You may not have heard of the Ronn Motor Company (or RMC), but given that it’s  based in Austin, Texas, and existed for less than a year, that’s understandable. But after this year’s SEMA show the name might get more familiar. Ronn is using the annual aftermarket extravaganza to debut the first in a line of “premium, eco-friendly, handcrafted automobiles,” an exotic called the Scorpion with a unique hydrogen powertrain that offers low emissions and impressive fuel economy without sacrificing supercar levels of performance. At least, that’s what Ronn says

Much like EV builder Tesla, Ronn says it believes in joining “performance with eco-responsible alternative power systems,” and started out by designing a sports car with high-speed credentials that wouldn’t disappoint enthusiasts. Featuring a lightweight carbon fiber body (built by Metalcrafters) the Scorpion uses a mid-mounted Acura 3.5L V-6 from the TL Type-S, twin-turbocharged for over 450 hp. With a six-speed manual, limited-slip differential and 12-in. brakes, on paper the Scorpion is more than capable of harnessing that power, while grip is maintained with Toyo Proxie Ultra High Performance T1R tires on 20-in., two-piece forged Modena wheels by MOZ (9 in. wide up front, 11 in. rear). Though Ronn isn’t releasing performance numbers for its creation, given this set up most likely they’ll be impressive.

Of course, buyers in the market for a handbuilt, low volume supercar already have plenty of good options to choose from. What makes the Scorpion unique, however, is a hydrogen fuel-injection (HFI) fuel-delivery system developed specially by Ronn Motor. By mixing 30-40% hydrogen into the car’s air/fuel mixture, the V-6 manages 20-40% better fuel-economy than when running strictly on gasoline, and CO2 emissions are also greatly reduced. But more important, unlike normal fuel-cell vehicles that require access to hydrogen refueling stations, Ronn’s HFI system actually produces all the hydro it needs on board — using power from a battery to produce hydrogen through water electrolysis (the H2O is stored in a small tank), a dual computer processor then controls how much of the fuel is inducted through the air intake manifold and blended with the car’s gasoline supply. No high-pressure hydrogen storage tank is required, and owners only need to refuel the Scorpion with normal gas.

Ronn says the Scorpion will make its debut at SEMA, which runs from November 4-7 in Las Vegas. The company plans to initially build 200 examples of its hydrogen fuel injected, $150,000, made-in-USA supercar. So if you like the idea of a limited-production exotic that can take on your neighbor’s Ferrari 430 Scuderia while helping mother earth at the same time, get yourself on the list of potential Scorpion customers — all you’ll need is a modest deposit of $25,000.

Think you’re feeling pain at the gas pump?

Then ponder the predicament of the U.S. Postal Service. The agency maintains the nation’s largest civilian fleet of vehicles, which numbers more than 220,000. Last year, it cost $1.7 billion to gas upall those vehicles.

NEW AND OLD: One of the hydrogen-powered Chevrolet Equinox vehicles is driven through the parking lot full of gas-powered postal vehicles at the Irvine Post Office on Sand Canyon.

Thanks to the rising price of oil, this year’s gas bill will increase by $600 million.

Today, General Motors delivered a hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicle to the Irvine post office on Sand Canyon Road - one of two locations nationwide that will test the vehicle. The other location will be chosen later. Mail carriers will use the Chevrolet Equinox to deliver mail to Irvine residences and businesses, putting the fledgling fuel cell technology through tough, daily workouts. The goal: to help GM refine the technology and, hopefully, make petroleum-powered cars a thing of the past.

“The need for this project and the development of alternative fuels and vehicles has never been greater,” said Walter O’Tormey, vice president of engineering for the U.S. Postal Service. “This is another important step forward in our nation’s journey toward energy independence,” he said.

The fuel cell vehicles, which have no motor or transmission and emit nothing but water vapor, have been in use by the U.S. Postal Service since 2004. The GM HydroGen3 fuel cell vehicle was tested in Northern Virginia starting in 2004 and in Irvine starting in 2006; both test drive programs ended in 2007. The findings helped GM refine the technology of its fourth generation fuel cell vehicle, being tested in a handful of cities across the country by a select group of consumers.

