Hybrid Living

Filed under: Etc., Legislation and Policy, Green Daily

I was a full-time Alt Fuel technology consultant/researcher back in the 1990s. Among my fellow wizards, the PNGV was a big deal. We attended conferences every year or so and watched the Big 3, with federal funding, develop hybrid cars that could meet an 80 MPG target number. They were getting close. The Japanese firms were worried and started their own hybrid projects “just in case.” And then the US project ended and the Big 3 put their hybrids under wraps and went about selling more SUVs. As I recall, the DOE even closed down the PNGV portion of their website, so all that data and knowledge was taken out of electronic circulation! I am still angry about that.

There is a story to be told here and the November 5 issue of the New Yorker tells it in “Running on Fumes,” a book review by Elizabeth Kolbert. As this post is a review of a review, it would be improper to go into too many details but details there are in the review and the book written by Iain Carson and Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, authors of “Zoom: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future.”

I was excited by those US PNGV hybrids and disappointed when they went nowhere. I wonder if any of that ~$7 billion taxpayer funded effort’s technology went into the slowly arriving US hybrids now available. This was around the same time when GM was also trying and then killing the all electric EV1 car. For a few years, the new buzz was fuel cell vehicles and a new Big 3 project began. Now that that has cooled, GM is promising the Volt – a range extender hybrid based on lithium ion technology that wasn’t feasible back in the 1990s.

I am glad Mssrs. Carson and Vaitheeswaren chose to write this book and that the New Yorker/Ms. Kolbert chose to review it. Detroit has to live with and learn from its decisions. So do the rest of us.

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.

The NYTimes has published another of those articles about the IPCC saying that we – the US and China especially – have got to do something about global warming by 2012 or the penalties for our inaction will greatly exceed the costs of our taking action as individuals and nations, changing our personal and national lifestyles. President Bush has joined the chorus of national leaders because his opposition to the Kyoto Accords up to now has been the fact that it gave developing countries a free ride, placing the burden on developed countries only. That is no longer so.

I tend to agree with scientists though I don’t trust their predictions totally. 2012 could be 2008 or 2019 for all I know. It could be 2005. But it is growing harder and harder to find credible scientists or politicians who will strongly dispute Global Warming (but Sen. Inhofe still appears in the media).

What does all this have to do with you, dear reader? Well, by your reading this far you are part of the technically savvy, younger, educated demographic. You are the early adopters, the trend setters, the persons others ask about their personal transportation decisions. After all, this is AutoblogGreen. In my case, thinking and acting green is not a hobby or a sideline, it is what I have been doing since 1980.

Back in the 1980s or 1990s, there was a TV ad featuring an experienced auto technician. His refrain about auto maintenance was pretty clear: “You can pay me now (to maintain your car properly), or you can pay me later (to repair some major failure.”) Seems the stakes are much higher these days. The voice we are hearing is no longer the savvy technician. Perhaps the IPCC is channeling Mother Nature. Back in the same time period, there was another TV ad featuring this symbol of our total world. It said, “Don’t mess with Mother Nature.” Can you hear it too?

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.

Filed under: Etc., AutoblogGreen Exclusive, Green Daily

Ladies and Gentleman: I am writing this post from the top deck of the HMS Titanic 2. This is the most powerful ship (of state) in the world. Unsinkable. Nothing can stop us. Get out of our way! Well, it is true we burn a lot of fuel on the Titanic and leave astern a big swath of liquid, solid and air waste, but that is what you do when you are so big and famous. Nothing can match us in size, power or speed.

The fuel use does concern me. This ship of ours was designed in a bygone era, when fuel was cheap, domestic and available. If we had to restrict our fuel use, all the famous Titanic features could be at risk. Our ship would go slower, our food not so fully cooked, our interior spaces not so comfortable. And there are no refueling ports in the mid-Atlantic.

Our prior captains have been saying that we cannot or need not change. Now a captain says we need to change but not very much. One executive officer, an Officer Gore, thought differently, but we did not want to change and he did not ever get promoted to captain. A Captain Bush is in command now while our crew makes some stops in some very strange places in order to show the locals how to live like us. That has not been so successful. Our crew members have been gone for quite a while. I hope they get back soon.

The more I think about it, the Titanic 2, the way it is, is not the ship I want to be on. I don’t really need to go that fast, or leave so much trash in our wake. I don’t like worrying where we will get our fuel all the time. Perhaps the Titanic 2 can be refitted, made more efficient and cleaner.

