Shot in the Arm! White House Proposes Creation of Energy Security Trust to Fund Clean Energy Research

March 16, 2013 at 12:18 pm

America’s energy security gets a boost from the White House. President Obama proposed the creation of Energy Security Trust during his visit to the Argonne National Research Lab to talk about American energy security. The Energy Security Trust, a$2 Billion investment over 10 years, uses revenue generated by oil and gas development on federal lands to support new research and technology that will shift our cars and trucks off of oil for good.  Below is an infographic that outlines how this works:

Energy Security Trust via Whitehouse.gov

Energy Security Trust Infographic via Whitehouse.gov

Here is an excerpt from the White House Blog:

So how does it work? The Energy Security Trust will invest in research that will make future technologies cheaper and better – it will fund the advances that will allow us to run cars and trucks on electricity or homegrown fuels, and on the technology that will enable us to drive from coast-to-coast without a drop of oil.

Over 10 years, the Energy Security Trust will provide $2 billion for critical, cutting-edge research focused on developing cost-effective transportation alternatives.The funding will be provided by revenues from federal oil and gas development, and will not add any additional costs to the federal budget. The investments will support research into a range of technologies – things like advanced vehicles that run on electricity, homegrown biofuels, and domestically produced natural gas. It will also help fund a small number of real-world experiments that try different transportation techniques in cities and towns around the country using advanced vehicles at scale.

If it is worth something, President Obama has indicated his desire to use the executive powers to curb climate change impacts should Congress fail to act.  According to Bloomberg, the president is also thinking of using a Nixon-era law, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1970, to instruct all federal agencies to consider the impact of climate change when approving “major projects, from pipelines to highways.”  Of course, this can have some serious implications for large scale projects and some constituencies in the business sector are already freaking out over this mandate.

While we are busy discussing this issue, I’d like to share with you an address by President Obama from March 2011 in which he outlined his goals for reducing American energy dependence, heavily emphasizing new technology and alternative sources in addition to “safe and responsible” offshore drilling. A lot of what he outline in his blue print for change is already starting to take effect and I can only say that we are poised for a big change in the way we power our vehicles and industries.  Fossil fuels are definitely beginning to see a slow demise (but it will be decades before they are completely phased out in the transportation sector).

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Gulping Gallons? Fuel Efficiency in the United States – An Infographic Overview

November 2, 2011 at 6:26 pm

(Source:  Moving Solutions, Inc. via Autobloggreen)

MoveBuilder has put together an excellent infographic that has all these values, along with such esoteric numbers as the fuel consumption of NASA’s Crawler-transporter and how fast a person could pedal a bike if he or she could metabolize gasoline as efficiently as food (912mph, which would be a really good reason to stay clear of the bike lane).

Fuel Efficiency in the US

Toyota Advanced Fuel Cell Hybrid Vehicle Achieves 431 Mile Estimated Range; Toyota Targeting Commercialization Within Six Years

August 7, 2009 at 11:02 pm

(Source: Green Car Congress)

The Toyota Highlander Fuel Cell Hybrid Vehicle – Advanced (FCHV-adv) (earlier postachieved an estimated range of 431 miles on a single full tank of compressed hydrogen gas, and an average fuel economy of 68.3 miles/kg (approximate mpg equivalent) during a day-long trip down the southern California coast.

In mid-2008, the US Department of Energy (DOE), Savannah River National Laboratory (SNRL) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), approached Toyota to participate in a collaborative evaluation of the real world driving range of the FCHV-adv. On 30 June 2009, two fuel cell vehicles, two Toyota Technical Center engineers, an SRNL engineer and a NREL engineer completed a 331.5 mile extended round trip drive between Torrance, California and San Diego.

The drive began at TMS headquarters in Torrance, traveled north to Santa Monica, turned south to San Diego and finally retraced the route back to Torrance. The route encompassed a variety of drive cycles, including high speed highway driving, moderate highway driving and stop and go traffic on surface streets, in an effort to capture a typical commute. Each vehicle was outfitted with a data collection system that captured vehicle speed, distance traveled, hydrogen consumed, hydrogen tank pressure, temperature and internal tank volume.

For comparison, the 2009 Toyota Highland Hybrid achieves an EPA-estimated rating of 26 mpg combined fuel economy and has a full-tank range of approximately 450 miles. With premium grade gasoline currently priced at about $3.25, the gasoline-powered V6 Highlander hybrid is estimated to travel approximately 26 miles at a cost of about $3.25. Currently, hydrogen gas pricing is not fixed, but DOE targets future pricing at $2 to $3 per kilogram. Therefore, Toyota estimated the FCHV-adv to travel approximately 68 miles at a projected cost of about $2.50 – more than double the range of the Highlander Hybrid, at equal or lesser cost, while producing zero emissions.

