Obama’s fresh push for cleantech
Feb 23, 2009 Information of the Day, Stars, Policy and Finance
In the massive $787 billion economic stimulus package from the US government, the cleantech sector was one of the bigger beneficiaries, walking away with $38 billion in government spending and about $20 billion in tax incentives over the next 10 years, according to various estimates. In a symbolic gesture, Obama had signed the stimulus bill, called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, into law at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science where he later took a tour of the museum’s solar-panel installation.
In his latest address, US president Barack Obama tried to further reasure the cleantech sector saying:
“Because of what we did, companies – large and small – that produce renewable energy can now apply for loan guarantees and tax credits and find ways to grow, instead of laying people off; and families can lower their energy bills by weatherizing their homes”.
Companies like electric carmaker Tesla, who are waiting for federal loans and Google, GE and IBM, who are betting large on smart grid technologies, must have already started celebrating. The green initiatives of the bill included: Read the rest of this entry »
Coca Cola expands fleet of hybrid delivery trucks
Jan 17, 2009 Auto Tech, Natural Resource Conservation
Coke
Coca Cola has been experimenting with small hybrid delivery trucks for sometime now. Today, Coca Cola launched a new, larger hybrid electric tractor, which is the size of standard bulk delivery truck the company uses for large deliveries.
The hybrid tractor uses about 30 percent less fuel and produces about 30 percent fewer emissions than standard tractors. A motor/generator, working with the transmission and a series of lithium ion batteries, allows the truck to source electrical power instead of gas when traveling at speeds below 30 MPH, reducing emissions and fuel use.
Coca Cola said that it plans to deploy an incremental 185 hybrid electric trucks across the United States and Canada in 2009, bringing their total number of hybrid electric delivery trucks to 327, the largest such fleet in North America. Read the rest of this entry »
US Dept. of Energy flooded with loan requests from carmakers
Jan 15, 2009 Auto Tech, Information of the Day
US DOE
More than 70 applications are on the table for consideration by the Department of Energy, for loans under its Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program (ATVM), which aims to help companies build the next-generation of cleaner vehicles.
Few of the applicants are:
Tesla Motors, which has asked for $400 million and last year put off raising a $100 million round because of the unfavorable terms and economic climate.
Ener1, which makes lithium-ion batteries for vehicles through its EnerDel unit, applied for $480 million in loans. Ener1 also loaned money to prevent Norwegian car maker Think from going under. Read the rest of this entry »
Brighter LEDs for your cars and TVs
Jan 15, 2009 Green Technologies
A new breakthrough by researchers with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s National Science Foundation-funded Smart Lighting Engineering Research Center and Samsung Electro-Mechanics promises 18 percent increase in light output and a 22 percent increase in wall-plug efficiency, which essentially measures the amount of electricity the LED converts into light.
The improved performance is due to reduction of “efficiency droop” — LEDs being most efficient when operating on low current densities, and seeing their efficiency greatly drop at higher current densities — the team replaced the traditional active layer of the LEDs with a new specially matched layer. The end result of droop is that LEDs are forced to operate at lower current densities, which feature much lower brightness and efficiency in achieving light output.
This droop is under the spotlight since today’s high-brightness LEDs are operated at current densities far beyond where efficiency peaks. Hopefully, with this development, we will see brighter and more efficient LEd backlights for our computer monitors and LCD TVs and those awesome LED car head and tail lamps as well.
Head over to Physorg for details.
Tags: LEDs, more efficiency, Samsung, US
Low gas prices lead to surge in SUV demand
Dec 27, 2008 Auto Tech, Green Technologies
Ford F-150
“Fool me once, shame on you; Fool me twice, shame on me”, may go an old adage, but car buyers in US don’t seem to have learnt! Automotive website Edmunds.com is reporting that truck and SUV sales will surpass car sales in December in US. That’s something that hasn’t happened since February 2008. Additionally, hybrid sales are expected to dramatically plunge for December.
Gasoline prices in US prices have fallen below $2 a gallon, from the highs of over $4 few months back and many people are rushing out to buy the big cars and SUVs, forgetting that gas prices may again spiral up, due to a variety of reasons. But few of them seem to have made the decision seeing the inclement weather (SUVs/4-wheel drives will be safer in snow), while others may have been seduced by the huge discounts currently on SUVs (upto $5000 in some cases!).
