Luke Tonachel's Blog: Moving Beyond Oil

Driving Quietly: Testing the Cars of the Future

2008-10-01T17:36:32Z

Last Friday, I was invited to the Consumer Reports test track to drive some of the cars of the future. It wasn't a typical test scene - no revving engines or the odor of petroleum. With the exception of the patter of rain drops, it was quiet. Sure, the cars were running but primarily on electricity.

Take, for example, the Ford Escape Flex-fuel Plug-in Hybrid (a bit of a mouthful, I know). As I started driving it around the track, I noticed a dashboard display with 'Engine Off'; I was quietly cruising on just the electric motor powered by a 10 kWh battery. I goosed the 'gas' pedal and got to about 30 mph before the engine started and seamlessly blended-in power to the wheels. Ford is already testing a fleet of these cars and expects to have them available to customers in the next few years.

I also drove around in the Nissan's entry into the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle world, the X-Trail FCV (Honda's FCX Clarity was also there). The X-Trail is not close to hitting the showrooms, but it definitely drove like a real car.

As my colleague Roland Hwang points out in the NY Times, there are three horses in the race to replace gasoline: electricity, hydrogen and biofuels. Cars driven by electricity and hydrogen have the same efficient and quiet drivetrain: the wheels of the vehicle are driven by an electric motor. The two cars differ in their source of electricity with plug-ins using a battery charged from an electrical outlet and fuel cells using a tank of hydrogen and fuel cell stack to create electricity. The flex-fuel plug-in Escape brings in the third element to a basically petroleum-free car. When driving demands call for extra power or a range that goes beyond the storage capacity of the battery, the engine can be fueled by sustainably-produced biofuels.

Also on display were some very near-term fuel-saving technologies that will show up in model year 2009 vehicles. Ford showed off their EcoBoost, which combines gasoline direct injection engine with turbocharging to allow smaller, more-efficient engines to operate with the same power performance as larger, thirstier predecessors. EcoBoost is an example of a host of technologies available today, such as high-speed transmissions and electric auxiliaries, that can dramatically improve conventional vehicle fuel economy. Using off-the-shelf technology, we could have a new fleet of cars and trucks that averages 35 mpg by 2015 instead of the 25 mpg of today.

My day at the track was completed with a Michael J. Fox reenactment of Back to the Future. No need to trigger the flux capacitor, though. This DeLorean drives on electricity-just like our future.

Clean Energy Saves Americans Money

2008-09-17T19:58:42Z

Efficiency and other clean energy measures are sound investments for the near and long-term. I realize right now that it's hard to believe that sound investments exist. The financial center at Wall Street seems to be crumbling with the news that Lehman Brothers is bankrupt, Merrill Lynch sells itself off and AIG is bailed out by the Feds. Oh and don't forget that the government just took over control of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae too. Despite the bad news, however, some recent NRDC analysis reinforces that fact that clean energy is a safe bet.

Take, for example, insulating the walls of an old house to cut energy consumption: it is a no-brainer because it saves money.

Like many people in the Northeast, a buddy of mine heats his home in New York with fuel oil. With high fuel prices, he was looking at some scary heating bills this coming winter, so I recently helped him tighten up his home by blowing cellulose insulation into the walls. Over a weekend, we rented the necessary equipment, bought the cellulose (chopped up recycled newspapers) and got it done. It was a very small price to pay for the benefit of lower heating bills for years to come.

Home retrofitting is just one of many clean energy measures that save money while cutting oil consumption. Other examples include improved fuel economy of new passenger vehicles and heavy trucks; retrofits, like energy-saving low rolling resistance tires, for cars and heavy trucks on the road; smart growth and transit investments; and advanced biofuels production. Collectively, we can save 10 million barrels per day with these measures, or 11 times more oil than can be drilled from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and protected offshore areas.

How much money can these measures save? Let's look at it from the perspective of what it will cost to buy oil in 2030, according to the Department of Energy. For Figure 1 below, we calculated the net cost to the economy as the present value of the cost of clean energy technologies minus the future fuel savings in 2030. With each clean energy measure, the fuel savings outweigh the incremental costs and save Americans money. Furthermore, investments in clean energy made with American ingenuity is money that stays here in the U.S. In contrast, without clean energy measures, Americans will continue to drain their wallets for oil at a cost set by a worldwide oil market price.

More details are available here.

