The car is named for the “Manisa Tarzan,” the environmentalist Ahmet Bedevi, who is legendary for his work in the first half of the last century planting thousands of trees on Mount Spil, or Mount Sipylus in Manisa. Known by some as the “first environmentalist of Turkey,” Bedevi raised awareness of the need for protection of the Earth’s resources and remains a revered figure for the people of Manisa.

The Celal Bayar team, called EcoMagnesia, is one of 13 teams from Turkey entered in the fuel efficient car competition, only one of them running on gasoline. Six of the Turkish student vehicles were hydrogen-powered, three were plug-in electric, two were solar and one ran on GTL, or natural gas-to-liquid diesel fuel.

The Trier school’s team, called team ProTRon (a combination of the word “protype” and the abbreviation for the city name, Trier) wanted the number 701 for its battery electric urban concept vehicle, Jungbluth said. That’s because the number “7″ stands for the class of battery the car uses and the “1″ stands for  the first place the team took Eco-Marathon 2011, with a result of 233 kilometers (145 miles) per kilowatthour. Because 1 gallon of gasoline delivers the same energy as 33.7 kilowatthours of electrical power, that works out to the equivalent of 4,887 miles per gallon, or 2,078 kilometers per liter. The course this year is more difficult, on a city street with rough surfaces and many sharp turns instead of an oval race course. In early results, Trier’s vehicle achieved 172 kilometers (108 miles) per kilowatthour, or the equivalent of 1,548 km/l (3,640 mpg) on gasoline.

Fachhochschule Trier's battery electric urban concept vehicle. Photo courtesy of Shell Eco-marathon

One of four teams in the competition from Poland, Warsaw University’s SIMR Team has named this car Hussar, after the legendary Polish cavalry that gained a reputation of invincibility for its victories on numerous battlefields from the 16^th through the 18^th centuries. The cavalry charge in this race is for fuel economy, and in last year’s competition Hussar achieved 320 kilometers per liter (753 miles per gallon.) Below, drivers Koniczu Polozynska  (left) and Agata Marta pose in front of the vehicle. “We cannot wait to start and set a new record,” says Marta.

Many wild places The Wilderness Society is working the hardest to protect are areas near towns and cities that are ahead of the curve on the energy efficiency front. Take Pitkin, Gunnison and Eagle counties near the Mount Massive Wilderness Area in Colorado. By working with organizations like the Community Office for Resource Efficiency (CORE), thousands of businesses and residents in these counties have taken action to reduce energy use through innovative programs implemented at a local scale. What does this electricity savings translate to? Fewer new power plants and transmission lines across the land—by reducing demand for a new 1000 MW coal‐fired power plant, we can save roughly 23,500 acres from development.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending an event hosted by the Alliance to Save Energy—an organization that brings together businesses, government, environmental and consumer leaders around the common cause of energy efficiency “as a means to achieve a healthier economy, a cleaner environment and greater energy security.”  Founded in 1977 by a bi-partisan group of Senators, the Alliance has been witness to a doubling of U.S. energy efficiency per GDP over the past 35 years, and that message of energy efficiency as a way to cut costs seems to have permeated some of the biggest utilities and Fortune 500 companies in America.

In light of our “almost do-nothing Congress,” this event was a CFL light bulb in the wilderness—bringing together business leaders and elected officials to suggest that when it comes to energy efficiency (as Congressman Peter Welch of Vermont put it) we should go from “politics to pragmatism.” Legislation such as the Shaheen-Portman Act—which enjoys the support of the National Association of Manufacturers, among others—would set new standards for existing energy efficiency technologies in the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors of our economy.  Leaders at the event including Senator Mark Warner and Thomas Kuhn, President of Edison Electric Institute, called it an easy bill to support.  Why? Because energy efficiency just makes sense, whether you care about profit margins or wild places.  

In fact, Cal Dooley of the American Chemistry Council suggested at yesterday’s event that it is imperative we reduce the pool of needed energy while debating how to transition away from fossil fuels. In some landscapes, this concept is taking hold. States near  New England’s pristine Northern Forest—Vermont and Massachusetts—rank amongst the top five states in the county on ACEEE’s 2011 state annual scorecard on energy efficiency.  These are steps in the right direction, but we can and should do more. To address global warming impacts on wild places, we will need new renewable power plants—and at TWS we are working to be sure they are responsibly sited. But if we are serious about protecting wild places, beautiful landscapes, and biodiversity, particularly in areas with smaller landscapes and lots of energy demand, it is the task at hand to find no regrets solutions to reducing energy use, and reducing the need for new power plants. 

Despite the political challenges ahead, I felt quite positive coming out of a morning spent at the Alliance to Save Energy surrounded by businesses who want to do more than “good guy stuff,” as Senator Mark Warner put it. These businesses want to use energy efficiency to maximize profits, maximize their return on investment, and maximize their global competitiveness. And just when it couldn’t get any better, Bruce Ray, Director of Government Affairs for Warren Buffet’s energy efficiency company Johns Manville, stood up to spread Mr. Buffet’s recent and now famous call to invest in “people, communities and the environment”—something I blogged about just last week. Perhaps on ideas like energy efficiency, the environmental community and the private sector are more aligned than I thought.  If folks only realized that saving energy also saves lands, we might put the cause over the edge. That makes good business sense to me.
 

This is the first year of competition for the United Kingdom’s storied school, and the team has had to improvise, says manager Justin Bishop. They used the shell of a vehicle that already had been built by another student team in 2006, modifying it and including the needed safety equipment. But the predetermined shape of the car meant they couldn’t bury or sink the wires of their battery electric vehicle, but had to feed them around the narrow driver’s cabin, Bishop explained.

The team’s car is named “PEGGIE,” an anagram (of sorts) for students’ program at Oxford, the Electric and Power Group (EPG). The students are deeply engaged in energy issues, and Bishop himself is a James Martin research fellow working on a project to determine the future make-up of the light-duty vehicle fleet.

The car is entered in the “prototype” category—these don’t have to be street-legal. Typically the students seek extremes in aerodynamics and light weight to reduce mileage in the race for the most fuel-efficient vehicle.

Lejas is in one of the student team “paddocks” at the huge Ahoy convention center.  More than 2,000 students from some 20 countries are here for the three-day competition that ends Saturday.

Most students in the fuel efficiency competition choose ultra-lightweight material like carbon fiber to shave mileage. But for their urban concept vehicle, XAM, the Torino students chose a soft natural fiber, covered with a resin to make it hard enough to serve as a chassis. It is not as lightweight as carbon fiber, says electrical engineering student Francisco Fuentas, but it is 100 percent recyclable. “The reason is innovation–we wanted to prove new materials,” he says.

Also, the team, which calls itself “Team H2politO—Molecules Going Hybrid” and includes 53 students, has installed a hybrid gasoline-electric system that uses a “supercap,” – a supercapacitor—instead of a battery. It carries greater current and lasts longer. “We think we are studying a new possibility,” says Fuentas. In the commercial world, supercapacitors are still considered expensive, but the technology is advancing rapidly and it is thought they may replace or supplement batteries in a growing number of applications, including in vehicles.

In this video, Fuentas, a native of Colombia who earned his electrical engineering degree in Bogata but is studying for his master’s degree in Torino, talks about what students gain from working on the fuel efficiency competition.

The goal isn’t to be the fastest car, but to be the most efficient; still, the Urban Spirit UPV team has been inspired by the world of sports car driving. The students have integrated the same aluminum honeycomb glass fiber into their car as is used in the GTA Spano, the Spanish supercar built in their own city of Valencia by GTA Motor. “It’s easy to design with and makes a strong chassis,” says fifth-year student Javier Gonzalez, “Of course, it’s very expensive.”

The team is hoping the new ultra-lightweight material helps lift it beyond its performance last year of 146 kilometers per liter (343 miles per gallon). But this year’s track will be more difficult, on the city streets of Rotterdam with five 90-degree turns. Previously, Eco-marathon Europe was held on a circular race track, last year, in Lausitz, Germany.

