Green Cars: America's Next Big Thing?

November 10, 2007 – Vol.12 No. 33

GREEN CARS: AMERICA’S NEXT BIG THING?

With oil flirting at $100 a barrel - and gasoline prices yet to catch up - one wonders how long it will be before there’s a rapid, national effort here in the US to move the nation away from its petroleum addiction.

To add some spice to the brewing need for a major change under the hood of our cars, what happens if the 14 states now suing the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) actually win their case? (The EPA has been for dragging its feet on a ruling to allow California and others to limit the greenhouse gases from cars and trucks the states say.) Or what if the EPA suddenly gives them the go-ahead in a ruling they’ve promised by the end of the year?

What then? In what direction would the auto industry move to comply with the command that could become a crash program to power our cars much differently than they have been for more than 100 years.?

Alternative fuels with reduced greenhouse gas emissions, biodiesel or ethanol for example, remain appealing. Other than the fuels themselves, their distribution and storage; everything else pretty much stays the same with our cars and trucks - an internal combustion engine is energized with a liquid fuel paid for at a pump.

But those, “other thans” are huge hurdles in themselves. Can the nation possibly supply enough alternative fuels to meet the growing demand from the transportation sector? And exactly what would be the reduction in global warming gases? Some want liquid fuels from coal, of which we have plenty. But it’s hard to imagine how a using a carbon heavy natural resource will yield a low carbon fuel.

Then there are biofuels from nonfood resources. It’s possible and to some extent done today, but can enough be produced to meet the need of lower carbon emissions and keep the nation’s filling stations supplied? And does the long, rather involved, process of converting plants like switchgrass or waste corn stover to fuel make sense?

Dr. Ken Staver of the University of Maryland thinks we’d be better off just burning switchgrass - perhaps pelletized for convenience - for heat and possibly power. Switchgrass as fuel to generate power is already done in Europe and at least one powerplant in the US.

This thought would seemingly extend to agricultural waste and purposely grown nonfood agricultural products. Farmers wouldn’t lose by this. Agricultural waste could become a commodity, for instance. Our communities would gain as well. Our grass clippings and leaves wouldn’t be sent to landfills. Instead they’d be pelletized and sold for energy.

Then if we had more green energy on the nation’s grids, how would we energize our cars? Plug-in hybrid cars are getting closer to commercialization. If the current star of battery technology lithium-ion, advances, and becomes less expensive at a more rapid pace, the vehicles could soon follow suit.

Ricardo and QinetiQ have embarked on a two-year collaborative project part-funded by the UK Government's Department for Transport, the goal of which is to reduce the costs of Lithium-Ion batteries for hybrid vehicles, plug-in hybrids and pure electric vehicles while protecting or further improving vehicle performance.

The specific objective of the Reduced cost Li-Ion (RED-LION) project is to demonstrate the application of new li-ion cell chemistry in a hybrid or electric vehicle battery with an estimated production cost one-third that of conventional battery technologies and about half the weight.

The companies say that if successful, the RED-LION project will demonstrate commercially viable technologies that are capable of delivering sub-100g/km CO2 emissions with superior performance, compared to the equivalent current production vehicle.

The project partners estimated that incremental manufacturing cost needs to be reduced by around 50 percent (to approximately $2,900) for the technology to become fully commercially viable, based on prevailing fuel prices and consumer fiscal incentives.

(For plug-in hybrid and electric vehicle proponents, hope that the RED LION project comes through, saves the day as it were.)

Then there’s hydrogen. It is thought by many to be the fuel of the future and, like electricity, can be made from many sources. Yet it’s hard to deny that Ballard Power System’s pending sale of its automotive fuel cell assets to Ford and Daimler throws some concern into that possibility. It doesn’t mean that Ballard is giving up on fuel cells for cars, but it sure smells like it.

It’s said that the US goes from one next big thing to another in painful boom-bust cycles. The credit crunch, sub-prime, real estate debacle hasn’t hit bottom yet. Then we’ll need a next big thing to get the economy going again. It could very well be a change under the hood of our cars.

A judge’s ruling in favor of the 14 states, or a go-ahead from the EPA, could set the foundation of the green car boom with a scramble by manufacturers to get reduced greenhouse gas emission cars on the road in much of the US beginning in 2009.

While the clock is ticking for a major change with our cars and trucks, economic growth, supply concerns, political instability, monetary policy in the form of interest rates and currency valuation will be keeping oil volatile.

The time is ripe to move on.

Ken Staver will be speaking at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) in Edgewater, Maryland on November 14.

Ricardo is a leading provider of technology, product innovation, engineering solutions and strategic consulting to the world's automotive, transport and energy industries.

Links:

Ballard Power Systems
http://www.ballard.com

QinetiQ
http://www.qinetiq.com

Ricardo Inc
http://www.ricardo.com

Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC)
http://serc.si.edu