British newspaper The Times recently devised a test to see if the Toyota Prius’s green credentials were really as great as they are made out to be. To do this, the Times team decided to pit the Prius against a BMW 520d on a run to Geneva.

The Prius has been the car of choice for the majority of greenies for a while thanks to it’s massively heralded green credentials – in fact, more than a million Prius’s have been sold worldwide since it’s introduction to the motoring public in 2007. Celebrities have also been flocking to buy it, with Cameron Diaz and Leonardo DiCaprio both seen behind the wheel of one.

Richard Branson oversaw a successful trial of a Virgin 747 plane partially running on biofuel blends over the weekend. However, he admitted that the fuel tested probably couldn’t offer a green solution for airlines.

Boeing and Virgin trialled the biofuel in a joint operation – the biofuel itself was derived from coconuts gown in the Philippines and babassu palm oil. Babassu palms grow wild in Brazil and the fuel derived from these trees is therefore sometimes deemed more ‘eco friendly’ than other biofuel resources.

Hybrid and electric vehicles are gaining in popularity and are becoming a symbol for the environmentally conscious consumer. However it isn’t all good - blind people have started to criticise the technology.

The problem is that at low speeds, electric and hybrid cars make virtually no noise. This means that they pose a hazard to blind people who rely on their ears to determine when a road is clear of traffic and therefore safe to cross.

Hydrogen power actually makes a lot more sense for trains than it does for cars – no need to add hydrogen pumps to gas filling stations and smaller distribution networks needed (only certain train depots need to be retrofitted and have hydrogen deliveries).

So it makes sense to look at hydrogen power for trains, and this is precisely what the Premier of Ontario Dalton McGuinty has suggested. It has been reported that he has already been in talks with Bombardier, a train manufacturer, to build a hydrogen train. It is envisaged that a new line will be built between Montreal and Toronto. McGuinty is hoping the first train will be in service by 2010.

Hoping to match it’s success with hybrid cars, Japan is bringing hybrid trains to the world. This week, the first diesel-electric hybrid train is being put into commercial service, taking regular passengers on a short mountain route. “It’s part of our efforts to be green,” Yasuaki Kikuchi, a spokesman for the East Japan Railway Company explained.

Compared to cars, trains are actually a fairly green option and give out relatively few carbon emissions. However, reducing emissions is always a good thing and the East Japan Railway Company are not the only ones looking at hybrid power – Amtrak in America and Deustche Bahn AG in Germany are both said to be investigating the possibilities of hybrid trains.

Finally – a green car which isn’t boring! Researchers at Warwick University in the UK have unveiled their new one-seater racing car. Dubbed the ‘Eco One’, it is one of the greenest, most eco-friendly cars around:

- The tyres are made partly from potato starch, chosen because it improves fuel economy be producing less friction on the road.
- The bodywork is made from pulped hemp injected with resin from rape seed oil
- The brake pads are made from cashew nuts – the shells are ground and blended to make a resin
- The fuel is a biofuel made from fermented wheat and sugar beet
- The oil is uses is plant-based.

Scientists have found a way of turning plant sugars into a fuel which is just as powerful as petrol. Researchers have found that fructose, the sugar that gives fruit such as apples and oranges their sweetness, can be converted into a fuel that can be burned to release energy.

In recent times, scientists have been looking for a substance that does not rely on crude oil as the source, aiming for a replacement based on plant matter which is more environmentally friendly. And it seems that this wish has come true. The researchers have discovered a process for turning fructose into 2,5-dimethylfuran (DMF). This is a liquid fuel which has as much energy as petrol, and 40% more than ethanol.

Honda are looking to become the first Japanese manufacturer to produce passenger vehicles with low-pollution, fuel-efficient diesel engines according to a report. They are hoping to release these new vehicles into Japan and North America within the next few years.

The planned vehicles are meant to emit 20% less carbon dioxide than their petrol-powered equivalents and they will have substantially less emissions than other current diesel powered cars.

Honda are not the only ones looking towards a greener future -Toyota are already working on developing their current hybrid technology for their next generation cars, and Nissan are also looking to enter the green car market.

Japanese car manufacturer Toyota have been told off by the UK’s Advertising Standards Agency over green claims it made about it’s flagship hybrid car, the Prius. The ASA have found Toyota guilty of exaggerating the car’s environmental benefits.

In their advert, Toyota claimed that the Prius emitted up to one tonne less CO2 per year than a standard diesel family car. However, their figures were based on an annual mileage of 12,500 miles (20,000 km). This is the average mileage of a US car - the average yearly mileage of a UK car is just 8,400 miles (13,440km).

A decade after Toyota first unleashed the Prius, the manufacturer has sold it’s one millionth hybrid car. Cumulative sales for gas-and-electric powered vehicles totalled 1.047 million at the end of May 2007. Of these million or so vehicles, 345,000 hybrids were sold in Japan, with 702,000 sold abroad.

Sales of hybrid cars have climbed dramatically in the last ten year. In 1998, Toyota sold just 18,000 hybrid cars. In 2005, they sold 312,500 hybrids. The demand for hybrid cars is a mix of concern over global warming, carbon dioxide emissions and pollution, combined with the superior mileage a hybrid can get from a single tank of petrol thanks to the mix of gas-powered engine and electric motor.