• New F1 espionage scandal
• FIA inspectors visit McLaren
• UK minister resigns to go motor racing
• Silverstone plans receive government backing but no funding
• Dallara appoints new MD
• KERS wins award
• Nissan Sunderland expands wind farm

• DfT announces £50m fund for public low carbon van procurement
• Council of Europe to discuss car taxes on 13 November
• BMW UK MD slams “petty politicians” over green taxes
• Hillary Clinton proposes 55 mpg limit for 2030

• Prodrive abandons F1 plan
• Flybrid to launch KERS at AI show
• NASCAR race team owner jailed
• CCWS adds Spanish race
• Export boom drives UK damper company expansion
• Hybrids to feature in centenary Great Race
• European ETTAR project aims to break down barriers to greener freight transport technologies

• DfT’s renewable fuels agency starts up
• Ruth Kelly wants 100g/km limit for new car CO2 emissions between 2020-2025
• Lloyds TSB autolease launches online environmental guide for fleets

• Icelandic university seeks partners for bacterial hydrogen and ethanol production project

Representatives of the Enstone, UK based Renault Sport Formula One team have been summoned to answer industrial espionage charges at a hearing during next months meeting FIA World Motor Sport Council.

A statement issued by the FIA said, "Representatives of the Renault F1 Team have been requested to appear before a hearing of the FIA World Motor Sport Council in Monaco on Thursday, December 6, 2007.

"The team representatives have been called to answer a charge that between September 2006 and October 2007, in breach of Article 151c of the International Sporting Code, the Renault F1 Team had unauthorised possession of documents and confidential information belonging to Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, including, but not limited to the layout and critical dimensions of the McLaren F1 car, together with details of the McLaren fuelling system, gear assembly, oil cooling system, hydraulic control system and a novel suspension component used by the 2006 and 2007 McLaren F1 cars."

The FIA has confirmed that a team of inspectors operating on its behalf have visited the Woking, UK headquarters of the McLaren-Mercedes Formula One team to begin an examination of the design of the team’s 2008 F1 car.

In September the McLaren team was fined $100m (£47.5m) and forfeited their points in the F1 Constructors World Championship points after the were found guilty of being in possession of confidential information on the rival Ferraris team’s 2007 car. The FIA inspectors visit to McLaren was made to determine whether any Ferrari intellectual property had been incorporated into the 2008 McLaren design.

According to a BBC news report an FIA spokesman said It had initially been planned that any evidence found during the visit would be presented to the meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council meeting in Monaco December 7 but it was not certain that a report would be ready by that date.

Lord Drayson, the UK government’s defence procurement minister responsible is taking a ‘leave of absence’ to race in the American Le Mans Series sports car racing championship in 2008.

In a letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown Lord Drayson said, “As you know I have a passion for motor racing and over the past year have competed in the British GT championship racing a unique bio-ethanol-fuelled race car, achieving a "historic first" win for a green-fuelled car and coming second overall in the championship.

“A number of special circumstances have now presented me with a once in a lifetime opportunity to take my racing to the next level. I have the opportunity to race next year in the American Le Mans series in the United States, a key step towards my eventual dream of success in the Le Mans 24 hours endurance race.

“For the first time next year the American Le Mans Series will allow bio-ethanol cars to compete and so this is a wonderful opportunity to showcase British motorsport technology for environmentally friendly racing.

“It has also coincided with my development as a driver to the point where I am now able to compete at this level.

“Unfortunately, it cannot be combined with the challenge of full-time government office so, as we discussed, I am writing to inform you that I wish to take a leave of absence from the government to enable me to do this. Thank you for your support in understanding why I am so keen to pursue my racing ambition.”

The UK’s Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe has given his support to the recently unveiled plans for the redevelopment of the Silverstone race circuit near Northampton, which are aimed at securing the future of the Formula One British Grand Prix at the venue, but has ruled out any government funding for the project.

