Alternative Energy

Just moments ago, we took the wraps off the Model S, an all electric family sedan that carries  seven people and travels 300 miles per charge. We also launched a web site and began taking orders for this historic vehicle, which will likely be world’s first mass-produced, highway-capable EV.

The Model S, which carries its charger onboard, can be recharged from any 120V, 240V or 480V outlet, with the latter taking only 45 minutes. By recharging their car while they stop for a meal, drivers can go from LA to New York in approximately the same time as a gasoline car.  Moreover, the floor-mounted battery pack is designed to be changed out in less time than it takes to fill a gas tank, allowing for the possibility of battery-pack swap stations.

The floor-mounted powertrain also results in unparalleled cargo room and versatility, as the volume under the front hood becomes a second trunk. Combining that with a four-bar linkage hatchback rear trunk and flat folding rear seats, the Model S can accommodate a 50-inch television, mountain bike *and* surfboard simultaneously.  This packaging efficiency gives the Model S more trunk space than any other sedan on the market and more than most SUVs.

“Model S doesn’t compromise on performance, efficiency or utility — it’s truly the only car you need,” said Tesla CEO, Chairman and Product Architect Elon Musk. “Tesla is relentlessly driving down the cost of electric vehicle technology, and this is just the first of many mainstream cars we’re developing.”

Tesla expects to start Model S production in late 2011. The company believes it is close to receiving $350 million in federal loans to build the Model S assembly plant in California from the Dept of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Program.

Building on Proven Technology

Tesla is the only production automaker already selling highway-capable EVs in North America or Europe. With 0-60 mph in 3.9 seconds, the Roadster outperforms almost all sports cars in its class yet is six times as energy efficient as gas guzzlers and delivers 244 miles per charge. Tesla has delivered nearly 300 Roadsters, and nearly 1,000 more customers are on the waitlist.

Teslas do not require routine oil changes, and they have far fewer moving (and breakable) parts than internal combustion engine vehicles. They qualify for federal and state tax credits, rebates, sales tax exemptions, free parking, commuter-lane passes and other perks. Model S costs roughly $5 to drive 230 miles – a bargain even if gasoline were $1 per gallon.

The anticipated base price of the Model S is $49,900 after a federal tax credit of $7,500. The company has not released options pricing. Three battery pack choices will offer a range of 160, 230 or 300 miles per charge.

But the anticipated sticker price doesn’t tell the full story. Model S costs half as much as a Roadster, and it’s a better value than much cheaper cars. The ownership cost of Model S, if you were to lease and then account for the much lower cost of electricity vs. gasoline at a likely future cost of $4 per gallon, is similar to a gasoline car with a sticker price of about $35,000. That’s why we’re positive this car will be the preferred choice of savvy consumers.

The standard Model S does 0-60 mph in under six seconds and will have an electronically limited top speed of 130 mph, with sport versions expected to achieve 0-60 mph acceleration well below five seconds. A single-speed gearbox delivers effortless acceleration and responsive handling. A 17-inch touchscreen with in-car 3G connectivity allows passengers to listen to Pandora Radio or consult Google Maps, or check their state of charge remotely from their iPhone or laptop.

Tesla is taking reservations online and at showrooms in California. Tesla will open a store in Chicago this spring and plans to open stores in London, New York, Miami, Seattle, Washington DC and Munich later this year.

We’re certain you’ll be hearing a lot more about Tesla in the weeks and months ahead, and we look forward to seeing you at the stores we’re opening soon!

Elon

ScienceDaily (Mar. 12, 2009) — For millions of years, green plants have employed photosynthesis to capture energy from sunlight and convert it into electrochemical energy. A goal of scientists has been to develop an artificial version of photosynthesis that can be used to produce liquid fuels from carbon dioxide and water.

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have now taken a critical step towards this goal with the discovery that nano-sized crystals of cobalt oxide can effectively carry out the critical photosynthetic reaction of splitting water molecules.

