(Source: Green Car Congress & Newspress, UK)

European automotive suppliers and vehicle manufacturers have united to submit a series of R&D priorities to the European Commission to shape the European Green Car Initiative (EGCI), announced by the EU. CLEPA (the European umbrella membership organization representing the interests of the global automotive supply industry) and EUCAR (the European Council for Automotive R&D from the major European passenger car and commercial vehicle manufacturers) jointly prepared the document.

The Green Car Initiative, a part of the European economic recovery plan, aims to allocate €5 billion (US$6.7 billion) through a Public Private Partnership to bolster innovation in the automotive sector and sustain its focus on environmental progress. The initiative complements the European Clean Transport Facility which, through the European Investment Bank, serves to provide more immediate financial relief to the sector.

The Green Car Initiative concentrates on long-term R&D, largely combining existing projects under a clear policy focus and underlining the importance of a joint approach between industries and policy makers. The CLEPA and EUCAR document is intended to harmonize the R&D directions and priorities of the auto industry, and then to communicate these to relevant authorities and bodies at national and EU level and to other key partners. The scope of the document is adapted and narrowed to the domain of the EGCI, and it does not claim to cover the broad spectrum of automotive and transport R&D.

The R&D domain in the document is structured into four major areas:

• Mobility and Transport (deploying information and communication technologies (ICT) and Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) for traffic and transport management, involving vehicles as well as route planning).
• Energy and Environment (exploring primary energy sources which are renewable, secure, sufficient and environmentally compatible; the electrification of vehicles and the road transport system as a whole; lightweight structures and new vehicle concepts for high energy-efficiency).
• Safety (ensuring safety of new vehicle concepts and types; development of cooperative systems for efficiency and safety based on communication between vehicles and infrastructure).
• Affordability and Competitiveness (achieving green objectives at an affordable level, taking into account the availability and use of raw and rare materials; (energy-) efficiency of production processes; handling of alternative materials; use of virtual tools).

All of these areas are equally important and none of them can be considered independent from the others, the organizations note.

Click here to read the entire article.  Here is a copy of the full report in PDF.

(Source: GreenBiz via Reuters)

The Obama administration established a Biofuels Interagency Working Group this week in a move that carries implications for the industry on several fronts, including regulatory and research and development. 
 
The Biofuels Interagency Working Group, comprised of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy (DOE)  and Department of Agriculture, will develop a biofuel market development program, coordinate biofuel infrastructure policies, study biofuel lifecycle and help existing biofuel producers secure credit and refinancing.

Meanwhile, the DOE will spend $786.5 million in stimulus funds on demonstration projects and research to accelerate the adoption of next-generation biofuels. 

For example, the agency will dole out $480 million on 10 to 20 pilot-scale and demonstration-scale projects, with a ceiling of $25 million and $50 million, respectively. Another $176.5 million shall be used to increase funding for two or more commercial-scale biorefinery projects that previously received government assistance.

The DOE biomass program also will dedicate $130 million toward research into ethanol, algal biofuels and biofuel sustainability research.

The proposal breaks down renewable fuels into four categories: cellulosic biofuels, biomass-derived diesel, advanced biofuels, and total renewable fuel. The fuels must produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels, but there is great debate within the biofuel industry about how these lifecycle assessments should be calculated.

$480 million solicitation for integrated pilot- and demonstration-scale biorefineries

Projects selected under this Funding Opportunity Announcement will work to validate integrated biorefinery technologies that produce advanced biofuels, bioproducts, and heat and power in an integrated system, thus enabling private financing of commercial-scale replications.

DOE anticipates making 10 to 20 awards for refineries at various scales and designs, all to be operational in the next three years.  The DOE funding ceiling is $25 million for pilot-scale projects and $50 million for demonstration scale projects.

These integrated biorefineries will reduce dependence on petroleum-based transportation fuels and chemicals. They will also facilitate the development of an “advanced biofuels” industry to meet the federal Renewable Fuel Standards.

(Source: The Infrastructurist)

The so-called peak oil debate has taken many twists and turns over the years. After long being an oddball survivalist preoccupation, the debate gathered mainstream momentum a few years ago as oil prices began a long ascent from around $30 per barrel to $147, where they topped out last summer. By the time a barrel of West Texas crude was rising eight bucks a day, scarcity seemed like the best and only explanation–that no matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t pump enough oil to meet demand.  OPEC cut production, inventories rose, and it seemed like, in fact, we had plenty of oil for the foreseeable future and the whole thing had just been hedge fund shenanigans.

Maybe not, Raymond James now cautions. “We believe that the oil market has already crossed over to the downward sloping side” of all-time total production, say analysts at the financial services company. While cautioning that nobody but historians can be sure, they believe production peaked in 2007 for non-OPEC countries (Russia, Norway, Mexico, etc.) and last year for OPEC (Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iran, etc.). “It is entirely intuitive to conclude that if both OPEC and non-OPEC production posted declines against the backdrop of $100/bbl oil–when the obvious economic incentive was to pump at full blast–those declines had to have come for involuntary reasons such as the inherent geological limits of oil fields.” In other words, we had a perfect environment for testing the peak oil hypothesis, and the results are in. We’ve peaked.

