Although The Great Race has been postponed due to the recall of travel permits through China, the show will go on. According to the official website, "Great Race Sports owners, executives and participants are dedicated to honoring the history of this illustrious race." We think that the race, assuming it does take place, could gather a great deal of attention the world over. We've been keeping an eye on the race with posts on the E85-powered 1967 Aston Martin DB6 that will take part and other ethanol participants. This bears watching.
Photo by Soylentgreen23. Licensed under Creative Commons license 2.0.
As we noted when Dubai announced a test of GM Hybrids for taxi and limo service, just because the Emirate has a lot of oil doesn't mean it isn't interested in checking out alternatives. News is out today that the Dubai Group has made a large ($49.5 million U.S.) investment in Malaysian biodiesel company GBD and now has a 30 percent stake in that company. The emirate-owned Dubai Investment Group's CEO, Abdulhakeem Kamkar, said that renewable energy and biofuels are the "preferred industry focus" for the DIG (the DIG is a subsidiary of Dubai Group). By the end of the year, GBD's huge biodiesel plant should be able to produce up to 500,000 metric tons of biodiesel a year from palm oil (d'oh) and jathropha.
Th!nk UK managing director Richard Blundell said that their all-electric car could be put on sale in Australia without too much hassle. The reason? The Th!nk City, which Blundell pointed out is a real car and not a quadricycle (NEV), is designed to satisfy both EU and U. S. highway safety features and can be sold virtually anywhere. Then there are the business reasons: "Think will evaluate each market based on perceived and sustainable market demand, attractive urban center demographics and conducive legislative policy for the use of EVs," he told The Courier-Mail. Although Th!nk's efforts are focused on selling the car in Europe and America, moving into the Australian market could follow quickly. I think I just heard a cheer.
Looks like the Aussies are getting their very first zero-emissions-vehicle, the Blade Runner. Converted from the gasoline-powered Hyundai Getz (as seen above), the Blade Runner uses an AC motor powered by twin banks of lithium iron phosphate batteries and is capable of going up to 100 kilometers (62.5 miles) on a single charge. Although not particularly cheap at $35,000 for the retrofit (about $32,000 US), the Blade Runner is still the first of its kind in Oz, and it comes from a small manufacturer, Blade Electric Vehicles, the brainchild of Ross Blade.
According to this article, some new owners of the Blade Runner are even go so far as to charge their batteries using solar power. There's a short video of the car here, which shows Australian Democrats Leader Lyn Allison giving the Blade Runner a once-over. It seems that Blade Electric Vehicles is looking to secure a deal to provide electric cars to the government.
Most of our readers might not know SsangYong except that one of its models, the SUT, is used as the basis of the Phoenix Motorcars electric vehicles. Well, SsangYong has released more information about their new hybrid powertrain. During the Geneva Motor Show, the Korean marque didn't show a complete car but a model of the powertrain, which could be added to their current lineup of diesel engines (some of Mercedes origin). The pack meets the Euro IV norms and adds 30 kW (40 HP) to a standard diesel powertrain. The electric part of the powertrain uses a 340 V battery which is mated to a mild hybrid system that allows the engine to shut off at stops and supply power when accelerating.
SsangYong announced that fuel savings will be around 25 percent, with a NOx reduction of 10 percent. When will all this be available? SsangYong said 2010.
When you hear about a "3-liter car," what do you think of? For this story, think not of a car with a 3-liter engine but one that uses 3.13 liters of fuel per 100 km. That's 75 miles per gallon (U.S.) we're talking about a simple Peugeot 308.
John and Helen Taylor traveled 14,580 km in Australia (9,100 miles) using a Peugeot 308 with a standard 1.6 HDI 110 HP diesel engine. The Taylor's 308 was a standard model, just like the ones you can buy it from the showroom (at least in Europe and Australia), including Michelin Energy XM1+ tires. They used 453.94 liters of Shell diesel for the trip, which broke a previous record (with a 307) of 3.49 l/100 km (67 mpg U.S.). The CO2 figures (which Peugeot states include the supply chain) were a mere 90.3 g/km.
This makes it almost unnecessary to wait for the hybrid! But, please, Peugeot mate this powertrain to a hybrid system and treat the exhaust gases.
EESTech Inc., a company based in Brisbane, Australia, owns the Asia-Pacific rights to a system called the Purenergy CO2 Capture System (CCS). This is supposed to be the world's first pre-engineered, modular CO2 capture system that can be retrofitted onto existing power plants or any large industrial greenhouse gas emitter.
The CCS is going to be installed in EESTech's Hybrid Coal Gas Turbine (HCGT) system which produces electricity using waste coal dust, and fugitive vented methane. This allows coal facilities to utilize these byproducts from coal mines to efficiently generate the necessary steam and electricity for the CO2 capture process. The whole process is claimed to reduce the cost of carbon capture by 40 percent.
Graeme Lynch, Chief Operating Officer of EESTech Inc., believes that the carbon capture technology will position EESTech Inc as a leader in the industry. "Solutions like the Purenergy CCS, when installed in scale on one 750 megawatt power plant, will capture the carbon dioxide equivalent of two million cars and trucks," Mr. Lynch added.
