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May 8, 2009 | 43
In the newly released budget, the U.S. Department of Energy cuts $100 million from the hydrogen fuel cell program in fiscal year 2010 and transforms its name to "fuel cell technologies." Hydrogen, of course, is just the fuel of a fuel cell—a device that recombines hydrogen and oxygen to produce water and electrical current. Still, the name change distances the Obama administration from the "hydrogen economy" goals of their predecessors.
"We asked ourselves, 'Is it likely in the next 10 or 15, 20 years that we will convert to a hydrogen car economy?' The answer, we felt, was 'No,'" said energy secretary Steven Chu in a briefing on the budget for reporters yesterday, citing the need for better fuel cells and a near complete lack of infrastructure.
Jan 27, 2009 | 6
The fields of space and climate science are growing ever more closely entwined: Japan launched a new satellite to monitor greenhouse gases late last week, and NASA is set to launch its own Orbiting Carbon Observatory next month. But what about all the nasty fumes and gases spewed by the boosters needed to shoot those climate watchdogs into orbit?
A California company has a solution to shrink the ecological footprint of space exploration, but it remains to be seen whether it can or will be applied to real spaceflight: biodiesel-powered rockets. Flometrics, based in Carlsbad, Calif., earlier this month conducted a ground rocket-engine test of biodiesel (the "same stuff people put in their cars," according to company founder Steve Harrington) alongside RP-1, a standard rocket-grade kerosene fuel, and found them of almost equal fortitude. (The biodiesel delivered about 3 percent less thrust than the RP-1, according to Flometrics.) Biodiesel, a liquid fuel derived from vegetable oil or animal fat, has already been used to power a cross-country jet flight.
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