Mission Motors, the American motorcycle organisation was set up in 2007 and its focus is to create high performance electric motor bikes. The Mission One EV which is an electric sports bike was revealed at the 2009 TED conference in San Francisco. The Mission One has a lithium ion battery that has it going for 150 miles with a charge time of 2 hours if plugged into a 240 V outlet. The bike has a top speed of 150mph and the designer looks have been created by industrial designer Yves Behar.  50 limited edition bikes are being created for delivery this year and this range is not currently available unless pre-ordered.

The Opel Ampera which was introduced at the Geneval Motor Show will go into production from 2011. This will be the first electricity driven (at all speeds and time) emission free vehicle for everyday use in Europe. The sporty Ampera comes with 5 doors, a Voltec electric propulsion system and an extended range in excess of 500 kms. The onboard battery is a 16 kWh lithium ion. A gasoline E85 fueled engine generator provides electricity to run the drive unit when the battery power runs down and it also charges the battery at the same time. A standard household 230 volt outlet can be used to charge the battery normally. The car can do a top speed of 161 km/h and 0 to 100 in about 9 seconds. Every aspect of the car has been designed to maximise performance.

A team of researchers and scientists from BBC’s science show Bang Goes The Theory, have developed the Carpuccino, a car that runs on coffee grounds. A 1988, Volkswagen Scirocco has been retrofitted to adapt and run at approximately 56 espressos per mile. Coffee with its carbon content is dried, made into pellets and then has air passed through the pile as it burns. The Carpuccino uses 1 kilo of ground coffee for every 3 miles and does a top speed of 60mph. At present the price of this fuel is exorbitant but it does come under the alternative fuel heading and may be viewed at the Big Bang Science Fair in Manchester.

iGo is an Arizona based company well known for innovative and efficient power management devices. Their Green Technology products include a new portable eco friendly charger for those on the go. This charger is compatible with almost all mobiles and gaming devices and allows the device to be charged with or without an outlet. The charger can be used with USB charging cables and iGo power tips that help create less waste and also save money. Additionally all iGo Green products have a function that combats vampire energy consumption, allowing it to sense when a device is not operational and turning off the power taken in from the wall.

Biochemistry professor Omar Yaghi and UCLA graduate Hexian Deng have developed synthetic crystals that have the capacity to trap carbon. These designer crystals could be used as affordable, scalable carbon dioxide trapping options from vehicle exhaust pipes or factories.  The crystals code information similar to DNA in a simple form based on the sequence of pores and its sponge like result traps gasses. The feature of sensitivity allows for efficient trapping of carbon.

Wipro is the 2^nd largest Indian IT company and the 3^rd in the world to have created a toxic free desktop computer, Apple and HP being the only other two. The eco friendly Wipro Greenware desktops are completely free of brominated flame retardants and polyvinyl chloride, chemicals that are known to be carcinogenic. The removal of these substances ensures that the recycling process is safer. Wipro has a clean production and recycling policy and the Greenware range fit in perfectly with the concept. The range is based on the Intel Core 2 Duo processor and has involved 2 years of research and development.

If all goes well with the research at the Imperial College London, batteries could be a thing of the past. A 4.5 million dollar project is underway to create a lightweight material that can store electricity. The patented light weight material is carbon fibre based polymer resin. The material in this project will not require a chemical reaction for storage and release of electricity and the benefits could include a 15% reduction in the weight of electric cars. What is yet to be known is whether the material will be truly sustainable and recyclable in addition to being clean and light.

Walmart conducts a sustainability focused competition titled Better Living Business Plan Challenge and one of the teams comprising students from Columbia University presented a reinvention of the wheel.

They propose a business plan to create composite, lightweight, energy efficient wheels for large vehicles like trucks and buses. Carbon fibres are being used as the composite materials currently with cycles and with ATV’s a glass carbon composite is available.

The new wheel design has to face the test of withstanding cracks under pressure before this idea can become a reality.

British Airways is planning on obtaining 10% of jet fuel through waste to energy processes. They announced their plans to source 16 million gallons of green jet fuel per year from the Solena plant that is expected to run online from 2014. The initial volume of fuel supplied will be 2% of BA’s total fuel consumption but the carbon emissions would drastically be cut down. The waste to energy processes aid in a three fold manner, namely, waste management in the city, it converts the methane and also brings down carbon emissions.

Bloom Energy recently unveiled its Bloom Box, a device that promises to alter our power generation capabilities at affordable rates. The unveiling at Ebay’s headquaters by founder K.R. Sridhar was witnessed by several political and industry heavyweights like venture capitalist John Doerr, former Secretary of State and Bloom Energy board member Colin Powell as well as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Bloom Box key ingredient is sand; the unit uses small amounts of space and costs less than 3000usd per unit. The goal is to make clean energy not only better but also cheaper and more accessible.

The sand is baked in a powder to power process to create fuel cells without using corrosive metals. These fuel cells could then be stacked and organised into modules that could be used to efficiently provide power that will be twice as efficient as the US grid.