Posted by andy Sun, 18 Sep 2005 20:36:00 GMT

I went to the “alt.wheels” show today which had the motto “Creating a sustainable transportation vision for the 21st century”. I got some geek thrills out of looking at the engineering in new types of cars. I also came away very concerned about the lack of commitment that …

I went to the “alt.wheels” show today which had the motto “Creating a sustainable transportation vision for the 21st century”. I got some geek thrills out of looking at the engineering in new types of cars. I also came away very concerned about the lack of commitment that our society has made to diminishing oil dependence.

I saw a very professional presentation of Winning the Oil Endgame about the ways that America can escape from a dependency on oil imports, by Nathan Glasgow of the Rocky Mountain Institute. The good news is that it is possible to get rid of oil imports by 2025 through improved efficiency and biofuels. According to this sober study this could be very cheap and profitable – a total investment of $12 per ($60) barrel saved. However, it requires long term thinking. For instance, consumers need to invest in fuel savings with an expected payback period of 14 years (the expected life of a car), rather than the two years that their behavior indicates they plan for. And, the cars can be big, but they need to be much lighter. It takes a long time to turn over the existing stock of cars. Buildings can also be built for great efficiency, but that takes even longer. You can read about it here: http://www.oilendgame.com/index.html

I wonder where an investor could go to buy oil (savings) for $12/barrel? Is there any way to monetize those savings in bulk? I used to work on models that calculated the stock market value of oil companies by figuring out the value of their oil in the ground. Maybe we can build up a more comprehensive view of energy that will open up new opportunities for private investment. $12 is an incredible deal.

I caught up on some interesting engineering. One man was demonstrating “the naked [Toyota] Prius”, a car which he had instrumented to reveal its secrets. It uses an ingenious system of one gas motor and two electric motors, coupled by a planetary gear, so that the two electric motors can work together in various ratios to start and stop the gas motor, generate power, drive the car, change the gas-powered gear ratio, etc. (http://auto.howstuffworks.com/hybrid-car16.htm ). All that is fit into a transverse package under the hood of a compact car. It’s a stellar example of Japanese engineering and manufacturing. Unfortunately, it isn’t breakthrough science and technology. According to the presenter, new Toyota models will use the same system to increase power, rather than reduce fuel consumption.

There were several all-electric cars. That’s an old technology that has been repeatedly rejected over the past 100 years. There were pickups and other large vehicles powered by compressed natural gas. That’s good for the gas company that was promoting these vehicles, but not a significant reducer of fossil fuel consumption.

A group of hobbyists was showing off their “veggie diesel” vehicles. These are old diesel cars that burn vegetable oil. Apparently the engines need no modification, but you need to install a heated veggie oil tank (one guy was using an ice cream drum) to keep the food products viscous and running into the engine. Then, you pull up to your local burger joint, scoop up the discarded French fry frying oil, and drive off. I’ve heard that you can sometimes get the waste oil for free, but the guys in the club were estimating they pay about $1 per gallon. It’s like this story: http://www.pistonheads.com/doc.asp?c=104&i=6545 . Clearly, this is the type of simple biofuel adoption that “Winning the oil endgame” was talking about.

I got to ride some electric scooters and mopeds. They were fun and comfortable. However, I’m sticking to my bike, which has a longer range and many health benefits. Even the saleguy said “We are all for the environment. If you are strong enough to ride a bicycle, we say you should ride the bicycle”.

The only wow! technology for me was the hydrogen car. This was powered by a tank of compressed hydrogen, and apparently can run 400 miles on a tank. The hydrogen is pure hydrogen produced by electrolysis. The presenter uses solar panels on his house to make the hydrogen, but that’s not a requirement. The power is generated by 2 fuel cell stacks generating 10 kilowatts, combined with a battery pack for acceleration. The car looks like a stock compact car, but it has an aluminum body and was rebuilt by hand for minimum weight (“we replaced every washer with a titanium one”). The presenter (I didn’t write down his name) apparently built the car 5 years ago with government grants. The good news: the fuel cells cost $500K at the time, and now they would cost $18K. The bad news: the government grants have been cut off, and progress on making production cars has been slow.

Apparently making reliable and inexpensive fuel cells is a tricky problem. $18K is a lot of money, and even the $18K stack of cells needs pure hydrogen. If you make hydrogen by “reforming” natural gas/methanol/oil (the most efficient way to get it in a car), it’s contaminated with carbon that ruins the fuel cells. The presenter argued that a fuel-cell car has a lot of advantages that make it unattractive for car companies – most notably, that it has very few moving parts and is very durable and reliable. I wasn’t completely convinced that car companies are dragging their feet because they don’t want us to have simple and reliable cars, but there does seem to be a need for new players.

The disturbing factor was an overwhelming lack of participation by big institutions. None of the major manufacturers came to the event. All the interesting presenters were hobbyists. The best technology was five years old. Our existing system of big cars burning lots of gas works really well, so well that we can’t get the experienced players who are running that system to help us find a new way. That’s why the country needs leadership.

If great times make great men, then our times are sadly lacking. Our leaders have failed every test of future vision. It’s time for the rest of us to get involved, and start drilling for that $12 saved oil. I think Assembla is doing it’s part, since our employees and contractors, and many who follow our methodology, don’t travel and in most cases don’t burn any oil at all getting to work.