I have been accused of dissing hybrids. I was mostly discussing Prius-type parallel hybrids and all the support they get, when one can get the same carbon reduction by buying a cheaper, similar-sized and -featured car and buying $10 worth of carbon credits. I was objecting to greenwashing (powered by a large marketing machine) that suggests hybrids can solve our problems.
Corn ethanol, which has been heavily maligned in the mainstream media, reduces carbon emissions (on a per-mile-driven basis) by almost the same amount as today's typical hybrid. Despite the similar environmental profiles, one is a media darling and the other is demonized, despite its more competitive economics.
My main complaint has been the lack of critical analysis in this space. Corn ethanol (which I don't believe is a long term solution) has been framed by the oil companies' marketing machine, farm policy critics, and impractical environmentalists (though the NRDC and Sierra Club support corn ethanol's transition role as I do, subject to certain constraints). The Prius and hybrids have been positioned by Toyota's marketing machine. The public is gullible.
I am open and hopeful, especially longer term, on serial plug-in hybrids (a point I'll address in Part III). Price still remains a major issue. Even for serial hybrids, the ability to keep cost, or at least monthly payments, close to that of a regular ICE (internal combustion engine) car is unclear. Maybe another blogger with knowledge of practical automotive costs can detail the likely trajectory of serial hybrid costs (say, with a typical 40-mile "battery range"), as this remains the critical question.
The Prius is the corn ethanol of hybrid cars, and we should recognize that. It has increased investment in battery development, but beyond that it is no different than Gucci bags, a branding luxury for a few who want the "cool eco" branding (70%+ of Prius buyers make more than $100k per year).
In this series, I will try to lay out my views on hybrids as a whole -- what I believe hybrids are good for and what they are not. (My paper on Biofuels Pathways (PDF) delves into the details.)
The primary question is one of cost: how many people will pay $5,000 more (today's typical parallel hybrid premium) for a hybrid that reduces carbon emissions by 25%? Especially when they can get a flex-fuel car that costs about the same as a regular ICE car and can reduce emissions by 75% or more when run on cellulosic biofuels?
The Prius is selling well as a car model (so are Gucci bags) but in irrelevant numbers as a percentage of worldwide new car sales. It and its cohort hybrids are unlikely to make 50% penetration of the new car sales worldwide (or U.S.) anytime soon. Flex-fuel cars went from under 5% of new car sales in Brazil to over 75% in less than three years because they don't cost any more than a regular car. They are projected to be 50% of GM, Ford, and Chrysler's new car sales in the U.S. by 2012.
Serial or parallel plug-in hybrids or electric vehicles (EVs) are unlikely to achieve these kind of penetration numbers any time in the next twenty years. A plug-in, serial hybrid with sufficient driving range to get consumer acceptance (based on automotive folks I have talked to), powered mostly by electricity, would cost at least $5,000 more (probably much more) for the average buyer. (The GM Volt is rumored to have a price point of "less than $30,000" -- I suspect EV's with "sufficient" range of around 150 miles would be at least $15,000 more.)
The exact percentage by which they would reduce carbon emissions is uncertain, dependant on the location and source of electricity -- how much fossil fuel is used in the power grid. Total carbon dioxide emissions from power generation in the grid might one day reach zero, when we have all renewable power in a region and all cars are fully plug-in with large batteries ... but when might that happen? Even if we reached a point where 50% of the cars of the U.S. fleet were today's hybrids, emissions reductions would be an inadequate 10-20%! (Serial hybrid carbon reductions are estimated in Part II.)
Could we get people in India and China, the fastest growing car markets, to ante up this much additional money, when the biggest thrust in volume cars in India is to reduce the cost of the whole car to $2500? Our goal has to be solving the global problem in carbon emissions, and we need to pick technologies that will be adopted by market forces worldwide. We will need cost points such that 50-80% of the car buyers worldwide adopt these new "low-carbon" technology automobiles (in each market -- market conditions and price points vary widely form the US to India).
I believe that battery costs will decline and performance increases will continue, but my review of the technology suggests that the upside with known chemistries is limited to maybe 2-4x change in cost per kwh of capacity -- a significant improvement to be sure, but not nearly enough to change the hybrid or plug-in hybrid cost dynamic.
That being said, we at Khosla Ventures are investing in batteries to try and enable breakthroughs that can beat this 2-4X barrier, hopefully to 5-10X. Other technologists are doing the same. Still, the outcomes look uncertain at this point and, more importantly in our opinion, far less predictable than $1.00-per-gallon production cost, 75-90% carbon reduction capable cellulosic biofuels. Others may differ with our assessment, but we base it on the status of technologies we see under non-disclosure agreements.
Furthermore, it should be noted that it takes approximately fifteen years for the automotive fleet to turn over in the U.S. Any impact will be gradual, not instantaneous. What is the "adoption" cost point and timeline for these technologies, when the fifteen year fleet turnover period can start? I suspect it is when the additional up-front cost of hybrids is paid back through lower fuel costs within 3-4 years.
