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This is the weblog of
Raymond Powers.
Here I will be sharing what I find of import, humor, concern, inspiration and on the transformational edge
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A Quote:
I imitate everyone except myself. --Pablo Picasso
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Raymond lives in Ojai, where the time now is:
09:00AM
Unique Readers:
Primarily
Public Domain
Everything I've written here, except my copyrighted
essays, poetry, lyrics, and music is hereby placed in the public
domain. The quotes from other people's writings, and the pictures
used might or might not be copyrighted, but are considered fair
use. Thus the license here would best be described as:
Primarily Public
Domain.
Please ask permission if there is any question in
regards to public domain usage.
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| Friday, July 1, 2005 |  |
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1 Jul 2005 @ 04:39
Here is a great link from Astrid that tells all about the history and manufacturing of bio-diesel.
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| Thursday, June 30, 2005 | |
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 30 Jun 2005 @ 16:30
Honda Delivers FCX Fuel Cell Vehicle to World's First Individual Customer
Publication Date:29-June-2005
Source:FuelCellWorks
* Honda sets advanced-technology and environmental standards by offering first fuel cell powered car to individual customer in Los Angeles
* Zero-emissions FCX is the only fuel cell vehicle certified by the U.S. EPA and CARB for regular commercial use
* Los Angeles-area family are first private citizens to utilize California's Hydrogen Highway refueling stations
LOS ANGELES-- Marking a historic achievement in the evolution of the automobile and the advancement of future transportation technology, American Honda Motor Co., Inc., today announced the lease of its revolutionary FCX, an advanced hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicle, to the world's first individual customers, Jon and Sandy Spallino of Redondo Beach, California. The Spallinos become the world's first fuel cell family, having signed an agreement to lease a 2005 Honda FCX for a period of two years. Honda is the only automotive manufacturer to certify its fuel cell vehicle for regular daily use and the first to offer its technology to an individual customer. The Spallinos will use the FCX in everyday normal use, including commuting to work to Orange County, trips to school for their children, shopping and household errands.
"American Honda Motor Co. is thrilled to introduce the world's first fuel cell family," said John Mendel, senior vice president, automotive operations, for American Honda. "We're pleased to be taking this historic step forward in the further advancement of our fuel cell program. Our advanced fuel cell technology has been proven and tested through a successful fleet sales partnership over the last three years. With this announcement, Honda furthers its commitment to the continued advancement of this technology for the benefit of society, with the ultimate goal of achieving large-scale commercialization of fuel cell vehicles."
California Hydrogen Highway
The Spallino family, living in the Los Angeles area, will be among the first individuals to begin utilizing the first of California's Hydrogen Highway refueling stations, a statewide infrastructure build out underway to offer hydrogen refueling station access to private individuals. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the state's commitment to a Hydrogen Highway in April of this year, creating a public and private partnership to build California's Hydrogen Highway by 2010.
"We applaud the Governor and his administration for their environmental vision and their commitment to keeping California on the cutting edge of new technology development," said Mendel. "Without this initiative, we could not be taking the steps we are today."
Honda FCX on the Road
As the next natural step in deployment of Honda fuel cell technology, the lease of the FCX to the Spallino family will be the first of several FCX vehicles to be leased to individual customers over the next year. Honda's leadership in hydrogen vehicle technology also extends to a fleet of 13 FCX fuel cell vehicles in regular daily use with six public municipal customers in California, New York and Nevada.
"With its outstanding environmental benefits, advanced technology, and safety-tested performance, the FCX is proving every day its viability as the transportation technology of the future," said Mendel. "The Spallinos' experience with the FCX will provide Honda engineers with real-world driving experience and feedback by an individual family, which will be invaluable as we design future models."
"I'm looking forward to commuting to work and running the kids around in the FCX," said Jon Spallino, the first retail customer to lease the FCX. "We're really excited about the opportunity to lease this car. The FCX drives just like any other vehicle on the road -- without the emissions."
The Honda FCX is the first and only hydrogen vehicle to ever be certified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and California's Air Resources Board (CARB). The EPA certified the 2005 FCX as a Tier-2 Bin 1, and CARB certified the FCX as a Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV).
The 2005 FCX model is powered by Honda's originally developed fuel cell stack (Honda FC Stack) with the breakthrough capability to start and operate at sub-freezing temperatures as low as -4 degrees Fahrenheit, along with increased performance, range and fuel efficiency compared with earlier models. The FCX was the first fuel cell vehicle to be listed in the EPA's fuel economy guide in 2003. The 2005 FCX carries an EPA city/highway rating of 62/51 miles per gallon and a range of 190 miles.
