A group of European and American car makers has announced the adoption of the J1772 standard developed by the International Society of Automotive Engineers for electric vehicle charging. 

The single plug system is to be adopted by Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, BMW and the Volkswagen group (including Porsche and Audi).

The problem is that Nissan, Mitsubishi, Subaru and Toyota have already adopted a different "standard", called CHAdeMO, which uses two plugs – one for home charging and another for fast charging.

The J1772 "standard" peg

 
won't fit into the CHAdeMO hole

And, of course, Tesla is completely different again.

French biochemist Pierre Calleja has developed a lighting system that draws CO₂ from the atmosphere and uses micro-algae to produce light with oxygen as a byproduct.  The inventor claims that one of his street lights will absorb CO₂ at the rate of one tonne a year – which is about as much as a typical tree absorbs in its lifetime.

A system of powering hybrid trucks through overhead wires is being tested at Long Beach, Califormia.

The basis of the "eHighway", developed by Siemens, is a series of overhead wires that would be installed over at least one lane of a highway, similar to the electrical wires of tram lines. Specially equipped hybrid trucks would connect to these wires via pantographs on their roofs. When connected, the truck runs exclusively on electrical power, switching to diesel when disconnected for passing, swerving, exiting and so on. When the truck brakes, energy can be fed back into the grid for use by other connected vehicles.

Nissan is planning four new electric vehicles.

A new version of the Leaf is expected to be released at the Paris Motor Show in October. It is expected to be offered with various levels of trim and a lower entry price.

An electric van, the e-NV200, is expected by late 2013. It was previewed at the Detroit Motor Show in January. It is being tested as a delivery van by FedEx in London and as a taxi for New York.

In 2014, Nissan is planning to release an electric luxury car to rival the Tesla Model S. And, in 2015, an electric commuter vehicle, possibly based on the Pivo concept.

Nissan's Pivo 2 Concept Car (Image by Mytho88 via Wikimedia)

Scientists at the University of Western Sydney have embarked on a large-scale study of how the natural environment would cope with the atmospheric conditions which are expected if if no significant action is taken to reduce carbon emissions.

The centrepiece of the study is six fibreglass and steel ring structures 28 metres high and 25 metres in diameter in native woodland at Richmond, west of Sydney. The structures contain an array of sensors and equipment that will deliver CO₂ to the trees within the rings and create an atmosphere where CO₂ is at 550 ppm – the level expected within 35 years under a "business as usual" scenario. 

Professor David Ellsworth, who is leading the experiment, said that "there's been nothing like this before, on this scale. We're dealing with native woodland and poorer soils. It's an area with impoverished phosphorus and nutrition in the soil, which is the same as the environment in many areas of the world in the tropics and sub tropics."

According to Professor Ellsworth, previous small-scale studies have indicated that increased levels of CO₂ initially aid plant growth but this can last for as little as a few months.

The first results from the study are expected to be published next year.

At the recent Lightfair Internation in Las Vagas, GE, Phillips and Sylvania all announced LED light bulbs with an output equivalent to a 100-watt incandescent bulb. The Philips and Sylvania bulbs are extensions of current technology but the GE bulb is cooled by "breathing".

A diaphragm embedded in the GE bulb vibrates to create a current of air – pulling cool air into the bulb and expelling warm air across metal fins on the outside of the bulb. GE says that its "Energy Smart" bulb will give the equivalent of a 100-watt incandescent light bulb in all directions while consuming only 27 watts and having a life of 25,000 hours – or 23 years if used for 3 hours a day. It is expected to cost between $39 and $49 and to be available in the first half of 2013.

Meanwhile, Toshiba and Bridgelux, a Californian company, have announced that they have developed a technology which should cut the price of LED light bulbs from about $40 to around $5.

Currently, most LEDs are made by depositing gallium nitride on a layer of sapphire. Toshiba and Bridgelux say that they have developed a technique which uses silicon rather than sapphire. The process uses much the same equipment already used in semiconductor labs and the companies believe that a commercial-scale facility could be in production within 2 years.

One of the disadvantages of battery powered planes is that their weight remains the same as they fly whereas liquid fuel aircraft become lighter as they use up their fuel.

This realisation led Chip Yates, holder of the world record for the fastest electric motorcycle, to the idea of dropping batteries when their charge was depleted.

But having batteries falling out of the sky has obvious drawbacks. So the idea emerged of launching the batteries in small, unmanned guided aircraft and landing them at depots where they could be recharged.

An obvious extension of this, is to fly the recharged batteries, in their unmanned aircraft, back up to the mother planes. Chip Yates believes that one of the flying electric aircraft could fly non-stop for weeks, months or even years – and that it has potential applications in both civilian and military arenas.

Yates organization, called Flight of the Century, has acquired a plane to begin testing the idea. The plane, designed by legendary aerospace guru Burt Rutan in the 1970s, the Long-EZ has set several records, including endurance and distance records. The Long-EZ is currently being modified for electric flight, and will include using much of the technology that Yates and his team developed for his record-setting motorcycle.

Microsoft is creating a "carbon price and charge back model" that will levy fees on each of its various internal business groups for the emissions they generate. The company expects that this will result in its becoming carbon neutral by its next fiscal year.

Each Microsoft business unit will be responsible for the carbon that it generates – creating incentives for greater efficiency, increased purchases of renewable energy and better data collection and reporting.

To achieve this, Microsoft will create a new, internal price on carbon. The price will be based on market pricing for renewable energy and carbon offsets and will be applied to Microsoft's operations in over 100 countries.

Microsoft has already applied smart building technology to its Redmond campus, from which is expecting to make savings on $1.3 millon in the next fiscal year, and has jumped from nowhere to become the third biggest purchaser of green power in the U.S.

Microsoft's move is seen as indicating that its corporate customer base is starting to demand clean energy from its suppliers.

Using oil and gas as an energy source is a remnant of old Industial Age technology and not normally part of our discussion of the developing Global Age. However, the increased price of fossil fuels, resulting from the world’s diminishing oil supply, has led to some extraordinary techniques being used to extract oil and gas from ‘unconventional’ sources. These techniques seem to have been shrouded in confusing jargon and emotional claims.

In this post, I have attempted to set out my understanding of techniques such as fracking and coal seam gas extraction in plain language.

Researching these techniques has led me to be more convinced than ever that extracting unconventional fossil fuels is not the way of the future – even leaving aside the merits, or otherwise, of using these fuels.

The FAQs

What is fracking?

“Fracking” – short for hydraulic fracturing – is a technique of fracturing rocks with high a pressure fluid. It is mostly used for extracting tightly held hydrocarbons from rock formations.

What are “tightly held hydrocarbons”?

Sometimes oil, natural gas and water occur in underground reservoirs and will flow to the surface if the reservoir is tapped. But often the oil, gas or water is in tiny cracks or fissures in rocks, like shale, or in coal beds. These are called “unconventional reservoirs”.

If you drill into these unconventional reservoirs, only a small amount of the fluid, from near the bore hole, will come to the surface. One way of getting more fluid is to make cracks in the rock. The fluid will seep into the cracks and then into the bore hole.
Click here to read the rest of this entry.

The Croatian-built Rimac Concept One electric sports car has been exhibited at the Top Marques Monaco motor show. The manufacturers claim that it could do 500 kilometres an hour but they have limited to 300 kilometres an hour for safety reasons. It will do 0 to 100 kilometres per hour in 2.8 seconds and has a range of 600 kilometres on a single charge – and will cost $US 980,000.