When will that happen in the U.S.? In the world? In the long term, I still believe we can reach this laudable, clean-electricity-driven transportation goal, but probably not in the next decade or even two (more calculations on carbon emissions per mile later). I do believe that fifty years from now we will probably be running an all-electric fleet for transportation (be it personal cars or public transportation).
Comments
View as Flat
Delay And Deny Posted 2:56 am
14 Jan 2008
I recently visited Portland, Oregon where, before my trip back north to Kent I filled up at the local Shell station.
Not only does Oregon have the quaint anachronism of attendents who pump the gas for you (very labor friendly) but they offer 10 percent ethanol based gasoline.
On the trip back I noticed my car (1991 Pontiac LE with the v6) was super peppy. However, after a while I also noticed a smell coming from the car after driving that I though at first was a coolent leak. Then I realized, it smelled like an old drunk guy -- of course -- it hit me like the doctor in the Andromeda Strain putting the finger on why the old guy was immune -- corn mash! The ethanol made my car smell like a paddy wagon just after making the rounds on Skid Row.
I switched to midgrade pure gasoline. Car is just as peppy...but doesn't remind me of a guy wearing a cap and stained button up sweater.
My Log
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infp Posted 3:47 am
14 Jan 2008
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justlou Posted 4:48 am
14 Jan 2008
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Jon Rynn Posted 4:54 am
14 Jan 2008
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sunflower Posted 5:03 am
14 Jan 2008
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Tom Philpott Posted 5:17 am
14 Jan 2008
That said, I'm surprised that Khosla is using this public forum in such a loose way. The champion of -- and, it must be said, beneficiary of -- government ethanol largesse wrings his hands over "Prius-type parallel hybrids and all the support they get." What? To retain any credibility on this question, Khosla will have to compare, dollar for dollar, ethanol supports with hybrid supports, both current and historic.
Mr. Khosla, do government tax rebates for hybrids cost taxpayers $5.5 to $7.3 billion per year? If so, enlighten us; if not, conjure up a new criticism of hybrids.
And this bit made my jaw drop, and I'm pretty jaded about such matters: Khosla wants us to be outraged that "70%+ of Prius buyers make more than $100k per year." While I deplore the parading of consumption as environmental virtue as much as the next person, that's a brazen rhetorical strategy for an ethanol investor.
I'd wager that the average investor who's benefited from the ethanol boom -- and they come in both direct and indirect varities -- has a net worth that would trump that of the average Prius driver.
If Khosla wants to be taken seriously as a scourge of greenwashers -- and not an investor strenuously pumping his assets -- he'd be using his public forum to deliver a serious reckoning of the externalized costs of the ethanol program -- and how the industry intends to take responsibility for them.
Victual Reality
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amazingdrx Posted 5:25 am
14 Jan 2008
Good to see you back. I plan on convincing you that plugin hybrids deserve all the capital now going into fuel farming. Be forewarned! Hehehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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apsmith Posted 5:26 am
14 Jan 2008
But some of the statements made here, even if accurate as stated, are misleading. Khosla says:
"one can get the same carbon reduction by buying a cheaper, similar-sized and -featured car and buying $10 worth of carbon credits"
But it's not the CO2 reduction that's making us Prius owners smile. A typical car is driven something like 15,000 miles/year. The CAFE number for new cars now is 27.5 mpg (not even going into the SUV mess). That comes to 545 gallons of gasoline per year, or about 5.5 metric tons of CO2. Which you could certain offset (say at $15/ton CO2, a typical price now) for under $100/year.
Now if you get a Prius instead, with say 45 mpg average, that's 333 gallons/year or about 3.3 metric tons of CO2, saving 2.2 every year. Sure doesn't hurt.
But what Khosla doesn't include is the cost of the gasoline itself. At 3.30/gallon, 545 gallons amounts to about $1800/year, while 333 gallons is about $1100/year, for a difference of $700. That's a 14% yearly return on even a $5000 price difference, and in my experience the $5000 is a significant overestimate of the price difference from a comparable non-hybrid (the other cars I was looking at when I bought mine would have been only $2000-3000 cheaper than the Prius).
The carbon offset/CO2 reduction effect adds another $50-$100 to the annual payback, so it helps a little, but it's not the main reason so many Prius's are being sold.
The higher gas prices go, the better the deal.
And as for the Tata Nano, it gets 50 mpg now - why would we have a problem with that car?
No, hybrids can't "solve our problems". The Nano won't either. Nor will ethanol. As Khosla points out here, the long-term solution is electrification of ground transport. To the extent hybrids are a step along that path (and they surely are at least as much as corn ethanol is a step on the path to cellulosic), they should be applauded. Why not push for bio-fueled hybrids, instead of trashing the concept, hmm?
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Tom Philpott Posted 5:27 am
14 Jan 2008
That rhetorical strategy -- ethanol as David against oil's Goliath -- is getting pretty frayed. I'll take a close look at it soon.
