Gas 2.0

Don’t laugh.

This started as just another ho-hum, run-of-the-mill, zero emissions, homemade solar powered EV.

But, sensibly, noting the enormous contribution of the wind turbine in the “snout” 400 watts at 28 MPH, night or day! Joe Rush, the inventor plans on adding a second wind turbine! This would bring the total on-board electricity supply  to nearly 1 KW. Well, at least when it’s traveling at 28 mph, it would.

Perhaps following the findings of that Federal study which recently found that wind power is the second most cost-effective investment for Federal renewable energy dollars, right behind geothermal power Joe Rush is simply utilizing the free energy generated by simply being a moving vehicle: wind, from which he creates the first wind powered EV.

Unfettered by the slow-moving decision-making procedures of giant auto companies (some of which will no doubt still be trying to sell us gas guzzlers even while our poor planet enters it’s second Eocene) Joe is able to nimbly head back to the drawing board for this radical revision. A second wind turbine will be added.

But where?
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Today, the first customer to get a Tata Nano will take delivery of the world’s cheapest car, at $2,053 - and right on schedule. Tata had announced the first deliveries would be in July of 2009 when orders were first taken earlier this year. 

For a gasoline car; the Nano has astounding mileage ; 56 mpg while producing emissions of just 101 grams of CO₂ per km, lower than even European requirements, forget about the U.S. (We have none: the sky’s the limit - literally)

Even more surprising, just old fashioned simple tech makes this price and mileage possible:
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Recovery Act Announcement: DOE Announces Recovery Act Funding of up to $85 million for Algal and Advanced Biofuels

For big fans of renewable energy like me, these are just halyon days, indeed. Hardly have I finished reading that wind is to get a huge jolt from the new DOE, but today, even more huge funding is announced for biofuels development.

It’s almost enough to make you think that maybe we are not too stupid to survive, after all! Yay, us!

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced $85 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to develop algae-based biofuels and advanced (yet infrastructure-compatible) biofuels.

DOE press release for the details:
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Cargo ships are notorious for their noxious fumes, and California is hinting at finally introducing tough legislation requiring that shipping clean up its act.

So, sooner or later, you would expect to see a solar powered ship come chugging in to the Port of Long Beach in Southern California.

Well, here it is. A test case, at least:
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UK luxury car-manufacturer Aston Martin has teamed up with Toyota in a trail-blazing deal to make a ‘cheap’ version of the Toyota iQ for £20,000 ($32,000), making it the world’s smallest luxury supermini.

The new model, called the Aston Martin Cygnet, will be offered to the company’s existing customers (and those with vehicles on order) by the end of the year and will go on general sale following an introductory period.

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Late Friday, the House passed the first legislation solely dedicated to reversing global warming. Now the fate of the Climate Change Bill is in the hands of the Senate, and political pundits are predicting the bill won’t pass. This exact bill might not pass but sooner than later one will and until then they will have several things in common. A climate bill will change how we produce and use electricity. It will change how you travel from point A to point B. It will change how every business operates and how every American lives. Our lives will never be the same. Dramatic? Yes. True. Yes.

The passage of this bill will change your life in three ways:

1. It would affect what type of car you can drive - smaller.
2. It would affect how much you pay for energy - more.
3. It would affect what type of job you have - green job.

Energy affects every facet of our lives. When energy prices go up, food prices go up, clothing prices go up..the price for everything we buy gets more expensive. Why? Because our society is intricately intertwined with energy, and energy is intertwined with our economy.

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For those of you driving clunkers, you may soon be able to turn that eyesore into cash. The House and Senate have agreed to designate $1 billion for the Cash for Clunkers program to be funded out of the significantly larger $106 billion wartime spending bill. Not yet law (Congress is expected to pass this bill this week) the bill will pay people for their “clunkers”. The goal is twofold: to get fuel inefficient cars off the road and to encourage consumers to buy new, fuel efficient vehicles.

A consumer who has a qualifying car will receive either a $3,500 dollar voucher or a $4,500 voucher. Your voucher credit depends on the improved gas mileage as compared to your current car.

