Sustainable Brands International, December 9-11, 2008 in Miami Beach, FL.

Join Andrew Winston, co-author of the critically acclaimed "Green to Gold," for a summit of leading innovators who are leveraging sustainability to drive new operating efficiencies, reduce risks and costs, and build stronger ties to shareholders, employees and the communities in which they work.

Welcome to Sustainable Brands International!

Over 100 sustainable brand leaders are already registered and 300 are expected to convene at Sustainable Brands International, December 9-11 in Miami Beach, FL.

What is Sustainable Brands International (SBi)?

At SBi you'll find the antidote to negative world news. A place where change makers gather to share their latest learning and ideas about how to create new business value in today's rapidly changing landscape.

SBi convenes a dynamic mix of big global brands and innovative start ups. Of product designers, sustainability thought leaders and brand communications experts. This mash up people from different market sectors, geographic regions, company sizes and business responsibilities creates one high energy, thought provoking, personally challenging experience that past participants say goes down as among their best conference experiences ever. Its no wonder that past speakers become the first to return as registrants to the next event.

www.sustainablebrandsinternational.com

The Department of Energy has just released the 27th edition of the Transportation Energy Data Book.

New data in this year’s edition include:

• transportation petroleum use by mode;
• ethanol consumption;
• number of vehicles per 1,000 people in different regions of the world for 1996-2006 (China grew from 9.3 to 26.6);
• mpg for trucks as a function of speed;
• characteristics of daily driving;
• percent of housing units with a garage or carport; and more.

The data book, created under the Office of Planning, Budget and Analysis in DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, draws together transportation data from diverse sources under a single, comprehensive document. It is a valuable tool for informing policymakers and analysts about activity in the transportation sector.

The book, available at cta.ornl.gov, is produced by Stacy Davis of Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Center for Transportation Analysis.

Also available is "Fuel Economy" (www.fueleconomy.gov), maintained jointly by DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which offers tips to help you reduce the amount of gas you use.

There are numerous alternative energies that are being developed and even refined for automobiles: natural gas, electric batteries, hydrogen... and we're hearing rumors of a couple new energy sources: salt water, regenerative braking and, more imminently: compressed air.

The head of Nissan was interviewed on CNBC in April, 2008 and he stated that hybrids are the best technology today, but the electric vehicle will be the standard by 2010.

I had a call from one of our readers, however, that pointed out that a new energy is hitting the market in 2008...compressed air. And it's not coming from the US or Japan, but those energetic engineers in India. Actually it was developed based on technology as old as the late 1800s, when compressed air was used in street cars and locomotives. By 1932, compressed air cars were cars were build using compressed air -- both 3-wheel and 4-wheel models. And in 1983, Terry Miller patented a car that ran on compressed air.

Compressed Air

This year, 2008, Tata Motors and Motor Development International (MDI) of Luxembourg have jointly developed the world's first commercially-viable prototype of a compressed air car, named OneCAT.

Tata Motors is a multinational corporation headquartered in Mumbai, India. It is India's largest passenger automobile and commercial vehicle manufacturing company. Part of the Tata Group, it is one of the world's largest manufacturers of commercial vehicles. www.tata.com

MDI Air Car Designers of the car with a compressed air engine. Includes details of the technology and images of the car. theaircar.com

Zero Pollution Motors - Air Car

This is the expected performance of the revolutionary compressed air vehicle that Zero Pollution Motors (ZPM) is introducing to North America. zeropollutionmotors.us

More info at Wikipedia ... with a whole passel of "future automobiles" listed!

NREL is working with Nuclear Filter Technology to develop and commercialize NREL's innovative fiber optic hydrogen sensor technology. This technology provides industry with the early detection of hydrogen in the air, which only takes a small spark to ignite and explode.

NREL's fiber optic hydrogen sensor utilizes a non-ignitable, flexible, thin, glass or plastic, fiber optic strand that transmits light to a thin film material. The material changes color in response to the presence of hydrogen. The CRADA allows NREL and Nuclear Filter Technology to develop a full-scale prototype of this technology, which ultimately will result in commercially available products.

Industries that use or produce hydrogen can apply this technology.

Applications include those for the following industries:

• Petrochemical
• Transportation
• Fuel cell
• Fuel production
• Food processing
• Natural gas
• Nuclear waste

Nuclear Filter Technology is also licensing several NREL inventions related to the fiber optic and thin film materials that sense the presence of hydrogen.

SOURCE: Technology Transfer department of National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Clemson International Center for Automotive Research, has served as a hub and a symbol of the South's emergence over the last two decades as a powerhouse in automotive manufacturing.

A 2007 industry-wide event, part of the Tennessee Valley Corridor Southeast Partnership, was designed to bring together the region's collective transportation research talent to focus on ways to support continued growth of the automotive industry.

The gathering was symbolic of a growing realization that in matters of economic development, the South has learned the importance of teamwork. In the case of transportation, this regional teamwork has resulted in the cooperation of lawmakers, business leaders and research institutions on a broad array of initiatives, from creating new fuels to helping the world's auto manufacturers build lighter, stronger, more energyefficient cars and trucks.

ORNL Leader in Transportation Research

Oak Ridge National Laboratory for years has been the leader in transportation research for the Department of Energy's energy efficiency programs. More recently, the Laboratory has sought to connect to the growing automotive presence in the Southeast. The region is now home to 3,000 automotive suppliers and 10 major automotive assembly plants including Toyota in Kentucky and Mississippi; BMW in South Carolina; Ford in Georgia; Mercedes, Hyundai and Honda in Alabama, as well as Saturn and Nissan—which recently relocated U.S. headquarters to Nashville—in Tennessee.

Universities and ORNL Provide Research for Supply Chain, Sustainable Manufacturing, Heavy Vehicle Research, Power Electronics, Engines and High-Performance Materials

Surrounding these plants is a set of universities that, along with ORNL, represent extensive expertise in supply chain management, sustainable manufacturing, heavy vehicle research, power electronics, engines and high-performance materials. In 2007, ORNL and the University of Tennessee, along with six southern research universities, announced the Automotive Research Alliance, a regional effort to provide southern automakers access to unique research capabilities.

Research capabilities outside automakers' own R&D organizations are crucial to development of new technologies and products, says Tom Bologa, vice president of engineering, United States, for BMW of North America. 

Detroit Center Coordinates ORNL, DOE, DOD and Automotive Suppliers

Although the South's largest research laboratory, ORNL is not restricting automotive research efforts to the Southeast. The Department of Energy recently announced an initiative headquartered at automotive supplier Delphi Automotive's former R&D center in Detroit that pulls together ORNL, DOE, the Department of Defense and a consortium of automotive suppliers. Called USAutoPARTs, the effort will provide both expertise and facilities to second- and third-tier automotive suppliers, most of which cannot afford a program of in-house research.

SOURCE: ORNL overview of automotive alternative energy research

(left) Researchers hike Yellowstone National Park, left, on the hunt for microbes that could potentially be used in bioenergy production.

(right) They analyze the samples back home in the lab

Bioenergy from Microscopic Organisms

Oak Ridge National Laboratory microbiologist Tommy Phelps sees the untapped potential of bioenergy in shelves of bottles and beakers containing microscopic organisms that just might hold the elusive bug or enzyme capable of digesting large quantities of plant matter into ethanol.

Phelps's current batch of microbes, stockpiled in dozens of bottles of silt, rocks and soils, was collected from Yellowstone National Park, where the hot springs that draw millions of summertime visitors also nurture microscopic life in their boiling waters. These bugs, in turn, beckon microbiologists like Phelps, who seek a solution to transform Earth's abundant cellulosic sources into a modern energy supply. Yellowstone's warm waters offer the promise of microbes that can rapidly and efficiently degrade cellulose—the woody, leafy matter that makes up plants. Scientists hope to tap the power of these microbes for industrial-scale consolidated bioprocessing of plants, including trees and switchgrass, the species central to the BioEnergy Science Center's research efforts.

BioEnergy Science Center

The hunt for this cellulosic "super bug" is part of a suite of efforts under way at the BioEnergy Science Center, headquartered at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Since being named one of three $135 million Department of Energy bioenergy research centers, researchers at ORNL and its partner institutions have quickly gotten to work.

DOE's ambitious goal is to replace by 2030 one-third of the nation's transportation fuel with cellulosebased sources. At these centers, researchers are carrying out the targeted, fundamental science needed to bridge the gap between the potential of cellulose-based fuels and their reality.

Current microbes and enzymes are relatively slow at attacking plant matter's complicated and protective structure. Researchers will determine precisely the genes involved in the interaction of the microbes and enzymes to break apart cellulose. Other genes responsible for producing undesirable products, such as acetic acids, will be knocked out in the hope of, ultimately, developing the perfect ethanol-manufacturing microbe. Particular enzymes will be isolated as well and genetically analyzed, with a focus on determining the ideal formula of enzyme or microbe and enzyme to serve as the vehicle for cellulosic ethanol production.

Plants with Good Biofuel Sugars

Microbes, however, are just a piece of the puzzle. Other researchers at the Oak Ridge center are going through similar steps to develop plants with qualities most conducive to processing into biofuel. Similar to the microbial work, researchers will analyze thousands of genetically modified switchgrass and poplar tree samples in order to discover and develop the best varieties for ethanol production. As part of the process, the biofeedstock, together with the microbes and the enzymes, will be joined in a complex matrix of analysis and R&D in order to develop the best biofuel recipe.

