Tescate Industries, Maxwell’s partner, will be providing Vanner Inc. with 460 of Maxwell’s 16-volt BMOD0500 modules. The saud modules are designed to give the power that Vanner’s starter system needed.

The modification of the Chicago Buses was approved early this year. The $1.3 million contract entitles Vanner to purchase and install the company’s StartSentry system into buses handled by the Chicago Transit Authority or CTA. Sources say that 460 CTA buses will undergo the said modification.

The project is a response to the operation difficulties that CTA often encounters during the winter season. Due to the freezing temperature in the cold months, CTA’s bus batteries loose needed voltage. The lost power forces CTA to use an external jump start to start the vehicles. The buses’ engine myst also be left running for an hour before hitting the roads.

Vanner’s StartSentry came as a solution to the CTA buses. With the capability to hold a certain charge of energy, the system will aid in the start-up of vehicles during winter months. The added features of the system will also allow the ultracapacitors to electrostatically save energy.

The 460 s StartSentrys is expected to be installed to CTA buses before the end of May of this year.

The leccy vehicle is actually a modified 3.5 ton Smith Edison Ford Transit that has been handling trash collection for the municipality. The van can be completely charged in eight hours and can run for about 100 miles.

The electric van, running on 40 kWh lithium ion batteries, collects rubbish from around 25 split bins located in central Huddersfield. The garbage van has a top speed of 50 mph.

EIW’s or Energy from Waste Stations has been installed by the community to power up this vehicle. The EIWs convert trash into energy by burning and converting it to electricity. The stations can provide the energy needed by the van to go its route the following day.

The EIWs also push additional power to the National Grid everyday. The extra 10 megawatts are all derived from the burned trash. Today, only one EIW station is capable of docking the garbage collection van for recharging.

In the United States, 17% of the garbage is being burned and converted to electricity. Fifty five per cent are being disposed in landfills while the rest are recovered and recycled.

Some experts are in doubt how environmental friendly is the process at Hudderland since suphur, nitrogen, and carbon compounds are the know byproducts of burning rubbish. But, this green Ford truck is cool, none the less!

When treated, cellulosic biomass can actually produce a mixture of pentose (5 chained carbon) and hexose (6 chained carbon) sugars, as well as glucose, galactose, D-xylose, mannose and L-arabinose. Saccharomyces cerevisiae is typical industrial yeast that offers high production, fast sugar consumption and ethanol tolerance. The only problem is, it cannot ferment pentose sugars.

The lack of helpful microorganisms that can convert the hexoses and pentoses effectively to ethanol is a major hindrance to the cost-efficient production of cellulosic ethanol through the process of fermentation.

Boles and his team had first screened and studied the choromosomal strain and obtained databases. They found out that they could actually clone and express successfully a highly reactive kind of xylose isomerase (XI) from the Clostridium phytofermentans, an anaerobic bacterium inS. cerevisiae. The new strain of XI offers more advantages in the modification of S. cerevisiae, compared to the previous XI’s that they used.

Boles is also the cofounder of the Swiss biofuel company, the Butalco Gmbh. He and his colleagues are now conducting researches on converting biomass to butanol by genetically modifying strains of yeast.

Nature has gifted us with an abundance of sources like wind, water and sunshine, which can be easily harnessed to give us the power we need to drive our cars. While alternative fuels are already being tested and used, more and more car manufacturers are also looking towards solar energy as an alternative to drive cars. Such cars contain a panel of solar cells on their top that uses the light energy of the sun and converts that to electricity that is used to drive the cars.

These solar panels also change the battery of the car and at night when there is no sunlight available, the solar powered cars run on the energy stored in the battery. As long as there is adequate sunshine, the cars run by the solar panels will keep on providing what can easily be said, a free supply of power. It is high time that one checked out on these alternative means of powering their cars.

Another source of energy experimented for sometime is burning of hydrogen. It produces only water and hydrogen can be regenerated from water. On the other hand the fossil fuel produces very harmful gases like carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. If this trial is successful we can have a never ending source of energy.

At the moment hydrogen required for the fuel cells is mainly produced by splitting hydrocarbons like fossil fuels and coal with the help steam. But this causes the release of carbon dioxide as a byproduct. So the best choice left is to split water using electricity produced by wind power or hydro power and use the resultant hydrogen in the fuel cells to run automobiles and other machines. It is cost effective in the sense hydrogen and fuel cells can be transported, while power produced in other ways are to be stored in time consuming battery charging.

(In the photo — a hydrogen Honda and its designer!)

Cars that have diesel engines and even trucks that run on diesel will also run on biodiesel car fuel. There are other alternatives too like converting you car so that it runs directly on vegetable oil.

If you are wondering what biodiesel car fuel is, the answer is that it is not a fuel that is made from petroleum and is manufactured from vegetable oil. When the oil is being refined, alterations are made to the vegetable oil to ensure that it also works as a proper fuel source.

In order to make this possible the manufacturers have to remove the glycerin from the fuel. In normal fuel that one uses every day, glycerin is used to increase the viscosity of the fuel. Unless this glycerin is removed and the viscosity of the fuel not reduced, your car or truck will not be able to make proper use of it. Now that you know about biodiesel car fuel, when are you converting over to it?

Mercedes A-Class Hybrid Car

The technology behind hybrid cars are that they are designed to run on alternative fuels like solar cells or hydrogen gas without emitting any toxic gases in the atmosphere. There are people who ask if these hybrid cars perform as well as their fuel counterparts? If one looks under the bonnet of a hybrid car, they will notice that it has two engines instead of one. One of them runs using electricity and the other uses diesel or petrol. Both these engines work in tandem and give you both better performance and higher mileage at a cheaper cost. You will never be stuck if the fuel finishes. The electric engine will ensure that you reach home.

To answer some of these questions, we must first define the meaning of “alternative fuels”. Simply put, it is the search for fuels other than gas, kerosene and diesel. And while the most altruistic reason for discovering or manufacturing new fuels is the reduction of pollution and smog, and cleaning up our environment, there are many other excellent reasons to change fuels.

• Politically, countries are far better off when they produce their own commodities. In the wake of many wars and political leverage, it does not make sense that most of the world depends on the gas supply of one or two nations. Domestically produced alternative fuels would give countries the opportunity to support themselves and not rely solely on other nations.
• Cheaper pricing is a big reason to forward the agenda of alternative fuels. Gasoline is at an all time high and many families are struggling to make ends meet. The summer has seen a major drop in tourism due to the high gas prices and winter is on the way, which will lead to more hardship when families cannot afford to heat their homes.
• Alternative fuels may provide more fuel efficient vehicles.

Whatever the reason for finding alternate fuels, research and development should be top priority.