In March 2008, I wrote an article for those who want to know how to run your car on water. The information there is still good. But, since that time the price of oil and gasoline has skyrocketed out-of-control adding to the momentum for people asking about “hydrogen generators for my car.”

Not a day goes by that I don’t receive an email or phone call about hydrogen generators for cars, so I thought I would provide an update on some additional information I have found since writing the original article.

For instance for the do-it-yourselfer there are ebooks that will give you a list of what to pick up from the local hardware store, help you put it all together and run it in your car or truck. From what I’ve been able to glean in my research, these units will help save 10 to 40-percent in gas mileage depending upon driving conditions, type of car and other factors.

There is also a DIY Yahoo Water Car Group that is very active where most users are either developing their own systems or using one of the hydrogen boosters offered some of the regulars on the board. Originally, this group was started because of Daniel Dingel and his hydrogen generator for his car, but my impression is this group has evolved into more of a self-help type of group with many like-minded individuals sharing ideas on how to make these devices work in their own particular vehicles.

Besides the DIY route, there are also some commercial units that one can buy and have professionally installed or at least they will come as a package deal with easy instructions on installing the unit yourself. Names such as Hydrorunner, Hydrogen Boost, Green Future Technology and National Vapor Industries sell commercial devices.

This last device is also currently being evaluated by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), which dictates to automobile manufacturers how many hydrogen, electric and plug-in electric vehicles they must deliver in the state.

It’s true that many people are skeptical of these devices and some work better than others. The lure of the “water car” has been around for many years. But, while many of the older hydrogen generators for cars may have been questionable at best, the new breed of these devices need a fresh look. With skyrocketing oil and gas prices, a small device that saves in both gas mileage and emissions may become the Next Big Idea for which we’ve all been waiting.

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The Magenn Air Rotor System (MARS) is a tethered helium balloon device that generates power from the wind. The Magenn is a sizable blimp with rotating blades that rotates along its horizontal axis in response to wind energy.

Like other similar devices, the electrical current that is generated travels down the tethering lines to a transformer at the ground station, then is redirected to the power grid. The lighter-than-air Magenn rotor seeks out the altitude that is optimal for highest winds.

The rotation of the blades also causes the rotor to ascend and stabilizes the MARS in its controlled environment. The height that the Magenn wind balloon will fly will be in the neighborhood of 600 to 1,000 feet, it’s efficiency nearing 50-percent and it can be placed near demand centers, which reduces the cost of transmission and loss of energy in transmission.

The Magenn system is also highly mobile and can be moved to near locations as wind conditions or business operations change. One such application is emergency relief situations where electrical power generation is needed.

While some other wind turbine systems may boast their virtues bordering on blathering hot air, the Magenn shows unusual promise in delivering on its projections. Keep an eye on the sky for Magenn Air Rotor Systems coming to a location near you.

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It’s been no secret for a very long time that supercomputers suck down a great deal of energy when doing their lighting fast computations. In fact, one of the most energy-consuming types of computations are those programs used to calculate and model global climate change.

But a recent breakthrough in energy-saving supercomputer technology will mean that this intense number crunching will be become feasible very soon. A company named Tensilica has teamed up with the Department of Energy (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to design new supercomputing architecture using small processor cores that will be able to handle 100 to 1000 times the throughput of traditional high-end computers.

The drawback for supercomputers has traditionally been that they use an extreme amount of energy, put off a high degree of heat and require very complex physical installations that their cost has been prohibitive.

According to Horst Simon, Associate Laboratory Director about the breakthrough, “Such processors, by their nature, must deliver maximum performance while consuming minimal power – exactly the challenge facing the high performance computing community. One of the most compute-intensive applications is modeling global climate change, a critical research application and the perfect pilot application for energy-efficient computing optimization.”

By making supercomputers energy efficient and thus less costly, we will receive many answers to pressing environmental concerns much more quickly. And the faster we get a handle on the issues surrounding global warming the more intelligently, we can decide as a population how to combat the problem in the most effective manner.

