A recent article on Parade.com entitled What Will Fuel Our Next Cars? explores the most promising gas alternatives today. While I appreciate the comparison, the article fails to mention the environmental impact of alternatives being explored.
Mark Z. Jacobson, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford University, in a paper that reviewed and ranked major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air-pollution mortality and energy security. His findings were published in this month’s issue of Energy & Environmental Science – Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security.
Jacobson ranked the raw energy sources in the following order: wind, concentrated solar (the use of mirrors to heat a fluid), geothermal, tidal, solar photovoltaics (rooftop solar panels), wave and hydroelectric.
Not recommended were nuclear, coal with carbon capture and sequestration, corn ethanol and cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass. In the “you’ve got to be kidding me” department, a story in the Wall Street Journal says that the ethanol industry’s lobbying group, the Renewable Fuels Association, is asking for a $1 billion short-term credit line as well as $50 billion in loan guarantees on top of its regular taxpayer subsidies. This is an industry which wouldn’t even be in existence without $25 billion in taxpayer subsidies.
Just switching from one environmentally deleterious fuel option to another equally as bad accomplishes nothing. The worst options seem to be the ones that get the most attention, even taxpayer funding.
- BEV – battery-electric vehicle
- CCS – coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology
- CSP – concentrated solar power
- HFCV – hydrogen fuel cell vehicles
- PV – solar-photovoltaic
My additions to the chart below are in italics.
|
Type of Vehicle |
Environmental Impact |
Cost to Drive |
Price and Availability |
| Battery-Powered Electric | Depends on whether the electricity comes from wind, nuclear, or coal. No tailpipe emissions.
Recommended sources of electricity include wind, concentrated solar power, geothermal, tidal, wave, solar-photovoltaic and hydroelectric. Coal and nuclear are not recommended options. |
3 cents per mile based on today’s electricity prices. | The Tesla Roadster costs $109,000. Other small companies make low-speed cars starting under $10,000. |
| Natural Gas | Emits 95% less smog-causing pollutants and 30% less greenhouse gases than gasoline.
This doesn’t resolve the problem of being dependent on a fossil fuel. |
A gallon ranges from 60 cents to more than $2. Honda’s Civic GX gets 24 mpg in the city, 36 on the highway. | The Honda Civic GX costs $25,200. Conversion kits for vehicles like the Chevy Tahoe and Lincoln Town Car start at $1900. |
| Ethanol/Biodiesel | Lower emissions than gasoline, but critics say more energy is used to produce ethanol than is contained in the fuel itself.
Cellulosic- and corn-E85 were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste according to Mark Jacobson’s findings. |
Ethanol costs about $2 per gallon, biodiesel $4. Mileage is 10%-20% less in cars using E85, an 85% ethanol blend. | Special models of vehicles like the Chrysler Sebring, Ford F-150, and GMC Yukon all can run on E85 and cost about the same as regular models of those cars.
In response to the Parade article, GM responded that it is the leader in E85 FlexFuel vehicles, with over 3 million FlexFuel vehicles on the road in the U.S. By 2012, half of GM’s annual vehicle production will be E85 or biodiesel capable. When ethanol is the worst possible option, how is this a good thing? |
| Hybrid | Better gas mileage means lower emissions. | The Toyota Prius, the most-efficient and most-popular hybrid, gets 45 mpg.
The Honda Civic gets 42 mpg and costs $22,600. |
The Prius costs $22,000; Chevy’s plug-in hybrid Volt should be available in 2010 for $40,000.
GM insists that the Volt is actually an extended range electric vehicle that can drive 40 miles on battery power after an overnight charge. A gasoline-powered generator provides electric power when the car is driven beyond the 40-mile battery range. Sounds like semantics to me. |
| Hydrogen Combustion | Virtually no tailpipe emissions. Some pollution is created converting natural gas into hydrogen. | When the market is established, a gallon should cost about $1.10.
The Honda Clarity gets 68 mpg making the $5 per gallon fuel a bit more palatable according to Edmunds Inside Line.And where does the cost of $1.10 come from? |
BMW and Ford are making test vehicles, but no car is commercially available.
