Maybe we won’t have to wait until 2010 to get a car that doesn’t run on gasoline. The Th!nk City electric car is going into production in the US and should be popping out cars soon. The perfect combo might be solar panels for your house and this electric car for your commute.

This could be it: the Th!nk City electric car, a four-seater with 110 mile range and top speed of 65 mph, priced under $25,000, made from 95% recyclable materials, and available in the U.S. in 2009.

The Th!nk City electric car is the product of Norwegian firm Th!nk Global, an auto manufacturer backed by Silicon Valley funding who has plans to assemble the cars in Southern California. In contrast to Tesla’s limited release of 300 cars per year, the Th!nk City is designed for mass production to the tune of 30-50,000 units within a few years. Th!nk already produces about 10,000 of these cars in Europe annually. [Gas 2.0]

Th!nk’s Website.

If you’ve ever looked into buying solar panels or photovoltaics for your house you know how much it cost. It can be anywhere from twenty to thirty thousand dollars for a typical home. What if you could instead lease a solar system for little or no money down? That’s what some companies are doing now and it seems to be catching on. Two I’ve discovered lately that do this are Citizenre and SolarCity. Basically it’s like renting a car, but with much longer leases, you pay very little down to get the system, and you pay them a monthly rent. You are protected from utility price hikes because the cost of the solar doesn’t change and you save money over what you’d be paying without solar panels. You also don’t have to worry about maintenance if anything goes wrong, these companies cover that for you.

One thing I noticed is that neither company seems to mention the generous incentives homeowners get if they buy their own system. According to American Solar Electric’s site a 22,478 dollar system only costs 9,878 dollars after APS/SRP rebates, and Federal and State tax incentives. Depending on the financing you can get this might be the better solution. Of course if anything goes wrong with the system or a much better cheaper form of energy comes out you are stuck with those solar panels and out a lot of money. If like me you live in a location that isn’t served by SRP or APS leasing sounds like it might be a great option to save money and the environment.

Interesting article over at Fox News about how the U.S. Armed forces are moving to alternative clean energies. Thanks to RKTowner for sending the link in for this.

Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada is powered by the largest solar-power array in the Americas — saving the government an estimated $1 million a year.

Dyess, Minot, and Fairchild Air Force bases purchase 100 percent of their electricity from renewable sources of energy.

Airmen and their families have been using biomass fuel at Hill Air Force Base in Utah since 2004, thanks to a 1.3 megawatt landfill gas project. In other words, they are creating gas from the air base’s trash. Complete story at foxnews.com.

Info on Nellis’ solar system.

Story on Hill Air Force Base’s biomass power generation.

The crew from BioTour made a stop on ASU’s Tempe campus today to promote sustainable living, biofuels, and solar energy. They welcomed everyone to take a tour of their bus and eagerly answered everyone’s questions. As I walked up to the bus I was immediately welcomed by BioTour co-director Ethan Burke and asked if I’d like a tour.

Their bus is powered by waste veggie oil (wvo) which they collect from restaurants in whatever town they happen to be in that day. Ethan said they usually stick to Chinese restaurants because they have the highest quality oil (i.e. it is changed frequently as opposed to used and reused and used again at a fast food chain).

The first thing Ethan showed me is the side of the bus where they suck the oil from grease traps and filter it into storage tanks. He said they are working on better ways to filter the oil because the filters clog a little too frequently. One solution they are looking into is using a centrifuge to achieve better filtration.

Next he showed me the actual tanks they have mounted under the bus. These tanks are heated to thin out the oil making it closer to the viscosity of diesel fuel which is more more fluid than veggie oil when at room temperature. Before they can even run off of wvo it has to reach at least 160 degrees before it can be injected in the engine. They have to start the bus on biodiesel and then switch over to the wvo once it’s hot enough. The switch over is very seamless and can be done while moving.

I asked if they ever have trouble finding enough restaurants to get oil from and he said every once in a while they do but that it’s usually not a problem. They’ll use biodiesel or even regular diesel to get them to their next wvo pickup.

So after seeing where they suck up the oil and store it Ethan took me up to the front of the bus where the engine cover is open, exposing the modifications they’ve made. Unlike biodiesel, which doesn’t require any engine modifications, to run off of wvo a few things have to be done. Since they have to warm up the engine on biodiesel before switching over to wvo a system must be installed to do the actual switching. Also heated tanks need to be installed and heated fuel filters. In the picture on the right you can see they use the heat from the engine’s coolant system to heat the fuel filters. These filter out anything in the oil larger then 20 microns. I asked how long they can go before these clog up and Ethan said they can usually go just over 2,000 miles before they have to change them. That’s one reason they are looking at better pre-filtering so that they can get more life out of these filters. So basically that’s it, after leaving these filters the clean wvo is injected into the engine and off they go.

Quite a few people were asking if the wvo has caused any engine trouble, and being that this is an old bus (1989) Ethan explained they’ve had a few breakdowns, but these weren’t related to the wvo system. I believe he said the steering went out once, and a few other things, but the engine is still running strong.

That was about it for the nuts and bolts of how things worked, Ethan was surrounded by curious onlookers asking about how it all worked, so I headed inside the bus to take a look around. In the bus I ran into Alan Palm who is the other co-director. He was telling stories of their adventures to a few people that were already inside. I caught part of a story about when they broke down and someone that worked for an oil company towed their bus to his house and let them stay for a week while they fixed it.

So this is where they live all year long, touring the country, visiting schools, colleges, and community gatherings. They are continually giving presentations and tours on sustainability on these visits. They drive around 40,000 miles a year and have so far visited 42 states. The two other crew members who I didn’t get to talk to are Fernando Austin and Jenny Sherman. Check out their website where you can get tons more information about their mission, what they do, and even a blog.

BioTour is a journey that aims to enliven the Sustainability Movement while exploring the depths of America—the people, land, and cultures. BioTour addresses the vital issues of climate change, environmental degradation, and peak oil while presenting pathways toward sustainability in renewable energy, active democracy, and understanding the interconnectedness of all living things. www.biotour.com

While skimming the latest headlines this morning I noticed this column in the Arizona Replublic about algae. It was written about ASU Professor Mark Edwards who had just contributed a post to AzSustainably on Tuesday. The republic also published a quote from Edward’s synopsis of his book off this site. So after the initial excitement of seeing AzSustainably.com’s address in the Republic I read the actual article and it was very interesting.

Basically it was about how Algae could help diversify Arizona’s economy by sparking new types of manufacturing here.

While algae won’t replace major sectors, the organisms could help diversify the economy and spark new kinds of manufacturing. Their byproducts, for example, can be used in jet fuel, medicine, makeup, beer and pet food.

A few local companies already are harvesting algae commercially.

“We have a huge competitive advantage here,” said Edwards, a food-marketing expert, who added that Arizona could have a “green gold rush.”
Full Article at azcentral.com