Bill Clinton in his speech on reducing greenhous gas emissions. Supposedly this new fuel cell is 4 times as efficient as conventional car engines: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - EMBARGOED UNTIL: 8 a.m., October 21, 1997 MEDIA CONTACT: Amber Jones/Hope Williams, 202/586-5806 MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH IN AUTOMOBILE TECHNOLOGY High-Efficiency, Low-Emission Fuel Cell Systems Can Run on Gasoline, Ethanol and Other Fuels In a major automotive research breakthrough, a government-industry team announced that for the first time, fuel cells using gasoline as the fuel have been demonstrated for automotive use, leading the way for high-mileage, low-emission electric vehicles that can be refueled at existing gas stations. A partnership among the Department of Energy, Arthur D. Little of Cambridge, Mass., Plug Power L.L.C. of Latham, N.Y., and the Energy Department's Los Alamos National Laboratory last week successfully demonstrated a fuel cell system that generates electricity using multiple fuels, including gasoline, ethanol, methanol and natural gas. The research was conducted in support of the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles initiative. This first-of-a-kind system was operated on several fuels during a test at Arthur D. Little's laboratories in Cambridge, demonstrating true fuel flexibility and operational stability. The technology is clean and efficient, with emission levels much lower than California's Ultra-Low-Emission Vehicles Standard and an efficiency that could lead to vehicles that get twice the mileage of a conventional vehicle. "This advancement moves the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles closer to meeting its goal -- a super-efficient family car that offers the conveniences of today's automobiles, including easy fill up. Government-industry partnerships are creating technologies that will allow the economy to prosper, while taking care of the environment for future generations," said Vice President Al Gore... The Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles is a cooperative research and development program by the federal government and the United States Council for Automotive Research (USCAR, a cooperative venture among Ford, General Motors and Chrysler). The goal of the partnership is to develop technology that leads to a passenger automobile with 80 miles per gallon fuel economy. The new technology converts the gasoline or alternative fuel into the hydrogen needed for the fuel cell to produce electricity. This ability overcomes a significant challenge in the development of fuel cells for vehicles--the lack of an infrastructure to supply the hydrogen from external sources. The ability to produce the hydrogen on board, combined with the ability to use the existing gasoline infrastructure, could solve the current range and refueling problems of electric vehicles. Because the new technology can process a variety of fuels, however, it also promises to speed the transition to renewable fuels... To perform the tests, the fuel cell team integrated an automotive scale (50 kilowatts) fuel-flexible fuel processor with a proton exchange membrane fuel cell, creating a system capable of converting various fuels into electricity on board a vehicle.... The system also uses a carbon monoxide removal system developed by Los Alamos and a fuel cell stack developed by Plug Power with technical assistance from Los Alamos... Arthur D. Little and Plug Power will work together under a $15-million cost-shared contract recently awarded by the Department of Energy to further develop this technology. - DOE - R-97-108

Sounds interesting. I've been interested in alternative power sources ever since reading National Geographic's Energy Supplement in 1981. Fuel cells and nickel-metal-hydride batteries seems to be the way to go, especially if they can use methane from those most renewable resources: Garbage & Sewage! The technology seems to be a bit heavy for motorcycles, though; Gordon Jennings has written an interesting article called "Alternative Fools" in the February 1996 (I think, could be February 1995) issue of Motorcycling regarding the pros and cons (mostly cons) of current EV technology as applied to bikes. Unless the power/weight ratio becomes comparable to the internal combustion engine, motorcycles will continue to use the latter, though not necessarily with gasoline. The October 1997 issue of Scientific American is devoted to transportation, and two of its articles are about hybrid cars. Volvo has a prototype of a series hybrid with a gas turbine. Gas turbines are very efficient, but only at one speed, which makes them unsuitable as car engines if they are run through conventional transmissions (as Chrysler & Rover found in the '50's and '60s). However, run a turbine at constant speed, have it power a synchronous generator designed for the same operational speed, and use this to charge the batteries of a hybrid EV, and you've got a very efficient car (compared to conventional cars; don' know about this new fuel cell).

Something I heard from Mitsu Hadeishi: Honda announced an ultra-low-emissions gasoline vehicle; it uses two catalytic converters. They claim that if you drove such a vehicle through a smoggy atmosphere (like L.A., presumably), the exhaust from the engine would be cleaner than the surrounding air. (!) It still produces CO2 of course. The hydrogen fuel cell announcement was an American company working in conjunction with the Dept. of Energy, and it is basically a thing that separates hydrogen from gasoline and then uses that hydrogen for a fuel cell. Of course this also produces CO2, but they claim that the process extracts energy from gasoline at twice the efficiency of an internal combustion engine, so you should get double the gas mileage. The problem is with current technology even mass-produced these things would cost $30K to produce per unit, so a lot of work has to be done to reduce costs. (CNN's web page had a story on it, I'm sure there are stories on most of the major news services today or yesterday).

Honda made a 2-stroke motorbike engine using ignition by active radicals (or something like that) that's about as clean as current 4-stroke engines and doesn't use the spark plug most of the time (only for starting and early running, when the mixture is less than ideal for the formation of active radicals). I'll check CNN or ABC about the fuel cell.

