Ethanol-Powered Vehicles Generate More Ozone Than Gas-Powered Ones
Posted on December 14, 2009
Ethanol – often promoted as a clean-burning, renewable fuel that could help wean the nation from oil — would likely worsen health problems caused by ozone, compared with gasoline, especially in winter, according to a new study led by Stanford researchers.
Ozone production from both gasoline and E85, a blend of gasoline and ethanol that is 85 percent ethanol, is greater in warm sunny weather than during the cold weather and short days of winter, because heat and sunlight contribute to ozone formation. But E85 produces different byproducts of combustion than gasoline and generates substantially more aldehydes, which are precursors to ozone.
“What we found is that at the warmer temperatures, with E85, there is a slight increase in ozone compared to what gasoline would produce,” said Diana Ginnebaugh, a doctoral candidate in civil and environmental engineering, who worked on the study. She will present the results of the study on Tuesday, Dec. 15, at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. “But even a slight increase is a concern, especially in a place like Los Angeles, because you already have episodes of high ozone that you have to be concerned about, so you don’t want any increase.”
But it was at colder temperatures, below freezing, that it appeared the health impacts of E85 would be felt most strongly.
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MINI Hands Over 40 EVs to British Test Drivers at Oxford Plant
Posted on December 13, 2009
MINI has officially begun the UK phase of its electric vehicle test program. Six months after 500 MINI Es were delivered to customers in the U.S., another 40 examples have found new homes in British garages. While U.S. customers got 12-month leases on the battery-powered cars, British drivers will only get six-month terms. After that time, a second group will their get their hands on the cars.
Just as MINI is doing here in the U.S., BMW is using this test to evaluate both how the vehicles behave in real world use with ordinary drivers as well as how the drivers themselves behave. What they are looking for is to see how often drivers plug in, how far they drive and how much of the range they use.
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GE Wins $1.4 billion Wind Farm Contract
Posted on December 12, 2009
Power company Caithness Energy has given General Electric a $1.4 billion contract to supply wind turbines and 10 years’ worth of maintenance for an Oregon wind farm, GE announced.
The massive 845-megawatt wind farm, Shepherds Flat, will be located near Arlington, Oregon, but span approximately 30 square miles and cover parts of Oregon’s Gilliam and Morrow Counties.
GE estimates that it will supply 338 of its 2.5-megawatt wind turbine models to be installed between 2011 and 2012. Although they have been used in Europe and Asia, the company says the Shepherds Flat project will include the first U.S. installations of these specific GE turbines.
“When completed, [the Shepherds Flat project] will be larger than any wind farm currently in operation around the globe,” GE said in a statement.
Of course, that comment depends on how you decide to calculate what constitutes a single farm and whether it matters if the wind farm is on land or in the ocean. In July, for example, Texas announced plans to host two 750-megawatt offshore wind farms in the Gulf of Mexico.
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Australia Carbon Vote Delay Raises Poll Prospect
Posted on November 27, 2009
Australia’s parliament delayed a final vote on a government carbon trade plan, missing a key deadline, throwing Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s climate change policy into doubt and raising the possibility of a snap election.
Rudd wanted the carbon scheme, central to his promise to cut emissions by between 5 and 25 percent, passed by Friday and ahead of December’s global climate talks in Copenhagen, where he will play a key negotiating role.
But the upper house Senate failed to take a vote by the close of business, and will now return on Monday to continue debate on the package of 11 bills, with the government determined to push the bills through parliament.
“We are committed to this scheme. I believe the Australian public are very strongly committed to action on climate change,” Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard told reporters.
If the proposed laws are defeated again in the Senate, after a first defeat in August, Rudd would have the option of calling a snap election in early 2010 and opinion polls suggest he would win with an increased majority.
The United States, the world’s second largest greenhouse gas emitter, is eyeing developments in Australia as its lawmakers make slow progress on their own climate bill in the U.S. Senate.
Rudd had a deal with the opposition to pass the bills and needs seven opposition votes to pass the bills in the Senate.
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Electric Carmaker Tesla Preparing IPO: Sources
Posted on November 22, 2009
U.S. electric sports car maker Tesla Motors plans to go public soon, two sources familiar with the matter said, amid growing interest in green technology and battery-powered vehicles.
An IPO filing from the six-year-old start-up, best known for its $109,000 all-electric Roadster, is expected any day, said one of the sources. The person did not give a specific time frame, although IPOs typically take several months.
Tesla spokesman Ricardo Reyes declined to comment on what he called “rumor or speculation.”
Tesla would mark the first public offering from a U.S. automaker since Henry Ford’s Ford Motor Co debuted its shares in 1956. The IPO represents a landmark in the resurgence of electric car technology that most carmakers had dismissed as impractical until recently.
The company’s chairman Elon Musk said early last year that an IPO was a possibility in either late 2008 or 2009.
But the financial market turmoil following the collapse of Lehman Bros. in the latter half of 2008 virtually shut down the IPO market. The appetite for IPOs has picked up since mid-September this year with a robust pace of new filings.
