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.

Related:

• Scientists unveil artificial CO₂-capturing foam
• The EU will apply strict controls to carbon capture technology
• DECARBit project tries to capture carbon the cheapest way possible: before combustion

[Source. EESTech]

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Car and Driver have posted a feature article on the wide array of different powertrains that Volkswagen is testing in a bid to capitalise on new developments under way in a host of technologies. Ten different vehicles were available for test driving during the Volkswagen sponsored even in Valencia, Spain as Jared Gall reports:

"The mind-boggling array of vehicles present ran on six different fuels and included four different diesel-derivative engines: a current-production Polo BlueMotion diesel; a next-gen Jetta "Clean TDI" coming to the U.S. in '08 under the BlueTec banner; a New Beetle convertible running on SunFuel, a diesel fuel manufactured from biomass-plants, woodchips, and other forms of biological waste-and a Touran (think Mazda 5 tall wagon/mini-minivan) running VW's Combined Combustion System (CCS), a mixture of gas and diesel that is said to burn more completely and is therefore cleaner than either fuel on its own. We also sampled two compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles, a Touran and a Passat running VW's new TSI turbo- and supercharged engine (this engine was also present in two gasoline trims); a half-baked hybrid Touran; and a Touran powered by a hydrogen fuel cell."

A highlight was the compressed natural gas (CNG) powered Touran EcoFuel which emits 80-percent-less carbon monoxide, 23-percent-less carbon dioxide, and 80-percent less oxides of nitrogen than a similar gasoline engine. The EcoFuel Touran also costs about half of what a similar gasoline engine does to feed, and about a third less than a diesel.



The story continues after the jump.