The year 2015 is the deadline that a number of automakers have set for themselves to introduce commercially viable fuel cell cars. The leaders in this effort are Daimler, Hyundai, Honda and Toyota, with GM continuing to push forward as well. While 2015 may seem a long way off – and indeed battery and plug-in hybrid cars will have had several years out in the commercial market in four years – key milestones must be achieved well in advance for this to happen. Automakers will need to lock down the designs for these cars by around 2013, which means they have little time to validate, tweak, and importantly, bring down the costs of their final designs.

Automakers have already demonstrated that they can build fuel cell cars that look good and work well. The biggest remaining challenge is the cost of the vehicles. As I discussed in my Fuel Cell Vehicle report last year, the key costs that must come down are those for the fuel cell stack, the fuel cell system balance of plant (the components surrounding the fuel cell stack), and the on-board storage tanks. The stacks, because of their platinum loading, tend to receive a lot of attention, and indeed are a key area for the automakers’ development dollars, but the tanks are also a critical piece.

The auto industry has arrived at a consensus on the need for compressed hydrogen stored in 700-bar tanks, not the 350-bar tanks that were used on previous generations of fuel cell vehicles (FCVs). Since range is one of the key drivers for FCV development, this high pressure storage is critical to ensure fuel cell cars achieve ranges that are comparable to gas cars. But these 700-bar tanks are expensive and add weight. To address these issues, the U.S. Department of Energy has just announced a $7 million investment into R&D on advanced storage tank technologies. This includes R&D on carbon fiber composite tanks as well as some “novel” materials for hydrogen storage. The projects are being carried out by US national labs, universities and industry. Details of the program are at DOE’s website.

Realistically, the novel material research is not on a trajectory to be ready for cars introduced in 2015, but it could produce new techniques that would be adopted by industry beyond that. Breakthroughs in composite technology could see a faster transition to real-world application. For now, it looks like conventional 700-bar hydrogen tanks will remain the primary storage option for the early market introduction of fuel cell cars.

Article by Lisa Jerram, appearing courtesy the Matter Network.

Related posts:

• New Fuel Economy Standard Agreed to by White House, Automakers
• Mercedes-Benz’s New Fuel Cell Leasing Program to Bring The F-Cell to the US
• Why Energy Storage is Real
• New Gas-Powered Mazda Will Get More than 70 Miles Per Gallon
• New Nissan System Charges Electric Cars with Solar Power

Since childhood, Lynn Gantt has had a deep seeded passion for cars and the mechanics that drive them. The Virginia native spent his weekends rebuilding antique tractors with his dad to race at tractor pulls across the state, and now the Virginia Tech graduate student is the proud team co-leader of Virginia Tech’s EcoCAR Challenge team—the winners of the three-year long competition, as announced this week at an awards ceremony in Washington, DC.

Lynn grew up around mechanics and engineering, which is why he says the Mechanical Engineering undergrad and graduate programs at Virginia Tech were a perfect fit for him. In addition to the family hobby of rebuilding antique tractors, Lynn’s dad runs a small electrical contracting business (Swing Electrical Company) out of Newport News, VA, and his older brother is an auto mechanic at a car dealership. “Clearly this program was just a natural fit for me,” he says.

Lynn has been a member of the Hybrid Electric Vehicle Team of Virginia Tech (HEVT) for all three years of the EcoCAR Challenge, which began his senior year in Fall 2008. As the only remaining original Virginia Tech participant, Lynn has spent the last three years working with teams of 25 student volunteers modifying the team’s 2009 Saturn Vue—which the team aptly named the VT-REX (for Virginia Tech – Range Extended Crossover) . The car was donated to each of the 16 teams by General Motors, who partnered with Department of Energy to sponsor the competition and its predecessor, Challenge X.

