SCADA, Telematics & GPS Technologies

The transport ministry aims to introduce a system in fiscal 2010 to provide 30% of the cooling energy at New Chitose Airport terminal building in summer from snow collected in winter, ministry officials said Tuesday.

A regional office of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism collected snow last winter at the airport and confirmed that it could retain up to 45% of it by September by covering it with heat-insulating materials. It has concluded that the snow could be used to chill the liquid used in the airport’s cooling system in summer and that doing so would lead to a cut of some 2,100 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, according to the officials.

Links: Japan Today, Ecogeek, SnowPower

Going green doesn’t mean giving up wheel-spin-inducing, tire-shredding performance, as this 300-horsepower natural gas-burning Mustang GT proves.

German natural gas conversion specialists Green Autogas teamed up with tuning haus Rollin on Chrome to prove “green” isn’t synonymous with boring. Together they tweaked the Mustang’s 4.6-liter V8 to run on propane natural gas, then installed a body kit, carbon-fiber hood and 22-inch wheels. The lime-green paint is waaay over the top and we’re not wild about the wing, but Green Autogas is to be commended for the effort.

So is the car as green as it looks?

The CNG engine produces about 20 percent less CO2 than the gasoline engine it is based on and 95 percent less nitric nitrogen oxide (NOx) than a typical diesel, according to Motor Authority. It’s tough to put that in perspective, though, because no one’s provided fuel economy data or a cost-per-mile comparison with the stock ’stang.

Autogas isn’t the first outfit to build a green Mustang. The BioConcept Mustang built by German tuners FourMotor used a biofuel-burning 2.0-liter turbodiesel that produced 280 horsepower and 368 foot-pounds of torque. The car was good for 152.2 mph and raced in the 24 Hours of Nurburgring.

As for the Autogas CNG Mustang, we’ll park it next to the sweet natural gas-burning Porsche 356 clone French boutique automaker PGO produces.

Photo: courtesy Autoblog.nl, Source: wired

Charley and Chuck Greenwood, a father-son combo, think they know the secret to the future of cars: rowing.

And they founded their company HumanCar to prove that human energy, not biofuels, is the gasoline of the future. Their Imagine_PS car seats up to four in a low-slung chassis; the passengers get to help row the lightweight car.

Think of it as an ergonomic, efficient and sneaker-saving Flintstone’s car for an oil-free future. The front two ‘drivers’ get to steer, which is done with a talented and coordinated lean.

“Body steering comes from the hips,” CEO Chuck said. “It’s just like a properly performed ski turn.”

But revolutionizing steering is not the point of these Oregon entrepreneurs. “It’s about thinking about days per life versus miles per gallon,” CEO Chuck Greenwood said.

When powered by four people rowing, the car will go about as fast as the ‘drivers’ would on bicycles, on average.

But, that’s only if they were driving in a flat city like Chicago, where the car is currently on display for two weeks during the Wired NextFest future-tech expo in Millennium Park.

For hillier locales or higher speeds, there’s electric assist motors and regenerative brakes that funnel the vehicle’s momentum back into the batteries.

The Greenwoods plan to sell Imagine_PS as a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle, a state-by-state designation that frees it from requirements such as air bags and in some states, even the need for a licensed driver or insurance.

But to qualify, the top speed will have to capped at around 20 mph — though the Greenwoods say the chassis can easily handle sports car speeds in excess of 100 mph.

Hear that, hot rodders?

Though not yet for sale, advanced models of the Imagine_PS for corporate campuses will be available soon for $35,000 to $50,000, while the consumer model is slated to be be priced at $15,500.

Source: Wired

The Z-Wave Home Control standard expands its reach with the announcement of the Advanced Energy Control Framework (AEC), a specification for advanced energy management technologies that empower homeowners to make informed decisions for energy consumption and monitor home devices. Z-Wave’s AEC will integrate smart metering, consumer notification, automated load shedding and home controls to enable real-time energy management and to help reduce energy demand, lower utility costs and provide active control over home energy consuming devices. Zensys presents the AEC at the Metering Europe event in Amsterdam (Booth J15) between the 22nd and 24th of September, 2008.

“The Z-Wave Advanced Energy Control Framework is a breakthrough in home energy management that will allow homeowners to actively monitor utility costs and demand response in order to save energy and money while reducing their carbon footprint,” says Mark Walters, chairman of the Z-Wave Alliance. “Some utilities are looking to use smart meters to dynamically adjust billing rates based on energy consumption. With AEC we can notify the homeowner of these changes so they can make informed decisions on how they want to consume energy. With Z-Wave and AEC the power to conserve is in the hands of homeowners, not the utilities.”

Transparency and management reduce energy costs
Most consumers receive only one electricity meter reading per month, providing little insight into their daily energy consumption and habits. With Z-Wave’s AEC, consumers can view their energy consumption anytime and anywhere in order to determine when they are using the most energy, and then can work to reduce overuse. Homeowners can also respond to utility billing structures, such as time-of-use pricing and tariff schedules, to minimize energy usage at peak times.

