Golf carts on interstate highways?

By Elisa Wood

May 28, 2009

If you trust the television images, it appears that soon we will all drive cars the size of golf carts because of Obama’s new fuel standards. Newscast after newscast illustrated the new 35.5 CAFÉ (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standard with a two-seater microcar. In some cases the image was juxtaposed with a threatening-looking SUV, usually black — Darth Vader on his way to crush the rebellion.

The message? Be afraid. Be very afraid. And to be honest, I was. My first thought? There is no way my kids are getting in a microcar.

Since then, however, I’ve looked into safety and small cars. True, small cars can be unsafe – but not necessarily.

Greencar.com offers an informative article by Kellen Schefter http://www.greencar.com/articles/smart-car-offers-drivers-new-high-mpg-option-top-crash-rating.php. Shefter describes crash tests by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety on Daimler AG’s 2008 smart fortwo. It is not as destructible as the golf cart it resembles. On the contrary, the smart fortwo earned the institute’s best ratings for front and side crash protection. For rear crashes, it was rated acceptable.

Schefter explains the technology behind the car’s crashworthiness. The smart fortwo is built to distribute the impact of a crash over its entire body; the rear-mounted engine breaks away and slides underneath the car if it is hit from behind, “absorbing energy and reducing the rebound inherent in such a stiff structure.” And the car has a short wheelbase so that in a side collision, it is more likely to hit an energy-absorbing axle.

In any case, we may not need small cars to meet fuel efficiency standards, according to the Rocky Mountain Institute. But the cars will need to be light. Lack of vehicle weight is typically linked to poor crash performance.  RMI says, however, that light weight, like small size, need not mean danger on the road. The organization plans to issue a study in July that illustrates how big cars made out of light materials can have “crash safety comparable to, or better than, that of a similarly sized heavy vehicle,” according to a paper RMI recently posted on its website. Safety depends on good engineering. Because the engines need not be so big in the light car, “the crumple zone” can be larger, creating greater safety, RMI says. http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid603.php.

Still, the biggest challenge for the car industry may not be one of engineering, but psychology.  Can marketing efforts overcome what Schefter calls the “bigger-is-better intuition” of the safety-minded American car buyer? As I think about my kids in a microcar, I realize that I’ll be a good test case.

Visit Elisa Wood at www.realenergywriters.com and pick up her free Energy Efficiency Markets podcast and newsletter.

Who gets the EE stimulus money?

By Elisa Wood

February 19, 2009

The ink is dry on President Obama’s signature to the federal stimulus bill and word is out that energy efficiency receives more than $20 billion. How will homeowners and businesses benefit?

Two sources offer an excellent break-down on the incentives: the Alliance to Save Energy and the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, a unit of the US Department of Energy. EERE goes so far as to give the page numbers in the bill that address certain incentives.

Here is a snap shot of where some of the energy efficiency funds will go.

Housing & Buildings

• $5 billion for low-income weatherization assistance, plus an expansion of people who are eligible. An increase in the funding level to $6,500 per home.
• About $4.75 billion to Housing and Urban Development for public, low-income and Native American housing
• Tax credit for existing homes extended and increased to 30 percent of cost, up to $1,500 for 2009 and 2010
• About $8.9 billion for federal buildings, including $4.5 billion for green buildings and $3.6 billion for Department of Defense energy efficiency initiatives

Appliances

• $300 million for the Energy Star Program and for matching grants to states that offer rebates to consumers for buying Energy Star appliances.

Technology

• $4.5 billion for smart grid projects
• Up to $2.3 billion allotted for a 30 percent investment tax credit given to those who manufacture renewable energy, energy storage, energy conservation, efficient transmission, and carbon capture and sequestration items.

Transportation

• $400 million to encourage the use of plug-in hybrids
• $17.7 billion for public transportation and rail
• $2 billion for the manufacture of advanced batteries

Other

• $3.1 billion for state energy programs and $3.2 billion in block grants for local governments
• $500 million to prepare workers for jobs in renewable energy and energy efficiency
• $9.75 billion for public safety and other government services, including renovation to “green” schools

Further details are available at http://ase.org/content/article/detail/5388 and http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/enn.cfm

Visit Elisa Wood at www.realenergywriters.com and pick up her free Energy Efficiency Markets podcast and newsletter.

Retire the clunker?

By Elisa Wood

January 15, 2009

What would it take to convince you to get rid of your gas-guzzling old clunker? Would $5,500 do?

Some members of Congress think this is the magic figure. Under a bill introduced in the House and Senate today, Uncle Sam would give you a credit of up to $5,500 to scrap your old car. You could spend the credit on a new, fuel efficient vehicle or mass transportation.