Last week, his team got to put their finely tuned creation to the test at General Motors’ Proving Grounds in Milford, Michigan, and the results were stunning. In addition to achieving an average of 81.9 miles per gallon gasoline equivalent (70 percent higher than the stock Saturn Vue), the VT-REX demonstrated a braking distance of 132.74 feet, which handily beats the stock vehicle’s 141.66 feet braking distance. Virginia Tech’s vehicle impressed throughout the process, consistently setting the standard as it underwent many of the same technical and safety challenges conducted on many of GM’s production vehicles—a performance that set them apart from the pack and ultimately led to them becoming the winners of the inaugural EcoCAR Challenge.

Lynn’s connection to General Motors isn’t ending with the competition though. Instead, he and a several other team members are taking their talents to Michigan this summer, where they will become some of General Motor’s newest employees. More specifically, Lynn will be working in the company’s Energy Center, where he says he will likely be focusing on improving fuel economy and electric consumption—both of which connect to his graduate thesis project, which focuses on predicting electric range in vehicles.

Other Virginia Tech students will work with Bosch, and Lynn says that several undergrads from the team have secured summer internships with General Electric.

As Lynn prepares to start the next chapter in his journey, he offered some words of wisdom to other young people who might be interested in joining the next generation of auto engineers: “Try and learn as much as you can about automobiles. The amount of technology in cars today is unbelievable, and it takes a lot to get cars like these up and running. Start early and learn as much as you can.” As for the EcoCAR Competition, Lynn says that the experience is one that students should get involved in. “We spend a lot of time working with industry leading technology that’s otherwise not available to college students.”

The Department of Energy is proud to team up with industry leaders like GM to bring innovators like Lynn to the forefront of the clean energy jobs movement.

For more information about the EcoCAR Challenge finalists, visit the EcoCAR Challenge website.

Related posts:

• General Motors and Oahu Shake Hands in the Name of Green Transportation
• Chevy Volt Attracting Chevrolet Newbies
• EV Consultants Speak on the Ford Focus Electric and the Nissan LEAF
• GM’s Chevrolet Volt — Catching Up With Toyota’s Prius & Nissan’s Leaf
• Energy for the War Fighter: The Department of Defense Operational Energy Strategy

Less than a month after emerging from bankruptcy and relaunching with a $20 billion IPO, GM (NYSE: GM) is continuing to position itself as a company that is lean, green and efficient. Concurrent with this week’s announcement that the company had shipped its first Chevy Volt, GM announced it now has 76 landfill-free facilities, meeting its commitment to convert half of its plants to be landfill-free by the end of 2010. In 2010 alone, GM has recycled or reused 2.5 million tons of waste materials at its plants worldwide, eliminating 8.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions through this annual recycling rate.

On average, more than 97 percent of waste materials from GM’s zero-landfill plants are recycled or reused and less than 3 percent is converted to energy at waste-to-energy facilities, replacing fossil fuels. But according to John Bradburn, manager of GM’s waste-reduction efforts, the company is still looking for ways to increase diversion rates. I had a chance to speak with Mr. Bradburn yesterday about the company’s recycling and waste achievements thus far and its plans going forward.

“It’s all about being creative, lean and rethinking traditional manufacturing processes,” said Bradburn. Company-wide, GM is diverting 90 percent of its waste materials from landfills but materials like like paint sludges, grinding swarf, cardboard related films and packages have traditionally posed problems for achieving higher diversion rates.

“It gets a bit tricky sometimes finding end uses for some of these materials,” Bradburn said.

“Paint sludges have been a challenge over the years,” said Bradburn, explaining that the company is now using plastic pallets that are made with 20-25% paint sludge to ship engines and engine parts internally. “I think the plastic pallet has a great future, but what I think we need to do is look at low-end plastics and post-consumer related plastics, as long as we can do it with health and safety in mind.”

Other closed-loop systems GM has designed to transform material byproducts from manufacturing and business operations into new-vehicle components and plant supplies include:

* Cardboard shipping materials from the GM Marion Stamping and Fort Wayne Assembly plants are recycled into sound-absorber material in the Buick Lacrosse’s headliner.
* Plastic caps and shipping aids from the Fort Wayne facility are converted into radiator shrouds for the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups built at the plant.
* Tires from vehicle performance testing at Milford Proving Ground are shredded and used in the manufacturing of air and water baffles for a variety of GM vehicles.