My reponse? Yawn. We’re all unemployed Prius drivers anyway these days. Oil is an anachronism.

The biggest immediate crisis would be in transporation, because that’s where most of our oil goes. When gas hit $4 per gallon last spring, the financial strain was hitting the breaking point for many households–particularly outer suburban households. The arrangement of many American cities started to look insane: Working class people commuting 50 miles by car each way to their jobs?

The answers in this scenario would have to be rapid. No 30-year development plans. Instead: find cheap and efficient ways of getting lots of people around, and find them pronto. As a start, that would mean making it much easier for people to ride bikes, take trains, and form van pools.

Peak oil has always been an eye-roller in the establishment debate. It’s not clear that Obama has ever even been *asked* about it.

(Source: Ars Technica) & TeamSilverback)

Google has been granted its patent for a data center that floats on the ocean. Though the patent mostly describes how such a thing would work, it also addresses the use of wave and tidal power, as well as water cooling to even land-based data centers that are nearby.

The majority of the patent deals with the logistics of ship-based data centers, though it also examines the use of wave power, tidal power, and seawater for providing electricity and cooling to land-based data centers that are close enough to water.

Of course, there’s nothing to stop Google from deploying a floating data center powered by conventional fuel sources, but such a vessel would be more limited by range or fuel capacity. Not only would it have to carry enough fuel to power itself, it would also have to make sure to power the systems it carries. Using a water-based generator would not only be more practical and efficient, it’s also a significantly greener solution.

Despite the patent, however, Google may not be the first company to send its data centers out to sea. A Silicon Valley startup called International Data Security (IDS) announced in January of 2008 its intent to set up a fleet of data-serving cargo ships. These ships would not only come with standard storage services, but also with amenities such as private offices, overnight accommodations, and galley services. The first ship was scheduled to set sail (or rather, hang out in San Francisco’s Pier 50) in April of 2008, but according to a blog post by IDS partner Silverback Migration Solutions, that plan got pushed to third quarter 2008 and we were unable to find any further information on the project.

The Silverback blog alos outlines a few interetsing points.  The value proposition for ship based datacenters is very similar to that of land based datacenters, with a few noteable exceptions:

–Current market demand for data center space continues to outpace
supply, and using ships as data centers can reduce time to market by as
much as 65%.

–Cap-Ex costs to bring a ship into data center operation is
approximately 2/3 that of a land-based facility.

A group of Indian engineering students from Ludhiana successfully build a pollution-free motorbike designed to run on air pressure rather than petrol. Video courtesy of Reuters.

 (Source: Wall Street Journal)

ALGIERS (AFP) – OPEC wants to see oil prices rising to more than 70 dollars a barrel, the oil cartel’s secretary general Abdalla El-Badri said Sunday.

 “The price of 50 dollars is not enough to cover investment costs for the future,” El-Badri told reporters in Algiers.

(Source: Autobloggreen)

According to Autocar in the UK, Scotland Yard has announced plans to replace half of its fleet of vehicles with either electric or air-powered vehicles within four years. We’re not sure what air-powered vehicles are being considered, but we’ve been hearing about the compressed air vehicle from MDI for the last few years at least.

There are already 140 or so Toyota Prius hybrid police cars currently in use by the Metropolitan Police Service and officers have been putting electric versions of the smart fortwo through their paces. Those two programs are expected to continue and grow. Nigel Jakubowski, head of transport services, says, “The uniformed officers who have driven them say they are very quick. We have installed charging points at the stations the cars are based in, and they work very well.”

Transport account for 22% of emissions in the UK - more than half of that comes from cars

 (Source: Guardian, UK;  Photo: thingermejig @ Flickr)

Government must encourage motorists to get out of their cars and walk or cycle, say scientists

(Source: McKinsey Quarterly ;Video:  The Auto Channel @ YouTube)

The fastest way to reduce America’s dependence on oil imports is to convert petroleum-driven miles to electric ones by retrofitting the SUVs and pick-ups now on the road with rechargeable batteries. Here’s how.

(Source: New York Times)

China wants to raise its annual production capacity to 500,000 hybrid or all-electric cars and buses by the end of 2011, from 2,100 last year, government officials and Chinese auto executives said. By comparison, CSM Worldwide, a consulting firm that does forecasts for automakers, predicts that Japan and South Korea together will be producing 1.1 million hybrid or all-electric light vehicles by then and North America will be making 267,000.

TIANJIN, China — Chinese leaders have adopted a plan aimed at turning the country into one of the leading producers of hybrid and all-electric vehicles within three years, and making it the world leader in electric cars and buses after that.

Premier Wen Jiabao highlighted the importance of electric cars two years ago with his unlikely choice to become minister of science and technology: Wan Gang, a Shanghai-born former Audi auto engineer in Germany who later became the chief scientist for the Chinese government’s research panel on electric vehicles.

Beyond manufacturing, taxi fleets and local government agencies in 13 Chinese cities are being offered subsidies of up to $8,800 for each hybrid or all-electric vehicle they purchase. The state electricity grid has been ordered to set up electric car charging stations in Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin.