It is logical, I suppose, that GM should invest its R&D dollars in India when developing a range of small, more efficient diesel engines. (Diesels have never caught on in the US in the same way they have in much of the rest of the world.) A Business Standard article quotes P. Balendran, GM’s VP [...]
Continued from Part One. It is no surprise to hear that a government keen on subsidies is talking about extending the electric vehicle (EV) tax credit, currently worth $7,500 to $10,000, and including cars that are designed to run on natural gas, such as Honda’s CNG. Honda and Ford — who produce a natural gas [...]
An FT article last week lauded the intent of General Electric and Chesapeake Energy to form an alliance to promote the use of natural gas as a fuel for cars and trucks. The intent is to develop gas re-fueling infrastructure with a target to add 250 compressing and recharging units principally at gasoline filling stations. [...]
Continued from Part One. Fifty years ago, aluminum was barely present in our diets, yet today it is found almost everywhere. One or two private individuals have carried out long-term surveys that, while not reviewed by any recognized authority, do contain results from approved public health laboratories and at least anecdotally illustrate the rising use [...]
Periodically, reports come out about the toxicity of aluminum and its use in cooking utensils and beverage cans. The imminent report from an already twice-delayed inquest on the pollution of drinking water to Camelford, a small Cornish town in the UK, 24 years ago has re-ignited the controversy over the presence of aluminum in our environment. [...]
As my colleague Lisa is fond of saying, “nothing kills high prices like high prices” — and nowhere could that be more true than in the market for rare earths, whether in the form of oxides or metals. Prices soared in the first half of last year to a peak in the summer, following restrictions [...]
Continued from Part One. The Costliness of Catalysts To date, the use of PGM catalysts have made the up-front cost of fuel cells and the refurbishment of the devices over their life far too expensive to be widely adopted, but Acal Energy in the UK has developed a low-cost liquid catalyst that can be continuously [...]
Fuel cells are one of those technologies we have covered before, usually citing some manufacturer who is fan-faring a new technology purported to be game-changing for the cost structure of the hydrogen fuel cell market. So far, fuel cells are used predominantly in specialist applications such as submarines and space vehicles, or in remote areas [...]