The recycling efforts not only make good environmental sense, they make good business sense too. GM has generated more than $2.5 billion in revenue since 2007 through its various recycling activities. “The demand for landfill free that is now resonating throughout the globe will actually create jobs and spur innovative ways to reuse materials,” Bradburn said.

Globally, “Each region does fairly well,” Bradburn said, noting that some “infrastructure and recycling markets are underdeveloped.”

“We have a little bit of work to do in South America. Asia does really well as does Europe,” he said.

GM’s first facility to achieve landfill-free status was an engine plant in Flint, Mich., in 2005, just a year after Subaru, became the first car maker to go zero-landfill with its “clean plant” in Lafayette, Indiana.

Article by Timothy B. Hurst, appearing courtesy Earth & Industry.

Related posts:

• The Secret to Green Business Success: YOU, the Consumer.
• Low-Cost Solar Array Developed for Residential Installation
• Electric Vehicles 101: Evolution of an Industry
• Top 3 Resume Examples on How to Highlight Key Accomplishments
• EPA Provides More Detail on Green Building Toolkit

Just as your mileage varies by where and how you drive, so might the performance of the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid’s batteries.

The batteries in the GM vehicle due out in a year (November 2010) will have at least 10 years of life, according to company representatives who briefed the media on Tuesday. But vehicle owners who live in temperate climates are likely to see their batteries last much longer.

According to Andrew Farah, Volt chief engineer, after many months of tweaking battery cells (provided by supplier LG Chem) to optimize performance and lifespan, the lithium ion manganese spinel chemistry has been finalized. While customers will be guaranteed 10 years of satisfactory battery performance, Volt owners in Arizona or Michigan may get considerably less out of their batteries in the long run than someone who lives in more temperate areas, such as the Pacific Northwest or Bay Area.

“10 years is the target life, but depending on where you live, you could see significantly more than that,” said Farrah. “In more benign conditions — if you do more city driving — and if you are in a more temperate area, the battery would last significantly longer.”

When exposed to extremely high temperatures for extended periods, some lithium ion batteries (such as the chemistry GM chose) will lose storage capacity. So parking an electric vehicle in desert heat for hours at a time would slowly reduce the amount of energy that can be stored, which eventually translates to fewer miles driving in between charges. “Local weather is important,” said Farrah.

GM will be very careful in rolling out these first of their kind production vehicles so that they can monitor vehicle performance and expectations. Battery suppliers whose products give any indication of underperforming may find themselves losing customers. The automotive OEMs are likely to multisource their battery contracts so that they could switch suppliers as needed.

GM has also signed off on the charging equipment that will come with the vehicle. The charge unit is recommended for ground fault protection (GFP) to prevent vehicle owners from getting shocked in places where moisture may be present.

A strong negative reaction by consumers to any model could jeopardize demand across the board for plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles. Automakers will proceed with caution, and may delay product launches if any uncertainty about reliability or safety presents itself in final testing.

The company has assembled 300 battery packs so far and has tested them without any cell failures, according to the company. GM will start taking delivery of the production cells in the beginning of 2010 and is expected to ship its first Volts by the end of the year.

Article appearing courtesy of Matter Network

Related posts:

• GM’s Chevrolet Volt — Catching Up With Toyota’s Prius & Nissan’s Leaf
• Chevy Volt Attracting Chevrolet Newbies
• LA Auto Show Crowns 2011 Green Car of the Year
• EPA Produces MPG-e Ratings for Plug-in Hybrids
• Prius Plug-in Versus Volt: Which Costs Less to Drive?

By all accounts the cash for clunkers incentive program has exceeded all expectations in both volume of sales, as well as answering skeptics by getting fuel inefficient vehicles off the road.