The majority of proposals being debated in Congress these days are heavily weighted toward approaches that are not only costly to Americans but are also dirtier. Calls to increase fossil-derived oil supplies by drilling in some of our nation's most pristine environments and converting coal and shale into dirty transportation fuels will spoil landscapes, threaten ocean life, ravage water supplies and pollute the air.

Clean energy cuts transportation fuel use and therefore avoids the environmental damage inherent in oil exploration and production and liquid coal and shale oil development. By cutting fuel use, clean energy reduces emissions of global warming pollution as shown in Figure 2. Dirty fuels, especially liquid coal and oil shale, actually increase the global warming emissions compared to today's gasoline. In fact, liquid coal emits nearly double the global warming pollution, and oil shale more than twice as much, compared to today's conventional gasoline on a full fuel-cycle basis.

Politicians pushing proposals for more drilling and dirty oil supplies by saying that they will help us deal with high gas prices are blowing smoke. I'll stick with blowing cellulose; it's a clean energy solution that will surely help us get off oil and save money.

Clean Energy: 9 Million More Barrels Each Day than Drilling

2008-09-08T15:53:09Z

The more I look, the more oil savings I find. My latest investigation continues to cast serious doubt on the advice of drilling advocates by turning up 11 times more oil in 2030 than we could extract from the Arctic Refuge and protected areas of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). It turns out that we don’t have to look far for more oil; we must simply improve the way we use energy today.

Over the next two decades, we could save nearly 10 million of barrels of oil each day (mbd) by seeking out efficiency opportunities throughout our economy. For comparison, the U.S. currently imports about 10 mbd. Better cars, buildings, communities, and fuels would save about 9 million more barrels each day than we could get from drilling. Previously, I compared how setting cost-effective fuel economy standards for passenger cars produced before 2015 would save more oil than the Department of Energy (DOE) projects would come from OCS drilling. The gap between savings (which put money in your pocket) and new supply (which you would have to buy at the current price of oil) only grows when you consider other forms of clean energy such as electricity for powering cars, sustainably-grown biofuels, mass transit, and efficiency measures for heavy trucks, air travel and oil-heated buildings. In fact the sheer volume of possible savings suggests that before we go searching for more oil, we should ensure that our economy can use it efficiently.

Below is a list of realistic measures that can produce these savings (also available in .pdf here):

Saving 10 Million Barrels of Oil Per Day in 2030

Measure	Description
Higher Fuel Economy for New Cars and Light-Duty Trucks	Implement fuel economy standards as authorized by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA 2007), using realistic assumptions to determine feasibility. Continue to increase fuel economy so that new cars and light trucks achieve a fleetwide average of at least 42 miles per gallon in 2020 and at least 55 mpg by 2030.
Improved Fuel Economy of On-road Vehicle Fleet	Improve fuel economy of on-road fleet of cars and light trucks by 4 percent through low rolling resistance tires, tire inflation, and fuel-efficient motor oil.
Improved Fuel Economy for New and On-road Heavy-duty Trucks	Implement fuel economy standards as authorized by EISA 2007 to increase fuel economy of new medium- and heavy-duty trucks by at least 40 percent by 2030. Retrofit tractor trailer stock with fuel-efficient EPA SmartWay technologies such as trailer aerodynamic improvements, single-wide tires, and idling reduction equipment by 2014.
Building Efficiency	Retrofit oil-heated homes and commercial buildings to cut fuel consumption by 50 percent.
Advanced Biofuels	Produce 47 billion gallons of sustainable ethanol and 2 billion gallons of renewable diesel per year by 2030.
Air Travel Improvements	Improve fuel consumption per revenue mile by 1 percent per year from 2009-2012, then at least maintain efficiency levels.
Smart Growth and Transit	Keep per capita vehicle miles traveled at today’s levels through smart community planning and development and investments in public transit. Maintaining per capita mileage results in a 21 percent reduction from 2030 forecasts.
Plug-in Hybrid Electric Cars	Promote plug-in hybrid electric vehicles so that 8 percent of vehicle miles traveled are powered by electricity by 2030.

Drilling will never be an answer because the costs outweigh the benefits. Drilling spoils and pollutes our pristine landscapes and beaches. It disrupts sensitive ecosystems, releases toxins and brings carbon from deep in the earth into the atmosphere as heat-trapping global warming pollution. And it does this while offering basically zero financial advantage to consumers. In their analysis, DOE, for instance, doesn’t even bother quantifying the benefits of offshore drilling. Instead, DOE finds that the price impacts are “insignificant.”

