Right now, GM/Chevy is test marketing hydrogen fuel cell powered e-Flex Equinox SUVs around America.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/new_cars/42282 ...

E -- electric -- flex vehicles use an electric motor.

The fuel cell produces electricity.

The fuel is hydrogen (which can be generated via electrolysis -- maybe ever more easily due to the breakthrough discoveries about resonating saltwalter).


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The electric vehicle has batteries/supecaps, motor(s), a controller, and a charging unit. All of these are connected by beefed up wiring that will likely outlast the seats and interior. Faster, cheaper and easier to make than a hybrid.

Consider that the Prius already demonstrates cheaper operating costs than gas burners due to reduced maintenance. Why not eliminate the gas engine entirely? Operating costs would be significantly reduced.

As to the "no-range" argument a smart manufacturer would build each car with a hitch point and charger slots so that it could mount a small trailer/generator/cargo unit on longer trips. Then offer a certain number of free rentals per year for the first five years; available at the dealers only of course. The cost would be more than offset by the increased sales as your customers visit your dealership 5-6 times yearly. Even offer several free charger unit "rescues" for folks who forget to plug in and get stranded.

Auto dealerships could sell more than just cars and that might even happen if most people didn't regard a visit to one as a hateful chore. If it was a quick stop on the way out of town they could load you down with more stuff than an AM/PM.

The first company to do this and sell a reliable vehicle destroys the competition. Look what Toyota has done to GM since the Prius went on the market. Beat Toyota to the all-electric market and you can hammer them just as hard.

Put the Carbon Back

I'm not so sure it's a good idea for all-electrics to be held up waiting for a 350 mile range. Plenty of drivers would be fine with 100 or even 50, as long as the daily recharge is easy.

An car company producing an all-electric would be really smart to team up with a car share program and offer free or discounted membership for the first N months or years of ownership. Then you wouldn't feel compelled to buy more car than you need.

Why hasn't this become an integral part of electric car design?

The only solution is to build great transit and bike facilities and complete communities where people don't need to drive.

Most people in the world do not drive and likely never will. I'm not sure way North Americans think it is some kind of god given right.

Prius has had several battery issues if you care to check them out online.  Batteries are batteries and they can fail.

In my research on electric forklifts I found that everyone loved them - except for the darn batteries.  You really have to get educated and follow the book because it is not like driving a regular car, just fill-and-go.  

We put a lot of trust in computers to do the work, such as for proper battery charging and discharging.  But many people become confused because the battery could go dead if you don't charge it every two weeks - it's in the manual.  And if one little circuit goes bad, you're toast.

"Deep discharge" is the worst.  People with cars know this when they leave the headlights on and the battery is dead.  You just took a year off the battery's life if you haven't burned it up with precipitate.

Battery failure might also be due to the manufacturer too.  The "Green Goat" hybrid locomotive from Rail Power has 55,000 pounds of batteries, and several went solid dead while in service.  Bummer.  That's at least $300,000 in batteries!

Onward through the fog

Liquid biofuels for internal combustion engines are not very interesting, even though second-generation fuels (synthetic biodiesel) + IC's are probably going to become the main propulsion path in Europe.

Because you forgot to mention that two of the largest automakers - Volkswagen and Daimler - have chosen for diesel engines + synthetic biodiesel (Fischer-Tropsch):

October 11, 2007
Volkswagen and Daimler become shareholders of BTL company CHOREN, aim to mass introduce ultra-clean synthetic biofuels

So let's not dismiss this too soon.

But now for the good thing about bioenergy. The bioenergy community is all for electric cars, because:

1. the most efficient conversion path for biomass is direct combustion of solid biofuels (i.e. wood, grass, etc) in efficient cogeneration plants that produce electricity and heat/cooling - electricity for cars

2. biomass is also, by far, the least costly of the renewables; it has none of the baseload and peakload problems of solar or wind and is expected to become competitive with coal - the cheapest of all sources - in 2015-2030 (Imperial College study)

3. biomass offers the most effective tool to fight climate change; simply because you can couple carbon capture and storage to biomass, and thus create negative emissions electricity.

Only biomass allows for carbon negative electricity. All other renewables, and nuclear, are carbon-neutral at best, carbon-positive in practise.

Carbon-negative bioenergy effectively takes atmospheric CO2 from the past out of the atmosphere.