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If you just can’t wait for 2010 for Toyota and GM to rollout their official plug-in hybrids, and want to start saving gasoline now, then the A123Systems Hymotion may just be the plug-in device you need. Right now the A123Systems Hymotion Plug-In Conversion Module (PCM) is available only for the Toyota Prius.

A123Systems has gotten permission from the State of California to sell up to 500 of these PCM’s initially with a sticker price of $9,995. But what does the Hymotion deliver? According to the specs this module is designed for a Prius, model year 2004 – 2008 and will deliver 100 mpg for the first 30 to 40 miles of driving.

The Hymotion even comes with a 3-year warrantee and passes all federal crash test standards. Besides California, A123Systems is also looking to establish dealership networks in Seattle, Minneapolis, Boston and Washington, D.C. as well.

The Hymotion is using Nano Lithium Iron Phophate (LiFePO4) batteries to power the Priuses and has been approved by the California Air Resources Board to go forward in helping the automakers meet their quota of required plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) over the next five years.

A123Systems has also been working with General Motors using similar technology that will be placed inside the Chevy Volt and rolled out to the public in a couple of years. So, if you already have a Prius and you’d like to move from HEV to PHEV now is your chance to pounce. With the high price of gasoline right now, plugging in may be more appealing than feeling the pinch at the pump.

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Compressed air powered cars are not as far out as they seem. And, while many people think that electric vehicles and hydrogen cars are the only true zero emission vehicles (ZEV), air cars are also in this category (unless of course, you’re using smoggy compressed air to begin with).

Now, much has already been written about the MDI Air Cars, which are being produced in India and set to hit the showroom by this coming August. MDI MiniCat, OneCat and CityCat models have varying degrees of speeds (up to 68 mph) and ranges (up to 125 miles) and come equipped with onboard compressors or can be refueled at gasoline stations that are equipped with air compressors able to go above the 4,000 psi mark.

In 2000, MDI also unveiled its e.Volution compressed air car that was one of the first prototypes. But, MDI is not the only manufacturers of air powered cars and vehicles. Jem Stansfield propels his moped using air power. Engineair of Australia also has come up with their own compressed air engine as has K’Airmobiles. And, a Korean company named Energine has also come out with a pneumatic-hybrid electric engine that uses compressed air for acceleration plus climbing up hills.

Then again, if you happen to be a do-it-yourself type of person, you may just want to convert your existing car to run on compressed air. This project won’t be for everyone, but for those who don’t mind getting their hands dirty in order to clean up the environment, this is another alternative one needs consider.

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A new environmental website is opening today at JogoGreen that combines the fun of participating in a game and testing your knowledge with saving trees. According to the website, for every 10 environmental questions you get right, JogoGreen will plant a tree on your behalf.

I just participated in their survey, found it to be both fun and informative and donated two trees to fight against global warming. The website is being supported by the selling of advertising and t-shirts.

Here are a few of the sample questions you may get when taking their green test:

1. True or False: Ground level air pollution from cars is estimated to cause 30,000 deaths each year.
2. True or False: Hillary Clinton’s hair spray use depletes more of the ozone layer than all of the carbon emissions combined.
3. True of False: Experts estimates that we are losing 70 plant, animal and insect species every single day due to rainforest deforestation. That equates to 25,000 species a year.
4. True or False: New home construction consumes two-fifths of all the lumber and plywood used in the U.S. each year.
5. True or False: An F16 uses more fuel in one hour than an average car owner uses in 2 years.

Of course, I’m not giving you the answers here. Sometimes the questions aren’t as dramatic as the real answers that you’ll learn once you’ve taken the test. No matter what though, this is a fun little exercise, that just takes a couple of minutes and will save trees, clean the air and empower people to take action.

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Earth Day is tomorrow and it has been pre-announced that 46 of the nation’s top comic strips have all decided to jump on the green bandwagon and write humor honoring this day. It’s been foreshadowed that upon this blessed day, Dagwood will take a nap to conserve energy and the Mutts strip will offer environmental quotations.

But, what will the other mischievous cartoonists have to offer? I thought it would be fun to take a few guesses as to what the top comic strips will focus on for Earth Day. For instance, I thought it would be fun to see Dilbert powering his PC with a small wind turbine that pal Wally is blowing upon.

