Tata's Nano is here - what now?
Tata Motors today unveiled its long-awaited Nano, the world's cheapest car. The "People's Car" could be for the developing world what the Volkswagen Beetle or the Fiat 500 were for Europe. The vehicle will cost 1 lakh rupees or €1700/US$2500, making it available to millions of people who are entering the rapidly growing lower middle class in emerging economies. Environmentalists from the West call the prospect a disaster in the making. Modernists in the developing world rejoice and see this as a historic day.
The Nano is described as "a comfortable, safe, all-weather car, high on fuel efficiency & low on emissions". The car was designed with a family in mind and has a passenger compartment that can seat four persons.
The small vehicle has a rear-wheel drive, all-aluminium, two-cylinder, 623 cc, 33 PS, multi point fuel injection petrol engine. This is the first time that a two-cylinder gasoline engine is being used in a car with single balancer shaft. The lean design strategy has helped minimise weight, which helps maximise performance per unit of energy consumed and delivers high fuel efficiency - an average of about 50 miles per gallon, or five litres per hundred kilometres. Performance is controlled by a specially designed electronic engine management system.
The tailpipe emission performance of the vehicle meets local regulatory requirements. In terms of overall pollutants, it has a lower pollution level than two-wheelers being manufactured in India today. The high fuel efficiency also ensures that the car has low carbon dioxide emissions, thereby providing the twin benefits of an affordable transportation solution with a low carbon footprint.
Tata calls those who criticise the small car "elitist" and their arguments "discriminatory". The company reacts especially to a recent column in the New York Times titled "No, No, No, Don’t Follow Us" written by popular columnist Thomas Friedman, in which he warned that the Nano is a highly retrograde initiative from a country capable of incredible innovation. The energy and environmental implications of millions more people driving personal cars could be enormous, for India and the world, he warns:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: mobility :: developing world :: middle class :: consumerism :: India ::
Friedman is right in calling for a country like India to 'leapfrog' our own development model, and to invest in, for example, modern mass transit. However, we feel that our modern consumerist ideology has penetrated most of the developing world so thoroughly, that warning for its dangers has become futile. The ideology has become a deep 'habitus', a pattern of feeling, imagining, desiring and thinking that structures all aspects of life, from the way space and time are organised to the manner in which we value and organise our social relations. The emerging middle classes of the developing world have become the staunchest proponents of this modernism.
The idea of 'leapfrogging' is likely to remain a fantasy dreamt up by people from wealthy societies that have already entered a post-industrial logic, after having gone through the long phase of modernity. Only when the system of consumerism in these emerging economies crumbles under its inherent limits - peak oil, catastrophic climate change or simply congestion in cities - will it rethink itself.
The best we can do, perhaps, is to encourage and support the creation of an eco-conscious avant-garde in these developing countries - people who urge their fellow citizens to develop an alternative, more sustainable development pathway.
References:
Tata "People's Car" dedicated website.
Tata: Why critics of the Tata small car are barking up the wrong tree — January 10, 2008
Tata: Tata Motors unveils the People's Car - January 10, 2008
New York Times: No, No, No, Don’t Follow Us - November 4, 2007.
Article continues
The Nano is described as "a comfortable, safe, all-weather car, high on fuel efficiency & low on emissions". The car was designed with a family in mind and has a passenger compartment that can seat four persons.
The small vehicle has a rear-wheel drive, all-aluminium, two-cylinder, 623 cc, 33 PS, multi point fuel injection petrol engine. This is the first time that a two-cylinder gasoline engine is being used in a car with single balancer shaft. The lean design strategy has helped minimise weight, which helps maximise performance per unit of energy consumed and delivers high fuel efficiency - an average of about 50 miles per gallon, or five litres per hundred kilometres. Performance is controlled by a specially designed electronic engine management system.
The tailpipe emission performance of the vehicle meets local regulatory requirements. In terms of overall pollutants, it has a lower pollution level than two-wheelers being manufactured in India today. The high fuel efficiency also ensures that the car has low carbon dioxide emissions, thereby providing the twin benefits of an affordable transportation solution with a low carbon footprint.
Tata calls those who criticise the small car "elitist" and their arguments "discriminatory". The company reacts especially to a recent column in the New York Times titled "No, No, No, Don’t Follow Us" written by popular columnist Thomas Friedman, in which he warned that the Nano is a highly retrograde initiative from a country capable of incredible innovation. The energy and environmental implications of millions more people driving personal cars could be enormous, for India and the world, he warns:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: mobility :: developing world :: middle class :: consumerism :: India ::
Friedman is right in calling for a country like India to 'leapfrog' our own development model, and to invest in, for example, modern mass transit. However, we feel that our modern consumerist ideology has penetrated most of the developing world so thoroughly, that warning for its dangers has become futile. The ideology has become a deep 'habitus', a pattern of feeling, imagining, desiring and thinking that structures all aspects of life, from the way space and time are organised to the manner in which we value and organise our social relations. The emerging middle classes of the developing world have become the staunchest proponents of this modernism.
The idea of 'leapfrogging' is likely to remain a fantasy dreamt up by people from wealthy societies that have already entered a post-industrial logic, after having gone through the long phase of modernity. Only when the system of consumerism in these emerging economies crumbles under its inherent limits - peak oil, catastrophic climate change or simply congestion in cities - will it rethink itself.
The best we can do, perhaps, is to encourage and support the creation of an eco-conscious avant-garde in these developing countries - people who urge their fellow citizens to develop an alternative, more sustainable development pathway.
References:
Tata "People's Car" dedicated website.
