After a slight delay, Nissan this week began accepting orders for the Leaf, its "breakthrough electric vehicle that promises to bring battery-powered cars to the masses," says Autoblog Green. Nissan kicked off proceedings on Tuesday, with 200 drivers from five US states – California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona and Tennessee – allowed to place orders. At this stage, the Japanese car-maker will only accept purchases from those who have a confirmed August order date, but will soon reach out to the thousands of buyers who hold September order dates. (The carmaker has tallied more than 18,600 Leaf pre-orders bringing it withing range of its targeted 25,000 reservations by December.) But before you get caught up in the excitement and order one for each member of the family, Earth2Tech's Katie Fehrenbacher has a list of 10 things you need to know about the Leaf. Here are some of the standouts points:
– "It’s pretty much the lowest cost mass-produced, highway legal, 4-wheel, mainstream all electric vehicle that will hit that market in the next two years," says Fehrenbacher, although expect availability to be pretty limited in the first couple of years.
– Range issues have been flagged by "at least two CEOs of electric vehicle competitors," with Tesla's Elon Musk and Coda's Kevin Czinger both suggesting the Leaf has an "unsophisticated battery thermal management system," which might just put it at the mercy of extreme hot and cold weather conditions.
– It will have "one of the more sophisticated networked car services" in the business, known as the EV-IT, says Fehrenbacher. "Nissan’s director of product planing for North America, Mark Perry, told us that the car giant is working with AT&T to provide a connection for digital services for the car, like battery charge monitoring and being able to find the nearest charging station."
Waste not
New Zealand-based biofuel entrepreneur LanzaTech has announced it has successfully produced a necessary component to create polymers, plastics, and fuels from their unique fermentation process. LanzaTech's speciality is to capture industrial waste gases and convert them into biofuels and chemicals. The process combines the gases and products in a fermentation unit where "proprietary microbes" use the materials to create the fuel.
And while other gas-to-fuel processes need a large source of hydrogen, says CleanTechies, LanzaTech’s process does not, allowing it to make use of hydrogen-deficient waste gas sources like steel mills. Which explains the company's June announcement that it will partner with Chinese steel manufacturer Baosteel. According to Environmental Leader, a partnership between Baosteel and LanzaTech and a three-way research alliance between Baosteel, CAS Bureau of Life Science and Technology and LanzaTech was formalised at the New Zealand Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo on June 20. Baosteel and LanzaTech will construct a demonstration plant at one of Baosteel’s steel mills, in the hope of scaling the model again for the construction of the first commercial plant, saysEL. The demonstration facility is expected to be in operation in the second half of 2011.
LanzaTech's latest announcement is big news, says CleanTechies, "because it signals the first time the polymer, plastic and fuel component 2,3- Butanediol has been created from waste gas resources in an industrial setting.This adds another dimension to the company, allowing it to not only create biofuels, but also create various chemical components in an environmentally friendly way."
From thin air
New research presented at the American Chemical Society meeting in Boston on Wednesday suggests it might one day be possible to harness the electrical charge of the earth's atmosphere. Fernando Galembeck, from the University of Campinas in Brazil, has shown that water vapor in humid air can accumulate charge and transfer it to materials it comes in contact with. He says it might be possible to design collectors that exploit this behaviour to generate electricity. "The technology, which he calls 'hygroelectricity,' could provide an alternative to solar power in places without much sunlight but with a lot of humidity," says Kevin Bullis in MIT's Technology Review. And that's not all! Galambeck says it could also be used to prevent lightning strikes, by draining electrical charge from the air. But he also notes that it's very early days in his research
Parking in the green zone
So you've bought your Nissan Leaf; why not go all the way and park it in a energy self-sufficient carpark? Well, if you're one of the lucky few who has got their hands on a Leaf, and you happen to live in Chicago, you could do exactly that, because the “Windy City” has – rather aptly – produced the world's first 'parking garage' to generate it’s own energy with spinning vertical wind turbines.
Dubbed the Greenway Self Park, the "eco-friendly parking garage offers far more than just a column of dizzying vertical turbines up it’s outer wall," says CleanTechies. It also boasts the use of local and sustainable building materials, a "green roof" and rainwater tanks for irrigation, high-efficiency glass, a recycling program, energy-efficient lighting, EV charging stations, and car sharing vehicles. "For the sake of public education," says CleanTechies, "a 'way-finding system' has also been incorporated at each elevator lobby to educate users on how to live more sustainably and protect the environment. A reversible meter has also been included to measure the amount of energy generated by the turbines and and piped back into the grid of the city each year. HOK is currently pursing LEED certification for the building."
Electric choppers
If driving an electric vehicle is not enough to pop you cork, may we suggest an electric helicopter ride? According to GreentechMedia, the concept came to Sikorsky Innovations director Chris Van Buiten while he was attending a White Zombie drag race a couple of years ago. The "flash of inspiration" came, apparently, while he watched "the electric drag cars zip around the track," prompting the thought that "if this tiny electric car can beat this dragster down the line, what would happen if you could put an electric propulsion system in a helicopter?" Van Biuten then floated the idea at a conference meeting back at the company's Connecticut HQ, et voila, Project Firefly was born. Two years later, the electric copter's two lithium polymer batteries are set to be put to the test. "The electric system sits nicely in a 1950s S-300 CTM helicopter minus the 190-horsepower four-cylinder gas engine," says GreentechMedia. Bombs away.
