Green Options

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In the world of hybrid and electric cars, the upcoming commercial release of the Chevrolet Volt must surely rank as the most widely (and wildly) anticipated event. Now GM has ramped up the expectation levels another notch by releasing two teaser pictures providing us with a sneak-peak of its much vaunted plug-in hybrid model.

The release of the pictures, showing parts of the front and rear ends, will be seen in the industry as a signal that GM is still very much on track for the forecast 2010 launch of this pioneering car.

Starting later this year, Advanced Mechanical Products (AMP), a company based in Cincinnati, Ohio, will take your pre-existing or newly purchased Saturn Sky and convert it to an electric car.

Initially only available for the Sky, AMP will add other Saturn models as company growth allows.

The company is currently taking orders for a limited run of 300 “signature series” Sky conversions. The Sky EV will be able to go from 0-60 mph (0-97 kph) in 5.7 seconds, will have a top speed of 90 mph (145 kph), and can go 150 miles (240 kilometers) before needing a recharge.

Tomorrow, General Motors is hosting a backgrounder on cellulosic ethanol feedstocks at the Thousand Oak (CA) based laboratories of Ceres, Inc.

Coverage of non-food based ethanol tends to focus on fuel production technologies, but Ceres works one step further up the supply chain: they’re using genetic technology to engineer plants optimally suited for conversion into something you’d want to put in your gas tank.

I’ve already had the chance to speak with Richard Hamilton, President and CFO of Ceres, about the potential to produce super-strains of perennial grasses like sweet sorghum and switchgrass, and I’m looking forward to hearing more details tomorrow.

This mean-lookin’ machine may wind up in your rear-view mirror someday, as GM is thinking hard about bringing this 40mpg car to America.  Don’t you just love the way some cars take on an actual head-on personality.  Engineers must love to do this sort of thing.

It’s called the Beat, and it’s a car that would normally be sold in other markets, such as Asia and Latin America.  But with the high price of gas, and GM’s plunging losses ($38.7 billion in 2007), the company that brought you the Hummer may just have to re-invent itself.  And, no, it isn’t a hybrid.

Editors Note: This guest post was contributed by Charley Territo, spokesperson for the Alliance of Auto Manufacturers, in an effort encourage better dialogue between the auto industry and the environmental movement. Charley also contributed a guest post on Grist on May 20. I asked him to weigh in on a question I’ve had for a long time: How can automakers like GM complain that consumers only want to buy big cars when they spend hundreds of thousands advertising brands like Hummer? Here is his response. Feel free to weigh in with your own comments below.

For years it’s been assumed that, using their superior marketing skills, automakers have the ability to trick consumers into buying SUVs and pickup trucks…when, in reality, the consumers really only
wanted to buy compact cars.  While that’s probably quite flattering to the marketing departments, it doesn’t have the important benefit of actually being correct.

Current events are now allowing people to see more clearly the greater force at work driving consumer demand: Gas prices.

AutoblogGreen reported today that the cellulosic ethanol company Mascoma has received another $10 million for research and development from Marathon Oil. This comes after GM’s undisclosed equity share in the same company was announced last week, and puts the grand total raised in this round of financing at $100 million.

This blew me away at first, but then it does make some sense. What do you think?

According to Swedish car safety specialist Claes Tingvall, GM has wrapped up a multi-year project which used dead human bodies instead of crash dummies. Specifically, the tests were made with Saab automobiles.

General Motors announced today it would be entering into a strategic relationship with Mascoma Corp., a second-generation biofuel company with the technology to produce cellulosic ethanol from non-food sources via a single-step biochemical conversion.

The undisclosed equity share aims to contribute to joint research and development along with technology exchange, plant siting, and rapid commercialization of cellulosic ethanol technology and infrastructure. This is GM’s second investment in a cellulosic ethanol company, after announcing partnership with Coskata back in January.

One of the most viable solutions to our large-scale environmental challenges is to use “waste” instead of virgin materials. This is especially true for the transportation fuels industry. Unfortunately, with the current infrastructure in place, virgin resources can actually be more cost effective than “waste.” I became aware of this when I toured the Coskata ethanol laboratory in suburban Chicago. I discovered that there is a cheaper and more consistent supply of harvested trees to produce ethanol than trash.

Trees, agricultural waste, storm debris and trash are all viable fuel sources for ethanol, using the Coskata process. This highly flexible technology allows future manufacturing plants to cater to locally available materials, making ethanol viable in parts of the globe that would not use corn or sugar cane for fuel. Argonne National Laboratory tests show that greenhouse gas emissions are up to 84% lower for Coskta ethanol than conventional gasoline. It has a net energy balance of up to 7.7, compared to 1.3 for corn-based ethanol. These results were achieved with a production cost of $1 a gallon when timber was used as an ethanol fuel source.

On face of it, you would think that garbage would be the cheapest way to produce fuel, given the flexibility of the Coskata process. In fact, one of the most available and economically viable fuel sources is trees, with the low price tag of $50 a ton. There is a very efficient infrastructure for harvesting and transporting trees. They are available throughout the year, unlike some agricultural products. It is actually cheaper to use trees than sorted garbage and agricultural waste.

Matt Kelly of NextGear was kind enough to pass along video of our breakfast with Rick Wagoner, Chairman and CEO of General Motors, which took place last week at the NAIAS.

Mr. Wagoner addressed a variety of issues, including the Coskata ethanol announcement, the future of the Hummer brand (hint: smaller), the risks associated with producing the Chevy Volt, and [...]

As you’ve almost certainly already heard by now, General Motors has announced a partnership with Coskata, Inc. to produce ethanol less expensively and without using food materials as feedstock for the process. This is exciting for a number of reasons. First of all, Coskata is close to completing a continuous demonstration stream at their laboratory. They also expect to have a pilot demonstration plant in place by the end of the year that will produce 40,000 gallons of ethanol. And later this year, they expect to announce the site for their first full-scale plant which will be capable of annual production of 100 million gallons of ethanol. The process also consumes less water resources (less than one gallon of water per gallon of ethanol produced) and delivers 7.7 units of energy per unit of energy used in the process.

The process relies on using anaerobic microbes that consume carbon monoxide and hydrogen and produce ethanol. Because the process uses specially bred strains of microbes, they produce ethanol exclusively, unlike other fermentation processes, which often produce a range of alcohols and which require further distillation. Furthermore, the flexibility of the Coskata process allows for other microbes to be used in the same process setup (or even a parallel setup). Other strains of microbes that produce other useful alcohols, including some used as precursors for plastic production, so that the same technology could be used in other applications to provide a petroleum replacement.