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Landon Hall

Lawmaker discusses far-reaching California climate bill

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Sen. Kevin de Leon, president pro tem of the California state Senate, is not only confident a climate-change bill will pass the Legislature and be signed into law. He fully expects the rest of the nation to follow California’s lead.

“Leadership does matter. That’s why we will not wait,” de Leon said last week during an energy discussion in Sacramento.

The lawmaker went on:

“We have never waited for Washington, D.C. To be honest with you, while Washington, D.C., dithers on this issue, between members who are negative, climate-change deniers altogether when the empirical data is there … We’re not waiting for that. We’re not gonna wait for Washington, D.C. We never have; we never will. We are the state of California, and we are the leaders nationally. And they’re gonna have to follow, and they will eventually follow what is done here.”

Senate Bill 350 passed the Senate on June 3 and now goes to the Assembly. If it’s approved there and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, the state will have achieved an ambitious plan that could have a huge impact on transportation and power generation in the state, and could affect the state’s economy long into the future.

The bill sets three goals to be achieved by 2030: cut petroleum use by 50 percent; increase the amount of renewables in electricity generation by 50 percent; and boost efficiency of buildings by 50 percent.

To discuss the measure, the group Diesel Technology Forum sponsored a gathering called “50/50/50 by 2030: Transportation and the California Energy Challenge. Carl Cannon, the Washington bureau chief of the website Real Clear Politics, moderated the event and interviewed de Leon.

De Leon said that if SB350 passes, it will save consumers money from “better fuel efficiencies” as well as reduce smog. “Air pollution knows no boundaries of political ideologies,” he said. The Democrat called the network of freeways in his Los Angeles district a “serpent that chokes the air out of a young child’s lungs.”

The bill was among several related to climate change passed by the Democrat-controlled Legislature. “These measures together represent the most far-reaching measures dealing with climate change, not in the history of California or the history of the country, but I would go a step further and say in the history but the world.”

De Leon said he’s looking forward to a “vigorous debate on the merits of the measure itself. … I think it’s going to be fun.” Democrats easily outnumber Republicans in both houses of the Legislature (26 out of 40 in the Senate; 52 out of 80 in the Assembly), but de Leon said that some Republicans had said to him privately that they “concurred that something must be done about this issue. Politically, that’s another issue altogether. But privately, I’ve heard on numerous occasions that ‘I agree with you, but it’s extremely difficult for us to do anything about this.’ ”

Watch the interview here:

http://bcove.me/zqumtflh

And watch a panel discussion, with energy expert Amy Myers Jaffe and others:

http://bcove.me/pv6gdyym

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EPA’s ethanol ruling pleases no one

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Nobody is happy with the EPA’s ruling on ethanol’s Renewable Fuel Standard made last week. The agency finally published its numbers after dodging the issue for two years and falling far behind on its legal obligations.

“It’s Christmas in May for Big Oil,” said Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa. “President Obama’s EPA continues to buy into Big Oil’s argument that the infrastructure isn’t in place to handle the fuel volume required by law. What happened to the president who claimed to support biofuels? He seems to have disappeared, to the detriment of consumers and our country’s fuel needs.”

Gov. Terry Branstad of Iowa, also a Republican, was not quite so negative. “We are disappointed that the EPA failed to follow the renewable volume levels set by Congress,” he said. “But we’re encouraged that the agency has provided some stability for producers by releasing a new RFS proposal, and made slight increases from their previous proposal.”

Even the question of whether the EPA’s new standard represents an increase or a decrease in the required amount of ethanol is under dispute. The original law, passed by Congress in 2007, specified that oil refiners were to absorb 14 billion gallons by 2013, 17 billion by 2014 and 19 billion this year. By 2013, however, it became obvious that the country would be unable to absorb 14 billion gallons without spilling over the “blend wall,” the standard of 10 percent ethanol that’s blended into virtually all gasoline in the U.S. There are concerns that some older vehicles can’t handle higher ethanol blends beyond E10 without sustaining damage to parts.

“By adopting the oil company narrative regarding the ability of the market to effectively distribute increasing volumes of renewable fuels, rather than putting the RFS back on track, the Agency has created its own slower, more costly, and ultimately diminished track for renewable fuels in this country,” Bob Dinneen, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, said in a statement.

