Viewing entries tagged with 'biofuels'
Posted on 24 July 2008 | 0 Comments
Tags:
Scuderi Group,
Air Hybrid,
Environment,
Biofuels,
Energy Prices,
Germany
By Henning Peitsmeier, July 22, 2008 An idea is electrifying car users: mobility out of a socket. In times of high gasoline prices many car drivers, including commuters and low-income earners, are dreaming of an alternative to the gas-guzzling conventional combustion engine. Who would hold it against them? Since the price of a liter of gasoline has soared to levels above €1.50, calls for plug-in electrical cars have resounded throughout the land. In theory, they not only save the owner money but also the environment – at least if the electricity is generated by wind, sun or nuclear power plants ... Read the full article here.
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Posted on 3 July 2008 | 0 Comments
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Scuderi Group,
Hybrid News,
Air Hybrid,
Environment,
Biofuels,
Energy Prices,
Germany
By Lutz Deyerling VP European Operations, Scuderi Group The overall worldwide automotive (and engine market) is undergoing a major change unlike ever before. This change affects all players in the market, OEM´s, suppliers, new technologies, consumers and investors. There has been shocking news about the US OEM´s every day. Yesterday, for example, for the first time an analyst from Merrill Lynch said that one of the top three automakers could go bankrupt soon. 
Scuderi European Vice President Lutz Deyerling addresses the crowd gathered to view the first model of the Air-Hybrid Engine at the 2008 Engine Expo in Stuttgart, Germany in May. Wednesday’s auto news was a parade of negative earnings reports, mostly based on consumer reaction to rising fuel costs and engine inefficiency. In June, one US OEM lost 18% in sales, another 28%, while yet another big manufacturer went down 36%. Many have serious problems – none of them are able to cut costs fast enough to keep up with the cash drain. (Double digit millions of dollars daily!). This phenomenon is driven by the fact that US drivers are now shifting away from SUV´s and pick-up-trucks and seriously looking for smaller and more fuel efficient vehicles – which almost none of the US OEM´s have in their portfolio. This is a really dangerous scenario and could end in a vicious circle. The Financial Times Germany, who has been running an editorial series called “the future of the automobile” also writes this in a recent article, the last sentence stating: “Maybe in the future they will say, these were the years, where afterwards nothing was as it had been before.” Read the story here. In Germany, a major discussion about electric vehicles and batteries started last week with an article about a study from Professor Dudenhoefer, who heads the well known CAR (Center of Automotive Research) at the University of Gelsenkirchen: The article states: “A huge revolution, the end of gasoline and diesel vehicles”. From 2010 onwards, electric and hybrid vehicles will replace vehicles with internal combustion engines. There have been several reactions on this article – for example also the CEO of Volkswagen, Prof. Winterkorn said: “the future of the automobile is the battery”. The “hype” culminated in a 16 pages article (which also was the top story) in Germany´s Wirtschaftswoche, a highly respected business magazine. But as the article also states, many of these OEMs, suppliers and others are finding themselves having to look “Green” and environmentally friendly, even when they aren’t… And even with all the hype around the electric hybrid vehicle, some companies are strategically separating themselves from that specific technology. Honda Corp., for example, has made that decision. A time of change of this magnitude creates an even bigger opportunity to address the immediate benefits of the air-hybrid engine technology. While we continue to further licensing talks with many of the major OEMs around the world, the first gasoline prototype is on schedule to be completed by the end of the year. There is currently historical interest in the Scuderi Air-Hybrid Engine, which would give OEMs tremendous relief in several areas:
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Posted on 2 January 2008 | 0 Comments
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Hybrid News,
Biofuels
Associated Press, January 2, 2008
NEW YORK — Crude oil prices soared to $100 a barrel Wednesday for the first time, reaching that milestone amid an unshakeable view that global demand for oil and petroleum products will outstrip supplies.
Surging economies in China and India fed by oil and gasoline have sent prices soaring over the past year, while tensions in oil producing nations like Nigeria and Iran have increasingly made investors nervous and invited speculators to drive prices even higher.
Violence in Nigeria helped give crude the final push over $100. Bands of armed men invaded Port Harcourt, the center of Nigeria's oil industry Tuesday, attacking two police stations and raiding the lobby of a major hotel. Word that several Mexican oil export ports were closed due to rough weather added to the gains, as did a report that OPEC may not be able to meet its share of global oil demand by 2024.
Light, sweet crude for January delivery rose $4.02 to $100 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, according to Brenda Guzman, a Nymex spokeswoman, before slipping back to $99.27.
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Posted on 27 December 2007 | 0 Comments
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Hybrid News,
Environment,
Biofuels
By F. Noel Perry
Article Launched: 12/26/2007 01:37:26 AM PST
Despite the unanimous recommendation of legal and technical staff at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Administrator Stephen Johnson has denied California's request for a waiver to implement its "cleaner cars" law of 2002.
This misguided decision not only fails to recognize how implementing this innovative policy would dramatically reduce greenhouse gases in California, it also fails to take into account how adopting this standard would stimulate technology innovation that would help create a zero-emission-vehicle industry in our state.