Click here to read the entire article.

Obama, DOE slash hydrogen fuel cell funding in new budget

May 8, 2009 at 10:53 am

(Source: Autobloggreen)

The message has been hinted at before, but the federal government is now serious about shifting the focus away from hydrogen and onto plug-in vehicles. In an important statement yesterday, Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu said that hydrogen vehicles are still 10 to 20 years away from practicality and that millions in federal government funding for hydrogen programs will be cut from the 2010 federal budget. Chu said, “We asked ourselves, ‘Is it likely in the next 10 or 15, 20 years that we will covert to a hydrogen car economy?’ The answer, we felt, was ‘no'” (well, duh).

Did we mention this is a big reversal? Just a few weeks ago, Chu announced $41.9 million for hydrogen projects. A major switch, but not totally surprising. During the presidential campaign last fall, Obama did call for a million PHEVs by 2015.

The U.S. Fuel Cell Council and the National Hydrogen Association quickly released a joint statement against the budget cuts.  Here is the full presser:

PRESS RELEASE:

Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Associations Criticize DOE Program Cuts

Official Joint Statement

Washington, DC

May 7, 2009-The National Hydrogen Association (NHA) and U.S. Fuel Cell Council (USFCC) issued the following joint statement regarding the Obama Administration’s FY 2010 budget request for the U.S Department of Energy:

“The cuts proposed in the DOE hydrogen and fuel cell program threaten to disrupt commercialization of a family of technologies that are showing exceptional promise and beginning to gain market traction.

“Fuel cell vehicles are not a science experiment. These are real vehicles with real marketability and real benefits. Hundreds of fuel cell vehicles have collectively logged millions of miles. 

“Both the National Academy of Sciences and NHA’s recent Energy Evolution report conclude that a portfolio of vehicle technologies is needed to achieve the nation’s energy and environmental security goals and that hydrogen is essential to success. Hydrogen also advances the Obama Administration’s goals of greener power generation and a smarter power grid.

“The newest fuel cell vehicles get 72 miles per gallon equivalent with no compromise in creature comforts. Fuel cell buses operating in revenue service achieve twice the fuel economy of diesel buses. Hydrogen production costs are already competitive with gasoline. Projected vehicle costs have been reduced by 75%. These are accomplishments of the Department’s own program in partnership with industry. It would truly be a government waste to squander them by walking away just as success is in sight.

“The National Academy recommended a portfolio approach and we are frankly puzzled at the Energy Department’s decision to ignore that recommendation even as the Department uses other material from the same report to justify its proposed cut.

“We are also concerned that the Department appears to be walking away from its Market Transformation activities, which support fuel cell deployment in early commercial applications. This Congressionally-mandated program is demonstrating the ability of fuel cells to provide a competitive and green alternative to battery-based systems in vehicles and in power supply.

“Finally, we are concerned that the Department has proposed to cut funds for the Solid State Energy Conversion Alliance (SECA). SECA success could dramatically lower the cost of carbon sequestration, improve power plant efficiency, and enable a virtually pollution-free coal plant in the future. Additional funding will hasten SECA progress.”

The NHA and USFCC collectively represent more than 200 companies and organizations.

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A related post on TransportGooru.com: 

Biofuels Get a Boost – Secretary Chu Announces Nearly $800 Million from Recovery Act to Accelerate Biofuels Research and Commercialization

H2 fuel cells beat the pants off of battery-powered cars – says proponent Sandy Thomas

March 6, 2009 at 8:54 pm

 (Source: Autobloggreen)

At the American Council on Renewable Energy’s RETECH conference and expo last week, I was able to listen to a few presentations on renewables and transportation. It’s always interesting to hear about the auto industry from people on the outside, and the RETECH presentations lived up to expectations. I’ll be writing about a few of them this week. 

The most full-throated defense of hydrogen vehicles I heard was issued by Sandy Thomas, president ofH2Gen Innovations, during the “Hydrogen, Fuel Cells & Advanced Engines” panel. H2Gen is mostly interested in stationary hydrogen production stations, but Thomas believes that hydrogen is the one right propulsion system for vehicles, since nothing else will meet America’s greenhouse gas emissions, energy independence, and clean air targets. He had the presentation to prove that H2 cars beat battery vehicles, too, and was willing to share his slides with AutoblogGreen readers. You can read them all in the gallery below (there’s a reason we try to post items like this at the end of the day, when we think you’ll have time to indulge a bit). I’ve also written up some more of what Thomas said after the jump. 

Gallery:RETECH 2009: Hydrogen presentation from Sandy Thomas

Click here to read the entire article.