"Colossal" effort needed to commercialize electric cars
Nissan / Renault ZE electric vehicleAs French President Nicolas Sarkozy pledged $549 million at the Paris Motor Show to help French automakers develop electric and hybrid cars, Renault and Electrite de France agreed to partner on developing the infrastructure needed to for recharging electric vehicles.
And, apparently, that's only the beginning of the investment, as Renault/Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn told reporters that the investment to commercialize electric cars would be "colossal".
Labels: electric cars, Hybrid Vehicles
posted by Dahcredyns at
6:28 AM
12 Comments:
The U.S. will be the last to effectively change. Ineffective leadership and too many special interests standing in the way. Even Middle Eastern countries will be there first. Just have to take it upon yourself as an individual to buy what you can that is available if you can get one and if you can afford it.
I agree with you.
Still, it's easier for countries like France or Israel to go electric because they are much smaller and more condense. Likewise, their fuel prices are significantly higher.
If gas cost $5.00 per gallon, which would be a fair priced compared to most of Europe, for example, America would move very quickly to a 100% hybrid and electric fleet in little more than a decade.
It's like drugs. An addict might want to quit, but if you make his drug cheap and accessible, quitting is very hard.
Cheap gas might have lubed our economy, built our military, but its killed our auto industry and US manufacturing.
Biofuels can be used by any diesel engine vehicle with no modification.
Ethanol can be used by all ICE engines up to 30% with no modification. Modifications to use up to 85% ethanol can be retrofited at low cost. Flex Fuel on new vehicles typically costs the same or only minumumly more than conventional.
If we use biofuels, we can use the current storage, distribution and supply infrastructure with very minimal changes.
Switching to biofuels requires no "collosal effort" and minimal expense or change to what we have currently.
i don't agree with your assessment of biofuels.
ethanol is not a solution, and numerous studies have proven that. now, perhaps, you can justify ethanol as a means to cellulosic biofuels, etc. but those methods have not yet proven cost effective.
and some studies suggest that celluloic ethanol is more efficient as a natural gas replacement for home heating, for instance, not as a transportation fuel.
biofuels will and should be part of the mix, but i don't think they are THE solution by any means.
Biofuels are the best option on the table.
Biofuels do anything and everything that petroleum does and they do it better, cleaner and less expensively.
Brazil has gone from oil importing nation to oil exportig nation---which has allowed it to lift its economy from bankruptcy to 10th largest and one of the most stable economies in the world. Brazil supplies 80% of it's transportation fuel needs from ethanol made from sugar cane raised on just 2% of available farmland. Not only do they meet their own transportation needs--they also produce enough ethanol to be the world's largest exporter.
There is no other alternative energy options that can be implemented as quickly and at as little expense and change to existing infrastructure as biodiesel and ethanol.
Biodiesel can be produced most efficiently from saltwater algae.
Ethanol can be made from any type of plant material at all, including cellulose---ethanol was being produced from logging and millwork wood waste, commercially as far back as the 1890's.
brazil uses a fraction of the liquid fuel of the US.
check out greencarcongress.com, for instance, there are studies every day that question the environmental and cos-effectiveness of biofuels nearly every day.
and, yes, there are some pro-studies as well.
the point is, the science on biofuels is very unclear. and there is a significant amount of research that indicates biofuels could not ever replace petroleum without massive, detrimental consequences.
i believe that biofuels should be investigated, but to imply that biofuels can replace petroleum simply isn't an assertion supported by science. in fact, most scientists would refute such a claim.
--------"the point is, the science on biofuels is very unclear. and there is a significant amount of research that indicates biofuels could not ever replace petroleum without massive, detrimental consequences."-----------
You are confusing supposition, guesswork and manipulative propaganda for science. Science means, developing a hypothosis, predicting an outcome and then testing the hypothesis to verify the outcome. Simply proposing an outcome is not science---no matter who the author is.
Biofuels have a long history. Germany supplied ALL of it's fuel needs during WW2 using Fischer-Tropsh process to make alcohol fuels from wood and coal. They powered everything from 140 metric tonne Panzer tanks, heavier and faster than anything the allies had, to Me 262 Swallows--the world's first operational jet fighter, to the V1 and V2 rockets---with alcohol and heavy fuels made with F-T process.
South Africa operated heavy mining equipment on vegetable oil because German Uboat activity had virtually cut off oil supplies in the Atlantic.
Much of agriculture in the US and Canada was carried on with vegetable base oil mixed with petroleum because of gas rationing.
Petroleum is SO inefficient, that we would need less than 45% energy equivalent to replace oil with biofuels. Oil has to travel the equivalent of twice around the earth to get to the US from the Middle East---due to the circuitous path needed around Africa due to the size of the oil tankers. It is a similar situation to bring oil from the Arctic, either US or Canada.
