Gas 2.0

GM’s Equinox Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle Makes a stop at the International Trade Center, and I get a first hand look. The car costs approximately 1.5 million dollars to produce, and by General Motors estimates, wouldn’t be available for sale for another 10 to 15 years.

Editor’s Note: This post is a guest contribution by Adam Shake.

It was an overcast Friday morning in Washington D.C., and stepping off the Metro at the Federal Triangle stop in Washington D.C., I had been thinking about how Global Warming was contributing to the strength of Hurricane Hannah.  Hurricane Ike was right on her coat tails, and looked to be like one of the largest Hurricanes on record.

Rounding the corner of the International Trade Center to enter the building from Pennsylvania Avenue, I saw an S.U.V. parked on the plaza with a small shelter positioned near it.  Inside the shelter were stacks of brochures and four people standing beneath it, staying out of the impending rain.

Intrigued, I stepped over to the vehicle to have a closer look.  The doors were open, showing a spacious interior and well designed dash board.  The vehicle was running, and idling quietly as I stuck my head into the front seat, inhaling that new car smell. Read the rest of this entry »

While the first algae-to-biofuels facility went online today, scientists at Argonne National Labs are manipulating the photosynthetic super-organism for another use: creating hydrogen.

Algae grows prolifically in adverse conditions, and can store large amounts of oils or starches useful for making biodiesel or ethanol. But some strains also use an enzyme called hydrogenase to produce small amounts of hydrogen gas. Scientists think this is the organism’s way of getting rid of excess energy under high-light conditions.

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After years of development, the Washington-based company InnovaTek is testing a hand-sized microreactor that can convert virtually any liquid fuel into hydrogen, producing a portable hydrogen stream for use in adjoining fuel-cells.

Since the microreactor units can be linked together, InnovaTek has developed systems capable of producing anywhere from 1 to 160 gallons of hydrogen per minute—enough to supply a hydrogen refueling station or, even more exciting, creating on-board hydrogen for fuel-cell powered vehicles.

That’s InnovaTek’s eventual goal anyway: having their technology built into cars, where energy-dense renewable fuels could be converted into motion, bypassing combustion and the production of exhaust gases entirely, and powering a much more efficient engine. (Imagine for a moment, filling up on biodiesel and driving off to the exhaust-free hum of an electric motor.) InnovaTek plans on commercially licensing the microreactors by 2009.

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