Bio-fuel ratios expected in December

In 2012, microbiologist Gemma Reguera (right) at the Michigan State University announced a new biofuel production process that uses bacteria to eat agricultural wastes like bagasse and excrete biofuel and hydrogen.

PHOTO: http://msutoday.msu.edu

THE Free State’s grain farmers are in the same boat as sugar farmers in KZN and Mpumalanga, anxiously awaiting news of how much biofuel government will require refineries to mix into diesel and petrol by 2015.

Construction at South Africa’s most modern biofuel plant at Botha­ville in the Free State could start in June 2014 if the government confirms the concept policy that all fuel must contain at least two percent bio-ethanol.

Acting chief executive officer of Mabele Fuel Philip Bouwer told grain farmers at a congress at Nampopark near Bothaville they expected government would announce at least a two percent ratio for the bio:traditional fuel mix.

Go visit a pile of rocks these hols

Not known for his style of dress, pharrmacist Michael
Tellinger at the ''giant footprint'' near Carolina in
Mpumalanga, South Africa.

SOME call Michael Tellinger a rude New Ager, others “the real pharmacist” after that ad for a headache powder “as recommended by real pharmacists” and a few grey rockers may even recall his hit songs, but one thing no one ever calls him is boring.

Which is why it is good news that this resident from the small mountain town of Waterval-Boven has finally put together “a very unique tour of some of the most awe-inspiring ancient and sacred sites in southern Africa”.

Yamaha takes up Murray's iStream process

Gordon Murray interviewed on BBC. Source: Telegraph.co.za

WHEN Gordon Murray grew up in Durban, he was already obsessed with saving weight. As his former school-mate, journalist Malcolm Kinsey, explained, this is because less is always more in the quest for the most effective efficiencies.

Mercedes-Benz's radar has WWII roots in KwaZulu-Natal

ALL top-end Mercedes-Benz models these days sport a rather cheap-looking piece of black plastic behind the grill. Far from being cheap, that piece of plastic hides two radars, the roots of which go back all the way to a graffiti-painted old concrete gun emplacement opposite the Virginia airport outside Durban.

For in one of the fascinating twists history takes, Durban was a hotbed of radar research during World War 2 (WW2).

Engineering Science and Education Journal of June 1992 explains that before WW2, the golden grail was to get radar to sweep over the horizon to highlight in little green blocks craft that were prowling out of sight. A group of South Africans were the first to make such radar, successfully testing their “onions” — as they called their radar — at Signal Hill in Cape Town in June 1940 and in July at Avoca in Durban. Their flickering cathode ray tube displayed test ships and aircraft that were 50 km away, “beyond the optical

Tokyo Motor Show 2013

Cloud computing just became cloud nine.

SEVERAL manufacturers introduced new concepts at the 2013 Tokyo show, but it was in the after-market salon where Japan’s mechanically inclined weirdos let it all hang out.

Speedhunters.com blogged on the best, with the super-boosted Kei truck being the readers’ favourite. It also shows the way all the local small Chinese bakkies could go — although the jury is still out on the treatment given to several station wagons, like an eighties’ Corolla.

Robot trokke vat oor

Reuse geel masjiene wat self in ’n steengroefmyn rondry klink soos iets uit ’n Transformers fliek, maar talle sulke lorries werk al vyf jaar by ’n Rio Tinto myn in die Weste van Australïe en selfs langer in die dun lug van ’n koper-steengroef in Chile.

Komatsu het die robot trokke saam met Rio Tinto ontwikkel en noem dit hul FrontRunner stelsel.

Die 15-meter lange robot trokke weeg elk 210 ton en kan ’n loonvrag van 320 ton skuif.

Better than a pacemaker any day

Brice Bizzel, MD of Royal Enfield South Africa and Miss uShaka 2103, Chloe Stone, with the Continental GT at its unveiling at the Durban Motor Show on November 8.

KwaZulu-Natal's ironic ranks of thumper riders have been keenly awaiting the local launch of the Royal Enfield Continental GT, first launched at the Ace Café in London on September and now also at the Durban Motor Show on November 8.

Riders of more modern bikes may scoff at Royal Enfield's (RE) advertisements that this motorbike is their "fastest, lightest, most powerful yet" with "a more streamlined silhouette", but MD of RE South Africa Brice Bizzel touted the company line, saying the Continental GT is "a nod to motorcycling's finest hour" and "the best expression yet of a cultural phenomenon that has simply refused to fade away, the café racer".

Anyone who remembers that hour would have been a teenager in the 1960s and is right now throwing cash at anything that will bring back those memories of energy and tautness.

To be sure, few machines are better suited to stave of a midlife crisis than the Royal Enfield's café racer. It has digital electric ignition for most days and for those special days when who riders need to display their virility, a

Time to doff the berets and don the hard hats

The Kia Cerato 1,6 EX hatchback.

The Cerato shows what can be done with good leadership. ALWYN VILJOEN waxes political.