Tesla’s IPO would follow the successful debut of lithium-ion battery maker A123 Systems, whose shares rallied 50 percent on their first day of trading on Sept 25.
Analysts have said that the success of A123, the first green technology IPO this year, would encourage more venture capital-backed green companies to go public.
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CO2 Emissions Are Not Changing the Ratio of Airborne CO2 to That Taken Up By the Oceans and Plants
Posted on November 12, 2009
The University of Bristol in the UK has published a study based not on climate modeling, but on statistical analysis of data including historical data from Antarctic ice cores.
The study shows that the balance between the airborne and the absorbed fraction of carbon dioxide has stayed approximately constant since 1850, despite emissions of carbon dioxide having risen from about 2 billion tons a year in 1850 to 35 billion tons a year now. This suggests that terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans have a much greater capacity to absorb CO2 than had been previously expected.
The results run contrary to a significant body of recent research which expects that the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans to absorb CO2 should start to diminish as CO2 emissions increase, letting greenhouse gas levels skyrocket. Dr Wolfgang Knorr at the University of Bristol found that in fact the trend in the airborne fraction since 1850 has only been 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade, which is essentially zero.
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Japan May Build a Solar Station in Space by 2030
Posted on November 11, 2009
The Japanese space agency has unveiled an incredible new plan to start collecting solar power in space, and zap it down to Earth via microwaves or laser beams.
Under the plan, known as the Space Solar Power System (SSPS), floating photovoltaic dishes several square miles across would hover in geostationary orbit outside the Earth’s atmosphere as soon as 2030.
According to a researcher at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, one of the project participants, “Since solar power is a clean and inexhaustible energy source, we believe that this system will be able to help solve the problems of energy shortage and global warming. The sun’s rays abound in space.” (Another picture after the jump).
To achieve this ambitious and highly futuristic aim, the Japanese government has recently chosen a consortium of companies and scientists charged with making the multi-billion-dollar dream of unlimited clean energy a reality in as little as 20 years. The team, called the Institute for Unmanned Space Experiment Free Flyer (USEF), also includes Mitsubishi Electric, NEC, Fujitsu and Sharp.
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PNE Wind Aims to Generate 25 Percent of Sales in U.S: CEO
Posted on November 10, 2009
German wind park developer PNE Wind aims to generate a quarter of its sales in the United States in three year’s time, its chief executive told Reuters.
“Our goal is to generate 25 percent of sales there in three years,” Martin Billhardt said in an interview. The company does not provide a regional breakdown of sales, but its declared goal is to broaden its position in the United States, which is set to benefit from large subsidies for renewable energy.
U.S. President Barack Obama announced late last year grants totaling $3.4 billion to create a “smart” electric grid that would also carry power generated by solar and wind energy, a project that is seen as boosting the number of wind parks.
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What Is a Hybrid?
Posted on November 9, 2009
In genetics, a hybrid is the result of combining elements from different species. When it comes to cars and trucks, a hybrid refers to a vehicle whose powertrain combines the aspects of different technologies (i.e. gasoline and electric) to improve efficiency and reduce emissions.
In automotive terms, hybridization is nothing new. Hybrid cars and trucks that combined an electric motor with a gasoline engine date back to the turn of the 20th century. Hybrid diesel-electric locomotives have been in operation for years, and diesel-electric buses began to appear in the 1970s.
These days, automotive choices that combine two or more sources of power are known as hybrid vehicles. The most common is the electric hybrid, which melds a gasoline engine with an electric setup (electric motor, charging system, and a battery/storage system).
Parallel vs. Series
Due to the inherent complexity of the technology involved, and the numerous options engineers have in employing hybrid systems, we’re forced to speak in some general terms here. That said, the two most popular forms of hybrids available today are called “series” or “parallel” hybrids. Series hybrids are also called “mild” or “partial” hybrids, while parallel hybrids are often referred to as “full” hybrids.
In a series hybrid, an electric motor assists the gasoline engine when needed, such as during acceleration or times of heavy load, but it can’t power the car on its own. The batteries that power the electric motor can be recharged by the engine, or during deceleration (called regenerative braking).
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Brazilian Wind Power Gets a Boost
Posted on November 9, 2009
Early this decade, a drought in Brazil that cut water to the country’s hydroelectric dams prompted severe energy shortages. The crisis, which ravaged the country’s economy and led to electricity rationing, underscored Brazil’s pressing need to diversify away from water power.
One result of that introspection will climax on Dec. 14, when the Brazilian government conducts its first wind-only energy auction. The bidding is expected to lead to the construction of two gigawatts of wind production with an investment of about $6 billion over the next two years.
The auction has attracted a number of international players including the local units of Energias de Portugal, Electricité de France, Spain’s Iberdrola,EnerFin of the United States and several Brazilian firms, among others.
Interest has been so great, in fact, that the Ministry of Mines and Energy, which is conducting the auction, postponed it by three weeks to allow extra time to evaluate the preliminary bids.
“The number of projects proposed were much greater than expected by everyone,’’ said Pedro Perrelli, the executive director of ABEEólica, the Brazilian Wind Energy Association.
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