Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Gas 2.0

Gas 2.0

Report: France Wants 2 Million Electric Cars On Its Roads By 2020

Posted: 30 Sep 2009 03:50 PM PDT

French energy minister Jean-Louis Borloo will announce a plan on Thursday for the country to invest 1 billion Euros ($1.46 billion US) in the infrastructure needed to encourage the adoption of electric cars. That investment will buy 4.4 million charging stations, upgrade the power grid, purchase a government fleet of electric cars, and provide subsidies to EV buyers and auto manufacturers.

France hopes that this amount of investment will be enough to get 2 million electric cars on its roads within 10 years.

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Update: Breakthrough Biodiesel Process Now Running At Commercial Scale

Posted: 30 Sep 2009 02:09 PM PDT

Just about this time last year I reported on the very promising and innovative Mcgyan® biodiesel process. It was one of the most popular stories gas 2.0 ran that year, and rightly so: the breakthrough seemed to deliver the possibility of making biodiesel in mere seconds from start to finish, reducing costs by half the price of other biodiesel, producing no waste, using no chemical reactants, and using any animal fat or vegetable oil as a feedstock.

At the time the company in charge of the project, Ever Cat fuels, had only succeeded at making a small-scale pilot operation of 50,000 gallons per year. But, as of 2 days ago, the process has been completely commercialized.

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Seven Weeds That Could Power Your Car

Posted: 30 Sep 2009 09:52 AM PDT

Jatropha could be cultivated as a biofuel crop.

With the attention on first generation corn ethanol fading, the next big thing on the sustainable fuel horizon is nonfood biofuel crops. Within that category, inedible weeds are taking a front-row seat due to their relatively low demands on water, pesticides, and herbicides, and their reduced need for tilling and other mechanized soil prep. Some weeds with biofuel potential can also thrive on contaminated soils, absorbing and cleaning pollutants in a process called phytoremediation.

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Hyundai Enters The Green Auto Market With a Bang | IAA Frankfurt Auto Show

Posted: 30 Sep 2009 09:51 AM PDT

Much has been written about the launch of the Hyundai i10 concept, the company's first foray into the electric car market. It's an impressive car and the underlying technology trumps many other competitors.

For example, there's the Li-Poly battery which Hyundai claim will charge almost twice as fast as the Li-Ion battery championed by Renault and other manufacturers. Of course, this assumes you have an industrial outlet with enough amps to provide the power fast enough.

However, the Hyundai i10 is more than a standalone electric car. It is part of a range which the company has obviously thought about long and hard before bringing it to market.

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Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Gas 2.0

Gas 2.0

Report: Nissan Expects 20,000 Pre-Orders for LEAF Electric Car

Posted: 29 Sep 2009 03:59 PM PDT

Nissan Leaf

At a breakfast meeting for Nashville business executives, Carlos Tavares, Chairman of Nissan America, said he fully expects the company to have 20,000 reservations for the Nissan LEAF by the time the car goes on sale late next year.

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Algae Biofuel Moves to the Big City: Project Aims to Grow Algae On a High-Rise

Posted: 29 Sep 2009 02:23 PM PDT

The demise of retail giant Filene’s Basement may have a positive effect on proponents of vertical urban farming and algae biofuels alike. Since 2007, the developers of a Filene’s site in downtown Boston have been unable to find funding to move the project forward. But now Höweler + Yoon Architecture and their partner Squared have put forth a proposal to erect a temporary vertical, modular, algae bioreactor high-rise in its place.

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Scientists Use Weed Killer to Make Cheap Sugar-Based Fuel Cell

Posted: 29 Sep 2009 01:13 PM PDT

This is one of those topics I’m just not sure what to think of…

When the average person hears the term fuel cell, typically what comes to mind is something that mysteriously makes electricity from hydrogen. In reality the process isn’t all that mysterious—basically the hydrogen is split into its component parts (electrons and protons) and the protons are allowed to flow through the cell, but the electrons are forced to travel another path, which creates the current (and charges the battery or runs the motors or turns on the lights).

Although the hydrogen fuel cell is the most common type of cell, you can make fuel cells that use many different things, including hydrocarbons and sugars. They all work on the same basic principal, but hydrogen fuel cells are considered superior because their only emission is water vapor and they produce lots of energy.

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Green Rod: 600 HP Natural Gas Powered Hot Rod

Posted: 29 Sep 2009 08:46 AM PDT

Many of the advancements made through racing and hot rodding have been passed down to the passenger car segment. Nothing quite stimulates innovation like pushing a vehicle to its limits. AFVTech, an alternative-fuels conversion company, is building a compressed natural gas (CNG) hot rod based on the classic ‘33 Ford coupe.

Equipped with a hand built LS7 engine (the same motor found in the Z06 but massaged to run on higher-octane CNG), AFVTech expects their Green Rod to make 600 horsepower.

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