The auto manufacturer is on track to develop and finalize the vehicle’s propulsion system by 2010, said Roz Sell, fuel cell commercial program manager for GM. But GM won’t start selling the cars until a hydrogen fueling infrastructure is in place nationwide, making the gas widely available, she said.

There are about 70 hydrogen fueling stations nationwide. California is on the leading edge with 25 of those stations, but just two of them are available to the public, Sell said. One is at UC Irvine, operated by the National Fuel Cell Research Center, and is where Irvine mail carriers will refuel; the other is in west Los Angeles, and opened recently. A third is set to open at LAX in the fall.

It will take a joint effort by car companies, energy companies and the government to make fuel cell technology feasible, Sell said. Every car company now has a hydrogen-powered vehicle in the works.

“Auto companies have brought the technology out,” Sell said. “Now we’re waiting for the energy companies to step up.”

GM hopes the fuel cell vehicles will provide mobile promotion and awareness and stoke public demand for the new technology.

“We feel strongly that the ultimate vision for an environmentally sustainable future is hydrogen,” Sell said.

Daniel Krach of Newport Beach is already a believer.

He has driven a Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell vehicle for the past three months as part of a market test called Project Driveway.

On top of all the attention and questions and requests for rides, Krach was impressed by the car’s smooth, quiet ride, as well as its pick-up and torque.

“If there are more fueling stations when this car goes on sale, I would definitely buy one,” he said.

And in the meantime?

“I’m sad to give it up,” Krach said. “Now it’s back to paying $4.50 a gallon.”

Legendary Texas oilman embraces wind power

Oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens wants to line up wind-energy towers across the nation’s midsection.

Legendary Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens embraces wind power to help the economy, the environment and his bottom line.

Americans spend $700 billion a year on foreign oil. According to one observer, this is an addiction, a crisis and a trap: The country must pursue alternative energy sources as fiercely as it once shot for the moon.

So far, so much liberal boilerplate?

The critic in question, however, is a Republican oilman: T. Boone Pickens. As he puts it, in an Okie drawl: “I’ve been an oilman all my life. But this is one emergency we can’t drill our way out of.”

He wants America to make a huge investment in wind-power infrastructure. During this election season, he will personally spend $58 million to make the case.

Pickens’ interest is not solely altruistic. His company, Mesa Power, already has invested $2 billion to build the world’s largest wind farm in Pampa, a small town in the Texas panhandle.

He told a Senate committee in June that he is going to pay for the transmission lines that will carry Pampa’s power to the Dallas area because he cannot wait for the state to build them. As he likes to point out, he is 80 years old and worth $4 billion. So profit is not the only issue, either.

Texas is the nation’s No. 1 producer of wind power, ahead of second-place California and third-place Minnesota, according to the American Wind Energy Association’s 2007 annual report.

A report from the Department of Energy said in May that America could build enough wind farms to provide 20 percent of the nation’s electricity by 2030.

The Pickens plan calls for America to meet that goal by building wind farms throughout the windy corridor that runs up the country from Texas to North Dakota. It would cost $1 trillion to build them, plus another $200 billion to connect them to places where the power is most needed, which are inconveniently far from the corridor.

That is a staggering outlay, but it would free up American natural gas, which now generates 22 percent of the country’s electricity, to be used for motor vehicles. The idea is that Americans could switch en masse to natural-gas vehicles, and the country could stop importing so much oil.

As a bonus, Pickens, said, the industry would create jobs and revitalize rural America. He points to the west Texas town of Sweetwater to prove his point. Ten years ago it was just one more struggling speck on the prairie. Its only excitement was an annual rattlesnake roundup. Then the wind industry started to take hold in west Texas and the panhandle.

Locals initially fretted that the turbines would be too noisy. They also worried that they would mar the vast horizon. Other west Texans are less enamored of the original view. “The landscape is an eyesore,” said a man from Groom.

In any case, the turbines look nicer as the benefits accrue. In 1999, the state’s wind-power capacity was 180 megawatts. Today Texas generates almost 5,000 megawatts — most of it concentrated in the northwestern quarter of the state.

The economic impact on Nolan County, which encompasses Sweetwater, will be $315 million this year. Wind has brought more than 1,000 new jobs to town.

