Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 31, 2009

Schematic model of a wave disk engine, showing combustion and shockwaves within the channels. Source: MSU. Click to enlarge. Researchers from Michigan State University have been awarded $2.5 million from the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E program ( earlier post ) to complete its prototype development of a new gasoline-fueled wave disc engine and electricity generator that promises to be five times more efficient than traditional auto engines in electricity production, 20% lighter, and 30% cheaper

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Creative Greenius

OCTOBER 24, 2009

Huge thanks to Ryan Christensen and his USC film school students who produced this video and got it uploaded so quickly. Check out some photos Mrs. Greenius took at the event by clicking HERE. And here’s a link to some great shots Greenpeace has put up too – like this one. Tags: environment 350.org Los Angeles Manhattan Beach South Bay 350 Climate Action Group.

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Los Angeles Climate Environment 249

Revenge of the Electric Car

OCTOBER 26, 2009

Chris gives his views on the EV revolution — and our new film — to The Daily Beast. For full interview, follow this link. What can we expect to see in Revenge of the Electric Car? We’re tracking the fortunes of GM with the Volt and Tesla, initially with their Roadster and now the Model S, and the electric Smart Car. And then we’re tracking a whole group of other manufacturers and related stories like Better Place in Israel and what the Chinese are up to.

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Israel Volt GM Chinese 140

Plugs and Cars

OCTOBER 11, 2009

Tom McGhie, Financial Mail reports: The political battle for the electric car vote stepped up a gear last week when the Conservative Party pledged that owners of battery-powered cars would be guaranteed an overnight charging point. Source: thisismoney.co.

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Green Car Reports

OCTOBER 26, 2009

Honda has the highest average fleet mileage of any volume carmaker selling in the U.S. market today. And it's had that distinction for many years. But in the face of the car-market meltdown, oil prices that have risen from $30 to $80 a barrel within months, and growing global environmental concerns, rules, and regulations, Honda has.

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All Cars Electric

OCTOBER 24, 2009

Here's a frightening scene from the streets of Denmark submitted to Autopia by reader, Lars H. A Tesla Roadster was involved in a three-way crash with a Volkswagen Touareg and a Toyota Prius earlier this week. Apparently the Roadster was stopped behind the Touareg when the Prius rear-ended the Roadster, pushing it under the SUV.

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Creative Greenius

OCTOBER 29, 2009

From our friends at GreenObservers.org who out hustled and outproduced every TV news station in the L.A. market. Tags: Environmental Politics Ocean Saving Energy Sustainability Yes We Can! campaign citizen volunteer climate change environment politics renewable energy sea-level rise 350.org Greenpeace South Bay Los Angeles 350 Climate Action Group GreenObservers.org.

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Los Angeles Climate Change Climate Environment 191

Revenge of the Electric Car

OCTOBER 28, 2009

Bob Stempel and Stan Ovshinsky. Stan Ovshinsky — one of the stars of ‘Who Killed the Electric Car ?’ – is out of retirement and working with former business partner (and ex-GM head) Bob Stempel to develop solar panels. More details in the Detroit Free Press article: Panels may brighten job market. by Carol Cain. In another bit of coincidence, Stempel headed GM’s EV1 electric car program in the early 1990s.

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Plugs and Cars

OCTOBER 5, 2009

Toyota is knocking plug-in cars at CARB and in the press and touting impossible to deliver near-term hydrogen fuel cell commercialization. But it may have a Plan B. "Toyota Motor Corp is considering working with affiliate Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd to develop its electric vehicles," according to Mainichi newspaper as reported by Reuters. Fuji Heavy makes Subaru, which began limited sales of the Plug-in Stella in Japan in June.

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Green Car Reports

OCTOBER 16, 2009

By voting 80 to 17 to approve a compromise bill allocating $33.5 billion to fund energy and water projects, the U.S. Senate yesterday also redefined what qualifies as an "automobile". Once President Barack Obama signs the measure, a vehicle with only three wheels can--for the purpose of allocating Department of Energy funds for its Advanced.

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Aptera Obama Three Wheeled Automobile 101

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All Cars Electric

OCTOBER 14, 2009

The U.S Secretary of Energy is widely known for his straightforward comments. Many of which make headlines from time to time. Recent comments from Chu included asserting that electric vehicles are inevitable and even wildly stating that all cars should be E85 capable. Additional ramblings have centered around the importance of hydrogen.

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Energy Electric Cars Cars Hydrogen 63

Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 15, 2009

In a speech at the Naval Energy Forum, US Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus set out five energy targets for the department to meet over the course of the next decade, including the overall goal of half of the total energy consumption for ships, aircraft, tanks, vehicles, and shore installations coming from alternative sources by 2020. Another of the five goals is for the Department of the Navy to reduce petroleum use in its 50,000 strong commercial fleet by half by 2015.

