Terry Tamminen gets passionate about hydrogen
David Roberts of the Grist blogs interviewed Terry Tamminen, former secretary of the California EPA and author of "Lives per Gallon: the True Cost of Our Oil Addiction." An abridged version ran on the Grist Web site some time ago, but now Roberts has expanded the Q&A transcript and covers specific subjects. The interview became quite spirited when the topic turned to hydrogen, batteries and electric vehicles. Tamminen is a strong proponent of hydrogen, as is his former boss, governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Roberts continually pushed the straight electric option without a hydrogen economy, but Tamminen held his ground with some solid arguments. He also took the low road with the time-to-recharge fallacy. EV proponents have consistently argued that electric vehicles would be purchased for commutes, not long-haul vacations.
As the discussion grew more intense, Tamminen charged, "I really hate this discussion, to be honest -- It's vilifying one at the expense of the other, and my whole message is we've got to get all these technologies improved."
The list of reader comments following the interview are quite interesting, as well.
Related:
- Alt Car Expo: Ed Begley and Terry Tamminen on Ending our Addiction to Oil Now (includes ABG- exclusive audio)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Peter 5:09PM (1/12/2007)
His arguments already got ripped into pretty eloquently on gristmill, but for autoblog readers:
His main arguments against electric cars are that 1) the US doesn't have the capacity to power them without changing infrastructure, 2) they simply displace emissions, and 3) batteries are wasteful.
1) Readers of this site will remember the US Department of Energy report that the grid has enough capacity to recharge 84% of our daily transportation needs. Even if his argument was valid, it would illustrate nothing more than a tie between EV and hydrogen because hydrogen definitely needs a huge infrastructure change.
2) It's true that power for EVs has to come from somewhere. However, thanks to the efficiency gains of the electric car over the gasoline car, you still win out in energy efficiency and emissions compared to gas cars. See Tesla's white paper: http://www.teslamotors.com/display_data/21stCentElectricCar.pdf
3) Lithium Ion batteries are not only non toxic but also recyclable. EV batteries built with current technology have lifespans around 10 years, but here's the best part: batteries are getting better. It appears that his specs are based on decades old lead acid batteries.
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Tim 4:21PM (1/12/2007)
Terry Tamminen, a High School graduate, one time Malibu pool cleaner, author of "The Ultimate Pool Maintenance Manual," and part-time actor http://www.calcoast.org/news/cpr0041106.html is right in that we need to get off Fossil Fuel. On this, we can all agree!! Unfortunately, he so stubbornly clings to a “no war for oil” conspiracy theory that he hasn’t bothered to research deeply enough into the “H2 Economy” fantasy. Regardless of the real facts regarding Hydrogen, Terry wants us to jump from the oil coated frying pan into the hydrogen fire! Both he an Arnold have been sold a bag of rotten fruit.
On the other hand, Alec Brooks, a REAL expert on the subject says "… Fuel cell vehicles consume 4x the amount of electricity per mile than BEVs…” http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/01/12/listen-to-alec-brooks-presentation-at-the-california-air-resourc/ This report is well worth listening to. Alec actually coined the term "vehicle to grid" (V2G) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_to_grid
Anyone with even half a brain and a little education on the subject understands that hydrogen is a red haring scam. http://www.oilcrash.com/articles/h_scam.htm it’s one of the worst green house gasses http://www.ozone-depletion.com/ Even Al “Green” Gore is worried that stored explosive gasses like LNG, H2 etc are terror targets http://www.timrileylaw.com/LNG.htm and H2 has no infrastructure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_power
Big oil is pushing Hydrogen simply because the vast majority of it comes from their product Natural Gas which is another Fossil Fuel! It’s far greener and cheaper to just burn the natural gas than waste energy reforming it into H2! Somebody please enlighten Terry/Arnold! They need to get their noses off the mirror and take a step back to see the whole picture.
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CM 1:26AM (1/13/2007)
Terry Tamminens arguments against battery electrics was mostly bogus, as the comments on it made clear.
His only halfway valid argument was the old "takes too long to recharge on long trips" argument, apparently unaware that fast charging batteries are now available, and unaware that two types of hydrogen fuel systems - compressed and metal hydride - take much longer than "5 minutes" to refill.
After trashing batteries with his bogus arguments, he suddenly switches tactics and tries to make peace with the electric supporters, by claiming he "hates these arguments and we need to develop all these technologies". Gee, I might find that more convincing if he hadn't spent most of the interview bashing batteries.
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Greg 12:25PM (1/14/2007)
Hydrogen loss 20% of their gases in 1 week. This escaped gas contributes to the opening up of the ozone layer.
Natural gas gets a 20% loss when converting to hydrogen. The hybrid fuelcell cars gain 20% efficiency from their non-hydrogen batteries. THerefore the actual efficiency from fuelcell efficiency is about 32 mpg (50- 40%)for a small Fcell mercedes. You are better of with a Prius.
Phoenix Motorcars has an all-electric truck that recharges in less then 10 minutes and goes 250 miles per charge.
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Tim 10:24AM (1/14/2007)
Terry and Arnold should champion the “Electric Economy” and divert funds from inefficient Hydrogen to 4x more efficient Electric. Ideas include
1)A tax credit for home or business PV solar collectors (especially in So. Cal.) and/or Home wind turbines in the north. Credits could by assessed by live and tested generating capacity on a month by month basis.
2)Every home and business should have a bi-directional meter so they could sell excess power back to the grid. http://www.solarwarrior.com/net-metering.html and CA could help the utilities with the costs.
3)CA should build more electric power generating plants. I prefer renewable, but nuclear is worth investigating.
4)I know that Maria castrated him, but Arnold should re-grow his “courage” and CA should reinstate their ZEV mandate that they scrapped a couple of years ago.
5)CA could drastically increase parking costs for non-electric cars in downtown areas and remove parking fees for EVs.
6)CA should build more efficient Monorail public transportation. http://www.monorails.org/ They are much faster to build, cheaper to operate and less disruptive to existing infrastructure than light rail.
All these ideas are ar cheaper and more efficient near and long term to the “H2 Superhighway” debacle that was thrust upon CA by Big Oil.
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