Gas 2.0

Canadian province Ontario is to introduce green-coloured licence plates, available only to drivers of plug-in hybrids and battery-powered electric vehicles.

Sounds like another gimmick? Well, here’s the deal - vehicles sporting the new green plates will be able to drive in the province’s dedicated carpool lanes until 2015, even if only one person is in the vehicle.

Speaking about the initiative, Transportation Minister Jim Bradley said, “The McGuinty government’s plan is to have one out of every 20 passenger vehicles on Ontario’s roads an electric vehicle by 2020.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Without pavement and parking lots we would still be traveling cross-country in Conestoga wagons on 6-inch deep ruts and be breathing lungfulls of dust every time a vehicle drove by at the Kwik-E-Mart. Needless to say, pavement is one of the many things that makes modern life possible.

But, like everything else in our modern life, the more advanced we get in our ability to collect and analyze data, the more we realize that the good stuff always seems to have its awful consequences too. It’s the same story with pavement.

Read the rest of this entry »

Many manufacturers of high-mpg and electric vehicles have adopted a 3-wheeled layout for cost and weight savings, and—in some cases—aerodynamic efficiency. In most states, however, these vehicles are classified as motorcycles. That motorcycle moniker has made them ineligible for DOE funds set aside to foster innovation among American automakers… until now!

More details, after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

The U.S. military has been pushing for the development of alternative fuels for a while now, and nobody paid much attention until the Pentagon finally put a price tag on the oil habit. As reported by Roxana Tiron in thehill.com, last week Pentagon officials disclosed that getting conventional petroleum fuel to remote combat locations in Afghanistan costs a whopping $400 per gallon.

There couldn’t be a more clear illustration of why the “drill baby drill” mentality is a non-sequitur when it comes to energy security.  Regardless of whether petroleum fuels are domestic or imported, they need to be transported to their point of use.  That’s not much of a problem when you’ve got modern seaports, highways and fuel depots, but to paraphrase one infamous former Secretary of Defense, you have to fight the war you have, not the war that’s got the ideal infrastructure to support your fuel of choice.

Read the rest of this entry »

In an unexpected U-turn, the U.S. Senate has agreed to continue to back research for the next generation of hydrogen cars - funding that the Obama administration had earlier proposed to cut.

The move came last Thursday as Senate members voted to commit $187 million to hydrogen research, almost as much as was promised before the indecision.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.” Read the rest of this entry »

This is an excerpt of a guest column Nick Chambers, editor of Gas 2.0, wrote for Popular Mechanics. You can read the whole column on the Popular Mechanics website.

The road trip—driving cross-country for days on end, crammed into a vehicle with your family—is virtually a required rite of passage for most Americans. The lure of the open road is as ingrained in our psyche and culture as the hamburger, football or fishing. So it’s no surprise that proposals for new types of taxes on these seemingly free highways—traditionally paid for by gas taxes and tolls—are causing an uproar.

Back in July of this year, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) proposed a bill that allocates funds to research the effectiveness of taxing highway usage by the mile. On the surface, the bill seems to be laying the groundwork for big government to track our driving habits while simultaneously discouraging the driving of more fuel-efficient vehicles. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today the Obama Administration released a 1,200 page document of proposed regulation changes that will drastically alter the fuel economy and emissions standards that auto manufacturers are required to meet in the US. Although it could be an incredibly contentious topic, it seems that so far the proposal has gained wide support from all sides of the spectrum including environmental organizations and industry lobby groups.

The changes — which would alter both the Department of Transportation’s and the Environmental Protection Agency’s rules — call for what amounts to about a 5% increase in fuel economy standards per year from 2011 to 2016 starting with 27.3 mpg in 2011 and ending with 35.5 mpg in 2016.

In addition to the new economy standards, the White House has outlined the first ever greenhouse gas emissions limits for new cars sold in the US. Starting with model year 2016, each manufacturer’s new car fleet would have to meet an average limit of 250 grams of carbon emitted per mile driven.