Speaking at Silverstone on Thursday Sutcliffe said, "We want to see a British Grand Prix here at Silverstone and will do everything that we can to support that happening.

“We've been asked to support sustainable development which has lots of vision in it and has the opportunity for the government to support in a variety of creative ways.

"We have talked about this fantastic decade of sport in Britain coming up with the Olympics, possibly the Commonwealth Games and the rugby and football World Cup bids.

"To lose the British Grand Prix would be a massive blow and we really don't want to do that."

Asked whether support would include financial assistance Sutcliffe said, "We can't do that and we've not been asked to do that at this stage."

The Parma, Italy based commercial racecar manufacturer and consultancy Dallara Automobili has appointed Andrea Pontremoli as its new managing director.

Before joining Dallara Pontremoli was previously at IBM Italia for 27 years rising to the position of CEO and president of the company. At Dallara he will take over operational responsibility for company and will also take a minority share holding.

Pontremoli said, “Dallara is a company that I have always been interested in and long been impressed by and is today a world leader in the racecar automotive consultancy business. For me to become involved with them is like the realization of an ambition and I look forward to the challenges it brings and to continuing the Dallara traditions of engineering excellence and customer support world wide.

“Dallara is at present a small company but with a massive reputation, it will be my objective to further enhance this hard won reputation whilst taking the company boldly forward into the 21st century with some exciting new projects and expansion plans.”

Dallara founder and president Gian Paolo Dallara said, “We are pleased and honored that someone of Andre’s stature and ability is joining us. We are at a pivotal time in the history of Dallara and whilst I intend to remain very active in the company I believe now is the right time to start to hand over the day to day operational duties. In Andrea I am sure we have a strong capable leader and innovative thinker that will serve us well as we go forward in this ever increasingly global business.”

A mechanical kinetic energy recovery system (KERS) currently under development by three British companies – Flybrid Systems, Torotrak and Xtrac – for future use in Formula One has won the ‘Engine Innovation of the Year’ award at the Professional MotorSport World Expo Awards ceremony held this week in Cologne, Germany.

Accepting the award Jon Hilton, managing partner of Flybrid Systems said, “We’re delighted to receive this award in recognition of our efforts this year, whereby we’ve already achieved a huge amount simply by turning an idea into reality. With the design, test and development of a system for F1 now well underway, our challenge for next year is to demonstrate the viability of the system for mainstream automotive applications.”

Nissan Motor Co.’s Sunderland plant in the UK will increase the size of its wind farm later in the year with the addition of two more turbines. Installation will begin in December, bringing the total number of turbines on the site to eight.

The new turbines will be located to the south of the site alongside the existing farm. Expected to be fully operational in January 2008, the expanded farm will generate around 6% of the plant’s annual energy requirement, up from 5% today. This will deliver a cost saving of nearly £1 million a year (depending on weather conditions) which will offset rising energy costs.

In addition, carbon dioxide emissions will be cut by up to 4,000 tonnes per year at power plants supplying the factory with electricity.

The site is also home to a protected species of great crested newts. Before installation can begin, Nissan will relocate the newts to a temporary home on the site, under the guidance of the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). Once installation is completed the newts will be able to return to their habitat around the turbines.

Sunderland Plant’s wind farm is the first of its kind within Nissan globally and its expansion supports the ‘Nissan Green Program 2010’.

The Government is in danger of taxing Jaguar and Land Rover out of existence according to comments by Jim O’Donnell, managing director of BMW UK reported by Headline Auto yesterday. Mr O’Donnell said that plans to tax expensive cars would seriously threaten the future of the British car industry and ignored the technology that such vehicles introduce.

He said: “Such cars are not just large, they are often technology leaders. Expensive new safety and efficiency measures tend to find their way first on the larger, luxury vehicles. ABS, catalytic converters, air bags, navigation systems and many more all started on high end models.

“We welcome the approach to a well thought out and balanced approach free from political dogma and I believe our political leaders need to give more than a nano-second’s consideration to the positive characteristics of top end cars.