Taxi drivers in Melbourne, Australia who can get their hands on one of 50 hybrid taxi licenses later this year will see some big money savings right away. Thanks to a push by the Victorian government to green up the taxi fleet, the licenses will cost just $1,136 AUD ($1,016 USD); if that sounds like a lot, consider that it's just a sixth of the usual fee. According to Drive.com.au, starting this year, half of Melboure's 100 annual peak cab licenses (for taxis that run between 3 p.m. and 7 a.m.) will be given to hybrid drivers. Victorian Premier John Brumby said that each year, using hybrids instead of standard cabs will reduce CO2 emissions by around 100 tons - oh, and save around $5,000 AUD worth of fuel per car per year.
We have already covered different methods of obtaining methane by fermenting (or better, digesting) some kind of vegetable. But we haven't yet gotten to banana waste. Growcom, one of Australia's leading horticulture organisations is going from the prototype stage to a commercial plant that transforms banana waste into biomethane, which then will be used in vehicles powered by natural gas.
The processing plant basically consists in an anaerobic digester which treats the banana waste. There's more to it than that, as project manager and Growcom board member Keith Noble said, "An over-riding principle of the project has been to use locally available materials and expertise wherever possible. The system must also integrate with existing farm practices. If on-farm digesters are to have a commercial future they must add to farm efficiency and be simple to operate."
Just in case you wondered, it takes two weeks for the reactors to start producing methane.
If you're an unlicensed biodiesel blender in Australia, you'll probably want to pay close attention to the Australian Taxation Office's (ATO) upcoming Fuel Schemes Advisory Forum. That's when the ATO will decide if blenders who have been adding the biofuel to diesel without paying a charge will need to pay retrospective fines. The ATO will tell the Australian Trucking Association (ATA) its decision in March.
The issue is slightly technical - are "operators that blend and store biodiesel in a depot tank [...] manufacturing an excisable product and [do they need to] hold an excise licence" - but the impact could be easily felt by smaller blenders. Right now, "the ATO does not distinguish between those that sell blended fuels and those who blend fuel to use themselves," writes Blue's Country Magazine. If small blenders need to pay back taxes, the ATO might set in motion "unintended consequence," the ATA warns.
While the crew at Zap! has yet to show off anything other than computer renderings of the three-wheeled Alias and four wheeled Zap-X, a team of students and faculty at the University of South Australia have built their own EV. The TREV or Two-seat Renewable Energy Vehicle uses a lithium polymer battery pack that provides sufficient energy for about 100 miles of driving per charge cycle. It also has sufficient power to accelerate the 600lb tandem seater to 60mph in a reasonable 10 seconds with a terminal velocity of about 75mph. One glance at the hollow door shell will tell you that this machine won't even come remotely close to meeting any crash safety standards in any developed country. On the other hand if you consider something like this as more akin to an recumbent electric bicycle with a full body you would be closer to the mark. Like the current and proposed products from Zap, as long as customers are aware of what such vehicles are and more importantly what they are not, this isn't a bad way to go for urban commuters.
[Source: TreeHugger, University of South Australia, via Engadget]
It isn't all depressing news for Vectrix these days. I mean, colorful sailboats make everyone happy, right? If the electric scooter company can't sell (many) of the expensive rides, then perhaps they can give them away. This is what happened in Melbourne, Australia on Monday when, according to Sail World, twenty sail teams competed in the "Vectrix King of the Docklands Regatta." The prize? Why, none other than a MAXI Scooter. Sail World doesn't say who won the race and Google didn't help either, but I like the consistency of a zero-emission race for a zero-emission scooter.
With gas prices as they are, getting a fill-up can feel a little bit like an adventure -- as in 'just where am I going to locate the money to fill up my Suburban this week?' I don't personally remember it, but I've heard about the long lines that existed in the 1970s, when getting gas seemed nigh impossible. But, imagine if you lived in Bali and got a container of gas on a street-side shop like the one you see pictured above? Some questions could arise. Like, for instance, what octane? Eh, who cares? It's petrol, right? Take what you can get and run with it. You could always walk.
Australia's The Age newspaper reports a 400 percent increase, since 2003, in Scooter sales in Victoria, Australia due to the rising cost of gas and city parking fees. Australia-wide, 15,000 scooters were sold last year, a 300 percent increase since 2003. The Collingwood's Vespa House has seen sales go from two a month to fifteen a month and other scooter suppliers have seen similar increases.
The increase in sales is prompting changes, according to The Age: In October, the city of Melbourne's policy of allowing scooters on footpaths is under review and groups like the Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce are pushing for more scooter rights like scooters being allowed to ride in bike paths.
Below the fold is a video of the scooter in the movie Roman Holiday.
BMW is happy displaying its array of pollution-reducing technologies and is taking them and the Hydrogen 7 to Australia. So if you happen to be in Melbourne's Federation Square from 21 - 29 January, you will be able to see them in person. The exhibition will be placed inside a specific pavilion with information panels about BMW's achievements.
As in other countries, the BMW Hydrogen 7 will be used to give a rides to political and business leaders, as well as members from media and the environment protection. BMW states that the Hydrogen 7 tour is set to demonstrate the "practicality of the technology and expose it as widely as possible."
Australia's The Age newspaper 