Read the rest of this entry »

Daimler-Mercedes-Benz-Smart electric cars will begin a new round of testing of the electric Smart ForTwo using batteries from its new investment partner Tesla.

In 2007, Daimler began a 4 year trial to get 40,000 miles-worth of real world experience to determine the technology’s long-term sustainability.

But that was before Daimler decided to source its batteries from Tesla, and more recently Daimler and Tesla have formed a closer partnership as Daimler took a 10% equity stake in Tesla.

Read the rest of this entry »

President Obama announces $2.4 billion in grants to speed the manufacturing and deployment of the next generation of batteries and electric vehicles

As part of the $787 billion stimulus package approved in February, Congress agreed to include $2 billion in research and development grants for advanced battery technologies, and today, speaking in Elkhart, Indiana, the President announced that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will fund 48 new advanced battery and electric drive components manufacturing and electric drive vehicle deployment projects in over 20 states.

The President said the announcement marks the single largest investment in advanced battery technology for hybrid and electric-drive vehicles ever made. Read the rest of this entry »

Washington’s hugely popular cash for clunkers program has boosted all auto sales 16 percent from June to July as desperate and grateful Americans unloaded the gas guzzling behemoths they had been lured into buying with huge SUV tax credits by the Bush administration. (Small business owners like doctors, lawyers, and real estate agents had been able to use fossil friendly incentives to deduct more than $100,000 of the cost of an SUV from their taxes.) Now that they have the chance, Americans are unloading those gas guzzlers. Read the rest of this entry »

You can’t turn on the TV and avoid the ads for the dealers promoting the Cash for Clunkers program. Experts predicted that the money would last at least two to three weeks, but alas, it is not so. The LA Times is reporting that in less than one week, the $1 billion dollars for the program is already gone and the government is scrambling to find more money to keep the program going. Worst case, I suppose they can just write “IOUs” like the state of California is doing and according to Governor Schwarzenegger, may be bailing out the federal government some day.

“We are working tonight to asses the situation facing what is obviously an incredibly popular program,” the White House told the LA Times. “Auto dealers and consumers should have confidence that all valid CARS transactions that have taken place to date will be honored.”

Read the rest of this entry »

US Department of Energy secretary Steven Chu and US Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack have announced that the two agencies will be providing $6.3 million dollars for 7 projects at research institutions throughout the US to improve the use of plant feedstocks in biofuel production.

Although biofuels have fallen out of favor in the public eye recently, the federal government — led by Secretary Chu — is still forging ahead with providing money to research next generation biofuels.

“Part of the solution to the energy problem will be home-grown energy crops,” said secretary Chu in a statement. “These projects will help us unlock the true potential of advanced biofuels, decrease our dependence on foreign oil, and create new jobs and a thriving biofuels industry in America.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: This is Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates’ first post for Gas 2.0. Mayor Bates is the latest to join The Great Electric Vehicle Race.

Last month, our city council adopted Berkeley’s bold Climate Action Plan.  This plan calls for systemic action, by all Berkeley residents and agencies to reduce our city’s greenhouse gas (GHG) consumption by 80% below 2000 levels by the year 2050, and the investment in electric vehicle infrastructure will be a key method for achieving these larger goals.

Read the rest of this entry »

Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) have sponsored the NAT GAS Act. This bill is aimed at giving natural gas the push it needs to become part of the cure for America’s oil addiction. Senator Reid (D-Nevada) is also an original co-sponsor.

“Each day, our nation consumes about 21 million barrels of oil- more than 25 percent of the world’s oil supply,” Reid said. And most of that oil comes from foreign soil. “With only 3 percent of the world’s oil reserves, we cannot produce our way to a safe and secure energy future,” Reid continued.

The new legislation would promote the use of natural gas over traditional oil by using tax credits. This legislation would, in effect, be an extension of the CLEAR Act - encouraging the growth of natural-gas infrastructures to go along with the current boom in hybrid-electric vehicles.

Read the rest of this entry »