(Source: The Gazette via AP)

Image Courtesy: KRDO.com

A retired Air Force colonel with decades of experience as a flight instructor gave one of his students a hands-on lesson in a key principle of flying: Don’t run out of gas. Al Uhalt of Colorado Springs made a bumpy but safe landing in a field Thursday when the single-engine Aviat Husky he and a student were flying ran out of fuel near the end of a 45-minute lesson.

Neither Uhalt nor the student, 16-year-old Kyle Sundman, was injured and the plane was undamaged.

Uhalt says he’s embarrassed. Kyle’s grandfather, Jim Young, who owns the plane, was flying behind them. He says he didn’t worry because he knew Uhalt was experienced and the plane was rugged.

(Source: Financial Times)

Reducing America’s reliance on oil by raising petrol prices to European levels through increased taxes or regulation is not politically feasible, says Steven Chu, US secretary of energy.

The admission comes as Congress considers a cap- and-trade system that opponents say will substantially increase petrol prices just as oil prices soar to their highest level in six months.

In the past Mr Chu, a Nobel laureate, has argued that, if the US wanted to reduce its carbon emissions, policymakers would have to find a way to increase petrol prices to levels in Europe. But in an interview on Wednesday with the Financial Times, Mr Chu said: “At this moment, let me be frank, it is not politically feasible.”

(Source: Los Angeles Times)

As the state moves to reduce the carbon footprint of fuel, an engineer hopes to build a plant in Lancaster that will convert garbage into an alcohol-based mixture.

California’s proposal “is the first time anyone has attempted, for environmental purposes, to change the content of what goes into cars and trucks,” says Mary D. Nichols, state Air Resources Board chairwoman. “It would revolutionize transportation fuel.”
 
President Obama has also called for a low-carbon standard for the nation’s $400-billion transportation fuel market. A version similar to California’s is incorporated in climate legislation pending before Congress.

But by measuring the “cradle-to-grave” effect of various fuels, the new rule would favor ethanol such as Klann’s, made from non-food sources. Even “low-carbon” corn ethanol — such as the kind produced in California using gas-fired electricity and efficient machinery — has a far higher carbon footprint than so-called cellulosic fuel from landfill waste, trees, switchgrass or sugar cane.

“This is fantastic for us,” said Klann, who uses recycled sulfuric acid to transform paper, construction debris and grass clippings into ethanol. “The paradigm is changing from oil to sustainable fuels. The ones with the lowest carbon footprint will be the winners.”

By 2020, the air board estimates, new-technology fuels along with electricity to power hybrid and electric cars would replace a quarter of the gasoline supply. And that is a critical element of the state’s sweeping plan to reduce its global warming emissions. 

Battered corn ethanol investors have mounted an intense lobbying effort against California’s proposal. Several, including Pacific Ethanol, California’s biggest, had planned to diversify from corn into cellulosic ethanol. They argue that by diminishing the value of their existing plants, the new rule also would cripple their advanced biofuel efforts. 

At issue is the Air Resources Board’s complex modeling, which would calculate each fuel’s carbon footprint not only by its “direct” emissions from drilling or planting to refining to burning, but also “indirect” emissions caused by clearing forests or fields to compensate for food crops such as corn or soy that are diverted to fuel. Opponents say the science behind the indirect modeling is inaccurate. 

Among entrepreneurs like Klann, the mood has never been more hopeful. In an Anaheim lab, the 57-year-old electrical engineer guides a visitor through a maze of pipes, filters, heat exchangers, fermentation tanks and vats of acid like a small boy showing off a chemistry set. “We’re in the forefront of this industry,” he said of his patented “concentrated acid hydrolysis” process. “We expect to have the first plant to produce cellulosic ethanol on a commercial scale.”  

Financing for his Lancaster plant, which recently obtained its final permits, has been delayed by the credit crunch. But if it comes through, the facility will process 170 tons of garbage a day to produce 3.7 million gallons of ethanol a year. Estimated cost per gallon: about $2, Klann says.  

He already has plans for 20 more facilities across the country. Next on the block: a plant outside Palm Springs, partly funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, that would produce 19 million gallons annually. 

Click here to read th entire article.  For interested readers, here is a TransportGooru article on California’s ambitious new fuel regulation standards. 

Tightening the “Green” Screw! California regulators consider instituting first-in-the nation low-carbon fuel standards

(Source: Wall Street Journal)

Efficient Drivers Cut Emissions, but Stir Up Hot Air

Cruising around this desert metropolis in her four-door pickup truck, Morgan Dresser doesn’t look like an environmental trendsetter.

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: Autobloggreen) 

 

As we’re sure you’ve noticed every time you’ve gone to refill your gas tank in the last few months, gas is once again relatively cheap. Just under a year ago, the price for a gallon of fuel was about double what it is today in most parts of the country, and those high costs were driving the sales of hybrids – both new and used – to record levels. Now? Well, not so much.

According to Kelley Blue Book, used hybrid prices have fallen by an amazing 23.5 percent since last summer, and 4.5 percent of that has come in the first two months of 2009. It’s not just fuel prices that are causing hybrid values to plummet. Due to the lack of discretionary spending money and despite the savings on each tank of gas, the extra cost associated with a hybrid at the time of initial purchase is something that many buyers are unwilling to consider.

Click here to read the entire article.

New initiative to pioneer 21st century solutions via greater coordination and interdisciplinary collaboration

(Source: MIT News)

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology today launchedTransportation@MIT, a coordinated effort to address one of civilization’s most pressing challenges: the environmental impact of the world’s ever-increasing demand for transportation. Building on MIT’s rich tradition of engineering research and interdisciplinary collaboration, the new initiative will knit together the wide-ranging, robust research already under way at the Institute and create new opportunities for education and innovation.

The program’s creation comes as the global movement of people and things becomes increasingly unsustainable — a problem that cannot be pinned on any one mode of transport. Two-thirds of the world’s petroleum consumption is taken up by transportation-related needs. Projections indicate that demand for petroleum, if unchecked, may outstrip supply within a few decades, while carbon dioxide output across the globe could triple by 2050.

“The global transportation challenge is as multi-faceted as a problem could be, and it is hard to think of an institution better equipped to tackle it than MIT,” said Dean of Engineering Subra Suresh. “By coordinating our own efforts and leveraging connections among faculty across our schools — from researchers exploring efficient new fuels to those studying transportation as a system to those rethinking how our cities are organized — we can make important and innovative contributions and encourage the rapid development of new ideas in sustainability, technology, business practices, and public policy related to all modes of transportation.