Rabbittransit started using ultra low sulfur diesel fuel (ULSD) in September as the nationwide distribution system switched over to the cleaner fuel.
As of today, the bus system serving the greater York area is running 16 buses on a 20 percent (B20) blend of bio/petrol diesel and a 5 percent blend (B5) fleetwide, says Richard Farr, executive director of rabbittransit.
Urinals have lost the need for water. Walk into a select Pennsylvania Turnpike restroom or the Taj Mahal in Arga, India and a Falcon Waterfree urinal will greet you without a handle to pull.
Judy Grove beams while leading a tour though the historic Wallace-Cross Grist Mill in East Hopewell Township on a mild fall Sunday.
"We’re very proud of this jewel we have in the middle of York County," said Grove.
The Friends of Cross Mill host the open house with the York County Department of Parks and Recreation at the historic grain mill several times a year. Grove said the mill began operation in the 1840s and was operated until 1987. Mostly powered by a water wheel, the mill was sometimes powered by a steam engine or gasoline tractor when water flow wasn’t available.
Will the consumer expect more fuel economy from here on out even with gas prices lower?
No one seems to be talking much about energy dependence, the decline of oil, shortages ... even the SUVs look happy consuming $2-a-gallon fuel.
I was cleaning out my YDR e-mail at 4 a.m. when I should have been sleeping and came across an article editor Scott Fisher sent me for inspiration during the height of the “energy crisis� last summer: Why a 'Manhattan Project' for energy won't work.
The Regional Economic Development District Initiatives of South Central Pennsylvania (REDDI) and the Governor's Agriculture Renewable Energy Council will hold a conference today about biofuels at the Holiday Inn in West Manchester Township.
I long for a mini-sub compact diesel car or pickup truck and diesel fuel prices not laden with taxes; clean diesel that works with clean diesel engines available in other countries. The whole diesel marketing strategy here is dysfunctional. It has gravitated toward luxury brands and huge SUV's that are below the emission standards of cars.
The diesel disaster is changing.
Until recently, the U.S. fuel supply contained too much sulfur to use clean-burning technology found in many of the cleanest-burning diesels available in Europe. The technology was there, but a Catch-22 situation existed between stricter emission requirements and the lack of cleaner fuel.
In a UK “GreenFleet Award� a small Hyundai Getz 1.5 CRTD (common rail diesel) has won the Transport for London Private Sector Award at the 2006 GreenFleet Awards.
Spencer Freedman from GreenFleet said: “This was a real world test, which highlights the environmental and cost benefits of choosing the right vehicle to get around London. The success of the Hyundai Getz demonstrates that clean diesel engines, if driven defensively, can be just as cost and fuel efficient as alternative fueled (bio-diesel, hybrid) vehicles.�
As reflected in searches on cars.com, consumer interest in fuel-efficient cars has decreased while interest in large luxury SUVs have increased significantly in the past month.
The squeeze is on. Toyota has set a goal to break the 100 mpg barrier and make the Prius cheaper to produce. These numbers are based on the Japanese equivalent of our EPA numbers, so until it is tested to U.S. standards, we won’t know what the actual mileage is.
The Global Hybrid Cooperation partnership that I reported on in April now has a design center in Troy, Mich.
The building is broken up into four sections; Daimler-Chrysler, General Motors, and BMW will have their own research areas with one larger area for a combined brain fuse.
It’s a Nissan sporting some Toyota labels on its undergarments. The 2007 Altima Hybrid will license Toyota technology for its first hybrid mating a generator/electric motor to a 2.5 liter gasoline engine driving a continuous variable transmission. Nissan is the last major Japanese manufacturer to market a hybrid.
The U.S. made vehicle (Smyrna, Tennessee) is rated at 170 hp estimated at 41 mpg city, 36 mpg highway. According to Nissan, emissions are low enough to classify it as a Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle.
Remember the stainless steel DeLorian? Strapped down with a pile of junk, charged by the flux capacitor, it blasted Back to the Future.
Although pretty kewl in the heyday of the Chevette; the DeLorian was a cramped car with a poorly laid-out interior, powered by a Volvo V-6. The only thing I knew about capacitors in 1985 were these big metal cans that leaked oil in my grandfather’s broken tube radio set.
Finally, we have some working technology to move the fantasy of the flux capacitor
AFS Trinity, a company based in Bellevue, Washington is developing the Extreme Hybrid. The idea uses the benefits of li-ion batteries (light weight and high energy density) and ultracapacitors (small size and high power density).
I was in Seattle this past weekend and checked out the mass transit. When I am Googling creative mass transit ideas, my searches often land at the left coast because that’s where the innovation seems to be in mass transit.
Seattle went through much of the same evolution as many U.S. cities: horse-drawn trolleys, electric trolleys, buses, inter-urban trains, some cable car activity on the steep east-west grades and, of course, a push for highways as cars became king in the 1960s. http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=2707
I was excited to see how this has all evolved.
Some of my green-eyed observations of their current fleet include:
