Report: Energy Secretary Chu Thinks Every Cent Should Go to Electric Cars [Updated]
Attendees at a recent alternative fuels gathering in Washington are reporting that US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu remarked, “If it were up to me, I would put every cent into electric cars,” when referring to the way stimulus dollars should be distributed. With a focus on alternative and renewable fuels, the group was obviously shocked at the concept.
If this statement is being represented accurately, it would not only put Chu directly at odds with Obama administration policy, it would mean that he doesn’t really believe in how his department is distributing their $36.7 billion dollar slice of stimulus funds. The statement would also contradict Chu’s previous stances on biofuels development. Comment from DOE was not immediately available, but I’ve got a request in to confirm or deny the statement as accurate. I’ll update as soon as I hear word.
Update 8:00 PM Pacific Time 10/13/2009: DOE’s Director of Public Affairs, Dan Leistikow, responded to my request from earlier today in an email, saying “I can’t verify the quote the blogger is using from an undisclosed source at an undisclosed meeting, which is at best wildly out of context.” He also added, “Anyone who has spent five minutes listening to Secretary Chu also knows he is one of the country’s staunchest advocates for pursuing a broad portfolio of clean energy research, and has warned against investing all our resources in a single technology to the exclusion of all others.”
- » See also: Biofuels Breakthrough: Making Fuel From Air With Engineered Microbes
- » Get Gas 2.0 by RSS or sign up by email.
Considering that, as of today, the Department of Energy has provided stimulus loans of about half a billion dollars each to both Tesla and Fisker to develop and produce next generation electric cars, while at the same time Biofuels Digest claims that only about $20,000 of stimulus funds have so far made their way to biofuels developers, you might start to see the reason why alternative fuels folks are starting to feel a bit, well, shafted—even if the quote from Secretary Chu is inaccurate.
But you know, to be honest, I don’t think the claim that only $20,000 of stimulus funds have been distributed to biofuels developers truly reflects how many stimulus dollars have gone to next generation biofuels development—I mean just look at how.many.different.programs there are for this type of stimulus funding. I’m certain when you look at funds for research and car development that it would be more than $20,000. But still, the perception remains that more funds have been distributed for on-the-ground development of electric cars than for biofuels.
Although I’m a strong proponent of encouraging a shift to an electric vehicle-based transportation system (you can see my reasons at the end of this article), I still think we need to bridge the gap between now and then with a shift away from fossil fuels as fast as possible. What are you going to do with all the hundreds of millions of gas/diesel-fueled vehicles on the road right now. It could take 20 years or more to fully cycle through and get them off the roads.
Regardless of the fact that switching to electric cars as fast as possible should be our long-term strategy, funding biofuels development now is the key to solving energy security and environmental issues that threaten us in the present day. I’m happy to hear that DOE feels the same way.
Source: Biofuels Digest
I disagree with using bio-fuels period.They are not green when one considers all that goes into making em.
We already have electric cars that are ready for market and many more coming in the next year or two.What we need to do now is get the infrastructure in for charging,swapping etc with the electric cars.If big government helps out with this,it would create many many jobs and short cut the times it takes for the big switch.Companies just like “Better Place” is exactly what we need x’s 100.
Nick – I totally agree with your EV vs Biofuel Transition analysis. It will take at least 20 years to transition to EVs. In the U.S., we currently have 240 million vehicles on the road worth 6 Trillion dollars. We won’t be just trashing them overnight. Likewise, sales of EVs are expected to unfold like hybrids have unfolded, about 2-3% a year, and gradually increasing over a 20-30 year period.
Tim – We all want EVs and-or Plug-In hybrids, but what you advocate is unrealistic. You would have us stay hooked on dirty petroleum fuels during the transition period. This would continue to add more and more CO2 and black carbon soot to the atmosphere, using crude oil. Instead of recycling the CO2 that is already there, using biofuels.
We will also be charging our EVs and Plug-Ins mostly by burning COAL. That’s not green either.
You are misinformed about biofuels. If you did your homework, you would find that biofuels are getting a lot cleaner than coal and petroleum fuels, especially energy intensive tar sands, deep offshore wells, and foreign oil shipped thousand of miles burning dirty bunker fuel.
