Star Trek is a 2009 science fiction film directed by J. J. Abrams and written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. It is the eleventh film based on the Star Trek franchise and features the main characters of the original Star Trek series, who are portrayed by a brand new cast.

The film uses the concept of time travel to introduce an alternate timeline that revises the continuity of the original series and the previous movies. It explores the previously unexplored origin stories of James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto), before they unite aboard the USS Enterprise to combat Nero (a heavily disguised Eric Bana), a Romulan from the future who threatens the United Federation of Planets and Earth itself!

Growing up without his father, Kirk becomes an intelligent, reckless, and cynical young man. However, as many intelligent but reckless and cynical young man do, he rides a motorcycle. Not just any motorcycle, mind you but some sort of futuristic, hub-less, spoke-less non-internal combustion engine model.

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A Triumph Daytona 675 powered by bioethanol fuel today reached an astonishing track speed of 158.7 mph at Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground! The biofuel used for this groundbreaking initiative was produced from windfall apples by A-level students from a local school.

Devised by Rupert Paul, contributing editor of Bike magazine, “Project Fast Fruit” aimed to convert and run a high performance vehicle on biofuel using only basic equipment. As such, the fuel was produced in a Chemistry Lab as part of an A-level project by students from the Prince William School in Oundle, Northamptonshire.

Triumph Motorcycles, the iconic British motorcycle manufacturer, initially entered into the scheme some four months ago by providing its world leading Daytona 675 model as the test bike. Today’s successful final run was the result of four months of hard work – the school having fermented and distilled around 6,000 crushed apples while Bike magazine modified the Daytona’s engine to run on bioethanol.

Surprisingly little modification was required – just a remap of the fuel injection system. The engine was then tested thoroughly using commercially available E85 (85% ethanol) with very encouraging results. The project then moved to the next phase, with testing and optimization of the engine using the fuel produced by the students before undertaking today’s run at Bruntingthorpe.

Rupert Paul of Bike magazine commented,
“We believe that achieving a speed 158.7mph sets a record for a production bike on home-brewed fuel. Biofuel is a buzzword at the moment, with the Government setting a target for all petrol and diesel to contain a minimum 5% biofuel by 2010. Although they are still questionable from an environmental point of view, biofuels are here to stay, and this experiment was all about exploring how much power we could extract from them – as well as having some fun.”

Andrea Friggi, PR & Communications Manager at Triumph Motorcycles commented,
“At the moment all Triumph motorcycles are designed for optimum performance with non-ethanol fuel but are compatible with E10 (10% ethanol). We’re currently investigating making all models compatible with E25 fuel so while this is a fun experiment it does have a serious side and we’re looking forward to reviewing the results.”

Dr Anton McAleese, Head of Chemistry at Prince William School said;
“This is a really interesting project for our students to get involved in. It’s important that industry recognises the skills and creativity that our students can offer. Further, it’s often young people today who are the most concerned about the future of our environment, so it’s a topic close to their hearts.”

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Austrian-based automotive consulting firm AVL (Anstalt für Verbrennungskraftmaschinen List), one of the largest privately owned companies for powertrain development, has developed a High Performance Diesel Motorcycle.

While the passenger car world has gained a lot of widespread acceptance in recent years as a result of CRDi (Common Rail Direct Injection) and intercooled turbos, providing better fuel economy and high torque output, the motorcycle world seems to have been left behind.

AVL put their engine and vehicle concept development skills to work as an internal R&D project, and the result was the world’s first high performance diesel engine specifically designed for motorcycles in terms of packaging and styling.

The AVL engine is a 4-stroke, water-cooled Diesel triple displacing 1331cc, with a state of the art 4-valve per cylinder DOHC head. It is turbocharged with a VTG (Variable Turbine Geometry) turbo, and an air-air intercooler. The injection system is CRDi and the pistons have oil jets for cooling. Balancers ensure that the bike’s vibrations are tolerable.

Maximum torque of 200Nm is available between 2000 and 3500 rpm and a peak power of 74 kW (100 HP) comes about between 4000 and 4500 rpm.

The AVL Diesel is packaged wonderfully in an attractive trellis frame

The AVL Diesel bike goes from 0-100 km/h in 2.96 seconds, faster than a Suzuki GSX1400 (3.0), Honda CB1300 (3.1) and a Kawasaki ZRX1200R (3.0). Furthermore emissions comply with EURO3 limits. It is not known if any motorcycle makers are working with AVL to bring this concept bike to production. Who’d be brave enough to do it? Triumph Motorcycles? Royal Enfield? BMW? Kawasaki (who’ve already got a military diesel based on the KLR650)? What’s your say? Comment below please.

