Saturday, June 18, 2011

Hydrogen Powered Electric Car to Race at Le Mans

This is simply amazing news in my opinion - the Swiss Green GT company has been invited to race its car at Le Mans. The fact that something that is as radical as a Hydrogen powered car will race in the toughest race in the world is an achievement itself, whether the Green GT wins or not. In recent years, Le Mans racing has become a very interesting form of racing with alternative fuels like diesel - and now hydrogen - being used in cars that compete with gasoline powered racers. Unlike Formula 1 which seems to look more and more like a silly parade with every passing year - I can't recall when I last bothered to even read Formula 1 results whereas, through the 80s and 90s, I was an addict - Le Mans has been working overtime to pit competing technologies against each other in its grueling racing format. At some point, one or another technology will win by demonstrating a clear superiority over others. But in that victory, the whole world will win because this will be a technology that will eventually filter down to the cars that everyone of us drives.

Green GT's website is well worth a visit.

Flying from New York to Paris on Biofuel

A major criticism leveled by Green Groups against air travel has been the amount of fossil fuel aircraft use. This Forbes article talks about a new biofuel developed by Honeywell's UOP division that works in conventional jet aircraft. By not using crude that has been taken out of the ground and by refining the fuel from the output of a non edible plant that grows overground, UOP only makes use of atmospheric carbon that has been absorbed by the Camelina plant. I do not know much about this plant but it does look like there could be a good opportunity for entrepreneurs to grow it in different parts of the world if the price of the biofuel extracted from it proves competitive with conventional aviation fuel.