By contrast, clean energy’s advantages are huge. Clean energy avoids oil consumption and all of its baggage like pollution, climate change, price volatility and dependency. Furthermore, clean energy saves you money because you buy less oil than now. Clean energy requires the manufacturing of new technologies, which can jumpstart flagging industries at home. And because the clean energy measures that we’ve identified are cost-effective, their use results in a net economic benefit to consumers and society. Drilling simply doesn’t.

Drilling is Not the Answer: Save Oil FASTER with Realistic Car Fuel Economy Standards

2008-07-15T03:49:59Z

Earlier today, President Bush announced the lifting of an Executive Branch ban on drilling in protected areas off our coasts. In an accompanying White House document, the Administration acknowledged that drilling will take a long time to produce any oil; in fact, even if Congress lifted the moratorium today, it would be about a decade before crude would start to flow. On the other hand, setting realistic fuel economy standards for our cars and trucks would save more oil faster than we could drill from the new areas of the Outer Continental Shelf.

According to the Department of Energy’s analysis, at peak production in 2025 the offshore areas currently under the moratorium could produce about 220,000 barrels per day. Compare that to saving over 300,000 barrels per day starting five years earlier in 2020. The 300,000 barrels per day savings come from instituting new vehicle fuel economy standards of 35 miles per gallon for model year 2015 instead of model year 2020.

When Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, it required that new vehicle fuel economy reach at least 35 mpg by 2020. Between now and 2020, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is charged with setting “maximum feasible” efficiency levels. However, as I discussed here, the agency failed in its first attempt to set standards up to model year 2015. Their primary mistake was to assume an unrealistically low gasoline price forecast, which reached only $2.42/gallon in 2016. As part of their analysis, NHTSA modeled a higher—but still unreasonably low—price forecast that reached $3.14/gallon in 2016; in this scenario the agency demonstrated that the new vehicle fleet could reach an average of 35 mpg starting in model year 2015 using existing, cost-effective technologies.

I compared the oil savings achieved with a standard that reaches 35 mpg in 2015 vs. 2020 and found over 300,000 barrels per day would be saved with the earlier implementation. Simple, right? Just use realistic price assumptions and the Administration can save drivers money at the pump long before drilling produces a drop.

And that’s just the beginning. As described here, efficiency and other clean energy oil savings easily trump drilling production beyond 2020. Clean energy solutions are simply the best way to provide lasting relief to American consumers.

As gas prices continue to skyrocket, Administration should stop dragging its feet on fuel economy standards

2008-07-01T22:24:52Z

As millions of Americans prepare to travel for the 4th of July holiday and as millions more stay home because they can’t afford skyrocketing gas prices, the Bush Administration is dragging its feet on increasing fuel economy standards while consumers pay the price.

Today is the deadline for public comments on the government’s proposed new rules to increase fuel economy standards. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is required to implement the fuel economy standards that Congress passed last year at the maximum feasible levels. Yet instead, they are undervaluing the price of oil and lowballing the American people.

The agency is forecasting that fuel will cost $2.42 a gallon by 2016, which most consumers would find laughable when considering the average of $4.09 a gallon they pay today. The agency is trying to justify weaker fuel economy standards, by severely underestimating the price of fuel.

Strong fuel economy standards are critical to helping consumers lower fuel costs, reducing our dependence on oil and curbing global warming pollution. Not only is it possible, but necessary to raise fuel economy standards to 35 miles per gallon by 2015. Automakers have the technology, they just need to put it to use. By reaching the minimum standard of 35 miles per gallon fleetwide by 2015, NRDC estimates that the U.S. would conserve 3 billion barrels of oil.

Cumulative Oil Savings in 2020

This 4th of July, the President should help make America more energy independent and save consumers money by taking high gas prices into account and raising fuel economy standards even higher.

Cool New Car Sticker Shows Which Are Cleanest

2008-05-08T18:08:59Z

Car shopping? Coming very soon in California is a handy new window sticker that makes it easy to choose the cleanest vehicles. It’s terrific in its simplicity; each car, SUV, minivan or pickup will get a 1-10 score on the basis of global warming and smog pollution. Go for the high score (this isn’t golf) and you’ll be driving home in a clean vehicle.