“With its undisputed strength in interoperability and its range of available products, Z-Wave does not only provide for the simple communication from an electricity meter to a gateway and a wireless display in the home,” says Roar Seeger, CEO of Modstroem, a Danish utility company. “It also enables the control of devices in the home that actually consume the power. Especially this second aspect is essential for Modstroem’s advanced service and key to actually achieving energy reduction without compromising comfort for the consumer.”

Z-Wave’s large selection of interoperable home energy control devices enables AEC solutions for a range of consumer scenarios, from simple energy monitoring with smart meters and home displays, to fully integrated device networks including thermostats, home control panels, gateways, sensors, controlled lighting, window coverings and other electrical devices. All the data is collected through an easy-to-understand central Z-Wave control interface that provides homeowners with the information they need to best manage their energy consumption.

Metering Europe: movement in the utility market
This year, the tenth anniversary of the Metering, Billing/CRM Europe takes place in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Since the European member states have opened their electricity and gas markets to competition, the demand for solutions which enable an efficient use of energy and lower the costs increases rapidly. So the investments in smart metering technologies are on the rise. Against this background Zensys will present its Advanced Energy Control Framework in Amsterdam and explain the benefits of the new solution with regard to energy efficiency and the management of consumption.

Source: Sensor News

Tesla Motors has released the much-awaited upgrade to the gearbox in the all-electric Roadster, and in typical Silicon Valley fashion calls it Powertrain 1.5 — even though it’s a different transmission and so ought to be called v2.0.

Nomenclature aside, the slick one-speed Borg-Warner transmission joins a stouter power inverter and revised engine in a package said to deliver 30 percent more torque and 10 percent more range. That lets the Roadster make good on its promised zero to 60 time of 4.0 seconds while squeezing 244 miles from the battery. “The new setup is superior in almost every way,” says J.B. Straubel, Tesla’s chief technology officer.

Tesla says it’s already putting Powertrain 2.0, er, 1.5, in Roadsters that have made the trip from the factory in Hethel, England to San Carlos, California, for final assembly. So what’s different about Powertrain 1.5, and what happens to the 27 people driving Roadsters with Powertrain 1.0?

The new one-speed transmission weighs 17 pounds less and creates less drag on the motor, increasing efficiency and bumping the car’s range. A revised power inverter puts out 850 amps, up from 650, and the motor had redesigned terminals to reduce resistance. It’s beefier, too, and torque rises from 211 foot-pounds to 280.

Tesla started developing Powertrain 1.5 after realizing the two-speed transmission it planned to use “had many durability, efficiency and cost challenges,” Straubel wrote on the Tesla blog. Eager to start building cars, Tesla slapped an interim one-speed transmission in the Roadster when it fired up the assembly line at the Lotus plant in Hethel, and although early reviews of those cars were positive, the stop-gap tranny significantly cut into its performance. Early adopters got a car that did zero to 60 in 5.7 seconds — about as fast as the Toyota Tundra pickup. Powertrain 1.5 cuts that to the promised 4.0 seconds, putting the Roadster on par with the Porsche 911 GT3.

Tesla’s put 27 Roadsters in driveways since production started March 17, and will retrofit every one with the new drivetrain at no charge beginning next month. Darryl Siry, vice president of sales and marketing, tells us the modular design of the Roadster’s drivetrain makes it a plug-and-play operation. “It’s a four-hour swap,” he says. “It’s not a complicated thing.”

With the drivetrain finally sorted out and the assembly line running smoothly, Tesla’s increased production from four cars a week to 10. That’s expected to double before the end of the year, then double again to 40 a week early in 2009.

“Now that we have a final powertrain design, in a matter of months there will be hundreds of Tesla Roadsters across the country,” says CEO Ze’ev Drori. “We’re heralding nothing less than a new era of the automobile.”

But what about that nomenclature? Siry says Powertrain 1.0 was the internal designation for the air-cooled motor in the Roadster, while Powertrain 2.0 refers to the liquid-cooled motor being developed for the all-electric sedan that was codenamed Whitestar (the Roadster was Blackstar) but is now called Model S.

Glad that’s cleared up.

Photo by Tesla Motors.
source: wired

So you’re a trucker stinging from high fuel prices. You don’t want to back off the hammer and double-nickel in the granny lane to save gas, nor do you want to turn off the AC in the sleeper cab on those hot Texas nights. Well, we’ve got good news for you, Rubber Duck: Peterbilt has demonstrated a big-rig fuel cell that provides the juice to provide your creature comforts when you’re parked, cutting out overnight idling and saving the motion lotion for the Big Slab.

The Pete uses a solid oxide fuel-cell auxiliary power unit (or SOFC APU, an acronym only the Army could love) from Delphi that provides 800 watts of electricity through oxidation rather than combustion. During a test in July, the truckmaker and Delphi found the fuel-cell unit could easily power the “hotel loads” — AC, radio, TV, lights and, of course, the CB) in a Peterbilt 386 (pictured) for ten hours without firing up the engine. In other words, it’s enough to keep you and your dog Fred cool and entertained while you rest up.

