In Brief | Green Energy News

May 15, 2005 – Vol.10 No.8

IN BRIEF.

--- RailPower Technologies has 80 hybrid locomotives on its order books. No wonder General Electric is interested in the technology and has included it in its list of planned products under its recently announced Ecomagination program.

RailPower’s Green Goat hybrid switcher locomotives have a large battery pack, electric drive and a small diesel generator to keep the batteries charged.

The locomotives don’t idle. The heavy battery pack helps with traction. Fuel and subsequent greenhouse gas emissions are cut by 40-60 percent. Nitrogen oxide and diesel particulate emissions are cut 80-90 percent.

The Green Goats are remanufactured and converted-to-hybrid from aging conventional diesel switching locomotives. The company has future products in mind like a hybrid commuter locomotive. Visit RailPower at http://www.railpower.com/ .

--- There’s an image on NASA’s Earth Observatory website that is concerning. It’s a satellite image of ship tracks, clouds high in the sky formed because of the exhaust emissions from ships at sea.

(Clouds are not just condensed water vapor. They’re water vapor that has condensed on minute particles of dust and pollution. (The reason your just-washed car is dirty after the first rain.))

Scientists are concerned that some of the clouds we see are actually made by us and could affect climate. Cleaner burning fuels for ships would be helpful in reducing ocean cloud formations.

Lloyd’s Register, an independent risk management organization, has given an Approval in Principal for the use of General Electric gas turbine propulsion systems for liquid natural gas (LNG) tankers. The ships would be able burn the boil-off gas from the LNG containment systems on board. Low emissions and better fuel efficiency are some of the reasons for pursuing the technology. Visit Lloyd’s at http://www.lr.org/ , NASA Earth Observatory http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=16907

--- Oh, my. Chariots are back. Well, at least they’re emission free. Even horse-pulled ones weren’t that.

American Chariot Company has announced that is has shipped 24 of its Special Applications Series Chariots to the U.S. Army's National Automotive Center (NAC) for deployment to Iraq.

The company says many operations don’t need a Humvee (HMMWV) and that 15 Chariots can be bought for the price of one of those. The three-wheeled electric vehicles will be used within bases, freeing up the much larger vehicles for battlefield duty. Visit American Chariot at http://www.americanchariot.com/ .

--- First Solar has entered into a multi-year contract with German renewable energy developer juwi (yes, all lower case.)

Under the framework agreement First Solar will provide 8 megawatts of solar generating capacity to juwi during 2005 and 2006. First Solar, too, recently announced production expansion plans: 40 megawatts of module production in 2006, 75 in 2007. Visit First Solar at http://www.firstsolar.com/ juwi at http://www.juwi.de/.