The next-generation Porsche 911 could use hybrid power, according to Porsche CEO Matthias Muller. "There is no reason against it and we will see if we have some reasons to do it," Muller says of the model due around 2018. He also suggests that hybrid technology could eventually make its way into all Porsche model lines, but that the John Beltz Snyder
For a military forces, a steady reliable supply of fuel is critical to success. Given that, the U.S. Air Force has been investigating the idea of putting a coal-to-liquid facility at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. Coal is readily available in the continental U.S. and being able to economically produce synthetic liquid fuel would be highly beneficial to the military.
During the hectic press days of the Detroit Auto Show, AutoblogGreen and a small number of other news outlets were invited to a corner of the Riverfront Ballroom at Cobo Hall. The reason for the meeting was the chance to inteview Toyota Motor Corporation Japan's executive vice president, Masatami Takimoto. Takimoto is responsible for ToMoCo's overall research and development, which means he's in charge of Toyota's hydrogen fuel cell and plug-in hybrid projects. The hour-long interview touched on
In the latest AutoblogGreen podcast, we featured an interview with Coskata president and CEO Bill Roe. This is a transcription of that interview. For a way-too detailed look at the GM-Coskata cellulosic ethanol partnership discussed in this chat, check out this post.
American news outlets are certainly full of updates from the voting in New Hampshire today, where the second first presidential primary in the 2008 U.S. election is taking place (UPDATE courtesy of J Jones: Iowa had a caucus, not a primary). Out in Vancouver, British Columbia, Silverado Green Fuel thought that today would be a good time to remind everyone about w
Apparently, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee hasn't met an energy source he doesn't like. According to a new article in Salon, Huckabee "praises just about every energy source you can think of -- nuclear, "clean coal," wind, solar, hydrogen, biomass, biodiesel, corn-based ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, oil from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other untapped domestic areas, and, yes, conservation too."
GreatPoint, a company made by three enterpreneurs from Boston (Andrew Perlman, Avi Goldberg and Aaron Mandell) has announced that they have created a cheap method to obtain natural gas from coal. Obtaining gas from coal (called syngas) is not the latest technology around: At the end of the 19th century, many cities had gas lights and Germany had syngas-powered vehicles from the '20s until the end of WWII. During the Oil crisis in the '70s, the US Government funded research, until syngas became n
Sometimes you have to step away from the daily updates and take a peek at the larger "domestic and global fuels supply situation.' If you're the DOE Task Force on Strategic Unconventional Fuel that just released a three-volume report on exactly that matter, you'll discover that the "outlook is urgent." The good news is that efficiency gains and other "alternatives" wil
The headlines for this story indicate that a team from LSU, Oak Ridge National Lab, Clemson, Conoco-Phillips and the Department of Energy are trying to make ethanol a more efficient fuel. I don't know that this is the case, as it seems that what they are trying to do is manufacture ethanol from the U.S. supplies of coal. They appear to be doing this by generating syngas from the coal and then converting the gas to ethanol. The same syngas could potentially be a source for hydrogen as well, but a
Why did Gov. Schweitzer (D), a long-time supporter of biodiesel, veto a bill designed to give biodiesel users a $500 tax credit? According to Biodiesel Magazine, "Schweitzer said the bill's estimated $3 million economic impact was simply too much to approve without final numbers in place." The veto came back in May and, because it hadn't passed with a two-thirds majority in the fir
Oil from shale is one of the many alternative sources of petroleum that has been researched for the past several decades but to date no one has actually brought it to mass production. As with the tar sands in Alberta, Canada, there are huge quantities of petroleum locked in other materials in North America. Unlike traditional oil drilling, shale and tar sands development is not as simple as just poking a hole in the ground.
Following the Challenge-X presentation presentation at General Motors headquarters last week, a group of bloggers including myself, Matt Kelly of The Next Gear, Lyle Dennis of gm-volt.com, Todd Kaho of Green Car Journal, Scott Anderson of Hydrogen Forecast, Philip Proefrock of Ecogeek, and Matt Mayer of G
China has been moving aggressively to wean itself from reliance on petroleum both because of terrible pollution problems in the big cities like Beijing an Shanghai and because it has few domestic petroleum reserves. Recently the Chinese government has put a lot of emphasis on coal to liquid synthetic petroleum, but now appears to moving away from that path.
Even if you disregard the environmental catastrophe that is mountaintop removal, the reasons not to increase the use of coal are numerous. The current popular idea for using coal is convert it to liquid fuel via the Fischer-Tropsch process for use in transportation. Like petroleum, coal is a fossil fuel so burning it or any derivative of it is taking carbon that is trapped in the earth and releasing it into the atmosphere.
