New Energy Watch

AquaDuct: Pedal-Powered Water Filtration

A few years ago, Google set up a contest to promote "zero-emission inventions that transform human energy into unprecedented results and can help save our planet, one pedal stroke at a time." We did a post about it, leading to a PDF called Seat of Power, which discusses a bicycle-alternator-battery contraption we made years ago to generate and store electricity. Google's Innovate or Die contest is over, and the winner is...

Tom Friedman: While Detroit Slept

While Detroit Slept. Tom Friedman. New York Times, 12.10.08

Friedman compares a Detroit bailout to backing "mail-order-catalogue business on the eve of the birth of eBay...pouring billions of dollars into the CD music business on the eve of the birth of the iPod and iTunes...pouring billions of dollars into a book-store chain on the eve of the birth of Amazon.com and the Kindle...pouring billions of dollars into improving typewriters on the eve of the birth of the PC and the Internet."

Friedman pushes the electric car network concept and business model of Better Place.

As usual, he's right. Let's resist bailing out the Detroit automakers without flushing the current leadership. These people have behaved foolishly for many years, and still cannot understand what they've done wrong, what Japanese and German carmakers have done right, and what is needed for the future. Too little, too late, too foolish, too arrogant. Let's give 'em the bum's rush.

Chrysler ecoVoyager, Dodge ZEO, and a True Renegade

At the Detroit Auto Show, Chrysler opened a big green bag from its new environmental program (ENVI) and pulled out three good, realistic concept projects, one for each division. First, an all-electric sport wagon called the Dodge ZEO (for "zero emissions operation"). It has a minimum range of 250 miles before it needs to be plugged in, and it accelerates from 0-60 in under six seconds. Second, the Chrysler ecoVoyager (show here) a four-door, four passenger vehicle designed to maximize "elegance, simplicity, and serenity." Like the ZEO, it's driven by an electric motor, but also has a hydrogen fuel cell to extend range. Third, a Jeep Renegade with an electric motor powering each axle, and a small diesel engine as a range-extender. That's the best of all possible worlds.

Two other bits of good Chrysler news: The Dodge Ram 1500 pickup will be available as a hybrid in 2010, and -- more important -- Dodge's light-duty pickups will be available with a Cummins turbodiesel within two years. As we've said before in New Energy Watch, there's been a big, untapped market for small- and mid-sized diesel pickups in this country for years. Detroit has been selling such trucks in Europe, in Australia, in Indonesia -- pretty much everywhere but the U.S. Here, they say, there hasn't been enough of a market. This is because Detroit has long taken its cues from the gas-guzzling V8 faithful who come to the car shows and shout for more power, more power, more power. Meanwhile, the rest of us have been forced to buy non-Detroit. Which is fine unless you need a mid-sized diesel pick-up.

Yes, all of these projects should have been started sooner. We should be driving them now. But late is far better than never. As soon as there's a mid-sized American pick-up with a turbodiesel out in the world, whether from Ford, GM, or Chrysler, we'll buy it and run it on B80 in the summer and B20 in the winter. Meanwhile, our Subaru Legacy wagon (made in Indiana), with a trailer hitch, a Thule rack, all-wheel drive, and 112,000 very hard miles on it, can hold out.

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch

Google's Pedal-Power Contest

Google and Specialized Bicycle Components are teaming up with a great contest called Innovate or Die. The idea is to promote and reward clever pedal-powered machines, both to spur technical innovation and to help take a bit of pressure off the fossil energy load. They're looking for "zero-emission inventions that transform human energy into unprecedented results and can help save our planet, one pedal stroke at a time."

The results will be shown on YouTube. Good on 'em.

We did a 12-volt pedal-power project a few years ago. The picture above shows the contraption we made, and here's an article from Practical Sailor called Seat of Power (PDF) that describes the whole deal. It worked just fine, but we can tell you that the most valuable thing this Google/Specialized contest can do will be to show people just how much energy it takes to get serious work done.

Humans are basically "geared low." At hard levels of exertion we can produce enough energy to light one or two light bulbs, but not for long. Even when we exert moderate energy for hours, we don't get much done compared to fossil fuel. If you're not pulling energy out of a wall socket or out of a combustion chamber, but pedaling your legs off to generate 100 watts or so for half an hour, you really begin to understand how valuable fossil fuels are, and suspect that maybe we shouldn't waste them. Even better, you can marvel at a wind turbine that produces 2.5 megawatts.

So, while this contest is entirely cool and worthy, it should be noted that the best thing you can use a bicycle for is transportation. Here it can make a really tremendous difference, because it amplifies the results of your caloric expenditure. Think of it this way: If you ride your bike 5 miles to work and 5 miles home, you burn maybe 400 calories on your commute, and get great exercise. If you take your 30-mpg Subaru, you do save some time, but you burn at least a third of a gallon of gasoline, which equals 41,334 Btu, or 10,416 calories --  a 26-fold increase in energy expended to get you to work and back.

To figure out  useful energy conversions like this, see NEW's Gasoline Energy Equivalents and Conversion Calculator.

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch

Step Up, Mayors. Offer Preferred Parking

If you have a hybrid or alternative-fuel vehicle registered in the city of New Haven, CT, you can park it free at any meter in town. When New Haven passed this ordinance two summers ago, it was the first city to do so in New England and fourth in the country, following Los Angeles, Albuquerque, and San Jose. Residents need to stop by City Hall to pick up stickers for their vehicles. That's the deal.

