Nissan Leaf Zero Emissions Electric Car

Top speed: around 90 mph 0-62 mph: 11.9 seconds; Emissions: zero;
Price: £23,990 (with Government grant)

Nissan's new Leaf, a five-seat Focus-size hatchback, will make sense for some people. If you spend your day pounding the motorways it isn't for you, but most people's average journey is quite short, and the Leaf's 100-mile range will be more than adequate for that.
There’s no extended-range-parallel-series-hybrid-fuel cell powertrain to explain. The Leaf has an electric motor up front and a battery under the cabin floor. For all that matters, it really is as simple as that.
It is powered by 48 laptop-sized lithium-ion batteries arranged low in the car to give it better balance and rigidity.
An overnight recharge using a domestic plug socket will cost about £2 but Nissan is building a network of fast-charge points which can deliver 80 per cent of full power in about 20 minutes.
If you need more detail, it is specifically an 80 kilowatt AC synchronous electric motor that pumps out 107 horsepower. That’s not at lot, but with 207 pound-feet of torque it’s enough to accelerate the 3,400-pounder as quickly as most economy cars
Regular use in extreme temperatures and frequent quick charges, which heat up the cells, will hasten the effect, but as hybrid owners have come to know, that’s part of the deal. An 8-year/100,000-mile warranty protects it against actual defects.
Using the heater, will reduce about 10 percent off of the projected range . More energy-efficient heated seats aren’t available, but should be coming to later editions.

Baxi Ecogen Boiler

It's a revolutionary wall-hung combined heat and power appliance that can provide efficient gas central heating and hot water like any other boiler, but also generates electricity for use in your home.
One of the ways to become more efficient may be through Combined Heat and Power (CHP), where facilities in the home use a fuel source to generate both electricity and heat.
Micro-CHP is the process of generating both heat and electricity from one source. CHP has been used for years on a bigger scale in hospitals, school and office blocks, so it's a well trialled system.
The electricity can then be used within the home, with excess being fed back into the National Grid. The Engine produces 1.1kW of electricity but it also produces 6 kW of heat for hot water and central heating. If this is not enough then there is a supplementary heater unit that puts additional heat into the hot water system. The whole system is 90% efficient.
Electricity suppliers will pay householders a generation tariff of 10p every kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity generated and an export tariff of 3p for every kWh of electricity exported back.

Key features and benefits:

* For the environment: electricity generated close to where it is to be used has fewer carbon emissions and is much more efficient
* For the householder: saving money on electricity bills. In addition, from April 2010 electricity suppliers will pay a Feed-in Tariff to householders for every kWh of electricity generated and exported back to the electricity grid.
* For specifiers and housebuilders: micro-CHP offers an effective way of meeting the UK Government's targets towards zero carbon homes
* For utilities: micro-CHP offers an effective way of meeting the UK Government's Carbon Reduction Targets with the CERT Program

VPhase device save 10% on electricity

The UK electricity distribution network operates at a nominal 230V, although in practice average voltages are more likely to range between 240V and 245V. The VPhase unit manages voltage to a stable level, normally 220V in the UK, regardless of the incoming supply voltage.

The amount of energy saved is device specific, for example: testing by VPhase on fridges and freezers shows 17%, 15% on normal light bulbs and 10% on energy saving light bulbs. One digital cordless phone showed an extraordinary saving of 44%. Savings will vary dependent incoming voltage and individual devices.

Further savings can be made on washing machines, tumble driers, dishwashers, televisions and numerous other electrical appliances across the whole house.



VPhase plc is pleased to announce that it has signed an agreement with Eaga Heating Services Ltd, a subsidiary of Eaga plc, for the nationwide supply of the VPhase device that is the smart new way to help homeowners immediately and significantly cut their electricity bills typically by 10%, reduce carbon emissions and lower energy use; all without changing their lifestyle or supplier.

Eaga will be offering to supply and install the VPhase unit for £349 including VAT.

New solar fuel machine 'mimics plant life'

A prototype solar device has been unveiled which mimics plant life, turning the Sun's energy into fuel.

The machine uses the Sun's rays and a metal oxide called ceria to break down carbon dioxide or water into fuels which can be stored and transported.

Conventional photovoltaic panels must use the electricity they generate in situ, and cannot deliver power at night.
If as in the prototype, carbon dioxide and/or water are pumped into the vessel, the ceria will rapidly strip the oxygen from them as it cools, creating hydrogen and/or carbon monoxide.

Hydrogen produced could be used to fuel hydrogen fuel cells in cars, for example, while a combination of hydrogen and carbon monoxide can be used to create "syngas" for fuel.

It is this harnessing of ceria's properties in the solar reactor which represents the major breakthrough, say the inventors of the device. They also say the metal is readily available, being the most abundant of the "rare-earth" metals.

Methane can be produced using the same machine, they say.

It has been suggested that the device mimics plants, which also use carbon dioxide, water and sunlight to create energy as part of the process of photosynthesis. But Professor Haile thinks the analogy is over-simplistic.

"Yes, the reactor takes in sunlight, we take in carbon dioxide and water and we produce a chemical compound, so in the most generic sense there are these similarities, but I think that's pretty much where the analogy ends."

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