The critics seem to have a point. Blends of E15 (up to 15 percent ethanol) and E85 are being sold across the country without any difficulties. Cars built since model year 2001 are approved to run on E15, and about one-third of automobiles are now flex-fuel, meaning they can tolerate any ethanol blend, up to E85. But the EPA has stuck with the “blend wall” in order to accommodate the oil refiners and automakers, who say they will not honor warranties on engines that might be damaged by ethanol.

The EPA standards announced last week are: 15.93 billion gallons for 2014 (that approximates actual sales for that year), 16.3 billion for 2015 and 17.4 billion for 2017. All these figures are about 5 billion gallons below the original statutory requirements. The last two have caused the most controversy. Ethanol supporters say the EPA is bound by the number in the 2007 law — even though there is a waiver provision. But critics who want to cut back on ethanol use argue that the figure is actually increasing from year to year and is only considered a reduction because it doesn’t match the original projections if 2007.

Really, it’s kind of ridiculous to think that Congress could predict exactly how much ethanol could be sold eight years hence. Typically, they made straight-line projections and assumed that gasoline consumption would hit 160 billion gallons per year by this time and keep going up. In fact, gasoline consumption started to drop almost the minute Congress passed the law, resulting from both improved fleet mileage and the reduction in driving that came with the recession. It now stands at 140 billion gallons. Had the law simply specified that ethanol consumption should be 10 percent of all gasoline consumption, there would be nothing to argue about.

The other place where the law is completely out of whack is in the mandates for non-corn ethanol made from cellulosic materials. At the time it was anticipated that cellulosic ethanol was right around the corner, and Congress specified that consumption should be 3.75 billion gallons in 2014, 7.2 billion gallons by 2017 and 21 billion gallons by 2022. In fact, the cellulosic-ethanol industry produced only 1.9 billion gallons in 2014 and has not increased much since. At one point, the EPA was actually fining oil refiners for not using a fuel that didn’t exist.

There’s little reason for either Congress or the EPA to be meddling in the ethanol market. Ethanol has established itself as an oxygenator and high-octane additive since the banning of MTBE. It would probably be added at a rate of around 10 percent, even without the mandates. E85 has a big price advantage over gasoline and would sell more if it were available. Last week, on the same day that the EPA published its new proposed Renewable Fuel Standard benchmarks, the Department of Agriculture pledged to match state funds for $100 million for the construction of new fueling stations designed to dispense E85. The fuel is very popular in the Midwest and would probably attract customers in other areas if it were easily accessible.

Finally, an export market for American corn ethanol is starting to take shape. Brazil mandates 35 percent of its fuel must be ethanol, but it has had problems with its sugar harvest and has started to import from the U.S. Europe is also getting big on ethanol and is looking across the Atlantic for new supplies.

Ethanol has proved its worth as a fuel additive and possibly as a gasoline substitute as well. All the sturm and drang over the EPA mandates have very little to do with the future of the industry.

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Propane gains as an alternative for vehicles

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School bus drivers in Macon, Georgia, have noticed one advantage to their new propane-driven school buses. “The children are much quieter,” says bus driver Esther Muhammad. “That’s because the engines don’t make as much noise. The kids can actually hear themselves talk.”

Quieter engines are only one of the advantages school districts around the country are finding as they convert their fleets to propane. Lower fuel costs, lower maintenance charges and longer engine life are among the advantages. So are lower emissions and compliance with the 1995 Clean Air Act. A propane engine produces 25 percent less carbon emissions, 66,000 pounds less nitrous oxide and 2,700 pounds less particulate matter over the course of a year compared with petroleum. “Because of these new propane buses, children will no longer be exposed to diesel fumes when boarding or disembarking our buses,” says Peter Crossan, fleet and compliance manger of the Boston Public Schools, which just put in an order for 86 Blue Bird Propane Vision buses, manufactured in Georgia.

The move toward propane — which is also called “autogas” — is picking up steam. Propane buses now run in 19 of the top 25 school bus markets, including New York, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Miami and Phoenix. In the Mesa County Valley district of Grand Junction, Colorado. Administrators recently signed a five-year, $30 million contract that includes 122 propane buses, according to The New York Times. Altogether there are now 143,000 propane vehicles on the road in the U.S.

