environmentastic! » car

Changing the single fuel mindset

Joe Bauer — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 12:56:07 +0000

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.

[1] See also (Divya & Ostergaard, 2009, p. 515) for a brief literature review on vehicle-to-grid energy.

The Problematic Dependency on Cars in America

Joe Bauer — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 10:00:15 +0000

By designing our national infrastructure around the car and the assumption of cheap fuel and roads, we have created a system of dependency that requires an automobile for even the most basic of life tasks. This dangerous dependency on cars would force America to rebuild its infrastructure if any one of the assumptions proves false.

The predominant infrastructure model for the last few decades in America incorporates clusters of large houses surrounded by sprawling strip malls and big box retail stores, all of which are located far from dense urban areas. This form of infrastructure was born on the idea that the further you live from a city center the cheaper the land, buildings, and taxes become. Enabling this idea to take form is the assumption that the cost of driving is so negligible that you can save money and live in a bigger house by living further away from a city center even though it requires longer commutes. The problem with living an urban lifestyle in a rural or ex-urban setting is that it transforms the automobile from a convenience into a lifeline for getting to work and meeting basic life tasks like going to the grocery store. Walking to work or biking to the grocery store are no longer options.

If you have made yourself dependent on an automobile for all your life needs, then you are also at the mercy of the assumptions that enable this infrastructure. Cheap fuel and roads are not a given right of being American. The United States makes up six percent of the world’s population but consumes 24 percent of the world’s oil and “. . . owns over half of the world’s motor vehicles” (Bailey 96). With countries like China and India rapidly becoming industrialized, it is difficult to see how the U.S. can sustain this oil consumption rate without seeing drastic changes in price or availability. From August 1998 to August 2008 the national retail price of gas went from $1.03 per gallon to $3.88 per gallon. How much of this increase was due to growing international demand? While retail gas prices have drastically reduced since this summer the volatility of the price of this vital resource should be unsettling. Even the true cost of roads is obscured from citizens by the federal government paying for up to 90 percent of local road projects (Bailey 95). If budgets get tight and government spending on roads decreases, then the driver pays the difference, either directly through tolls and fees or indirectly through added maintenance to their vehicle from driving on deteriorating roads.

A disruption in the assumptions of cheap fuel and roads would make the current American transportation infrastructure unsustainable. If we ever got to a point where we could not perpetuate the system, we would be forced to begin the lengthy process of rebuilding our infrastructure at great cost. What would be the impact on housing prices if people abandon their far away houses en masse? The two most obvious solutions to the transportation problem are energy independence and mass transit. However, a solution like that would first require Americans to transcend their emotional enchantment with cars.

Works Cited

Bailey, Lee Worth. The Enchantments of Technology. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005.

Energy Information Administration. “Energy in Brief – What Everyone Should Know About Energy”. 2008. (Aug. 22, 2008). Oct. 26 2008. <http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/energy_in_brief/foreign_oil_dependence.cfm>.

—. “Weekly U.S. Regular All Formulations Retail Gasoline Prices”. 2008. Department of Energy. Oct. 27 2008. <http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/mg_rt_usw.htm>.

Simple Ways Wednesdays – Episode 3

A. Caleb Hartley — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 02:10:22 +0000

If you are a longtime environmentastic! reader (thanks mom), you’ll remember the first couple of episodes of the Simple Ways Series. This series was started quite awhile ago as a way to give examples of easy ways to green your lifestyle without crimping your lifestyle.

I have decided to update the “series” (can you call 2 posts a series?) in the hopes that I will be more consistent about it. From now on, Wednesdays will be “Simple Ways Wednesdays” and will always have a post about how you (yes, even you) can be a little greener in your every day life. This plan is inspired by all the blogs I read who do a “Wordless Wednesdays” post where they post a picture of some sort with no words accompanying it.

While “Simple Ways Wednesdays” will not be wordless (sorry about that), they certainly won’t be worthless either.

So let’s begin with our first “Simple Ways Wednesday” post (Episode 3 in the Simple Ways Series – read episode 1 and episode 2, if you’d like).

Check the air in your car’s tires!

Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for President of the United States (PDNPOTUS), recently was speaking about his plan for America’s Energy Policy and was asked by an attendee what he, himself could do. PDNPOTUS (Obama) responded that he could inflate his tires to the proper, recommended level.

Repuglicans, predictably, have begun to claim that Obama’s energy policy plan is just that, nothing else, and have apparently begun to send out and give away tire pressure gauges printed with “Obama’s Energy Plan” on them. Hats off to the humor there. But watch the video below on Obama’s response:

For any of you skeptics out there, here are a couple of links that confirm the validity of PDNPOTUS’s claim that 3-4% efficiency gains (and more oil saved than could be pumped from McCain’s oil fields) can be achieved by this simple step:

Additionally (amusingly), During George H. W. Bush’s reign, tire inflation was something the REPUBLICANS were pushing! Read about the ad campaign of a past Bush administration. Oh, where did they lose their way!?!

So, if you happen to receive a tire inflation gauge mocking Mr. Obama, do yourself a favor and USE IT! It will save you a few bucks, reduce our pressure on momma Earth, and lower dependence on oil.

It doesn’t get much simpler than that.

Namaste,
A. Caleb Hartley

What do you think about the flap over Barak’s statement? Release the pressure in the comments, and tell us how you feel!

2008 Chevy Malibu Hybrid

A. Caleb Hartley — Thu, 22 May 2008 01:55:32 +0000

General Motors has introduced a hybrid Malibu. Sounds like America’s largest automaker is finally getting it, huh? According to reports about the vehicle, it is solid competition for the Toyota Camry or the Honda Accord, both its direct competitors.

A standard Chevy Malibu is rated at 22 miles-per-gallon (MPG) in the city, and 30 MPG on the highway. The Hybrid version Chevy is now producing gets…

wait for it…

24 MPG in the city and 32 MPG on the highway. Yes, you read that right – today, with oil prices reaching a new record of $133 per barrel – General Motors’ hybrid version of one of their most popular vehicles obtains a whopping TWO MPG more than the standard version. I’m going to take a wild guess and say that a feat such as this could have been obtained much more simply than by adding a hybrid drive. Also, there are “standard” vehicles that match, exceed, or even kick the crap out of the Hybrid Malibu’s MPG rating – like, for instance a STANDARD Honda Accord, or a STANDARD Toyota Camry.

So I say – “Way to go GM!” Way to show the world that you are no where near ready to answer the issue of skyrocketing oil prices and help drivers with vehicles that make it not only more affordable to fill the tank, but maybe even are powered by something other than oil.

While I appreciate the gesture of bringing another hybrid to market – GM is greenwashing their product line without pissing off their oil company comrades by actually making any significant improvements.

Blah.

Namaste,
A. Caleb Hartley

How do you feel about the minute improvements made by hybridizing the Chevy Malibu? Do you think it’s greenwashing? Do you think it’s a valid first step for GM to really improve its vehicle offerings? Flood the comments with your opinions… maybe GM will even hear you!

$500 contest – flyering eco-conscious cars!

A. Caleb Hartley — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 19:08:11 +0000

Planet Thoughts is running the Super-Cars Shout Out Competition for an opportunity to win US $500!

The contest asks you to “place a simple, colorful flier on high mileage cars that you encounter, showing the vehicle owner that she or he has done something worthy by choosing a leading-edge (in fuel efficiency) vehicle.” Once you have placed the flyer. snap a picture with a digital camera (or cell phone), then upload the pics (free registration required) to Planet Thoughts.

The vehicles on which flyers are placed must be models that achieve at least 40 Miles-per-Gallon, as listed on the High-Efficiency Cars page on Planet Thoughts. The person who uploads the most pictures of valid car models will win the grand prize of at least $500.

The contest’s “simple rules” can be found here. The competition has already started, and runs until June 2, 2008 at 11:59pm Eastern (US) Time (GMT -5). All pictures must be submitted by that time.

Namaste,
A. Caleb Hartley

What a wonderful idea for a contest! Not only will all of us tree-huggers have the opportunity to scout green vehicles (which we all secretly covet), but the lucky people who already own them will get recognition for their implicit support of the Earth while we’re at it! What do you think about this contest? Will you take part? Paper the comments and let us know!