Victual Reality
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odograph Posted 5:53 am
14 Jan 2008
I appreciate that this might be a "tough crowd," Mr. Khosla, but I was going to try to cut you some slack, and to see what logic you could offer.
This isn't it.
First, upper income buyers are more mobile and quicker to respond it is true, but nonetheless the Prius at $23-30K brackets the average new car price in America ($28K). In fact it is on the low side.
Second, it is the most efficient mid-size car on the US market. This is true with gasoline fuel, but it has been tested and done well with ethanol blends as well.
That leads into the third point as well. Why, when the Prius (and other small hybrids) can run on ethanol blends would you set up their efficiency as enemy of ethanol blends?
The Prius works, and if you can make ethanol work, they could actually work together.
Skimming further ... I'm put off again. Gucci bags? Maybe my extra effort was wasted.
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odograph Posted 5:58 am
14 Jan 2008
A Complete Waste of Energy
That was written in 2003, by Dan Becker of the Sierra Club and Jerry Taylor (our Jerry Taylor?) of Cato Institute. They called it then, it is still true: kill the subsidies and let the true innovators sort it out.
Anyone else is a lobbyist.
(Wow, I've bumped into Jerry here recently but confused him with someone else. What a mistake, I am actually a fan.)
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empowah Posted 6:09 am
14 Jan 2008
In the meantime, cellulosic ethanol can be produced from waste, to fuel our existing fleet during the transition period. New cars, especially fuel efficient ones, still make up a fraction of the total vehicles on the road.
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justlou Posted 6:23 am
14 Jan 2008
Is it possible that the "impractical environmentalists" are saying that the long term solutions are the most practical and that impractical solutions may not be the best building blocks or precursors of practical solutions. Is it impractical to note that putting flex fuels into FFVs getting 15 mpg is not environmental? Is it impractical to point out that all the calculated CO2 "reductions" from using corn ethanol can be vastly outweighed by the corn to ethanol sink's stimulating the destruction of diverse natural ecosystems in the developing world?
Mr. Khosla, would you please quite dicking around and tell us what your real agenda is? You are just confounding the issues with your screwy rhetoric. Is that your real purpose for writing here?
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GreyFlcn Posted 6:48 am
14 Jan 2008
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2006/09/29/khosla-ethanol-is ...
Why should we be creating ethanol distribution/vehicle infrastructure, when by your own admission, it's going to be completely obsolete and useless in a relatively short period of time?
Wouldn't it be "pragmatic" to adapt the fuel to the infrastructure/vehicles, instead of the other way around?
It also makes it rather illogical to entrench current ethanol infrastructure if what we want, isn't going to be ethanol.
_
Corn ethanol, reduces carbon emissions (on a per-mile-driven basis) by almost the same amount as today's typical hybrid
Thats only if you assume Micheal Wang's GREET model is showing a complete and honest representation of the facts.
And there are many reasons to heavily doubt his figures, to the extent that it may actually be making the problem much worse.
http://greyfalcon.net/lca.png
http://greyfalcon.net/n2ostudy.png
http://greyfalcon.net/n2o.png
http://greyfalcon.net/landuse
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2006/03/how-reliable-are- ...
http://greyfalcon.net/soy2
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0103-biofuels.html
Much in the same way that one may comment Coal-to-Liquids with Sequestration has faint potential of reducing emissions in the future, but that gives it no reason to push forward the currently dirty fuels right now.
http://greyfalcon.net/zeiger
R&D subsidies perhaps, but lavish purchase subsidies for currently dirty fuels is simply perverse.
_
Hybrids are a media darling and Corn Ethanol is demonized, despite it's more competitive economics.
Except that the economics AREN'T favorable to Corn ethanol.
Corn Ethanol ranks last, when compared to diesel and hybrids.
Your statement isn't based on fact.
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/11/13/diesel-vs-hybrid- ...
http://greyfalcon.net/e85stations.png
http://greyfalcon.net/e85stations2.png
_
my review of the technology suggests that the upside with known chemistries is limited to maybe 2-4x change in cost per kwh of capacity -- a significant improvement to be sure, but not nearly enough to change the hybrid or plug-in hybrid cost dynamic.
And then other technologies push forward to break that assumption.
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2008/01/eestor- ...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071219103105 ...
_
A plug-in serial hybrid with sufficient driving range to get consumer acceptance, powered mostly by electricity, would cost at least $5,000 more (probably much more) for the average buyer.
Thats nothing compared to the current raw subsidies and cost of ownership of driving on ethanol.
Which totals cumulative to nearly $2000 PER YEAR!!!
Just in 10 years, thats $20,000! (Which gets to be even more when you factor in inflation)
http://greyfalcon.net/biotaxes2.png
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/11/13/diesel-vs-hybrid- ...
And the dramatic drop in cost of maintaince and fuel costs alone would easily pay that back anyways.
http://greyfalcon.net/volt
An electric car (or similarly a series plugin hybrid) is orders of magnitude less complex than conventional cars.
http://video.wnbc.com/player/?id=70885
http://greyfalcon.net/raser2
As such, it would be more accurate to compare the total amortized cost of ownership. (including subsidies)
It's rather disingenuous to only compare raw sticker price.