Propane is a gas that is easily stored as a liquid under only 160 pounds of pressure. It is a by-product of both gas and oil production, with 65 percent of our propane coming from natural gas refining and the remaining 35 percent from oil. “We have enough natural gas to last us 200 years,” says Stuart Weidie, president of Alliance Autogas. “We’re not going to run out of propane.”

Propane has been used to run cars since 1912 and is still the third most used fuel, behind gasoline and diesel. Because it’s a little more difficult to handle than gasoline and has only 85 percent of the energy content, however, its use in standard automobiles has been limited. Instead, propane is employed mainly for home heating in rural areas where gas pipelines to not extend, and for laundry dryers, water heaters, backyard barbecues and portable stoves. There are about 10,000 filling stations around the country now. Propane sells for $1 per gallon less than gasoline, which gives it a price advantage.

Right now propane is starting to be used for medium-, heavy-duty and fleet vehicles such as garbage trucks, police cars, taxis, city buses and emergency vehicles. There are 450,000 forklifts running on propane, since their exhausts are easier to tolerate in enclosed spaces. The 2016 Ford F-150 light-duty truck will be suited for propane conversion, making it the eighth Ford model to be so outfitted. However, conversion of your automobile to propane can cost from $5,000 to 10,000 and is not for the faint of heart. A lot of computer adjustments are necessary on late-model cars, and they must be outfitted with an extra gas tank. Usually cars run on both gasoline and propane, since it isn’t always easy to find a propane filling station. The payoff is $1 per gallon saved on gasoline, but since most cars consume only about 500 gallons per year, that’s a long payback. Fleet vehicles like police cars that may log 50,000 miles a year, however, become economical. United Parcel Service has 750 vehicles running on propane.

Around the country, towns and cities are starting to buy into propane. The city council in Roanoke, Virginia, has just voted to convert part of the city’s police fleet to propane, as has Springfield, Illinois. ConocoPhillips will deploy more than 300 of its vehicles to “autogas” over the next five years. The Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART) in southeast Michigan is converting 61 “connector buses” that provide door-to-door service for the elderly and handicapped.

The movement has reached the point where STN Expo will sponsor a one-day “Green Bus Summit” in Reno on July 29th. The participants will discuss current and pending regulatory issues and funding opportunities for propane conversions.

In moving toward propane power, the United States is actually trailing several countries that have shifted to propane because of difficulties in acquiring imported oil. South Korea, Poland, Turkey and India all run more than 50 percent of their vehicles on propane. All these countries converted after being hit hard by the oil crisis of the 1970s. In the United States, however, the price of gasoline of diesel fuel remained low enough that we didn’t have to pursue alternatives. Now that is changing.

The propane industry foresees a strategy in which the increasing use of propane by fleet vehicles and light- and medium-duty delivery trucks will eventually lead to the construction of more propane filling stations. This will give motorists enough confidence to start buying propane-enabled vehicles or convert their cars from gasoline. “That’s the way it’s happened in Europe,” says Stuart Weidie of Autogas Alliance. “I think you’re going to see it happen here as well.”

(Photo credit: Roush Cleantech)

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Non-food-based ethanol scaling up to succeed corn

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Biofuels have been taking their lumps lately. After almost seven years of controversy, the European Parliament has acted to limit the amount of biofuels that can be garnered from land that could be used to grow food.

The EU has set itself a goal of getting 10 percent of its transport fuel from biofuels by 2020. Last week the Parliament voted to reduce this to 7 percent. The concern is that biofuels are taking food out of people’s mouths. Biofuels are also accused of leading to deforestation, both in Europe and in countries such as Brazil and Argentina, where Amazon rainforest and Argentinian pampas are being put under cultivation for growing biofuels for export.

“Let no one be in doubt, the biofuels bubble has burst,” Robbie Blake of Friends of the Earth Europe said in a statement. “These fuels do more harm than good for people, the environment and the climate. The EU’s long-awaited move to put the brakes on biofuels is a clear signal to the rest of the world that this is a false solution to the climate crisis. This must spark the end of burning food for fuel.”