On the flip side, the sales of fuel efficient smaller cars have declined. While earlier in the year, there was a waiting list for the hybrid Toyota Prius, In November alone, falling gas prices caused a 48 percent drop in sales, and things won’t be too cheerful in December. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Auto sales, Edmunds, US
TIME magazine’s list of Top 10 Green Stories
Dec 23, 2008 Information of the Day
Obama
TIME magazine recently collated a list of Top 10 list of Green Stories of 2008.It deemed the election of Barack Obama as the most significant event. We can only hope that all the hype around his election is justified and he succeeds in putting together a real “Green NEw Deal” for the world’s largest economy as well as world’s largest carbon emitter.
As expected, the list is dominated by US based events, but there are other interesting snippets as well, like Hypermiling being chosen as OXford Dictionary’s Word for 2008 and Indonesia’s plans to better protect its forests.
Tags: Hypermiling, Policy, TIME, US
Sea level rising slowing?
Dec 16, 2008 Information of the Day
Sea levels
Satellite altimetry data indicates that the rate at which the world’s oceans are rising has slowed significantly since 2005. Before the decrease, sea level had been rising by more than 3mm/year, which corresponds to an increase of about one foot per century. Since 2005, however, the rate has been closer to 2mm/year.
Sea level rise was calculated from altimetry data from the TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason-1 satellite missions and published by the University of Colorado, Boulder. This has set off debates amongst the strongest believers and non-believers of the global warming trend.
The decrease is significant as global climate models predict sea level rise to accelerate as atmospheric CO2 continues to increase. In the 1990s, when such acceleration appeared to be occurring, some scientists pointed to it as confirmation the models were operating correctly. These findings could be used by many forarguing against strong measures to curb emissions in the current financial crisis.
Tags: Global Warming, US
Continental Airlines plans to test biofuels for flight
Dec 11, 2008 Green Technologies
Continental Airlines, in partnership with Boeing, is planning a test flight of a 737-800 aircraft partially fueled by biofuels. The test is scheduled for Jan. 7 in Houston. The plane, which will not carry passengers, will be outfitted with a right engine running on a 50-50 blend of traditional jet fuel and a mixture of biofuels including algae and jatropha plants. This will be the first such test by an American carrier.
Air New Zealand was planning to test a similar biofuel powered flight last week, but postponed the flight while it deals with the crash of one of its aircraft off the coast of France. Virgin Atlantic already ran a test from London to Amsterdam with fuel mixed with coconut oil and babassu oil earlier this year. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: biofuel, Continental Airlines, Jatropha, US
Barack Obama promises to make govt. buildings greener
Dec 9, 2008 Information of the Day
With 2 million US job losses, President-elect Barack Obama explains the key parts of his Economic Recovery Plan — which will save or create 2.5 million jobs in the next two years. The first step, he said, was to improve the energy efficiency of government buildings in US by replacing its heating systems, etc. This will help reduce annual costs as well as create jobs.
Even his plans to make schools more energy efficient among other things will come as a boost for the green brigade. And if the billions he promises for upgrading US infrastructure is spent wisely, it could encourage in setting up things like electric car charging network or a more determined push towards renewable energy sources overall.
Watch the video after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
Sales of electric cars plummet in US and UK
Dec 6, 2008 Auto Tech
While the worldwide economic downturn has badly affected auto sales, the electric cars market has seen perilous falls in UK as well as US.
EPower, a retailer selling electric cars in Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri, has only sold two cars in the past three months. MCEV, the largest electric car dealer in the Pacific Northwest, has seen sales decline to 1-2 vehicles a month, down 80% from earlier this year. Even corporate and government sales — which make up a large percentage of MCEV’s revenue — are also being impacted.
UK sales of electric cars have dropped 58 percent this year. For the first ten months of 2008, a total of only 156 vehicles were sold in the country — nearly all of those confined to London itself. The announcement came just two days after the nation’s Committee on Climate Change predicted electric car sales would increase substantially this year. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Green Automobiles, Green Cars, UK, US