A 45 MPG Minivan with Turbocharging and Direct Injection that Runs on CNG and Gasoline

VW Touran Minivan gets Dual-Fuel TSI EcoFuel Powertrain (CNG & Gasoline)
Volkswagen has decided to put its 1.4-liter TSI EcoFuel engine in its Touran Minivan/MPV. This means that it can run on both gasoline and compressed natural gas (CNG), giving it cleaner emissions and reducing the amount of CO2 produced per kilometer (more technical details below). Of course, natural gas is still a fossil fuel (well, unless it is methane reclaimed from a landfill or something like that), but it greener than gasoline (The 2009 Honda Civic GX was recognized by the EPA as the “cleanest-internal combustion vehicle on Earth”) and most people could refuel from their home, so it’s surprising that CNG vehicles haven’t caught on.

uran TSI EcoFuel Technical Specifications
The first thing to note – and it’s visible at a glance when you look at the first picture above – is the dual fuel system.

When the engine is running on gasoline, it gets 5.2l/100km (45 mpg U.S.) and the fuel is stored in a small 11-liter tank (3 gallons US). But the main fuel source is the 4 CNG tanks that can store 18 kilograms of natural gas, giving the Touran TSI a CNG range of 370 kilometers (240 miles), or 520 kilometers (325 miles) if you count both the CNG and gasoline tanks. On CNG it gets 4.7 kg/100 km, and CO2 emissions are 126 g/km.

The 1.4-liter engine might seem small, but it has both a turbocharger and direct injection, making it generate 150 hp and get from 0 to 62 mph in 10.1 seconds.

If VW was bringing the Touran TSI EcoFuel to North-America, we think it could probably make the fuel tanks a bit bigger since drivers here probably drive long distances on average. But even if that increased weight a bit, the Touran would probably still get better MPG and CO2 emissions than the vast majority of cars on the road here (even smaller vehicles). What are you waiting for, VW?

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/05/vw-minivan-touran-tsi-ecofuel-cng-gas-engine.php

TfL To Begin Testing of Intelligent Speed Adaptation Technology

Transport for London (TfL) will begin a six-month trial of Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) technology which aims to reduce road casualties and help drivers avoid speeding penalties. (Earlier post.) As part of the trial, which will start this summer, a London bus will be fitted with ISA.

The intelligent technology, which works in conjunction with a GPS, enables drivers to select an option where acceleration is stopped automatically at the speed limit specific to any road in London within the M25 area. The unit can be disabled at the touch of a button, at which point it reverts to an advisory status where the current, legal speed limit is simply displayed as a driver aid. There is also a complete over-ride switch with disables the system entirely.

<!––>The TfL Road Safety Unit is also keen to trial the technology in a licensed taxi, alongside 20 TfL vehicles driven by road engineers, traffic managers and highway inspectors.

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/05/tfl-isa-20090511.html

Drought, Politics Trouble Farmers In California

California is in its third year of drought, and many farmers in the state’s crop-rich Central Valley are looking at dusty fields, or worse, are cutting down their orchards before the trees die.  

Hardest hit is Westlands, the biggest irrigated region in the country, where much of the nation’s fruit, nuts and produce come from. This year, farmers have been told they are getting only a small fraction of the water they need.

Farmers throughout this region echo the sentiment that politics, not the drought , is the problem. Most of California gets its water from a huge estuary called the Delta, where two big rivers join in the center of the valley. But so much water was being pumped out of the Delta that a tiny smelt there, an endangered species, is disappearing. So late last year, a federal judge ruled that the amount of water being delivered to the south had to be sharply cut back.

 

http://www.enn.com/agriculture/article/39887

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103950335

Stretchable Displays

Display drape: New printable elastic conductors made of carbon nanotubes are used to connect OLEDs in a stretchable display that can be spread over a curved surface.  Credit: Takao Someya, the University of Tokyo

Researchers at the University of Tokyo have moved a step closer to displays and simple computers that you can wear on your sleeve or wrap around your couch. And they have opened up the possibility of printing such devices, which would make them cheap.

Takao Someya, an electrical-engineering professor, and his colleagues make a stretchable display by connecting organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and organic transistors with a new rubbery conductor. The researchers can spread the display over a curved surface without affecting performance. The display can also be folded in half or crumpled up without incurring any damage.

In a previous Science paper, the researchers used their elastic conductor–a mix of carbon nanotubes and rubber–to make a stretchy electronic circuit. The new version of the conductor, described online in Nature Materials, is significantly more conductive and can stretch to more than twice its original size. What’s more, it can be printed. Combined with printable transistors and OLEDs, this could pave the way for rolling out large, cheap, wearable displays and electronics.

Bendy, flexible electronics that can be rolled up like paper are already available. But rubber-like stretchable electronics offer the additional advantage that they can cover complex three-dimensional objects. “With a sheet of paper, you can wrap a cylinder or a cone, but that’s pretty much it,” says John Rogers, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “You can’t wrap a body part, a sphere, or an airplane wing.”

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/22632/