Ironically, it was soft-energy guru Amory Lovins, who at the time was British representative of Friends of the Earth, who originally suggested the biofuels idea in his 1976 book, Soft Energy Paths. Lovins used an elaborate comparison with the beer and wine industry to show that it would be possible to produce a good one-third of the United States’ gasoline requirements through biofuels. Unfortunately, Lovins did not take account of the amount of land that would be required to grow these crops. This oversight has dogged the biofuels effort ever since.

In the U.S., criticism is mounting as well. A study published last month by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows that corn and soy crops for biofuels are expanding into previously un-farmed prairie land in the Midwest. Using high-resolution satellite photographs, the authors identified the expansion of cropland from 2008 to 2012, the four years following the passage of the Renewable Fuels Act that mandated the use of biofuels. The authors estimate that 40 percent of the corn crop grown in the U.S. is now used to make ethanol for use in vehicles. Ironically, environmentalists who originally celebrated ethanol are among its biggest detractors.

So does this mean that American biofuels will soon be facing the same limitations they’ve encountered in Europe? Probably not. The reason, once again, is technology.

From the beginning, the dream of biofuels enthusiasts has been that ways could be found for breaking down the refractory cellulose molecule and turning it into basic sugars that can be synthesized into ethanol. This is a very difficult task. It can only be accomplished in two ways: 1) heating corn stover and other cellulosic materials to a very high temperature, which consumes more energy than is produced; and 2) taking advantage of bacteria in the guts of cows and termites that can break down cellulose. These bacteria are highly temperamental, however, and have proved to be extremely difficult to cultivate on a commercial scale.

Nevertheless, progress has been made, and there are several commercial operations now approaching successful operations. Among them are:

• Abengoa Bioenergy (Hugoton, Kansas). This Spanish company’s cellulosic-ethanol facility came online in 2014 and is expected to produce 25 million gallons per year from corn stover, wheat straw, milo stubble and switchgrass.

• DuPont (Nevada, Iowa). Its 30 million-gallon-per-year cellulosic plant is scheduled to begin production this year. The plant will get corn stover from 500 farmers who are participating in the company’s Feedstock Harvest Program.

• Poet-DSM Advanced Biofuels (Emmetsburg, Iowa). Co-funded by a Dutch company, Project Liberty opened in September 2014 and is producing ethanol from corn cobs, leaves, husk and stalk. It is shooting for 25 MMGY.

• Quad County Corn Processors (Galva, Iowa) started production last year. Its Quad County facility can produce 2MMGY. The company says its patented technology has the ability to generate 1 billion gallons per year, without consuming any more corn, by adding bolt-on technology to existing corn-ethanol refineries.

So ethanol is not standing still. The EPA is expected to issue its renewable fuel standard sometime next month, after dodging the issue for two years. The threshold likely will be below the 14 billion gallons that was originally scheduled for 2014. But the law’s requirement for Gen-2 biofuels has barely been scratched, since these cellulose efforts have not borne fruit to date. With cellulosic operations now gearing up, it appears that ethanol may be ready to take on a second life.

(Photo: Corn-stover harvest. Posted to Flickr by Idaho National Laboratory)

Landon Hall

PUMP on campus: Houston, Humboldt, UCI host screenings

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PUMP could have taken Friday off, or ditched class early and headed straight for the beer garden. But there’s still work to do.

The documentary is heading to campus for a pair of Friday-night screenings: at the University of Houston and at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. On Monday the film will be shown at UC Irvine.

PUMP actually was released in theaters last fall, to great reviews and audience response, but it’s getting a second wind: On Friday it hits the big screen at Kingsway Movies in Toronto. And of course, there’s Netflix and DVD if you want to watch PUMP in the privacy of your home with the beverage of your choice (Check out Marc Rauch’s recipe for an America Libre made with corn whiskey).

Here are the details on the upcoming university screenings. And yes, this will be on the final:

Humboldt: 5 p.m. PDT Friday, Downstairs at the Campus Center for Appropriate Technology, 1 Harpst St., Arcata. Host: PowerSave and CCAT.

U. of Houston: 5:30 p.m. CDT Friday, Cemo Hall Auditorium, 4800 Calhoun Rd. Host: Energy Department. Q&A with Fuel Freedom board advisor and former Shell Oil president John Hofmeister afterward.

UCI: 6 p.m. PDT Monday, Steinhaus Hall, Room 134. Host: Climatepedia.

