Emissions per Kilometer per Transport Mode

Travelling by plane is environmentally the worst mode of transport, not in the least because a plane is so fast and huge amount of kilometres can be bridged in a single “travel session”. A holiday flight from, say, London, Amsterdam or Berlin to Malaga is ca. 4600 km in total or 1150 kg CO2 per passenger. The average daily commute of 34 km by car (Netherlands) in contrast is 5.8 kg. Commuting over an entire year causes only slightly more emissions than that inner-European holiday flight. If autonomous driving would finally take off, further reductions per passenger would be possible. Flights to the US, Egypt, Thailand, not to mention Australia, transcend that calculation by a multiple. Commuting can and increasingly is done with an e-vehicle.

[bbc.com] – Climate change: Should you fly, drive or take the train?
[trouw.nl] – Het vlieggedrag van de veelvlieger (de jonge hoogopgeleide stedeling) valt lastig te veranderen

Japan Building e-Ship for Oiltransport

Consortium: Asahi, Mitsui en Mitsubishi and others
Operational: 2022
Battery: 3.5 MWh
Cargo: 500 ton liquids/1300 m3
Range: 6 hours full throttle

Application: “last mile”, bunkering at sea from oil-tankers. The ship “glues” itself to large oil-tankers with magnets.

[mol.co.jp] – ‘e5 Consortium’ Established to Promote Zero-Emission Electric Vessel

Volkswagen MEB Platform

The MEB platform will define the VW e-vehicles for years to come.

[wikipedia.org] – Volkswagen Group MEB platform

The Volkswagen Group MEB platform (German: Modularer E-Antriebs-Baukasten; i.e., Modular Electric Propulsion Platform) is a modular car platform for electric cars developed by the Volkswagen Group and its subsidiaries. It is used in models of Audi, SEAT, Škoda and Volkswagen. The architecture is aimed to “consolidate electronic controls and reduce the number of microprocessors, advance the application of new driver-assistance technology and somewhat alter the way cars are built” by the VW Group. The MEB platform is part of a Volkswagen strategy to start production of new battery electric vehicles between 2019 and 2025.[3] In 2017, the VW Group announced a gradual transition from combustion engine to battery electric vehicles with all 300 models across 12 brands having an electric version by 2030. The MEB platform is part of a Volkswagen strategy to start production of new battery electric vehicles between 2019 and 2025. In 2017, the VW Group announced a gradual transition from combustion engine to battery electric vehicles with all 300 models across 12 brands having an electric version by 2030.

[pushevs.com] – Volkswagen MEB details

Large Car Lease Organisation Upbeat About Cost E-Driving

Leaseplan is the largest lease organisation in the Netherlands, with a fleet of 162,000 vehicles in 2018. They have produced a white paper with as its main conclusion that in most cases, e-driving has become cheaper than driving in a “fossil car” (what’s in a name!), from a viewpoint of total cost: amortization, “fuel” and maintenance.

The future of EV is bright: (1) OEMs are investing huge sums of money to ramp up the electric vehicle production. (2) The number of electric car models on the European market will more than triple over the next three years. (3) The charging infrastructure which is another key aspect of EVs, is improving rapidly. But when it comes to price, the perception changes…

[leaseplan.com] – Leaseplan white paper
[cleantechnica.com] – Electric Cars Have Mostly Lower Total Cost In Europe

Three Oslo Fjord Ferries are now Electric

Hurra! Helelektrisk overfart med @norled på Nesoddsambandet! Tre ombygde båter på el og ladeanlegg på under ett år. Norgeslansering for supereffektiv ladeplugg, der båtene lades på under ti min.Gratulerer til dere som får en stillere og utslippsfri seilas! https://t.co/jcbHvH6udw pic.twitter.com/HsXhqHBL69

— Ruter (@Ruter) May 7, 2020

Charging takes 8-9 minutes

[Google Maps] – Oslo Fjord

Progress on V-Shaped Flying

[1:35] – 3D-printing in aviation
[9:18] – synthetic fuel
[10:36] – V-shaped flying model that is scheduled to fly later this year

Note that this video is from January 2020, a few weeks before the Corona virus would cripple the aviation industry, en passant solving a lot of environmental problems, if you want to be cynical.

[deepresource] – Amsterdam Airport Carbon-Neutral?
[deepresource] – Scale Model KLM Flying-V

Renault Zoe 2019

The Renault Zoe is the best-selling e-vehicle in Europe. It got a major upgrade in 2019.

[wikipedia.org] – Renault Zoe
[spiegel.de] – Deutscher Elektromeister

What can Seattle Learn from Dutch Street Design?

[nature.com] – Running a car costs much more than people think — stalling the uptake of green travel

BMW i Hydrogen NEXT Fuel Cell Technology Explained

Specs:

– 2 x 6 kg hydrogen fuel tank (700 bar)
– fueling time 3-4 minutes

[designnews.com] – First Details on the BMW i Hydrogen NEXT Fuel Cell

Solar Panels on an E-Truck

Put solar panels on an e-truck and harvest 5,000 km/year or 20 km/working day or 5% total energy saving.

