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The Department of Transportation and Department of Energy’s Hydrogen Road Tour 08’ made a stop today in the nation’s capital.  The cross-country tour features the latest in hydrogen technology from 9 different manufacturers – and puts you behind the wheel!

BMW, Chevy, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, and Volkswagen all had demonstration vehicles available for the general public to drive.  And hundreds of tourists, attendee’s, and members of the press used the opportunity to get a feel for America’s transportation future.  We even spotted Callista Gingrich, wife of former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich taking a Chevy Equinox for a drive.

Callista Gingrich driving a Chevy Equinox Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle.

Despite the impressive range of these cars, much of their cross country voyage will unfortunately be aboard a transport truck.  Only a hand-full of states currently have hydrogen fueling stations, making an emissions-free, gasoline-free tour of the country impossible as of now.  With such limited infrastructure for hydrogen fueling in place, the car of the future remains handicapped by today’s oil dependence.  We look forward to a road tour in the future that won’t require such dependency.

If you would like to get behind the wheel of one of these cars, please visit the Road Tour 08’ web page for more details.  The two-week event will be stopping in more than 30 cities across 18 states between now and August 24th.

Engineers and attendees look under the hood at the latest in hydrogen technology.

Earlier this month the Indiana Business Journal published a story about the Richard G. Lugar Renewable Energy Center, a lab at IUPUI in Indianapolis. At this center advanced research on hydrogen production is occurring so that future fuel cell vehicles can run on completely renewable hydrogen.

Currently hydrogen is most often derived from natural gas, a far cleaner source of automobile fuel than gasoline, but still not renewable or greenhouse gas free. At the Lugar Center researchers are finding ways to derive hydrogen from cellulosic ethanol. As the article notes “Ethanol made from cellulosic materials such as corn stalks and switchgrass is expected to be more energy-efficient than corn-based ethanol. It also doesn’t require a food source.”

However, hydrogen fuel is not the full extent of the research, as the Lugar Center is also focused on:

“non- precious-metal catalysts and more efficient membranes for fuel cell usage… production of cellulosic ethanol by using genetically engineered yeast to ferment glucose into ethanol [and] developing a lithium battery large enough to replace the costlier nickel batteries now used to power hybrid electric cars.”

Named after Senator Richard Lugar to “honor the U.S. senator’s work to put Indiana at the forefront of alternative-fuel exploration,” it appears the center is doing great work carrying out the senator’s vision. It will be interesting to see the advances that come out of this lab’s work.

An interesting story in Forbes magazine discusses a partnership between General Motors and Carnegie Mellon University. The five year, $5 million dollar agreement will advance research on cars that can drive themselves. As the labs co-director, Raj Rajkumar says “Research at the lab will focus on ‘creating and maturing the underlying technologies required to build the autonomous vehicle of the future.”

The benefits of this technology go far beyond being able to eat breakfast on your way to work without having to steer your car, as many environmental challenges can be answered by autonomous vehicles. An autonomous vehicle could reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles by a substantial amount for two reasons, peak fuel efficiency and lighter weight.

A vehicle that drives itself would be programmed to accelerate, drive and coast at the optimal rate for fuel efficient performance. An autonomous car would never waste fuel through rapid acceleration, speeding on roadways or idling while in traffic as computer systems will not allow for this. This could result in double digit fuel economy increases based on efficient operation alone.

Currently reductions in automobile weight can lead to more serious accidents as passengers are forced to absorb more impact when lighter vehicles have collisions. As accidents would become extremely unlikely if all cars on the road were driven using computing systems, the vehicle could conceivably be made out of very lightweight material. This would result in amazing fuel efficiency increases without adopting engine technology more advanced than current combustion engines.

Last year GM sponsored Carnegie Mellon’s Tartan Racing team, which won the Pentagon’s DARPA prize. The event requires an autonomous vehicle to drive more than 50 miles on a course with various twists and turns. Hopefully GM’s renewed investment will bring this technology closer to use on America’s roads.

Honda has launched its hydrogen fuel cell test fleet, bringing the FCX Clarity to Southern California. The midsize sedan will seat four; run using electricity created on board with a fuel cell and will have zero carbon emissions. Honda announced the vehicle will initially be available this July in California and then go on the market in Japan towards the end of this year. This is wonderful news and Honda now joins General Motors and BMW in bringing hydrogen fuel cell test fleets to United States consumers.

Hopefully, these test fleets will spur the energy companies to continue expansion of hydrogen fueling stations. Hydrogen vehicles suffer from a chicken and egg problem, no one will buy cars if they can’t fuel them and no energy company will invest in hydrogen stations if there are no cars using the fuel. The chicken and egg problem of hydrogen infrastructure needs to be solved before real progress on fuel cells can be made and with each additional automaker entering the hydrogen game demand for hydrogen fuel will continue to increase.