Hydro-Quebec worked on an electric motor (one on each well). I saw a report in witch these motors were pushing a Chrysler Intrepid. The principe was that when you desacelerate, you use the motors as generators who's reduct the speed of the car, charging the batteries in the same time. You also have a small fuel motor who recharge the batteries, while running at crusing speed. The project seem's to be stopped cause administration conflicts.)o: Another thing I saw on TV is a molecular reactor that pulverise the fuel in the motor. They say that the gaz at tail pipe is purest than the surrounding air. (Would it be good in Mexico city??? (o:

P.S. Putting an electric motor on a motorcycle is for me a nithmare (o: Yves

Regenerative braking (using the brakes to generate charge) is common in EVs. EVs will embrace any technology that improves range, and these measures developed in desperation will all help hybrids. I'm not in Mexico City (thank God!), I'm in the city of Quer�taro, capital of the state of Quer�taro. In both functional and aesthetic terms, powering a motorcycle with an electric motor is a nightmare for me too! (Hmm... maybe sonmeone will convert a Nighthawk to hybrid power and call it a Nightmare!)

I saw a gas powered skateboard down on Duval Street a couple of weeks ago, talk about the leading edge!

Old news. About twenty or thirty ago, Henry N. Manney III road tested a powered skateboard for an April edition Road & Track. The picture that keeps recurring in R&T shows Manney in armour "driving" this skateboard with this tiny engine on the back!

Man, the guy on it was zipping along running circles around the cars. He was like a bullet riding by!

Was gonna put this on Topic 22, but.. The NY Auto Show is running this week. I haven't been in a l-o-n-g time, but I see that this year all the exhibitors seem to be showing a great many style-dept. "concept" vehicles, all types. My favorite is the "Jeepster 99" a take-no-prisoners looking AWD Jeep that I hope will see production. Aside from the usual neat European machinery, the Pontiac Trans-Am wins hands down in the produced-now category.

What are the Jeepster 99 innovations. What will 2000 bring for cars? Interesting topic?

Has anyone seen the new Chrysler car that looks like the 30s or 40s? What's it called?

PT Cruiser, but you probably know that by now...

It looks retro to me - or are we going Back to the Future?! Hi Sam, it's good to see you back at Spring!

Yep, good to be back. I actually like the look of the PT Cruiser; nice street-rod look even if it doesn't have the power or the chassis. It has space, though! If I had the money I'd seriously consider one (if they make them in right-hand drive), it could carry around my equipment for work and my guitar & amp for play...

I did not mean to imply retro was negative. They have a certain charm and individuality I like. Roomy, yes! too bad you cannot put the top down! I'm sure for "a sum" they could customize yours for you. Probably a highly uneconomical idea. Still driving on the left?! I thought only the auld sod did that.

Old habits die hard; Jamaica was a British colony from the days of Oliver Cromwell until the MacMillan administration. We got our independence in 1962; I guess England thought it was uneconomical to keep us; judging by how we are now, they were right! All English-speaking islands in the West Indies (except the USVI, of course; Puerto Rico is Spanish speaking, I think) drive on the left. So do England, Australia, India, English-speaking African countries (e.g. Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Zimbabwe, etc.) and Japan. Must be something about island empires that causes them to drive on the left...

Well, when it came to the US we just plain got like little kids. We switched silverware from hand to hand as a secret signal that we were revolutionists. We continue to do this nonsense till today. We drive on the left just to be ornery. I was terrified to out in traffic sitting on the left with no stearing wheel in the UK. Not only that, but we kept screwing ourselves into the traffic circles (circuses) and had to be urged off but very kindly lorry drivers. YOU play cricket. All is forgiven! Are you Windies gonna beat Pakistan in the current test matches?

(It'd be nice if I could type and spell better. Sorry about that.)

Maybe, just may be. The West Indies Test Cricket Team has just lost one of its legendary batsmen and it's biggest DRAG ever, Brian Charles Lara. He's a truly gifted batsman but a major a**wipe. His prima-donna attitude was a major contributor to the decline and fall of the West Indies team. He sabotaged both Courtney Walsh and Jimmy Adams when they were the team captains, and his selfishness and lack of discipline destroyed the team when he finally achieved his ruthless ambition of becoming the captain. Lara then left the team and they were regaining their composure under Adams until Adams made the fatal mistake of BRINGING LARA BACK! Anyway, both Lara and Adams are gone now, and the West Indies is reboundig once again, this time under Carl Hooper. When the Windies can rebound even under a mad man like Hooper, you KNOW we were far gone! The new players are doing well and old hands like Chanderpaul are probably thankful that the in-fighting is over (I hope...) One thing is certain: WE DON'T WANT LARA BACK!!!!

http://www.spring.net/yapp-bin/restricted/read/sports/47 This url is where we teach the American girl from Hawaii what cricket is all about. Oz and Kiwi and England all represented as well as Terry who is slightly behind me on knowledge. He's interested though. I've been listening for ages on a short wave radio connected to a under-the-pillow speaker all night long. Ah yes, snuggle into a cool tropical night and let the match begin. I thought Pakistan went through a rather bad patch a ways back when they found game-fixing and other nefarious dealings not exactly "cricket." Prima donnas are the bane of every team, and each one seems to have their own brand. Be rid of them and build back closing the hole he left. It is the only way to survive. I remember Brian Lara! Too bad and good riddance!