Resource World Magazine

58 www.resourceworld.com D E C E M B E R / J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 5 ALTERNATIVE E N E R G Y R E v i E w Developments in Alternative Energy by Jane Bratun A look At the future of public trAnsportAtion GreenPower Motor Company Inc., founded in the Gastown district, the old- est neighbourhood in Vancouver, British Columbia, recently demonstrated its EV350 coach, calling it "a bus combined with a Tesla." Resource World attended the event. Although the busses are assembled in China, 52% of the parts are made in North America. The company plans to sell the busses to towns, cities and municipali- ties. The company says the zero-emission, silent drive, electric bus, which uses lith- ium batteries, can go 250 km on a single charge. The busses use what the company calls "FlexPower" to adjust to driving con- ditions, such as flat roads and hills, and changing routes. "The environment can no longer sus- tain big, diesel-burning busses," said GreenPower CEO, Phillip Oldridge. He said we can't afford to keep buying and using diesel fuel. FlexPower is clean energy which comes with a whole host of other benefits including noise reduction. Oldridge says the bus costs over CAD $1 million to build, but Chairman Fraser Atkinson insists the vehicle will pay for itself in the long term. "The fuel savings alone is $50,000 to $60,000 a year, over a 12-year economic life, which is the mini- mum stated life for a transit bus," he said. "We're looking at savings that far eclipses the actual cost of our bus." Atkinson says with a 440-volt charging system, the bus can be fully charged in three to four hours. GreenPower says it is showing its new vehicle off at various trade shows and is speaking with transit agencies. "We've been to BC Transit," says Atkinson. "We are engaged with them in terms of talking about what particular requirements they have." GreenPower hopes to have its bus- ses operating on city streets within two years. The company will be trading on the TSX Venture Exchange in the near future. MicrobiAl nAnowires viewed As poten- tiAl electronics coMponents University of Massachusetts at Amherst physicists report that they have used a new imaging technique, electrostatic force microscopy (EFM), to show that electric charges propagate along microbial nanow- ires just as they do in carbon nanotubes, a highly conductive man-made material. This is the first time that EFM has been applied to biological proteins. It offers many new opportunities in biology. The claim by microbiologist, Derek Lovley and colleagues, that the microbe Geobacter produces tiny electrical wires, called microbial nanowires, is controversial, but the researchers say a new collaborative study provides stronger evidence than ever to support their claims. Biologists have known for years that in biological materials, electrons typically move by hopping along discrete biochemi- cal stepping-stones that can hold the individual electrons. By contrast, electrons in microbial nanowires are delocalized, not associated with just one molecule. This is known as metallic-like conductiv- ity because the electrons are conducted in a manner similar to a copper wire. Imaging shows that charges flow along the microbial nanowires even though they are proteins, still in their native state attached to the cells. To be able to visualize the charge propaga- tion in the nanowires at a molecular level is very satisfying, say the scientists. They expect this technique to have an especially important future impact on the many areas where physics and biology intersect. This discovery not only puts forward an important new principle in biology but also in materials science. Natural amino acids, when arranged correctly, can propagate charges similar to molecu- lar conductors such as carbon nanotubes. This opens exciting opportunities for pro- tein-based nanoelectronics that were not possible before. Microbial nanowires are a potential Fraser Atkinson, Chairman of GreenPower Motor Company, with the new battery-powered bus at a recent demonstration in Vancouver, British Columbia. Photo by Ellsworth Dickson

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