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2009-06-26T07:04:33Z

An environmentally friendly washing machine has been developed by the University of Leeds, Britain. The technology has been developed by Professor Stephen Burkinshaw of the University of Leeds. He has been working on this project for the past thirty years. This project had been funded by IP Group, an intellectual property commercialization group. The [...]
Posted in: Environment, Inventions

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2009-06-25T07:38:49Z

Aircrafts are notorious for adding carbon content into the atmosphere because more and more people are choosing this mode of travel. We are trying to reduce carbon emissions on the ground. But we are not giving enough thought to reducing carbon content by aircrafts. Environmentalists are concerned that the figures are bound to reach [...]
Posted in: Electric Cars, Future Energy, Transportation

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2009-06-25T00:25:00Z

At a recent shareholders" meeting in Japan, Toyota executives stated their continued commitment to bringing a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle to market in the near future. The previous forecast was for production to start in 2014, but they"ve revised their timeline, pushing production back a year to 2015.

That still seems awfully soon for a full-scale production of a hydrogen car, but maybe Toyota knows something we don"t. Hydrogen fuel cells have a lot of potential, but the technology and infrastructure is still way behind electric vehicles.

We"re more optimistic about the plug-in hybrid and all-electric models they"re planning for release much sooner, but we"ll be interested to hear more about the HFC model and to see if they stick to their timeline.

via AFP and Autoblog Green

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2009-06-24T11:47:00Z

Any engineer would look at this image and say, "That can"t be concrete!" But it is; and it could represent a way to make bridges and other structures safer and longer lasting.

There is a lot of work being done to improve concrete, right now. And while it is not the most beloved green building material, it has properties that make it eminently useful for engineers and architects for a number of purposes. Given that there is not going to be a sudden moratorium on using the stuff, it"s better to have improvements that can keep from having it go from useful building material to landfill.

Professor Victor Li at the University of Michigan has developed a self-healing concrete that can help alleviate the need for demolition and replacement of concrete after it has been subjected to heavy stress. By devising a concrete that controls the way it cracks under stress, the concrete can withstand tensile strain hundreds of times more than ordinary concrete. Beyond its remarkable flexibility, this concrete can then heal itself, as well.

"In Li"s lab, self-healed specimens recovered most if not all of their original strength after researchers subjected them to a 3 percent tensile strain. That means they stretched the specimens to 3 percent beyond their initial size. It"s the equivalent of stretching a 100-foot piece an extra three feet—enough strain to severely deform metal or catastrophically fracture traditional concrete."

The new concrete needs only exposure to moisture and carbon dioxide in order to heal the microscopic cracks that are formed after the concrete has been stressed. The cracks expose dry cement in the structure, and this reacts with CO2 and moisture to form calcium carbonate "scars" which quickly heal the concrete.

"The professor says this new substance could make infrastructure safer and more durable. By reversing the typical deterioration process, the concrete could reduce the cost and environmental impacts of making new structures. And repairs would last longer."

Link: Michigan Today (thanks KGS!)

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2009-06-24T07:15:32Z

A new hydrogen car was unveiled in London, UK by Riversimple. This Riversimple Urban Car (RUC) is powered by fuel cells. These fuels cells combine hydrogen with oxygen from the air to release energy. What comes out from the exhaust pipe is not toxic fumes but water. Even using hydrogen fuel from source to [...]
Posted in: Fuel Cells, Hydrogen Fuel, Transportation

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2009-06-23T08:17:00Z

If you recall, a big chunk of stimulus money ($25 billion) was made available for car companies who are on the road to developing electric cars. Both the big auto giants and the lightweight electric startups applied for as much of said money as possible, and the Department of Energy is moments away from announcing the lucky winners.

Although the DOE has made no official announcement, the Detroit Free Press has leaked that the winners are going to be: Tesla, Nissan and Ford (which explains why this particular publication was so eager to spread the good news early). Let’s take a look at each

Nissan – Lest you worry that US stimulus dollars are funding industry abroad, rest assured; Nissan will have to use the money in-house under the conditions of the loan. This means we’ll likely be seeing EVs coming out of Smyrna, TN – a town which, despite a modest Wikipedia entry, boasts a Nissan manufacturing plant. Nissan says it expects to be selling EVs for commercial fleets by 2010 and then start rolling out cars for consumers like us in 2012.

Tesla – Thanks to the $350 million Tesla is expected to get, the Model S may have been saved from death-by-lack of funding. ABG speculates that Daimler’s recent financial support of the company may have convinced the DEO that Tesla is good, stable investment. As for how the DOE justifies using the nation’s money to help build a car that most Americans can’t afford (estimated in the ballpark of $50,000)… ok maybe it doesn’t make all the sense in the world, but – like most other EcoGeeks – the DOE appreciates Tesla nonetheless and wants it to succeed. After all, you can’t kill the company whose cars are the sex symbols of green technology.

Ford – But of course. The stimulus loans would be downright un-American if they left out this icon of American auto ingenuity. And it would be downright crazy to invest the money into the other two icons of American auto ingenuity – GM and Chrysler – currently wallowing in the mire of bankruptcy… yes, Ford is a good choice. Not too many details on what they are actually going to produce, but there is talk of a plug in EV of their own.

