Green Options

In an unexpected U-turn, the U.S. Senate has agreed to continue to back research for the next generation of hydrogen cars - funding that the Obama administration had earlier proposed to cut.

The move came last Thursday as Senate members voted to commit $187 million to hydrogen research, almost as much as was promised before the indecision.

This is an excerpt of a guest column Nick Chambers, editor of Gas 2.0, wrote for Popular Mechanics. You can read the whole column on the Popular Mechanics website.

The road trip—driving cross-country for days on end, crammed into a vehicle with your family—is virtually a required rite of passage for most Americans. The lure of the open road is as ingrained in our psyche and culture as the hamburger, football or fishing. So it’s no surprise that proposals for new types of taxes on these seemingly free highways—traditionally paid for by gas taxes and tolls—are causing an uproar.

Back in July of this year, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) proposed a bill that allocates funds to research the effectiveness of taxing highway usage by the mile. On the surface, the bill seems to be laying the groundwork for big government to track our driving habits while simultaneously discouraging the driving of more fuel-efficient vehicles. It doesn’t have to be this way.

A team of researchers at MIT are engineering a strain of bacteria, which is similar to the type that causes tuberculosis, to produce biofuel.

The researchers say that the bacteria are useful because they are hungry for a number of sugars and toxic compounds and produce lipids that can be converted to biodiesel.

Alternative-fuel supercars really seem to be picking up steam. Hybrid Lamborghinis? Electric Gullwings? All very cool stuff, but the field is quickly becoming crowded by competitors to the eco-supercar crown. A new California-based company called Steenstra GCM has announced the Styletto, “the first 200-mph-plus super sports car to be built in California” according to the press release.

Germany has launched an exciting new plan to establish a national hydrogen fuel network, which could be fully operational as early as 2015.

On behalf of the German government, the transport minister Wolfgang Tiefensee has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with eight industrial partners to set up the H2 mobility scheme. High profile participants include Daimler, EnBW, Linde, OMV, Shell, Total, Vattenfall and the NOW GmbH National Organisation Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology.

Speaking about the groundbreaking plan, the first of its kind anywhere in the world, Tiefensee said, “Our aim is to continue consistent and systematic promotion of electromobility based on batteries and fuel cells. Today we can see that Germany is setting the pace when it comes to hydrogen and fuel cell technology. We are aiming at establishing the nationwide supply with hydrogen in Germany at around 2015 in order to support the serial-production of fuel cell vehicles.”

Earlier this month, a team of scientists at the University of North Dakota’s Energy and Environmental Research Center (EERC) successfully tested a new biofuel based on a mixture of canola and soybean oils, and claim it may be the key to zero emission aviation [video].

The new super-biofuel, known as Jet Propellant-8 (JP-8) was used to launch a rocket above the Mojave Desert, where it approached the speed of sound and reached an altitude of 20,000 feet - a major leap forward in biofuel-powered flight.

Speaking about the launch Carsten Heide, associate director for the EERC said, “We demonstrated that this fuel is a flying fuel, and is 100% renewable and burns clean. It would open up the possibility to run 100% renewable, clean planes. You can see in the picture how clean it burns.”

United States Secretary of Energy Steven Chu is by far my favorite member of the Obama Administration; I am even one of his many facebook fans. It is so exciting that science is no longer a dirty word, as it was during the dark ages of Bush. To me, the Nobel Laueate Chu comes across as a no nonsense incredibly competent visionary,

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The first car my best friend ever drove was a early 80’s Honda Accord hatchback. It was little more than an oversized rollarskate with a tiny, 80 horsepower engine, but it beat the hell out of walking. The car itself was cramped and lacked all the amenities one would find standard on today’s cars, even cupholders. Today, the car serves as an immobile flower bed for a maple tree and wildflowers, but the memories will remain.

Flash forward to today, and a new study finds that since the early ’80’s the Honda Accord has packed on over 1,000 lbs, doubled its standard horsepower, and fuel economy has steadily dipped. The study seems to suggest that if vehicle weight, horsepower, and torque were held at their 1980’s levels, then fuel efficiency could have increased by at least 50%, rather than the 15% increase that actually occured. But is it really that simple?

Renewable sources of energy are beginning to replace coal power in the U.S.:

Every year the percentage of U.S. electricity generated from renewables has been increasing, according to the latest figures released by the Energy Information Administration in its Electric Power Monthly report.

As a result, by April of 2009, the total was 12.97 percent, with hydropower accounting for 8.73 percent and other renewables like solar and wind 4.24 percent of all U.S. electricity on average among all the states.  Higher wind generation totals in just 4 states accounted for 62.2 percent of the national increase in wind powered generation: Texas, Iowa, New York, and Indiana.

By contrast the percentage of electricity from fossil power is now actually decreasing.

Comparing April 2008 to April 2009, coal-fired generation fell by 20,551 thousand megawatt-hours, or 13.9 percent. Declines in 7 states accounted for 52.3 percent of the national decrease in coal-fired generation: they were Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, North Carolina, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Texas.

According to Missouri Senator Kit Bond (R) the cap and trade Waxman-Markey Bill “is really a pig in a poke.” That’s what he told the committee on Tuesday, anyway. Given the opportunity to speak in front of a committee on the financial impacts that the climate bill would have on farmers, Senator Bond wasted no time calling the bill a hoax.

Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) have sponsored the NAT GAS Act. This bill is aimed at giving natural gas the push it needs to become part of the cure for America’s oil addiction. Senator Reid (D-Nevada) is also an original co-sponsor.

“Each day, our nation consumes about 21 million barrels of oil- more than 25 percent of the world’s oil supply,” Reid said. And most of that oil comes from foreign soil. “With only 3 percent of the world’s oil reserves, we cannot produce our way to a safe and secure energy future,” Reid continued.

The new legislation would promote the use of natural gas over traditional oil by using tax credits. This legislation would, in effect, be an extension of the CLEAR Act - encouraging the growth of natural-gas infrastructures to go along with the current boom in hybrid-electric vehicles.