“Photooxidation of water molecules into oxygen, electrons and protons (hydrogen ions) is one of the two essential half reactions of an artifical photosynthesis system - it provides the electrons needed to reduce carbon dioxide to a fuel,” said Heinz Frei, a chemist with Berkeley Lab’s Physical Biosciences Division, who conducted this research with his postdoctoral fellow Feng Jiao. “Effective photooxidation requires a catalyst that is both efficient in its use of  solar photons and fast enough to keep up with solar flux in order to avoid wasting those photons. Clusters of cobalt oxide nanocrystals are sufficiently efficient and fast, and are also robust (last a long time) and abundant. They perfectly fit the bill.”

Frei and Jiao have reported the results of their study in the journal Angewandte Chemie. This research was performed through the Helios Solar Energy Research Center (Helios SERC), a scientific program at Berkeley Lab under the direction of Paul Alivisatos, which is aimed at developing fuels from sunlight. Frei serves as deputy director of Helios SERC.

Artificial photosynthesis for the production of liquid fuels offers the promise of a renewable and carbon-neutral source of transportation energy, meaning it would not contribute to the global warming that results from the burning of oil and coal. The idea is to improve upon the process that has long-served green plants and certain bacteria by integrating into a single platform light-harvesting systems that can capture solar photons and catalytic systems that can oxidize water - in other words, an artificial leaf.

“To take advantage of the flexibility and precision by which light absorption, charge transport and catalytic properties can be controlled by discrete inorganic molecular structures, we have been working with polynuclear metal oxide nanoclusters in silica,” Frei said. “In earlier work, we found that iridium oxide was efficient and fast enough to do the job, but iridium is the least abundant metal on earth and not suitable for use on a very large scale. We needed a metal that was equally effective but far more abundant.”

Green plants perform the photooxidation of water molecules within a complex of proteins called Photosystem II, in which manganese-containing enzymes serve as the catalyst. Manganese-based organometallic complexes modeled off Photosystem II have shown some promise as photocatalysts for water oxidation but some suffer from being water insoluble and none are very robust.

In looking for purely inorganic catalysts that would dissolve in water and would be far more robust than biomimetic materials, Frei and Jiao turned to cobalt oxide, a highly abundant material that is an an important industrial catalyst. When Frei and Jiao tested micron-sized particles of cobalt oxide, they found the particles were inefficient and not nearly fast enough to serve as photocatalysts. However, when they nano-sized the particles it was another story.

“The yield for clusters of cobalt oxide (Co₃O₄) nano-sized crystals was about 1,600 times higher than for micron-sized particles,” said Frei, “and the turnover frequency (speed) was about 1,140 oxygen molecules per second per cluster, which is commensurate with solar flux at ground level (approximately 1,000 Watts per square meter).”

Frei and Jiao used mesoporous silica as their scaffold, growing their cobalt nanocrystals within the naturally parallel nanoscale channels of the silica via a technique known as “wet impregnation.” The best performers were rod-shaped crystals measuring 8 nanometers in diameter and 50 nanometers in length, which were interconnected by short bridges to form bundled clusters. The bundles were shaped like a sphere with a diameter of 35 nanometers. While the catalytic efficiency of the cobalt metal itself was important, Frei said the major factor behind the enhanced efficiency and speed of the bundles was their size.

“We suspect that the comparatively very large internal area of these 35 nanometer bundles (where catalysis takes place) was the main factor behind their increased efficiency,” he said, “because when we produced larger bundles (65 nanometer diameters), the internal area was reduced and the bundles lost much of that efficiency gain.”

Frei and Jiao will be conducting further studies to gain a better understanding of why their cobalt oxide nanocrystal clusters are such efficient and high-speed photocatalysts and also looking into other metal oxide catalysts. The next big step, however, will be to integrate the water oxidation half reaction with the carbon dioxide reduction step in an artificial leaf type system.