Related posts:

 

 

 

 

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Alternative fuels and vehicles: Good news on all fronts

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If we’re going to replace the gasoline in our tanks, we’re going to need help from all kinds of directions. None of the alternatives is likely to do the whole job by itself, but every little bit helps.

That’s why it’s so encouraging that there was good news on all fronts this week, and why each little success gets us closer to having legitimate alternatives to take the place of gasoline.

Here’s a sampling of some of the news:

Batteries. A team at Stanford University announced it had developed a high-performance battery out of aluminum. This is important because aluminum is much cheaper than lithium, the current favorite among battery-makers. Aluminum has been used to make batteries, but the problem has always been keeping the voltage high after repeated charging and recharging. Now the Stanford team believes is has found the answer.

“We have developed a rechargeable aluminum battery that may replace existing storage devices, such as alkaline batteries, which are bad for the environment, and lithium-ion batteries, which occasionally burst into flames,” said Hongjie Dai, professor of chemistry who headed the team. “People have tried different kinds of materials for the cathode. We accidentally discovered that a simple solution is to use graphite, which is basically carbon. In our study, we identified a few types of graphite material that give us very good performance.”

This raises the question of whether Elon Musk can substitute aluminum batteries in his Gigafactory, a work in progress that is set to build lithium batteries for the new Tesla.

Hydrogen. Hydrogen cars are clean, producing only warm water for exhaust. But the problem is getting the hydrogen. The only known methods to date have been electrolysis of water, which is expensive and energy intensive, and “reforming” natural gas, which produces carbon dioxide and makes hydrogen just another fossil fuel. But now a team of scientists at Virginia Tech has come up with a catalyst the can make hydrogen quickly and cheaply from biomass.

“Researchers from Virginia Tech have developed a way to drastically cut the time and money necessary to produce hydrogen fuel,” reports The Christian Science Monitor. “By using discarded corn cobs, stalks, and husks, they have improved on previous methods deemed too inefficient by energy experts. Their research, which was funded in part by Shell, was published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.”

Using genetic algorithms, Percival Zhang and Joe Rollin developed an “enzymatic pathway” that speeds up the reduction of hydrogen from biomass. By including two simple plant sugars, glucose and xylose, they were able to increase the rate of hydrogen production while emitting an “extremely low amount” of carbon dioxide.

“Cost effective and productive in volume, this method could breathe new life into the hydrogen car,” says the CSM.

Biofuels. And speaking of enzymes, another team of researchers working for the Department of Energy has come up with a bacterium that efficiently breaks down biomass without pretreatment. The team has been using the system to extract ethanol from switchgrass, a fast-growing weed that has long been a favorite of biofuels enthusiasts. The strategy, called consolidated bioprocessing, uses the Caldicullulosiruptor beseii bacteria to split cellulose and then ferments it into ethanol. The strategy eliminates the very expensive pretreatment that requires heat and more enzymes. Several facilities are now trying to break down cellulose and convert it into ethanol, but this one-stop process would be a huge saving.

EVs. A study at the Stockholm Environment Institute says that electric vehicles may be coming into their own much faster than everyone thought. This is because the price of batteries is coming down faster than anticipated. EV batteries now cost approximately $300 per kilowatt-hour. They weren’t expected to fall much lower than that over the next five years. But the authors Bjorn Nykvist and Mans Nilsson say that recent developments have brought the price down as low as $150 per kilowatt-hour, which could make electric vehicles appealing for a much wider range of customers. Since the batteries normally make up at least half the price of the vehicle, it could reduce costs significantly. Or manufacturers might use the new low price to load up on batteries, increasing the range of the electric vehicle. Either way, the package becomes more attractive.

And that doesn’t even include the possibility that the aluminum battery developed at Stanford could be making batteries more efficient and lowering prices even further.

There’s a tremendous synergy going on in these fields, as researchers pursue numerous pathways in exploring alternative vehicles. One way or another, it means that alternatives to foreign oil are soon going to be making their way into the customer’s field of vision very soon.

Landon Hall

PUMP debuts on Netflix, so stream at your leisure

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PUMP the Movie is now available on Netflix, giving millions of Americans the chance to watch an important film that shows the patch forward to ending our dependence on oil.

