By Paul | January 7, 2009
Cleaner air to breathe. This is the primary goal of the EU legislators as they pass onto a law a proposal to lower new car CO2 emissions to 130 g/km by 2015.
The new requirement translates to a fuel mileage of 52 mpg for petrol cars and 58 mpg for diesel powered vehicles. The program aims to have 65% compliance by 2012, 75% by 2013, and a completion by 2015. Violators will face heavy fines on a per gram of CO2 emitted basis.
Car manufacturers express their support for being earth friendly but are also very vocal about the challenges that they must face to comply with the law.
A lot of moves have been made by the auto industry to contribute in the strategy of conserving the environment. Car manufacturers are among the leading sectors spending a hefty sum of money for research and development to further strengthen the cause of CO2 emission reduction.
The production lines of vehicles have significantly decreased their energy consumption by 12%, land fill usage by 25%, and water utilization by 12%.
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By Paul | December 26, 2008
Aside from producing luxury cars, Mercedes-Benz also manufactures trucks, buses, and high technology automobiles. The company is also running a very aggressive program to develop automobiles that utilizes hydrogen fuel cells. One of the most talk about line of concept cars from Mercedes is BlueZERO.
The manufacturer presents 3 variants of this electric driven car. They are designed on a modular basis to permit flexibility.
The E-Cell makes use of a liquid cooled battery made of lithium ion.
This is considered to be a pure electric vehicle and can run for 125 miles without any charging.
Another concept car for release is the E-Cell PLUS which makes use of turbo charge facility. This added feature does not bring in more power to the car but serves the purpose of charging the battery when they are low. The vehicle will run for around 60 miles before tapping into the power of the turbo charge.
The higher end model of the BlueZERO concept is the F-Cell. This car offers 250 miles of travel utilizing the power from the battery and the cell range extender triggered after 60 miles.
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By Paul | November 4, 2008
Those who love their Ford cars and love to keep the environment clean will be pleased to know that the Ford Motor Company, the organization that manufactures Ford cars are making lots of efforts in promoting ethanol as alternative fuels for their cars. Though many other car manufacturers are also competing in bringing back ethanol as a possible source of fuel, Ford are the current leaders. Those who know about the history of Ford Motors will know that the quadricycle, built by Henry Ford, the founder of Ford, used ethanol to run.
One should know that compared to gas, ethanol is one of the most eco-friendly fuel and is also renewable. Many scientists are of the view that one day ethanol will become the world leader as far as renewable fuel is concerned. The reason behind this is that there are many sources of this fuel, whereas gas and diesel, which are currently used as the primary source of fuel, have a limited stock and are in danger of getting depleted after a few more decades.
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Posted in Ethanol, Ford |
By Paul | October 20, 2008
Diapers are one of the worst offenders when looking at landfill problems as millions of diapers are thrown away daily. Modern day eco conscious parents are reverting back to cloth diapers but so few people see cloth 
diapers as feasible alternatives that the ones who do use the reusable nappies are not making a positive dent in the problem. Good news has surfaced, however, and it may be possible to use those discarded diapers as the raw material for fuel to power our cars.
One of the reasons diapers are a viable source of conversion to fuel is the fact that they are consistent in substance. Using random garbage generates serious problems as the manufactures do not know what contents are present in any bundle of garbage. Diapers, on the other hand, are made basically the same way and can be collected in segregated disposal bins to carry to the processing plant. This means that the resulting concoction is the same every time creating a stable and consistent mix. And while other materials are incinerated causing deadly or toxic emissions, the diapers will be broken down molecule by molecule in a process called “pyrolysis” preventing any dangerous emissions and creating an alternative car fuel.
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By Paul | October 3, 2008
Initially when countries began mandating specific ratios of gasoline to ethanol in car fuels, corn was and still is a predominant raw material of the ensuing ethanol. Although environmentalists eagerly welcomed the shift from fossil fuel to a cleaner burning, more sustainable ethanol-gasoline mix, the growing controversy over food source materials became a moral issue. Many opponents are now against using food as alternative fuels. Thus, organizations around the world are looking at ways to introduce second generation bio fuels; biodiesel and bioethanol made from sources other than food.
In response to this point and also as a way to augment a deteriorating lumber industry, several groups and scientists from Norway are developing processes to turn wood chips into the oil needed to make ethanol. By the year 2010, gasoline and diesel sold in Norway will require close to six percent bio fuels in the mixture. And since there are so many timber farmers, it seems reasonable that wood chips should be used as the raw material for the resulting oil.
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By Paul | September 22, 2008
One would expect the movement to find alternative fuels to be a welcomed cause. But as imminent as change is, the scramble to research and develop bio fuels has been fraught with controversy. So I decided to find out what could possibly make this topic so contentious and why so many powerful organizations are against the movement. I learned that generally speaking, the problem falls into three categories.
First and foremost, politically the big players are going to squash any products that have received merit by way of government endorsements. For example, forcing gas companies to include a certain percentage of ethanol in the gas mix was not met in a welcoming manner. Moreover, car manufacturers have a vested interest in gasoline. If alternative car fuels gain a greater hold in the marketplace, carmakers will be forced to modify their equipment and their vehicles.
Second, it appears that humanitarian groups feel that farmers must choose between food and non-food crops. By encouraging energy farms and the planting of crops for the sole use in bio fuels, people are being denied the needed farmlands for food. In essence, people will starve because growing and harvesting foods will not be as popular. Taking the logic one step further, they feel it is immoral to focus on fuels at all when so many people are starving. Both food stocks used for bio fuel and non-food crops are a waste because they are used to propel cars. With all the hunger in the world, why are we even thinking about bio fuels?
Third, the environmentalists themselves have issues with the new crops being planted for creating ethanol. They insist that some of these crops are ruining eco-systems and the long-term environmental damage has not been properly assessed.
It is true that it is impossible to please everyone.
By Paul | September 9, 2008
For many years now, Brazil has been using blocks of discarded coffee beans as fuel in locomotives and as heating in factories. Apparently the country had such a surplus of coffee beans in the 1930s that they were throwing away bags of the beans into the sea until someone came up with the idea of forming the beans into bricks to burn as heat.
Today, Jarden Home Brands in the US distributes Java-Log “the funky new fireplace item that has quickly become the people’s choice firelog … It offers a wonderful solution to the much detested chemical smell associated with other firelogs”. In addition to the soothing sweet smell, the logs produce fewer emissions than wood, are considered environmentally friendly as they are made from waste coffee beans, and they sound like a real wood fire.
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By Paul | September 3, 2008
Mesquite, a deciduous tree from Mexico and the US can be converted into ethanol, a grain based alcohol used in bio fuels. Today most cars and equipment using regular gasoline can actually run just as efficiently on a mix of gas and ethanol. In fact, the mix probably runs as high as ten percent ethanol without special engineering modifications. The Texas Agricultural Experiment Station in Texas, USA, unveiled a mesquite harvesting machine at the 2006 Range and Wildlife Field Day.
Although mesquite will probably not be used in a broad sense such as fueling everyday trucks and cars, it can be used to power farm equipment and private fleets. The actual downside to a larger scale use of mesquite fuel is the cost to transport it. And some are not sure that mesquite poses the same problem as chopping down other trees. Once those forests are destroyed, what happens?
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By Paul | August 31, 2008
The world is using too much fossil fuels. We all know it, and we all realize peakoil is just around the corner. The way forward is not using our cars less, or not heating our homes — it’s alternative fuels and finding better ways to use these fuels…
The Alternative Fuels Blog will be talking about these alternative fuels, and we’ll hopefully be able to start in a couple days once we settle in…
Again — welcome!