[cleantechnica.com] – Fraunhofer ISE Testing Vehicle-Integrated Solar Systems

Hyper-loop European Test Center to be Built in the Netherlands

Hyper-loop: that’s a “train”, moving at very high speeds in a near-vacuum tube.

Website’s note: we have yet to be convinced if it is even desirable in the 21st century to push for higher speeds in personal transport, where we perhaps should opt for slowing down of public and private life. For transport of goods however, things are different. It would be great to have trucks largely removed from the highways to a tube for very energy-efficient and invisible long-distance transport.

[wikipedia.org] – Hyperloop
[ad.nl] – Groningen krijgt drie kilometer lange hyperloop als testbaan
[guardian.com] – Dutch tout hyperloop as future of travel
[cleantechnica.com] – The Netherlands Considers The Hyperloop — Amsterdam To Paris In 90 Minutes

Fleet of 60 E-Buses Enter Groningen in the Netherlands

Nr. of Wind Turbines Required to Run a National Rail System?

Time for a back-of-the-envelope calculation. How many 12 MW offshore wind turbines do you need to power the entire Dutch rail system, passenger and cargo, a heavily used rail system for a nation of 17 million citizens?

Yearly electricity consumption Dutch Rail (NS): 1300 GWh

Yearly production of a 12 MW offshore wind turbine = 8766 hour x 12 MW = 105,192 MHh = 105 GWh. Assume a capacity factor of 50% to arrive at a yearly production of 52 GWh.

Number of turbines required = 1300/52 = 25 turbines.

Peanuts. Can be installed by a single installer ship like the Aeolus in a month’s time:

Of course you need to add some extra capacity to factor in storage losses.

Dutch Rail btw has bought up 8 small onshore wind farms that have a combined output that matches its consumption, resulting in the technically dubious, but morally justified slogan that “all Dutch trains run on wind power”:

[cleantechnica.com] – All Dutch Trains Now Run 100% On Wind Power

UBS – VW to be the First to Make a Profit from E-vehicles

Volkswagen will become the first global automaker to make money selling battery-only electric vehicles (BEVs) with profits kicking in from 2022, according to a report from Swiss investment bank UBS… Sales of battery-only cars and SUVs will accelerate to more than 15% of the global market by 2025, while Tesla’s position as the world’s most desired electric vehicle will come under pressure from German competition, UBS said.

[forbes.com] – VW Will Be The 1st Mass Market Electric Car Profit Maker: Report

Airbus Maveric Demonstrator Aircraft

Airbus has revealed MAVERIC (Model Aircraft for Validation and Experimentation of Robust Innovative Controls) its “blended wing body” scale model technological demonstrator.

At 2 metres long and 3.2 metres wide, with a surface area of about 2.25m², MAVERIC features a disruptive aircraft design, that has the potential to reduce fuel consumption by up-to 20 percent compared to current single-aisle aircraft. The “blended wing body” configuration also opens up new possibilities for propulsion systems type and integration, as well as a versatile cabin for a totally new on-board passenger experience.

Launched in 2017, MAVERIC first took to the skies in June 2019. Since then the flight-test campaign has been on-going and will continue until the end of Q2 2020.

Airbus expects to save fuel up to 20% per passenger-kilometer.

[airbus.com] – Airbus reveals its blended wing aircraft demonstrator
[cnn.com] – Airbus reveals futuristic blended wing aircraft design
[spiegel.de] – Airbus stellt neues Konzept für Passagierflugzeuge vor

[deepresource] – KLM Aims to Have Scale Model Wing Plane Flying This Year

Tesla Overtakes Volkswagen in Company Value

Tesla has displaced Volkswagen as the world’s second most valuable carmaker, after a dramatic rise in share price pushed its market value to more than $100bn (£76.1bn). The milestone sets the stage for chief Elon Musk to collect billions in pay tied to hitting that target. Tesla’s share price has more than doubled since October, when the firm reported a rare quarterly profit.

[bbc.com] – Tesla overtakes Volkswagen as value hits $100bn
[cleantechnica.com] – People Are Misunderstanding Why Tesla Is Valued So Highly

2020 Peugeot 208 & Electric e-208 Review

Renault Zoe 2020

Starting from € 33.590, range 395 km.

[renault.co.uk] – Renault official site (English)
[renault.nl] – Renault official site (Dutch)
[wikipedia.org] – Renault Zoe

Honda E

City car for the typical commuter who drives 40 km per day. 1500 kg. The only e-vehicle that drives the rear-axis. 9.2 m turning circle. The car has a very agile feel. This is not an adapted gasoline car, it was designed as an e-vehicle from the ground up. Range 220 km. Recuperates energy during brake cycle. 80% charge lasts 30 minutes. Price 33.850 Euro. Max. speed 145 kmh, deliberately restricted for range purposes.

[spiegel.de] – Das Spaßmobil (The Fun Car)

Scale Model KLM Flying-V

The Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands is working on a scale model of a V-shaped plane, that promises to reduce fuel cost with 20%. The project is sponsored by KLM. The model is expected to be ready for real test flights later this year.

[tudelft.nl] – Flying-V Energiezuinig vliegen op de lange afstanden
[wikipedia.org] – Flying-V jet

DELFT – TU Delft preparation of model Flying V. FOTO GUUS SCHOONEWILLE