The new vehicles being purchased average nearly 10 mpg higher, saving nearly 4 million barrels of oil per year and eliminating the production of tons of greenhouse gases.

More importantly, the program and its surrounding attention seems to have driven consumers towards hybrids and fuel efficient vehicles even more than a 50 cent spike in the price of gasoline. According to Brian Benstock, the VP and GM of Paragon Honda and Acura, the program is also introducing new customers to imports. Benstock said the program has reversed the ratio of domestic/import trade-ins at his dealership. Previously about 70 percent of his customers were trading one import (mostly Hondas) for another. Now it’s the opposite: 70 percent of people walking in the door are swapping American made autos for Hondas.

The simple reason for this switch — no Hondas qualify as clunkers under the program, so customers now Benstock’s talking to customers who previously bought American SUVs and pickups. He said the Honda Civic (37 percent of sales) is the hottest seller, followed by the Accord, and then the Insight hybrid. Paragon ran out of Civic Hybrids a few weeks ago, so for now his sales people are putting people in standard Civics by touting its fuel efficiency and adding incentives. He expects to have more Civic Hybrids by the end of the month.

Sales overall are nearly back to “pre-recession” levels Benstock says, with just as many additional customers who aren’t getting the cash-back as who are. He admits that this stimulus has “done exactly what it was supposed to do — stimulate sales,” but that at some point auto makers have to take over in generating sales on their own.

Ford and GM have also seen a strong increase in sales, while the impact at Chrysler has been more modes.

The Senate will likely push through another $2 billion to extend funding for the program. Benstock says the “right” vehicles are being driven off the road through the program. Most of the vehicles are older SUVs, minivans and trucks. “They’re junk.”

American consumers have proven that with the right incentives — monetary in nature — they’re willing to buy more fuel efficient vehicles. The lesson for automakers (especially Detroit) is that with Congress and gas prices leading the way, the shift to fuel efficiency will continue.

This article originally appeared on Matter Network.

Related posts:

• Cash for Clunkers Omits Ethanol Option & Downside of Recycling
• Fuel Economy: How Traditional Car Models Compete With Hybrid Vehicles
• Auto Industry May be Key to Renewables
• EPA Produces MPG-e Ratings for Plug-in Hybrids
• Toyota Prius: A Hybrid for Every Humor

If you haven’t heard about GRID Alternatives yet, you probably missed the fundraiser CleanTechies organized for this fabulous non-profit in March. The party was a lot of fun, and we raised over $4,000 for GRID Alternatives that evening. Now, there’s another fundraiser coming up that – and it promises to be another exciting party: There will be dozens of electric vehicles available for viewing and even test drives – including the Tesla Roadster, futuristic prototypes displayed by Stanford and PG&E, plug-in hybrid conversions, motorcycles, scooters, neighborhood electric vehicles and much more. Industry experts will be speaking about current trends in electric-powered transportation, such as:

Josh Becker, General Partner, New Cycle Capital
Sherry Boschert, Co-Founder and Board Member, Plug In America
Anup Jacob, Partner, Virgin Green Fund
John Suh, Staff Researcher, GM Advanced Technology Silicon Valley
Saul Zambrano, Director, PG&E Clean Air Transportation Program

The event is taking place at Google’s solar-powered carport at their campus in Mountain View, and there will be plenty of food and drinks. If you want to learn about plug-in vehicles while raising money to bring renewable energy to low-income families, I’d recommend you purchase your ticket now (at the bottom of this page). Tickets must be purchased in advance – space is limited and the organizers expect this event to sell out.

Sunday, May 31, 2009
GRID Alternatives presents: Plug In To Grid Party
When: 1:00 – 4:00 pm
Where: Google’s Solar-Powered Carport, Mountain View, CA (exact address to be given upon rsvp)

This promises to be a great networking event where you can mingle with the who’s who of solar energy and clean cars. All proceeds benefit the non-profit GRID Alternatives and their work to bring solar energy to low income families. Since 2004, GRID Alternatives has been bringing solar electric systems to low-income families throughout Northern and Southern California. They have also trained over 2,030 community volunteers and job trainees on solar electric installation and provided them with opportunities to gain hands-on experience with real-world solar projects.