Honda’s FCX Clarity, was launched in early 2008 (3 yr. lease, $600/mo.) in test markets in New York City, Washington D.C. and California.The cars are not available for purchase. No mention of Daimler’s hydrogen fuel cell bus fleet? There are 30 buses in Europe with three each in Perth, Australia and Beijing, China. |
For vehicle options in each category check out Compare Types of Hybrid Car Technologies at hybridcars.com.
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Welcome to Verda Vivo. My name is Daryl Warner Laux.
NIce article, but it is about another bright study saying that nuclear is bad…
Now tell me: 78 percent of the electricity powering this very house and very country is nuclear made. do we have kids with eleven toes, two heads or a third arm ? no.
what I say is this: coal is behind 50 % of US electricity and nuclear is behind 20 % if I am correct. what brings the most casualties ? the air pollution (or water, or whatever… ) induced by coal or the accidents of nuclear ?
I am clearly pro nuclear. and each time I see a study saying nuclear is bad… well, it makes me tick.
concerning the rest of the study, hydrogen won’t solve our problems as we still get to create it.
I bought a French science magazine with a paper on that very topic. I will read it and propose a resume of it on my blog, so stay tuned
Edouard, I look forward to a post on your blog about the pros and cons of nuclear.
What Mark Jacobson says about nuclear is that “nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide”. There’s also the radioactive waste that needs to be stored for thousands of years. Breeder reactors extend the lifetime of a given mass of uranium significantly, however the reprocessing of spent uranium for additional fuel increases the ability of uranium and plutonium to be weaponized more readily than in once-through reactors.
As of April 1, 2008, 439 nuclear power plants were installed in 31 countries (including 104 in the US, 59 in France, 55 in Japan, 31 in the Russian Federation, and 20 in the Republic of Korea). The US produces more electric power from nuclear energy than any other country (29.2% of the world total in 2005). France, Japan, and Germany follow. France uses nuclear power to supply 79% of its electricity.
In his review Jacobson took into account the effects of nuclear energy on nuclear war and terrorism. Worldwide, nine countries have known nuclear weapons stockpiles (US, Russia, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea). In addition, Iran is pursuing uranium enrichment, and 32 other countries have sufficient fissionable material to produce weapons. Among the 42 countries with fissionable material, 22 have facilities as part of their civilian nuclear energy program, either to produce highly-enriched uranium or to separate plutonium, and facilities in 13 countries are active. The ability of states to produce nuclear weapons today follows directly from their ability to produce nuclear power.
It seems prudent to include this as a scenario given man’s inclination to fight with his fellow man.
well, it depends I would say. if nuclear proliferation hits countries that are unstable, it could be a big problem.
but the huge overwhelming countries – if not all of them – understand that launching an atomic bomb to another one would be disastrous for the country itself.
it worked for many years between your country and what was called at the time the CCCP / USSR.
of course smaller bombs have to be considered but if responsible countries take care of their own stuff, this shouldn’t be a big problem.
but before we hit such proliferation, we would have fusion. and with fusion, no more worries as it would consume trivial stuff and release water…
to get a better grasp of what I think of nuclear, you may would like to check out those links:
A great book by one of the fathers of environmentalism
http://www.elrst.com/2007/12/30/the-revenge-of-gaia-by-james-lovelock/
All articles tagged nuclear on my blog:
http://www.elrst.com/tag/nuclear/
As I said many times: Nuclear is not the solution, but there is no solution without it.
Furthermore, no solution is perfect (except negawatt / energy conservation )
http://www.elrst.com/2008/01/15/there-is-no-perfect-energy-generating-solution/
I may be biased being French – No, I am as a matter of fact – since my country as you note gets a lot of its energy from nuclear.
but what is the worst solution: coal or nuclear ? my country has really low per capita emissions thanks to nuclear. is that a bad thing ?
my future article would be on the future of automobile, not nuclear. But I have to write an article on nuclear vs coal. I already have the data, but not the time. one day in 2009…
well, that’s a long comment. hope it will help you understand my humble opinion on that very topic.
Good nite Daryl, and keep it up, it’s always a pleasure to read from you.
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