Changing the single fuel mindset

Posted by Joe Bauer on April 10th, 2009 filed in car, efficiency, energy, fuel, gas, gasoline, miles per gallon

Fossil fuel consumption needs to be reduced for environmental, economic, and national security reasons and an entirely new mindset is needed in order to do it. Legislation like that passed in 2007 that raises fuel efficiency standards to 35 miles per gallon by 2020 is moving us in the right direction, but this incremental approach to efficiency would have a reinforcing effect on the same industrialist behaviors that got us into this mess (Pew Campaign for Fuel Efficiency, 2008). In order to break out of the fossil fuel consumption cycle we must also break free of the single fuel mindset. We aren’t going to solve this problem by simply switching to a different fuel, or only becoming more efficient, we must also become more effective and diverse.

The single fuel source frame of mind poses a problem because it focuses us on improvements through efficiency instead of effectiveness. It creates a mass produced, one-size-fits-all culture that expects to have the same thing that conforms to the same specifications for every situation in every location. The concept of ‘variation’ in this mindset leads to inefficiency, so it must be designed out and it is this mode of thinking that gave us an infrastructure that is very efficiently standardized on gasoline as the only fuel. Having several fuels to choose from would be inefficient because automotive companies would have more than one engine design to manufacture, which means parts are less standardized, and without flexible manufacturing, the economies of mass production would be lost. Fuel stations would have to carry more than one type of fuel, each with their own requirements for delivery, storage, and sale – all less efficient deviations from a single standard.

In the quantities that we burn it, gasoline is a major pollutant. Because we import most of our fuel we are at the mercy of prices set by foreign organizations, which could attempt to manipulate our economy with mal intent. When we import most of the fuel we use, this puts us in a position of dependency and minimizes our power. Taken together, with the financial support from fuel sales, we are supporting governments and regimes we commonly think of as being hostile to American interests. Our standardization on a single fuel has created a society that depends on an infrastructure that is at the mercy of the price and availability of a single fuel that is widely imported (Bauer, 2009). The solution to this threat is to dilute the importance of oil as a fuel source and to create a diverse infrastructure of multiple power and fuel sources.

Instead of a single standardized fuel for vehicles, a portfolio of power and fuel sources should be developed. Several sources should be part of a portfolio that can be selected from based on the individual needs, locality, and usage patterns of the owner. To get away from our environmental, economic, and security based problems caused by our dependence on gasoline we must use as many power and fuel sources as possible. This diversification breaks us of our dependency on any single resource type by making a disruption (price or availability) in any one of the fuel sources that much less of a risk to the national economy and security. At first our portfolio won’t be quite as green as it should be, and gasoline will probably play a much larger role than it should, but by changing the mindset from single fuel source, to multiple fuel sources, then it’s less of a social or technical leap to add or subtract fuels from the portfolio.

The ability to easily add and remove fuel sources from a portfolio would have an enabling effect on alternative energy innovation. Right now to compete against gasoline in a single fuel infrastructure means that you have to create an entire national distribution infrastructure just to start competing. This would be an incredible up front investment. Having multiple power supplies means you can depend on other supplies to get you by until you find a source for the one that’s low. Having a hydrogen fuel station on every block is less of a concern if the hydrogen car has several other fuel and power options to sustain it until it gets to a hydrogen station.

With a diverse portfolio of sources, drivers in the southwest might find themselves with solar power as one of their sources, while drivers who own or have access to a garage may have plug in power as one of their sources. A single car could have several fuel and power sources. For example, a car could run on gas and ethanol blended fuel, with a hybrid gas engine and electric motor, solar cells on the roof, plug-in power for overnight charging, and kinetic power recapture through the breaking and shocks systems. We must be able to customize vehicles to fit the specific social and technological needs of the people who drive them, while taking into consideration the resources of their locality. Maybe a restaurant owner in Kansas would be able to use the left over cooking oil from their restaurant and corn based ethanol from all the cornfields around them. If we are able to start thinking of our vehicles as power producers as well as power consumers, then the concept of vehicle-to-grid energy, where millions of small sources of energy are put into the power grid from the excess energy generated by cars, could become a reality (Kempton & Tomic, 2005)[1]

Let’s review a few of the fuel and power sources that are available with current technologies and could be included in a portfolio with today’s technologies.