CleanTechies is proud to be among the Contributors, Supporters, Board and Host Committee of this event. We hope to see you there!

If you can’t make it to the event and would like to support GRID Alternatives, donate now.

Check out the CleanTechies Calendar for more events!

Related posts:

• Tesla Promises an Electric SUV Model After Their Sedan Hits Markets
• Officially Official: Tesla and Toyota Plug in at NUMMI
• Tesla’s new competitor – and they are bankrupt!
• Tesla Skyrockets in Debut
• Toyota Benefits From Relationship With Tesla

I hope that by now it is widely understood, at least by this audience, that the future of Clean Technologies is strong. In case you were still wondering why… I would like to pick out a few headlines from the front page of yesterday’s Wall Street Journal.

Oil Industry Braces for Drop in US Thirst for Gasoline

Shell Said it is Shutting Flow

GM’s Bankruptcy likely to be challenged

Car-Battery Maker A123 is expected to announce $69M Raise

Snipers Kill Pirates, Save Captain

China Pledges $25Bn to SE Asia Economies

Social Responsible Funds still drawing investor Dollars

Asian Shares Spike

Oil Industry Braces for Drop in US Thirst for Gasoline

Sure the economy is to blame, but part of that brace (and you heard it here about 3 months ago first) is that capacity will be taken off line, investment in new oil fields will continue to dry up to meet demand given depressed prices.  Think for a moment or two (if it isn’t clear) what will happen once demand comes back and supply is constrained?  Yeah, that will make biofuels sexy again… and PHEVs.

Shell Said it is Shutting Flow on a Pipeline

Allegedly, it is precautionary… Ironic… no?

GM’s Bankruptcy likely to be challenged

Shareholders are weary that they’ll get “steam-rolled” – I’m worried that tax payers and the millions that GM has supported directly and indirectly will get steam-rolled for their consistent failure to meet clear environmental demands by neglecting to look strategically beyond a quarter-by-quarter. One of their few salable assets… the Volt program.

Car-Battery Maker A123 is expected to announce $69M Raise

Wouldn’t that have been a smart investment for GM a few years ago? (Full disclosure – they kind of did, but not heavily enough!)

Snipers Kill Pirates, Save Captain

How do you think Oil gets around the world?  Makes sense to try and source your energy from a stable (and local) source.

China Pledges $25Bn to SE Asia Economies (Infrastructure funds)

This is an investment in relationships and more. China has been investing in UHV transmission lines for years (conducive to intermittent renewables) – they understand that unbridled growth without accounting for the environment has real economic impact, and will likely apply that experience in their SEA investments.

Social Responsible Funds still drawing investor Dollars

These funds typically look beyond quarter-by-quarter growth, which stimulates developing lasting value propositions.  People have seen the impact of chasing the quick buck and have had enough of Wall Street’s typical modus operandi shenanigans.

Asian Shares Spike

This implied faith in Asia’s growth highlights a point made earlier… China and India are increasingly participating in the Solar and Wind Supply chains and actively developing their local market demand.  They have strict quotas for local sourcing, they recognize the opportunities in CO2 projects, and they are able to maximize revenues from renewable energy projects because their grid is so dirty (1 Tonne/MWh).

Sure, I’m likely preaching to the choir given the URL… but the WSJ is preaching to the whole world, and if you read between the lines, it is pretty clear that the satus quo is rapidly becoming more sustainable. You might want to get your organization rolling in that direction – or change organizations to find a place that is.

Related posts:

• New Sheriff in Town: DOE Enforces Energy Conservation Standards
• Sun Shines on California in Global Cleantech 100 list – For Now
• Challenges to Wine-making in a Warming World
• Increase in Capital Spending: What does it Mean to Business Sustainability?
• PV Production Follows Policy In Illinois