The fuel-cell power unit requires a starting temperature of around 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit, but that’s no problem thanks to the truck’s engine. After a typical day’s haul the diesel will effortlessly bring the SOFC APU up to temp and keep all your gadgets — check out the Pete’s sleeper cab below — running on through the night. The idea was discovered by the late Delphi scientist Dr. Jerry Reed and outlined in his Department of Energy brief, “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot.”

For truckers who find themselves beyond the range of “shore power” (somewhere to plug in their traditional APU), the fuel-cell variant is an attractive alternative to idling. Peterbilt’s ComfortClass system uses charged batteries to run climate control systems and promises to reduce annual fuel consumption by eight percent, but it won’t let you listen to The Truckin’ Bozo on XM (though we’re not sure that’s such a bad thing).

Peterbilt promises the fuel cell will run off of nearly anything from natural gas to military logistics fuel, which will come as welcome relief to long-haul truckers sweltering under the growing number of idling restrictions imposed on the brave truckers of Baghdad who don’t need any more reasons to sweat. According to Delphi, the SOFC APU was installed in the Peterbilt 386 because of its already fuel-efficient performance. “It merges conventional Peterbilt styling with leading aerodynamic design and has been recognized as fuel efficient and environmentally friendly by the EPA’s SmartWay program,” according to Delphi. We tried to get a quote from C.W. McCall, but were informed that he’s not a real person.

Photos by Peterbilt.

source: Wired

Hydrogen cars get no respect. A lot of people consider them the stuff of science fiction, a technology as vaporous as the stuff that drives them. But despite some hurdles even Liu Xiang couldn’t clear — creating a fueling infrastructure comes to mind — Uncle Sam and the big automakers love hydrogen cars and are driving across the country in a fleet of them to prove they work.

Even if they’re occasionally hauled on trucks. (more…)

While the air in Beijing, and efforts to improve it, have been a concern for the Olympic organizers and competitors, they could prove a boon for researchers.

Beginning tomorrow, a UC-San Diego professor will be sending unmanned aerial vehicles into the pollution clouds emanating from the city to measure the impacts of the government’s industrial shutdowns and traffic bans on the region surrounding Beijing.

“We have a huge and unprecedented opportunity to observe a large reduction in everyday emissions from a region that’s very industrially active,” said atmospheric scientist V. Ram Ramanathan, who also works with the Scripps Oceanographic Institution.

While it does not appear that Beijing’s plan has reduced particulate matter levels to World Health Organization recommended levels, the attempts still represent a large and unique science experiment. Chinese officials say they’ve reduced industrial activity by as much as 30 percent, although questions persist about the effectiveness of the shutdowns. Independent and government monitoring station data have been mixed since the program was instituted. (more…)

The old joke “Hydrogen is the fuel of tomorrow — and always will be” isn’t keeping Mazda from jumping on the H2 bandwagon and stuffing a dual-fuel rotary under the hood of the next RX-8. They might even dub it the RX-9.

Wankels are sweet engines that really scream at full throttle, but they get lousy fuel economy and aren’t terribly green. In an effort to clean things up a bit, the next-gen production rotary reportedly will be based on the hydrogen/gasoline engine in the RX-8 Hydrogen RE (pictured).

Just make sure you aren’t trying to chase down that ZR-1 under hydrogen power.

Scientists from Ohio State University have created a new material called thallium-doped lead telluride, which has been designed to convert car engine exhaust heat into electricity.

The research team led by Joseph Heremans said the material could also be used to help power generators and heat pumps. The new material is reportedly able to convert the wasted heat into energy without causing pollution, and do so more efficiently than was previously possible.

“The material does all the work. It produces electrical power just like conventional heat engines — steam engines, gas or diesel engines — that are coupled to electrical generators, but it uses electrons as the working fluids instead of water or gases, and makes electricity directly,” Heremans said in a statement on the OSU web site.

Its expected operating environment, between 450° and 950° Fahrenheit, is the normal range of car engines. Just 25 percent of the energy from a gasoline car engine is used to actually move the car, so the discrepancy between necessary energy and wasted energy is substantial.

Published studies previously indicated as much as 60 percent of energy loss in a gasoline engine is because of waste heat that is not disposed of properly.

Although thermoelectric materials used to generate power aren’t revolutionary, the OSU research team has made several small adjustments to make its material more efficient. They were able to double the efficiency rating from 0.71 up to 1.5.

An alloy called sodium-doped lead telluride previously was the most efficient material, which had the 0.71 rating.

The discovery by Heremans at OSU is the latest in a string of events that started after years of research by other universities. Michigan State University researchers who published a quantum mechanics report on thallium and tellurium in 2006 helped OSU better understand what they were dealing with beforehand.

Furthermore, OSU was helped in testing the material from Osaka University and the California Institute of Technology.

Moving forward with their research, Heremans and his team hope to further increase the efficiency rating of the new material.

Source: Beta News