Scientists who have done studies on BECS (bio-energy with carbon storage), have found that:

1. it is highly feasible and can be decentralised (no need to search for a geosequestration site near a power plant, you can put the plantation and the power/fuel plant near the site)
   
2. more cost-effective than CCS with fossil fuels on all fronts (capture, transportation, storage) (precisely because of the decentralisable nature of BECS as compared to CCS coupled to stationary power and CO2 sources)
   
3. safer, because the biggest risk with carbon storage is leakage - if leakage occurs in carbon sequestered from fossil fuels, you have a disaster (you add CO2 to the atmosphere); whereas leakage from carbon-neutral biomass does not add
   
4. and that, if implemented on a global scale, we can get back to pre-industrial CO2 levels by mid-century

For info on BECS, see the Abrupt Climate Change Strategy Group's many studies.

See also:
October 08, 2007
A quick look at 'fourth generation' biofuels

We are going to hear a lot about BECS soon. The emergence of the electric car will give the concept a major boost.

Nobody is dismissing research, nobody is making a big mistake.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

There really is no need for cars to be allowed in most cities, particularly with those with population exceeding 20,000 people or so. A good transit system could service people better, particularly if transit is not fighting against cars.

I'm not against driving or cars. There is nothing to beat the freedom of having an automobile driving in the countryside. But as we all know, very few automobiles are used for driving on open highways at 55 MPH. Most cars are used to transport people around cities, suburbs, and other urbanized areas in stop-and-go traffic.

A 10 MPG pickup truck uses less fuel driven 1,000 miles a year then does a Prisus driven 12,000 miles a year. Remember that.

Our country in the near term needs more Park 'N Ride services with cheap, reliable, and frequent bus services to our downtown. Then the car becomes mostly a luxury -- a fun toy -- rather a polluting neccesity.

Nevertheless, as long as we accept and value cars as  "fun toys", "luxury", or even as sexy (I still wonder where that came from) we will not get to a point where driving a car is just transportation and necessary. Kids do what their parents show them to be desirable. If owning or driving a car is desirable there will be always a following  generation that will do exactly that and better than the previous generation.

Karsten
http://www.polluteless.com

If you use this energy in a car - either in electric vehicles or in ordinary ICs or fuel cells - you are entering a strange world: the more you drive the car, the more you tackle climate change.

Ah, eventually people will understand.

At biodiversivist: no BECS is fairly new, primarily developed in 2005 and 2006 by the Abrupt Climate Strategy study group in the wake of the Gleneagles Summit.

I need enlightenment please.

Karsten
http://www.polluteless.com

It's about storing CO2 in biomass, and then burning the biomass in power plants that are coupled to carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems.

You take CO2 out of the atmosphere with the biomass. Then you capture the CO2 before, during or after the combustion (or fuel) production. You then pump the CO2 in geosequestration sites (depleted oil & gas fields, saline aquifers, unmineable coal seams, etc).

The end balance: negative emissions.

-Fossil fuel plants result in positive emissions: you add CO2 to the atmosphere.

-Fossil fuel plants with CCS (socalled 'clean coal') results in less, but still slightly positive emissions.

-Nuclear and renewables like wind and solar are carbon neutral.

-Biomass with CCS is carbon negative.

It's not that difficult to understand. But it's a fairly new idea.

The whole thing reminds me of a quote (and I forgot the author): "There is always a simple solution to a complex problem and it is wrong."

I will keep my eyes open.

Karsten
http://www.polluteless.com

http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=for%20every%20comple ...

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

See, for example, this article:

Bio-energy with carbon storage (BECS): A sequential decision approach to the threat of abrupt climate change- published in Energy, Volume 30, Issue 14

Find the full paper at the Abrupt Climate Change Strategy Group (check under P. Read), a study group established at the G8 Gleneagles 'Climate' Summit in 2005. That page has several papers discussing the concept.

It's just that the different components that make up the concept - CCS technologies, geosequestration site prospecting, energy crops with enhanced carbon storage capacity, etc... - are only gradually coming together.

You would need a global carbon market to make this work. It's not clear yet how high carbon prices would have to be.

But in any case, the theory is correct: the more negative emissions energy you use to replace fossil fuels, the more you fight climate change. And you do so more than with 'carbon neutral' renewables like solar or wind. You do not merely add no emissions to the atmosphere, you actually take 'historic' emissions out. Hence, you go 'back in time' so to speak. (In fact, you don't really go back, because our fossil fuel consumption keeps growing, but you understand my meaning).

Cheers.

I cannot imagine that humans will do well on this planet if we continue to behave as if there was no limit or as if North Americans have not already reached that limit quite awhile ago. I cannot imagine that 6.5 billion people doing what is proposed to be done with negative emissions bio-energy is going to be sustainable even if we get CO2 levels to a much lower level. There is so much more that is going wrong.

Negative emissions sounds great, but only if we bring energy to more humans in all areas that require energy and is sustainable in the long term. Otherwise we will continue to bring an attitude to the world that may help in some areas, but will continuie to do more damage in others.

Karsten
http://polluteless.com