Largest Solar-Thermal Project Breaks Ground
Officials broke ground on the first large-scale solar-thermal plant to be built in the United States in 20 years. BrightSource Energy says its $2 billion, 10,000-MW Ivanpah project, located in the Mojave Desert, will be the largest solar thermal project in the world.  (More from KQED’s The California Report and The New York Times)

Prop. 23 Funding
Opponents of Proposition 23 have contributed three times as much money to the campaign as those in favor of the measure that would suspend California’s climate change legislation.  As of October 29, the “No” campaign had raised more than $30 million, while the “Yes” campaign had raised just over $10 million, mostly from out-of-state oil refiners Valero and Tesoro.  (More from maplight.org, and to see where across the US the money is coming from, check out Climate Watch‘s interactive map that tracks the major funders.)

New Bay Area Bike Share Program
The Bay Area launches an ambitious bike-sharing program with a $4.29 million grant from the Metropolitan Planning Commission (MTC) and more than $2 million from local and regional partners, including the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. Beginning next year, the program will focus on commuters in the suburbs between San Jose and San Francisco, and will involve about 1,000 bikes. (More from The New York Times)

Funding for Electric Vehicles
Electric vehicle programs also got a boost in the Bay Area with $30 million in funds ($14 million in federal funding through the MTC). Projects include charging-and-battery-swapping stations, as well as new electric taxis and City Car Share vehicles. (More from the SF Chronicle and KQED’s California Money)

New Federal Emissions Rules for Big Trucks
This week the EPA announced new rules for heavy-duty trucks and buses that call for a 20% emissions reduction by 2018.  The rules, which are the first of their kind, apply to model 2014 and beyond and are expected to improve fuel economy from six, to eight miles per gallon. (More from the LA Times)

Not exactly the Space Shuttle: A big rig in the wind tunnel at NASA Ames Research Center. Photo: Gretchen Weber

A companion radio piece to this post aired on The California Report.

The wind tunnel at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View is the largest in the world. According to Ames deputy director Lou Braxton, at various times it has housed a Boeing 747 and an America’s Cup racing yacht. But parked inside this week was a relatively diminutive semi-truck with a 53-foot trailer. The truck is called the ProStar, and according to its manufacturer, Navistar, it’s the most aerodynamic truck on the road.

The wind tunnel was open to the media because Ames, Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL), Navistar, and the Air Force (which manages the tunnel) were showcasing their ongoing project designed to identify, develop, and test devices that reduce the aerodynamic drag of “big rigs.” The wind tunnel wasn’t activated for the press event but the media gathered inside the cavernous space could envision how the tests might work.

At highway speeds, more than 50 percent of the energy produced by a truck’s engine is used to overcome aerodynamic drag. Therefore, reducing that drag can produce significant fuel savings. In fact, testing thus far has determined that existing aerodynamic design adjustments and attachments can increase fuel efficiency by 12 percent, which, when applied to the US trucking fleet, could save more than three billion gallons of diesel fuel per year, a cost savings of more than $10 billion at current prices. This savings in diesel translates to a reduction of 36 million metric tons of CO2 per year.

Inside the wind tunnel, the truck’s trailer was outfitted with various attachments designed to reduce drag at critical points such as the trailer base, the under body, and the gap between the tractor and trailer. Some, such as the TrailerTail, are already commercially available, while others are still in development. For the next three weeks, scientists will test various devices and combinations. The best ones will be track tested and then road tested over the next year.

Currently, semi-trucks make up about 12 percent of US petroleum consumption; about 21 million barrels a day, according to LLNL.

The TrailerTail (Photo: Gretchen Weber)

Outside the National Full-Scale Aerodynamics Complex (NFAC) at Ames, where the wind tunnel is located (Photo: Gretchen Weber)