The proposal makes a lot of sense and has won support from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

Why the incentive? Because the rush for hybrids and other fuel-efficient autos is largely an upper- income trend. Nearly half of the nation’s $100,000/year-plus earners own cars that are less than four years old. But only about a quarter of the $40,000-$45,000 set have such young vehicles, says an ACEEE whitepaper. http://aceee.org/transportation/Crusher%20white%20paper%20fin.pdf.

The credit would bring middle-income families into the market to buy new and cleaner cars. Greater sales of these cars should reduce the cost of their advanced technologies.

Equally important, the credit helps fill a hole in the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standard passed in 2007. The CAFÉ standard requires a 40% improvement in fuel economy for new vehicles by 2020. Nice idea, but not enough people buy new cars for the standard to significantly lower our oil use. In fact, about 70% of today’s auto purchases involve used vehicles.

Called the Accelerated Retirement of Inefficient Vehicles Retirement Act of 2009 (ARIVA), the bill would apply to used cars that get less than 18 miles/gallon and would be in effect from 2009 to 2012. ACEEE estimates consumers would retire 575,000 vehicles annually and save 46,000 barrels per day of oil by 2013.

I think I’d take the deal. But will Congress and the Obama administration? Stay tuned.

Visit Elisa Wood at www.realenergywriters.com and pick up her free Energy Efficiency Markets podcast and newsletter.

Toasting Pop-Tarts cheap: How electricity may solve our energy woes

By Elisa Wood

October 23, 2008

We tend to talk about electricity in terms of its problems — it degrades the environment, costs too much and messes up scenic views. But the Manhattan Institute’s Peter Huber takes a different stand in his new report “The Million-Volt Answer to Oil.”

Huber says electric power may be the cheap, efficient resource we seek to give America energy independence. He divides energy into two camps: electric power and transportation fuel. Our energy woes stem from our dependence on oil for transportation. To get over $4 per gallon gas, he says, we need to connect our transportation fleet and home heating systems to cheap 4 cents/kWh electricity.

“We spend roughly half as much on electricity—about $350 billion a year—as we’re currently spending on $100-a-barrel oil, and electrically powered systems do more, faster and better, than oil-fired alternatives,” he says in the report.

Huber’s theory opens the door wide for use of plug-in hybrid cars and electric heat pumps. “If we could deliver electricity straight to electric motors connected to our wheels, it would deliver miles at a price that most current car engines could match only on gasoline priced under a dollar a gallon. Delivered to our homes at off-peak prices, electrical heat would cost homeowners a lot less than $4-a-gallon heating oil,” he says.

Of course, electricity doesn’t cost 4/kWh cents everywhere. Some places it is 19 cents/kWh. And no matter where you live, the price goes up and down dramatically all day, depending on how many customers use power at any given time. When the East Coast is winding down its work day and its electricity prices fall, the West Coast is still going full tilt and its electricity prices rise. The trick is to transmit the cheap power quickly from place to place, and keep it rolling over four time zones by building a new and sophisticated high-voltage transmission backbone that can handle such movement.

“A kilowatt-hour of electricity toasts as many Pop-Tarts in Palo Alto as it does in Poughkeepsie; an efficient, integrated market with cheap, long-distance transmission available would charge everyone the same price for toasting them,” he says.

The technology exists, and it is not terribly pricey, to create such a transmission system. Huber estimates that building a 21,000-mile grid to network all major sources electricity, and push wind power from the Midwest to the coasts, would add roughly 0.3 cents/kWh to the current 9-cent/kWh average retail price of electricity.

He points out that a single 765-kV transmission line can move “almost 1 percent (4 GW) of the total average power generation of the entire United States, or 0.5 percent of the power that Americans collectively consume during the most power-hungry minute of the year.”

With such a transmission system in place, developers could build power plants and wind farms in rural expanses, rather than the crowded coasts where people object to the intrusion on their space.

Last, he points out that very few US power plants now use imported oil as a fuel, and instead use domestic sources, increasingly renewable. “With electricity, America controls its own destiny,” he says.

As Huber tells it, electricity is not part of the energy problem, but is the overlooked solution.

See the report at http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/eper_03.htm.

Visit Elisa Wood at www.realenergywriters.com and pick up her free Energy Efficiency Markets podcast and newsletter.

Next, the Air Car?

By Reid Smith

September 11, 2008

Vehicles account for 26% of the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions, and 51% of the average household’s daily CO2 output (http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/climate.shtml), according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. So, clearly fuel economy is critical to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Big car manufacturers, like GM, Ford and Toyota, have seen a dramatic drop in recent sales. In response, they are beginning to make smaller, more fuel-efficient, vehicles, as well as step up research on new fuels. GM announced development of the battery-powered Chevy Volt, set to be released in 2010. This is a much needed move in the right direction.

