Natural gas: Another crown for Japan?
Another sign of Toyota's forward-thinking?I've been casually following the natural gas story since Boone Pickens made this issue his cause. At first, I was extremely skeptical and critical of the idea. Sure there might be a few hundred years worth of natural gas in America, but mining natural gas out of shale and creating an infrastructure would certainly outweigh any benefits I figured.
But, the truth is, I was only making assumptions then. Even as I've become more open-mined to natural gas, I still know very little about the viability of natural gas as a transportation fuel.
Yet, I watch a lot of financial news, and natural gas as a transportation fuel is becoming an increasingly common subject. Long term investors are beginning to build positions. Perhaps its just the fact the Congress appears to be warming to natural gas, and legislation - including huge tax breaks - now seems inevitable, but the money is starting to move towards natural gas.
In recent years, Honda has tried to make a run at natural gas, building not just cars, but home fueling stations. In fact, Honda's long term plans include adding a fuel cell and a reformer to these home fueling stations, but that's another topic.
And, late last year, Toyota rolled out a natural gas Camry hybrid.
If natural gas does become a viable transportation fuel due to Congressional action, is this just another area that US automakers will be chasing the leaders?
Labels: natural gas, natural gas hybrid
posted by Dahcredyns at
9:06 AM
13 Comments:
The Pickens Plan should come back as a plan developed by the EPA. I distrust public taxes supporting a plan developed solely by a private businessman and presented as a fait accompli. I'm talking about the referendum that Pickens tried to pass in California.
If the Pickens plans ideas are so good, the CA CARB would look at them and adopt what makes sense. Pickens wanted to control the bill from start to finish, and it would be crazy to trust him or any private business like that.
But yeah, let's have CARB look at CNG now.
I don't know that the Picken's plan is the basis for the legislation in Congress. All I know is that there is momentum building for natural gas as a transportation fuel in some important circles. Even Harry Reid is said to have become a supporter.
The US just signed off on a big project to bring tar sands oil from Canada to the US. Considering that development, i think natural gas is worthy of a full, unbiased investigation.
we're missing some basic facts, or I should amend this to say that I am.
The US AUTO companies have been making natural gas vehicles (using fleet) for some time now.
and they have not found their way in the competitive marketplace - and there must be some reasons why especially since many urban areas already have a fairly robust distribution network - even to the point where homes could be used for refueling.
Boone's approach is interesting ESPECIALLY from the POV of using domestic sources vice foreign.
but methinks - in the end - fossil fuels are, at best, bridge fuels until we get ourselves straight on renewables and nuclear.
bonus question:
what would be better - use coal to produce electricity for plug-ins or convert coal to natural gas for conventional hybrids?
T Boone is up to his neck in a plan that spells major monopoly in gas transporation/ his plan uses his own companies with US support / not!
In his commercials he says its time for us to 'go green' but there is not one red dime in his "plan" - out if his OWN pocket for any SOLAR projects at all! Now why do I not feel surprised ??
Larry G,
The basic contention about using coal to recharge plug-ins is whether the plugins would be using existing spare capacity, overnight, that is now simply wasted.
The first question then is how many plugins can be supported using our spare electricity capacity? Then, when will plugin demand begin to place an incremental load on our electricity capacity?
Answer those questions then we can talk about coal. Now it may be that there is no spare capacity and plugins will immediately place an incremental load. My guess is we'll have a few years of spare capacity and the incremental load will be negligible for a few years after that. But the numbers are needed, you're right.
the plants take some time to start up and shut down so at night they "idle" them much like you'd idle a car.
The extra capacity is a POTENTIAL unused (at night) capacity but it would require burning more coal to produce more available power.
I have not seen the case made where they say...right now.. without burning one more pound of coal - there is wasted capacity equivalent to XXX plug-ins...
I don't think that number is a significant number ... across all markets nationwide since power is shunted from one grid to another and it's quite likely that one plant could be powered down and run off of the excess capacity of the other plants at the low power setting.
But if we are going to promote plug-ins as a longer term replacement for oil - then we need to intellectually make the argument in my view.
I see no reason at all to use coal if in the end - it causes more environmental harm than gasoline... unless one wants to make the case on using foreign resources but even then - we need to see some compelling data - much more than a vague feel-good ...silver-bullet type dialog....
we need to say what we mean - and mean what we say IMHO.
pragmatism is intellectual honesty.
