This little car will be powered by compressed air.  It’s said to have a top speed of 68mph, a range of 125 miles, and can be filled at a compressed air station in three minutes, at a cost of $2.  Tata Motors has invested$30 million in the project, which is being developed by Moteur Development International (MDI).  The companies are saying that the car will be launched in France by the end of 2008 or early 2009.

Both companies are working on hybrid models that can switch between  traditional gasoline and compressed air.  These are intended to ease the transition, since compressed air stations are not available anywhere yet.  Obviously, the stations would not be built until the technology is proven and people start buying the cars.

Read More [autobloggreen.com]

Professor Thomas Wood has engineered a strain of the E. coli bacterium to produce a potentially large amount of hydrogen. By selectively deleting six specific genes, this new strain can produce 140 times more hydrogen than it normally would in its glucose conversion process. Wood thinks that the bacterium could be used to produce hydrogen “on-site” at a hydrogen filling station, eliminating the need to create a costly hydrogen transport and delivery system. We suppose that this means you would instead have to create a sugar delivery system to feed the bacteria. But that is probably simpler and cheaper.

As with almost all of these announcements, the technology is not ready for prime time. So don’t expect to see an “E. Coli hydrogen and production filling station” on your block any time soon.

R ead More [sciencedaily.com]

A research group at Penn State University announced last year that it is “only a couple of problems away” from perfecting a low-cost, scalable method for for water photoelectrolysis.  This technique uses visible light to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen.  The so-called “hydrogen economy” will need an effective technique for mass production of hydrogen, so this was a promising announcement.  However, experience has shown that those last little problems often turn out to be insurmountable.  Let’s hope this is an exception.

Read More [sciencedaily.com]

A large five-year study that analyzed switchgrass produce on farms in three states has concluded that switchgrass can produce 540 percent more energy than the amount needed to grow, harvest and process it into cellulosic ethanol.  Switchgrass is a prairie grass with a great potential as a biomass fuel source.

Read More [sciencedaily.com]