Biofuels have already proven themselves historically. Internal Combustion Engines were originally designed to run on biofuels----gasoline had not been invented yet.
There is no other technology that can replace petroleum even remotely on the horizon.
If we do not implement biofuels while we have the chance now---you'll be back to riding bicycles and mules in 20-25 years. That is how close we are getting to the collapse of the oil supply.
------"and there is a significant amount of research that indicates biofuels could not ever replace petroleum without massive, detrimental consequences."-------
Yes, massive, detrimental consequnces to the oil industry. Look and see who has funded all those studies.
"You are confusing supposition, guesswork and manipulative propaganda for science. Science means, developing a hypothosis, predicting an outcome and then testing the hypothesis to verify the outcome. Simply proposing an outcome is not science---no matter who the author is."
So the massive amount of scientific literature that is coming from the most distinguished Universities throughout the world, not just the US,that contradicts you is all just deceptive propoganda, hmm?
I am an advocate for smart biofuels, and I think that biofueled hybrids, especially bio-fueled plug-in hybrids are America's future.
But I completely disagree with you that biofuels are a perfect replacement for oil.
I'm a big fan of electrification, yet I also focus on potential problems. That's called objectivity and its the most crucial element of the scientific method.
I fear you are lacking a little objectivity.
Name any other system that can replace the need for petroleum within 10 years.
--------"So the massive amount of scientific literature that is coming from the most distinguished Universities throughout the world, not just the US,that contradicts you is all just deceptive propoganda, hmm?"--------
That is not scientific literature. It is fiction that is presented as science. Like I said, scientific method no only involves making predictions---it also means testing and proving those predictions and statements. Predictions are just guesswork---no matter WHO makes them.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Incorrect_predictions
So where is your scientific proof that biofuels can replace petroleum in 10 years?
When Rudolf Diesel first developed his internal combustion engine in 1893 he designed it to use vegetable based oils--peanut oil to be exact.
When Henry Ford first introduced the Model T Ford 100 years ago in 1908, it was designed and produced to run on ethanol.
All internal combustion engines were originally designed to run on biofuels---petroleum based fuels were not invented yet.
Diesel engines require no modification to use biofuels.
Any conventional gas engine can use up to 30% ethanol mixture with no problem.
Flex Fuel vehicles can use up to 85% ethanol mixture or straight gasoline---just fill up with whichever is available. Conversion of a gas only to a Flex Fuel capable engine in any car equiped with fuel injection(almost all vehicles less than 20 years old) costs less than $300-400, about 20% of the cost of conversion to use propane or natural gas----and the conversion takes less than 2 hours vs 2-3 days.
There are already about 8 million Flex Fuel vehicles on the road, and 1/2 of vehicles produced in 2009 will be flex fuel capable.
Biofuels have no loss of performance and are well proven. All Indy Circuit League race cars run on 100% ethanol, and have used alcohol fuels for over 30 years. Ethanol is used because it is a superior fuel to petroleum gasoline and allows the use of ulra high compression ratios. Indy racers produce 1200-1600 bhp from engines smaller than most family sedans and are the fastest race cars in the world hitting speeds between 240-260 mph on the straights.
We can easily replace 75% of all oil usage in 10 years if biofuels are available.
With enough biofuel available, we could replace 60% of petroleum oil usage tomorrow morning with no change to anything else in the infrastructure.
40% of useage--biodiesel replaces straight gallon for gallon, no changes needed
E-20(20% ethanol) is already used by many countries in Europe to curtail the need for imported oil. And it has been since the 1930's. There is no difference in performance, and E-20 is far less polluting that petroleum gas.
40% + 20% = 60% reduction possible with no system change other than just putting biofuels in the tank instead of petroleum.
Name any other proposed system to replace petroleum that can replace the need for so much petroleum, in so little time, at so little expense, and less change to infrastructure.
that isn't scientific proof that there is enough fuel to develop the quantity of biofuels needed to replace petroleum in the next 10 years without serious consequences to food prices, serious environmental damage, etc.
Corn based ethanol, for instance, has been shown to pollute the Mississippi delta to a point of creating a dead zone, not to mention all the ground water pollution and soil erosion caused, for instance.
Other studies have demonstrated that biomass would be significantly more efficient as a form of electricity creation because too much energy is wasted converting biomass into a transportation fuel.
These are studies that aren't speculative or assumptive. They are mathematically and factually derived.
Certainly there are emerging biofuels that might overcome these problems, but they've not yet been proven on either a large scale, or to be cost-effective.
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