Commitment to Environmentally Friendly Vehicles
Honda's extensive history of environmental leadership includes recognition as the "Greenest Automaker" by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) in its 2001, 2003 and 2004 rankings of corporate environmental performance with the lowest average emission levels and highest average fuel economy of any automobile manufacturer.
Honda also leads the automotive industry with the most gas-electric hybrid models: the Insight, America's first hybrid vehicle; the Civic Hybrid, the first truly mainstream hybrid model; and the Accord Hybrid, the world's first V6-powered hybrid vehicle.
In April 2005, Honda announced it had begun limited retail sales of its natural gas-powered Civic GX Sedan paired with a revolutionary new home-refueling appliance called Phill. The Civic GX is the cleanest internal combustion vehicle ever certified by the U.S. EPA and, with the introduction of home refueling, has the lowest fuel cost per mile of any new vehicle. The Phill appliance, manufactured and marketed by FuelMaker Corporation, is an affordable home refueling appliance that allows drivers the convenience of refueling their vehicles at home using their existing natural gas supply. Phill is available for lease through 17 authorized Honda Civic GX California dealers.
Honda (NYSE: HMC) is one of today's leading manufacturers of automobiles and power products and the largest manufacturer of motorcycles in the world. With more than 120 manufacturing facilities in 30 countries worldwide, Honda now attracts nearly 20 million customers annually. More than 75 percent of the automobiles and light trucks that Honda sells in the U.S. are built in North America using domestic and globally sourced parts. Increasingly, many of these products are developed in America as well, including the Honda Ridgeline, Civic Coupe, Element and Pilot, and the Acura TL and MDX.
Consumer information is available at www.hondacars.com. Additional resources for items mentioned in this release include www.epa.gov and http://www.arb.ca.gov/homepage.htm. More >
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| Wednesday, June 29, 2005 | |
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29 Jun 2005 @ 20:51
Biodiesel Takes It's Place at the Pump in Portland, Oregon
Portland Tribune [link]).
Biodiesel takes its place at the pump Interest in auto fuel, and its availability, increase in Portland
By JEANIE SENIOR
Jun 28, 2005
Portlander Mark Forster made the switch to biodiesel two fill-ups ago, when he drove his diesel-powered Volkswagen Jetta to SeQuential Biofuels' public pumps in Northwest Portland.
It was a decision based on environmental considerations, Forster said, but it coincidentally met a challenge extended by his employer, KPFF Consulting Engineers, urging workers to find ways to make their commute environmentally friendly.
Forster said his car "seems to run exactly the same" when fueled by biodiesel an alternative fuel made from vegetable oil or other fats but with an exhaust smell that's "more pleasant" than when it runs on diesel. He paid $3.10 a gallon for 100 percent biodiesel, about 50 cents a gallon more than the present cost of petroleum diesel bought at a station that's not particularly close to where he lives.
"But I figured it's worth it," Forster said.
With crude oil prices soaring and environmental concerns growing, demand for biodiesel "is growing very fast," said Tyson Keever, a partner in SeQuential. A driver must have a diesel car to use it, however.
It costs less to buy a blend of either 5 percent or 20 percent biodiesel, mixed with petroleum diesel fuel. Even a small percentage of biodiesel will lower polluting emissions, Keever said.
And it's possible that prices could go down a bit in Portland after a joint venture, which includes SeQuential, opens the state's first big biodiesel manufacturing facility in Portland late this fall. The multimillion-dollar project has the potential to produce about 4 million gallons of vegetable oil-based fuel in a year.
"That sounds like a lot, but we use 2 million gallons of diesel in the state in a day. We've got a long way to go," Keever said. The new partnership involves SeQuential Biofuels LLC of Oregon, Pacific Biodiesel of Hawaii and several private investors including country singer and biodiesel advocate Willie Nelson.
Presently, the biodiesel SeQuential sells is shipped by rail tank car from the Midwest.
The plant will get its raw material from a number of sources, including about 50,000 gallons of cooking oil a year from Salem-based potato chip maker Kettle Foods. That will have to be augmented by other oil, ideally made from crops grown in Oregon, Keever said. "This has a tremendous potential for giving a boost to our region's agricultural economy," he said. Kettle Foods is among several Oregon companies that use biodiesel fuel in their company vehicles.
Soybeans, canola, rapeseed and mustard seeds all can be used to make oil for biodiesel, he said.