On the biomass formation side, the partners will produce samples of plant material genetically altered to modify their cell walls for optimum breakdown into usable sugars. Such altered species might feature lower amounts of lignin—the substance that holds cellulose fibers together—or a reduction in the crystallinity of the cellulose. ArborGen and ORNL will be primarily responsible for creating and studying various altered trees, while scientists from the University of Tennessee, the University of Georgia and the Noble Foundation will take the lead in switchgrass research.

Read more at ORNL

April 7, 2008 -- Researchers have made a breakthrough in the development of "green gasoline," a liquid identical to standard gasoline yet created from sustainable biomass sources like switchgrass and poplar trees.

Reporting in the cover article of the April 7, 2008 issue of Chemistry & Sustainability, Energy & Materials (ChemSusChem), chemical engineer and National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER awardee George Huber of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (UMass) and his graduate students Torren Carlson and Tushar Vispute announced the first direct conversion of plant cellulose into gasoline components.

In the same issue, James Dumesic and colleagues from the University of Wisconsin-Madison announce an integrated process for creating chemical components of jet fuel using a green gasoline approach. While Dumesic's group had previously demonstrated the production of jet-fuel components using separate steps, their current work shows that the steps can be integrated and run sequentially, without complex separation and purification processes between reactors.

While it may be five to 10 years before green gasoline arrives at the pump or finds its way into a fighter jet, these breakthroughs have bypassed significant hurdles to bringing green gasoline biofuels to market.

"It is likely that the future consumer will not even know that they are putting biofuels into their car," said Huber. "Biofuels in the future will most likely be similar in chemical composition to gasoline and diesel fuel used today. The challenge for chemical engineers is to efficiently produce liquid fuels from biomass while fitting into the existing infrastructure today."

For their new approach, the UMass researchers rapidly heated cellulose in the presence of solid catalysts, materials that speed up reactions without sacrificing themselves in the process. They then rapidly cooled the products to create a liquid that contains many of the compounds found in gasoline.

The entire process was completed in under two minutes using relatively moderate amounts of heat. The compounds that formed in that single step, like naphthalene and toluene, make up one fourth of the suite of chemicals found in gasoline. The liquid can be further treated to form the remaining fuel components or can be used "as is" for a high octane gasoline blend.

"Green gasoline is an attractive alternative to bioethanol since it can be used in existing engines and does not incur the 30 percent gas mileage penalty of ethanol-based flex fuel," said John Regalbuto, who directs the Catalysis and Biocatalysis Program at NSF and supported this research.

"In theory it requires much less energy to make than ethanol, giving it a smaller carbon footprint and making it cheaper to produce," Regalbuto said. "Making it from cellulose sources such as switchgrass or poplar trees grown as energy crops, or forest or agricultural residues such as wood chips or corn stover, solves the lifecycle greenhouse gas problem that has recently surfaced with corn ethanol and soy biodiesel."

Beyond academic laboratories, both small businesses and Fortune 500 petroleum refiners are pursuing green gasoline. Companies are designing ways to hybridize their existing refineries to enable petroleum products including fuels, textiles, and plastics to be made from either crude oil or biomass and the military community has shown strong interest in making jet fuel and diesel from the same sources.

"Huber's new process for the direct conversion of cellulose to gasoline aromatics is at the leading edge of the new ‘Green Gasoline' alternate energy paradigm that NSF, along with other federal agencies, is helping to promote," states Regalbuto.

Not only is the method a compact way to treat a great deal of biomass in a short time, Regalbuto emphasized that the process, in principle, does not require any external energy. "In fact, from the extra heat that will be released, you can generate electricity in addition to the biofuel," he said. "There will not be just a small carbon footprint for the process; by recovering heat and generating electricity, there won't be any footprint."

The latest pathways to produce green gasoline, green diesel and green jet fuel are found in a report sponsored by NSF, the Department of Energy and the American Chemical Society entitled "Breaking the Chemical and Engineering Barriers to Lignocellulosic Biofuels: Next Generation Hydrocarbon Biorefineries" released April 1 (http://www.ecs.umass.edu/biofuels/). In the report, Huber and a host of leaders from academia, industry and government present a plan for making green gasoline a practical solution for the impending fuel crisis.

"We are currently working on understanding the chemistry of this process and designing new catalysts and reactors for this single step technique. This fundamental chemical understanding will allow us to design more efficient processes that will accelerate the commercialization of green gasoline," Huber said.

Principal Investigators
James Dumesic, University of Wisconsin-Madison (608) 262-1095 dumesic@cae.wisc.edu
George Huber, University of Massachusetts - Amherst (413) 545-0276 huber@ecs.umass.edu

Madison, Wis.-based Virent Energy Systems states that its BioForming technology, based on research started at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, uses a solid-state catalyst to convert plant sugars into hydrocarbon molecules like those produced at a petroleum refinery.