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Charles Barton Posted 6:51 am
14 Jan 2008
Corn ethanol now basically competes with the world's poor for food. The poor are loosing, and sooner our later they are going to starve to death in large numbers if the ethanal corn hogs are not stopped. What the corn ethanol advocates really are selling are starvation and death to the worlds poor. And they wonder why hybrid cars get a good press.
Charles Barton
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wiscidea Posted 7:43 am
14 Jan 2008
A pragmatist is someone interested in a practical approach to problems and is concerned primarily with the success or failure of her actions. Shouldn't every environmentalist be interested in real success, really solving problems, not doing what they ASSUME is best? This is serious business, not a game.
Vinod Khosla, whether or not correct, is describing a conflict between pragmatists and ideologues.
There are environmentalists interested in trying variety of approaches -- based on reason, gathering additional information, revising their approaches -- for actually protecting the remaining scraps of biodiversity. And there are those who believe we should employ only a certain set of tools -- based more on tradition and revealed truth -- to accomplish the same goal.
I think the former are more flexible and will succeed if allowed to. The latter will will destroy the biosphere if allowed to.
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Pangolin Posted 8:30 am
14 Jan 2008
The two nastiest bits of news on the planet have yet to be appreciated by those people who make the decisions.
Arctic sea ice melting in 2007 was far beyond the most pessimistic "worst case scenarios" of climate change posited by the IPCC. We could see an ice free arctic in summers by 2013 after which all bets are off. That would include the corn crop that makes the ethanol.
The other nasty event is that oil exporting nations are projected to be using more of the oil they pump leaving less for us to squander on personal automobiles. Now that would make ethanol producers rich beyond the dreams of avarice as liquid fuel will be needed even during an economic crash.
But what will not matter is any vehicle that cannot be quickly converted to plug-in power or is already a diesel. Only those two modes have the fuel flexibility to manage a liquids fuels crisis. The plug-in Prius can sip high quality fuel between charges allowing short supply operations. Any diesel can be converted to flex-fuel capability with ethanol, compressed natural gas, propane or hydrogen as well as biodiesel. Properly equipped a diesel cab owner can always hash together a fuel supply.
Flex-fuel SUV's on the other hand will require MORE volumes of E-85 than straight gas to run and they will be very picky about fuel quality. I'm sure that will go over real well with the general public if a major fuel or climate crisis did arrive. They will make good greehnouses though.
My guess is that most cars are going to end up parked. Invest in a good bicycle with a frieght rack.
Put the Carbon Back
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danielbell Posted 8:36 am
14 Jan 2008
The primary question is one of cost: how many people will pay $5,000 more (today's typical parallel hybrid premium) for a hybrid that reduces carbon emissions by 25%? Especially when they can get a flex-fuel car that costs about the same as a regular ICE car and can reduce emissions by 75% or more when run on cellulosic biofuels?
Cost is certainly a question. But as is so typical of efficiency, you have to pay upfront to lock in future savings. Khosla totally ignores the fact that reducing the amount of fuel used over the lifetime of a vehicle may dramatically reduce overall costs. But then, he does understand this, that's why he's investing in biofuels. He wants to keep the top-down oil hegemony and shift some of those profits from the hands of oil companies to his own. Those who want long-term economic growth understand the value of people owning their own power (solar panels to charge your car), which will increase income equality and, in my view, vastly increase long-term economic growth.
Also, Kholsa, you compare hybrids today versus the cellulosic fuels of the indeterminate future. Your point will hold if this comes to pass, and only if. For now, I don't care how many E85 vehicles detroit crams down my throat, because they'll all be filled with gasoline or carbon-intensive(2/3 that of petrol), water-intensive, land-intensive, subsidy-intensive corn ethanol.
Also, these biofuels are going to need a hell of a lot of water, something that will only become more precious. Especially for us Californians who know which way the snowpack is going. Yes, perhaps brackish water can be used. My understanding is that the water needs to be filtered though, which will be an incentive to just hook up to the municipal supply.
Infrastructure, infrastructure, and... oh yeah, infrastructure. Ethanol is too acidic and can't be shipped through existing pipelines. Plug-ins require the plug that is already installed in your garage.
Your point of first costs is understood. But biofuels that don't screw the environment in other ways are a hell of a long way off. I think you'd be better off making this argument after that one gets figured out.
Even though first costs are less, long term economic and social equity costs will be higher. Is your vision for the future really just the same one with you at the top instead of big oil? Wouldn't a more inspired vision of the future be one where people own their own power and efficiency in order to increase their real wages? This is where I hope the future come from, bottom up.
Does your argument about the speed with the car fleet can be replaced matter if the environmentally benign bio-fuel comes along and still requires cars to be built specifically to handle it?
Now, parallel hybrids aren't going to get us anywhere. We can all see that. If every car sold today were a parallel hybrid we would still not be lowering overall emissions from transportation.
