Posted on 08/14/2005 2:26:28 PM PDT by BurbankKarl
CORTE MADERA, Calif. - Politicians and automakers say a car that can both reduce greenhouse gases and free America from its reliance on foreign oil is years or even decades away. Ron Gremban says such a car is parked in his garage.
It looks like a typical Toyota Prius hybrid, but in the trunk sits an 80 miles-per-gallon secret a stack of 18 brick-size batteries that boosts the car's high mileage with an extra electrical charge so it can burn even less fuel.
Gremban, an electrical engineer and committed environmentalist, spent several months and $3,000 tinkering with his car.
Like all hybrids, his Prius increases fuel efficiency by harnessing small amounts of electricity generated during braking and coasting. The extra batteries let him store extra power by plugging the car into a wall outlet at his home in this San Francisco suburb all for about a quarter.
He's part of a small but growing movement. "Plug-in" hybrids aren't yet cost-efficient, but some of the dozen known experimental models have gotten up to 250 mpg.
They have support not only from environmentalists but also from conservative foreign-policy hawks who insist Americans fuel terrorism through their gas guzzling.
And while the technology has existed for three decades, automakers are beginning to take notice, too.
So far, DaimlerChrysler AG is the only company that has committed to building its own plug-in hybrids, quietly pledging to make up to 40 vans for U.S. companies. But Toyota Motor Corp. officials who initially frowned on people altering their cars now say they may be able to learn from them.
"They're like the hot rodders of yesterday who did everything to soup up their cars. It was all about horsepower and bling-bling, lots of chrome and accessories," said Cindy Knight, a Toyota spokeswoman. "Maybe the hot rodders of tomorrow are the people who want to get in there and see what they can do about increasing fuel economy."
The extra batteries let Gremban drive for 20 miles with a 50-50 mix of gas and electricity. Even after the car runs out of power from the batteries and switches to the standard hybrid mode, it gets the typical Prius fuel efficiency of around 45 mpg. As long as Gremban doesn't drive too far in a day, he says, he gets 80 mpg.
"The value of plug-in hybrids is they can dramatically reduce gasoline usage for the first few miles every day," Gremban said. "The average for people's usage of a car is somewhere around 30 to 40 miles per day. During that kind of driving, the plug-in hybrid can make a dramatic difference."
Backers of plug-in hybrids acknowledge that the electricity to boost their cars generally comes from fossil fuels that create greenhouse gases, but they say that process still produces far less pollution than oil. They also note that electricity could be generated cleanly from solar power.
Gremban rigged his car to promote the nonprofit CalCars Initiative, a San Francisco Bay area-based volunteer effort that argues automakers could mass produce plug-in hybrids at a reasonable price.
But Toyota and other car companies say they are worried about the cost, convenience and safety of plug-in hybrids and note that consumers haven't embraced all-electric cars because of the inconvenience of recharging them like giant cell phones.
Automakers have spent millions of dollars telling motorists that hybrids don't need to be plugged in, and don't want to confuse the message.
Nonetheless, plug-in hybrids are starting to get the backing of prominent hawks like former CIA Director James Woolsey and Frank Gaffney, President Reagan's undersecretary of defense. They have joined Set America Free, a group that wants the government to spend $12 billion over four years on plug-in hybrids, alternative fuels and other measures to reduce foreign oil dependence.
Gaffney, who heads the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy, said Americans would embrace plug-ins if they understood arguments from him and others who say gasoline contributes to oil-rich Middle Eastern governments that support terrorism.
"The more we are consuming oil that either comes from places that are bent on our destruction or helping those who are ... the more we are enabling those who are trying to kill us," Gaffney said.
DaimlerChrysler spokesman Nick Cappa said plug-in hybrids are ideal for companies with fleets of vehicles that can be recharged at a central location at night. He declined to name the companies buying the vehicles and said he did not know the vehicles' mileage or cost, or when they would be available.
Okay, so it is $370 + $350 + $250 which is $970 a year in actual costs excluding fuel. That is still more than your $800 fuel bill annually. The point being that the actual operating costs are higher than most people realize (and higher than you estimated).
I've never heard of Rapeseed but I'm open to almost anything that works. Can Rapeseed be grown fast enough and in enough quantity to be viable? Are there any uses for the by product?
Rapeseed (Brassica napus). Because Americans get all squirmy when they hear the word "rape" in Rapeseed, it's more commonly known by the marketing term Canola (Canada Napus Oil Low Acid).
Most fuel crops are rated by the amount of energy they can produce per area of land per year. Rapeseed produces about 1000 kg of oil per hectare per year. Output can be increased beyond this by growing particular cultivars (most of which are patented) and by intensive fertilization. However, because this leads to all sorts of patent licensing issues and intensive fertilization, while increasing the total output, requires much more input energy and might not achieve a 3 to 1 net energy ration.
There are other potential fuel crops that produce much more than Rapeseed. Avocados (Persea americana) produce more than 2200 kg of oil per hectare per year, but they don't grow well in North America's vast prairie lands. If I owned farmland in California (and could stomach the state's loopy politics), I'd seriously be looking to trademark the term "Guacamoleum". Oil Palms (Elaeis guineensis) produce more than 5000 kg of oil per hectare per year, but they don't grow well anywhere in the U.S. outside of Southern California, Florida, and Hawaii.
Of course, even the Oil Palm is small potatoes. The fuel crop with the potential of American fuel independence is algae. Some strains of algae can produce more than 40,000 kg of oil per hectare per year. And those are naturally occurring strains. A simple organism like algae should be relatively easy to genetically modify for maximum oil output. Because algae grow constantly, they can be harvested year round. All they need to do this is lots of sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water to grow in.
The water doesn't even need to be fresh. Salty brackish polluted wastewater will suit the algae just fine. The algae ponds don't even need to take up existing food growing farmland, and the water doesn't need to be fresh. In fact, the best locations to grow algae is in the middle of the sunny desert wasteland.
Unfortunately, before algae's full fuel potential can be realized, some investment will be needed in developing oil algae farming and oil extraction techniques. Currently, the only companies that engage in large scale algae growing are Amway and a few hippie food supplement producers. I don't know if they are the ideal companies for developing an emerging algal based renewable fuel industry, but they are the best current place to start. Eventually, someone is going to put some money into this, and make a bundle from it.
The real costs of hybrids will be dumping the old batteries. Besides the cost of replacement, dumping 100 million tons of batteries in landfills will get old quick. Recycling might work, but chances are good you will have to PAY someone to do it.
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