Nationally, although biodiesel is sold in all 50 states, it represents only a tiny share of the fuel used in diesel engines. About 55 billion to 60 billion gallons of diesel fuel are used annually in the United States, but the total sales of biodiesel last year was only about 25 million gallons, according to Amber Thurlo Pearson of the National Biodiesel Board.
Some users, like Forster, are attracted to biodiesel because it's less polluting than diesel; others like the idea that it's produced domestically. Brian Jamison, one of the co-founders of Portland's Go-Biodiesel Cooperative and the owner of two diesel engine cars, said the switch to biodiesel meant "freedom."
"It's hard to describe just how great it feels" to fuel a car with biodiesel, he said.
The co-op, with about 80 members, will start producing biodiesel on a much smaller scale than SeQuential later this year, using what Jamison calls a "beautiful home-built biodiesel processor" located in the Johnson Creek area of Southeast Portland.
Its capacity is about 100 gallons a day, "but it would be very easy for us to expand our production," he said.
The co-op's biodiesel, which members initially will be able to buy for $2.25 a gallon, a price including state road taxes, will be made from used deep fryer oil, donated by area restaurants.
"You would look at some of the oil and say, 'There's no way you can make biodiesel from that,' " Jamison said. But what emerges is clean biodiesel and a layer of glycerin, which is used to make bar soap.
Members of the co-op might be considered biodiesel evangelists: They've been speaking at schools, universities, corporations and state agencies to promote the use of biodiesel. Jamison said some people in the group already have been making their own biodiesel, and most of them drive cars fueled by biodiesel. Others have converted their diesel cars to run on SVO, the popular name for straight vegetable oil that hasn't gone through the chemical conversion used in making biodiesel. It does have to be filtered, however, and to burn SVO, a conversion kit that can cost about $2,000 has to be installed in a
car. It includes a separate fuel tank and a heater for the oil, which can get viscous in cool weather. Biodiesel is sold in the Portland area at SeQuential's pump at 11330 N.W. St. Helens Road, and at card-lock stations at 4505 S.E. 17th Ave. and 3537 N.W. St. Helens Road. Star Oilco sells biodiesel at a station at 232 N.E. Middlefield Road. More >
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| Thursday, October 21, 2004 | |
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21 Oct 2004 @ 19:33
Solar Electric System Survives Hurricane Charley
Press Release from SunWize Technologies
October 19, 2004
Kingston, NY In 2002 SunWize Technologies designed and installed a 14.4kW hybrid solar electric system for park operations at the Dry Tortugas National Park in Florida on Loggerhead Key. One of the most remote and inaccessible of the U.S. National Parks, the Dry Tortugas islands are located approximately 70 miles west of Key West in the southern Gulf of Mexico. In August of this year, Hurricane Charley hit the islands with sustained 120 MPH winds for five hours and recorded gusts of 133 MPH. Throughout the storm, the SunWize system operated normally and maintained structural integrity.
Mike Jester, Facility Manager at the Park, said, 'I was thrilled with the system performance. The system never went down during the hurricane.' Mike Jester, Facility Manager at the Everglades National Park which oversees the Dry Tortugas National Park, said,'I was thrilled with the system performance. The system never went down during the hurricane.' He was also impressed with the solar module support structure. During installation, one of the logistical challenges facing SunWize was the transportation of foundation materials to the site. To avoid the tremendous effort of hauling cement and aggregate, SunWize used earth augers as solar array anchor points. The augers were hand installed and exceed specifications for maximum wind loading at 120 mph.
Facilities on Loggerhead Key consist of two houses, an historic lighthouse and a number of other small buildings. The hybrid system provides power for employee housing including air conditioning, refrigeration and potable water production. SunWize's hybrid solar electric system replaced an inefficient generator system that consumed 10,000 gallons of diesel per year.
SunWize Technologies, a solar technology company, specializes in the design and manufacture of integrated solar power systems, and associated project development and product distribution. For more project information, contact David Love, Government Sales Manager, tel: 360-754-2564, email: sunwizewa@earthlink.net.
Please Note: RenewableEnergyAccess.com does not endorse the sites behind these links. We offer them for your additional research. Following these links will open a new browser window.
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21 Oct 2004 @ 19:30
Geothermal in Harlem Means a Greener City
October 14, 2004
Harlem, New York [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] Big city based condominium complexes are rarely known for being energy or environmentally friendly. But before Full Spectrum developers even had land in Harlem to build on, they knew they wanted to make a living environment that tenants could feel good about living in.