LESS than 30 years ago, South Korea was still a country begging for aid. Then in the mid-90s, its government employed science and technology to turn its people from a nation of subsistence rice farmers into people that make ships and computers and of course, 4,2 million cars, including the Kia Cerato hatch that the Witness Wheels got to test.

Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) say if they are elected next year, they will emulate South Korea by deploying industry to use science and technology to improve the lives of South Africans.

Malema unfortunately also plans to take away all reward for hard work by removing ownership, nationalising industry and taking over land, which shows he has learned nothing from the failed Soviet states.

The first thing we learned about the Cerato hatch is that this is a hot number — literally.

Unlike most European cars these days, the material used to mould the Kia’s steering retains heat like bakelite used to do. On a hot day this causes one to steer with one’s finger tips making little oe-oe-ah-ah monkey noises until the constant blast of the chilled air cools things off.

A wheel made for walking

Roadless wheel can make life easier for those who have to carry heavy loads for distances

MASTERS student at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College in London, Ackeem Ngwenya has reinvented the wheel by doing away with the road.

The MA + MSc student calls it the “Roadless wheel” and while the 25-year-old Malawian designed it for rural people in his home country who transport heavy loads on their heads, his Roadless wheel can make life easier for communities all over the world who have to carry heavy loads from distant bus stops to their homes on footpaths, especially rural communities in KwaZulu-Natal.

Sexiest unveiling of a bike EVER

Blond beach model Chloe Stone has unwittingly showed all models how to unveil a motorbike like a queen.
Stone from the South Coast in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, was contracted to do the leggy modelling thing at the Royal Enfield bike stand at the 2013 Durban Motoring Show, held on 7-9 November 2013.
Instead, the 2013 Miss uShaka memorised a bit more than most guys ever learn about the bikes she was hired to grace with her curves She then proceeded to dazzle all comers with a broad smile and enough bike jargon to make men nudge each other and break out into a light sweat.
Why is it so sexy when a sexy girl speak about engines?
I'll let the photos below do the talking.

Fit for a minister

Two generations of voters asked if the Kia Cerato will fit South African ministers’ new capped car budgets. ALWYN VILJOEN and SIMON HAW debate the issue

BLANK out the logo, park it next to an Audi and very few ministers would believe this is a Kia.

History tour guide and author Simon Haw agreed: “Wafting along in the back of the Cerato 2.0 SX, I had to keep pinching myself as a reminder that I was in a Kia.

“A mere 15 years ago, the Korean maker was producing Mazda clones for its senior partner, the Ford Motor Company, before imploding along with Daewoo in the collapse of the Asian Tigers in 1998.

“Rescued by Hyundai, a brand that had relied heavily on Mitsubishi in its early years, Kia was something of a poor relation to Korea’s biggest motor brand.

“No more,” Haw said.

The best bakkie is always a van

Twin sisters Leanne and Claire Gill modelled
at the Peugeot stand at the recent
Jo’burg International Motor Show.

WITNESS Wheels often get asked which is the best workhorse bakkie in South Africa? And we always say it’s not a bakkie, but a panelvan — basically any panelvan.
Panelvans often cost substantially less thatndouble cabs, they use less fuel and, of course, the roof over the payload comes standard.
Asked which of the vans we rate, we have to split the vote between the Peugeot Boxer and Mercedes-Benz Sprinter.

Honda done studying, now for podiums

Motul models Zama Nkosi and Nikky Lindique

MOTUL will again partner Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) in the 2014 Dakar Rally due to take place in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile in January next year.

Motul and HRC also worked together in the Dakar 2013, when HRC returned to the gruelling race after an absence of 24 years.

Still full throttle at 85

The wheels used for this adventurers’ pilgrimage up
Sani Pass was (from left) a 250 cc Honda, a Yamaha XT250,
a 300 cc Big Boy scooter and a 125 cc Suzuki.

The Midlands is full of ageing adventurers who use their wheels to escape from their successful lives at every opportunity. ALWYN VILJOEN met two of them.

WHEN asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, George Mallory famously replied, “because it is there”.

Sani Pass has become South Africa’s own Everest. Just by being there, it annually attracts hundreds of people up its steep twists, pushing the limits of anything from 50 cc scooters to a sedan towing a caravan.

Four men who recently completed this adventurers’ pilgrimage included the 85-year-old Ian Barclay, his two sons Charlie and Johnny (both in their late 50s) and his young mate Mike Hallowes (67).

Hallowes always had road bikes, but after a few close calls in Pietermaritzburg’s traffic on his BMW touring bike, his wife Penny gave him the classic biker’s choice: her … or the Beemer.

“I called a guy who has been after me for the bike for years and he drove through that night to fetch it — before I could change my mind,” Hallowes said.

He then became a responsible citizen as best as a former biker could and had all but forgotten about the thrills and spills of two-wheeled transport when Barclay called.

Howick’s twinkly-eyed octogenarian wanted help to choose a scrambler to reward himself for reaching his 85th birthday.