01-25-2008
I own a 2005 Toyota Prius, and plan to either convert it to a plugin technology, or trade it for a new Prius plugin hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV, might as well get used to that acronym). PHEVs are designed to be plugged into your home outlet, recharging the hybrid's battery and giving it more juice or watts than a conventional HEV.
I get very good mileage (about 47 miles per gallon (mpg) on average throughout the year in New England, ranging from 43 on cold days to 56 on warm ones), but I can add another 20+ mpg or so by driving a PHEV.
This 66-70 mpg estimation is based on data that google.org (the philanthropic arm of Google) has gathered, via its RechargeIT program. According to a recent Los Angeles Times article about Toyota's plans for unveiling a commercial Prius PHEV, Toyota may make available these PHEVs as soon as the Spring of 2009 (for the model-year 2010 Prius).
A Popular Mechanics article has pointed out that Toyota may release the first PHEV with two nickel-metal hydride (NiMh) batteries; my Prius uses one of those batteries.
Then the new Priuses will use lithium ion batteries, or even have these smaller, more powerful batteries swapped in for the existing NiMh batteries, when the company completes developing, testing, and commercializing the lithium ion technology, according to the Popular Mechanics article.
PHEV skeptics like to point out that PHEVs will just shift pollution from being emitted from the tailpipe to from the electric utility smokestack.
This is a point worth addressing, since the Google data indicate that a PHEV Prius uses up about 110 watt hours per mile (Wh / mile), or about 1.1 kilowatt hour (kWh) per 10 miles.
This is a fair amount of electricity to use driving around: e.g., 4.4 kWhs for a 40 mile trip. The average Massachusetts household, the last time I poked around those statistics, uses about 25 kWhs per day for all of the house's electricity needs.
However, I'm planning on using a lot of solar to power the car. We have a solar photovoltaic system that generates about 7.7 kWhs per day; about 12 percent of our entire electricity usage for the year.
However, there are plenty of sunny days during the year when up to 100 percent of the electricity for the house is solar electric, and the meter actually traverses backwards (the joyful feeling of "selling" $0.40 worth of energy back to National Grid!). An upcoming entry will discuss this net metering issue.
Once I retrofit my Prius or trade it in for a PHEV, I plan, as much as possible, to recharge it during the day from my PV system. On sunny days, I'll be able to get a few solar-generated kilowatt hours into the PHEV battery, which could give me about 30 miles of non-OPEC oriented driving!
And post the data and calculations on this space. That's my goal, get up to 70+ mpg, and run the electric motor on free solar energy!
Seriously, the future of transportation as the sun sets on the oil age is electrifying transportation and deriving the energy from renewable sources.
The other side of the coin is that, if you are not part of a GreenUp or GreenStart type program for electricity consumers, a utility's energy mix is heavily fossil-fuel based. According to the Energy Information Administration, Massachusetts's electricity derives primarily from natural gas (44 percent), oil (23 percent), and coal (12 percent).
Although I have not done this kind of research, I suspect that driving a mile on utility-derived electricity is still associated with fewer carbon-dioxide emissions compared with gasoline.
01-23-2008
Wandering through the American Museum of Natural History in New York City with my daughter, we came upon a nice exhibit on water resources. The exhibit included a segment on the huge inefficiency of the bottled-water boom, which can be referred to as cleverly repackaged tap water.
Twice as much water than we guzzle from these bottles is used to make each one of the bottles. The plastic bottles require thousands of gallons of oil to produce, the equivalent of filling a quarter of each bottle with petroleum.
Bottled water is often no cleaner or more purified than the majority of tap water (in some cases it has fewer testing requirements than utility proferred tap water).
Does the reader think it's silly to demonize bottled water? How about this quote from a U.S. soldier on the radio in Iraq, when asked what he would like to say to the American people. "Use less oil." Now do oil-reduction strategies sound silly?
At home, we have well water that I have only tested for toxic chemicals once (it's an expensive series of assays). We buy large Poland Spring containers that are picked up later by the company and recycled. The point is, just drink tap water in most cases, with perhaps a Brita pitcher to filter out contaminants, and bring your own bottle with you throughout the day or night to refill.
01-22-2008
Israel has decided to launch a substantial electric car program, according to the January 21 New York Times (this article may require registration to view).
Tiny Israel must import about 99 percent of its oil, with a situation that is much worse than the U.S., which imports 60 percent of its petroleum. Focusing on electric cars, which would be subsidized by the government, making them cheaper than their gasoline counterparts, makes sense given the short driving distances in Israel.
A joint venture between an entrepreneur and Renault has a $200 million investment to start. The article predicts 100,000 electric cars by the end of 2010. The program will use an unusual model wherein the driver prepays for a certain amount of electricity, similar to buying calling hours for a cellphone.
Israel, where most homes have solar hot water heaters, is an example of a country that is adapting to its special circumstances by implementing new methods of energy generation and consumption.
01-14-2008
Renewable energy has certainly come a long way in a year. The on-going dialogue among energy experts, technologists, and well-informed newsspaper and web writers on how society can replace non-renewables and still meet its energy needs are detailed and downright exhilirating.
Investment in renewable energy such as solar, wind, and biofuels has reached tens of billions of dollars per year (an estimated $60 billion per year worldwide market). Just look at GE's plan to "double its investments in renewable energies to $6bn by 2010," according to the Financial Times.
In Lester Brown's new book Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, he advocates a large-scale focus on wind-energy to help work our way out of the fossil-fuel dependence mess.
"Denmark, for example, today gets 20 percent of its electricity from wind and has plans to push this to 50 percent. Some 60 million Europeans now get their residential electricity from wind farms."
The latter would be the equivalent of one-fifth of the U.S. population deriving its electricity from wind farms. A downloadable first chapter of this comprehensive and readable book is available.
Further, Scientific American explains an exhaustively researched "solar grand plan" that would generate almost 70 percent of U.S. electicity from giant solar arrays in the southwest.
A fascinating part of this plan is storing excess daytime energy "as compressed air in underground caverns," which would power turbines at night.
This is not pie-in-the-sky kind of stuff. These are Apollo-program level survival strategies, indeed, a brave new world.
01-13-2008
The New York Times recently published a piece about the Federal Trade Commission's hearing probing the legitimacy of carbon-offset claims. Corporations and consumers, according to the article, spent $54 million in 2007 on these offsets, which are payments purporting to off-set an individual's or organization's carbon emissions by planting trees or investing in renewables.
Coming from someone who has purchased carbon offsets before for an airline flight, I've always considered this activity a form of papal dispensation.
You pay an organization a certain amount of money, and they will expiate the sin of generating carbon emissions. Then you blithely go about your business as usual with your head held high: "I'm not a carbon emitter!" You have had your cake, and eaten it too.
Okay, so I'm coming down a little hard on carbon offsets. I am a strong supporter of carbon offsets, but only when they are initiated in conjunction with one's best effort to reduce the use of energy.
As amplified in the aforementioned article, the problem with offsets has always been their integrity: is the pollution actually being offset? If the offset corresponds to an investment in a wind farm, for instance, that is generating a precise amount of electricity associated with the offset carbon, then the answer is a somewhat qualified "yes."
If the offsets are vaguely associated with a tree farm whose mono-cultural practices may actually be harming the local environment (some studies have also indicated that trees can only absorb a finite amount of carbon before they begin to be net carbon emitters), then the answer is no, the activity is probably a greenwash.
At any rate, the FTC's recent activities are a reflection of the maturity and widespread use of offsets. Carbon offsets are now viewed, legally, as a truth-in-advertising issue.