improvements in porosity and thermal properties compared... Read more →

In a piece in today’s Washington Post, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell said that the action of the federal government “borders on malfeasance” for trying to block the efforts of states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from new vehicles. California and the 11 other states that... Read more →

DaimlerChrysler is developing a series-hybrid version of its Citaro bus, which the company has also used as a platform for its fuel cell bus work. DaimlerChrysler will introduce the system, which will be installed in a Citaro G articulated bus, in the second half of this year. Pilot operation begins... Read more →

Valeo’s StARS + X System, which combines stop-start functionality with regenerative braking (earlier post), is in service on a Parisian microbus. Parisian public transport company RATP is using a Gruau Microbus fitted with the StARS + X system on the “Bièvre-Montsouris” local service. This experiment, the result of a research... Read more →

The first-generation Aggressor fuel-cell hybrid. The US Army has awarded Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:QTWW) a $4.88-million contract to develop a diesel hybrid electric version of its Alternative Mobility Vehicle (AMV) “Aggressor.” This program is a follow-on to Quantum's Aggressor vehicle, a high-performance light-duty off-road fuel-cell hybrid vehicle... Read more →

Clean Diesel Technologies, Inc. (CDTI) has licensed its patents for technologies for control of NOx emissions by selective catalytic reduction (SCR) to Robert Bosch GmbH on a worldwide, non-exclusive basis. The patents Bosch has agreed to license include Clean Diesel’s ARIS (Advanced Reagent Injector System, earlier post) method of single-fluid... Read more →

New Kerala. Indus-Electrans, maker of the electric two-wheeler Yobyke, has recently developed prototypes of electric three- and four-wheelers and hybrid-electric low-floor buses. Electric 3-wheeler (autorickshaw) and hybrid-electric bus prototypes. Click to enlarge. Company operations director Avinash Bhandari said the prototypes have been submitted to Pune-based Automobile Research Authority of India... Read more →

Under a high-oil price scenario ($64/barrel in 2016), ethanol production zooms up to account for 60% of utilization of a corn crop that itself will expand 48% to more than 18 billion bushels. Click to enlarge. A new report from the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa... Read more →

The Southern Ocean. Source: CIA Factbook 2007 Scientists have observed the first evidence that the Southern Ocean’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide has weakened by about 15% per decade since 1981. In research published in the journal Science, an international research team concludes that the Southern Ocean carbon dioxide sink... Read more →

Guardian. FIA president Max Mosley is proposing engine and fuel changes to Formula One as part of a "green revolution" for 2011. Under proposals which were recently sent to all car manufacturers involved in the sport 2.2-liter turbocharged V-6s running on biofuel and developing around 770 horsepower would replace the... Read more →

Dominican Today. The Dominican Republic’s first natural gas compression and distribution plant opened, with plans to supply 143,000 vehicles with that fuel in the next 3 years. The country is encouraging vehicles to convert to CNG. Installing the conversion system will cost US$700 per vehicle. There will be 140 stations... Read more →

By Jack Rosebro Protos cooking stove. Following successful tests of their multi-biofuel Protos cooking stove in about a hundred Philippine households over the past year, Bosch and Siemens Home Appliances Group (BSHG) is planning to expand the project to at least ten thousand more homes. BSHG has described the rollout... Read more →

Magna Steyr, the vehicle engineering, assembly and component provider, is developing a series of lithium-ion energy storage systems for a range of hybrid electric vehicle applications including mild (10-30kW); full (30-70kW—also for use with a fuel cell vehicle); and heavy duty (70-200 kW). In a presentation at AABC 07, Peter... Read more →

Configuration of the StARS + X system with start-stop and regenerative braking. Click to enlarge. Valeo is developing a supercapacitor-based extension to its award-winning StARS stop-start system (earlier post) to support regenerative braking and thus enable a greater reduction in fuel consumption than is possible with the stop-start system alone.... Read more →

Bajaj Auto Ltd, India has begun production of autorickshaws—the ubiquitous three-wheel commercial vehicles widely used in India, South East Asia and North Africa—equipped with 2-stroke engines with direct-injection technology from Orbital Corporation. The 2-stroke Direct Injection (DI) 3-wheeler offers a 30% improvement in fuel efficiency and superior performance. The new... Read more →

New Kerala. The Indian Railways will run their diesel locomotives on biodiesel, starting with a 10% B10 blend and moving to B20. Minister of State for Railways R Velu said...that field trials have also ben conducted successfully with 20 per cent blend. Earlier, the Railways have successfully carried out the... Read more →

A team of University of Georgia (UGA) researchers has developed an enhanced pyrolysis-derived bio-oil from pine wood chips. The new and still-unnamed fuel can be blended with biodiesel and petroleum diesel to power conventional engines. Although it has long been possible to produce bio-oils via pyrolysis, the resulting product was... Read more →

GM will invest $332 million in its Toledo, Ohio transmission plant to produce a new six-speed, front-wheel-drive automatic transmission that will deliver a balance of performance and fuel economy in GM’s mid-size vehicle segment. The investment is in addition to a $540 million investment GM announced last year for rear-wheel-drive... Read more →

Transport for London (TfL) has launched a new effort to help small- and medium- sized businesses (SMB) in London reduce their employees’ car use. The “Enterprise” effort helps SMBs establish establish workplace travel plans, which encourage more sustainable ways of traveling to and from work. There are a number of... Read more →

National Car Rental in the UK will now offer the Prius as a rental option. The new fleet of vehicles will initially be made available to National’s corporate customers in and around the London area, providing a solution for those that need to travel into the congestion zone. Read more →