Reported by USATODAY, Honda is aiming to release a diesel vehicle that meets US Department of Energy Tier 2 Bin 5 emissions standards:

As for the diesel, Honda Vice President Ed Cohen said the timing is right to bring a new breed of quieter, smoother, cleaner engines to the USA. They achieve 30% better mileage than comparable gas engines. Volkswagen and DaimlerChrysler also have made a commitment to diesel in the USA.

Their technology is called the 2.2L i-CTDi and is already said to be more efficient, with more torque and less noise and emissions than gas and even the hybrid engines. Watch a nice Honda introductory video here, and read a comparison of honda engines (from Dec 2004!) here.

Bob Lutz is an interesting guy. He takes the reigns of Pontiac and the first thing he does is kill off all the plastic cladding on cars like the Grand Am. I hated that stuff too. Then he puts down the gauntlet and says Pontiac is going to make cool cars again, the kind of vehicles that are no-nonsense affordable and fun; the sort of thing people get excited about actually driving and it is supposed to cost less than $20K. Can you believe it?

Ah, the Solstice. Along with a whole line of interesting models being released under Lutz’s guidance, this car really stands out and says “let’s hit the road!” My only complaint is that it gets a middling 28mpg.

Pacific Coast Highway here we come…

And just in case you are the sort of person that likes to put serious cash into your tank, check out the high-performance GXP drifter model. There’s already a tuner forum. Personally, I hope Lutz will put some more emphasis on power-consumption ratio versus power-performance (not likely, given his Viper and Merkur roots), but this is at least a clear indication of how strong leadership can make a brand.

Another good example of this was when Carlos Ghosn of Renault stepped in and revitalized Nissan in 1999. The Z, four-door pickup, and Titan all came out of his amazing rebirth of the company image and product line.

The Guardian suggests that concrete is to become such a big issue in terms of cost and environmental impact that petroleum waste will seem friendly and cheap by comparison. First you have to consider the problem:

Cement is one of the most environmentally hazardous materials in the world, adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than the entire weight of the global airline industry. According to the Sustainable Development Commission, 4% of Co2 is caused by aviation. Depending on how conservatively you do the sums, cement-based building materials, including concrete and asphalt, account for between 5% and 10% of all carbon dioxide emissions.

And then, here is a possible solution, proposed by UKM, a partner of Shell, the Anglo-Dutch oil giant that holds the patent to the proposed material:

When crude oil is “cracked” into its components, the top of the refinement process produces petrol, followed by diesel, light fuel oil and then heavy fuel oil. At the bottom of the barrel lies a “fraction” of blackened waste material. It is hard and sticky and of scant economic worth.

“The standard way of dealing with this low-grade oil is to mix it with light fuel oil to make more heavy fuel oil,” says Robinson [director of UKM], sketching a diagram of the process on a notepad. “It gets burnt off and doesn’t have to be treated as a waste. But that burning causes further CO2 emissions that cause global warming. In our wildest dreams we don’t think we will replace concrete. But in certain applications where concrete isn’t as good, like in heavy industrial roads or in salt water environments, we can replace it. That would in itself be fantastic for the environment.”

Something tells me that even if this is a solution to today’s concrete problems (pun intended), it might introduce far greater problems to resolve tomorrow.

I’m no petroleum waste expert, and thus maybe I’m wrong about the future hazards. I guess if nothing else at least we can see Shell trying to solve some of the same issues as those mentioned by worldchanging.org.