Tuesday, 20 December 2022

News Briefs


Husqvarna's Dalton Shirey has won the 2022 AMA National Hare and Hound Championship - locking up a second career title. The 3 Bros Hatch Husqvarna Racing rider finished more than two minutes ahead of the competition at Round 7, which took place Sept. 24-25 in Lovelock, Nev.


Yamaha Motor Corp., USA "continues to demonstrate its leadership in the powersports industry" and its ESG credentials "advocating access to public land for motorized recreation through the Yamaha Outdoor Access Initiative (OAI) and hands-on volunteer efforts by Yamaha employees." Most recently, Yamaha corporate team members joined the Southern California Mountains Foundation (SCMF) to help rehabilitate a frequently utilized OHV area of the San Bernardino mountains, planting more than 300 native species of plants around the Pinnacles OHV Staging Area to restore its boundaries and encourage responsible on-trail riding.


Following the lead set by Honda and others, Brembo is to establish a business incubator of its own, "Brembo Ventures" - a venture capital unit that "aims to accelerate the development of innovative solutions for the mobility of tomorrow." BV will also coordinate relations with the start-ups where Brembo is a shareholder. One such is its 6.8% acquisition of PhotonPath, a business that aims "to create new solutions for the digitalization of braking systems." BV also holds a 20% stake in Infibra Technologies - a 2014 founded research institute spin-off that develops and produces integrated photonic systems.


Aviation may only contribute 2.5% of anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions, but it is a high- profile contributor to global warming. Green moves are happening, including work towards using batteries or hydrogen for short-haul flights. Sustainable fuel made from biomass and waste products is already being used by some airlines. However, what would solve the matter quickly is an all-new fuel, high in both environmental credentials and in energy density, based on modified bacterial fungicides. Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California have worked out how to create cyclopropane (cp) rings, one of the energy-richest chemical structures found in hydrocarbons, using genetically engineered bacteria. Aeronautical engineers already know the value of cp rings, in the 1960s, Soviet scientists used them in their design of Syntin, a rocket fuel that propelled the upper stages of Soyuz and Proton launchers. But making Syntin and other synthetic polycyclopropanated (pop) compounds remains hard and expensive - and usually involves a fossil-fuel feedstock. However, an anti-fungal molecule produced by Streptomyces roseoverticillatus, a common soil bacterium, one of only two known natural pop compounds, is full of cp rings and powerful enough to fuel aircraft with energy densities of up to and greater than 40 megajoules per liter, more potent than most widely used rocket and aviation fuels.


Sources: AMD, IDN, FT, Reuters, PSB, MPN, BDN, MCN, AP, Bloomberg, MSNW, Electrek, electricmotorcycles.news, RideApart.com, Motor1.com, Cycle World, motorbikewriter.com