The documentary, produced by Fuel Freedom Foundation and narrated by Jason Bateman, was originally released in theaters last September. In fact, it’s still showing on big screens around the country, as the foundation has worked with partners to host screenings on college campuses and for nonprofits.

(For a full schedule of showings, as well as movie reviews and other content, check out PUMPtheMovie.com.)

But Netflix is a whole new level. The video-on-demand service is now available in 36 percent of U.S. homes, compared with 13.5 percent for Amazon Prime and 6.5 percent for Hulu Plus. Thirty-five million people watch movies and TV shows using Netflix’s streaming service, while another 5 million still get DVDs by mail. (We have DVDs for sale too, in an attractive blue case, on our website).

PUMP charts the century-long story of oil and how it built its monopoly on the U.S. transportation-fuel industry. There are interviews with major energy and auto-industry players like John Hofmeister, former president of Shell Oil Company, and Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk.

Much of the film is dedicated to solutions to our oil addiction: For example, ethanol, which is cheaper than gasoline and burns cleaner, with fewer toxic emissions, can be made from plenty of “feedstocks” besides corn.

Here’s a clip from the film featuring alcohol-fuels expert David Blume, telling us about the possibilities:

Another voice in that snippet belongs to Marc Rauch, editor of the Auto Channel website, who says: “Ethanol is not just any competitor [to gasoline]. It is the better fuel. It has always been the better fuel.”

The point is choice: American drivers deserve more than just one. To learn how we can achieve it, in the cars, trucks and SUVs we drive today, pick up the remote and watch PUMP.

Landon Hall

10 people who turned anger into solutions for high gas prices

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So we’ve heard from Americans who say high gas prices have disrupted their lives and their work. Let’s shift to the people who are more than mad as hell. They’re mad enough to turn their energy into action.

Among these 10 ideas, what’s the most practical for your life?

 

“I just ditched my old 1998 Volvo S70 for a used Prius, and it is so much more fun to fill a 10-gallon tank than an 18-gallon one. And have it last more than a week of heavy Los Angeles commuting. It’s still new to me, so I still kind of giggle every time I fill up the tank. I’m thrilled to put the money I save toward better things.”
— Jennifer

—

“We save a lot of money in the summer because my wife takes the bus to the south side of Madison to go to work, and I pick her up in the afternoon, about 4 miles south of our home. If I was to take her to work and pick her up, it would be 48 miles round-trip, morning and afternoon. The bus is cheaper.”
— Laverne F., Madison, Wisconsin

—

“As gasoline was so high for so long, I made a bio-diesel processor from a old electric water heater and made my own fuel for the oil furnace and my old 1984 GMC van with a diesel engine. I still received 21 mpg. Begging for grease was the hard part.”
— Willis W.

—

“I wish I had a good story for you, but my wife and I drive a plug-in Chevy Volt. We hardly ever stop at a gas station, except perhaps once every 6 weeks or while on an occasional trip. When we top the tank, it seldom takes more than 5 1/2 gallons, i.e. less than $20 worth of premium fuel. The main reason that we stop at gas stations these days is to get an automatic car wash.”
— David and Barbara G., Gaithersburg, Maryland

—

“Still wondering how to convert my 99 Ford Expedition to NG?”
— Gary S., Laguna Woods, California

(We’re checking around to find a SoCal CNG conversion business. Will update later.)

—

“I have not visited a gas station since September 2014, when I took delivery of my Tesla. However, I still pay for my daughter’s gasoline, suffer the financial cost, and contribute to the oil industry’s wanton environmental degradation. Savings at the pump could help me fund her college education.”
— Dr. George

—

“Go electric. I did and am receiving my Tesla next week. No more gas at all.”
— Bob

—

“Today we bought a 2014 Ford Focus, a flex-fuel vehicle which enables us to use E85 for fuel. A small contribution to energy independence.”
— David

—

“We need a blender pump [for ethanol] in every station.”
— Melvin M.

—

“I top off my cars with E85 when I can. I fill up once a month with a discount at Kroger. I am really pushing to get Kroger to provide ETHANOL pumps and shop at the same place!”
— Gerard R., Stone Mountain, Georgia

 

Incidentally, here’s a handy guide to flex-fuel vehicles on the market.