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2020 Afghanistan Energy Mariner 308

Creative Greenius

OCTOBER 26, 2009

I’ve been a proud member-supporter of KPCC FM 89.3 for many years and they are my NPR station of choice here in Los Angeles. I listen to them every single morning and have since 1993. I love Airtalk with Larry Mantle, I love the Patt Morrision show, I love Off Ramp with John Rabe on the weekends, I love Steve Julian with the local news and I love Kitty Felde reporting from Washington DC.

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Los Angeles Global Long Beach Climate Change 191

Green Cars News

OCTOBER 2, 2009

A leading supplier of renewable-energy heating products is encouraging its drivers to choose Toyota Prius hybrid cars to help reflect the environmentally friendly nature of its business. Hoval Ltd has been impressed by the four Prius 1.5-litre cars it has been running in recent years as part of its 30-strong, multi-badge, user-chooser fleet. The Toyotas are driven by regional sales engineers.

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Prius Toyota Renewable Energy 54

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 1, 2009

The US Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) recently awarded Lockheed Martin an $8.12 million contract to further develop Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) technology, which the leverages ocean’s natural thermal gradient between warmer water at the ocean’s surface and colder water below to produce renewable and reliable power. In geographical areas with warm surface water and cold deep water, the temperature difference can be leveraged to drive a steam cycle that turns a turbine an

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Conversion Energy Water Renewable 306

Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 22, 2009

An autonomous road train as envisioned by SARTRE. Click to enlarge. The new EU project SARTRE (Safe Road Trains for the Environment) project will develop and test technology for vehicles that can drive themselves in long road trains on motorways. This technology has the potential to improve traffic flow and journey times, offer greater comfort to drivers, reduce accidents, and improve fuel consumption and hence lower CO 2 emissions.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 26, 2009

Rendering of the Gen 2 series plug-in hybrid powertrain under development. Source: ALTe. Click to enlarge. A Bloomfield, Michigan startup is developing light- and medium-duty series plug-in hybrid electric vehicle powertrain systems—initially as conversions, but ultimately extending to an OEM basis. ALTe, LLC has initially targeted fleet applications—specifically, the New York Ford Crown Victoria taxi fleet—as the passenger car market does not drive enough miles per year to del

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 24, 2009

Thirteen scientists and land use experts conclude in a new paper that an important but fixable error in legal accounting rules used to measure compliance with carbon limits for bioenergy could undermine efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by encouraging deforestation. Their paper is published in the 23 Oct. issue of the journal Science. A separate paper published online in Science Express by researchers from the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole and MIT concludes that indirect land

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Emissions Carbon Climate Change Climate 285

Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 9, 2009

BME’s AGATE process. Click to enlarge. Blue Marble Energy Corp.(BME), a company using unique bacterial consortia to produce specialty biochemicals from the anaerobic fermentation of a range of biomass feedstocks, and Bionavitas, an algae producer, formed a partnership in which Blue Marble Energy will produce high-margin biochemicals from microalgae supplied by Bionavitas.

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Industry Industrial San Diego Energy 278

Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 27, 2009

Map of the 100 smart grid awards. Source: DOE. Click to enlarge. Speaking at Florida Power and Light’s (FPL) DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center, President Barack Obama announced $3.4 billion in grant awards to 100 private companies, utilities, manufacturers, cities and other partners—the largest single energy grid modernization investment in US history—to fund a broad range of smart grid technologies and projects.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 30, 2009

The 100-year global warming potentials (GWPs) for methane, CO, and NO x (per Tg N) as given in the AR4 and in this study when including no aerosol response; the direct radiative effect of aerosol responses; and the direct+indirect radiative effects of aerosol responses. Source: Shindell at al. Click to enlarge. New research by a team at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York suggests that gas-aerosol interactions can amplify the global warming impact of some greenhouse g

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Climate Change Climate Ozone Pollution 268

Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 27, 2009

Oxford Catalysts Group PLC, signed a definitive joint development agreement (JDA) with SGC Energia, SGPS, S.A. (SGCE) for the demonstration and commercialization of the Group’s Fischer-Tropsch (FT) technology, primarily for Biomass-to-Liquids (BTL) and Waste-to-Liquids (WTL) applications. Oxford Catalysts has a platform catalyst technology that provides the increased activity in microchannel reactors. ( Earlier post.).

