REPORT: Energy Secretary Chu: "I would put every cent into electric cars"
U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu has a penchant for making some straightforward statements about energy policy. He's said that electric vehicles are inevitable, for example, and that all American cars should be E85-capable. Recently, he apparently said that "if it were up to me, I would put every cent into electric cars." This quote, which was relayed by unnamed alternative energy developers who were at a recent meeting on alternative fuels, is sure to stir up the whole hydrogen vs. plug-in cars debate that's been going on since the DOE slashed H2 funding in May. The Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee responded by marking up the FY 2010 DOE budget and restoring the hydrogen vehicle funding.
If Chu did say what it's reported that he said, then it should be clear that it isn't an official reversal of the Senate's work. It just shows that there are some serious disagreements in Washington about how to best fund the future – and what that future should be. But the DOE is in charge of some big things and, this year, it has handed out billions in loan guarantees for plug-in vehicles, including money for Ford ($5.9 billion), Nissan ($1.6 billion), Tesla Motors ($465 million) and Fisker ($528 million).
[Source: Biofuels Digest]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Matt234 1:14PM (10/13/2009)
There is a lot of slack in the Constitution for the Executive branch to do what it needs to do without explicit directives. Thank you Alexander Hamilton. Sometimes this is good (e.g. Steven Chu), and sometimes it is bad (e.g. Dick Cheney). On the whole, it would literally not be the United States without it.
Whatever the deal with Hydrogen or Electric (not sure they are mutually exclusive), we should just be grateful smart people are holding the purse.
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summazooma 6:50AM (10/14/2009)
Matt,
Absolutely agree with all you posted...
Why there's such a battle of wills over electric vs. hydrogen is beyond me... Is this some kind of weird divide & conquer tactic by fossils?
Unless "the rhetorical 'you'" are talking about hydrogen I.C.E. rather than hydrogen Fuel Cell, you're talking batteries to capture the energy produced in the Fuel Cell. The drive system is electric...
Now, as Energy Secretary, he's also thinking hydrogen infrastructure, which explains why/how he might be skeptical of "hydrogen" (I don't think he's "anti-hydrogen" so much as making a statement about probability (does the guy play the slots?)... But, in the end, whether hydrogen wins or not, we're talking electric.
Tim 10:19AM (10/14/2009)
Matt234,
You NEED to educate yourself and get your facts straight.
Before you "thank Hamilton", I strongly suggest that you read the book:
Hamilton's Curse: How Jefferson's Arch Enemy Betrayed the American Revolution--and What It Means for Americans Today (Hardcover).
http://www.amazon.com/Hamiltons-Curse-Jeffersons-Revolution-Americans/dp/0307382842
Hamilton is the root of the tree and directly to blame for the USA's current economic and social collapse which is snuffing the World's last beacon of liberty and leaving the people of the world at the mercy of the Globalists New Economic & Social Order of, for and by the elite and well-connected banking class!
Those who protest against G8 thinking that Capitalism has failed are being mislead and manipulated. We have not had Capitalism since 1913 when Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act. It is the Globalists Corporatism that has failed and now they want the whole world. ALL this pain & suffering leads back to Hamilton!
Hamilton was a Traitor!
Mark Kiernan 2:55PM (10/13/2009)
Chu is a great guy, he knows what is his talking about and knows that the will have a positive legacy.
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Rick C. 4:58PM (10/13/2009)
Steven Chu is a physicist. I would trust any scientist before I trusted a mere career politician.
Throwback 3:25PM (10/13/2009)
I don't doubt Chu is smart, but does that make him right? What about the millions of Americans who live in rural America? You know "fly over" land. Do you think EVs are what is best for them when we travel much longer distances? I grew up in NYC where you have great public transportation and travel much smaller distances. That is not the case in vast swaths of our country, it would be nice if one of the "smart" people understood that.
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paulwesterberg 3:34PM (10/13/2009)
Which is why we also need to work on electric high speed rail lines to provide fast efficient long distance transportation and to get heavy freight off our roadways.
Blown tranny 4:24PM (10/13/2009)
The only person I have ever heard use the term "fly over" in relation to rural America is Limbaugh.
Making EVs practical for rural America only requires a few more incremental advancements in existing technology.
Making Hydrogen practical requires...well...I'm not sure.
Petroleum fuels are currently practical, but will inevitably become more expensive as oil becomes more scarce and stretched thin by rising world population. Shouldn't be a problem with all those wealthy rural (ha ha) families. Right?