The new Environmental Performance label, which will be on new vehicles starting in January, shows the Global Warming Score and Smog Score side-by-side. No tricky math for you do since the California Air Resources Board, which designed the label, breaks down technical emissions data into simple blocks. Also shown is the average score for all vehicles of that new model year, so you’ll know how each car in a showroom compares to the overall new vehicle fleet. Want to comparison shop before visiting showrooms? The Environmental Performance label points you to www.DriveClean.ca.gov, which will list the scores of all new vehicles for sale.

I like that the label is also a money-saver. Choosing a high Global Warming Score saves money at the pump because high-scoring vehicles are typically the most fuel efficient.

Not in California? Other states, like Pennsylvania, have already said they will adopt the Environmental Performance label. Until your state adopts the label, you should check out US EPA website www.fueleconomy.gov; it allows you to compare new and used vehicles side-by-side in terms of carbon footprint and smog pollution.

Happy shopping.

California Tells Automakers to Bring Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles to the Showroom

2008-03-30T21:21:37Z

Tens of thousands of plug-in hybrid vehicles will start hitting the roads in 2012 due to last Thursday’s decision by the California Air Resources Board (CARB). In an update of the Zero Emission Vehicle program, CARB established plug-in hybrids as an important enabler of vital zero-emission technologies because of their electric drive trains and advanced batteries. According to CARB staff, approximately 58,000 plug-in hybrids will be placed in California from 2012 to 2014 where none were previously required.

Also, ten other states have adopted California’s Zero Emission Vehicle program, which means the number of plug-in hybrids nationally will be approximately 2.3 times the California requirement, or 133,000.

As I mentioned in a previous post automakers have been touting their plug-in hybrid demonstration vehicles; CARB’s action locks in a commitment to actually put these vehicles in the hands of consumers.

As plug-ins arrive in showrooms, consumers will likely snatch them up. While getting off oil feels good, it can also make sense for the wallet. The per-mile cost of driving a plug-in hybrid with 20 miles of all-electric range is about half as much as conventional vehicle. If you do most of your commute or errands on electricity alone, then the per-mile cost is cut in half again. The savings in gasoline costs offset the up-front cost for larger, more advanced batteries. I realize that many consumers struggle to compare lifetime operational savings with the higher sticker price at the showroom, but gasoline approaching $4.00/gallon certainly motivates people to work out the math.

The CARB requirement kick-starts commercialization of plug-in hybrids. However, complementary policies can accelerate the pace of their broad, mass market appeal and availability. For example, federal consumer incentives such as tax credits have helped propel traditional hybrids into the marketplace, and Congress has introduced legislation to give credits for plug-in hybrids to help overcome the incremental battery cost. Additional policies that speed retooling of auto manufacturing toward electric-drive technologies will promote larger-scale production and drive down costs further.

I’m already looking forward to visiting showrooms in the near future to check out the new cars and see how you plug them in.

Plug In for Clean Air

2008-02-27T01:24:06Z

As someone who has been enthusiastically watching and promoting plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, I was concerned that the headline of an article in USA Today (“Plug-in cars could actually increase air pollution,” Feb. 26) could lead to misperceptions about the environmental benefits of plug-in hybrid vehicles. The fact is that plug-ins are an important opportunity for reducing pollution.

Plug-in hybrid vehicles, which run part time on electricity supplied from power plants, are an extremely promising technology for reducing global warming pollution. Compared to conventional vehicles and today’s non-pluggable hybrids, they can run cleaner and use less gasoline, which helps reduce global warming pollution, slash oil dependence and save Americans money at the pump.

The environmental benefits of large-scale plug-in hybrid deployment have been detailed in Environmental Assessment of Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles a comprehensive study jointly authored by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and NRDC (executive summaries of report: Volume 1 | Volume 2). The EPRI-NRDC report is especially relevant because it considers the evolution of the grid toward cleaner generation due to carbon constraints and existing regulations that tighten select criteria pollutant controls in the future. It evaluates the complex mix of generation resources used for vehicle charging in concert with rapid penetration of plug-ins into the market, and the study shows that plug-in hybrids reduce global warming pollution and provide modest, widespread air quality benefits.

Like many technologies, you can use plug-ins in the right way or the wrong way. Charging plug-ins with dirty coal power is the wrong way; these carbon-intensive sources make it harder for both the electric sector and transportation sector to meet our long-term global warming goals. Heavy reliance on the dirtiest technologies can also lead to localized increases in certain criteria air pollutants, such as particulate matter, also known as soot. Many of NRDC’s advocacy efforts are focused on preventing the wrong path: we are fighting against continued use of dirty coal generation, and we promote policies that encourage a cleaner grid mix.