In other words - why start down the plug-in path if - the result is worse pollution and GHG?
shouldn't we have some idea about this before we push for that direction?
larry-
well, i think that's the idea of Obama's cap and trade plan. we're heading towards EVs while concurrently heading towards a greater increase of renewable power.
without a new grid and new alternative energies, however, plug-ins will lead to many issues, some of them almost assuredly, very detrimental.
the cap and trade plan will also cost a lot. thus, costs and regulations are being spread out over time with carrots preceding sticks in hopes that innovations will suck up the costs of the sticks.
that might work, but the costs of real world implementation are staggering on many levels.
and it's going to take time, a LOT of time.
thus, i cannot help but wonder if we have such a long time? i'm not referring to global warming, but foreign oil dependency.
likewise, a big jump in gas prices will lead to less interest in plug-in vehicles. people will won't just be focused on fuel costs, but on spending as a little as possible on a new vehicle, since every other life cost will also increase.
that could be a big kink in the chain of this plan.
thus, while i agree with, say, a fifty year 'rought' outline for energy policy, i believe our first goal should be ending foreign oil dependence.
in the interim i believe that should be accomplished with alternative fuels and increases in automotive efficiency. i also think that should mean we are more focused on converting the fleet to hybrid vehicles, not plug-in hybrids.
by 2020, unless lithium is a flop, every vehicle could be a hybrid vehicle. in fact, i believe it could happen years before 2020.
besides, a lithium powered prius can quite easily be converted into a plug-in prius if and when it makes sense. so retrofitting the old fleet could be a very good way of taking advantage of renewable energy as it becomes available.
Larry,
No one is being intellectually dishonest here. The moment I come across the study looking at the carbon footprint of the electricity used to recharge plugins, I'll share it. It is unfair of you to insinuate that we are only interested in vague feel good arguments.
I am pointing out, however, that there is more to looking at the impact of plugins than just the carbon footprint of 16 KwH of electricity produced by a coal fired plant. But we'll look at that number as well, don't worry.
@alcoholic: there is no spare electric capcity for plug-ins. any EV's charging at night will directly increase demand for baseload electricity, i.e. coal. very dirty technology right now, do not be fooled by the marketing claims.
@LarryG: CNG vehicles have been around for a while but many municipalities in particular are taking another look at this alternative fuel because of the not-insignificant GHG savings, and the really significant reductions in particulate and NOx emissions. What is unique about this demonstration vehicle is the combination of CNG fuel with a hybrid-electric drive. What remains to be seen is whether the technology can be combined practically, since CNG and hybrid vehicles both contain extra equipment compared to a liquid fuel ICE-only vehicle, and right now it is difficult to fit all the necessary equipment on the same vehicle
Also, it's worth keeping in mind the Prius is a very different type of vehicle from a plug-in. The Prius gets 100% of its battery charge from the vehicle's waste heat - in the form of engine coolant heat, regenerative braking system and exhaust recirculation with heat recovery. Everything about the car is built around the concept of a hybrid, so it would be a rather difficult engineering feat to make a plug-in that is as fuel-efficient (whether the fuel is being burned in a power plant, or in the vehicle itself) as a hybrid. The only way to get the same type of thermal efficiency in a plug-in is if the power used to charge the car is all from combined cycle gas turbines with heat recovery. I don't think there is any way to get that kind of efficiency with coal - and coal is a very very big deal when it comes to EV's, most Americans do not even realize that over 50% of total electricity in the U.S. and nearly 100% of baseload electricity is from coal combustion.
I agree Jeremy.
Likewise, those that know this believe that coal companies will easily be able to develop carbon capture techniques as we 'quickly' ramp up to renewable energy production.
Yet, I heard the CEO of Anadarko - a biased source of course - claim that such technologies for coal are more theory than reality and typically quite expensive.
Already, I've heard some utility officials claim that electric rates are already on pace for a 30 percent increase in the next decade or so.
Add in carbon capture. Add in a new grid. Add in the cost of funding renewable production and the costs can become quite staggering.
One way or another these costs have to affect the price of electricity.
In theory I think plug-ins are a great idea, especially for city driving.
Still, there are massive issues that will take decades to overcome, which is why I think natural gas deserves a shot.
And, perhaps natural gas hybrids are too expensive as well. Still, you could work towards a goal where all gas vehicles must be hybrids, but natural gas vehicles could remain conventional.
The point is, waiting for plug-ins to solve all our problems seems a a very big stretch, and there is much more that can be done in the interim.
I trust Pickens more than CARB. The idiots at CARB forced toxic MTBE into our gas against the advice of true experts. It took them 10 years to finally admit they caused the poisoning of CA environment. They stuck CA with a multi-billion dollar clean up cost. CARB is corrupt and has history of using junk science to the detriment of true environmental enhancement. See
http://www.killcarb.org/
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