CARazed

If you start reading my posts you might think I’m anti bio-diesel and ethanol. Actually I’m pretty much pro everything green. I simply think that plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) are the best short term solution. PHEVs and bio -uels are also not mutually exclusive. Why couldn’t a flex fuel, bio-diesel, or even strait vegetable oil (SVO) engine be mounted in a PHEV?

The problem I see with bio-fuels is simply infrastructure, and a lack of it. I live near Sacramento, California’s state capital and right smack dab in the middle of one of the biggest agricultural centers in the world. You’d think there would be tons of gas stations offering bio-diesel, ethanol and E85. I’m sad to say that’s not the case. I know bizarre but a good example of the problem.

All around me are people who would adopt bio-fuel cars but there are few options for supporting such a vehicle in sight. I’m forced to conclude that if we want an immediate solution we have to accept the enormous wide spread availability of fossil fuels… but only for the short term while the bio-fuel infrastructure is built.

PHEVs represent a bridge to all electric cars which is where I think we need to go. Burning anything at the vehicle isn’t the most ideal long term goal. Burning hydrogen at the car is a second best but even that has draw backs. The vast majority of hydrogen production today comes from processing fossil fuel. If we move toward hydrogen fuel cells with the goal of satying off fossil fuels we must put in a hydrogen manufacturing infrastructure that uses electrolysis of water.

Electricity is also a major issue. About half of the electricity in the United States comes from burning coal, thanks to George W Bush and his coal lobby buddies. Before bush natural gas was the major fossil fuel used for generating electricity. So if Americans really want to kick the fossil fuel habit long term we need to get off this coal burned for electricity practice too.

So if it were up to me… ha ha… all auto makers would slow hydrogen fuel cell research for now, since it is so long term, and focus on building flex-fuel plug-in hybrids. Advancing battery technology would need to become the primary focus of research. Building a decentralized power grid that gets the vast majority of it’s power from renewable sources like wind and solar. For example if all our homes has a couple dozen photovoltaic panels on the roof all feeding power back to the grid, and our cars stored electricity at night, as PHEVs do, we’d be in far better shape. We’d also have a path laid out to a future filled with fun, fast and silent electric cars.

Bio-fuels in my mind will help us get there, and may play a role in generating electricity in the future, but PHEVs in the short term followed by a long term goal off all electric cars makes a whole lot more sense. Comments?

This is not new news but a short story worth telling since it gets little air time in the America. The 1973 oil crisis acted as a catalyst for the Brazilian government to begin an ethanol program to create an alternative to foreign fossil fuels. Over the years the program grew, went through many growing pains, but overall has been a remarkable success story.

Today most Brazilians drive cars that run on ethanol or gasohol. Dual-fuel (a.k.a. Flex-Fuel) cars are expected to become more abundant in the near future. Brazilian ethanol is created locally from sugarcane. In 2005 Brazil consumed 2,000,000 barrels of oil per day compared to 280,000 barrels of ethanol. So fossil fuels are still a major piece of the Brazilian fuel landscape. Brazil still imports oil for certain byproducts like diesel that can’t be replaced by ethanol. More on Ethanol in Brazil