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  Industry News

October 2007

 
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<< September 07

News for 9th October 2007


ITM Power develops home hydrogen electrolyser

The British listed alternative energy development company ITM Power plc has developed a home hydrogen electrolysis device, planned for production in 2008, aimed at producing hydrogen from domestic windmill installations or off-peak electricity to substitute for gas in central heating systems and cookers. Alternatively, stored hydrogen from the system could be reconverted to electricity using domestic fuel cells or generators for emergency power or lighting, or used to supply the household's car.

Scientists at ITM Power’s Sheffield research centre made the hydrogen have developed and patented new low cost materials which ITM Power says significantly outperform and undercut those currently being used by competitors involved in the production of electrolysers.

Before the end of this year ITM Power plans to unveil a hydrogen home refuelling station for the automotive market, and a converted bi-fuel petrol/hydrogen Ford Focus, expecting its electrolyser to provide enough hydrogen for the car to complete an average daily commuting journey without using petrol.

- ITM Power plc has received a ‘notice of allowance’ for its fundamental patent application from the US Patent Office, and expects that the patent will be formally granted in the near future. The patent application covers both the unique crosslinked hydrophilic ionic materials which underpin the electrolyser and fuel cell developments made by the company in the past several years, together with a “novel” production process. In combination, these developments have allowed ITM to develop low cost platinum free electrolysers and high power density low cost fuel cells.

(www.itm-power.com)


Jason Plato suffers burns in Caparo T1 track test

The SEAT Sport UK’s Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship driver Jason Plato has been hurt in an incident during filming for the Channel 5 Fifth Gear programme. He was testing a Caparo T1 road car at Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground near Lutterworth in Leicestershire when it burst into flames at an estimated 150mph.

After treatment at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital specialist burns unit and seeing a burns specialist after release from the hospital, Plato still expected to race at this weekend’s final BTCC race meeting at Thruxton Circuit in Hampshire on 14th October, which is also his 40th birthday. There has been no comment from Caparo on the cause of the fire.

- On 7th September 7th the Caparo Atlas Fastenings (CAF) Training School was officially opened at the company’s facility in Darlaston, with five apprentices in place. CAF, which employs 285 people, is part of Caparo Vehicle Products, a grouping of Tier 1 component design, engineering and manufacturing companies supplying the automotive, aerospace, military and motorsport markets. It is the UK’s largest manufacturer of threaded cold forged fasteners and have manufactured forged components at the Darlaston site for over 100 years.


LMC casts doubt on resources for biofuels targets

David Jackson, an analyst at LMC International Ltd in London, has calculated that the world would need an additional 100 million hectares of farmland if all countries were to blend 5% of biofuels into road fuels - as many envisage, by 2015. The required land, about half the size of Indonesia, would match roughly the total additional land available for farming on earth, including remote areas of Africa or Brazil. "There's no perfect solution for ethanol or biodiesel from food crops, or from agriculture," Jackson told Reuters in a news report yesterday.

Reuters also reported Frank Gunstone, honorary professor at Scottish Crop Research Institute, saying the world would need an additional 10 million tonnes of vegetable oils a year to meet demand from both the food and fuel sectors, but the last crop year’s increase, to 153m tonnes was 9 million tonnes at best, and the shortfall is already raising prices.

D1 Oils plc, the UK-based biodiesel refiner, is planting 175,000 hectares of Jatropha, a toxic non-food oil-bearing plant,on non-agricultural land in Africa, but says it has yet to be developed into a fully commercial fuel feedstock crop.

Yesterday, European Commission officials are reported by Reuters to be likely to reduce the current €45 per hectare subsidy, introduced in 2004, available to EU growers of biofuels crops including sugar beet, cereals and vegetable oil plants such as rapeseed. The premium was intended to be reduced as the area devoted to biofuels crops expanded beyond 2m hectares, and may fall to €30 per hectare as the crop area approaches 3m hectares.


UPS adds 306 CNG and LPG trucks to U.S. fleet

UPS announced yesterday it was adding 306 alternative fuel vehicles to its "green fleet" by placing an order for 167 Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) delivery trucks while taking delivery of 139 new LPG delivery trucks in North America. Additionally, the company has launched an initiative to use biodiesel in its ground support vehicles at the UPS Worldport® air hub in Louisville.

The CNG trucks will join more than 800 such vehicles already in use in the United States. The propane vehicles are joining nearly 600 propane trucks already operating in Canada and Mexico.

UPS's global alternative-fuel fleet now stands at 1,629 vehicles - the largest such private fleet in the transportation industry - and includes CNG, liquefied natural gas, LPG and electric and hybrid electric vehicles. The company also is working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on a hydraulic hybrid delivery vehicle, deploying technology originally developed in a military R&D contract.

The LPG and CNG trucks currently in the UPS fleet were converted from gasoline and diesel vehicles in the 1980s to run on alternative fuels. The new trucks are originally manufactured for alternative fuel useby Freightliner, and use Cummins Westport engines which are expected to yield a 20% emissions reduction and 10% improvement in fuel economy over the cleanest diesel engines currently available.

The new propane-powered vehicles were manufactured by Workhorse Custom Chassis with engines provided by Baytech Corporation. Propane vehicles emit about one-third fewer reactive organic gases than gasoline vehicles. Nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide emissions also are 20% and 60% less, respectively, than conventional vehicles.

The biodiesel initiative in Louisville is being launched with the support of a $515,000 federal grant that is helping offset some of the cost of building a fuel infrastructure at the airport. The infrastructure will provide a 5% biodiesel blend of fuel to run 366 ground support vehicles starting early next year.

UPS, which just celebrated its 100th anniversary, began deploying alternative fuel vehicles in the 1930s with a fleet of electric trucks that operated in New York City.

(www.ups.com)


Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers to appeal Vermont emissions legislation verdict

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers representing the U.S. ‘Big Three’ issued a release on 5th October giving notice of their appeal seeking to overturn a judge’s decision that the U.S. state of Vermont is legally entitled to set its own fuel economy.

“This case,” said the release, “centres on the critical issue of whether states can regulate a matter - fuel economy - that the law clearly identifies as a federal, national issue. Evidence provided during the trial demonstrates that the federal law is very explicit: states are pre-empted from adopting fuel economy laws; and complex issues such as greenhouse gas emissions must be dealt with comprehensively on the national level.

"Our evidence clearly demonstrated that Vermont's regulation, which is based on California's regulation, is tantamount to a fuel economy standard. At trial, it was undisputed that improving fuel economy is the only way to meet these requirements.

"Automakers are eager to continue fulfilling their role in reducing emissions and increasing energy security, however this appeal is urgent as this legislation applies to model year 2009 vehicles, which consumers will start seeing in early 2008 - just a few months from now."