Energy Efficiency in the News (Finally!)
At last, some of the nation’s biggest newspapers have been making a big deal of energy efficiency and conservation.
Over the weekend the Washington Post ran an article on California’s ambitious and profitable efforts by utilities. The Post’s article followed an energy series by the Wall Street Journal on cutting energy use and costs.
Two of the WSJ pieces worth highlighting are”How to Cut Energy Costs” (subs. req’d), which provides options for saving energy and money around the house, and “The Bottom Line” (subs. req’d), whose content overlaps with the Post’s piece.
All three pieces overlap in that their bottom line is that energy conservation is literally at your fingertips, with just the flip of a switch, and energy savings are as equally tangible. Mechanisms differ, but many utilities are climbing on board to maintain profits and avoid unnecessary construction costs.
February 21st, 2007 at 6:09 pm
You can get free access into that Wall Street Journal article with a netpass from: http://news.congoo.com
This was in several blogs last week.
March 3rd, 2007 at 5:36 pm
please see www.alternative-energy-international.com
for new low cost hydrogen technology.
the following
story from ABC TV (AUSTRALIA) 01/03/2007
www.abc.com.au/catalyst
“Narration: Next stop, UC Davis, to meet alternative fuel expert, Professor Dan Sperling.
Dr Jonica Newby: So this is part of the hydrogen highway? Dan Sperling: Well not only that, it was the very first station on the Californian hydrogen highway.
Narration: Hydrogen has long been the front runner to replace petrol.
This car is a prototype, but the first commercial Hydrogen car has just been released in Germany – though it’ll set you back a few Euros.
At the heart of the Hydrogen car is the fuel cell.
Professor Dan Sperling: Well a fuel cell is in many ways a very simple device, it takes hydrogen and converts it to electricity, and electricity drives the, the vehicle because it’s an electric vehicle, electric motors - and water is the only by-product
Narration: But hydrogen isn’t the only new fuel on the block.
Professor Dan Sperling: This is the UC Davis Bio-gas plant. It takes waste like food and paper and converts it into energy.
Narration: There are biofuels such as biodiesel from waste, or ethanol from sugar or corn.
But the greenhouse benefits of many biofuels are disputed – and we simply can’t grow enough. And hydrogen too has flaws.
Dr. Joe Romm: You need 5 miracles to happen in order to make hydrogen work; you have to solve the fuel cell problem, and they’re very expensive, you need a major breakthrough; you have to solve the storage problem
Narration: Dr Joe Romm is the US former acting assistant secretary of energy.
Dr. Joe Romm: Hydrogen’s quite expensive; someone has to build all the hydrogen fuelling stations; and then, for hydrogen cars to succeed, all other alternative fuel vehicles pretty much have to fail.
Narration: Even hydrogen supporters admit it’s decades away from being widely viable.
So isn’t there a technology that’s ready to replace my gas guzzler now?
Well, there is one.
It’s a hybrid car, but not as we know it.
It’s a plug in hybrid and the pioneer who’s been developing them for the last 30 years is Engineering Professor, Andy Frank.
The beauty of the plug in hybrid is that the gasoline engine is just a backup – the car travels the first 100 km purely on electricity.
Professor Andrew Frank: What we’re doing is we’re driving only on electricity at this moment
Dr Jonica Newby: Really, so ah, cost per mile is like, you know, like one 8th the cost of using gasoline in Australia [chuckles]
Narration: If that sounds good, imagine the extra savings – and greenhouse benefits you’d get - from going solar.
Dr Jonica Newby: So you could actually generate all your power, house and car, from your own roof?
Professor Andrew Frank: That’s correct.
Dr Jonica Newby: I find that utterly inspiring, I really do.
Professor Andrew Frank: Well, we have to get the car companies to build these things.
Narration: For 30 years, that’s been a losing battle.
But then we heard something so extraordinary, we had to take a detour to the City of Cars itself Detroit.
Dr Jonica Newby: Well, my road movie seems to have turned into a bit of a thriller. We’ve been picked up and we’re being taken to a secret location, it’s a place film crews have hardly ever been allowed to get into // this could be the world’s first glimpse of the car we’ll all be driving in just a few years time.
Narration: We’re heading into the high security design studios of the world’s largest car company - General Motors.
Head of development, Jon Lauckner, has just committed to producing the world’s first commercial plug in hybrid within a couple years.
Dr Jonica Newby: So this is it?
John Lauckner: This is it
Dr Jonica Newby: So this is our Chevrolet concept car to demonstrate our new eflex propulsion system, it’s the first application of eflex.
Dr Jonica Newby: Eflex meaning?
John Lauckner: E’ standing for electric and ‘Flex’ standing for flexibility
Narration: When the car exceeds electric range, it switches automatically to either petrol, or a biofuel or hydrogen.
John Lauckner: It’s really to give us the flexibility of a range of propulsion systems and basically reduce and, over time, eliminate our dependency on petroleum fuels. It’s really the electrification of vehicles on a scale that we haven’t seen in the past
Narration: Whoa – did I just hear that ? Did the company that famously crushed all its electric cars only 3 years ago publicly announce the end of petrol and the age of electric?
If I had any doubts, this statement from the heartland of the combustion engine has clinched it.
No one knows what will ultimately win out. The car companies are hedging their bets –developing modular cars that will take any fuel plus electricity.
And if batteries continue to improve, the future will be fully electric.
In the meantime, I’m left wondering if I can hold off my new car purchase just another few years. Bring on the plug in hybrid.”
April 16th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
We found an interesting article about the problems with Ethanol on ConsumerReports.org:
http://blogs.consumerreports.org/cars/2008/03/ethanol-e85.html
“But there are some problems with increasing ethanol blends. Ethanol contains less energy than gasoline, so increasing the amount of ethanol in gasoline will likely result in lower fuel economy. Increasing standard fuel blends from zero to 10 percent ethanol, as is happening today, has little or no impact on fuel economy. In tests, the differences occur within the margin of error, about 0.5 percent. Further increasing ethanol levels to 20 percent reduces fuel economy between 1 and 3 percent, according to testing by the DOE and General Motors. Evaluations are underway to determine if E20 will burn effectively in today’s engines without impacting reliability and longevity, and also assessing potential impact on fuel economy.”
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