Envirofuel - Promoting sustainable mobility

On 06 Mar 08 AeroVironment announced that it has flown its Puma small unmanned aircraft for over nine hours, powered by an on-board fuel cell battery hybrid energy storage system.

Filed under: Alternative fuel, Aviation, Hydrogen | Tagged: AeroVironment, fuel cell, Protonex Technology Corporation, Puma | No Comments »

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) called on Asia to play a leadership role in driving the aviation industry towards carbon neutral growth leading to a zero-emission industry. Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO imparted this message at the Greener Skies for Asia 2008 conference in Hong Kong.

Filed under: Alternative fuel, Aviation, Greenhouse gas | Tagged: IATA | No Comments »

If you are an Aussie and you tired of waiting for the big car manufacturers to produce electric cars you are in luck. Blade Electric Vehicles in Castlemaine, North West of Melbourne, are now selling converted Hyundai Getz.

Filed under: Alternative fuel, Cars, Electricity, Projects | Tagged: BEV, Blade Electric Vehicles, Blade Runner, Hyundai Getz | 9 Comments »

An Airbus A380 aircraft has successfully completed a flight with one of its four engines running on a blend of synthetic jet fuel and normal aviation fuel. The three hour flight from Filton in the UK to Toulouse, France, is the first in a test flight programme that is designed to evaluate the environmental impact of alternative aviation fuels.

Filed under: Alternative fuel, Aviation, Synthetic jet fuel | Tagged: A380, Airbus, Fischer-Tropsch, gas-to-liquids, GTL, Qatar GTL, Shell | 1 Comment »

Amory Lovins and his fellow thinkers have a new book out called Winning the Oil Endgame. You can download the book from the Winning the Oil Endgame website. You can also watch a speech he recorded recently on TED Talks where goes through the principles outlined in the book in about 20 minutes.

Filed under: Alternative fuel, Biofuel, Cars, Fuel economy, Greenhouse gas, Peak oil, Rants | Tagged: Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute | No Comments »

An article in The Australian today suggests that the ever increasing price of oil is encouraging Asia, holders of one-third of the world’s coal deposits, to have a good hard look at coal-to-liquids plants for the production of synthetic petrol and diesel.

Filed under: Alternative fuel, Greenhouse gas, Synthetic diesel, Synthetic jet fuel | Tagged: coal-to-liquids, CTL, Royal Dutch Shel, Sasol, Shenhua Group Corp | No Comments »

The New Zealand has published a discussion paper on sustainable transport. In the paper they outline a number of targets for improving the sustainability of New Zealand transport and are now seeking responses. Read the full article for a summary of the proposed targets.

Filed under: Alternative fuel, Biodiesel, Biofuel, Ethanol, Fuel economy, Greenhouse gas, Human power, Marine, Natural gas, Public transport, Trains, Trucks | Tagged: New Zealand, sustainable transport, targets | No Comments »

Back in July 2007 the Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanöe, launched the Vélib self-service bicycle hire system that is now available in the city 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The TimesOnline is now reporting that Mr Delanöe is about to launch self-service electric cars in the romantic city.

Filed under: Alternative fuel, Cars, Electricity, Public transport | Tagged: Automobiles-en-Libre-Service, Bertrand Delanöe, Paris, Vélib | No Comments »

Regular readers will be familiar with my frustration at not being able to buy natural gas vehicles in Australia (previous post) when they are readily available in the US and Europe. It makes perfect sense to me to be able to refuel your vehicle at home from a cleaner and cheaper source of energy whose infrastructure is already in place. The good news is that FuelMaker Corporation are slowly expanding the number of countries into which they market their Phill natural gas home refueling appliance and Australia is on the list.

Filed under: Alternative fuel, Cars, Natural gas | Tagged: FuelMaker, General Motors, Opel, Phill | 15 Comments »

Many people have written about Shai Agassi and his Project Better Place. Few can explain the model and reasoning behind Project Better Place as well as the man himself.

Filed under: Alternative fuel, Cars, Electricity, Projects | Tagged: Israel Corp, Ofer Shipping, Project Better Place, Shai Agassi | No Comments »