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1. The Finer Points of the Chevy Volt
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2. Amyris Picks Up Another $21M For Synthetic Bio
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3. Samsung Adds More Corn Phones, This Time At Olympics
The Finer Points of the Chevy Volt
Tony Borroz - Energy
Chevy's upcoming electric vehicle the Volt — highly anticipated, and crucial to GM's future — has gotten a lot of press for its fully integrated hybrid drivetrain, but relatively little attention has been paid to the car’s aerodynamics. In a blog post on GM’s FastLane, Bob Boniface, director of design for the Volt, points out the various streamlined features, even including a few new sneak-peek photos for good measure (see below).
After drivetrain efficiency, aerodynamics is the second most important factor in a car’s overall energy consumption. As Boniface writes, "When you're driving down the road, it takes energy to slice through the air that is pushing against the car. That force is known as drag and it can account for up to 20 percent of the energy consumed in an average vehicle." And for hybrids and electric vehicles, efficiency is paramount.
Boniface says that GM spent hours experimenting with various angle designs, which they tested in the wind tunnel (see video below), before deciding on the “rounded and flushed front fascia, tapered corners and closed grille” shown in the photos above.
In a world of least air resistance, the teardrop is the ideal aerodynamic shape — look at Aptera's Typ-1. That's one way Aptera gets such stunning MPG figures; a vehicle like that will cut through the air like a knife through water.
Not every vehicle maker is willing to go to such lengths on design to cut down on drag. But the Volt needs to be a mainstream vehicle, one that not just early adopters will buy. So there has to be both an aesthetic reason for every line and form, as well as sound aerodynamic reasoning behind those lines and forms.
And the Volt needs to be able to produce considerable speed. Not like a race car, but to meet the expectations of a mid- to high-end car. Increasing a vehicle's speed does horrendous things to the aero drag on it. When the car speeds up to 20 miles an hour from 10, the drag doesn't double, it quadruples. When you increase your speed to 40 mph, it quadruples again. Every time you double your speed, you quadruple the drag. This is known as the inverse square law, and you can see why it takes so much energy to push a race car down a track at, say, 200 mph.
When the Volt eventually comes out, it will be up to the customers to decide if they like the aesthetic decisions vs. the aerodynamic ones. And it could be another reason why the Volt looks a little different from the standard. But as Boniface notes: “When you're trying to extend gas-free driving of the vehicle, you'll take all the efficiency you can get.”
Amyris Picks Up Another $21M For Synthetic Bio
Craig Rubens - Startups
The Emeryville, Calif.-based startup has some of the most prominent cleantech VCs backing it, including DAG Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins and TPG Ventures. Add this to the $20 million Amyris got in 2006 and its funding is now up to over $110 million.
The company is trying to make microbes that will chomp through biomass and pump out petroleum-like molecules. The approach is similar to that of several startups, including Gevo, LS9 (both Khosla bets), and Craig Venter’s Synthetic Genomics, which are all trying to make biomass into fuels that act more like petroleum than biofuel. The advantage is that, if successful, the startups could produce fuels that are 100 percent compatible with existing infrastructure and vehicles — no flex-fuel engines or alt-pipelines necessary.
Amyris is already working to get its technology into the most developed biofuel market out there — Brazil. Through a partnership with Crystalev, a subsidiary of sugar and ethanol giant Santelisa, Amryis is applying its technology to sugarcane bagasse. Amyris tells us Crystalev has also provided it with some funding to help push its synthetic diesel program forward.
Amyris, which now has about 170 employees, started off as a pure synthetic biology company, not a biofuel startup. Its first project was to engineer a microbe to pump out an anti-malarial drug. While visiting Sand Hill Road VCs looking for money, the founders realized there was a lot of interest in the potential to engineer fuel-producing bugs. Now, with more than $110 million in venture capital, Amyris is working on getting three different fuels — bio-diesel, bio-gasoline and bio-jet fuel — to market by 2010. Amyris tells us this latest funding will be used to push its bio-diesel process out of the lab and into a pilot plant.
Samsung Adds More Corn Phones, This Time At Olympics
Katie Fehrenbacher - Energy
Samsung claims that a ton of bioplastic used in the E200 is able to reduce 2.16 tons of CO2 compared with the conventional petroleum-based material. Cheil Industries, an affiliate of the Samsung Group, is the company behind Samsung’s bioplastic production. While we applaud Samsung’s moves into bioplastics, we’d like to see some more sustainable, non-corn synthetic plastics used.
A spokesperson for Samsung told us recently that the company is testing materials derived from plants other than corn to produce its bioplastics, and it’s also working on “eco-friendly materials” other than plastic alternatives (though, we’re not sure what that means). And yes it will likely take some time. It seems like bioplastics are, first and foremost, a marketing means for Samsung, as the company tells us that “developing and applying new material[s] to our products adds to the cost of making the phone.”
Still, this is the company’s third bioplastic phone, so the Korean giant must be satisfied with some part of the equation. At the World IT Show in Seoul this June, Samsung said it would start selling two eco-friendly handsets: the W510, which is made out of a corn-based bioplastic and doesn't contain any heavy metals, such as lead, mercury and cadmium; and the F268, which doesn’t contain polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or brominated flame retardants (BFRs). Samsung is trying to stop using PVC and BFRs in all of its cell phones by 2010.
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