Toyota Has Developed A New Combustion Engine That Will Fend Off EVs For Years To Come
Toyota’s new engine can run on gasoline, synthetic e-fuels, biodiesel, and hydrogen.
Excerpt:
Toyota has come under fire for being anti-EV and has even been accused of weakening nations’ climate policies through industry advocacy groups. Despite teasing the world with promises of a solid-state battery and introducing its own EVs, the company remains committed to furthering existing tech, with a “multi-pathway approach” to reducing emissions.
Toyota’s goal of carbon neutrality involves not only battery electric vehicles but plug-in hybrids, conventional hybrids, and internal combustion engine cars. The company also remains committed to developing hydrogen technologies.
This furthering of hydrogen tech, it says, has resulted in the creation of a new breed of thermally efficient engines that can run on a variety of fuels, including conventional gasoline, as well as carbon-neutral options such as synthetic e-fuels, biodiesel, and hydrogen.
.....One of the challenges the company faced was balancing thermal efficiency, with hydrogen burning faster and hotter than gasoline. However, using lessons learned from the hydrogen-powered GR Corolla racing car, Toyota’s engineers have cracked how to make these engines even more efficient for the street.
Toyota’s engineers claim that, thanks to engineering advances, these new engines can be 10 to 20 percent physically smaller than they are today but, crucially, are more fuel efficient and can produce more power. While the concept can run on a variety of fuels, including hydrogen, the short-term goal is to incorporate these new efficient engines into a hybrid drivetrain.
A 1.5-liter engine with turbo and naturally aspirated configurations has been developed, as well as a 2.0-liter turbocharged version. The new engines will have shorter strokes and less torque. But as they’re designed to work in conjunction with a hybrid system, the electric motors will fill in any gaps. The trade-off, at least with our enthusiast’s cap on, will be fewer revolutions per minute.
Specs are being kept under wraps for now, but the engines will likely start to appear in time for new Euro 7 emissions regulations that require stricter emissions control from gasoline engines. In the long term, the plan will be to develop an engine that runs on carbon-neutral fuels.
Whether this approach will benefit Toyota in the long term remains to be seen. However, one thing is for sure: the Japanese automaker is sticking to its guns and will continue to commit to a future that involves internal combustion engines – whether naysayers like it or not.
Nicaragua’s dictatorship grants huge gold mining concessions to China
https://havanatimes.org/features/china-seeks-gold-in-nicaragua-receives-13-new-concessions/
Excerpt:
China is gaining large areas for metal mining in Nicaragua at an accelerated pace, with the “blessing” of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. In six months, between October 2023 and April 2024, three Chinese companies have received thirteen mining concessions. The sum of these thirteen lots granted is equivalent to 11.66% of the total number of hectares granted for metallic mining in Nicaragua, according to official data from the Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM), analyzed by CONFIDENCIAL.
Concessions to Chinese mining companies have also been expeditious. All of them were approved between two to eight months after being requested.
The thirteen lots granted to Chinese companies are distributed in nine municipalities in Nicaragua. Eight are located in the North Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region (RACCN) and are part of a municipality in Jinotega. Another four lots are in the department of Chinandega, and one more is in the Autonomous Region of the South Caribbean Coast (RACCS). In addition, three other applications are pending: two in the North Caribbean, and a third in the department of Estelí.
The thirteen metallic mining lots in Nicaragua, granted to China, are in the hands of three companies: Zhong Fu Development S.A., Thomas Metal S.A., and Nicaragua XinXin Linze Minera Group S.A.
Each mining concession is valid for 25 years, and the three companies have exclusive rights to explore, exploit, and establish beneficiation plants to process mining materials.
Zhong Fu Development, S. A. is the Chinese company with the most metallic mining concessions in Nicaragua. On February 28, 2023, this company requested eight lots located in the North Caribbean and the departments of Chinandega and Jinotega from the Ministry of Energy and Mines.
.....Zhong Fu Development, S.A. also stands out among the Chinese mining companies because it obtained the transfer of a concession from Compañía Minera Internacional, S.A. (Comintsa), less than a month before the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned it.
On April 17, 2024, the MEM authorized the transfer of the Tutuwaka lot in the El Rama municipality, in the South Caribbean of Nicaragua, granted in May 2022 to Comintsa. Less than a month after this transfer, on May 15, Comintsa was sanctioned by the United States.
According to the Treasury Department, Comintsa “is owned and operated” by Salvador Mansell Castrillo, holder of the Energy and Mines portfolio, sanctioned by the Treasury Department in November 2021.
“Gold is Nicaragua’s main commodity export, and this action (the sanction) is intended to degrade the Ortega-Murillo regime’s ability to manipulate the sector and benefit from Comintsa’s corrupt operations,” assured the Treasury Department, which also sanctioned the company Capital Mining, which it pointed out of being “an intermediary in the gold sector controlled by Laureano Ortega Murillo and Mansell Castrillo.”
I applaud Toyota for giving people options and letting them decide for themselves.