Climate Progress: An insider's view of climate science, politics, and solutions

The op-ed in the November 19th LA Times (We Need Voltswagens in the print edition; Bring back the electric car online) deserves attention from the public and state policy makers. Sherry Boschert, author of Plug-in Hybrids, is publicly posing the stark question as it needs to be asked: Will the California Air Resources Board (CARB) push for cars capable of zero-emission driving for today’s consumers using available, affordable, tested battery technology or will they support mere research programs even proponents say won’t be marketable for a generation.

On the ground at the LA Auto Show–and on the air (Honda here and BMW here)–automakers tout hydrogen & fuel cell vehicles disingenuously as “ready for the world when the world is ready.” Behind the scenes they lobby to lower the numbers of these million-dollar babies they must produce to meet their zero emission vehicle obligations. As Martin Zimmerman of the LA Times recently wrote in an otherwise gushing review of the Toyota FCHV recently, “Maybe, as some critics like to say, hydrogen is the fuel of the future and always will be.”

It’s past time the public, environmental organizations and policy makers got hip to the automaker con game and all got on the same page advocating plug-in cars. I look forward to CARB’s response.

More posts by Marc G. can be found at Plugs and Cars.

Related Climate Progress posts:

• Dream of hydrogen car goes down in flames
• Climate Progress Dehypes Hydrogen Again
• The Car of the Future: Plug-in Hybrids
• The Hype About Hydrogen: Fact and Fiction in the Race to Save the Climate

Looks like the beginning of a trend toward realism:

One of the most senior forward-thinkers at Europe’s bigger car-maker … Volkswagen’s head of research Dr Jurgen Leohold told Autocar that he thinks fuel cell cars like VW’s own HyMotion Touran research car are not the future of alternative power, and are only really being developed as a sop to ever-tightening emissions laws in places such as California.

Describing them as a “marketing exercise,” he said their inherent problem lies with producing
the hydrogen fuel to power them, and in establishing an infrastructure of hydrogen filling stations. “Because hydrogen has to be produced using existing power, CO2 emissions are still an issue,” he said.

Ouch!

But if not hydrogen, what could possibly be the answer?

Instead, Dr Leohold reckons the immediate future of alternative power for cars lies with biofuels
and beyond that with battery power, and we’ll see huge improvements in battery technology in the next five years. “You can see it already in mobile phone and computer batteries,” he said.

It would be nice if GM or Honda would make such a statement.

Related nails in the coffin posts:

• Dream of hydrogen car goes down in flames
• Climate Progress Dehypes Hydrogen Again
• The Car of the Future: Plug-in Hybrids
• The Hype About Hydrogen: Fact and Fiction in the Race to Save the Climate

Ballard — the Canadian fuel cell company that once hoped to be the Intel inside of the hydrogen car revolution — has sold off its automotive fuel cell business to Daimler and Ford.

You can listen to a good CBC radio story on it, which includes an interview of me (click on “Listen to the Current,” Part 2). You can read Toronto Star columnist Tyler Hamilton on the story here. A Financial Post post piece headlines the story bluntly:

Hydrogen highway hits dead end
Ballard’s talks with potential buyers is admission that dream of hydrogen fuel car is dead: analyst

The story has a keen interpretation of the sale’s meaning from Research Capital analyst Jon Hykawy:

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Everything you could possibly want to know about clean technology in the Golden State can be found in an excellent new report, the California Green Innovation Index published by Next 10, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. The report tracks the state’s economic and environmental performance and analyzes key indicators to better understand the role green innovation plays in reducing emissions and growing the economy.

California is a state whose growth has always been built around innovation, as this figure from the report shows:

We’ve often written about California’s leadership policies in energy efficiency — but the report points out a number of fascinating factoids we weren’t aware of:

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In my third of three blogs (Part I here and Part II here) in response to the Businessweek article about Aspen Skiing Company’s work (”Little Green Lies“), I’ll end with a discussion of where we might go now at Aspen Skiing Company to address climate change.

First, some context. Thinking about the challenges corporations face in trying to reduce CO2 emissions, I emailed my colleague Randy Udall, who until recently ran an energy efficiency nonprofit near Aspen. I asked about Suncor, which used to have an incredible corporate program to address carbon dioxide emissions, but then ended up blowing it all by developing Alberta’s tar sands. Randy noted that there are some things you simply are not going to “green,” and tar sands (and snowmaking) are pretty near the top of the list. [JR: Well, tar sands is at the top of the list -- snowmaking is a ways down.]

The raison d’etre of business is to make money. Making money means using energy. Growing your company generally means using more energy.

I pointed out that realistically, we’re not going to “green” business, though we’ll hopefully make some headway. We’re going to have to green the whole system so that business isn’t as damaging. Or, we’re simply going to fail.

Randy agreed, pointing out that this is also why a focus on emissions is the wrong way to think about this problem. You have to transform the energy system and find another way to fuel prosperity. Just trying to reduce emissions tends to blind you to what is really needed.

One blogger was very insistent that we stop making artificial snow early in the season. His point was that we need to get radical. Ignoring the fact that we no longer operate snow guns unless it’s appropriately cold out–ie, below 20 degrees F, let’s say we did that. Let’s say it would cut our carbon footprint 5%. And let’s say every ski resort in Colorado did the same thing. Bottom line–it wouldn’t do anything. We’d still be out of business in 50 years. We need to implement these aggressive actions, but we need to think bigger. Below is the climate strategy for ASC moving forward: (more…)