After a slight delay, Nissan this week began accepting orders for the Leaf, its "breakthrough electric vehicle that promises to bring battery-powered cars to the masses," says Autoblog Green. Nissan kicked off proceedings on Tuesday, with 200 drivers from five US states – California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona and Tennessee – allowed to place orders. At this stage, the Japanese car-maker will only accept purchases from those who have a confirmed August order date, but will soon reach out to the thousands of buyers who hold September order dates. (The carmaker has tallied more than 18,600 Leaf pre-orders bringing it withing range of its targeted 25,000 reservations by December.) But before you get caught up in the excitement and order one for each member of the family, Earth2Tech's Katie Fehrenbacher has a list of 10 things you need to know about the Leaf. Here are some of the standouts points:
– "It’s pretty much the lowest cost mass-produced, highway legal, 4-wheel, mainstream all electric vehicle that will hit that market in the next two years," says Fehrenbacher, although expect availability to be pretty limited in the first couple of years.
– Range issues have been flagged by "at least two CEOs of electric vehicle competitors," with Tesla's Elon Musk and Coda's Kevin Czinger both suggesting the Leaf has an "unsophisticated battery thermal management system," which might just put it at the mercy of extreme hot and cold weather conditions.
– It will have "one of the more sophisticated networked car services" in the business, known as the EV-IT, says Fehrenbacher. "Nissan’s director of product planing for North America, Mark Perry, told us that the car giant is working with AT&T to provide a connection for digital services for the car, like battery charge monitoring and being able to find the nearest charging station."
Waste not
New Zealand-based biofuel entrepreneur LanzaTech has announced it has successfully produced a necessary component to create polymers, plastics, and fuels from their unique fermentation process. LanzaTech's speciality is to capture industrial waste gases and convert them into biofuels and chemicals. The process combines the gases and products in a fermentation unit where "proprietary microbes" use the materials to create the fuel.
And while other gas-to-fuel processes need a large source of hydrogen, says CleanTechies, LanzaTech’s process does not, allowing it to make use of hydrogen-deficient waste gas sources like steel mills. Which explains the company's June announcement that it will partner with Chinese steel manufacturer Baosteel. According to Environmental Leader, a partnership between Baosteel and LanzaTech and a three-way research alliance between Baosteel, CAS Bureau of Life Science and Technology and LanzaTech was formalised at the New Zealand Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo on June 20. Baosteel and LanzaTech will construct a demonstration plant at one of Baosteel’s steel mills, in the hope of scaling the model again for the construction of the first commercial plant, says EL. The demonstration facility is expected to be in operation in the second half of 2011.
LanzaTech's latest announcement is big news, says CleanTechies, "because it signals the first time the polymer, plastic and fuel component 2,3- Butanediol has been created from waste gas resources in an industrial setting.This adds another dimension to the company, allowing it to not only create biofuels, but also create various chemical components in an environmentally friendly way."
From thin air
New research presented at the American Chemical Society meeting in Boston on Wednesday suggests it might one day be possible to harness the electrical charge of the earth's atmosphere. Fernando Galembeck, from the University of Campinas in Brazil, has shown that water vapor in humid air can accumulate charge and transfer it to materials it comes in contact with. He says it might be possible to design collectors that exploit this behaviour to generate electricity. "The technology, which he calls 'hygroelectricity,' could provide an alternative to solar power in places without much sunlight but with a lot of humidity," says Kevin Bullis in MIT's Technology Review. And that's not all! Galambeck says it could also be used to prevent lightning strikes, by draining electrical charge from the air. But he also notes that it's very early days in his research
Parking in the green zone
So you've bought your Nissan Leaf; why not go all the way and park it in a energy self-sufficient carpark? Well, if you're one of the lucky few who has got their hands on a Leaf, and you happen to live in Chicago, you could do exactly that, because the “Windy City” has – rather aptly – produced the world's first 'parking garage' to generate it’s own energy with spinning vertical wind turbines.
Dubbed the Greenway Self Park, the "eco-friendly parking garage offers far more than just a column of dizzying vertical turbines up it’s outer wall," says CleanTechies. It also boasts the use of local and sustainable building materials, a "green roof" and rainwater tanks for irrigation, high-efficiency glass, a recycling program, energy-efficient lighting, EV charging stations, and car sharing vehicles. "For the sake of public education," says CleanTechies, "a 'way-finding system' has also been incorporated at each elevator lobby to educate users on how to live more sustainably and protect the environment. A reversible meter has also been included to measure the amount of energy generated by the turbines and and piped back into the grid of the city each year. HOK is currently pursing LEED certification for the building."
Electric choppers
If driving an electric vehicle is not enough to pop you cork, may we suggest an electric helicopter ride? According to GreentechMedia, the concept came to Sikorsky Innovations director Chris Van Buiten while he was attending a White Zombie drag race a couple of years ago. The "flash of inspiration" came, apparently, while he watched "the electric drag cars zip around the track," prompting the thought that "if this tiny electric car can beat this dragster down the line, what would happen if you could put an electric propulsion system in a helicopter?" Van Biuten then floated the idea at a conference meeting back at the company's Connecticut HQ, et voila, Project Firefly was born. Two years later, the electric copter's two lithium polymer batteries are set to be put to the test. "The electric system sits nicely in a 1950s S-300 CTM helicopter minus the 190-horsepower four-cylinder gas engine," says GreentechMedia. Bombs away.