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First Ever Hydrogen Vehicle 'Cross-Country' Road Trip Had a Lot of Help
Posted by Jack Loftus at 12:45 PM on August 25, 2008
I'm all for hydrogen--or any alternative fuel source for that matter (Shai Agassi, my man, let's get cooking already!)--but if you're going to heavily promote your cross-country trek as the "first ever" for hydrogen-powered vehicles, at least make sure large, 1,000-mile stretches of it did not involve having the vehicles carried along on flatbed trucks. This was the case today as the "Hydrogen Road Tour '08" wrapped up in Los Angeles after its 60-strong vehicle fleet entered the Los Angeles Coliseum. From Rolla, Missouri, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, the caravan was carried on the back of carbon-belching flat bed tractor trailer trucks. Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of an alternative fuel road trip right then and there?
The USAF keeps pushing forward the race towards cleaner skies--and leaner warmachine and potential global mayhem costs--moving from pure oil-derived fuel to a mixture between oil and synthetic fuel. The new benchmark is not a B1 bomber, 
I'm all for exploring new technologies that help us save gas, but I think Nissan has gone a little too far with their "Eco Pedal." This new technology calculates the most fuel efficient rate of acceleration and then fights back against the driver's foot when it feels that rate has been exceeded. Nissan claims that the system can improve fuel efficiency by as much as 10 percent, which is why they plan on implementing it into their cars next year. As asinine and unsafe as all of this sounds, at least Nissan had the good sense to implement an on / off switch. [
Pumping gas into a diesel engine, or vice versa, is a big no-no that may well screw up your engine. We all know that, don't we? But for those, uh, "fuel-type challenged" people out there that get it wrong, there's this new Fuel Checker gizmo. You install it inside your filler flap, and touch the pump nozzle to it before filling up: it'll check the type and flash green for go, and red for no. No idea how it works, but it comes in gasoline or diesel versions. Or you could, you know... read the label on the pump and double check the colour of the nozzle you're holding, and save yourself US$40. 
If you think 
PLX Kiwi, as seen above, is a plug-in device that analyses how you drive and teaches you how to do it in the most gas-efficient way possible. Although you could easily accomplish the same thing by yourself after reading some tips online--Kiwi says you get about 20-33% improvement in your fuel efficiency--it's easier to have something always there reminding you to not gas so hard or drive so fast or brake so much. There's also "challenges" that teach you how to do this, which could be a fun distraction when you're driving along a long stretch of highway. On the other hand, the Kiwi has a MSRP of US$299, which takes a bit of savings to earn back. [
OK, OK, so the weed in question is actually the jatropha plant, a weed indigenous to India and Africa. But still! Air New Zealand is planning to fill one of the four engines of a 747 with the weed and the remaining three engines with normal jet fuel to test the potential of using jatropha as a biofuel.
The concept has been around for a while, but Origo Industries is planning on being the first company to release a CO2 recycling system that turns your car emissions into fuel. The unit captures CO2 from your car exhaust and stores it until it can be recycled in a home unit that uses algae to produce bio-oil. According to the company, the system could produce as much as 2,500 litres of free fuel per year--which sounds too good to be true. We shall find out soon enough as Origo is scheduled to unveil the technology for the first time at this year's Green-Car-Guide Live! in the UK starting on June 12th. [
A Shell station on Santa Monica Boulevard will begin dispensing hydrogen fuel later this month as part of a research program run by the US Department of Energy in conjunction with GM. The station will be followed in the next few months by other stations in the LA area in an effort to build the mini networks necessary to jump-start the production and adoption of hydrogen-powered vehicles. Shell's hydrogen is created on-site with an electrolyzer, but all parties agree that this is only a short-term solution. 
GM lugged 17 environmentally friendly cars to New York—fittingly, to Tavern on the Green. The rain-soaked occasion was a display of Challenge X contenders, nearly identical 2005 Chevy Equinoxes modded by teams from schools across the US and Canada to be environmentally friendly, fuel efficient and/or low in emissions. University of Waterloo's hydrogen powered, zero-emissions, electric SUV earned the most awe from the crowd for its ambitious yet completely safe, student-built fuel-cell power plant. 