Also, the cost premium could be lowered with options like battery leasing and so on.
What about smog in cities? Ethanol has a pretty bad emissions profile.
By the way, I'm from Iowa, and I see monoculture of corn as a problem and ethanol as a way for us to swat at the symptoms and not the sickness. See the Omnivore's Dilemma.
As for the media message, ethanol was a baby doll up until just a few months ago. When some decent reporting finally got done. Its not being positioned as anything its not, and this doesn't seem to be affecting subsidy levels anyway.
Vinod, I understand that you're trying to take the big picture into account, I just think you're doing a poor job of it. And anywhow, reductions on the level we need will likely require bio-fuels and hybrids of all kinds.
Mostly, I appreciate you coming to this forum and delineating your views even after a less than even handed analysis by one Grist poster.
Keep your posts coming! I've got plenty of answers to prove you wrong!
carbonsnumber.blogspot.com
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jcwinnie Posted 10:35 am
14 Jan 2008
And, tarnation if is he is willing to have a dialogue.
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trock Posted 10:44 am
14 Jan 2008
Why the argument that parallel hybrids aren't worth it compared to cellulosic fuels? Why not just make use cellulosic fuels in your hybrid-elec.?
You are arguing about a comparison that isn't a comparison. They can both be added in one vehicle.
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Erik Hoffner Posted 11:10 am
14 Jan 2008
Erik
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
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bookerly Posted 12:22 pm
14 Jan 2008
Is anyone investing much actual money in cellulosic biofuels? I agree with Charles Barton,
corn based ethanol will kill the poor.
Almost all of the commercial biofuels come from palm and corn oils. We need to stop this insanity before it becomes embedded.
patrick in Beijing
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GreyFlcn Posted 1:24 pm
14 Jan 2008
Except that it's rather counter-productive to attempt to reduce price and demand for liquid fuel at the same time.
_
Consider the Energy Bill.
BioFuels got mandates which push the laws of physics of whats even possible, and hundreds of Billions of dollars.
More efficient cars got an exceedingly modest increase, and hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies.
_
That money could easily be better spent on increasing mileage.
http://greyfalcon.net/oilvsethanol2.png
So it most certainly is an "either-or" predicament.
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jcramer628 Posted 12:55 am
15 Jan 2008
This is an issue I don't see being talked about enough.
#1 The cheapest way to reduce your carbon footprint is not to use "greener" fuels, but to use none at all.
Advantage- Prius
#2 Carbon credits, especially in the US where all credits are voluntary, fail to represent any concrete carbon reduction. At 2 cents a kwh, and approximately 10 cents a gallon for a typical midsize car, I find it impossible to claim carbon neutral status. To trust this logic would be to say that an annual "donation" (which is another issue altogether, who ever heard of developing a sustainable market through minuscule donations/ fluctuating subsidies) of $220 erases the average American (40 tonnes of CO2 annually) carbon footprint!
These are assumptions that NEED to be challenged. Go find any respected economist, or renewable energy developer and ask them if carbon offsets are an effective way to develop a clean-tec market. No way, its inefficient and misleading concerned consumers. While I don't think there has been enough public criticism of the REC and CC system, here is an article (which has its flaws in presentation I admit) to get you started.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_44/b40560 ...
RECs have place when regulated and mandatory, but to give individual consumers the idea that they erase their HUGE American footprint with 220 dollars is ludicrous and irresponsible.
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odograph Posted 1:09 am
15 Jan 2008
I'm going to consider you a lobbyist, Mr. Khosla, for your own investments.
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GreyFlcn Posted 1:38 am
15 Jan 2008
There will always be marginal producers which find it profitable to increase food production "elsewhere". (eventually)
The problem being the "elsewhere" might completely cancel out the emissions reductions of the biofuel itself. (Many times over)
Food versus Fuel is only temporary.
It's more like "Forests versus Fuel" in the long run.
(Come to think of it, if Cellulosic ethanol really does go mainstream, whats stopping them from ACTUALLY turning whole forests into liquid fuel.)
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odograph Posted 2:05 am
15 Jan 2008
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amazingdrx Posted 2:15 am
15 Jan 2008
Yep falcon, the more fuel that comes from chemical farming, the more biomass is burned. Biomass should be recycled back into the soil to provide maximum carbon sink activity. That happens with conservation land, wetlands, and forests and even with farms, organic farms that is.
Fuel farming results in more GHG in the atmosphere, mainly because it takes carbon stored in the soil and releases it. And it releases GHG that would normally be removed from the atmosphere.
When corn is grown organically, compost that stores carbon is added to the soil. Everything but the corn kernels are put back, the styalks, roots, leaves, maybe even most of the carbon locked up in the corn kernels are returned if the manure from the animals it is fed to is composted too.
The balance depends upon returning the same amount of carbon to the soil as was extracted. Productive living soil, like that under natural prairie grass, extracts 1.8 tons of CO2 per acre per year from the atmosphere and stores it underground. The prairie soil was 20 feet thick when farmers first plowed it, now it is an inert chemical layer that blows in the wind, wherever chemical farming has ruled.