What’s that? The captain says there are icebergs ahead. He says we are so fast and powerful he wants to rush by a few just to demonstrate our power. I certainly hope he knows what he is doing. I wouldn’t want to do any irreparable damage done to this ship. There is no other ship quite like her in the world. I hope we can keep sailing on an improved Titanic 2 for a long, long time.

Best regards

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.

Filed under: Diesel, Etc., Hybrid

RTG stands for Rubber Tired Gantry Crane – a portside device used to move and load the containers onto and off of ships. They don’t get a lot of horizontal mileage but the crane racks up plenty of miles vertically. Raising a container is the equivalent of accelerating, increasing potential energy, and lowering the container is like braking, providing an opportunity for regeneration.

Railpower is a firm that I last knew made diesel-electric hybrid railroad yard locomotives. This is an equivalent and brilliant way to save fuel with relatively little changes. Both locomotives and RTG cranes have diesel electric drive systems and there is plenty of room and capacity for a decent sized battery pack.

How much is saved on the Hybrid RTG? Quiet a bit actually, in typical activity. As reported, the diesel/battery hybrid power plant achieved 74 percent fuel savings. An average of 70 percent of the energy lifting a container can be regenerated when lowering it. The hybrid’s fuel burn rate during active typical duty cycles was 2.08 gals/hr. Conventional RTG cranes run at about 8 gals/hr.

This seems to be an excellent application of hybrid technology, peak oil or no peak oil.

[Source: Railpower]

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.

Filed under: Etc., AutoblogGreen Exclusive

Things are hot again. The US public is being bombarded by news stories on energy and how expensive and scarce it is. Funny, these stories don’t seem to connect having more gasoline and using it would means a switch in news stories to Global Warming issues. We are truly damned if we do or we don’t.

I have an analogy: What if we grew up in a family (a country) that gave you all the chocolate you wanted. Sweet (gasoline) or dark (diesel) chocolate at breakfast, lunch and dinner. What’s more, all your favorite uncles and aunts (other countries) have nearly the same diet! What would happen?

Well, I supposed you would have a chocolate-centered life. We would take it for granted. Wouldn’t even think it was out of the ordinary. But we would be fat with shorter endurance, higher upkeep (health care) costs, and we’d be just plain old bigger. There’d be congestion problems too. Cutting back on chocolate for our own health would seem a real hardship and unfair, even if we know it is for own good. After all, chocolate is all we know! And now the world is running out of chocolate. Soon all the best of it will be gone. Gimme, Gimme, Gimme more! Now!

So, too, the US vehicle fleet. It is big in numbers and size, requiring a lot of energy to do even the simplest of things. We cut back in trips or vehicle size only grudgingly. According to the US Energy Information Administration, petroleum use is still increasing but at a slower rate than previously.

It is time. The chocolate makers are currently so rich they are buying up our neighborhood. We are an addicted society. Some of us have started to use less chocolate by buying products that mix in other ingredients – like ethanol. We’ll call that Flexible Foods. Others just use chocolate and more of other foods – like electricity. We call these Hybrid Foods. Some have gone cold turkey. They use Bikes and Public Transit. We call them Treehuggers.

I love chocolate. Had some yesterday. But I know I gotta cut back. Make it last a long time. Wanna leave some over for the kids, too.

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.

Filed under: Transportation Alternatives

Thanks to my international network of secret sources, I am happy to bring to ABG readers, from the Isle of Man, none other than the true mini of minicars, the Peel P50, recently re-discovered on British TV – don’t miss it. As you may not believe in the Peel P50, check out a few more snaps after the break.

Thanks to the Spitfire aircraft of World War 2, the Brits seem to have a deep affection for three-wheeled vehicles – two in the front, one in the rear. Fuel wasn’t cheap after World War II ended and in the early 1960s, folks on the damp Isle of Man, where fiberglass technology had some success, came up with this vehicle: enclosed, basic transportation that was highly economical. How economical? How about 100 mi/gallon!!

The P50 was 50 cc engine powered, lightweight, and was mass produced (in the dozens), but was frankly not quite up to 21st century safety standards. On the other hand, there is something here that is interesting. Let’s say we put some structure around it, perhaps a roll bar and an airbag, give it bigger tires, a bigger, quieter engine, with a top speed of say, 100 kph (62 mph). How many millions of us could get to work, to the doctor, or (in)to a friend’s house in a revised P50?

[Source: Flixxy]

Courtesy of Craig Littler

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.

Filed under: Green Culture

Recently, I have found myself driving in stop/go/crawl traffic at least 4 days a week. Of course, this now-frequent activity coincides with the current 40 cent hike in gas prices we are suffering thru right now. My 8-year old ride drinks heavily in this style of driving and I don’t like spending so much of my dwindling hours on this planet in such an unproductive yet necessary activity.