“A determination to tax larger cars out of existence threatens smaller manufacturers such as Jaguar and Land Rover. Do our political leaders really want to kill off major contributors to the UK economy and major employers?”

O’Donnell said that poor management, unrealistic unions and the apathy of successive governments towards vehicle manufacturing in the UK had resulted in the demise of a once strong indigenous industry. He added: “The UK needs both Jaguar and Land Rover as strong competitors in the global marketplace.”

O’Donnell also criticised increasing local taxes such as congestion charging: “Our government has led the way on CO2 emissions in the EU but it all goes wrong in the shires. We see a burgeoning class of minor council officials who are using – or should that be abusing – their positions of power to create their own tax penalties on motorists.”

He cited that London congestion charge which is now turning into a green tax with charges for high emission vehicles. He called for Mayor Ken Livingstone to “make your mind up” and that said that the new charges would save 8,100 tons of carbon each year, the equivalent of three hours’ emissions from Heathrow Airport.

Noting other local schemes such as Nottingham’s £350 car parking tax, O’Donnell added: “The government must stamp on this regional tax spree by out of control councils now. It must restore some sort of respect for CO2 tax planning by leading from the front and putting the petty politicians back in their boxes.”

A new Department for Transport fund outlined by Transport Minister Jim Fitzpatrick yesterday will be worth an initial £20 million to procure lower carbon vehicle models for use in public sector fleets and to kick-start the UK market for lower-emissions vans.

Should initial trials be successful, an additional £30 million has been earmarked to be used to develop the programme further.

Jim Fitzpatrick said: "Bringing cleaner, greener vehicles onto the market as soon as possible is a priority for the Government, but we want to direct our efforts where they will have the biggest impact in reducing emissions and tackling climate change.

"Vans account for around 15% of carbon emissions from road transport, but currently there are no mass market low carbon models on offer to the UK van buyer - although the technology to create them exists. By using the public sector's considerable purchasing power, we aim to give investors and manufacturers confidence in the existence of a market for lower carbon vans, to encourage them to bring them to market more quickly than they would do otherwise. This could have a big impact in cutting carbon emissions on our roads."

The DfT will shortly issue a competitive tender to appoint a partner organisation with specialist technical and commercial expertise on low carbon vehicles to deliver the programme. The appointment is expected to be made in early 2008.

The £20million was initially proposed as part of the Low Carbon Transport Innovation Strategy, to speed up the development of low carbon vehicles for the UK market using public sector spending power.

Since the proposal, the Department has engaged with stakeholders to find out how best to direct the money for greatest environmental impact. The bulk of the funding will be used to procure lower carbon vans in the first instance, with smaller demonstrations of lower carbon minibuses, all-electric vans and, potentially, plug-in hybrid cars.

Initial public sector participants are expected to include the Metropolitan police, Environment Agency, Transport for London, the Royal Mail, HM Revenue and Customs and the Government Car and Despatch Agency. Subject to funding availability, the DfT will seek to involve more public sector organisations in the programme, e.g. local authorities, other government bodies, and possibly schools and hospitals.

(www.dft.gov.uk)

The leading Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton has this week proposed steeper corporate average fuel consumption reductions than those recently debated in Congress, and so far the most ambitious CO2 reduction plans among her rival candidates.

Recognizing that transport accounts for 70% of U.S. oil consumption, Senator Clinton would increase fuel efficiency standards to 55 mpg by 2030, but would help manufacturers re-tool their production facilities through $20 billion in “Green Vehicle Bonds.”

On biofuels, she would: (A) require oil companies and other major gasoline retailers to have E85 pumps at half of their stations by 2012, and 100% by 2017; (B) require manufacturers to make all vehicles flex-fuel vehicles by 2015; (C) and invest in freight rail upgrades to bring biofuels more efficiently to market. She wouldl invest $2 billion in cellulosic ethanol research and provide loan guarantees to build the first two billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol capacity.

