It’s named for the Greek phrase for wingless flight and practically slips through air nearly as effortlessly as Lance Armstrong bicycling through France (half the drag of a Toyota Prius). The beauty you see on the left is the battery-powered Aptera 2E… a three-wheeled, two-seater due out this fall.
Mother Nature News’ Jim Motavalli road along with Aptera CEO Paul Wilbur as they took the green car out for a spin in New York City:
Wilbur didn’t let me drive the car—it was New York, I guess—but I rode shotgun for enough miles to form an opinion. Like most EVs, it was fairly quiet, though noisier than most, and the potholes and cobblestones set off some rattles. The car was comfortable and felt stable on its three wheels, but a few minutes behind the wheel would have allowed more of a diagnosis.
A transmission dial allows the choice of efficiency and sport modes, and a screen displays charging options: The Aptera is ready for the “smart grid,” with programmable late-night charging and the ability to sell battery power to the local utility.
Despite the undeniable strangeness—the Aptera could have been made for a 1960s science-fiction film featuring people of the future in jump suits—the company is serious about building a mainstream vehicle. “Tesla is the new Ferrari,” says Wilbur, gunning past a startled pretzel vendor. “We want to be the volume player in a radical new arena.”
The company is making three differently-powered models… the battery model, a gas-electric series hybrid and a conventional .7-liter gasoline car… all priced between $25,000 and $45,000. The one that runs on batteries is the one out this fall, while the other two models come out next year.
Aptera says the gas-powered model will get 100 mpg and cruise for a thousand miles. And the 2H, the hybrid, will trickle-charge the batteries on the way.
The Aptera plant in California can churn out 20,000 vehicles a year but expect just a few thousand in the first year. Company officials hope to make up to 100,000 annually.
Growing biodiesel oilseed feedstocks along the nation’s highways… capturing the power of the sun by growing algae for biodiesel production… finding multiple uses for the by-products of biodiesel refining… the U.S. is just scratching the surface of the potential biodiesel holds for this country. Those are just some of the findings of a new report.
Margo Oge, the director of the Environmental Protection Agency’s office of transportation and air quality, submitted written testimony to the committee that said the agency is working with the Department of Energy (DOE) “to evaluate the impacts of the use of higher blends on the in-use fleet of highway vehicles and non-road equipment, and hope to complete the testing over the course of the next year.”
ICM
saying, “Our objective in retaining ICM is to maintain a positive environment ensuring all the plants are kept in top condition.”
Changes are afoot at the 
Ethanol demand, as calculated by the 
Earth Day 2009 is April 22, but Agland Cenex fueling stations in Greeley, Colorado will celebrate the day a bit early with their community on April 17. The sites at 1607 2nd Ave. and at 2449 35th Avenue will sell E85 for 85 cents per gallon from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. 
The first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970 with about 20 million people across America. Now Earth Day is celebrated annually around the globe. Through the combined efforts of the U.S. government, grassroots organizations, and environmentally caring citizens, what started as a day of national environmental recognition has evolved into a world-wide campaign to protect our global environment. 
According to the
The latest edition of Domestic Fuel Cast listens in on some of the conversation at this week’s Farm Foundation “Transition to a Bioeconomy: Global Trade and Policy Issues” conference.
This is the fourth in a series of conferences looking at the transition to a bioeconomy the Farm Foundation has sponsored. This week’s event brought people from around the world to Washington, DC, where they were able to combine their divergent viewpoints to come up with workable solutions that everyone can live with. Unlike some other conferences where everyone already agrees before they meet, these Farm Foundation meetings put together people with vastly different perspectives. The conversations are lively, they’re maybe a bit pointed, but they work… and they are something we need to have more of in this country: frank, honest discussions where everyone doesn’t have to agree.
College students work best under pressure – so here’s your deadline to enter and win a MacBook Air laptop in the