Biomass is the use of biological materials, such as plants, in the production of energy. It could be anything from burning firewood, to using the oils, to fermenting the starches for alcohol. This technology is not new and it can be used on a large scale, for example in 2006, 30.2% of Brazil’s energy came from biomass (Lora & Andrade, 2008, p. 778).

Biodiesel is a fuel that is based off of plant oils like vegetable oils or tree seed oils. Emissions of CO, CO₂, and UBHC (un-burned hydrocarbons), PAH, and soot aromatics are lower in comparison to standard diesel, and SO₂ is eliminated altogether (Murugesan, Umarani, Subramanian, & Nedunchezhian, 2009, p. 660).

Bioethanol is a type of ethanol alcohol which is made from plant starches, like those found in sugar cane, corn, or other grains (Yamada, et al., 2009, p. 344). Recent developments in this area include the use of genetically modified yeast to ferment ethanol from plant starch more efficiently (Yamada, et al., 2009). Corn based ethanol has been gaining popularity in the United States but there are some rising concerns over the sustainability of corn as a starch source for bioethanol fermentation. In an example from abroad, Yang, et al. used a cumulative exergetic method to evaluate the renewability of corn-ethanol production in China and came to the conclusion that it is not sustainable (Yang, Chen, Ji, He, & Chen, 2007).

While batteries may not be a power generation source, they will certainly be used as a means for energy storage and retrieval, necessary for many of the electricity based power sources. Plug-in power sources depend heavily on batteries to store energy from the grid for later use. Energy generated by the car itself can be stored in batteries for later use as well. Solar cells on the roof of a car can continue to charge a car’s battery even while the car is parked.

Kinetic recapture can turn energy from breaking or from the shock absorbers into electricity instead of losing it through heat dissipation. A popular example of this is the Toyota Prius, which turns braking friction power into electricity, which charges the car’s battery (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2007).

A portfolio of energy sources for vehicles even larger than this small list is what is needed to break our addiction to oil. The answer is not in a single source but the combined use of all of them. By using them together to create customized energy platforms that meet the needs of the individuals who use them, we give ourselves a cleaner, safer, and more prosperous outlook on life.

 

http://www.environmentastic.com/blog/the-problematic-dependency-on-cars-in-america/2009/01/12/

Divya, K. C., & Ostergaard, J. (2009). Battery energy storage technology for power systems—An overview. Electric Power Systems Research, 79.

Kempton, W., & Tomic, J. (2005). Vehicle-to-grid power fundamentals: Calculating capacity and net revenue. Journal of Power Sources, 144(1), 268-279.

Lora, E. S., & Andrade, R. V. (2008). Biomass as energy source in Brazil. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 13.

Murugesan, A., Umarani, C., Subramanian, R., & Nedunchezhian, N. (2009). Bio-diesel as an alternative fuel for diesel engines—A review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 13.

Pew Campaign for Fuel Efficiency (2008). About the campaign Retrieved April 8, 2009, 2009, from http://www.pewfuelefficiency.org/

Union of Concerned Scientists (2007). Hybrids under the hood (part 1) Retrieved April 7, 2009, 2009, from http://www.hybridcenter.org/hybrid-center-how-hybrid-cars-work-under-the-hood.html#2_Regenerative_Braking

Yamada, R., Bito, Y., Adachi, T., Tanaka, T., Ogino, C., Fukuda, H., et al. (2009). Efficient production of ethanol from raw starch by a mated diploid Saccharomyces cerevisiae with integrated-amylase and glucoamylase genes. Enzyme and Microbial Technology, 44.

Yang, Q., Chen, B., Ji, X., He, Y. F., & Chen, G. Q. (2007). Exergetic evaluation of corn-ethanol production in China. Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation, 14.