Senator Clinton's plan would reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 80% from 1990 levels by 2050 and cut oil imports by two-thirds from 2030 projected levels, more than 10 million barrels per day. She would establish a $50 billion Strategic Energy Fund, double investment in basic energy research, and legislate for energy conservation, e.g. through banning incandescent light bulbs.

A Clinton administration would set a greenhouse gas emissions target for advanced biofuels to ensure that they move over time towards a standard of emitting at least 80% less greenhouse gases than gasoline, and would develop biofuels guidelines to take into account impacts on land and water resources, water supplies, food prices and wildlife.

The three domestic light vehicle manufacturers in the U.S. have opposed a Senate-approved corporate average fuel economy target for 2020, slightly tougher than Senator Clinton’s at 35 mpg by 2020, and representing a 40% increase over the current standards for cars and light trucks. Under Senator Clinton's plan, the target would be 40 mpg in 2020.

(www.hillaryclinton.com)

EU member states’ finance ministers will discuss car taxes and VAT reform with the European Commission next Tuesday. The Commission reportedly wants to abolish car registration (excise duty) taxes; to create a mechanism to refund double taxation; and to restructure car taxation across the EU to be totally or partly CO2 emissions-related, as in the UK.

However, a document to be discussed by ministers and reported by Planet Ark yesterday suggested there was considerable opposition among them to CO2-based car-related taxes, and a pan-EU consensus that vehicle registration taxes (excise duty) should not be abolished, though refund systems would be acceptable.

A large majority of EU member states is said to support an approach to a new directive that would merely oblige them to differentiate passenger car-related taxes, totally or partly, on the basis of CO2 emissions or fuel consumption. EU taxation policy is subject to unanimous voting by all 27 EU member states.

According to a report on the website of the US magazine Autoweek the Banbury, UK based automotive and motorsport development company Prodrive has abandoned its planned entry into the FIA Formula One World Championship in 2008.

Prodrive had intended to use 2008 specification cars supplied by the Woking, UK based McLaren-Mercedes F1 team but threats of legal action by rival teams appear to have put paid to a plan by the FIA to allow teams to run so called ‘customer cars’ starting in 2008.

The Autoweek story also says that a Prodrive request to join the 2008 F1 championship in the middle of the season had been turned down by the FIA World Motor Sport Council.

Flybrid Systems LLP, the Silverstone, UK based company, which is developing a new high-speed flywheel-based energy storage and recovery system for use in Formula One and other forms of motorsport as well as road vehicle applications, will launch the initial version of the device at the Autosport Engineering exhibition which takes place on the first two days of the 2008 Autosport International Show.

Flybrid Systems partners Jon Hilton and Doug Cross believe their company is the first in the world to demonstrate a high-speed spinning flywheel that can survive a crash test of the severity used for F1 frontal impact testing.

Hilton said, “We are delighted to be launching our new kinetic energy recovery system at the Autosport Engineering Show. The device on display will be a racing car system and we expect this green technology to generate a lot of interest."

The Autosport International Show takes place at the UK’s National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham on January 10-13.

Gene Haas, the owner of the Haas CNC Racing NASCAR Nextel Cup US stockcar racing team has been jailed for two years after pleading guilty to defrauding the American government of more than $20 million in taxes.

The charges relate to Haas’s Haas Automation company based in Oxnard, California and accuse him of planning to claim $50 million in non-existent expense that were to be were to be written off as business costs that would save the company $20 million in taxes.

In addition to the prison term, which begins in January 2008, Haas has already paid a $5 million fine and more than $70 million dollars as part of a plea agreement, requiring him to pay all outstanding taxes, plus penalties and interest.

The organisers of the US based Champ Car World Series single-seater racing championship have unveiled a 14 race schedule for 2008 that includes a Spanish race for the first time.

The race will take place at the Jerez circuit, which was used a venue for FIA Formula One World Championship races until 1997, in June 2008 and will become the third European based round of the CCWS following on from the successful introduction of races at Zolder in Belgium and Assen in the Netherlands in 2007.