And the company said the technology can take in a broad menu of feedstocks.

Virent Energy Systems, Inc. will enable the hydrogen economy by eliminating H2 storage and power density barriers from portable power systems ; while utilizing truly renewable

Virent was founded in 2002 by Dr. Randy Cortright and Dr. Jim Dumesic to commercialize the Aqueous Phase Reforming (APR) process, an innovative technology the two invented and patented while at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Although early research focused on generating hydrogen from sugar, as originally published in the journal Nature in 2002, the technology has since further evolved into the BioForming™ process, which enables the production of renewable liquid fuels, fuel gases, and other chemicals.

In 2005, Virent contracted with MG&E, a local Wisconsin utility, to build an integrated BioForming reactor and hydrogen/natural gas fueled generator for electricity production.  The success of this system, which began operating in December 2005 and can deliver up to 10 kW of power, demonstrated the viability of the BioForming process.  This sparked the interest of companies such as Cargill and Honda and ultimately led each to invest in the company in 2006. The production of gasoline via APR confirmed the technology was a new pathway to the production of liquid fuels and chemicals currently made from fossil fuels.

Virent’s BioForming™ process pioneers the commercial production of biofuels and bioproducts which are both sustainable and economical.  This technology can convert a wide roster of feedstocks, including non-food and home grown energy sources, into the variety of fuels and chemicals now made from fossil fuels.

Catalysts have been proven to be the most effective way to produce fuels and petrochemicals and have greater success utilizing cellulosic biomass than fermentation methods. Low energy input and biomass based feedstocks offer near zero CO2 emissions.

www.virent.com

ARB passes new ZEV amendment to produce 65,000 cleaner vehicles by 2012

The California Air Resources Board voted (in March, 2008) to triple the amount of zero emissions vehicles that staff had proposed for automakers to produce from 2012 through 2014, while directing staff to look at overhauling the program to account for climate change benefits.

Staff had proposed to require 2,500 pure zero emission vehicles, which the Board increased to 7,500. Automakers can produce fewer ZEVs, 5,357, if they are long-range fuel cell vehicles or they can opt to satisfy the requirement by manufacturing 12,500 battery electric vehicles with a range of 100 miles.

The Board maintained a second component of the vehicle emissions reduction program that allows the automakers flexibility in their alternative fuel programs by requiring an additional 66,000 plug-in hybrids during that same period. If the automakers produce 25,000 ZEVs, there are no remaining plug-in hybrid requirements.

Additionally, ARB Chairman Mary Nichols directed staff to overhaul the ZEV program for 2015 vehicles to synch up with other Board tailpipe emission programs such as the Pavley regulations addressing greenhouse gas emissions and the low emissions vehicle program.

“Today's decision will lead to more green auto choices for consumers now while keeping the pressure on the automotive engineers to continue fine tuning the technologies that will yield an all electric-drive vehicle fleet for California in the near future,” Nichols said. “We must continue to push for all types of technologies -- fuel cells, electric vehicles and hydrogen powered cars -- as we fight our duel battles against smog and global warming.”

The ZEV Program

Created in 1990, the ZEV program seeks to spur technological advancements in the automobile industry that lead to more clean cars on California’s roadways. The ZEV program is the world’s only enforceable requirement for development and production of zero emissions vehicles. As a direct result of the ZEV program, over 750,000 Californians are currently driving vehicles with near-zero emissions and an extended emissions warranty of 15 years or 150,000 miles. They are 80 percent cleaner than the average 2002 model year car. Today's action will assure many more near-zero and zero emission vehicles on California's roads in the near future.

The Air Resources Board is a department of the California Environmental Protection Agency. ARB's mission is to promote and protect public health, welfare, and ecological resources through effective reduction of air pollutants while recognizing and considering effects on the economy. The ARB oversees all air pollution control efforts in California to attain and maintain health based air quality standards.

Why are livery fleets, the largest class of public vehicles on city streets, comprised mostly of large, inefficient, gas-guzzling beasts? That is changing.
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Eco-friendly taxi and limo services are springing up. More than 300 hybrid taxis have gone into service in New York and San Francisco since late 2005.
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All-hybrid airport car service PlanetTran has West Coast operations   in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose Airports.
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<h2>New Hybrid Choices:  The Mariner for Livery</h2>
New choices are entering the hybrid vehicle market. At the fall 2007 livery industry convention, an environmentally friendly hybrid engine  makes the livery-packaged Mercury Mariner capable of getting 34 miles a gallon in the city, easily triple the mileage of a maxed-out Hummer.
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The Mariner is the first manufacturer-sponsored hybrid made specifically for livery service.
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RESOURCE: <a href="http://www.planettran.com">www.planettran.com</a>
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