The Road to Cleaner and Cheaper is Full of Potholes
“Our grading system will be controversial but is well-defended,” said Dugan. “We defy anyone to show that the current practice of using taxpayer subsidies to produce motor fuels from coal is decent public policy, or even that automakers can produce an affordable, durable car that runs on cleanly produced hydrogen.” Judy Dugan, research director for Consumer Watchdog
When talking about the technologies that will lead us into a new transportation paradigm, I feel like I’m driving down a winding road full of potholes and missing the shoulders. What technology is best? Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles (PHEVs)? Flex-Fuel Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles? Plug-In Electric Vehicles (PEVs) or maybe cars that run on compressed natural gas or hydrogen fuel cells? I’m not a waging person so I won’t place my bets but I am willing to “collect the money” from those who want to gamble on the winner.
- » See also: Biofuels Breakthrough: Making Fuel From Air With Engineered Microbes
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There is a lot of criticism that the American government is passing transportation policies without considering the long-term (or even short term effect) effects. I agree and there are many that agree with me but most of the “complainers” fail to offer solutions.
Well - here is a potential solution for you. Consumer Watchdog released a report today that it presented to the White House and Congress called “Road to Cleaner and Cheaper” handbook, which offers policies the organization believes have the most merit, and grades vehicle and fuel choices on their cleaner/cheaper balance.
So, how did our current future transportation technologies fair according to Consumer Watchdog?
“A” Hybrid, Plug-In Hybrid and All-Electric Vehicles (If you’re a fan of these technologies, be sure to follow the debate between, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Portland Mayor Sam Adam on building electric vehicle infrastructure)
“B” Ethanol and Biodiesel fueled vehicles (with corn-ethanol fueled cars getting a lower grade)
“C” Natural Gas fueled vehicles (higher grade for use in short-haul bus and truck fleets)
“D” Hydrogen fueled vehicles
“F” Coal-based transportation fuels
Judy Dugen, Consumer Watchdog’s research director, said today in a company statement, “The United States is far more dependent than other developed nations on cars and roads, something that cannot be swiftly undone. But it can become cleaner in affordable ways. That is the point of this plain-language handbook.”
Well, I don’t know how “plain-language” this handbook really is but it’s pretty plain that Consumer Watchdog despises hydrogen and it appears the our government is also beginning to lack confidence in the technology and has cut funding for hydrogen research. But for you hydrogen fans, keep your eye on the country’s only hydrogen highway being developed in California.
I have a feeling that although the grades above are not my own, and I don’t share the organization’s hatred for hydrogen, I’d better start paying more attention to my rear-view mirror. I’m half expecting to be tailgated, rear-ended or run off the road just as I’m approaching a cliff. Good thing no one knows what kind of car I drive.
I stumbled upon the following article entitled “The Hydrogen Hoax” a couple of months ago:
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-hydrogen-hoax
The author asserts that hydrogen will never work as a transportation fuel and seems to make a very good case. I say “seems to” because I’m no engineer or expert so he could be wrong. Do any hydrogen supporters know of a rebuttal to the claims asserted in this article? Thanks.
As much as I like electric cars, that electricity still has to come from somewhere, and if it happens to be a coal-burning plant, which still provides most of the power to the U.S. and almost all of the power in China and India, something else to be considered.
I’m a big fan of biodiesel because it doesn’t require restructuring the infrastructure, it is cleaner than gas, and it is recycling waste vegetable oil, something there is plenty of. Plus, we already have diesel engines capable of getting incredible gas mileage and range, as Jeremy Clarkson and the Top Gear proved in a race from Switzerland to the north of England, the sea city of Blackpool.
So no, I don’t buy it either.
There isn’t enough lithium on the planet to give everybody in the world who owns a car an electric car. And most of what there is, is located in countries hostile to the US. A friend of mine working on his PhD in materials science tells me there may be a fuel cell breakthrough coming, but barring that, don’t count on electric cars saving us from anything. They’ll exist. They’re very nice. Comparatively few people are going to drive them.
I wonder where they would have ranked compressed-air vehicles?