Via ABG

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2009-06-23T07:19:26Z

If we can control the excess carbon emissions from fossil fuels we can control the global warming to a great extent. When we start our cars and apply brakes using combustion engines we use generous amount of fossil fuel and the carbon emission too is in the direct proportion of the amount of gas [...]
Posted in: Hybrid Cars, Inventions, Transportation

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2009-06-23T01:37:00Z

I haven"t yet had an opportunity to ride a Go-Cycle, the electric-assist bicycle designed by Forumla One designer Richard Thorpe, but it seems like everyone else has. I"ve now seen three reviews for the Go-Cycle (at TreeHugger, the Times Online and The Guardian), and if you live in a hilly town, or just aren"t a fan of pushing your quads to their limit, you should check them out.

The consensus is almost entirely positive. But lets start out with the cons, just for fun. First, it"s pretty heavy. Though it"s designed with light-weight materials, the battery and motor make it difficult to cary up and down stairs. However, you can disconnect the battery (the size and weight of a brick) and cary it up and down stairs for charging at home while the bike stays on the street. The £1198 sticker price might also make you a bit wary. There are, after all, cars that are almost cheaper than that now. Some riders wished there were higher gears, and it"s more complicated to fix if it ever breaks down.

The good news is that it"s extremely intuitive, can add power to your ride for up to 20 miles, charges in less than three hours, and works just fine as a regular bike once the battery is dead. The sleek, collapsible design will also (apparently) turn heads and make life in a small apartment simpler.

And for those of you hard core folks whol don"t believe bikes should be tained by the scourge of coal-fired electricity, just think of this as an alternative to an electric vehicle which would, of course, use much, much more power.

Via TreeHugger

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2009-06-18T12:36:00Z

The New York Times has a look at a rival to Project Better Place - A Car Charging Infrastructure Takes Shape

Having shipped hundreds of electric vehicle charging stations, and with repeat orders now coming in from Europe, Coulomb Technologies, a privately-held Silicon Valley company, expects to be profitable by the 2010 introduction of the Chevy Volt, according to its chief executive, Richard Lowenthal.

(Mr. Lowenthal appears in the video above, explaining the company’s ChargePoint Network.)

“Our plan was to sell a thousand stations, but we will probably double that,” he told Green Inc. last week after the company secured its third Bay Area order this year. “Our company is structured to be profitable based on early adopters.”

Founded in 2007, Coulomb is looking to crack the chicken-and-egg riddle that bedeviled the hydrogen fuel cell industry. Without a refueling infrastructure, consumers won’t buy vehicles. But no one invested in refueling stations without potential customers on the road.

“It is a very fundamental issue for the business,” Mr. Lowenthal said. “What do you do about the road trip?”

With electric vehicles, the additional problem is that in cities like San Francisco, where almost half of all vehicles park on the city’s streets, many potential buyers couldn’t recharge their cars overnight.

Mr. Lowenthal, a Cisco veteran who served as mayor of Cupertino, said that municipalities, parking companies and condo developers represent the first tranche of customers for charge points that will be deployed on city streets and in garages. They sell for $2,500 to $4,000 and can recharge an electric vehicle battery in four to ten hours.

In what might shape up to be the VHS/Betamax duel of the industry, a Coulomb rival, Better Place of Palo Alto, is looking to develop refueling stations where consumers on road trips can swap batteries in a matter of minutes. Still other companies are building rapid recharge points.

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2009-04-05T10:33:00Z

Technology Review has an article on new fuel cells that don"t require platinum - A Catalyst for Cheaper Fuel Cells.

A new catalyst based on iron works as well as platinum-based catalysts for accelerating the chemical reactions inside hydrogen fuel cells. The finding could help make fuel cells for electric cars cheaper and more practical.

Fuel cell researchers have been looking for cheaper, more abundant alternatives to platinum, which costs between $1,000 and $2,000 an ounce and is mined almost exclusively in just two countries: South Africa and Russia. One promising catalyst that uses far less expensive materials--iron, nitrogen, and carbon--has long been known to promote the necessary reactions, but at rates that are far too slow to be practical.

Now researchers at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS) in Quebec have dramatically increased the performance of this type of iron-based catalyst. Their material produces 99 amps per cubic centimeter at 0.8 volts, a key measurement of catalytic activity. That is 35 times better than the best nonprecious metal catalyst so far, and close to the Department of Energy"s goal for fuel-cell catalysts: 130 amps per cubic centimeter. It also matches the performance of typical platinum catalysts, says Jean-Pol Dodelet, a professor of energy, materials, and telecommunications at INRS who led the work.

The improvement, reported in the latest issue of the journal Science, is "quite surprising," says Radoslav Adzic, a senior chemist at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, NY, who also develops catalysts for fuel cells. The new material meets a benchmark for hydrogen fuel cells set five years ago that "we thought nobody would ever meet," adds Hubert Gasteiger, a visiting professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. "For the very first time, a nonprecious metal catalyst makes sense."

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