Whole Travel Blog

This week, ExxonMobil announced that it will invest more than $600 million into research and development of next-generation biofuels produced from sunlight, water and waste carbon dioxide by photosynthetic pond scum. In a collaboration with Synthetic Genomics expected to last 5-6 years at a new test facility being constructed in San Diego, the hope is to develop the technology to a point where ExxonMobil can invest billions more into bringing it to commercial markets.

Pond Scum: the next source of renewable energy?

Craig Venter, founder and CEO of Synthetic Genomics, said, “There are different approaches to what is truly economically scalable, so we’re testing things and giving a new reality to the timelines and expectations of what it takes to have a global impact on fuel supply.” It’s a big strategy shift for ExxonMobil to move into developing renewable biofuel technology after years of publicly opposing investment in renewable energy. If all goes well, ExxonMobil and Synthetic Geonomics hope to be producing biofuels similar in structure to today’s conventional hydrocarbons, but from completely renewable sources, by the end of the project. You can read more about it at Synthetic Genomics’ website: www.syntheticgenomics.com.

Who owns one of the world’s largest vehicle fleets? Here’s a hint: it’s not Google or even Nascar. It’s the United States Postal Service, purveyors of your daily mail and walkers (er…drivers) of mail routes nationwide. With a fleet of aging, fuel-inefficient automobiles, the USPS recently announced a huge undertaking: replacing 6,500 vehicles with more efficient vehicles, including 900 hybrids and 1,000 alternative fuel vehicles.

Reducing the carbon footprint of your snail mail

The USPS currently has well over 200,000 vehicles in its fleet, so this is only a small percentage of the overall picture, but it is hopefully a proof of concept for the government agency that going green is the way to be.

Nephelios, a solar-powered blimp, is completing test flights over the next 2 weeks in preparation for a crossing of the English Channel by the end of the summer. This will mark the first manned solar airship ever, proving that carbon-free air travel is possible. Flexible solar panels on the top of the blimp will power a small motor, turning two propellers and moving the blimp forward. The flight across the Channel is expected to take less than an hour, and be an amazingly quiet and serene experience for those onboard. You can read more about it here.

Some people swim the Channel, these guys float across.

McDonald’s is probably one of the last places you’d think of when you’re looking for a green restaurant. With a reputation for fast, unhealthy food and even a movie about it (Super Size Me), the chain is fighting an uphill battle when it comes to positive publicity. However, we want to give credit where credit is due. The country’s largest fast food chain recently opened a new restaurant in North Carolina, complete with electric vehicle charging stations.

Can they charge your EV as fast as they can make your burger?

We want to commend McDonalds for taking a step in the right direction. They have a long way to go before they’re serving healthy meals, but if a business as large as McDonalds can make a small change, the ripple effect can be huge across the industry.

The San Francisco-based design firm Mike and Maaike, which designed Google’s G1 phone, has come up with the Autonomobile, a concept for a self-driving, low-speed electric car of the future. They acknowledge that this car will probably never be built - especially considering the years of skepticism and months of anticipation before the G1 was launched - but they hope to at least provide some inspiration for the future of ground transportation.

Who needs a steering wheel? Give me a couch!

The design by Mike and Maaike takes the opposite approach to Tesla Motors, which is working to spur interest in electric vehicles by making them sporty and fun to drive. So instead of all the bells and whistles of a sports car, the Autonomobile’s design is all about quality time while in transit. A lounge area with no steering wheel, accelerator or rear-view mirror allows comfortable seating for 7, whether working on computers, watching television or just relaxing and conversing. Technology has a long way to go before it can provide this type of experience, but hopefully this provides inspiration for the designers of our future transports.

Thursday, Continental Airlines announced the results of its January 7 biofuel demonstration flight. Not only was the flight successful, the biofuel showed approximately 1.1% greater fuel efficiency over traditional jet fuel. So, not only was the fuel made from renewable sources, it actually beat traditional fuel outright. This type of fuel is estimated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60-80% as well.

Flying the greener skies

“We look forward to working with our partners as biofuels go through the certification process, and we hope to see these fuels proceed into commercial quantities in the near future,” said Leah Raney, Continental’s managing director of global environmental affairs. Hopefully it’s not long until we see all jet fuel from sustainable sources.

General Electric and the Idaho National Laboratory announced last week that they have received $2 million from the Department of Energy to further research and develop a technology that converts heat from industrial engines into electricity, potentially making engines 20-40% more efficient and reducing carbon emissions.

Don't waste that waste heat!

Researchers in Germany and New York have been working to improve the Organic Rankine Cycle so that they may effectively capture and convert waste heat, but technology to date has not been cost competitive. By using an evaporator instead of a working fluid, GE’s new design can capture heat from relatively small sources and convert it to electricity for a wide range of applications.

Back in November 2008, FedEx Express announced a plan to purchase vehicles that combine Azure Dynamics’s hybrid system with a Ford gasoline engine and chassis. Last Thursday, the Hybrid Truck User Forum sponsored an event in Washington, DC, fittingly called: “Hybrid on the Hill Day.” This event featured 17 medium- and heavy-duty commercial hybrid trucks with participants including FedEx Express, Mack, Peterbilt, Freightliner and Kenworth.

FedEx Express already uses hybrids in city fleets.

The event on Capitol Hill took place next to the Capitol Reflecting Pool with speakers addressing the benefits of hybrids for the commercial trucking industry and how to roll-out hybrid fleets in a rough economy. Duke University also released a report on the hybrid truck sector and how it could impact the industry going forward.

London mayor Boris Johnson wants his city to lead the charge in making the UK the electric vehicle capital of the European Union. Less than a month after Johnson presented a 35-page plan to get the electric vehicle market going with government funding, London’s official foreign direct investment agency, Think London, pitched more than 50 cleantech companies at an event in San Francisco.

With London hosting the 2012 Olympic Games, there is a lot of capital flowing into infrastructure and technology improvements around the city, and to meet their 2025 goal of 60% carbon emissions reduction the expected capital requirement is £20 billion. This creates a nice incentive for many US and international companies to setup shop in London, and hopefully means we’ll get to a greener tomorrow faster.

Bloomberg today announced that Zipcar, the world’s largest car-sharing company, is gearing up for an initial public offering in 2010. Over the past 9 years, Zipcar has grown from an idea conceived in a Cambridge, Massachusetts to a single lime-green VW bug to a fleet of more than 6,500 autos. 

Zipcar helps you go green when you rent a Prius.

Unlike traditional rental car agencies, Zipcar allows members to swipe a card over a dashboard reader, which unlocks the car with the keys already inside. Members can take cars by the hour or for a few days, leaving them at different drop locations based on their online reservations. Even Hertz’s CEO, Mark Frissora, talks about Zipcar: “It’s a cool technology. My two sons use Zipcar. They said, ‘Dad, you have to get into this.’”

At Whole Travel, we’re excited to see Zipcar doing so well. Whether you don’t need a car too often or if you just don’t want to own a car, it’s a great way to reduce the overall number of automobiles produced and reduce our consumption of natural resources. Here’s to hoping the IPO market keeps heating up for green businesses, and way to go Zipcar!