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President Obama, DOE boost alternate fuels

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President Obama burnished his legacy as an environmentalist last week by mandating a huge cut in greenhouse gas emissions among federal vehicles. The aim is to cut emissions for 40 percent by the year 2025.

The executive order will increase the percentage of the government’s 636,000 vehicles that run on alternative fuels. Improved gas mileage on new internal combustion engines can account for only a small fraction of the required reduction, so the only alternative will be to increase the number of non-gasoline engines in the fleet. Among the frontrunners will be cars running on compressed natural gas, electric vehicles, propane-powered cars, vehicles running on gasoline-ethanol combinations, hydrogen vehicles, and all manner of hybrid combinations of any of the above Obama’s order built on a previous executive action in 2009 that has helped reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 17 percent. The 40 percent reduction will be measured against levels in 2008, right before Obama took office.

As of 2013, more than 200,000 of the federal fleet of 635,748 vehicles were alternative-fuel vehicles. The most common of these were the 180,000 cars running on an ethanol-gasoline mix. But the new cars are expected to be of the more experimental variety. It is anticipated that, by 2025, half the federal vehicles will be some kind of plug-in hybrid.

The White House pointed to the efforts of large private companies such as IBM, GE, Honeywell and Walmart in meeting the same standards of switching to alternative vehicles in their fleet. The president’s spokespeople said the combined effort would be “the equivalent of taking nearly 5.5 million cars off the road.”

The president’s order was not the only effort by the federal government to increase its fleet of alternative vehicles. The Department of Energy announced a $6 million program to accelerate the alternative vehicle market. DOE said the purpose of the grants will be to get people accustomed to the idea of driving alternative vehicles. Eleven projects will be funded around the country. They will include:

  • Clean Fuels Ohio will sponsor the Midwest DRIVES initiative to make alternative fuel vehicles available to select company fleets on a short-term lease basis. The program will used data collected from these experiments to encourage other companies to lease AFVs as well.
  • Penske Truck Leasing of Reading, Pennsylvania, will make compressed natural gas heavy-duty trucks available to cross-country truck fleets on a 1-to-3-month basis. The object will be to test consumer satisfaction.
  • The Florida Office of Consumer Services, Office of Energy, will make available plug-in hybrid vehicles to car rental companies in the Orlando area. With Disney World at its doorstep, Orlando is the nation’s largest car-rental market. The idea will be to accustom renters to the advantages of plug-in hybrids.
  • The Triangle Council of Governments around Research Triangle Park will supply vehicles powered by CNG, electricity, propane, E85 and biodiesel over a three-state area that will include North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. The object will be to encourage fleet purchases.
  • The Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle Demonstration Program, run by ASG Renaissance of Dearborn, Michigan, will attempt to stimulate consumer awareness and demand for PHEVs by placing them in the hands of media influencers. It is hoped that a social media campaign through Facebook and Twitter will bring positive coverage.
  • The West Virginia University Research Corporation will develop a curriculum for training promoters and repair specialists for alternative vehicles. The National Alternatives Fuels Training Consortium will provide marketing and outreach for the new curriculum.
  • The National Fire Protection Association of Quincy, Massachusetts, will develop curricula for the use of alternative vehicles in fire protection, emergency services and first responders to auto accidents.
  • The North Central Texas Council of Governments will develop a curriculum for use of propane, electric and natural gas vehicles for fire marshals, code officials, mechanics and technicians, and first responders. The program will be offered in four states of the Southwest.
  • The University of Central Florida will establish a training program for the use of CNG, electric and propane vehicles by first responders, college instructors, tow-truck operators and salvage/recycling vehicles. Hands-on training will be supported by vehicles supplied the National Association of Fleet Managers.
  • The Metropolitan Energy Center of Kansas City will collaborate with State Fire & Rescue Training institutes in Kansas and Missouri to adapt existing alternative fuel safety curricula to their existing training structures.
  • The National Association of State Energy Officials will work with its network of State Energy Offices, the National Governors Association, and the International Emergency Managers Association to help incorporate alternative fuel and advanced vehicles into multiple emergency preparedness plans.

So there’s plenty going on in the advance of alternative vehicles. It will take more than a drop in the price of oil to discourage these programs.

(Photo: POET LLC)

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Toyota, California go for hydrogen

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California, the home of Elon Musk and his Tesla venture, is about to embark on another technological initiative as well — a car driven entirely by hydrogen.

