Green Cars

Right now there are about 400,000 hybrid cars in the USA and about the same number are equipped to use E85 Ethanol. The total fleet is over 130 million, meaning that green cars are a bit over ½ % of the total. We've got a long way to go.

Barriers to Green Energy

I'm thinking of writing an essay on the barriers:

1. Up-Front costs/Payback Time
2. Lack of Loan Funds
3. NIMBY
4. Citizen Apathy

To set the stage I will catalog the small amount of alternative energy today.

Sources of Electricity

Some statistics on sources of electricity (All data inpercent of total). Data from Energy Information Administration:

Source, U.S. (2007), Ohio (2006)

Fossil Fuels, 71.9, 88.4 Coal, liquids, natural & other gases)
Nuclear, 19.4, 10.8
Other, 8.5, 0.7 (See below)


Distribution of Renewables:


Source,U.S. (2007), Ohio (2006)
Wood, 37.3, 28.2
Waste, 16.4, x
Geothermal, 14.4, 57.1
Solar, 5.6, x
Wind, 31.2, x

x = < 0.05%

Ethanol Plants as CO2 Factories

I recently received a request from the Darke Cty. LWV for helpful information on the planned CO2 sequestration project at the local ethanol plant. It appears that this is a first (or early) attempt to do this. In thinking about it, it occurred to me that there are lots of uses for CO2. Some ethanol plants are capturing and selling CO2, which seems a better idea than gas suppliers (e.g. Linde) manufacturing the CO2 they sell. Capturing and selling must be cheaper and more profitable than pumping CO2 into the ground.

Fuel-Cell Setbacks

My thoughts on fuel cells oscillate. Now I'm down on them.

Last year, the NY Times Magazine published a promising story on the future of fuel-cell powered homes. Now (10 Nov. 2008) they find that the company that was featured has yet to install a single new system. Too expensive.

Also Materials Technology (December 2008) points out that large-scale application of fuel cells depends on the availability of Pt catalysts, which material is in limited supply. Efforts to find a substitute are still in early development.

Cost of Conservation

The Ohio Environmental Council has come up with an estimate of the cost of conserving electricity. They argue that energy saved is freed for use elsewhere. In essence, conservation creates energy.

To understand their thinking, consider a 25 W CFL bulb replacing a 100 W incandescent bulb. If the CFL burns for 8000 hrs, it saves 75*8000/1000 kW = 600 kWh. If the CFL bulb costs $6, it frees up (‘creates’) 600 kWh. So the cost of conservation is $6/600 or 1 cent/kWh.

OEC actually estimates the average cost to be somewhat higher if they average all energy-saving equipment, about 2.25 cents/kWh. I like to think that a saving is a saving and that people will save enough that the freed-up energy never needs to be generated.

Fuel-Cell 'Gas' Stations

Any discussion of fuel cells should start with the fact that they require hydrogen, which costs energy to produce. This is a bad thing if the energy comes from coal-fired electric plants. The compensating factor is that hydrogen-storage technology is well developed. Serious methods for large amounts of electricity storage still need to be perfected.

In the hydrogen economy (which seems less likley than a few years ago) I envision the future 'gas' station to be equipped with a device to produce hydrogen from natural gas and a tank to store it. The motorist drives up to the station, plugs into the tank, and fills up his car. Thus the much-talked-about distribution system for hydrogen is easily provided.

The 'gas' station has advantages over other future technologies. Ethanol will still have to be delivered by tanker truck, which is expensive. Charging of electric cars en-route will be slow, unless the technology improves.