According to the Congressional Research Service, "California has served as a laboratory for demonstrating cutting-edge emission-control technologies, which once tested there, are adopted in a similar fashion at the national level."
From 1947, when California established the Los Angeles Air Control District - the first air pollution agency in the United States - to the passage of our Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32) in 2006, California has been a national leader in policy innovation to address critical environmental and energy needs. As a result of appliance and building standards and other policy reforms to promote energy efficiency - which were first passed in California and later adopted by the federal government - Californians saved $56 billion on energy from 1977 to 2003. And they are expected to save an additional $23 billion by 2013 - billions of dollars consumers spend to grow our economy.
Read the whole article on mercurynews.com.
F. NOEL PERRY is founder and president of Next 10, a non-profit, non-partisan organization based in Palo Alto that addresses the challenges facing California over the next decade and beyond. He wrote this article for the Mercury News.
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Posted on 17 December 2007 | 0 Comments
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Hybrid News,
Environment,
Biofuels
FRANKFURT, Dec 12 (Reuters) - European carmakers could be fined billions of euros in penalties a year for failing to meet EU pollution limits, German newspapers reported, citing draft proposals by the European Commission.
Brussels may charge 95 euros per gram and per car for excess carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) and Financial Times Deutschland (FTD) said in summaries of articles to be published on Thursday.
The FAZ said the level was seen as very likely in Brussels where the European Union executive is due to adopt regulations on Dec. 19 on how to enforce an average limit of 120 grams of CO2 per km by 2012 -- part of the bloc's ambitious strategy to combat climate change.
The decision will affect Europe's biggest carmakers such as Volkswagen, Daimler, BMW, Renault, PSA Peugeot Citroen and Fiat.
Read the whole Reuters story.
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Posted on 9 November 2007 | 0 Comments
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Scuderi Group,
Hybrid News,
Environment,
Biofuels
California on Thursday said it was suing the United States government to secure approval for the state's tough new proposals aimed at slashing vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.
At a news conference in the state capital Sacramento, Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Edmund Brown said the lawsuit had been filed over the failure of the US Environmental Protection Agency to greenlight California's standards.
California passed legislation in 2002 requiring automakers to reduce vehicle emissions 30 percent by 2016. As many as 16 other US states have reportedly indicated they will adopt California's emissions levels.
However, for the law to take effect, California requires approval with a waiver from the EPA, which has so far not been forthcoming, despite a request having been filed in December 2005.
"Despite the mounting dangers of global warming, the EPA has delayed and ignored California's right to impose stricter environmental standards," Brown told reporters on Thursday.
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Posted on 24 October 2007 | 0 Comments
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Scuderi Group,
Hybrid News,
Air Hybrid,
Environment,
Biofuels
Move Over Corncobs, These Guys Run on Air
By GEORGE P. BLUMBERG, The New York Times
Published: October 24, 2007
IN the push to free the auto industry from its dependence on oil, all kinds of alternatives are being tried. Consider now the refreshing concept of cars that run on air.
The idea sounds simple: compress air and release it to operate a piston engine. But the execution is difficult, and in one form or another it has occupied engineers since the 19th century ...
... The Scuderi Group, in West Springfield, Mass., has a hybrid engine design that compresses air and burns petroleum fuel in separate cylinders and uses some compressed air to extend the petroleum engine.
Sal Scuderi, president of the company, said that this "split cycle" design “eliminates traditional combustion chambers, and splits pistons into those pulling air in and compressing it, and those burning fuel and exhausting it." ...
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Posted on 12 October 2007 | 0 Comments
Tags:
Environment,
Biofuels
The estimated cost to taxpayers of a flagship Government policy for promoting biofuels has almost doubled while the forecast carbon savings it will deliver have been cut, it has emerged.
The predicted cost of the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) has risen by 87% from £203 to £380 per tonne of carbon emissions saved.
Meanwhile, estimated carbon savings are down from one million tonnes a year to 700,000-800,000 tonnes.
The RTFO is intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transport industry by increasing use of biofuels.
Read more on The Guardian website.
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Posted on 21 September 2007 | 0 Comments
Tags:
Environment,
Biofuels
Growing and burning many biofuels may actually raise rather than lower greenhouse gas emissions, a new study led by Nobel prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen has shown. The findings come in the wake of a recent OECD report, which warned nations not to rush headlong into growing energy crops because they cause food shortages and damage biodiversity.
Crutzen and colleagues have calculated that growing some of the most commonly used biofuel crops releases around twice the amount of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O) than previously thought - wiping out any benefits from not using fossil fuels and, worse, probably contributing to global warming. The work appears in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics and is currently subject to open review.
'The significance of it is that the supposed benefits of biofuel are even more disputable than had been thought hitherto,' Keith Smith, a co-author on the paper from the University of Edinburgh, told Chemistry World. 'What we are saying is that [growing many biofuels] is probably of no benefit and in fact is actually making the climate issue worse.'
Read the rest of the article on RSC.org.
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