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Research breakthrough could make hydrogen gas an even better green fuel
Toyota might be bringing a commercial hydrogen fuel cell car to roads in 2015, but the fuel still has a few drawbacks -- the major ones being storing and transporting the gas itself. Research from the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) reckons they can solve it using ammonia, which is more secure and less volatile, as the hydrogen delivery method. "Cracking" ammonia offers up one part nitrogen and three parts hydrogen and while the catalysts that do this are typically pricey precious metals, this new research uses two chemical processes at the same time, offering the same results at a much lower cost. According to the research team leader, Professor Bill David: "Our approach is as effective as the best current catalysts but the active material, sodium amide, costs pennies to produce. We can produce hydrogen from ammonia 'on demand' effectively and affordably."
Biodiesel can be harvested from leftover food, kids no longer have to clear their plates
The best dishes always contain 30 per cent fat minimum. This doesn't merely ensure a level of hearty satisfaction (Windows 7 Whopper anybody?), it also means the leftovers contain plenty of the greasy good stuff, which can be cleverly harvested and metamorphosed into biodiesel. The technology behind this process has been around for a while, but now British firm Greenergy claims it is ramping up commercial production. The firm's CEO reckons each of his new £50million ($80million) biodiesel plants will digest a sufficient volume of waste pies, fries and taramasalata to "fill out a cruise ship every year". Mmmm, pie.
GreenFuel Technologies signs deal to build algae fuel plant
As we've seen already, algae is big business these days, and it now looks like the alternative source of fuel is getting another shot in the arm, with GreenFuel Technologies recently announcing a deal to build an "algae-to-fuel" plant in Europe. The company, as you may or may not know, is now headed (at least temporarily) by Ethernet pioneer Bob Metcalf, with its main claim to fame being a bioreactor that's designed to grow algae from the carbon dioxide emissions of power plants. While complete details are still pretty light at the moment, that bit of technology was apparently enough to score it a $92 million deal with somebody (actually negotiated by the former CEO), which is reportedly contingent on it first building a small scale pilot plant and meeting cost and productivity goals along the way. As Xconomy reports, however, this latest development follows some hard times faced by the company, during which time it actually had to shut down one of its algae greenhouses after it produced more algae than the system could handle.[Via Green Tech Blog]