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Much ado and attention has been paid to the pollutants emmitted from the tail pipes of cars and trucks in recent years, both here in the U.S. and across the pond in Europe. With an estimated 250 million passenger vehicles in the U.S. alone, it would seem that cars would be a major contributor to pollution and air quality issues here and abroad. But newly released data from Europe suggests that a single container ship may cause as much pollution as 50 million cars and release as much as 5,000 tons of sulfur oxide into the air annually. And there are 90,000 such ships of varying sizes across the world at any one time.

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Corn ethanol was given a reprieve today when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its proposed rule for implementation of the Renewable Fuels Standard or RFS2 that includes calculations of all greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) for all fuels. The RFS was signed into law as part of the Energy and Independence Act of 2007 which limits the maximum amount of corn ethanol to 15 billion gallons of the required 36 billion gallons by 2022.

There was palpable concern among corn ethanol proponents leading up to the ruling due to the controversy surrounding Indirect Land Use as well as the passing of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) last week by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), which was not favorable for corn ethanol.

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Last week we covered news about Volkswagen’s new BlueMotion brand of fuel-efficient vehicles — but that’s not the only “green” news coming out of Wolfsburg these days: VW subsidiary Škoda just released word that its highly anticipated GreenLine sedans are now available for purchase throughout Europe.

Škoda is trying to carve a niche for itself with large sedans that are green and luxurious — starting with the company’s flagship SuperB sedan. Škoda first showed the VW Passat-based sedan at last year’s Geneva Motor Show.  Like the Passat, the Škoda makes use of a 1.9 liter turbo direct-injection clean diesel that delivers 105 hp and over 180 lb-ft of torque at low rpm, making for quick acceleration off the line and serious biofuel capability.

Find out more — and read Škoda’s official press release — after the jump.

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I was recently glancing through the Washington Post, when the headline, “Green Is In The Eye Of The Beholder,” caught my eye — mostly because I have been wondering a similar question question as of late: What, exactly, makes a vehicle “green?”

It seems there are as many answers as there are shades of green. But, ultimately, the question all automakers need to figure out the answer to — especially the Big Three in Detroit — is which variety of environmentally friendly vehicles do Americans really want?

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Volkswagen’s launched a new brand: BlueMotionTechnologies.

It houses all of Volkswagen’s best eco-friendly tech. It currently includes a new start-stop system, regenerative braking, SCR catalytic converter and the NO_x storage catalytic converter. Read the rest of this entry »

January is a good month. It’s a month that is the human symbol of starting over. Out with the old, in with the new. This January was particularly exciting for us here in the US, as we ushered in a new era of progressive politics with almost a little too much pomp and circumstance. But underneath the excitement lies a particularly disconcerting truth. We still have a nation to fix.

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A team of Taiwanese researchers has combined industrial wastewater and petroleum oil to make a new fuel that could largely eliminate the costly treatment of industrial air emissions from boilers, is an environmentally-friendly way to treat industrial wastewater, and could increase fuel efficiency by 14%.

Worldwide, many industrial processes depend on steam boilers that are powered by what’s called heavy fuel oil (HFO). In the US, where coal and natural gas are plentiful, boilers are not typically run on HFO, but many homes in the Northeast US are still heated with furnaces that use HFO. These boilers are notorious for spewing out toxins into the environment when untreated.

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Editor’s note: This week we’re serving up the first ever year end best-of Gas 2.0 series with our most Dugg, most up-voted reddit, most Stumbled, and most viewed stories of 2008. As a special bonus, we’ll finish off the week by handing out the first ever (yet sure to be highly coveted) Gas 2.0 Post of the Year Award.

Ah, reddit. In many ways the cute little bugger is the forgotten genius brother to Digg, and, no matter how hard he tries, his smartness can’t seem to shine above Digg’s trophy-winning varsity jock prowess (if you hung out in the periodical room in high school, you know what I mean). But perhaps this is for the best, because what we’re left with is what civil commentary can look like on the internet when it’s dominated by graduate students, scientists, know-it-alls, and the generally reserved.

And as it turns out, all of those folks enjoy reading Gas 2.0. So, without further adieu:

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