The race on a street course in the US city of Las Vegas, which opened the 2007 season, is absent from the 2008 calendar due to problems with the event’s original promoter but it is thought that it could return to the CCWS schedule in the future.

The Witney, UK based suspension damper company Nitron Racing Systems is moving to new premises that will allow it to expand its manufacturing operation to cope with increased export business.

Until 2005 Nitron was a respected company in the motorsport industry making high performance shock absorbers for cars and motorcycles but reliant mainly on UK sales with a modest export market. Its fortunes changed when managing director Guy Evans contacted the Oxfordhsire offices of Business Link seeking advice on how to develop the firm was told about a trade mission to Japan organised by Government body UK Trade and Investment which proved to be a major breakthrough almost doubling the company’s turnover.

Evans said, "I wanted to sell to Japan because of the size of the motorsport market there. Now, two years later, our product has the same amount of exposure as the market leader.

"Our current unit is now too small for the eight of us working here. Moving to new premises will allow us to employ more staff in the design room and in the assembly room, which is necessary as we launch a new range of products for 2008."

Entries for next years 100th anniversary re-run of the famous 1908 New York to Paris "Great Race" include a group of car enthusiasts who aim to promote hybrid cars by driving around the world on the least amount of fuel possible.

Ten teams driving hybrid electric cars will join the Innovation Class of next summer's Great Race from New York to Paris and attempt to complete the almost 22,000 mile (35,000 km) course by driving as efficiently as possible.

The participation in the “Great Race” will be the first in a series of MPG Challenges, created in partnership with Hybridfest Inc, the organisers of the USA’s largest hybrid car festival.

Bill Ewing, chief executive of event promoter Great Race Sports said, "Clearly the world has a big fuel problem. Dealing with global warming issues requires conservation as well as alternative fuels. The MPG Challenge brings attention to the importance of improving fuel economy by squeezing the most out of hybrids in a way that people relate to."

Eric Powers, president of Hybridfest said, "We are very excited about our involvement in creating the MPG Challenge. Some of the best hypermilers in the world have already expressed interest in participating and showing the world how to do something as mind boggling as driving around the world with as little fuel as possible."

A workshop in Gothenburg on 25-26 October, run by the EU-funded ETTAR (Environmental Technologies Training and Awareness Raising project) under the 6th EU Framework Programme, focused on the main barriers to companies buying and selling road, rail, sea and air freight transport adopting environmentally friendly technologies available.

The lead partner in the ETTAR project is Ecologic - the Berlin-based Institute for International and European Environmental Policy. Their key partners include Deutsche Bahn, Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Ireland’s Clean Technology Centre Cork, Prague-based consultancy Enviros, and University of Cambridge Programme for Industry.

For many expert speakers at the project’s first event, a major hurdle for greener transport technologies proved to be the apparent lack of a conventional business case for environmental investment in the logistics sector, although several opportunities are already available or under development.

The seminar sought to find out whether investments in the best available vehicle/engine or fuel technologies are being held up mainly for cost reasons, for lack of awareness of the options available, or lack of awareness of the potential long-term benefits of specific CO2-reducing technologies.

Different reasons for low environmental freight investment were cited by expert delegates from the logistics, transport procurement and academic fields representing road, rail, shipping and air freight. Among these reasons are insufficient policy instruments, a highly competitive, low-margin, short-term, cost-focused logistics market, energy prices and freight transport costs too low to force change, ignorance of environmental issues and solutions, rail infrastructure problems inhibiting modal shifts, and a lack of reliable information on the costs and impacts of alternative fuels and technologies.

During the two day event, working Group sessions examining the barriers and drivers for the up-take of environmental technologies took place, delivering inter alia the following results:

- Consumers of end products as part of the society are interested in climate change and sustainability. However, as customers they are not willing to pay higher transport prices for more environmentally adapted transport solutions nor are they often aware of the transport emissions linked to the production and distribution of goods.

