Rinspeed's roadster: Fast, fun, and green
How do you build a car that's both powerful and low in carbon dioxide emissions? For Swiss car designer Rinspeed and Germany's Bayer MaterialScience AG, the answer is diet and exercise. The two companies have teamed up to produce the Rinspeed eXasis (Figure 3). The vehicle mounts a lightweight, high-output Weber 750-cc (49 cubic inch), two-cylinder engine on a frame made of Bayer's Makrolon polycarbonate.
The result is a 1,650-lb roadster with 150 brake horsepower and a 210 km/hour (131 mph) top speed that can go from 0 to 60 mph in less than 5 seconds burning E85 ethanol. Carbon dioxide emissions are only 20 grams/kilometer, compared with 200 grams for a conventional midsize car.
"Cars must become even lighter to save CO2, and there's no way of doing that without modern plastics," says Rinspeed chief, Frank M. Rinderknecht. "Environmentally friendly cars cannot be seen as an exercise in self-denial. On the contrary, they must be fun, or no one will buy them." The eXasis is the third concept vehicle for Rinspeed and Bayer.
Urs Wenger, of engine-maker Weber's development partner, swissauto, added, "The eXasis propulsion system represents downsizing in its purest form. We have dispensed with not only the huge-capacity engine, but also some of the cylinders. Why? In this way, we can retain the desirable small engine capacity while keeping the more-efficient, large-volume cylinders."
The fuel for the eXasis project comes from Alcosuisse, the for-profit arm of the Swiss Alcohol Board, which is researching bioethanol. The Swiss Federal Office of Energy has picked the eXasis for a study on lightweight construction and ecology. According to the Swiss energy agency, reducing vehicle mass is the most effective way to lower fuel consumption.
Dead chickens, the weirdest renewable
United Press International, quoting the Swedish newspaper Västerbottens-Kuriren, reports that Umea Energi, a Swedish utility, is using chicken carcasses from local egg farms to fuel an existing waste-to-energy plant.
The utility, in far northern Sweden, incinerates waste to produce both electricity and district heat for Umea, a city of 110,000. A company spokesman noted that "chickens are just the right size" (Figure 4) for the conveyor belt that feeds the plant. The company added that it has plenty of nonpoultry fuel for the plant and is taking the chickens as a favor to the egg farmers.
Although Umea Energi appears to be unique in using chickens as fuel, there is plenty of interest in the U.S. in poultry-related fuels. The 2005 Energy Policy Act includes subsidies for studies of the feasibility of using chicken litter as a fuel.
According to the Physorg.com science web site, the Gas Technology Institute (GTI) has demonstrated that chicken litter can be gasified to produce hydrogen for fueling a solid-oxide fuel cell. Working at the University of Georgia, and funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, GTI operated a bench-scale fluidized bed gasifier at 1,550F to turn litter into low-Btu syngas. The researchers used a zinc-oxide bed to remove H2S from the gas before it enters the fuel cell.
In late 2005, the Associated Press reported that researchers at the University of Arkansas have a schmaltzy approach to chicken-based fuel. They have developed a way to convert chicken fat into biodiesel. Chemical engineering professor R.E. Babcock said chicken-fat fuels "burn better, create less particulate matter, and actually lubricate and clean things like cylinders, pistons, and fuel lines." Chicken fat also is cheaper than soybean oil, the usual source of biodiesel.
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