Perhaps Garfield will eat a spinach lasagna in honor of the day. Beetle Bailey could put up a large solar panel in a field, then sleep in the shade underneath it. Dennis the Menace may slip Mr. Wilson a “prescription” brownie full of “oranic” materials. The Lockhorns may battle out the best method of recycling.

Linus may find out that he likes a hemp blanket better. And, the Wizard of Id may just invent a free energy concoction that will save the world (for a day). On Earth Day, I myself, will partake of a yummy tofu Scoobie Snack and bang my wild bongos at midnight. Ruh Roh!

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Hydro Green Power has received a $2.6 million investment by Quercus Trust develop its river and tidal renewable energy generators. This funding will help Hydro Green Power deploy its hydrokinetic technology to states such as Minnesota on the Mississippi River, where testing will begin as early as August.

Hydro Green Power currently has four methods of generating electricity using water, which include hydro, current, tidal and ocean power. Hydropower is generated from dams and projects usually take less than 12 months, start to finish.

Current power is generated from rivers and streams, which is what the Quercus Trust project will involve. Tidal power uses the predicable flow of the tides to generate electricity around the ocean shores. And, ocean power from Hydro Green Power involves water turbines that are offshore and a bit farther out to sea than the tidal devices.

In Minnesota, the river current project will be the first in the U. S. sanctioned by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). There are also project slated for Mississippi and Louisiana as well.

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Hydrogen fuel cells have been around for decades now. NASA has used hydrogen fuel cells in manned spacecraft to provide onboard energy for the vehicle and drinking water for the astronauts. In 1966, the GM Electrovan was the first vehicle to use a hydrogen fuel cell to power the wheels.

But, hydrogen fuel cells (often called proton exchange membrane or PEM fuel cells) have come a long way since then in both the mobile and stationary marketplace. For instance, developing a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle used to cost the large automakers several million dollars apiece. Now, the prices are considerably lower. In fact, there is a fuel cell bus in the UK being developed that is expected to cost around $190,000 when it rolls out.

The price of stationary hydrogen fuel cells has also come down considerably. Sure, you may still spend several hundred thousand dollars or more for a stationary fuel cell to power your corporate data center. But, smaller portable stationary hydrogen fuel cells are also starting to make headway in the market. Fuel cells for laptops, cell phones and other small electronic devices keep rolling out right and left.

For the emergency power market, Horizon and Millennium Cell have teamed up to rollout a portable hydrogen fuel cell for under $400. In fact, I came across this page from HiTech that lists many fuel cells from hundreds of dollars to the tens of thousands of dollars depending upon the size and application.

For the critics who keep saying that hydrogen fuel cells are too expensive, it’s time to take another look. The price of hydrogen fuel cells keeps falling and their scope is widening. In the future, your home, car, cell phone, laptop and all portable devices just may be powered by hydrogen fuel cells. And, this will be a very clean and green future indeed.

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During the Bill Clinton campaign, political strategist James Carville once said, “It’s the economy, stupid.” This became a rallying cry for people who were concerned about their jobs during the political season. This political season is no different and at least a couple of the candidates (including one named Clinton) are focusing on the economy and jobs.

A certain rapid growth sector of the overall employment picture are green jobs, especially those in the technical fields. Here is a list of some of the websites devoted to posting green jobs. Some of these sites offer green jobs in the USA, UK or other various locations.

• Grist features worldwide green jobs with a database searchable by job and location.
• Environmental Career outlines a list of worldwide green jobs that can be searched by position and location.
• Ecoemploy offers green jobs in the U. S.
• Earthworks features green jobs in the US, UK and other locations.
• Sustainable Business outlines green jobs in the US, UK and other worldwide locations plus offers searchable database by position and location.
• Bright Green Talent offers green jobs centered in the UK and USA.
• Edie is a large database of green jobs in the UK
• Acres is another job bank offers green employment in the UK.

One shortcoming of a least half of these sites, however is that you can search by job, but not by location, which means one may have to take a bit of time out visually filtering out green jobs that are geographically undesirable. Be that as it may, if you find the green job that is a perfect fit for you then a little extra work won’t be that hard to handle.

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