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Waste Commercial Austria Conversion 262

Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 27, 2009

Relatively minor increases in ocean acidity brought about by high levels of carbon dioxide have significant detrimental effects on the growth, development, and survival of hard clams, bay scallops, and Eastern oysters, according to researchers at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. In one of the first studies looking at the effect of ocean acidification on shellfish, Stephanie Talmage, PhD candidate, and Professor Chris Gobler showed that the larval stages of thes

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Global Mariner Carbon 2009 260

Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 25, 2009

Normalized well-to-wake GHG emissions for low-, baseline- and high-emission cases for jet fuel pathways under different land use change scenarios. From Hileman et al. Click to enlarge. A joint MIT/RAND study of the near-term commercial feasibility of alternative jet fuels has concluded that three types of alternative jet fuels may be available in commercial quantities over the next decade: Jet A derived from Canadian oil sands and Venezuelan Very Heavy Oils (VHO); Fischer-Tropsch (FT) jet fuel p

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 22, 2009

Health and other non-climate damages by life-cycle component for different combinations of fuels and light-duty automobiles in 2005 (top) and 2030 (bottom). Damages are expressed in cents per VMT (2007 USD). Source: “Hidden Costs of Energy”. Click to enlarge. A new report from the National Research Council examines and, when possible, estimates, “hidden” costs of energy production and use—such as the damage air pollution imposes on human health—that are not reflected in market prices of coal, oi

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2005 Cost Of Energy Coal 246

Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 21, 2009

The Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE recently announced the selection of 43 teams—representing 18 states, 10 countries and 6 fuel types—to advance into the performance and safety testing phase of the $10-million prize purse competition. The 43 teams and their locations. Click to enlarge. Teams that have passed this most recent phase of judging proved to the competition’s automotive and technical experts that their vehicles will be available in time for formal vehicle challenges next spr

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2010 MPG 2009 Grant 246

Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 14, 2009

Ford Motor Company’s US hybrid sales for the first nine months of 2009 are 73% higher than the same period in 2008, fueled by the introduction of hybrid versions of the 2010 Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan, which went on sale in March 2009. In contrast, total reported hybrid sales in the US dropped 14% (from 257,533 to 220,593 units) during the same period. ( Earlier post.).

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2009 Hybrid Sale Ford 246

Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 13, 2009

Individual PowerBuoy and undersea substation. Source: OPT. Click to enlarge. Lockheed Martin and Ocean Power Technologies , Inc. (OPT) have signed a commercial engineering services agreement to develop OPT’s wave energy systems for use in future utility-scale power generation projects. Under the agreement, Lockheed Martin will provide its expertise in systems integration, lean manufacturing, and test and optimization analysis to enhance OPT’s innovative PowerBuoy wave power generation technology

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 29, 2009

The US Department of Energy (DOE) will award up to $338 million in Recovery Act funding for the exploration and development of new geothermal fields and research into advanced geothermal technologies. These grants will support 123 projects in 39 states, with recipients including private industry, academic institutions, tribal entities, local governments, and DOE’s national laboratories.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 28, 2009

The upgraded Frame 7A gas turbine. Click to enlarge. Using next generation gas turbine technology to increase output and efficiency, GE Energy introduced an upgraded Frame 7FA heavy-duty gas turbine for 60 Hz power plants. The power output of the new 7FA will increase to 211 MW—a 36 MW increase over today’s 7FA—in simple cycle operation. In combined cycle configuration (two gas turbines and one steam turbine), the power output will increase to 627 MW—a 98 MW increase in power generation.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 21, 2009

Toyota Motor Sales (TMS), USA will place ten Prius plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHV) with Xcel Energy’s SmartGridCity project in Boulder, Colorado. The vehicles will be the focus of an interdisciplinary research project coordinated by the University of Colorado at Boulder Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI), a new joint venture between the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the University of Colorado at Boulder.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 26, 2009

The Department of Energy (DOE) has selected 37 energy research projects for $151 million in funding through the recently formed Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). This is the first round of projects funded under ARPA-E, which is receiving total of $400 million under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Among the projects selected are an effort to develop new metal-air batteries using advanced ionic liquids with 6-20 times the energy density of Li-ion batteries at < 1/3

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 10, 2009

Natural gas will represent around half of Shell’s total production by 2012, said Shell CEO Peter Voser in a speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC on 8 October. His talk was describing the energy company of the future. Within [the global energy] market, oil and gas are both indispensable and our core business. And within that segment, Shell is increasingly focusing on natural gas, the cleanest-burning fossil fuel.

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Green Car Congress

OCTOBER 1, 2009

The Balqon Mule 150. Click to enlarge. Balqon Corporation, an emerging developer and manufacturer of zero emissions heavy-duty electric vehicles for Class 7 and Class 8 applications ( earlier post ), introduced a lithium-ion battery powered heavy-duty electric truck designed for use in on-highway short-haul applications at the Governors’ Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles, California.

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Lithium Ion Li-ion Los Angeles Lead Acid 231