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.”
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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
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October 13th, 2009 at 9:06 am
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.
October 13th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
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.
October 13th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
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.
October 13th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
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.
October 13th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
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
October 13th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
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.
October 13th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
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.
October 13th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
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.
October 13th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
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.
October 14th, 2009 at 1:11 am
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.
October 14th, 2009 at 6:07 am
Nick,
I’m pro electric cars – but even if he said that, the numbers show DOE investment is being aimed at a wide range of clean energy sources – subscribe to the DOE newsletter at http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/subscribe.cfm
and you’d see the plentiful evidence – there’s been investment for next generation non food competitive biofuels AND electric vehicles.
October 14th, 2009 at 8:44 am
Bio diesel is needed. It also is much cleaner and makes a lot of since in our planning. The fact is that 70% of what is moved in this and most likely the world is moved by diesel.
Another very important fact is energy security we do not have it and funding is very much needed to move us to the time That Will Come, when fossil fuel is no longer available.
October 15th, 2009 at 11:37 am
Algae, baby. Bio-fuel, Bio-diesel, Bio-jet fuel — all from algae. ‘Nuff said…
October 15th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
EV vs Plug-in Hybrid vs Biofuels
How EVs unfold in the U.S. is going to be different than how EVs unfold in Europe and other countries. EVs adapt well to urban use – not long distance interstate travel, that is, until the infrastructure is in place. Americans are not waiting for Europe to show them the way. A large number of major cities in the United States are already implementing local EV charging networks.
EVs may become main-stream for urban use, in time. But in a country that is spread-out like the U.S., where Americans do a lot of commuting and long distance interstate driving, plug-in hybrids with range extender engines will be the mainstream vehicle, not EVs. We will still need fuel for these range extender engines. That will be renewable domestic ethanol, biodiesel, and synthetic fuels, etc.. Maybe even unrefined biomass slurries. One candidate for a range extender is the Green Revolution Engine, which can run on raw algae.
EVs are not going to be the same price as conventional vehicles, due to the high cost of the battery pack, even with gov. subsidies. That should change over time, with new technologies bringing the price of batteries down and the power up. Placing a higher demand on Lithium will drive the price up further, so we will need to use much less lithium, or move to something more plentiful.
EEStore’s ultra-capacitor is promising, but still not here yet. So we don’t know if that’s real just yet. Lighter materials, more efficient electric motors, exterior vehicle bodies covered in solar paint, etc., will all make EVs more affordable and more practical. EVs will come. But how fast. And will they dominate? Or will Plug-in hybrids with range extender engines dominate?
Hugo – You say “ the rate a user changes vehicle it’s related with the advantage and cost of the operation”. From your point of view and from an efficiency standpoint, that’s correct. But why did the SUV become the mainstream vehicle in the U.S.? “Cost of operation” is a major factor for a segment of car buyers, but it’s not the biggest driving force. Practicality is. If “cost of operation” was the driving force, then we would all be riding bicycles and scooters. But that’s not practical. In the U.S., it’s SUVs, pick-ups and 4 door sedans, with efficiency the secondary segment of the market. Especially in Europe, the higher price of fuel is a factor in the buying decision. Car sales do fluctuate with the price of fuel. When fuel spiked in 2008, you couldn’t give an SUV away in the U.S. Now they’re back in style, with the lower fuel prices.
Honda was the first to introduce a high mileage hybrid vehicle, the first Insight. That didn’t catch on. It was a pricey two seater – a great commuter car, but not practical for the family. And gas was too cheap at the time. The Prius came next, and that did gradually catch on, despite being $10K more expensive than the same size conventional car. But the “lower cost of operation” hybrids still represent less than 3% of the car market. Will EVs take a bigger market share? Yes – because they’re well-suited for urban use, they’re 5 to 6 times more cost effective, and they’re green – if you don’t power them with coal and nuclear power.
“Cost of operation” has a bigger impact on companies with fleets and delivery services, where fuel savings translate into higher profits. For private individuals, there are other factors. Currently, our economic future is uncertain. People are losing their jobs and homes, and others are wondering if they will be next – The recession illustrates what economic forces and decreased consumer confidence can do to the auto industry and car sales. Sales of EVs, Plug-ins and all the rest will also depend on our economic forecast. Right now, one out of ten in the U.S. are out of work and suffering.
The cheapest EVs such as the Mitsubishi Mi-EV is expected to be $40K. Even with a government subsidy of $7K, it will still be $33K plus tax. The up-front cost is not affordable to the average car buyer, when a new Honda fit can be had for $15K. In a year or two, when EVs hit the showrooms, even automakers estimate that EV sales will be 3% or less per year. They even estimate that sales of EVs and Plug-in hybrids combined will be less than 5% the first year, and from there, gradually increase. That means that 10 years from now, roughly 50-60% of new vehicles sold will still be liquid fueled, and they will be around for another 15 years.
And when you sell or trade your current vehicle, in order to buy an EV, someone else will buy it in the used car market and drive it for another 10-15 years. That is, unless you take a sledge hammer to it. The phasing-out of liquid fuels will be gradual. And likewise, biofuels will gradually replace petroleum based fuels over time. Simultaneously, where EVs and Plug-in Hybrids become dominant, the demand for liquid fuels will decrease.
I gave some “best case” scenario figures above to illustrate the potential to exploit available biofuel feedstocks. Some of this available waste may not be practical to use. Wherever we fall short in terms of exploiting waste for biofuels, Algae and Duckweed, the king and queen of biomass, will take up the slack, and then some. I did Not include them in my 135 billion gallon a year estimate. Algae and Duckweed could push that much higher. There are now over 5 companies reporting over 100 tons of algal biomass per acre per year.
And I agree – that biofuels will have a big impact on power production – especially from algae. Hugo: “Still I see biofuels being used to power powerplants (baseline production) more than in vehicles (except aviation and maybe ships)”…I agree:
Check-out an article by John Davis (Domestic Fuel) called: “Company Developing Algal Farm & Power Plant”. This is about a company called
Renewed World Energies Corp. “turning a 5 acre site into an algae biomass farm that will make biodiesel as well as producing electricity, in Georgetown, South Carolina”. They have their algae production up to 125 dry tons per acre per year, along with several other companies that I have come across.
Another company: Genifuel President, Jim Oyler, has a cost effective process that gasifies wet algae into synth gas to run conventional turbines, as a renewable replacement for coal and natural gas. Algae can also be grown heterotrophically on sugars derived from fermented biomass waste. This is what Solarzyme is doing. They are integrating biomass waste and algae. So we may instead take our waste, feed it to algae which double every 6-8 hrs and multiply the feedstock, and then convert the algae into biofuels and electric power to charge EVs and Plug-in hybrids.
The different outlooks of Hugo and AK is that: Hugo sees the EV as the dominant road vehicle (Especially in Europe), and AK sees the Plug-in Hybrid with domestic biofueled range-extender as the dominant vehicle (Especially in the U.S.).