PabloKoh 4:36PM (10/13/2009)
I am still skeptacle about the ability to drive 100 miles with an electric car at 10 deg. outside with snow on the roads. I think a diesel engine running on E-95 might be a better solution for rural areas.
Ernie 4:49PM (10/13/2009)
Yes, because of the following:
1) Batteries are already several times cheaper than fuel cells.
The people in the flyover states are wise enough with their money to grasp this. At the moment, fuel cells cost roughly $500K while the batteries that do the same job cost around $10K. $20K if you really want to overestimate. Yes, the cost of fuel cells is coming down. But batteries are getting cheaper faster.
2) Cheap hydrogen isn't green. Green hydrogen is *really* expensive.
Reforming natural gas into hydrogen is at least 10 times cheaper than hydrolysis. But if you do that, you might as well burn the natural gas in a modified V6. You'd get more energy out of the natural gas, you would do away with all the expensive crap that turns natural gas into hydrogen as well as the fuel cell, and to top it all off, you'd have exactly the same polluting emissions. In other words, it's far cheaper and just as good. Which is why T. Boone Pickens has suggested it for trucking in his plan. Similarly, he suggests battery powered cars for anything smaller than a cube van (because they're way more efficient).
3) Hydrogen is inferior to battery powered cars in every respect except for one: refuelling time.
Hydrogen cars have roughly the same range as battery electrics at many times the cost. That means that you'll be refueling either one at the same intervals. Now, also consider that some damn fool has already taken a Tesla Roadster from New York to LA, right through Iowa and Nebraska, in all of 8 days (http://renewamericaroadtrip.com/). That means that the infrastructure is already there. You couldn't even begin to attempt such a feat with a fuel cell vehicle today, because there isn't anywhere near enough Hydrogen stations along this route. Moreover, stopping to fully charge that pack at 440 V and 400 A (already available at many Denny's, but without the outlet in the parking lot) takes roughly the same amount of time as eating lunch. You have to recharge the people on board when taking a long roadtrip, and noone ever complains about how long that takes. Giving up an extra 15-30 minutes per stop seems like a small price to pay compared to the enormous cost of fuel and fuel cell.
Alan 5:22PM (10/13/2009)
Looking at the Powerpoint presentations of the pro-hydrogen supporters, it doesn't look good even by their own estimates e.g (http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/2009symposium/presentations/ogden.pdf). Of course anything could happen with technology but physics and economics are not looking good for a hydrogen powered vehicle future, unless the playing field is made very unfair by governments. There's a visible transition from ICE->Hybrid->REEV->BEV with very little chicken and egg, transition of demand to keep gas down for the miles that the REEV has to do on liquid fuel. As far as I can tell the hydrogen promoters will only be able to offer a car almost equal to an ICE in capabilities but will be expensive and perhaps half their costs per mile assuming you can get the fuel, the battery path supports a steady reduction in demand for gas as more and more miles are driven on existing nighttime electricity capacity. Sure the price of electricity may double but it should still be significantly cheaper than ICE.
I think the recession has finally triggered the realisation that the transition to hydrogen, whilst being great for those that want it, is probably not affordable.
Shane 5:12PM (10/13/2009)
Investing in EVs doesn't mean ICE cars will disappear. People in rural America will survive just fine!
A 50-mile range EV will serve 90% of my (and a lot of other people's) driving needs. For the other times, I can rent or even own a cheap 2nd gas car. Maybe car companies shouldn't be trying so hard to make EV equivalents of what we're used to - at least not until battery technology is there. A practical and affordable EV with limited range seems very possible to do now, and it immediately allows us to slash our oil consumption/dependence.
Cheers,
KK 5:21PM (10/13/2009)
> What about the millions of Americans who live in rural America?
Rural America already has electricity. How long until there are hydrogen stations in all rural areas of the US?
NeilBlanchard 6:45PM (10/13/2009)
Hi,
Batteries are orders of magnitude less expensive than fuel cells. Like $5k-10K vs $200K-250k.
Electricity is also a lot less expensive than hydrogen.
Batteries last about 2X as long as fuel cells.
For folks that need to go farther than a (typical) EV can manage (assuming that the EESU or some other significantly better battery tech is too long in coming), then I'd suggest serial hybrids like the Volt, or diesel-electric trains, or this prototype: http://green.autoblog.com/2009/06/12/ford-s-max-based-micro-turbine-plug-in-series-hybrid-w-video/
It's a 7-seat vehicle that gets ~67mpg -- much better than the Volt, even though it seats almost 2X as many people.
Sincerely, Neil
Sincerely, Neil
Chris M 10:40PM (10/13/2009)
The government "Hydrogen Hyway" plan is to start the H2 filling infrastructure with a few key major cities (LA, NYC, Washington DC, Sacramento), then other major cities in order of size, then to connect the major cities. Small towns and rural areas are dead last, and may not get H2 stations for 4 decades or more. That is assuming H2 fuel cells drop dramatically in price and H2FCVs become very popular and other competing technologies don't - and that appears to be very unlikely.
On the other hand, electrical power is available everywhere, which makes EVs a much better choice than H2FCVs for those in small towns and rural areas. Even better for rural inhabitants is PHEVs that can use electricity for local driving but switch to a readily available liquid fuel (gasoline, E85, diesel, biodiesel, etc.) for longer distances.
Of course, once advanced capacity batteries come on the market that enable EV driving ranges of 500 to 1,500 miles, which should happen within a decade, the answer will be obvious to everyone in "flyover country".
Carney 3:28PM (10/13/2009)
I still wish he had not made that remark about E85. The problem with it is that he confined it only to American cars, which allowed US automakers to shoot down his trial balloon by portraying this policy as an unfair "burden" on them relative to their competitors.
In reality, of course, FFVs cost little or nothing more than their gasoline-only brethren ($130 per car for automakers to make them FULLY flex fueled, able to run not just E85 but also M85 or any other alcohol fuel). Furthermore FF capability is a selling point, insurance and options in case another oil price spike. If anything it's an unfair advantage over foreign competition.
Politics and suicidally short-sighted yahoo-ism being what it is, however, he should have ensured that his call for E85 compatibility included all new cars SOLD in America (so as to include imports), not just MADE in America or by American firms.
That way he not only neutralizes protectionist style whining, he also helps move forward a policy that will in effect make flex fuel the worldwide standard, since foreign automakers would have to switch their production lines from gasoline-only to flex-fuel and would not bother to retain gasoline-only for the non-US market given the cost of redundancy and the small total price difference.
Finally, he should also have called for the cars to be FULLY flex fueled, able to run on ANY alcohol fuel. Including methanol (made from coal, natural gas, or any biomass without exception such as crop residues, sewage or fast-growing weeds like kudzu) helps neutralize the food vs. fuel myth.
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jpm 3:39PM (10/13/2009)
please get your own blog, nobody wants to read comments longer than the original article, thanks.
PabloKoh 4:27PM (10/13/2009)
Keep up the thought provoking comments. Don't be intimidated away.
Woodenbee 5:09PM (10/13/2009)
well I think all cars in Brazil are made to run on E85, its not really a burden, it just adds a few bucks to the price of each car, businesses in the US feel entitled to whine a lot because they think all the money they spend on lobbying/ buying politicians exempts them from any sort of societal responsibility, or ethical conduct, thats why the fools who talk about small government as an ideal are just the dim witted stooges of corporate evildoers
Serge 6:33PM (10/13/2009)
jpm: I will disagree with you on that one having written several "feature-length" comments myself ;). What's interesting is that linked article is covering electrics vs. biofuels angle, not electrics vs. hydrogen as implied by Sebastian. It's time for people to realize that pure hydrogen is dead for light transport purposes. Massive government subsidies are gone and private sector is not dumb to invest in a dead-end technology solution without government paying the biggest portion of the bill first.
With that in mind, it makes perfect sense to invest every available cent in accelerating xEV adoption by bringing better (and cheaper) batteries to market as it is the closest true alternative technology portfolio to gasoline, which can slowly replace its use in transportation sector.
Mandating flex-fuel capability in cars (but not fuel availability at the pumps) makes sense to me as well. Taxpayer doesn't pay anything and automakers (and therefore autobuyers) pay minuscule amounts for compatibility with fuels that are cleaner burning than petrofuels and are derived from domestic sources. This mandate allows for market-based deployment of economically feasible fuels like methanol. In the long-term, if and when alcohol-direct fuel cells (or hydrogen fuel-cells with on board reformers) are cheap enough for commercial introduction as range extenders infrastructure largely be in place already.