The USA Today article focuses on the worst-case scenario where the oldest, dirty coal plants are the sole source of electricity for vehicle charging. Typically, this is not the case; the electricity grid is a mix of generation technologies that includes coal along with cleaner energy sources. Overlaying the mix, regulations cap the criteria pollutants that are primary contributors to smog and acid rain (including oxides of nitrogen and sulfur dioxide), and therefore electricity producers cannot increase these emissions in their efforts to meet the increased energy demanded from plug-in hybrids. Existing laws tighten these cap levels over time forcing power plants to get cleaner.

We already have a road map for the right way to deploy plug-in vehicles. As soon as the vehicles are ready for the market, they should be introduced in large numbers across the nation in areas where the public is assured that plugging in will not lead to localized air pollution problems. We need to also keep improving the efficiency of these and other vehicles, so we continually reduce fuel demand by maximizing fuel economy (both miles per gallon and miles per kilowatt-hour). Simultaneously, we should follow examples for controlling global warming pollution from electric sector set by California (AB32 Global Warming Solutions Act and SB1368 Greenhouse Gas Performance Standard) and the Northeast states (Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative).

So let’s get started. It takes nearly fifteen years to turnover the fleet of vehicles on the road, and power plants can live for fifty years or more. Deploying plug-in vehicles smartly will put us on the path of clean, electrified transportation.

Plug-ins: The Next Generation of Hybrids

2008-01-14T21:07:47Z

Yesterday, giant automaker Toyota released some very hopeful news about the availability of advanced batteries to power plug-in hybrid vehicles. At the annual North American International Automobile Show, Toyota Motor Corporation’s CEO Katsuaki Watanabe announced that beginning in 2010 the company will deliver “a significant fleet” of plug-in hybrid demonstration vehicles running on lithium batteries for use by fleet customers. He further remarked that Toyota is in the planning phase of an expansion of their current hybrid battery supplier, Panasonic EV, to include a lithium battery production line.

Plug-in hybrids are the next generation of hybrids. The key enabling technology of these vehicles is the advanced battery and Toyota’s plan to roll-out vehicles and build battery production lines is important because the company appears serious about taking the next step with their hybrid technology.

To be considered a green technology leader, automakers need plug-in hybrids in their lineup. Plug-in hybrids are a critical component of a sustainable transportation future that gets us off oil and reduces emissions. Driving a plug-in charged with renewable energy emits only as much global warming pollution as a 74 mpg car. (See more details in this NRDC factsheet.)

While Toyota and GM, which has been heavily promoting its Chevy Volt, are seeking positive press with their plug-in announcements, they are also doing some of the work necessary to meet future regulations in California’s Zero Emission Vehicle Program. A proposal to update the ZEV program will require the six largest automakers to produce thousands of plug-in hybrids annually starting in 2012.

Just getting plug-ins on the road doesn’t finish the job, however. We also need clean fuels, which means clean grid electricity for plug-ins. California is a great place for plug-in hybrids because the grid on average emits about half as much heat trapping greenhouse gases per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced than the national average. Also, the story gets better over time because California has the policies in place to keep making the grid cleaner including a cap on global warming pollution emissions, renewable portfolio standards, and power plant performance standards that block expansion of dirty coal generation.

Nationally, wide-scale adoption of plug-in hybrids can provide significant reductions in global warming pollution if the grid cleans up. NRDC collaborated with the Electric Power Research Institute on a comprehensive study that found that a vehicle fleet of predominantly plug-ins charged from a very clean grid could reduce transportation global warming pollution by more than 600 million metric tons of CO2-equivalent annually by 2050, which has the same effect of taking 110 million cars off the road.

When not running on electricity, plug-in hybrids should be fueled with biofuels. A‘flex-fuel’ plug-in hybrid could allow Americans to eventually kick the oil habit entirely and reduce emissions further. It will take time to reach this vision, however. The vehicle fleet turns over slowly (and the power sector even more slowly), so we need to start putting clean plug-ins hybrids on the road today. That brings us back to batteries.

Toyota and GM are consistent in their remarks about lithium battery prospects: producing affordable, long-lasting automotive batteries still has engineering challenges, but they don’t need to wait for new technology inventions. I’m hopeful that engineers can soon deliver batteries that will make plug-in hybrids a real possibility for all drivers, and I will be convinced when I see them in the showroom.