However, we need more revolutionary change. The solution, it seems, will come from companies that are reaching far outside traditional lines of thought and coming up with truly innovative ways to fuel our cars. One such company, Motor Development International (MDI) (www.mdi.lu) of France, has developed a vehicle that can run almost exclusively on compressed air, and therefore only emits air. MDI, which is headed by Guy Negre, founded the company in the 1990s in pursuit of a new environmentally friendly engine that was also cost competitive.

The car runs on compressed air at speeds up to 35 mph. Then conventional fuels kick in – fossil fuels or biofuels. These cars could be particularly effective in reducing city pollution, since we tend to drive slower on urban roads.

One tank of compressed air lasts up to 93 miles before it needs to be filled. The tank can be plugged into a standard electrical outlet and filled in about four hours. It is also possible to refill the tank much more quickly – in as little as three minutes using a high-pressured air pump.

How does the car work? The air tank is made of ultra-light carbon fiber and holds 52 gallons of air. From the tank, air is forced through an injector to the engine, where it expands and pushes down on pistons that turn the crank shaft, which propels the car.

Although the air car needs to be as light as possible for maximum efficiency, these cars are not necessarily small, and several models are already under development. A two-seater, the OneCat is one option. A three-seater, the MiniCat is another option. A six-seat sedan, the CityCat; and a compact truck. The company plans to introduce a six-seat, four-door family-size version to the U.S. market in 2010 according to Popular Mechanics http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/new_cars/4251491.html?series=19. This model is expected to achieve over 100 mpg and over 90 mph, emit little or no CO2, offer plenty of space for luggage, meet all safety requirements, and cost no more than an average economy to mid-size vehicle.

Tata motors (www.tatamotors.com), India’s largest car manufacturer and leading company for automotive R&D has already signed a contract with MDI, and cars hit the streets there at the end of August. The deal provides MDI with a significant capital infusion to further the technology and get it ready for the mainstream public.

The air car is just one example of innovative, affordable, and environmentally clean cars being developed all around the world. The next decade will bring monumental changes to the auto industry as priorities in car design shift and consumers demand change. Cars ten years from now will be very different from those we drive today. What remains to be seen is whether the US cornerstone car companies will adapt to these changing technologies or if foreign innovators will drive off with the market.

Visit energy writer Reid Smith at www.realenergywriters.com and subscribe to his free EE Markets newsletter and podcast.

Mr. Pickens, What About Plug-In Hybrids?

By Elisa Wood

July 17, 2008

T. Boone Pickens deserves kudos for his attention-grabbing television campaign aimed at helping America kick the oil habit. The billionaire energy fund manager can stop the most dedicated channel surfer mid-click when he proclaims that our spending on foreign oil could soon become the largest transfer of wealth in human history.

Pickens’ plan has two parts www.pickensplan.com. The first calls for more use of wind power. No surprise there. Few forward-thinking energy plans do not put wind generation front and center.

But we’re stumped by the second part of his plan, which is that we use the wind power to replace natural gas-fired power plants and then use the left over natural gas for cars. On the surface the equation seems to make sense: it cuts back on our use of gasoline. But scratch a little, and Pickens’ idea doesn’t seem to add up.

Consider what has happened to the power generation industry this decade. We have seen a proliferation of new natural gas-fired plants because gas is a relatively clean fuel, and the plants can be built quickly and easily. As the nation moves toward regulating carbon dioxide emissions, public policy (intentionally or not) encourages even more of their construction. This is because gas-fired plants do not emit as much carbon dioxide as the coal-fired plants that provide about half of our electric power.

Unfortunately, as we’ve built more gas-fired plants, demand for natural gas has increased and its costs have skyrocketed. Gas prices are largely blamed for the tripling of electricity rates over the last eight years in places like New England.

The Pickens plan wants to replace one expensive fuel with another to power our cars.

Given this reality, wouldn’t the Pickens plan make more sense if it pushed plug-in hybrid electric cars? www.pluginpartners.org Plug-in cars appear to be a natural companion to wind power. Presumably car owners would plug their vehicles in at night to recharge. Evening is typically a windy time, so turbines would whir, pushing power into the grid to feed the cars. We won’t run out of wind as we could natural gas, and it is essentially a free fuel. On top of that, plug-ins are nearing commercial operation and do not require massive building of fueling stations, as natural gas-fired vehicles do.

Obviously, our electric grid will never be powered only by wind. But it seems we could avoid much of the massive transfer of wealth Mr. Pickens warns about by trying to push the wind/plug-in car relationship. So, Mr. Pickens, what about the plug-in hybrid?

Visit energy writer Elisa Wood at www.realenergywriters.com and pick up her free Energy Efficiency markets Newsletter and podcast