Car makers are facing newer and stricter emissions regulations all over the world. In Europe, the debate over proposals to curb carbon dioxide emissions for new cars is getting fiercer. This week six Greenpeace activist dressed up as Flintstones characters were arrested in Brussels, Belgium, as they were protesting about the influence of the car industry on the proposals. The European Parliament started debating legislation concerning CO2 emissions from cars on Wednesday. A vote on the legislation is coming up in the fall.

The activists, who claim that the car industry’s thinking is in “the stone age,” stopped at the car manufacturers’ lobby group, ACEA, and gave them copies of a Greenpeace report about the impact of car industry on climate change. On their way to the European Parliament, they were stopped by the police, but later released without charge, Greenpeace reports.

Most recently the European Parliament has proposed to cut average carbon emissions from new cars to almost half their current level by 2020, reports the Financial Times. Under proposed legislation the average new car sold in the EU could only emit 95g of carbon per kilometer, down from the current 160g/km regulation.

Continue reading this story

The race to develop and market environmentally friendly cars is getting fiercer. As the price of gasoline hits record heights and people are becoming more concerned about global warming, car companies are increasingly investing in ‘greener’ cars. One car manufacturer showing a massive commitment to alternative vehicles is the Nissan Motor Company that has been in the news several times within the last week.

On Tuesday, Japan’s No.3 car manufacturer confirmed its plans to launch an all-electric car in the U.S. and Japan by 2010. The New York Times called Nissan’s move “the first by a major automaker to bring a zero-emission vehicle to the American market.” Nissan also envisions having a broad range of electric vehicles in the future and wants to be the world leader in zero-emissions vehicles.

The day before the company announced its green plans for the U.S., it said it will be heading into India, too. Nissan announced together with French Renault and Indian Bajaj Auto that the companies will form a joint-venture to develop, produce and market a low-cost, energy efficient car targeted at the growing Indian market. The wholesale price of the low-cost car, called ULC, will start from $2,500. The ULC will be manufactured at a new plant, with a capacity of 400,000 units per year, to be constructed in Chakan, India. The sales are to start in early 2011.

Continue reading this story

The Silicon Valley electric car startup Project Better Place showed off a prototype for its electric vehicle in Israel this weekend, and said partner Renault-Nissan (Renault is building the cars while Nissan, via an agreement with NEC Corp., is supplying the swappable batteries) would likely spend between $500 million and $1 billion into building them. We contacted Project Better Place and are waiting to hear more on the partners’ investment.

Project Better Place’s car just looks like a regular sedan according to reports and images on the company’s website, but with an electrical socket and a screen showing the battery power, instead of a gas gauge. The cars are said to have a range of 100 km in city driving and up to 160 km on the highway before needing to be recharged or swapped. The aim is to have a pilot of several hundred cars in Israel next year. The first vehicles should be available to the public in late 2010.

Continue reading this story

As the debate over whether countries should mandate more or less biofuels rages on, Finland’s diesel car drivers — at least in the Helsinki area — now have a chance to fill up their tanks with a new diesel fuel blend whose biodiesel content is at least 10 percent. Neste Oil, Finland’s biggest oil refiner, launched the new biodiesel blend commercially this week, called Neste Green diesel; the biofuel is a mixture of fossil fuel diesel and Neste Oil’s NExBTL Renewable diesel, which is based on renewable raw materials such as palm oil, rapeseed oil and animal fats.

Neste Oil aims to become the global leader in renewable diesel. The company is currently producing NExBTL in one refinery in Porvoo, Finland; a second plant is also under construction elsewhere in the country. A third, which the company claims will be the biggest biodiesel production plant in the world, is currently being built in Singapore. Neste is also said to be looking for investments to build additional plants in the future, potentially in the Benelux countries in Western Europe or in the U.S.

Many, however, oppose the shift to biofuels made partly of palm oil, arguing that it, too, is far from environmentally friendly. Today a European Union directive mandates that each member country should have at least 2 percent of bio or renewable ingredients in transport fuels.

In Helsinki, Greenpeace activists welcomed the new Neste Green diesel by locking the fuel pump nozzles at Neste fueling stations. Wearing orangutan suits, activists claimed that the increased use of palm oil is resulting in cutting down of rain forests and destroying the living environment of endangered orangutans.

Being an Internet millionaire doesn’t mean you’re only interested in creating businesses that make huge profits — though our list of 25 that ditched infotech for cleantech are certainly still trying. Estonian entrepreneurs Ahti Heinla, a Skype guru, and Rainer Nolvak, founder of MicroLink and Delfi, have decided to use their creative minds and Google mapping software to start a grassroots project aimed at cleaning up their small home country.

They’re calling it Let’s Do It! 2008, and last weekend over 50,000 volunteers, more than 3 percent of the Estonian population of 1.3 million, joined together to clean the forests, roadsides and other public areas from garbage. Using software based on Google Earth, the crew mapped out 10,000 illegal waste dumping sites, gathered the waste from these spots and took it to over 200 temporary collection stations.

Continue reading this story

Oil giant Shell’s decision to pull out of the world’s biggest planned offshore wind farm to be built in Britain resulted in a storm of criticism last week. Politicians and environmentalists accused Shell of being “greedy” and “irresponsible” in the British media. Many also believe that the move is part of a larger trend by Shell away from its renewable energy initiatives.

And the future of the London Array wind farm seems uncertain now. Shell was one of the three shareholders in the project together with German power company E.On and Danish utility DONG Energy. When fully operational, the wind farm would have provided electricity to power 750,000 homes, or around a quarter of London — its 341 turbines would have generated 1,000 megawatts of power.

The decision of Shell is also a major setback for Britain as London Array has been the symbol of the country’s renewable energy future. Britain is having a hard time meeting the European Union’s target of producing 15 percent of the country’s total energy from renewables by 2020. London Array wind farm was designed to provide around 10 percent of the renewable electricity produced in Britain by 2010.

It seems ironic that the decision made by the oil giant that has marketed itself with its renewable energy plans came only days after the company reported record profits. Shell has declined to give a detailed reason for its decision to sell its 33 percent share in the wind farm. However, Shell has said it plans to pursue other wind projects in the US where government incentives are more competitive and permitting easier to obtain.