Water-powered cars

Oil hike would’nt becomes crisis if water-powered cars are materialized. Japan's Genepax has now made some real progress on those front water-powered cars.

Genepax Co Ltd explained the technologies used in its new fuel cell system "Water Energy System (WES)," which uses water as a fuel and does not emit CO₂.

The system can generate power just by supplying water and air to the fuel and air electrodes, respectively, the company said at the press conference, which took place June 12, 2008, at the Osaka Assembly Hall.

The basic power generation mechanism of the new system is similar to that of a normal fuel cell, which uses hydrogen as a fuel. According to Genepax, the main feature of the new system is that it uses the company's membrane electrode assembly (MEA), which contains a material capable of breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen through a chemical reaction.

Though the company did not reveal the details, it "succeeded in adopting a well-known process to produce hydrogen from water to the MEA," said Hirasawa Kiyoshi, the company's president. This process is allegedly similar to the mechanism that produces hydrogen by a reaction of metal hydride and water. But compared with the existing method, the new process is expected to produce hydrogen from water for longer time, the company said.

With the new process, the cell needs only water and air, eliminating the need for a hydrogen reformer and high-pressure hydrogen tank. Moreover, the MEA requires no special catalysts, and the required amount of rare metals such as platinum is almost the same as that of existing systems, Genepax said.

Unlike the direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC), which uses methanol as a fuel, the new system does not emit CO₂. In addition, it is expected to have a longer life because catalyst degradation (poisoning) caused by CO does not occur on the fuel electrode side. As it has only been slightly more than a year since the company completed the prototype, it plans to collect more data on the product life.

At the conference, Genepax unveiled a fuel cell stack with a rated output of 120W and a fuel cell system with a rated output of 300W. In the demonstration, the 120W fuel cell stack was first supplied with water by using a dry-cell battery operated pump. After power was generated, it was operated as a passive system with the pump turned off.

This time, the voltage of the fuel cell stack was 25-30V. Because the stack is composed of 40 cells connected in series, it is expected that the output per cell is 3W or higher, the voltage is about 0.5-0.7V, and the current is about 6-7A. The power density is likely to be not less than 30mW/cm² because the reaction area of the cell is 10 x 10 cm.

Meanwhile, the 300W fuel cell system is an active system, which supplies water and air with a pump. In the demonstration, Genepax powered the TV and the lighting equipment with a lead-acid battery charged by using the system. In addition, the 300W system was mounted in the luggage room of a compact electric vehicle "Reva" manufactured by Takeoka Mini Car Products Co Ltd, and the vehicle was actually driven by the system.

Genepax initially planned to develop a 500W system, but failed to procure the materials for MEA in time and ended up in making a 300W system.

For the future, the company intends to provide 1kw-class generation systems for use in electric vehicles and houses. Instead of driving electric vehicles with this system alone, the company expects to use it as a generator to charge the secondary battery used in electric vehicles.

Although the production cost is currently about ¥2,000,000 (US$18,522), it can be reduced to ¥500,000 or lower if Genepax succeeds in mass production. The company believes that its fuel cell system can compete with residential solar cell systems if the cost can be reduced to this level.

Saudi King Abdullah : Oil shouldn't be a tool for conflict

King Abdullah says oil shouldn't be a tool for conflict; it should be a tool for development.

King Abdullah, the head of state of the host nation, Saudi Arabia, the largest oil producer in the world and a US ally says, "Those who want Opec to take advantage of its position are forgetting that Opec has always acted moderately and wisely," he said.

Saudi King Abdullah attends the opening ceremony for the OPEC Summit in Riyadh November 17, 2007. OPEC heads of state pledged to provide 'adequate, timely and sufficient' oil supplies to the market at a meeting in Riyadh on Sunday, but the summit ended with a sharp political division over the weak dollar.

The Saudi king also tried to redirect the Opec opening session to the summit's agenda, announcing a move to support environmental efforts.

He said: "I wish to announce that the Saudi government has put $300m in a programme to finance scientific research in the fields of energy, environment and climate."

As the talks entered a second day on Sunday, other Opec members had not committed to the Saudi plan.

Rafael Correa, president of Ecuador, which has rejoined Opec after a 15 year break, proposed that a tax be imposed on oil-consuming nations for environmental protection programmes elsewhere.

