David Millward takes the world's fastest zero-emissions car for a test drive

Getting behind the wheel of any new car is a tad nerve wracking, but being entrusted with something worth around £5 million is enough to induce a cold sweat.

Somewhat rashly Honda invited me to get behind the wheel of its latest concept car, a vehicle powered by a hydrogen fuel cell engine. The car is filled with hydrogen rather than petrol and is the world's fastest high performance zero emissions car.

The hydrogen is pushed through a "fuel stack" somewhere beneath the arm rest between the driver and passenger, where it is converted into electricity which powers the engine. While conventional cars give out varying amounts of C02, this rather sleek beast emits only water vapour.

Transport for London has been part of an EU project testing the technology on buses and many of the major companies are trying to develop the ultimately ecologically friendly car.

There are already hybrids such as the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic, which are powered by a combination of petrol and electricity and, though their carbon emissions are much lower, there is some debate about their fuel economy.

Cars such as Saab's dual fuel car run on any bio-fuel, but they are losing ecological brownie points from some who argue that they are merely depleting another valuable resource.

The latest Honda car is their third crack at the technology. The previous two sounded a bit like high-technology washing machines, with a tendency to hum rather than roar. Now the fuel stack - the box which converts the hydrogen and oxygen into electricity -has shrunk, making the new version radically different to drive.

The Honda car can travel up to 100 mph and is due to go into production in small numbers in Japan next year, where owners will be able to lease one for upwards of £250 a month. Unfortunately, the only hydrogen fuel station in Britain is in Hornchurch, east London, (20p a litre) meaning that Honda's green machine may never take to the roads in its present form, but the engine technology could become commonplace, perhaps within a decade.

My contribution was not to crash the concept car.

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Will wind turbines ever work in cities? one pioneering new building may prove they can

In Dalston, in London's East End, builders are about to go on site to start constructing what could be a crucial step towards making urban wind-turbines a feasible source of renewable energy. The Metropolitan Housing Trust has commissioned the architects Waugh Thistleton to build a new block of social-housing flats that incorporates four stunning large, vertical-axis wind-turbines.

The success, to date, of domestic wind-turbines in cities has not been extensive. About 18 months ago, I became the first person in London to get planning permission to attach one to my house. And the output to date has been pathetic. My wood-burner produces more energy in an hour than the turbine did in three months. I have yet to hear of anyone producing worthwhile amounts of electricity from any micro building-attached wind-turbines.

But that does not mean that experimentation should not carry on, nor that I regret being part of an experiment to see if they can be made to work in the inner city. While many experts say it is impossible, I would love to see them proved wrong.

The developer Waugh Thistleton has included two innovations in the Dalston project. It is using vertical-axis, helix-shaped turbines (costing about £30,000 from the UK firm Quiet Revolution) and, more creatively, they have designed the building to maximise wind-flow to the turbines – the building acts like a wing, whipping past it on one side. It will be fascinating to see if Quiet Revolution and Waugh Thornton can pull this off. There is no doubt the prize is great. If successful, each turbine could produce enough energy to save up to 4 tons of CO2 a year – or power a 20-person office.

I contacted Sundog Renewables, which is based in Cumbria and is one of the leading renewable energy installers in the UK, with long experience in the installation of both solar electric panels and wind-turbines, to gather opinions on building-attached wind turbines. Their advice was that there were very few urban areas where building attached turbines will work on domestic homes, due to the lack of good-quality wind speeds at low enough heights.

But they were positive about larger turbines placed in windy locations on major buildings. They have had good experiences with the installation of Proven 6kw turbines in Blackpool and Liverpool. They said the sea-fronts on these west-coast cities were ideal locations for turbines, and I admit some jealousy when they waxed lyrical about the wind available to those living in the English Pennines or on Scotland's west coast.

A 2.5kw turbine costs about £11,000, and a good site provides about 2,500-5,000kWh a year. That is about £500 worth of electricity. The average home uses about £300 worth in a year. A 6kw system produces about 9,000kw and costs about £18,000. Grants – unfortunately – were slashed by the Chancellor in the recent budget and are nowabout £2,500.

