UCSB studies Hydrogen as an alternative fuel

As many of you may know, hydrogen is one of the most abundant resource on the planet. If, one day, we could only use hydrogen as a clean energy technology, it would be an amazing step towards a greener and safer planet.

Recently, the University of California - Santa Barbara has been studying hydrogen as an alternative fuel and their studies have shown that there is a Fine Line for Hydrogen Release from Storage Materials.

However, one of the major challenge with hydrogen is to meet the goals of high storage density as well as efficient kinetics when it is needed.

"Aluminum hydride turns out to be promising because the binding energy for hydrogen is low, so that the release rate can be fast," explained Chris Van de Walle, a professor in the Materials Department and head of the Computational Materials group at UCSB. "At the same time, kinetic barriers are high enough to prevent the hydrogen release rate from being too fast."

It certainly is exciting news for the environmental world and I sincerely hope that they will push their study further.

Advanced Biofuels and the 2012 London Olympics

With the Olympics starting soon, all eyes will be focused on London over the next couple of weeks.

BiofuelsDigest wrote a very interesting article on Advanced Biofuels, BP and the 2012 Olympics!

What do they have in common you ask? You have to read the article to get more details but here are some excerpts:

"This year in London, BP Biofuels will be using the occasion to showcase the future of fuels, when BP’s sugarcane-based diesel, cellulosic ethanol and Butamax biobutanol will be used (in blends) to power the Olympic fleet, and will be available at BP’s retail site right before the Hammersmith Flyover in west London."

"...BP will promote biofuels with information displays; a new, futuristic BP Ultimate Bioblended dispenser; and, the opportunity to experience the fuels themselves." 

"Currently biofuels already make up three per cent of transport fuels used around the world and BP estimates they could account for seven per cent of all transport fuels by 2030. BP is doing much in London this week to demonstrate exactly how the industry is going to move from 3 to 7 in roughly half the time that it took the industry to get from 0 to 3. Which means focusing attention on the reality of biobutanol, the reality of cellulosic biofuels, and the reality of drop-in diesels made today from conventional sugars and (soon, we hope) from cellulosic sugars as well."

It is a great article that you just can't miss if you are interested in alternative fuels and all the environmental news.