In late February Toyota began producing and selling the Mirai (the name means “future”), a hydrogen-powered vehicle that will be available in Tokyo this year and go on sale in the U.S. in December. Always conscious of its history and ready to make amends, Toyota made the announcement five years to the day after it testified before Congress about a sudden accelerator problem that caused the company a great deal of embarrassment and led to a recall. “Every Feb. 24, we at Toyota take the opportunity to reflect on the recall crisis, doing everything we can to ensure its lessons do not fade from memory,” company CEO Akio Toyoda said. “For us, that date marks a new start.”

To say that Toyota is being cautious in entering the hydrogen car market would be an understatement. The Mirai won’t even be mass-produced but is being hand-crafted by Japanese workers who are turning out three cars per day. The model will sell for $57,000 in Tokyo and is not designed to take off like a rocket. The company only plans to sell 2,000 individual models in Japan this year. “The Mirai program, especially once all the research and development costs are factored in, is clearly unprofitable at this point, and even selling a few thousand units at $57,500 each is not going to turn the tide,” the Motley Fool’s Alexander MacLennan wrote. “But the Mirai is not about short-term profits; it’s about long-term market advantage through brand acceptance and technological development resulting in better vehicles.” Even Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe got into the act, saying we are headed into a “hydrogen era.”

Right now Toyota’s main rival as an alternative to gasoline will be Elon Musk’s all-electric Tesla Model 3. Musk is not taking the challenge lightly. He has called the hydrogen car “an extremely silly idea” and mocked its fuel cells as “fool cells.”

But Musk might have reason to worry. The Mirai will offer drivers a range of 300 miles and take only three minutes to fill its tank. Tesla’s Model 3, due out in 2017, will offer only a 265-mile range and consume 40 minutes to offer an 80 percent recharge of its batteries. (Ideally, EVs should be recharged overnight.) Of course, the big test will be the availability of refueling stations, and here electric vehicles have a big head start. Tesla already has 393 Supercharging stations nationwide and is building them out as fast as possible.

There are only a dozen hydrogen stations now, all of them in California, as a result of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “hydrogen highway” initiative of 2004. But California has seized the gauntlet again and is promising to spend another $20 million in building out the Hydrogen Highway with 28 new stations in the next few years. The Mirai will be initially aimed exclusively at California and its requirements for zero-pollution vehicles, then try to expand to the East Coast as well. Hyundai’s hydrogen-powered Tucson is already being sold in California.

Where Toyota and Tesla have found agreement is in opening up their patents to rivals to try to promote the technology. Musk famously made his EV patents available last year, and now Toyota is doing the same with its hydrogen research. The obvious aim is to get other manufacturers involved in order to increase the demand for fuel outlets. “We think this is a different way to look at the market and collaborate and hopefully with this get a lot more people coming into the game,” Nihar Patel, Toyota’s vice president of North American business strategy, told Forbes.

Still, the switch to hydrogen vehicles has some challenges ahead. Musk’s main criticism — echoed by many others — is that hydrogen fuel is too difficult to handle and transport. Hydrogen is, after all, the smallest molecule and leaks through everything. One of its biggest critics is Joseph Romm, who worked in the Clinton administration promoting the technology and finally became so disillusioned that he wrote a book critical of the technology called The Hype About Hydrogen. Romm is now a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for American Progress and heads the Climate Progress blog. Another problem with hydrogen, of course, is that it is not available as a free resource but must be manufactured from other resources, principally natural gas. This, of course, requires costs and energy.

Still, hydrogen vehicles have the advantage of producing no air pollution (its exhaust is water vapor) and will be able to reduce the release of carbon into the atmosphere, since the CO2 is easily captured in the reforming process. Overall, hydrogen is likely to be a big plus for the environment.

It also offers car buyers what may be the most important factor in reducing our foreign oil dependence — free choice. It hardly matters if electric vehicles prove to be more popular than hydrogen vehicles or vice versa. The important thing is that they will both be available as alternatives to gasoline-powered cars. They could also open up the door to other alternative fuels: compressed natural gas, E85, and the dark horse of them all, methanol manufactured from natural gas. All these alternatives cannot help but make a dent in our current dependence on foreign oil.