| Microbial Breakthrough to Make Diesel Directly From Non-Food Plant Waste Posted: 28 Jan 2010 10:59 AM PST 
A group of scientists from both the public and private arenas has announced that they’ve successfully engineered a microbe that contains all the bits required to turn raw plant matter directly into diesel without any refinement or intermediary steps required. The microbe is a modified strain of E. coli (that’s right, the same type of bugger that’s responsible for some nasty gut infections) that has been enhanced to produce tailor-made diesel molecules, alcohols and waxes directly from hemicellulose—one of the main components of plants. Not only can the microbial products be used for fuel, but the team is also setting their sights on directly producing environmentally-friendly—and industrially-necessary—surfactants, solvents and lubricants. Read more of this story »  |
| IBM Using Two of World’s Fastest Supercomputers to Develop Lithium Air Batteries Posted: 28 Jan 2010 09:55 AM PST  With a theoretical storage capacity more than 10 times higher than today’s best lithium-ion batteries, it’s no wonder lithium-air batteries are being touted as one of the types of batteries that could make electric cars truly mainstream.
Now, as part of a US Department of Energy program to provide large amounts of supercomputer time to advance cutting edge, real world research, IBM scientists are partnering with government scientists from both Argonne and Oak Ridge National Laboratories to model and develop the materials needed to make lithium-air batteries a reality. The award provides up to 24 million hours of computer time on two of the world’s fastest supercomputers–which, you guessed it, are housed at the two national labs. To give you some perspective, this only represents about 1.5% of the total time available on both computers, but considering how many other scientists use these computers, the fact that one project got 1.5% of the total time is pretty amazing. Read more of this story »  |
| Postal Service Could Get $2 Billion To Electrify 20,000 Vehicles Posted: 28 Jan 2010 08:19 AM PST 
The United States Postal service is the second largest civilian employer in the country, after Wal-Mart. Over 650,000 are employed by the USPS, which utilizes some 260,000 vehicles. While 43,000 of these vehicles run on E85 fuel, they still manage to get an average of just 9 mpg. Pretty terrible gas mileage, and E85 made with today’s methods isn’t all that much better when it comes to carbon emissions anyway. Perhaps that is why the government is considering granting the USPS $2 billion to electrify 20,000 delivery vehicles. And if there is any government agency that could benefit from electric vehicles, it is definitely the USPS. Read more of this story »  |
| East Coast Could Get A Hydrogen Highway Posted: 28 Jan 2010 08:01 AM PST 
It has been awhile since we talked about hydrogen cars. In fact, auto manufacturers the world over seem to have pushed hydrogen vehicles to the side of their plate (next to the spinach and garbanzo beans). There are of course exceptions, such as Mazda and Mercedes, but electric cars are all the rage right now, and hydrogen arguably has more infrastructure issues to overcome. The biggest issue; where does one get hydrogen? A Connecticut company called SunHydro wants to deploy 11 solar-powered hydrogen fueling stations (SunHydro, get it?) along the East Coast, creating the area’s first hydrogen highway. Read more of this story »  |
Trains are an integral part of American history, and, until the turn of the 20th century, they were the main mode of long distance transportation for most people… hence the reason why owning all four railroads in a Monopoly game is awesome. But trains aren’t what they used to be, at least in this country. We lack a real, innovative, high speed train system.
Last week I talked about