1.
Port of Long Beach Retrofitting Old Tugboats
02/09/2010 19:25

After debuting the world\'s first hybrid tugboat in 2009, the Port of Long Beach is partnering again with Foss Maritime Company to retrofit an existing tugboat with hybrid technology.

The ship called the Campbell Foss is a conventional dolphin tugboat assisting ships in the San Pedro Bay. It will be fitted with motor generators, batteries and control systems by Foss at one of their shipyards. The retrofit should cut 1,340 tons of CO2 emissions and save 100,000 gallons of fuel per year. Foss and the Port plan to introduce more hybrid tugs over the coming years and see more retrofits in the future.

The Port of Long Beach received a $1 million grant from the California Air Resources Board for the retrofit project.

via Press Release
2.
Where\'s My Air Car!?
01/09/2010 22:57

It sounds like a good idea: Use electricity to compress air, stuff it in a tank and use the power expelled by the air\'s release to power a vehicle. Seems like a good idea, certainly a lot easier to understand than nano-constructed cathodes on a lithium ion cell. And several companies have been actively attempting to build cars powered by conpressed air for quite some time. We at EcoGeek have been excited about them. The two biggest of these companies are MDI, a French company and Tata Motors, India\'s largest car company.

But I have bad news. Today, here at EcoGeek, we are declaring the air car dead. It\'s a question of physics, every conversion from one type of energy to another decreases efficiency. With battery electric vehicles, energy is converted into electricity and electricity is converted to motion. With air cars, energy is converted into electricity, electricity into compressed air and then compressed air into motion. Because of this, compressed air cars will always be less efficient than electric vehicles.
Even more problematic, no air car has ever been developed that can reach highway speeds and no air car has even been demonstrated to have a range of more than 10 kilometers. Promises were made, and with the entrance of Tata Motors to the fray, we thought there might be some truth to the claims.
But Tata\'s goal of a 2008 release of an air car has, obviously, not been met. In 2009, Tata stated that the short range of the cars and issues with keeping them from freezing up (when compressed air is decompressed, temperatures drop dramatically) were proving them impractical.

So, I\'m sorry my friends, we\'re all going to have to be happy with the much more technologically confusing (though also much more efficient) battery electric vehicles. The good news is, with the Leaf and the Volt already hitting the road, that\'s one technology that definitely isn\'t vaporware.

More on the disadvantages of air cars.
3.
Color Filter Could Boost LCD Efficiency by 400%
01/09/2010 19:29

Researchers at the University of Michigan have created a color filter that could boost the efficiency of LCDs, the power hog of all your gadgets, by more than 400 percent, and no, I didn\'t add an extra zero there.

The researchers made an optical film that colors and polarizes the light that passes through an LCD, taking the place of the several layers of optical devices that typically serve the same function in an LCD. Those multiple layers give rise to inefficiencies: the best LCDs out today only emit eight percent of the light their backlights produce. The researchers found that the film allowed 36 percent of the light to make it through - a huge increase.

The color filter is made up of three ultra-thin layers -- two layers of aluminum enclosing a layer of insulating material -- and it only measures 200 nanometers thick. The filter is etched with slits that produce different colors when illuminated by the backlight. The slits are matched in scale to the wavelength of visible light and their length and distance apart determine the color produced.

This grating pattern is where the efficiency boost comes in. In current LCDs, a polarizing filter absorbs half the light (the part with the wrong polarization). The grating on the new filter doesn\'t absorb the light with the wrong polarization, it instead reflects it back towards a mirror that flips some of its polarization, letting more light pass through the filter.

Researchers are trying to improve the efficiency further and are coming up with ways to mass produce the filters, like with roll-to-roll printers.

via MIT Tech Review
4.
Lithium-Ion Battery Prices Set to Drop
01/09/2010 18:39

It looks like supply and demand is working out in the consumers\' favor when it comes to lithium-ion batteries. Production has been ramping up for the batteries as more electric cars go into production and that has led to an oversupply that may just keep piling up. Analysts are predicting a price drop of between 19 and 25 percent by the end of the year -- a slash that could also spell cheaper electric cars in the very near future.

Battery makers in Japan and Korea, like Samsung and Panasonic, account for 75 percent of the world\'s production, and they\'ve been competing to get the largest share of a market that could triple over the next six years. This production and pricing war has created a glut of batteries and, luckily for consumers, a falling price.

Many first generation electric vehicles are going on sale in the coming months. I won\'t be surprised if the second generations, much like we\'ve seen with later generation hybrids, include a cheaper price tag.

via Treehugger

image via GM
5.
Coast Guard Implementing Net Zero Housing
31/08/2010 16:56

The U.S. Coast Guard has set a goal of a net zero carbon footprint for housing at their Southwest Harbor Base in Maine. The base is using solar panels, solar hot water heaters and now a wind turbine for their energy needs. Efficiency-boosting retrofits will also be done, including new electrical systems and better insulation.

The newly-installed wind turbine sits atop a 70-foot tower and provides power to a duplex housing unit located on the base. The upgrades and retrofits will begin in October.

The Coast Guard is looking to install wind power at other bases in Maine and around the country. This push toward renewable energy is part of a bigger program by the Department of Defense to get 25 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2025.

As Capt. James McPherson of the Coast Guard said, "We want to be good stewards of the environment and we want to be careful how we spend tax payer dollars, but we also think the debate is over whether we need to go to alternative energy.” Yes, it is.

via Inhabitat