“The efficiency, speed and size of our cobalt oxide nanocrystal clusters are comparable to Photosystem II,” said Frei. “When you factor in the abundance of cobalt oxide, the stability of the nanoclusters under use, the modest overpotential and mild pH and temperature conditions, we believe we have a promising catalytic component for developing a viable integrated solar fuel conversion system. This is the next important challenge in the field of artificial photosynthesis for fuel production.”

The Helios Solar Energy Research Center is supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences of the U.S. Department of Energy.

ScienceDaily (Feb. 13, 2009) — A team of MIT undergraduate students has invented a shock absorber that harnesses energy from small bumps in the road, generating electricity while it smoothes the ride more effectively than conventional shocks. The students hope to initially find customers among companies that operate large fleets of heavy vehicles. They have already drawn interest from the U.S. military and several truck manufacturers.

The project came about because “we wanted to figure out where energy is being wasted in a vehicle,” senior Zack Anderson explains. Some hybrid cars already do a good job of recovering the energy from braking, so the team looked elsewhere, and quickly homed in on the suspension.

They began by renting a variety of different car models, outfitting the suspension with sensors to determine the energy potential, and driving around with a laptop computer recording the sensor data. Their tests showed “a significant amount of energy” was being wasted in conventional suspension systems, Anderson says, “especially for heavy vehicles.”

Once they realized the possibilities, the students set about building a prototype system to harness the wasted power. Their prototype shock absorbers use a hydraulic system that forces fluid through a turbine attached to a generator. The system is controlled by an active electronic system that optimizes the damping, providing a smoother ride than conventional shocks while generating electricity to recharge the batteries or operate electrical equipment.

In their testing so far, the students found that in a 6-shock heavy truck, each shock absorber could generate up to an average of 1 kW on a standard road — enough power to completely displace the large alternator load in heavy trucks and military vehicles, and in some cases even run accessory devices such as hybrid trailer refrigeration units.

They filed for a patent last year and formed a company, called Levant Power Corp., to develop and commercialize the product. They are currently doing a series of tests with their converted Humvee to optimize the system’s efficiency. They hope their technology will help give an edge to the military vehicle company in securing the expected $40 billion contract for the new army vehicle called the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, or JLTV.

“They see it as something that’s going to be a differentiator” in the quest for that lucrative contract, says Avadhany. He adds, “it is a completely new paradigm of damping.”

“This is a disruptive technology,” Anderson says. “It’s a game-changer.”

“Simply put — we want this technology on every heavy-truck, military vehicle and consumer hybrid on the road,” Avadhany says.

The team has received help from MIT’s Venture Mentoring Service, and has been advised by Yet-Ming Chiang, the Kyocera Professor of Ceramics in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and founder of A123 Systems, a supplier of high-power lithium-ion batteries.

Not only would improved fuel efficiency be a big plus for the army by requiring less stockpiling and transportation of fuel into the war zone, but the better ride produced by the actively controlled shock absorbers make for safer handling, the students say. “If it’s a smoother ride, you can go over the terrain faster,” says Anderson.

The new shocks also have a fail-safe feature: If the electronics fail for any reason, the system simply acts like a regular shock absorber.

The group, which also includes senior Zachary Jackowski and alumni Paul Abel ‘08, Ryan Bavetta ‘07 and Vladimir Tarasov ‘08, plans to have a final, fine-tuned version of the device ready this summer. Then they will start talking to potential big customers. For example, they have calculated that a company such as Wal-Mart could save $13 million a year in fuel costs by converting its fleet of trucks.

GM Press Release:

The goal of achieving sustainable mobility with zero emissions came a step closer today when GM announced the European part of its biggest ever test program for fuel cell vehicles.

Nine companies will be the first to operate GM’s HydroGen4 zero-emission vehicles in the Berlin area as they go about their day-to-day business: ADAC, Allianz, Coca Cola, Hilton, Linde,
Schindler, Axel Springer, Total and Veolia. This real-world road test will run under the umbrella of the Clean Energy Partnership (CEP), a German Federal Department for Transport, Building and Urban Development funded project focused on proving the day-to-day suitability of hydrogen as a fuel for road transport.