Tata: Why critics of the Tata small car are barking up the wrong tree — January 10, 2008
Tata: Tata Motors unveils the People's Car - January 10, 2008
New York Times: No, No, No, Don’t Follow Us - November 4, 2007.
Article continues
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Researchers to plant transgenic poplars to clean up polluted site; trees to be used for cellulosic ethanol
Richard Meilan, a Purdue associate professor, is currently at work to transform one variety of poplar suited to Indiana's climate; cold-hardy poplars are generally more difficult to alter than the variety used in a laboratory setting. The scientist says this site presents the perfect opportunity to prove that poplars can get rid of pollution in the real world.
In a study Meilan co-authored, published recently in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, poplar cuttings removed 90 percent of the TCE within a hydroponic solution in one week (previous post). The engineered trees also took up and metabolized the chemical 100 times faster than unaltered hybrid poplars, which have a limited ability to remove and degrade the contaminant on their own, he says.
The transgenic poplars contain an inserted gene that encodes an enzyme capable of breaking down TCE and a variety of other environmental pollutants, including chloroform, benzene, vinyl chloride and carbon tetrachloride.
Meilan says he believes the transgenic poplars will be able to remove the TCE from the site, named Peter's Pond, which was contaminated by tainted oil stored there in the 1960s. The chemical, used as an industrial solvent and degreaser, lies within 10 feet of the surface, making it accessible to poplar roots, the scientist adds. TCE, the most common groundwater pollutant on Superfund sites, is a probable human carcinogen and causes various health problems when present in sufficiently high levels in water or air.
Meilan said planting transgenic trees in the field remains controversial, primarily due to concerns that inserted genes, or transgenes, might escape and incorporate into natural tree populations. But the team is taking comprehensive steps to ensure that the transgenes don't escape into the environment.
Meilan has applied for a permit to grow transgenic poplars in a field, or non-laboratory, setting from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the government organization responsible for regulating such research activities. In order to comply with permit guidelines and to protect the environment, Meilan's team will take measures to prevent any plant material from leaving the site and will remove the trees after three years, short of the five it takes for poplars to reach sexual maturity:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: cellulosic ethanol :: poplar :: energy crop :: GMO :: transgenic :: pollution :: phytoremediation :: biotechnology :: biodiesel :: biobutanol ::
Three years should be enough time for them to grow up, send down roots to suck the pollutants up and break them down, Meilan says. Then the researchers will cut them down before they have the chance to pass on their genes to the environment.
Bioenergy
Besides their utility in phytoremediation, or pollution removal, poplars have promise as a feedstock for cellulosic ethanol. To investigate their potential in this area, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded a $1.3 million grant to Meilan and two colleagues, professors Michael Ladisch, agricultural and biological engineering, and lead researcher Clint Chapple, biochemistry.
They are currently investigating ways to alter the composition of poplar lignin, which provides rigidity to the plant cell wall by binding to strands of cellulose, a complex sugar that can be converted into ethanol.
Chrysler will fund the Kokomo project and said that the TCE is contained within an isolated water table at Peter's Pond and presents no public hazard.
The original study, led by University of Washington professors Stuart Strand and Sharon Doty, revealed that the transgenic poplars also were able to absorb TCE vapors through their leaves before metabolizing the chemical. Tree cuttings removed 79 percent of the airborne TCE from a chamber within one week. This suggests poplars could one day help mitigate air as well as water pollution.
If the project succeeds, poplars may be used for phytoremediation elsewhere. Poplars grow across a wide geographic range and in many different climates, Meilan said.
Phytoremediation with energy crops elsewhere
Earlier scientists have looked specifically at using energy crops for phytoremediation. Examples include hybrid poplars that could be grown to soak up polluted water from coal mining sites (earlier post) and miscanthus to clean up brown fields (more here and here).
Poplar has received attention from the bioenergy community as an ideal biomass crop. It is the first tree to have had its entire genome sequenced (previous post).
More recently, a pioneering EU-funded project called BioReGen which could green thousands of acres of derelict brownfield sites in North East England while providing climate friendly bioenergy announced it is expanding after successful trials. Scientists here explicitly use energy crops to clean up contaminated sites. The combination of phytoremediation, wildlife habitat restoration and renewable bioenergy and biofuel production here offers a win-win-win synergy.
Picture: Richard Meilan, shown inspecting a row of hybrid poplars, is developing a transgenic poplar capable of absorbing and breaking down various contaminants. His poplars will be put to the test this summer in a project with Chrysler LLC to remove trichloroethylene from a former oil-storage location in Kokomo, Ind. Credit: Purdue Agricultural Communication file photo/Tom Campbell.
References:
Purdue University: Fighting pollution the poplar way: Trees to clean up Indiana site - January 10, 2007.
Biopact: BioReGen project expands: greening brownfield sites with energy crops and biofuels - December 10, 2007
Biopact: Scientists dramatically improve poplar's capacity to clean up polluted sites - potential to couple phytoremediation to bioenergy - October 17, 2007
Biopact: Energy crops and phytoremediation - new plants may soak up methane water - August 15, 2006
Biopact: Turning brownfields into greenfields with the help of biofuels - August 9, 2006
Biopact: France to use miscanthus to clean up polluted urban sites - August 22, 2006
Biopact: Virginia Tech researchers receive $1.2 million to study poplar tree as model biomass crop - June 26, 2007
Biopact: The first tree genome is published: Poplar holds promise as renewable bioenergy resource - September 14, 2006
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posted by Biopact team at 10:41 PM 0 comments links to this post