There is a dramatic revolution of advanced biofuel technology in the works: Ethanol now being made at landfills from trash or from food waste and agricultural residues. Mitigated manure-based CHP now producing surplus electric power and waste heat for distillation at ethanol refineries - replacing coal and natural gas for production power. Corn cobs and part of the stover now being made into addition ethanol that redistributes the production inputs. Farmers who now make their own biofuels from ethanol or oil they produced themselves – thus carbon neutral biofuels (instead of fossil fuels) being used to produce biofuels. Hybrid electric tractors being developed. A jump in corn crop yield from 150 up to 162 bushels per acre in just the past 2 years. Development of a sugary corn stalk that will produce additional ethanol from the entire corn crop. The increase of sweet sorghum as an alternative feedstock to corn. Sewage sludge now being developed as a viable ethanol feedstock. 100 ton plus per acre Algae and Duckweed now being grown on the corn ethanol waste stream and other waste streams. Biomass gasification now producing 100 to 135 gallons of ethanol or synthetic fuels from a ton of biomass, depending on the feedstock and the process. 65-35 Ethanol-water being reformed onboard the vehicle into Hydrogen on Demand (DongFeng). 15 to 20% Ethanol-Water 60-40 vapor delivered into the air intake of a diesel engine (CleanFlex). Biofuels being produced and consumed locally - delivered directly to local retail blender pumps, bypassing the existing centralization of petroleum. And the list goes on.
Autoblog Green recently conducted an on-line survey. They asked their readers: “Would you buy a straight EV, or would you buy a plug-in hybrid with a range-extender engine?” The voting was split about in half. In other words, half of car buyers will go EV and the other half will go plug-in with a range extender. That’s because an EV with a 50-120 mile range is not practical for people who do a lot of driving or do rural driving or long distance driving. EV lovers will learn that lesson the hard way - when they get stuck out in the middle of nowhere, with no electric plug for miles.
Those who take the plug-in range extender route will use a modest amount of domestic biofuels as a back-up. This will free us from imported oil entirely.
The ENTIRE idea behind biofuels is pork and greenwash! The Bush crew did it to death and the math simply never adds up. If you look at it scientifically instead of politically, it amazing biofuel ever got support. 1) E85 has a much lower energy density, to the point 30% more fuel is required per mile. 2)Processing it is so energy intensive they have to juggle the numbers to actually get a net gain 3) The stuff is burnt in 15% energy efficient ICE cars 4) the acres for gallon is always just a joke. There isn’t enough land to 1) feed every car on the road and 2) feed the population too.
So not only is it not a step forward in efficiency because the exacy same super inefficient combustion engines continue to be used, but it is actually LESS fuel efficient due to lower energy density and it consums so much energy just to create a sellable product it’s closer to being an energy carrier than a fuel. The quantities of raw material required per gallon means it’s simply impossible to replace oil with harvest based fuels.
Biofuel is no interim step, mild hybrids are an interim step. If biofuels are just an energy carrier, then cut out the middle-man and go direct to electric.
Totally agree with Tim & Paul
biofuels are an order of magnitude less efficient at miles per acre than electric cars using solar thermal generated electricity.
Why waste money with Bio-Fuels, just another crutch to make the transition to a real solution longer.
We already have an infrastructure to distribute electricity and when you power that infrastructure with alternatives solutions, such as waves from the ocean, your done
If Chu thinks that electric is better than biofuels, I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt just because he’s a very smart guy and doesn’t have anything at stake financially in this (so far as I know). But I would like to hear a clear explanation as to why second and third generation biofuels are less appealing than battery cars, because that just isn’t clear to me at all. Energy density is clearly very important in transportation, and I don’t see how pure battery-powered cars will be practical for most people anytime soon.
The issue is not whether EV is more efficient than biofuels. I agree, they are. For same sized vehicles, EV is 5 to 6 times more cost effective than gasoline.
The issue is how and why to displace foreign oil and the dirty fuels derived from them. That would be domestic biofuels during the transition period for existing vehicles, new vehicles that run on liquid fuels, and range extender engines.