SOURCE: AVL

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Ever since I posted on the Coskata ethanol production method and how it could lead to a new generation of E85 powered bikes, and the military diesel Kawasakis (M1030M1s at the USMC Combat Motorcycle School), I’ve been thinking of alternative fuels for motorcycles. This morning I googled “BioDiesel Motorcycle” and found this really cool article at Kneeslider. Apparently it’s a bike built by Colorado Biodiesel© and MotorEarth© to promote diesel use and was then auctioned on Ebay. Paul Crowe at Kneeslider reported on this amazing bike.

Paul later followed up with an article on Royal Enfield Bullet biodiesel conversion by Charles Altmann. Altmann Machines in Germany takes the original Royal Enfield Bullet engine out and replaces it with a Yanmar 406cc, single cylinder, direct injection diesel engine.

So with fears of oil becoming scarce, more and more people are saying they would downgrade to smaller cars. Perhaps one day as fuel prices go higher and higher they may even downgrade to two-wheelers. The next step? Alternative fuel bikes. They’re already here.

SOURCE

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Coskata employee with one of the company’s proprietary ‘Bioreactors’

WIRED‘s Chuck Squatriglia has reported that a start-up, Coskata, a GM-backed company has found a way to convert almost any organic material, including municipal waste into ethanol using bacteria at a cost of US$1 per gallon! This translates into not more than 87 sen per litre in Malaysian currency!

Coskata uses existing gasification technology to convert almost any organic material into synthesis gas, which is a mix of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Coskata then pumps it into a ‘bioreactor’ containing bacteria that consume the gas and excrete ethanol, rather than fermenting the synthesis gas or using thermo-chemical catalysts to produce ethanol. Coskata is said to be the first company to combine the existing methods of gasification and bacterial conversion. The Coskata process merges the flexibility of gasification with the costs of bacterial conversion. The end result is a process which yields 99.7% pure ethanol.

In the motoring world Ethanol is now being mixed with gasoline (petrol) to produce E85. E85 is a 85%/25% ethanol/gasoline mix which is said to burn cleaner, which reduces green house gases. In October 2007, an episode of Orange County Choppers aired [LINK] which detailed the construction of an E85 powered motorcycle. American Green Holdings has also released an E85 powered bike, the Victory-based EcoOutlaw.

The American Motorcyclist Association (AMA), however, has expressed concern about ethanol-blended fuels, in an article in MotorcycleUSA.com. “The AMA supports the use of cleaner-burning fuels, but we are concerned about premature engine damage or failure while a bike is being ridden on a highway if the allowable level of ethanol is raised to 20 percent,” said Imre Szauter, AMA legislative affairs specialist. “We are also concerned about any degradation in performance, fuel economy and rideability that may result from the long-term use of blended fuels with greater than 10 percent ethanol.”

The AMA concerns stem from the fact that when burnt, ethanol creates more heat than burning conventional gasoline and this may lead to potential damage to motorcycle engines not originally designed to handle the additional heat load, especially air-cooled motorcycle engines. In addition, fuel systems (hoses, etc.) on bikes may be adversely affected by the corrosive effects of the higher concentrations of ethanol in E85 fuel.

If Coskata‘s technologies are accepted worldwide, assuming the cost of the technology becomes affordable, will we see E85 powered vehicles, including motorcycles on the road soon? What do you think? Leave your comments below.

For more information on ethanol-blended fuel check out http://www.allsafe-fuel.org/

Brazil has had an ethanol fuel program since 1979. Over 1.5 million ethanol fuel cars have been produced since then.

SOURCE: WIRED, MOTORCYCLEUSA.COM, AMERICANGREENHOLDINGS, COSKATA

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Host of the History Channel’s military history documentary Mail Call, retired USMC Gunnery Sergeant Ronald Lee Ermey narrates this short video clip on the United States Marine Corps Combat Motorcycle School. Featuring the tough-as-nails Kawasaki KLR650 and the Diesel version, the M1030M1. The M1030M1 JP8/Diesel Military Motorcycle has been under development since 1998. It is designed to operate reliably and efficiently on Kerosene based fuels to include Diesel Fuel and Aviation Kerosene. Hayes Diversified Technologies (HDT) is under contract with the United States Marine Corps to delivery over 440 M1030M1s. Production was scheduled to begin in March of 2006.