Meanwhile, New Haven city buses use ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel, and the city is gradually converting its bus fleet to hybrid power.

Hydrogen vehicles versus plug-in electrics

Nothing will make a bigger difference in global warming than transportation tranformation. Below is a link to a New York Times article that outlines where the major car companies are today on development of hydrogen vehicles. They're come a long way. In fact, if the fueling infrastructure were in place today, there would be viable cars to buy. And they would be bought.

On the Road, Hope for a Zero-Pollution Car

The Toyota Prius modified by ECD Ovonics, and the Honda FCX look particularly promising, but credit is also due to Ford and GM. Their engineers have been hard at work for years, despite being undercut by old tech, old business allegiances, workforce inertia, and oblivious marketing managers.

Meanwhile, we have Lee Iacocca placing his bet on the plug-in electric car in his new book, Where Have All the Leaders Gone. It's worth quoting a couple of questions and answers from CNN Money's recent interview of the author:

What do you think of global warming?

I campaigned for George W. Bush in 2000 and against Gore because I thought Gore was a little nutty when he was talking global warming. Now I think it's a serious problem. As I said in my book, I never thought I'd pay $8 to go see Al give a PowerPoint presentation. There has to be a solution that everybody's got to join - the whole planet, not one country - and so I've become a believer. I didn't get too enlightened until years after I left the auto business.

What can the auto industry do?

Plug-in hybrids. I think they're virtually here now. We've still got to get better batteries, of course, but hybrids are good. Expensive and complex, but they do the job and get good gas mileage. That's the wave of the future.

Some people are betting on hydrogen-powered fuel cells.

I think that's way off. Where are you going to get all that hydrogen? How are you going to store it in the car? How are you going to distribute it? That's a long-term problem.

We wonder whether Iacocca would have modified his view if the Times article had been out before he finished his manuscript, which would have been at least six months ago. NEW's view is that both technologies are desirable and necessary. Bring 'em on.

Here's a link to the full Iacocca interview at CNNMoney.com.

Good paper -- Nexus: Oil and Al Qaeda

As a follow-up to the post below, here's a link to a valuable paper called Nexus: Oil and Al Qaeda by Frank H. Denton, PhD., hosted at www.americanenergyindependence.com. The people who run this site are well-informed and committed in an ideologically hard-nosed way to the right causes. Take an hour and dig into some of the extensive material on this site supporting the stone-hard fact that energy independence is a national security matter of the highest priority.

The purpose of NewEnergyWatch.com is to get to the practical matters of environmental responsibility, conservation, and green energy products. We do that by making connections, soliciting ideas and comments that can be shared, and helping people relate their power-consumption habits to real quantities of fuel used and money spent. However, it's really impossible to divorce the topic of national energy use from the policies and politics that determine what Americans can or can't do, or will or won't do about energy.

I have never believed that the U.S. went into Iraq for oil. But the Bush administration's blind allegiance to "natural market forces," hands-off government, and outsourcing has inevitably opened the door for corporate exploitation of Iraq's oil resources, while doing nothing to curb domestic gluttony and encourage a bit of discipline. The result, once again, is that the U.S. looks corrupt and malevolent, where there was, I think, no original evil intent. Just old-fashioned ignorance, and ineptitude.

Today there's no excuse for this administration to ignore the perception around the world that the rhetoric about wars of ideas is just a cynical canard; a cover for oil greed. The administration's hesitation to associate foreign oil imports with terrorist strength, and its refusal to require Americans to undergo any discomfort, financial or physical, in order to subdue and strangle the enemy, is just mystifying. The hands-off attitude makes us appear to be in bed with Big Oil. Despite protestations to the contrary, perceptions count. In this matter, the U.S. looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck.

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch

Fuel economy ratings... a strange change

The government has revised its fuel economy numbers for 2007 models. All vehicles will show lower numbers. It's not that they're getting poorer mileage; it's just that the rating methodology has changed. No big whoop, except that, as the formula works, it's the fuel-efficient hybrid cars like the Prius that are taking the biggest hit, perceptually, while heavy lumps like the Cadillac Escalade are showing only minor declines in their numbers. The Escalade, really, is one of the most abysmal, shameful celebrations of American gluttony ever foisted on the public by Detroit. It's almost worse than the Hummer in pure obnoxiousness.

For horse's-mouth information about the new fuel economy ratings: www.fueleconomy.gov.
For a well-designed, well-maintained page on fuel-efficient and green vehicles: MSN Autos - Green Central.

For information about the detestable Cadillac Escalade: MSN Autos - 2007 Cadillac Escalade.

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch

GM's Volt - electric hybrid

It's late, it's odd-looking, and it's causing a rift in the General Motors faithful, but the upcoming  Volt looks like a truly advanced, environmentally friendly car, unlike the pretenders Detroit has been trying to fob off while they get their act together. While GM calls it an electric vehicle, it's really a hybrid: It plugs into the wall to recharge, but also has a 1.0-liter gasoline engine, not connected to the drive drain, to recharge the battery underway. Have a look at the discussion over at AutoblogGreen.com.

This is neither a zero-emissions car nor an energy-neutral car, of course, because it takes power either from a remote powerplant or its own gasoline engine to keep it running. But it's a giant step. As we said over on AutoblogGreen, "DC electric motors can put power to the wheels virtually instantaneously. If this motor is big and torquey enough, and the rubber can stick, this car might put to shame the muscle-car and SUV mentality that has been driving GM marketing and product development for so long."

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch