Ford has just come out with their C=Max hybrid line of cars, and they’ve now introduced the latest addition – a plug-in hybrid version, called the C-Max Energi. The new Energi can go about 21 miles on electric power alone, and you can recharge it in about 2 1/2 hours using a 240 volt outlet or overnight using a standard 120-volt electric outlet.
A number of papers and blogs have come out with test drive reviews and additional information.
Cars.com – 2013 Ford C-Max Energi
Next generation biofuels are made from plant waste or inedible plants, not corn. While promised for a long time now, progress towards commercially viable next generation biofuel has been slow.
But there’s been some good progress so far this year. Recently, biofuel company KiOR announced that it has started shipping cellulosic diesel fuel from its factory in Columbus, Mississippi. KiOR makes its biofuel out of wood chips, and expects to be able to produce 3 to 5 million gallons of biofuel this year.
Last week ZeaChem said that it had started making cellulosic chemicals and ethanol at its demonstration factory in Boardman, Oregon. And DuPont has started construction on a 30 million gallon cellulosic ethanol factory in Nevada, Iowa which will make biofuel from corn stalks and leaves.
While the cost of these next generation biofuels is still significantly higher than biofuel made from ethanol, as much as 40 percent higher, the cost is expected to decrease sharply over the next couple of years. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, 2016 should be the year where the cost of these next generation biofuels will match that of corn based biofuel.
via:Gigaom
Researchers at UCLA, while trying to figure out a way to mass produce graphene, an extremely thin pure form of carbon, have created a supercapacitor that can be charged quickly and can hold much more electricity than standard batteries. And the same research team now feels that they’ve found a way to mass produce these supercapacitors.
UCLA Kaner Lab’s Maher El-Kady developed a way to easily make sheets of graphene one single carbon atom thick by coating a DVD with a liquid carbon solution and sticking it in a standard DVD burner – the laser did the rest. But somewhere along the way, he discovered that this single sheet of graphene could hold a lot of electricity and could be charged extremely quick. So the team found a way to embed electrodes within each graphene unit on a flexible backing – each supercapacitor is bendable, making them potentially useful for products like roll-up displays and wearable electronics. The real wow factor is the possibility of this technology being used in electric cars – the fast charging times means that there’s a potential for an electric car to be charged to full in about a minute. They’ve already reached energy densities comparable to those in existing lithium-ion batteries. This is definitely one to watch. Here’s the video describing their initial accidental discovery - via: Rewire
The UK has just come out with a new joint government-industry report that calls for Britain to become a global leader in hydrogen car technology and projects a market share for hydrogen powered cars of 30-50 percent by 2050.
The report, published by the UKH2Mobility consortium, is designed to help build a road map towards introducing both hydrogen powered cars and a hydrogen refueling instrastructure in the UK beginning in 2015. UKH2Mobility includes the car companies Daimler, Hyundai, Nissan, and Toyota, along with several energy companies, auto parts suppliers, and the British government.
The plan calls for a basic initial network of 65 hydrogen refueling stations, which would be placed into service on national truck routes and in high population areas. Over time, the amount of refueling stations would increase, with 1,150 operating by 2030.
via: Financial Times
Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTs) have long been promoted as superior to those huge horizontal axis wind turbines you mainly see in wind farms. The concept behind VAWTs certainly is attractive – VAWTs are smaller, safer for birds, quieter, and supposedly can produce electricity with lower wind speeds.
Unfortunately, the reality behind VAWTs has not been as good. There are two main problems, according to Scientific American, with those being cost and reliability. While companies have made VAWTs more efficient over the years, they still cost more on a per watt basis than horizontal axis turbines. And issues of reliability have been just adding to the cost equation. Windspire Energy, which began shipping it’s $3,955 VAWT in 2008, declared bankruptcy last year because of their huge warranty repair costs.
Various companies continue to try to make VAWTs a success, including Venger Wind, WepowerEco, Urban Green Energy, and Wing Power Energy.
via: Scientific American
Green Car Reports just posted their latest list of the top 10 hybrids giving great gas mileage. The list has all the usual suspects (Prius, Honda Insight) along with a couple of new entries, like the 2013 Volkwsagen Jetta Hybrid.
Check out the full list here.
Volkswagen USA has just taken the wraps of its new solar farm which will help power its Chattanooga Tennessee plant. The new solar farm cranks out about 9.5 megawatts of electricity, enough to fulfill about 12.5% of the plant’s needs during full operating capacity, and 100% of demand when the plant is not in production.
VW’s new solar farm was built by Phoenix Solar Inc, and consists of 33,600 JA Solar polycrystalline silicon modules located on 33 acres of land.. As a result of a 20 year contract to buy the solar farm’s power output, VW has earned itself a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum certification for the U.S. Green Building Council, the first automaker to do so.
This is all part of Volkswagen’s “Think Blue” initiative, which has a goal of hitting a 40% reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 compared to 2010, and is a “broadly focused initiative for all Volkswagen plants to achieve more efficient use of energy, materials and water and produce less waste and emissions,” according the Frank Fischer, the CEO and chairman of Volkswagen Group of America.
The VW plant covers about 1.9 million square feet and is used to make the VW Passat . About 3,000 people are employed there.
Empa hits new world record with their thin-film CIGS solar cells
The Swiss Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) didn’t just break the old thin film efficiency record by a small amount. Their new CIGS thin film solar cells on flexible polymer foils smashed the old record of 18.7% by hitting a 20.4% efficiency rate.
The team achieved the new CIGS on polymer foil record by modifying the properties of the CIGS (copper, indium, gallium, (di)selenide) layer that absorbs the sunlight. Their new record beats the efficiency for glass substrate CIGS cells, and closes the “efficiency gap” between thin film and more traditional polycrystalline solar cells.
Thin film cells on polymer foil are lightweight and flexible, and can be used in a whole bunch of areas where silicon cells can’t be used such as building facades, cars, portable electronics, in addition to roofs. They can be made by continuous roll-to-roll manufacturing methods that help reduce costs.
The lab is now collaborating with Flisom, a start up that is working to industrialize the manufacture of CIGS solar cells, to scale up their new process.
via: Science Daily