This boomlet has made an impression on Texans. Wind power accounts for 3 percent of the state’s electricity, compared with 1 percent nationwide. But the tax credit that has been driving its growth is about to expire. And then there is the question of the creaking grid. The state is considering a plan that would enable transmission of 17,000 additional megawatts at a cost of $6.4 billion.

Building wind-power capacity will not be easy. But there is an emerging agreement in Texas that it’s worth the trouble. That’s where Pickens can make a difference. His plan is undeniably quirky. Its emphasis on natural gas is strange, for one thing: America does not have many natural-gas vehicles.

Water To Hydrogen Booster - Save 50% On Gasoline!

Electrolysis of water is the decomposition of water (H2O) into oxygen (O2) and hydrogen gas (H2) due to an electric current being passed through the water. This electrolytic process is used in some industrial applications when hydrogen is needed.

An electrical power source is connected to two electrodes, or two plates, (typically made from some inert metal such as platinum or stainless steel) which are placed in the water. Hydrogen will appear at the cathode (the negatively charged electrode, where electrons are pumped into the water), and oxygen will appear at the anode (the positively charged electrode). The generated amount of hydrogen is twice the amount of oxygen, and both are proportional to the total electrical charge that was sent through the water.

Electrolysis of pure water is very slow, and can only occur due to the self-ionization of water. Pure water has an electrical conductivity about one millionth that of seawater. It is sped up dramatically by adding an electrolyte (such as a salt, an acid or a base).

Historically, the first known electrolysis of water was done by William Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle in about 1800.

One important use of electrolysis of water is to produce hydrogen.

2H2O(l) ? 2H2(g) + O2(g)
This has been suggested as a way of shifting society toward using hydrogen as an energy carrier for powering electric motors and internal combustion engines. (See hydrogen economy.)

Electrolysis of water can be observed by passing direct current from a battery or other DC power supply through a cup of water (in practice a salt water solution increases the reaction intensity making it easier to observe). Using platinum electrodes, hydrogen gas will be seen to bubble up at the cathode, and oxygen will bubble at the anode. If other metals are used as the anode, there is a chance that the oxygen will react with the anode instead of being released as a gas, or that the anode will dissolve. For example, using iron electrodes in a sodium chloride solution electrolyte, iron oxides will be produced at the anode. With zinc electrodes in a sodium chloride electrolyte, the anode will dissolve, producing zinc ions (Zn++) in the solution, and no oxygen will be formed. When producing large quantities of hydrogen, the use of reactive metal electrodes can significantly contaminate the electrolytic cell - which is why iron electrodes are not usually used for commercial electrolysis. Electrodes made of stainless steel can be used because they will not react with the Oxygen.

The energy efficiency of water electrolysis varies widely. The efficiency is a measure of what fraction of electrical energy used is actually contained within the hydrogen. Some of the electrical energy is converted to heat, a useless by-product. Some reports quote efficiencies between 50% and 70%[1] This efficiency is based on the Lower Heating Value of Hydrogen. The Lower Heating Value of Hydrogen is total thermal energy released when hydrogen is combusted minus the latent heat of vaporisation of the water. This does not represent the total amount of energy within the hydrogen, hence the efficiency is lower than a more strict definition. Other reports quote the theoretical maximum efficiency of electrolysis as being between 80% and 94%.[2]. The theoretical maximum considers the total amount of energy absorbed by both the hydrogen and oxygen. These values refer only to the efficiency of converting electrical energy into hydrogen’s chemical energy. The energy lost in generating the electricity is not included. For instance, when considering a power plant that converts the heat of nuclear reactions into hydrogen via electrolysis, the total efficiency is more likely to be between 25% and 40%.[3]

About four percent of hydrogen gas produced worldwide is created by electrolysis, and normally used onsite. Hydrogen is used for the creation of ammonia for fertilizer via the Haber process, and converting heavy petroleum sources to lighter fractions via hydrocracking.

Water To Hydrogen Booster - Save 50% On Gasoline!

One of the best things about going green is that you can save money! That’s really a great incentive for people to care more about the planet. A great illustration of this can be seen in the product Earth4Energy, which is actually a do-it-yourself guide that helps you to create your own green energy solutions.

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