All that millenia of soil storing cO2 was burned off by chemical farming, chemical burning. And now each year the amount it used to store stays in the atmosphere. The dynamic balance is the thing here.
The self and mass deluding idea that because corn stores CO2 then it is released as ethanol fuel burned in cars, but is reabsorbed again and again, over and over. Similar to the cycle of rain and evaporation in the water cycle. The idea that constitutes zero emmision fuel is erroneous.
The land used, not to mention the fossil fuel for tractors and chemicals, results in more and more cO2 in the atmosphere every year. At least 1.8 tons per acre per year from prairie land converted to chemical fuel farming.
Now compare this process of fuel farming and gas guzzling.. to..
Charging up plugin hybrids with solar power harvested from already used land, rooftops of buildings all over the country.
It leaves the land that is removing cO2 from the atmosphere alone. It is only mounted on roofs. And it supplies enough kwh to replace 90% of present liquid fuel use, through the plugin hybrid's 40 mile battery range.
Renewable electricity charging plugin hybrids is technology ready to mass produce now. Diverting any capital away from that solution dilutes it and slows the eventual cut in fuel consumption and GHG release.
Plugin hybrids have the same utility as gas guzzlers and can be fueled at regular gas stations. The additional investment by auto companies to add plugin power to existing vehicle lines is minimal. An electric rear axle added to a regular front wheel drive car, plus batteries is it.
Better to apply capital to this, than ethanol, Vinod.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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odograph Posted 2:25 am
15 Jan 2008
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Charles Barton Posted 3:36 am
15 Jan 2008
Food cost increase adds £750 to annual bill
Lets hear it for biofuels and mass starvation.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=0US ...
Charles Barton
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danielbell Posted 3:37 am
15 Jan 2008
Especially on price, which I called Khosla out on as well. Total amortized cost of ownership is certainly lower, but as our economy is stuck in the here and now, it can be an issue. The upfront cost of renewables and efficiency is something we'll have to contend with as a society if we want to see a long term decrease in energy costs.
I contend that, as a good businessman, Khosla understands this and is trying to benefit from it. The car companies don't want electric cars because they require less maintenance and don't make the owner beholden to big oil, which is bad for profits. Khosla sees this and realizes that if he can get you to buy a car that makes you beholden to him for twenty years, it will be very good for business.
Big Oil, biofuels, and hydrogen - all these fuels keep you beholden to a top-down corporate hegemony which concentrates profits upward and out of local communities. When people own their own power (solar panels) and can plug their car into them, the money stays with them in a bottom-up economy with greater income parity and a better chance for long-term economic growth.
But as this distributed wealth can't be captured as easily, its much harder to fund with venture capital. Hence, Khosla.
carbonsnumber.blogspot.com
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javaearth Posted 6:04 am
15 Jan 2008
But here in the US - out side of major cities - public transport is seen as a poor mans option, and so often I see many SUV's/large trucks with only one person sitting in traffic.
I car pool - with two other people! its great for saving money, great for the earth and great for traffic!
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iceberg Posted 8:05 am
15 Jan 2008
A 2008 Civic EX Automatic w/o NAV MSRP = $19510.
For a difference/premium of $3090. A far cry from $5000. Also came with a $2100. tax credit for 2007 (purchased Nov. 2007). Pretty good incentive I'd say.
- Loren
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iceberg Posted 8:17 am
15 Jan 2008
- Loren
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bookerly Posted 9:37 am
15 Jan 2008
One of the problems is that we don't exist in a steady state world. There are two things happening in our future that we should all be able to see.
The first is that before population peaks (probably just shy of 9 billion), we will add that extra 2 1/2 billion people. Do we expect to try to feed them or watch them starve or fight them door to door over food?
The second thing that is coming (clear as day) is increased prosperity not only in China but across the developing world (including Africa, which has lagged, but is beginning to move). This means more cars (and hopefully a lot more mass transit).
More people, more prosperity and more cars.
We can see them coming. They will happen.
So, the question becomes what kind of prosperity and what kind of cars? Investing any money into biofuels (when we shall surely need that land to account for 1) increased population and food demands 2) land lost to the stresses of global warming, which will happen (to an uncertain degree)) is foolish.
It is a direction driven by greed and nothing more. We need to stop it now.
patrick in Beijing
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Biodiversivist Posted 12:23 pm
15 Jan 2008
The Prius would thrive without any government support. The government rebate on hybrids was entirely unnecessary to stimulate sales. All it did was give critics of the Prius (biofuel proponents like you and diesel Jetta owners) something to be critical of. It was the classic example of government screwing things up by interfering in the market. The difference between that example of government incompetence and the subsidies being used to support biofuels is pretty obvious. If government support for biofuels is stopped, biofuels will disappear, as they should. On the other hand, hybrid car sales will continue to climb without any government assistance.
when one can get the same carbon reduction by buying a cheaper, similar-sized and -featured car and buying $10 worth of carbon credits
Or even more by riding a bike or even by walking, but who is going to do that? Plug into your spreadsheet how much oil the Prius fleet has saved. Keep in mind that the environmentally conscious Prius owners would still be driving Subaru Outbacks (24 MPG vs 48 MPG) if the Prius had not come along. All upright walking primates seek status within their troop. Your troop is just different from mine. The bottom line? A lot of carbon is not going into the air thanks to the Prius fleet. We cannot ignore the status seeking urges built into our genes.