Because every bump and turn in the road eats up more fuel, it will be more challenging to achieve high gas mileage on city streets. But the race organizers wanted to aim for conditions closer to what ordinary motorists face. And the Valencia team is entered in the category of the competition that is also meant to mimic real-world conditions, the “urban concept” vehicle class; the students in this category need to build vehicles that are street legal. (They even had to include windshield wipers this year for the first time.)

So far, the European Union and groups of developing countries are divided over details of how the Kyoto Protocol should be extended. The talks may have inspired Qatar—one of the largest emitters of carbon—to cut its emissions and pay into the Green Climate Fund. Qatar will host the next round of annual climate negotiations in November—the first member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to do so.

One university in Australia is looking at the effects of climate change by creating an atmosphere where CO2 is 40 percent higher than current levels and studying its impact on the environment, humans and other living things. The Aussie researchers predict an average increase of about 3 degrees centigrade, but the first results of the study won’t be available until next year. A new journal article says, depending on the area, as many as 40 percent of mammals migrate too slowly and won’t be able to keep pace with climate shifts expected in the next hundred years.

Japan Faces Summer Test

While Iran and the U.N. nuclear agency discussed Iran’s nuclear program and suspicions Tehran may have tested nuclear arms technology, Japan decided to restart nuclear reactors in one town as others there contemplated how to handle things nuclear-free before the summer’s heat sets in. At least one utility in the country is considering a rate hike to compensate for the impending hot weather, while the Japanese operator of the Fukushima plant posted a $10 billion loss stemming from the meltdown. The town is the first to restart a nuclear reactor since all the nation’s nuclear reactors were shut off following the Fukushima disaster roughly one year ago. According to one newspaper poll, residents there are split on nuclear power.

In the U.S., California also faces threats of summer power shortages due to complications with the San Onofre nuclear plant. And the nuclear reactor being built in Augusta, Ga., will not only be completed behind schedule, but come in at a much higher price—approximately$900 million.

Could cheap natural gas be choking aging nuclear plants? E&E Publishing reported the nuclear industry is questioning whether lower natural gas prices will put pressure on plants, just as cheap gas has done to coal.

EPA Declares ‘Gasland’ Town’s Water Safe

Vermont made history this week by becoming the first state to ban hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” the hotly debated natural gas drilling technique that injects a mixture of water and chemicals underground at high pressures to release hard-to-reach oil and natural gas. The ban is not predicted have an immediate effect, however, because the state has no fracking projects under way and no evidence of natural gas reserves.

The news comes as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requested more money to probe the technique. It was just days after the EPA announced water in the town made famous by hydraulic fracturing and the movie “Gasland” was given a clean bill of health. Though water at one home did show elevated levels of methane, the well water was declared safe. The EPA released data for 59 of the 61 wells tested, claiming “the set of sampling did not show levels of contaminants that would give the EPA reason to do further testing.” The finding has residents of the northeastern Pennsylvania town disputing the claim. The lawsuits and tests revolving around the use of hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas have made it difficult for insurers to price risk.

While drilling continues in Pennsylvania—generating about $3.5 billion in 2011—the U.S. Department of Interior recently found roughly two-thirds of land leased by the oil industry goes unused. This equates to roughly 46 million acres both on- and offshore.

Recent cyber attacks aimed at computer networks belonging to U.S. natural gas pipeline companies may have ties to China, the Christian Science Monitor reported. The U.S. and China have agreed to cooperate on cyber security despite China’s implication in the pipeline attacks. As a whole, the energy sector is becoming more vulnerable to these types of attacks, which also struck Iran last month.

Some, however, are looking to other methods for energy generation. One group of researchers in California is trying to harness viruses for energy needs. As Norway opened the world’s largest carbon capture and storage test facility, La Ventosa Mexico—the windy place—inched its way toward earning a title for “the largest growth of wind power projects anywhere in the world.” The Atlantic Wind Connection project, a network of offshore wind farms off the East Coast that could power close to two million homes in the next 10 years, received permission to move forward. The “first-of-its-kind project” would be served by a 380-mile underwater power line running from Virginia to New Jersey.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday for National Geographic’s News Watch by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.