Tim, Paul, and Brian don’t get it. There’s going to be a 20-25 year transition to EVs and Plug-ins. And in the mean time, we will need liquid fuels for existing vehicles and 97% of new vehicles sold next year, 94% of new vehicles sold the following year, and 91% of new vehicles sold the next year and so on. We won’t be just trashing the $6 Trillion dollars worth of vehicles we currently have on the road. Get Real.
AK
Where is the land, water & fertilizers for biofuels for the many tens of millions of interim ICE cars.
If those weren’t a problem, I’d be neutral on EV v biofuels.
Brazil is just able to make enough ethanol because their ratio of land to cars is much higher than the U.S.
Do you know something that Chu doesn’t?
Natural gas is another option for the interim.
I’m also skeptical about car production projections over the next 20 years for any car type. The impact of peak oil and climate change effects on global economies will be much more clearly understood.
The emphasis is on getting more out of the acreage we already have in cultivation. For example, exploiting cobs and stover from the entire corn crop. For that alone, 93 million acres at 250 gallons of ethanol per acre is 23 billion gallons per year potential. Develop a sugary corn stalk and get another 300 gallons per acre. That’s another 27 billion gallons a year. Extracting ethanol from landfill trash is estimated to be another 15 billion gallons a year. Extracting ethanol from municipal sewage sludge and manure sludge (a rough estimate) could be another 20 billion gallons. Forestry waste, food processing waste, agricultural waste total roughly 300 million tons a year or more (in the U.S.). That will yield on average 115 gallons per ton. That’s another 35 billion gallons of ethanol a year. When you add 15 billion gallons for corn, that totals 135 billion gallons of ethanol a year, just from corn and waste. Roughly the same number of gallons a year of gasoline we are currently using. We will optimize our engines to adjust to any fuel. Then you have the biodiesel industry developing. And algae and duckweed grown on waste water also have the potential to produce vast quantities of biomass and biofuel, once the industry is developed, without using any additional farmland. In the U.S., we only use 1/3 of our arable land. There is a lot more available, even in other countries. The demand for liquid fuels is gradually decreasing. We won’t need as much as we used to consume several years ago when it peaked. Liquid fuel consumption in California has already dropped 8% from the peak. Better fuel efficiency, higher percentages of biofuels, and the coming EVs and Plug-ins will gradually reduce the demand for conventional liquid fuels over time, during the transition. There will also be synthetic fuels made from mass produced yeast and bacteria and numerous other new technologies in the mix.
People that defend biofuels usually talk about the time it takes to remove all the existing vehicles of the road. They are right in part, it going to take some time. But I don’t agree with the 20 to 25 year period, and here’s why:
1 - The rate a user changes vehicle it’s related with the advantage and cost of the operation. With that said it doesn’t make any sense to compare the hybrid rate of sales with a electric rate. The reason is simple. If the electric car has a similar cost to a gas car (subsidies, etc…) then from the moment the car is bought the owner starts to make serious savings (now, 5 to 6 times).
2 - I don’t think (but I might be wrong) that all, or even a considerable amount of vehicles on the road today can use biofuels (or all the biofuels). If that’s the case, then the same principle (20 to 25 years) applies to biofuels.
3 - All the numbers that “AK” presented before, even if they are correct, tend to be a best case scenario. Usually not all the waste, crops, etc.. can be used. The amount of energy that can actually be retrieved at a large enough scale it’s unknown (at least to me).
4 - To me, it would easier to move directly to electric. This doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in biofules, I do, but not as a main source of power for transportation.
The best advantage that I can see in most biofuels (2º and 3º generation) is the use of waste products. This allows us to reduce waste while producing energy. A win/win situation. Still I see biofuels being used to power powerplants (baseline production) more than in vehicles (except aviation and maybe ships).
Still, you are all lucky, Europe is going to serve as a test case for you. In the next five years a big number of Europeans country’s will finished installing nation wide recharge stations for electric vehicles at the same time that a big number of electric vehicles will hit the market.
You can wait and see what happens.