Green Options » NOx

Eco-Artist Creates ‘Puff’ Device to Monitor Car Emissions

Michael Ricciardi — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:04:38 +0000

Puff is attached near the exhaust pipe of your vehicle. Its color changes dynamically, visualizing the amount of pollution your car is producing. Green indicates the lowest rate of pollution, red the highest.

Modern artists have often tackled environmental and ecological issues head on, such as through incorporating litter and refuse into sculptures, while other artists (such as photo, video and film artists) have sought to document industrial waste and/or have taken strong oppositional/advocacy stances in their works.

In recent years, many artists have sought to move beyond these “reactive”, commentary, and documentary approaches and create objects and devices that serve practical purposes (if still a bit fanciful in appearance). One such artist/designer is Karolina Sobecka, whose car emissions monitoring device, ‘Puff’ , provides colorful feedback to the car owner on how “cleanly” (or efficiently) he/she is using/burning gasoline.

This author recently contacted Ms. Sobecka and asked her about this device (’Puff’) as well as her other designs, and her artistic/social/environmental goals.

NYMEX’ New Green Exchange Experiences Flying First Week

Angelique van Engelen — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 18:46:47 +0000

The Green Exchange was launched with bells and whistles a few months back. Last week the exchange traded for the first time and activity and volume it surpassed all expectations.

The Green Exchange is part of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). During its first week, the equivalent of 1.59 million tons of carbon was traded. That volume makes the Green Exchange “the most successful launch of exchange-traded carbon contracts,” according to a report in the SunHerald.

50 MPG+ And Cleaner Than Gasoline: Where Are The ‘Clean-Diesels’?

Clayton B. Cornell — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 17:59:23 +0000

Since last year, many of us have been eagerly awaiting the introduction of ‘clean-diesels’: the 2008-2009 models touted as having superior mileage and cleaner emissions than comparable gas models.

So where are they? Strangely, promised 2008 models didn’t materialize, and I had trouble finding more on the story. As far as I can tell, we’ll just have to look forward to next summer’s release of the 2009 VW Jetta TDI. The new Jetta gets similar mileage to older models, 50 mpg ( though VW engineers claim 30% better mileage under real world conditions). More importantly though, it’s the first diesel to meet the world’s toughest emissions standards, California’s Tier II, bin 5, earning it clean-diesel status. If you noticed the recent lack of diesel vehicles for sale (especially in CA), it was the direct result of reengineering emissions systems:

Although it won’t be wearing the “BlueTec” badge, the Jetta will be using emission-cleansing technologies developed under the cooperative formed by Audi, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen to make it 50-state legal. Most BlueTec vehicles control NOx emissions—one of the biggest environmental hurdles facing diesels, along with particulate matter—by injecting a urea-based solution into the exhaust system upstream from the catalytic converter, where NOx is then converted into nitrogen and water. The Jetta will instead use a NOx-storage catalyst, which is basically a reservoir that temporarily holds the noxious emissions, like a particulate filter, until they can be burned off during one of the engine cycles.