I hate coal as much as any of you do, but I will say this: we used up our local supply of pretty much everything better, here in the US. If the dollar collapses, we’re going to be using coal because it’ll be the only thing we don’t have to import. So I very greatly hope that somebody is closer than I’ve heard to any way to make clean-burning easily transported high energy density automobile fuels out of coal. I don’t know that it’s possible, but if it’s not, America is potentially in a lot of trouble.
I don’t think it has anything to do with hatred. It’s interesting how we humans can actually form emotional bonds to things like transportation fuels …but we do.
I was a big hydrogen fan as a high school and engineering student. In high school I won a gold medal with a painting entitled, “My hydrogen burning, rotary engined, Pinto car.”
I had been sucked in by the wonderful articles in Popular Mechanics and Popular Science, which presented all that is good about it but none of the bad.
In a nutshell, its use for transport is too expensive compared to other options. This graph shows why in terms of energy consumption:
http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/Graphics/img23.gif
There is nothing wrong with burning biodiesel made from waste grease but a TDI Jetta burning biodiesel is going to put out a lot more tailpipe emissions than its gasoline equivalent (though less CO2).
http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/biodiesel/page6.html
Several studies have shown that plug-in hybrids will greatly reduce GHG even with today’s coal fired mix in the energy grid. And if we can’t get rid of coal, it won’t matter what we drive.
The lithium in batteries is recyclable. It isn’t the same as oil where once you use it it’s gone.
I’m a big believer in “E” All of the Above.
All these solutions, plus others, can be working at the same time. In fact, that’s what seems to be happening at the moment. Hydrogen Highways, EV Highways, Biodiesel Networks, etc.
The drawback of the multi-pronged approach is that you couldn’t take your car just anywhere, but for the most part, most of us don’t.
A national infrastructure is critical, but in the meantime, the internet allows us to centralize and share our (expanding?) array of transportation solutions.
I agree - E is the only choice today.
Until a method to produce H2 which does not use hydrocarbons as a feed stock is developed H2 will be going nowhere.
They should make a H2 distribution network between Galveston & Mobile if they want a trial - I believe a H2 pipeline exists along that corridor.
Similar problem with ethanol & biodiesel. Both are OK with processes & subsidies plus in small quantities today but come nowhere close to what is needed.
Technology marches on - will it march fast enough?
Just finished reading Dugan’s study.
1. The lady is very much on the state control side - her answer to everything
2. She HATES big business (but apparently big government is OK?
3. She HATES oil companies - some oil company guy must have stole her pacifier when she was a baby
4. She HATES coal - maybe somebody dipped her pacifier in coal tar
5. She HATES H2 - due to it’s being sourced from natural gas (also naphtha) - a method that is very energy negative
6. She is against CNG powered vehicles as they compete with power plants for natural gas
7. She is POSITIVE speculators caused the run up in oil prices
8. HATE-HATE-HATE + POSITIVE-POSITIVE-POSITIVE
She has a lot of HATES and POSITIVES for one person. Maybe she needs a shrink?
To me - big government is always last choice - you end up with unqualified fools (such as senators & congressmen) directing things.
As Christopher DeMorro said,
And I do agree that the electicity for hydrogen has to come from somewhere else, burning one fuel to produce another at a loss and which will be detrimental to the enviornment is a non starter from the very beginning.
The real cost to our enviornment by trying to produce bio fuels is also very damaging, the palm groves which lots of cooking oils and bio deisels come from is actually 20 times more polluting to the atmosphere that burning crude oil because of the large amounts of methane that is being released from the boggy areas that they have drained to plant the trees.
Its also detrimental to the wider cause/enviornment because the areas of deforestation that have taken place already to plant the palm groves has destroyed our natural carbon sync, rain forest and other native stands have many times the surface area for C02 reabsorbsion than palm, we are destroying our planets lungs, when we need more of them to soak up which we are unaturally adding.
Electric anything is detrimental somewhere along the line, I know we cannot do much as we are right now without ou it, but we will have to find another way soon or everything, every walk of life and what is recorded in cyberspace is going to be lost forever.
Touching on another but related subject, oil is electricity, and fertiliser which our food comes from oil and the machinery that makes it all happen
and its food which will be the deciding factor, civilisation is three meals away, ignor this fact and we will soon no longer have the phyisical energy to do the manual labour needed to eat anything.