“We are delighted that these high profile business partners have joined us as we take zero emission fuel cell technology forward with the HydroGen4 program,” said GM Europe President Carl-Peter Forster.

This is a video showing DIY Solar Panel that I found in the youtube, have a look and make your own Solar Panel..

The Volt Concept is the first application of GM’s E-Flex System, in which electricity can be produced from different types of fuel. It is equipped with an electrical motor coupled with a compact 1-liter gasoline engine that can re-charge the battery, increasing range and fuel economy.

The E-flex System

The E-flex name defines a family of drivetrain systems that can produce electricity from gasoline, ethanol, bio-diesel or hydrogen, depending on the specific market and local infrastructure.

The Volt uses a large battery and a small, 1L turbo gasoline engine to produce enough electricity to go up to 640 miles and provide triple-digit fuel economy. GM will show other variations of the propulsion systems at future auto shows.

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For USD 5,560.00 will you buy this electric car?

Zhejiang 001 has produced a 100% solar powered mini car. This baby can run up to 150KM with 30 hours of full charge using the Solar Panel on top the car. People might look at you if you drive this car into the city but who cares, this car uses nothing but The Sun.

For people who read my blog, they should have some basic knowledge on how to self-produce hydrogen for their car and if you have not read my blog before, please read some of my article at “How to DIY Hydrogen Fuel Cell? - Part 1″. 

In this topic, I will introduce another method to produce hydrogen in big scale and cheaper compared to electrolysis process called Steam Reforming. Steam Reforming is a method of producing hydrogen from hydrocarbons. Steam reforming converts methane (and other hydrocarbons in natural gas) into hydrogen and carbon monoxide by reaction with steam over a nickel catalyst.

The steam methane reforming (SMR) process consists of the following two steps:

1.   Reformation of Natural Gas
The first step of the SMR process involves methane reacting with steam at 750-800°C (1380-1470ºF) to produce a synthesis gas (syngas), a mixture primarily made up of hydrogen (H2) and carbon monoxide (CO).

2.   Shift Reaction
In the second step, known as a water gas shift (WGS) reaction, the carbon monoxide produced in the first reaction is reacted with steam over a catalyst to form hydrogen and carbon dioxide (CO2). This process occurs in two stages, consisting of a high temperature shift (HTS) at 350ºC (662ºF) and a low temperature shift (LTS) at 190-210ºC (374-410ºF). 

Steam Reforming Process

Hydrogen produced from the SMR process includes small quantities of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen sulfide as impurities and, depending on use, may require further purification. The primary steps for purification include:

• Feedstock purification – This process removes poisons, including sulfur (S) and chloride (Cl), to increase the life of the downstream steam reforming and other catalysts.
• Product purification – In a liquid absorption system, CO2 is removed. The product gas undergoes a methanation step to remove residual traces of carbon oxides. Newer SMR plants utilize a pressure swing absorption (PSA) unit instead, producing 99.99% pure product hydrogen.

High to ultra-high purity hydrogen may be needed for the durable and efficient operation of fuel cells. Impurities are believed to cause various problems in the current state-of-the-art fuel cell designs, including catalyst poisoning and membrane failure. As such, additional process steps may be required to purify the hydrogen to meet industry quality standards. Additional steps could also be needed if carbon capture and sequestration technologies are developed and utilized as part of this method of hydrogen production.

Source : www.getenergysmart.org

Most people knew that adding some salt to the water will boost hydrogen production in electrolysis process but the water will become brownies once the electrolysis process has started. To solve this problem, some peoples used Baking soda or sodium bicarbonate.

Recently, QuantumSphere Inc has reported that their nanoparticle-coated electrodes can boost the production of hydrogen by 1000 times compared to sodium bicarbonate or normal salt. The company claimed that by using nanoparticle-coated electrodes, electrolysis process will be more efficient and more economical.

More detail please visit QuantumSphere Inc or EE Times.