There is no doubt that cutting energy wastage is a far more efficient way of cutting a building's CO2 emissions, but we still need people to take risks if we are to replace fossil fuels with effective alternatives. The Metropolitan Housing Trust, Waugh Thistleton and Quiet Revolution are three such pioneers.

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vertical helix wind turbine

BP and D1 Oils launch jatropha joint venture to produce biofuel

Oil giant BP and AIM-listed UK biofuels company D1 Oils said they’ve agreed to establish a ‘global’ joint venture to grow jatropha for use in biofuels.
Jatropha, an oilseed tree found in tropical and sub-tropical regions, grows well in poor conditions and therefore doesn’t need to compete with food crops for good agricultural land, the companies said in statements on Friday.
The 50/50 jatropha joint venture will be called D1-BP Fuel Crops Ltd and aims to plant one million hectares of the plant over four years. The joint venture’s total funding requirement over five years is expected to be £80 million, the companies said.
D1 will contribute its existing jatropha planting business and its expertise to the joint venture, while BP will provide working capital of £31.75 million through equity in the operation, the companies said.
D1 Oils currently has 172,000 hectares of jatropha, or rights to that amount of plantings, in India, Southern Africa and Southeast Asia.
Based in Middlesbrough, D1 Oils first floated its shares in October 2004 for 160p each. Interviews with D1 Oils chief executive Elliott Mannis and BP head of biofuels Philip New can be seen at D1 Oils’s website, www.d1plc.com.
The BP/D1 joint venture announcement comes three days after Associated British Foods announced that it was entering into a joint venture with BP and DuPont to build and operate a major biofuel plant at BP’s chemicals site at Saltend, Hull.
The deal will enable ABF to find a use for surplus low-quality grain its food and beverages operations. These include British Sugar, the sole processor of the UK’s sugar beet crop.
British Sugar is already developing a bioethanol plant at Wissington, Norfolk, which will use sugar beet as feedstock and is expected to begin production next month.
Also in the past week, another UK biofuels company, Teeside refinery owner Biofuels Corp, said it was hoping to prevent insolvency by adopting a restructuring plan that would involve handing over assets to its bank and de-listing its AIM-listed shares. The proposed restructuring must be approved by Biofuels’ shareholders.
The push for biofuels comes as fuel refiners face new UK regulations that will force them to blend 5% ethanol with their petrol, beginning in 2009.

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Sigma taps giant wave farm

AIM-listed Sigma Capital Group, an asset management and advisory group with offices in London and Edinburgh, is giving investors access to a company that will help deliver the world’s largest wave-farm.
Edinburgh-based Ocean Power Delivery, a private company, has developed an offshore wave energy converter called Pelamis.
Four of its machines, with a combined output of three megawatts, are to be used in a scheme starting in 2008 by ScottishPower, which will receive £4 million in funding from the Scottish Executive.
According to Ocean Power, an eventual typical 30MW installation would take up one square kilometre of ocean and provide enough electricity for 20,000. It estimates that 20 such farms could power Edinburgh.
Mark Hogarth, investment director of Sigma Capital Group, said: ‘Ocean Power Delivery has got its first commercial deployment off the coast of Portugal and secured the UK’s first wave farm project in Orkney, so it’s attractive due to its stage of development.’
Ocean Power Delivery is the largest holding in the Sigma Sustainable Energies fund, with £500,000 invested.
Sigma, which boasts Artemis New Enterprises fund as a 5.46% stakeholder, has also announced the first closing of its Sustainable Energy Fund II at £35 million.
The fund, which has limited partner contributions from Scottish and Southern Energy, Bank of Scotland Corporate, West Coast Capital and Sigma Technology Investments, is Sigma’s fourth fund and second sustainable energy fund.
Sigma, which has a market capitalisation of £24 million, reported a turnover for 2006 of £7.9 million, up from £3.3 million in 2005. Its pre-tax profit was £1.8 million, compared with a loss of £0.4 million in the previous year.
Last week its shares were trading at 63.25p, down from a 52-week high of 66.5p on 19 June but well ahead of its year-low of 25.25p recorded last July.

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