How to transform personal transportation with existing tools

Previous posts about CyberTran described next-generation mass transit systems.

But nobody expects automobiles to disappear from U.S. roads in the near future. We need to get efficiency way up, fast.

The automobile equivalent of CyberTran is the ultra-light electric car. Electric cars don't have to be dull; Tesla Motors sells the Tesla roadster, a ~$100,000 electric sports car that can outrun a comparable Ferrari costing almost twice the price.

But they also don't have to be toys for the filthy rich. Solectria demonstrated the midsize four-passenger Sunrise in 1997. It traveled 216 miles from Boston to New York at normal highway speed, using only 85% of the power in a battery containing energy equivalent to less than a gallon of gas (PDF). Solectria claimed at the time it could profitably retail the car for as little as $20,000. So why did it never come to market?

The problem with a mass market car is you have to make in mass quantities. Generally, if you cannot use the full capacity of a major factory by selling at least 40,000+ units per year, a car is considered a niche product. Below that, you cannot get the full economies of automobile mass production.

Great cover story on global warming

I commend you all to this month's cover story in Mother Jones: "The Thirteenth Tipping Point," by Julia Whitty. It's written in that Malcolm-Gladwell-lite style that's so popular these days, filled with fascinating tidbits drawn from academic research you wouldn't normally hear about. It doesn't quite make its central point, but that's all right -- it's more evocative than argumentative anyway, and it's a smashing read.

Most interesting to me was something I hadn't heard of -- an effort by John Schellnhuber, research director at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, to identify the earth's 12 most vulnerable places, those most likely to flip over a tipping point into cascading and devastating changes. They are:

Umbra on battling cockroaches

Dear Umbra, Help! I’m having a mysterious cockroach problem. I found four in my apartment in two weeks, and not...

One of two individuals in DOE’s voluntary emissions program reports back

I’ll admit it: I’m different from most people. I have energy savings goals for my house and car. I usually...

Believe it

A while back I claimed that an all-dispatchable grid would require 75 hours of storage. I have been definitively proven wrong. Nothing like that is required.

In fact, tiny amounts of storage may do the trick if the grid is large enough -- and making the grid large enough is not that expensive. We may already have in place what we need for a completely renewable grid.

The 75-hour figure came from studies of single, isolated wind farms. But as you add wind farms, the odds of two wind farms being down -- or low producers at the same time -- drops.

I came across confirmation by accident: a Vehicle to Grid study (PDF) that evaluated data from eight sites showed that storing just 36 minutes of nameplate capacity would allow the widely dispersed farms to meet a firm power commitment ~90% of the time.

There are tricky steps involved. I am not necessarily advocating a 95%+ wind grid, as there are many ways to generate renewable electricity. But just as coal dominates power production in our current system, I suspect wind will dominate in any future grid. So consider the following a limiting case for wind.

PopSci announces this year’s top young scientists

PopSci has this month announced its fifth annual Brilliant 10 awardees. These are young scientists (average age: 34) just beginning to be noticed outside their respective fields and "changing not just what we know but the limits of what we think it's possible to know." PopSci explains the meaning of the Brilliant 10 honor:

By "brilliant," we don't mean smart. Or at least not just smart. Brilliance is marked by insight, creativity and tenacity. It's the confidence to eschew established wisdom in order to develop your own. It's the foolishness needed to set out for the edge of understanding and sail right past it, ignoring the signs reading "Thar be monsters" (not to mention "Turn back lest ye never be awarded a decent research grant again").

The work of the 10 winners ranges from the biomechanics of worm movement to birdsong "language" translation. And two of the 10 are working on eco-related projects.

A superb series on India and water

There is an excellent series about India and water in The New York Times (and its global sister publication The International Herald Tribune), including separate articles by Somini Sengupta about the immense problems of flooding during monsoon rains, an intensifying agricultural crisis as wells dry up, and the Indian government's systemic inability to deliver sufficient water to the immense and growing populations of its cities, a crisis once largely limited to the urban poor but now broadly afflicting even the middle class in New Delhi, India's capital and richest city.

New diesel cars will crop up in California.

New diesel cars have not been sold in California for years, due to air regs.

With the introduction of low-sulfur diesel, that will change. Expect to see a lot more 45 MPG VW TDI's on the road as a result. And for wannabe biodiesel enthusiasts, this means no more perusing Craigslist with nothing but beat-up Mercedeses to choose from.

Cali researchers say fuel economy boosts are better route

To reduce oil consumption, some say we should raise fuel-economy standards. Others say, no, let's impose a gas tax -- jacking up prices is the best way to reduce consumption.

The folks at the University of California Energy Institute have a new paper (PDF) that investigates the sensitivity of gasoline demand to changes in price, and concludes:

One implication of these findings is that gasoline taxes would need to be significantly larger today in order to achieve an equivalent reduction in gasoline consumption. This, coupled with the political difficulties in adopting gasoline taxes, suggests that policies and technologies designed to improve fuel economy are likely becoming relatively more attractive as a means to reduce fuel consumption.

Which is not to say it can't be done -- just that short-term demand response is relatively inelastic, and if you want to use so-called market forces, you have to serve a significant jolt to the system and wait a while for consumers to dig themselves out of their current purchase decisions in order to see results.

UCEI has a fine series of working papers on energy issues. You might consider signing up for their listserv.