Consumer electronics could be the winners in the quest for energy storage – cleantech’s holy grail – rather than electric vehicles or the integration of renewables.
Dan Adler, president of the influential California Clean Energy Fund (CalCEF), told last week’s Cleantech Forum in San Francisco: “It is the holy grail and that’s why we continue to focus on this notion that there’s some piece missing.” Keep reading →
There will be no “Who Killed the Electric Car? – Part two,” asserts Atul Kapadia, Chairman/CEO of Envia Systems.
Kapadia said he’s confident electric vehicles will conquer the consumer market this time around because his Newark, California company has been able to nearly triple the energy density of a typical lithium-ion battery. Independent testing has just confirmed the Envia battery performed in the range of 378-418 watt-hours per kilogram, he says. Current batteries operate at about 140 Wh/kg. Keep reading →
The interior of the General Motors Detroit Hamtramck Assembly Plant is shown October 11, 2011 in Hamtramck, Michigan. Officials from the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration toured the plant today to highlight the Obama administrations fuel economy standards.
Electric vehicle manufacturers and advocates are facing questions from an increasingly interested US public about how the cars work and whether they can meet conventional driving needs. Keep reading →
Sammy Reiser fills his vehicle up with gas in a county where some grades of gasoline have already surpassed the $4 mark on February 21, 2012 in Miami, Florida. Fears of $5 per gallon gasoline are being heard as summer approaches and some feel that would hurt the economy just as an economic recovery appears to be getting traction.
The oil business is generally seen as monolithic by consumers, but parts of the industry can suffer even as rising prices boost results in other sectors. Keep reading →
The Genovation Cars G2 concept plug-in electric hybrid vehicle model during aerodynamics testing at the Glenn L. Martin Wind Tunnel at University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland, January 26, 2012.
The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) describes its new technology as a 2.4 kilovolt, 45kVA (45,000 volt amps for the less technical among us) solid-state, direct current (DC) fast charging system for electric vehicles (EVs). Keep reading →
For years, the Paris-Dakar rally was known as the most brutal, trying and impossible automobile race in the world. The road (if it could be called a road, at times) from France to Senegal was, to say the least, tough. To attempt to match the conditions, distance and terrain, the race attracted the world’s toughest cars and best mechanics. But sometimes, just being tough is not enough. In its history, the race has claimed 25 lives.
Everything changed in 2009 when, due to security concerns and political unrest in the country of Mauritania, the rally was moved to South America. The switch did little to affect the race’s reputation for brutal terrain and punishing conditions. This year, the race was run on yet another new route, starting in Mar Del Plata in Argentina, south of Buenos Aires on the Atlantic Ocean; through Copiapó, a city in northern Chile; and ending up in Lima, Peru, a distance of more than 3,100 miles with crossings of both the Andes Mountains and the notorious Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on earth. Keep reading →
Clean energy remains the new kid on the block for an energy sector dominated by fossil fuels for electricity generation both currently and for years to come. As the sector develops along with newly emerging technologies and falling costs, venture capitalists and other early-stage investors have seen enormous potential.
That potential has been regularly stymied to date by a number of factors, ranging from the specific like the financial crisis to the heavily regulated nature of an industry with reliability as its primary goal. Keep reading →
In labs around the globe, scientists are working on radical technologies, from 500-mile car batteries to solar space farms. The holy grail in the electric-car world is beating range anxiety: the fear you’ll run out of juice in the middle of nowhere. Today’s electrics, like the Nissan Leaf, have a range of about 100 miles, but scientists at IBM are in hot pursuit of a better technology. In the 1990s researchers hypothesized that they could create energy by combining lithium with oxygen, making what is now referred to as a lithium-air battery. Today IBM and some 50 other labs globally are working on versions that would let an electric car go 500 miles a charge — a potential game changer for models like BMW’s i3 concept vehicle. This article is a linkout.
You might fear for the future of any car whose battery sparked, smoldered, or burst into flames during government safety tests.
That’s what happened to the Chevy Volt, a plug-in electric/gasoline hybrid touted as GM’s leading response to popular demand for cars that consume less gasoline and emit fewer greenhouse gases than the automaker’s thirstier conventional models. Keep reading →
An owner of 900 companies globally and 70 in the US, IT giant Hitachi has recently been increasingly focusing on smart grid technology and sustainable infrastructure development.
From fiscal years 2010-2012, Hitachi has dedicated 1.6 trillion yen (roughly $20.5 billion) to what it calls “social innovation business.” During that same period, the company has also dedicated 1.2 trillion yen to research and development in the social innovation business, according to Hitachi Director of Corporate Branding, Lauren Raguzin. Keep reading →