Corn ethanol, which has been heavily maligned in the mainstream media, reduces carbon [GHG] emissions (on a per-mile-driven basis) by almost the same amount as today's typical hybrid.
It isn't just the mainstream media. Look at what peer-reviewed science is now saying about it. Corn ethanol is up to 50% worse than fossil fuels and that isn't counting leakage effects (the destruction of carbon sinks to grow crops displaced from the human food chain to cars) or several other environmental factors.
Despite the similar environmental profiles, one is a media darling and the other is demonized, despite its more competitive economics.
No, the Prius fleet has a much better environmental profile and is also more cost competitive than the flex fuel fleet.
My main complaint has been the lack of critical analysis in this space
I would suggest that the lack of critical analysis is on your foot. You need to start addressing the science showing your fuel is worse for the environment than the fuel it is displacing.
Corn ethanol (which I don't believe is a long term solution) has been framed by the oil companies' marketing machine, farm policy critics, and impractical environmentalists (though the NRDC and Sierra Club support corn ethanol's transition role as I do, subject to certain constraints).
You need to make up your mind about what fuel you are defending. Is it corn ethanol, cane ethanol, or is it ethanol that you hope will someday be made by an economically competitive method not in existence? You switch back and forth between a fuel you admit is dead end (corn ethanol) to one that does not even exist (cellulosic) to other stocks unspecified.
Corn ethanol is not a transitional fuel. Blaming oil companies for corn ethanol's woes is a worn out tactic that has lost all of its effectiveness in light of the rest of the damning evidence against this fuel, and I would suggest that you are the one who is being impractical, for numerous defensible reasons.
The Prius and hybrids have been positioned by Toyota's marketing machine. The public is gullible.
No, I think the fact that it is a four door midsize car that averages about 48 miles to gallon is why it is so popular. Toyota didn't even start advertising it on TV until a few months ago when supply finally caught up with demand. But you are right about the public being gullible. Take a look at this ridiculous piece of marketing
The Prius is the corn ethanol of hybrid cars, and we should recognize that
No, the Prius fleet has double the American gas mileage average. Every single one sold reduces carbon emissions without any government support needed. Corn ethanol is horrifically environmentally destructive, increases GHG, increases the cost of food, and costs taxpayers billion upon billions. When you account for the energy consumed and tax money spent making it and the low mileage obtained when using it, the ethanol being burned in flex fuel cars is an absolute joke in comparison. And don't tell me we must live with it because it will lead to the development of a furturistic fuel, because it won't for many defensible reasons.
It has increased investment in battery development, but beyond that it is no different than Gucci bags, a branding luxury for a few who want the "cool eco" branding (70%+ of Prius buyers make more than $100k per year).
That's right, everybody wants to build some kind of hybrid now to compete with this wildly popular car that started it all. Although it is a marvel of engineering, it will eventually be eclipsed by even better hybrids. Gucci bags also don't cut car carbon emissions in half. Note the difference. Hybrid technology is growing in leaps and bounds without massive government assistance thanks to consumer demand. Ethanol exists only because of government assistance and its consumption is mandated.
That $100K quip makes little sense to me, as other commenters have pointed out. The Prius costs less than the average car. And why do you think the Chineses are wanting to buy SUVs? Because it is the cool thing to do, nothing more, nothing less. Don't discount our urges to be respected in the eyes of our peers (to be cool). Satisfying that urge consumes most of our waking hours, ultimately leading to things like hybrid cars, skyscrapers, and airliners.
The primary question is one of cost: how many people will pay $5,000 more (today's typical parallel hybrid premium) for a hybrid that reduces carbon emissions by 25%? Especially when they can get a flex-fuel car that costs about the same as a regular ICE car and can reduce emissions by 75% or more when run on cellulosic biofuels?
There are several problems with this statement. Your $5000 difference for starters as pointed out in a comment above.
How many people will pay more? Nobody. People pay exaclty what they want to pay, no more no less. Toyota was blind-sided by the popularity of the new Prius. How many people opt for power windows and automatic transmissions? In general, people don't buy the cheapest car available, but buy the most expensive car they can afford that they feel will bestow the most status for the buck, while of course meeting their driving needs. Regardless of what people say to the contrary, SUVs are purchased largely for the status they convey. They are nothing more than station wagons with big wheels rebranded as "Sport-Utility" vehicles. Baby boomer parents needed station wagons to haul large families, today the SUV wagon has no such utility. They are a fad, like the muscle cars of the 70's.