This whole feeling has been compounded by the latest Michael Klare article on energy in The Nation. Seems the author has put two and two together: The Dept of Energy has quietly shifted from “petroleum” to “liquids” as a word to describe the fuel we use for transportation. “Liquids” refers to other hydrocarbon fuels (propane, natural gas, etc.) as well as biofuels that we are slowly beginning to depend on just like petroleum. Changing this definition will mask the fact that petroleum production is just about peaked and older producing fields need to be replaced by new production before total production can reach the levels needed to meet increased world demand. This is not a good “scenario” for those that think the new Malibu will be the trendsetter for the US auto industry.

If the peak oil predictions are true in the short range – 5 years – then we need to drive a lot, lot, less and learn how to melt down a lot of SUVs and crossovers and replace them with vehicles that weigh about half as much and burn about half the energy currently used. That is essentially making the US national fleet about as energy comsumptive per person as the European fleet. Are we capable of such a transformation? Are we willing?

There is a kind of silver lining to this. Thanks to the weak dollar and our energy habits, more and more of the US is owned by the OPEC nations. Remember, we give them our dollars for petroleum. We burn the petrol up but they still have the dollars. They are so invested in us, they can’t squeeze us till we hurt as it would also hurt them.

When I am stuck in traffic, I can’t help feeling like the frog that Al Gore described in his movie – the one who can’t sense slow change in his environment fast enough to get out and find safety. Is it getting warm in here?

[Source: The Nation]

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.

Filed under: Green Culture

Recently, I have found myself driving in stop/go/crawl traffic at least 4 days a week. Of course, this now-frequent activity coincides with the current 40 cent hike in gas prices we are suffering thru right now. My 8-year old ride drinks heavily in this style of driving and I don’t like spending so much of my dwindling hours on this planet in such an unproductive yet necessary activity.

This whole feeling has been compounded by the latest Michael Klare article on energy in The Nation. Seems the author has put two and two together: The Dept of Energy has quietly shifted from “petroleum” to “liquids” as a word to describe the fuel we use for transportation. “Liquids” refers to other hydrocarbon fuels (propane, natural gas, etc.) as well as biofuels that we are slowly beginning to depend on just like petroleum. Changing this definition will mask the fact that petroleum production is just about peaked and older producing fields need to be replaced by new production before total production can reach the levels needed to meet increased world demand. This is not a good “scenario” for those that think the new Malibu will be the trendsetter for the US auto industry.

If the peak oil predictions are true in the short range – 5 years – then we need to drive a lot, lot, less and learn how to melt down a lot of SUVs and crossovers and replace them with vehicles that weigh about half as much and burn about half the energy currently used. That is essentially making the US national fleet about as energy comsumptive per person as the European fleet. Are we capable of such a transformation? Are we willing?

There is a kind of silver lining to this. Thanks to the weak dollar and our energy habits, more and more of the US is owned by the OPEC nations. Remember, we give them our dollars for petroleum. We burn the petrol up but they still have the dollars. They are so invested in us, they can’t squeeze us till we hurt as it would also hurt them.

When I am stuck in traffic, I can’t help feeling like the frog that Al Gore described in his movie – the one who can’t sense slow change in his environment fast enough to get out and find safety. Is it getting warm in here?

[Source: The Nation]

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.

Filed under: Green Culture, Transportation Alternatives, AutoblogGreen Exclusive, Green Daily

I have long had the image that that fuel pump hose filling our gas tanks is really more like a money vacuum. We pump in 10 gallons and make a $35 deposit into the oil cartel bank account. They then take some of that money and use some of it to explore for new oil. They use another part to live large in their parts of the world. Then they use still another part to buy properties in the US so that soon will be buying oil to drive to work at businesses owned by foreign oil company wealth.

There is nothing basically wrong with this. Believe me, if the tables were reversed, we would do exactly the same thing. It is perfectly legal under our form of government and justice. We are allowing and condoning it. In fact we are funding it, aren’t we? Somehow I am beginning to feel like a gerbil in an exercise wheel. I can run like hell but I will never get anywhere..

This is AutoblogGreen but I feel it could just as well be AutoblogSmart. I think we have to squeeze every wasted drop of petroleum out of our day-to-day lives. The “p” in petroleum is for “precious” and we treat it like we will never run out of it. Stretch that fuel in your tank. Car pool, walk, bike, maintain you current vehicle (proper tire pressure? clean air filter?), take a freakin’ bus or train, telecommute. If you don’t, when oil hits $100 a barrel, who you gonna blame? Get a mirror.

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.