Word: plugged
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...there has been increasing attention on renewable-energy sources such as wind and solar power. But even if those sources are expanded, they would not change the U.S.'s fundamental dependence on foreign oil and its derivative, gasoline, to which our car-obsessed culture is addicted. Unless we could plug in our cars and charge them off the electrical grid instead of filling them up at the pump, all those options would leave us as hooked on gas as ever. And while pure electric-car technology has been around for years, it is plagued by a crucial problem: a lack...
Gaffney and his cohorts have envisioned a clever solution: a hybrid car that combines gas-free plug-in technology with the boost of made-in-the-U.S., ethanol-based fuel to give it range. The plug-in hybrid could run for short distances on batteries charged by the same grid that powers our home appliances. On longer drives, it would use a fuel mix of 80% ethanol--alcohol, in the U.S. made mainly from corn--and 20% gas. Given that half the cars on the road travel fewer than 20 miles a day, such hybrids would travel mostly...
...m.p.g.-of-gas car may sound like a pie-in-the-sky dream. But in fact, it is technologically possible. Green-car enthusiasts in California are experimenting with innovative plug-in technology, while DaimlerChrysler will soon be testing its own plug-in van. And ethanol has long been used as a fuel. Indeed, Domenici's committee last month adopted a measure in the energy bill requiring gasoline refiners to increase the ethanol they use each year to 8 billion gal. by 2012, up from 5 billion gal. mandated by the House...
...PITCHING PLUG...
MEET GREG HANSSEN, A PARTNER IN A SMALL BATTERY-prototype testing firm in California called EnergyCS. Hanssen was approached last year by Felix Kramer for help in building a dashboard monitor for a Prius that he and CalCars, his group of plug-in advocates, had converted into a crude plug-in. (The original Prius' batteries charge up when the car brakes.) Hanssen was inspired. He enlisted the support of another privately held firm, Clean-Tech, to devise a more sophisticated version of the plug-in Prius. Hanssen recently showed off his prototype at the 2005 Tour de Sol, a green...