Rome has announced that it will start a trial to run 200 of its public buses on a B20 biodiesel blend. The move is designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality. The plan will look carefully at the carbon emissions of the supply chain as well.
click image to view high-res gallery of the Holden Commodore SS V-Series
Fuel-cell manufacturer Plug Power Inc. which produces backup power systems for the telecommunications industry is acquiring Cellex Power Products Inc. We've mentioned Cellex before as the fuel-cell manufacturer who partnered with Wal-Mart to undertake a trial of 12 hydrogen fuel-cell powered pallet lift trucks over four months. The $45 million acquisition, offset by Cellex's $8 million c
Click the photo for a high-res gallery of the 2007 Honda F1 car
Ferarri's new driver Kimi Raikkonen put in a dominant performance to win the opening round of the 2007 Formula One series over the McLaren duo of two-time champion Fernando Alonso and debutante Lewis Hamilton. Raikkonen, who started from the pole position, had an incident-free race and at one point held a massive 15-second lead over the field. His Ferrari was clearly faster than many other ca
The United Kingdom's Environmental Transport Association (ETA) annual awards have named the Honda Civic Hybrid Britain's greenest car for the second straight year. Finishing ahead of the Vauxhall Corsa 13.CTDi and Toyota Yaris 1.4 Diesel, the Civic won out for its superior combination of engine size, fuel consumption, noise pollution and safety impact on pedestrians.
Voller Energy, a developer and manufacturer of portable fuel-cell systems, has announced that they have successfully assembled and demonstrated the operation of a complete and totally self-contained prototype fuel-cell system which can be run on compressed natural gas (CNG/LPG) or propane. Voller plans to commercialize their 1kW class auxiliary power units (APUs), which includ
Electric vehicle (EV) advocate Jenny Isaacs has decided she can't wait for rising fuel prices to usher in a wave of hybrids and EVs, and has instead started a workshop to teach people how to convert their own vehicles. Isaacs has brought a Californian EV expert in to run a two-week course in her home town that will show 20 vocational-technical school teachers how to convert a petrol-powered vehicle into a straight EV.
Danish industrial catalyst company Haldor Topsoe A/S is set to invest DKK 100 million (US$17 million) in a new subsidiary, Topsoe Fuel Cell, to build a fuel-cell pilot plant. The facility is being built to produce Solid Oxide Fuel-Cells (SOFC) with plans in the works to build a commercial plant by 2010.
Wal-Mart has made its intentions very clear to reduce the fuel bill of its massive truck fleet by improving efficiency. We've talked a couple of times about their plans and th
FirstFuelCells.com, a distributor of practical hydrogen fuel cells for personal and educational use, has teamed up with FIRST Robotics to put on a fuel-cell powered robot competition called the Fuel Cell "Green Machine" Pilot Program. Up to 100 FIRST Robotics teams will compete in the program designed to encourage to young minds to master hydrogen fuel cells and demonstrate their use in robots.
The Australian state of Victoria may be planning to trial a fleet of hybrid diesel-electric buses after recently upgrading 24 of its existing public transport buses with clean diesel models. The Australian-first Euro 4 Clean Diesel buses, which are able to reduce carbon emissions by a third, are seen as an important stepping stone towards introducing hybrids models. The state government is planning to spend AUD$189 million (US$150 million) replacing 880 buses across Victoria in a move to make th
Fuel misers like the Civic Hybrid have caught buyers' eyes in Australia.
Australia's largest biodiesel producer, Australian Biodiesel Group, has announced that it is looking to raise AUD$15.9 million (US$12.4 million) to launch a new business plan after a difficult year in 2006. The money will be via a rights issue at 5c per share which values the company significantly below its current share price.
The sixth annual Clean Energy Trends report has been released which predicts a four-fold increase in the global clean-energy market over the next decade from $55.4 billion in revenues in 2006 to more than $226.5 billion by 2016. Tracked by the report are four benchmark technologies which can all expect their markets to dramatically rise: biofuels, solar, wind, and fuel cells. Key predictions centred around capacity increases for each of the technologies:
After a lull in the number of hydrogen fuel-cell related patents being filed, companies are now scrambling to protect advances in fuel-cell development. Patent activity began to grow almost exponentially about seven years ago, initially led by specialist fuel-cell developers, but subsequently by OEMs such as Toyota.
Speaking at the Power-Gen conference in Las Vegas, managing consultant Michele Rubino has been reported as posing the question, "which makes more sense: ethanol or biodiesel?" Rubino, who works at Navigant Consulting, didn't hesitate to say that it was ethanol that made more sense and that "biodiesel has worse economics."
Click on the image for a gallery of high-res images of Hyundai's recyclable QarmaQ concept.
A new European Environment Agency (EEA) report has been published that identifies transport as a major stumbling block for the European Union in trying to reach its Kyoto climate change targets. The report, 'Transport and Environment: on the way to a new common transport policy', calls for policy changes to address the massive increase in transport usage over the last twenty years. Passenger transport volumes have grown 20 percent in the EU between 1990 and 2003, and air transport volumes have v
A new provisional policy has been announced by the progressive Canadian state of British Columbia to clean up coal-fired power stations; the same state that the GLOBE Foundation believes could be energy self-sufficient by 2025. The new policy requires that new coal-fired power plants must emit no carbon dioxide, but instead capture and sequester their carbon dioxide emissions usin