"It says a lot of good things about the prospects for redeveloping the country's emerging urban markets in ways that are responsible to the environment, responsible to long term stakeholders and that encourage the entrance of new financial and human resources into communities that had been long overlooked."
- Carlton Brown, CEO Full Spectrum Developers The developer's $40 million condominium complex at 1400 on 5th in Harlem meets the state's green building criteria because it was constructed with 70 percent recycled and renewable sources, and will use 35 percent less energy because of the geothermal well that will help to heat and cool the building year round. The geothermal well is also known as a geoexchange system that uses the ambient earth temperature to help maintain a level temperature in a building.
According to Full Spectrum, the complex is the first affordable urban mid-rise to qualify for the New York State Green Building Tax Credit, and the average tax credit for each homeowner is estimated at $24,000 over a 5-year period.
"After an immeasurable amount of hard work from a wide range of team members, it is incredibly rewarding to see Full Spectrum's core beliefs regarding environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and cultural relevancy affirmed through the success of the 1400 Fifth Avenue project," said Carlton Brown, who is the chief operating officer of Full Spectrum. "It says a lot of good things about the prospects for redeveloping the country's emerging urban markets in ways that are responsible to the environment, responsible to long term stakeholders and that encourage the entrance of new financial and human resources into communities that had been long overlooked."
The 225,000 square foot development has 129 condominium homes plus first floor retail space. More than two-thirds of the condominium apartments were reserved for middle-income buyers, with the balance of the homes selling at market rates. It was developed as part of the Alliance for Neighborhood Commerce, Home Ownership and Revitalization (ANCHOR) Mixed Use Program developed by the Housing Partnership to spur economic development through retail opportunities and housing in distressed areas.
Construction of the development was made possible through a public-private partnership with the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the Bank of America, Fannie Mae, the Housing Partnership Development Corporation, NYC Housing Development Corporation, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, The Empire State Development Corporation, and the NY State Energy Research and Development Authority.
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| Wednesday, October 15, 2003 | |
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15 Oct 2003 @ 13:23
Discovery may spur cheap solar power
Thursday, October 2, 2003
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -- A major European chip maker said this week it had discovered new ways to produce solar cells which will generate electricity twenty times cheaper than today's solar panels.
STMicroelectronics, Europe's largest semiconductor maker, said that, by the end of next year, it expected to have made the first stable prototypes of the new cells, which could then be put into production.
Most of today's solar cells, which convert sunlight into electricity, are produced with expensive silicon, the same material used in most semiconductors.
The French-Italian company expects cheaper organic materials such as plastics to bring down the price of producing energy. Over a typical 20-year life span of a solar cell, a single produced watt should cost as little as $0.20, compared with the current $4.
The new solar cells would even be able to compete with electricity generated by burning fossil fuels such as oil and gas, which costs about $0.40 per watt, said Salvo Coffa, who heads ST's research group that is developing the technology.
"This would revolutionize the field of solar energy generation," he said.
ST's trick is to use materials that are less efficient in producing energy from sunlight but which are extremely cheap.
This would revolutionize the field of solar energy generation.
-- ST researcher Salvo Coffa
Coffa said the materials should be able to turn at least 10 percent of the sun's energy into power, compared with some 20 percent for today's expensive silicon-based cells.
"We believe we can demonstrate 10 percent efficiency by the end of 2004," Coffa said.
Following that, ST and others would need to develop production technologies to make solar cells and panels in large quantities to achieve the $0.20 per watt target, he said.
"Our target is fixed at $0.20," said Coffa, who expects no major technological difficulties in going from prototypes to mass-produced commercial products.
Renewable energy is an essential part of research for ST, which says its chip and material expertise can be used to develop future solar cells and fuel cells.
ST said three weeks ago it had found a new way to produce tiny yet extremely efficient fuel cells that could power a mobile phone for 20 days.
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| Saturday, October 4, 2003 | |
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4 Oct 2003 @ 12:24
EATING FOSSIL FUELS
by Dale Allen Pfeiffer
As CNN, The Independent and Jane's Defence Weekly acknowledge the reality of Peak Oil and Gas, admitting that actual global reserves may be 80% less than previously reported, FTW publishes the most important and frightening story in its history. Impeccable research shows that US food production is requiring more and more hydrocarbon energy to produce less and less food. Until now, no one has really reported how much oil, gas and fresh water (pumped by hydrocarbons) we need to feed ourselves and the planet and what we can look forward to as the crisis starts to hit home.
Click here to read a free summary of this story
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Sounding Circle - Category: Energy Sources