- The responsibility of the supply chain members is to offer environmentally friendly choices and alternatives, from which customers can choose freely, and not to wait until customers demand certain solutions. Structural or personified bottlenecks in the companies impeding the adoption of environmental solutions have to be identified and neutralised.

- Mandatory performance targets for freight transport vehicles are needed and not an artificial rise in transport prices – here policy makers can support the industry. This would prevent freight companies from using very cheap and environmentally unfriendly technologies and thereby ruining any business case.

- Apart from environmental standards, individual solutions fostering environmental technologies are called for. These solutions need to be adapted to a company, the concrete transport mode and the specific regional circumstances.

Delegates expected the tipping point for fuel costs to serve as a catalyst for change to be high, since the logistics market shows little price elasticity, although comparative price advantages are crucial to suppliers’ survival.

Several technology solutions and best practice examples described in the workshop – encompassing alternative fuels and new technologies - illustrated barriers to rapid or widespread take-up, but also showed that real progress could be achieved by suppliers and customers committed to testing options among a wide choice of new fuels and technologies, often on an initially small or micro scale.

- Anders Röj of Volvo Technology AB expected heavy trucks' fuel consumption to come down also in future at roughly an historical pace, which would mean by 15% between 2005 and 2020. By 2030, the EU's biofuels advisory council (BIOFRAC) projects that biofuels could account for 25% of EU road fuel consumption. Mr Röj said that while EU policy was not yet looking at the well-to-wheels emissions, overall energy-efficiency and land resources for biofuels in an integrated way, the European Commission is due to publish biofuels sustainability criteria later this month.

- For Uta Maria Pfeiffer of Siemens Transportation, trains are better than trucks and thus a modal shift would be the best solution, according to energy and emission calculations of different routes. The prospects of a marked increase in modal shift from long-haul trucks to rail were still held up by 30-year rolling stock investment cycles, and the lack of rapid EU-wide investments in standardised rail gauges and train control systems.

- Intra-EU rail freight speeds are just 18 kph which could be largely improved by the EU levelling national barriers. However, the potential for new rolling stock to facilitate a shift from trunk road freight to rail was described by Per Stribek of FlexiWaggon AB, a Swedish start-up currently building a prototype onto which drivers can load trucks from either side of the rail track without an expensive terminal.

- Hulda Winnes of Chalmers University of Technology suggested raising shipping customers' awareness that the emissions-lowering potential of slower-speed voyages could be crucial. Although fuel oil could represent half of a ship's total costs, a current lack of global shipping capacity makes speed more important to operators than fuel cost.

- Helge Hafstad, environmental manager for SAS Norway, told delegates that new turbofan engines likely to be available from 2015-2020 could cut plane CO2 emissions by around 30%, but warned: “There will be no single solution, but many small solutions” to reducing aviation’s climate impact.

- Dr Magnus Blinge of the Swedish agency for innovation systems – Vinnova reviewed advances in biofuels technologies, and said for the EU-15 to become self-sufficient in 1st-generation biofuels would require an eight-fold increase in existing land use. However, second generation fuels from Fischer-Tropsch plants for biodiesel or Dimethyl ether (DME) fuel could soon achieve a 70% CO2 reduction over fossil fuel refining. With this technology Europe could be up to 20 % self-sufficient clean fuels for the transport sector.

- Sven Wolf, managing director of the Hydrogen Sweden public-private partnership noted a need for more renewable energy for hydrogen production. His organisation is through the Scandinavian Hydrogen Highway Partnership targeting 15 refuelling stations across Scandinavia, sufficient to fuel 500 cars and 100 buses by 2015.

- A new, energy-saving truck refrigeration system using waste CO2 from industrial installations, capable of running independently of the truck’s powertrain, hence able to deliver to zero-emissions zones, was outlined by Rüdiger Jehle of Thermo King.

Solutions that can surmount obstacles to best environmental freight transport practice vary between road, rail, air and sea, and may also depend on exposure to end-consumer opinion. Each solution also has different implications for fuel and technology suppliers; availability of supply of environmental fuel options has to be assessed beforehand.