Chavez : Venezuela or Iran Attack Could Double Oil Prices

Venezuela's president has warned that oil prices could more than double if the US attacks his country or Iran.

"If the United States was mad enough to attack Iran or aggress Venezuela again the price of a barrel of oil won't just reach $100 but even $200 dollars," he said.

In his opening address on Saturday (November 17, 2007) at a rare Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries summit in Riyadh, the Saudi Arabian capital, Chavez, a fiery leftist and fiercely anti-US leader declared that the group should "assert itself as an active political agent".

Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil producer, rebuffed Chavez's idea of Opec becoming an overtly political organisation.

Mr Chavez called for unity in Opec ranks, invoking geopolitical reasons.

"The basis of all aggression is oil. It is the underlying reason," Mr Chavez said, referring to the war in Iraq and US threats against Iran over its nuclear programme.

"Today, Opec stands strong. It is stronger than it has ever been in the past. Opec should set itself up as an active geopolitical agent."

Iran leader calls USD a worthless piece of paper

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has suggested an end to the trading of oil in US dollars, calling the currency "a worthless piece of paper".

The call came at the end of a rare Opec summit, and was opposed by US ally Saudi Arabia.

The Iranian president had wanted to include the attack on the dollar in the summit's closing statement.

The communique made little mention of the dollar, however, focusing instead on energy security and the environment.

Speaking after the end of the summit, Mr Ahmadinejad said all leaders at the meeting were unhappy with recent falls in the value of the dollar.

The dollar has weakened considerably against the euro and other currencies in the past 12 months.

Its decline has affected the revenues of Opec members because most of them price and sell their oil exports in the US currency.

Mr Ahmadinejad said that all Opec countries had showed interest in converting their cash reserves into other currencies.

"They [the US] get our oil and give us a worthless piece of paper," he told reporters.

Iran's oil minister said that this would allow the formation of a committee to study the dollar's affect on oil prices and investigate the possibility of alternative trading currencies.

Oil prices burst through $89 hit record high

A surge in crude oil prices at new high could add unwanted inflationary pressure to the Malaysian economy. Oil prices burst through $89 a barrel to hit record high yesterday on the back of growing energy demand forecasts and fears that escalating conflict between Turkey and Kurds in northern Iraq could hit supplies in the Mediterranean.

Last week the International Energy Agency, adviser to 26 industrialized nations such as Britain and the US, predicted that demand would surge by 2.1m barrels a day during 2008. OPEC insists "the current supply and demand forecasts predict that the market will be fundamentally balanced over the coming quarters" cause the market to be jumpy.

The market trigger by a real oil shock with the announcement of the Turkish parliament has voted to allow its military to make an incursion into Iraq and chase down Kurdish rebels staging cross-border attacks. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government had asked parliament in Ankara on Monday to authorize a military incursion, and the lawmakers responded with overwhelming approval, 507 to 19.

An incursion across the border would violate the sovereignty of another country. It will be considered against international rules and treaties and will affect negatively on the security and stability of the Kurdistan region in northern Iraq. The implications of taking the law into ones hand and unilateral action will spell trouble for all especially disrupt oil supplies in the region?

The Kurdistan Workers Party PKK is listed as a terrorist organization internationally by a number of states and organizations, including the USA, NATO and the EU. More than 37,OOO people have been killed in the Turkeu-PKK conflict since 1984.

The Kurdistan Workers Party PKK, an armed militant group founded in the 1970s and led, until his capture in 1999, by Abdullah Ocalan. Originated from Ankara, but move its focus to the large Kurdish population south-east Turkey, where they began organizing. With the official release of the "Proclamation of Independence of PKK" on October 27, 1978, the group became known as the Kurdistan Workers Party.

The PKK's ideology was founded on revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and Kurdish nationalism and soon found itself in conflict with right wing entities. It's goal has been to create an independent socialist Kurdish state in a territory which it claims as Kurdistam, an area that comprises parts of south-eastern Turkey, north-eastern Iraq, north-eastern Syria and north-western Iran; those states oppose any such change. It is an ethnic secessionist organization that uses force and the threat of force against both civilian and military targets for the purpose of achieving its political goal.