A car that doubles the average gas mileage only decreases carbon 25%?
There are no cellulosic fuels. You can't debate the merits of a fuel that has not proven to be commercially viable, and there are many such biofuels. Come to think of it, pretty much none of them are. Your 75% number is pure conjecture based on a simple spreadsheet using educated guesses as inputs. That makes the output nothing more than an educated guess as well, one that directly reflects the bias of whoever made the input guesses.
The Prius is selling well as a car model (so are Gucci bags) but in irrelevant numbers as a percentage of worldwide new car sales. It and its cohort hybrids are unlikely to make 50% penetration of the new car sales worldwide (or U.S.) anytime soon. Flex-fuel cars went from under 5% of new car sales in Brazil to over 75% in less than three years because they don't cost any more than a regular car. They are projected to be 50% of GM, Ford, and Chrysler's new car sales in the U.S. by 2012...Serial or parallel plug-in hybrids or electric vehicles (EVs) are unlikely to achieve these kind of penetration numbers any time in the next twenty years
We have no choice but to strive to improve efficiency rather than simply replace fossil fuels in existing cars with an even more environmentally destructive and expensive fuel.
The fact that one can easily stuff alcohol resistant rubber into cars is moot if the production of the alcohol burned in those cars is worse overall than fossil fuels. Is it, or is it not worse? Scientists have joined environmentalists in saying it is worse for multiple independent reasons. Remember, cellulosic, like fusion, and algae diesel, does not exist and can't be a part of the discussion until it does. We can't know if it is worse until we find out what it costs (monetarily and financially) to make it. That is called counting angels on the head of a pin. Brazil has far fewer cars than us and make their ethanol from sugar cane. You need to address how you plan to keep Brazil from plowing under its carbon sinks to sell us alcohol if making it from sugarcane is less expensive than cellulosic, which is a very high probability, considering how much of the Cerrado and Amazon is left and that cellulosic is still a fictional future fuel.
Other commenters have also pointed out that a high mileage hybrid running on a hypothetically environmentally less destructive biofuel (which does not exist today) is vastly superior to today's flex fuel cars. You argument against hybrids, among other things, is illogical.
A plug-in, serial hybrid with sufficient driving range to get consumer acceptance (based on automotive folks I have talked to), powered mostly by electricity, would cost at least $5,000 more (probably much more) for the average buyer.
That assumes that consumers will continue to buy station wagon muscle cars with big wheels. They won't. They will instead buy cars based on things like mileage performance. The only constant is change.
(The GM Volt is rumored to have a price point of "less than $30,000" -- I suspect EV's with "sufficient" range of around 150 miles would be at least $15,000 more.)
You are comparing apples to oranges. The Volt is a hybrid, the other car you describe is an all electric car.
The exact percentage by which they would reduce carbon emissions is uncertain, dependant on the location and source of electricity
How are you going to convince me that your estimation that "cellulosic" (a fuel that does not exist) will reduce carbon 75% is "certain?"
how much fossil fuel is used in the power grid. Total carbon dioxide emissions from power generation in the grid might one day reach zero, when we have all renewable power in a region and all cars are fully plug-in with large batteries ... but when might that happen? Even if we reached a point where 50% of the cars of the U.S. fleet were today's hybrids, emissions reductions would be an inadequate 10-20%!
That's a bit of a strawman. Precisely define what is an "inadequate" reduction. If we don't get the carbon out of our grid, it won't matter what cars we drive. Plug-ins would create exponential carbon reduction as we reduce carbon in the grid. Simply replacing fossil fuels in conventional cars with an even more destructive fuel makes no sense.
Could we get people in India and China, the fastest growing car markets, to ante up this much additional money, when the biggest thrust in volume cars in India is to reduce the cost of the whole car to $2500?
That $2500 car is little more than a motorized golf cart. Golf carts have been using batteries for decades. A tiny low speed car like that would be a good candidate for the newly emerging battery technologies. Combine that with hybrid electric bikes and the urban dwellers of India wold have the greenest lifestyles on Earth.
Our goal has to be solving the global problem in carbon emissions, and we need to pick technologies that will be adopted by market forces worldwide.
First. According to the latest science, existiing biofuels are worse for global warming. Remember, the cellulosic argument is moot because commercially viable cellulosic does not exist.
Next, it is government's job to set and enforce the rules of competition, not corporations. The market picks the winner based on consumer demands framed within those rules just like in any competition. Your insistence that ethanol burned in conventional cars is that winner reminds me of a soccer match where one of the coaches talks the refs into letting him sew his goal net shut.
We will need cost points such that 50-80% of the car buyers worldwide adopt these new "low-carbon" technology automobiles (in each market -- market conditions and price points vary widely form the US to India).
Everyone in the world is not destined to own a thing that resembles today's modern cars. Nobody seriously thinks the planet can support 9 billion ICE cars regardless of the liquid fuel they burn.
You posts are providing me with an opportunity to hone my arguments, and vice versa I'm sure.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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