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

…   “Our renewable portfolio, as it exists now, is not good enough to get us where we need to be.

Without R&D investments, we are not going to be able to address climate problems in time. ”   …

Via New York Times: Bill Gates Perspective on Climate Change.

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.

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

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

 EPA Fuel Economy stickers are on all new cars and light trucks and ahve been for decades. They list the city and highway mpg as well expected annual feul costs and some information about emissions.

The EPA is now looking to modify (again) the labels … to allow meaningful comparisons between newer type vehicles … such as hybrids where MPG does not really apply.  They might group cars by letters like A, B, and C.

" .. provide … simple, straightforward energy and environmental comparisons across all vehicles types, including electric vehicles (EV), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV), and conventional gasoline/diesel vehicles. … information, such as ratings on fuel economy, greenhouse gas emissions, and other air pollutants …"

Check out the labels and GIVE YOUR comments … View / Comment on Proposed LABELS.

Via:  EPA  LINK

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

SunPower won several US Government contracts to install solar products for numerous agencies " …  Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), the General Services Administration (GSA), the Navy and the Air Force. … "  These will create " … more than 1000 local jobs during the construction … represent a minimum of 20 megawatts (MW) of new solar projects …"

One for the Air Force is to be the largest federal solar site in the US at Luke AFB in Glendale, Arizona.

SunPower is a leader in solar products and technology and was founded in 1988.  They have worked with various federal agancies since 1999.  They are listed on NASDAQ [SPWRA, SPWRB] and have their HQ in San Jose, California.

Via: SunPower  LINK

…   “Wool’s research centers on the use of soybean oil and chicken feathers in new bio-based composite materials, including computer circuit boards and hurricane-resistant roofs.

Wool is using the bio-based materials in support of several renewable energy projects, such as wind, solar, hydrogen storage and energy efficient housing, as practical solutions to global warming.”   …

Via University of Delaware: ACS Green Chemistry Award.

Professor Richard Wool.

American Chemical Society.

Chicken feathers power hydrogen economy.