All delegates at the Gothenburg ETTAR workshop agreed that the barriers to carbon reduction in goods trade would never come down if individuals in the logistics business continued to wait for others inside and beyond their own companies to come up with ‘silver bullet’ solutions or new regulations: Small-scale projects could and should be implemented with willing partners, with the potential of contributing to large-scale change.

Workshop moderator Frank Sprenger, of the Munich-based consultancy Sustainability, summed up: “We need to break down the psychological barriers around each of us, overcome the inertia of daily commercial pressures, and dare to make mistakes. We must pursue a variety of possibilities, in the knowledge that they won’t all be right to have good answers to the nagging questions future generations will definitely ask us. Technologies and alternative fuels are obviously not the bottleneck.”

ETTAR was established to identify and assess training needs, methods and activities for the wider use of environmental technologies in the transportation sector. ETTAR focuses on activities that assist the sector to make its contribution to reductions not just of greenhouse gases but also of other pollutants that have significant environmental impacts.

ETTAR runs from April 2007 to September 2008.

(www.ettar.eu, www.ecologic.eu)

A new agency to manage Britain's commitment to biofuels was established yesterday by Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly. The Renewable Fuels Agency will be responsible for the day to day running of the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation, coming into force in April next year. By 2010, the Obligation will mean that 5% of all the fuels sold in the UK should come from biofuels, which could save 2.6m-3m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.

The Chairman of the Agency will be Professor Ed Gallagher, former Chief Executive of the Environment Agency. Joining Professor Gallagher on the Board of the Agency are Greg Archer, Director of the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership, Paul Jefferiss, Director of Environmental Policy at BP, Gareth Llewellyn, Director for Safety, Health, Environment and Corporate Responsibility for the National Grid, and Brian White, Director of the biofuel trading company, BionerG Ltd.

An appointment for the post of Chief Executive of the Agency will be made early next year.

The Renewable Fuels Agency will officially start work in April, when the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation comes into force. It will be based in Hastings, and was formed by the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation Order which completed its Parliamentary stages on Wednesday 24 October.

When the RTFO comes into force in April 2008 it will apply across the whole of the UK. Refiners, importers and any others who supply more than 450,000 litres of fossil-based road transport fuel to the UK market will be obligated by it. By 2010 it will require 5% of all UK fuel sold on UK forecourts to come from a renewable source.

In an interview with The Times, the Rt. Hon Ruth Kelly MP, Secretary of State for Transport, has urged the EU to adopt a target of 100g/km of CO2 for the average new car between 2020 and 2025. Ms Kelly considers this would give the industry “time to plan and aid development of new technology”. She also argued that low volume manufacturers such as Aston Martin and Bentley needed an alternative approach.

Friends of the Earth have urged an 80 g/km limit for 2020 - roughly halving the average CO2n emissions of the current UK new car market.

(www.business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/engineering/article2781339.ec

Fleet managers who wish to make their fleets greener can access a new online environmental best practice guide from Lloyds TSB autolease. Compiled with the support of Don Potts, an environmental consultant, the online guide contains a comprehensive news section which is regularly updated, and carries news on subjects ranging from speeding fines to congestion charges and manufacturer announcements to global oil prices.

Topics covered include reducing mileage, managing cash takers, fuel management and carbon offsetting. Sections of the interactive guide can be downloaded, and the contact facility allows customers to ask a specialist for help and advice on making their fleet greener.

The guide can be found at:

www.lloydstsbautolease.co.uk/bestPractice

Investigating the use of bacteria for renewable energy including hydrogen for fuel cells, “The use of thermophilic bacteria for the production of renewable energy - biohydrogen and bioethanol” is a research project for which the University of Akureyri is seeking European partners under the EU R&D collaboration programme FP7-Energy.

(www.cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=EN_FP7_PARTNERS&ACTION=D&RCN=77160)