Gasoline infrastructure has a 100 year head start on hydrogen, but each automaker investing in hydrogen narrows that lead.

This week in Washington, DC The Brookings Institution and Google.org sponsored Plug-In Electric Vehicles 2008:What Role for Washington? This event focused on the ways policy makers and the federal government can help support bringing these essential vehicles to market. As the Wall Street Journal reports:

“Ford Americas President Mark Fields told the conference Wednesday that Congress must allocate money already approved for research programs dedicated to developing batteries. Mr. Fields noted that Japan, India and China are all significantly funding the research development and deployment of plug-in hybrid vehicle technologies, but he insisted the U.S. “must win” the race.”

Government really can play a role in this effort by continuing to support, both financially and through research, the creation of high voltage batteries that can bring plug-in vehicles to market. As Tony Clarke, head of General Motors North America operations, said at the conference “Government could help by increasing R&D funding for this vital area, while supporting domestic manufacturing of advanced batteries.”

As we discussed earlier this week in another post, the increased electrification of the automobile will allow for immediate reduction in demand for petroleum. These cars are capable of driving electrically without gasoline while producing zero emissions. Once the battery has been drained a generator re-charges the electric system while operating at an amazingly efficient 150 mile per gallon.

In regard to electric vehicles Mr. Clarke said “The debate has shifted from if this would happen to when,” and this week’s conference has given a little bit more focus to the ways government can aid our domestic auto industry as it pursues the goal of vehicle electrification.

The Examiner newspaper ran a great story on just what impact plug-in hybrid electric cars could have on gasoline consumption for U.S. drivers. Here are their calculations:

“Let’s assume here that the car gets 35 miles per gallon (mpg) when running the gasoline engine. If the total length of the trip is 40 miles then no gasoline is used so mpg is infinite. If the total length of the trip is 70 miles then car burns 0.85 gallons of fuel or the equivalent of 82 mpg. This would indicate that a fleet of these cars with typical round-trip commuting distances would average 107 mpg. These numbers get even better if you can recharge your car at work.”

Using the same 35 miles per gallon scale the paper reports that a trip of 50 miles would yield fuel economy of 175 miles per gallon and a trip of 100 miles would yield a fuel economy of 58 miles per gallon. Even if The Examiner’s numbers are overly generous, this is still an amazing achievement considering the fuel economy average for today’s cars is 24.7 mpg.

What would this mean for oil use? The Examiner says “You could take any size car and with an electric hybrid design like the Chevy Volt, expect to improve you mpg by a factor of 3 times.” In February 2008 the U.S. imported 10.5 million barrels of oil per day. If everyone used a plug-in vehicle the U.S. could have reduced daily oil imports by around 7 million barrels. The impact adopting this technology will have on oil imports and energy security cannot be understated.

During a keynote speech at the CTSI Clean Technology Conference Duncan Macleod, vice president of Shell Hydrogen, announced a new fueling station in Los Angeles that will be open for the public. The station will create hydrogen on site using an electrolyzer.

As this CNet news story reports, “Macleod argued that fuel cell vehicles will be mass-produced by 2020. To make that happen, “mini networks” of hydrogen filling stations in densely populated cities need to take root now. Macleod said that fuel cell vehicles are at a pivotal point in development: With the proper government incentives and technology investments now, hydrogen can be produced in cleaner ways.”

Infrastructure is the biggest hurdle for hydrogen cars and Shell is making the commitment to building this infrastructure out in places where hydrogen vehicle test fleets can take advantage. Shell has also promised to build more hydrogen stations in the coming months in Southern California, bringing more access to the fuel for consumers.

Shell’s commitment to hydrogen signals a belief that hydrogen can become a profitable business for energy companies; it’s a signal the automakers and Congress should look at as well.

You can’t turn on the TV, go to the grocery, engage in conversation with friends these days without hearing about the latest green movement, gas prices at the pump or a number of other energy issues. The prominence of this discussion is no different on Capitol Hill –especially this week as the Senate is considering comprehensive climate change legislation, America’s Climate Security Act.

The debate this week will serve as a clearinghouse for different viewpoints on how to address the climate change challenge, what the consequences are for the environment and what the implications will be for our economy. Will Congress settle for short term feel good solutions? Is the American public ready for the structural change legislation like this could create? What are the long term economic consequences and just how can we reduce today’s level of emissions 70% by mid-century?

The Senate is a deliberative body, and Americans will be following this debate closely as they prepare for family road trips during the busy travel season.

Changing the behavior of consumers is the only way to make real progress in curbing greenhouse gas emissions. In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal Jeffery Ball writes that many consumers are beginning to change their behavior, but not out of concern for the environment:

“For all the talk about global warming, what is prompting Americans to rein in their fossil-fuel use isn’t the effect of their consumption on the planet. It is the effect on their pocketbooks.”

As fossil fuels continue to increase in price it’s now in the best interest of consumers to curb their energy use. The increase in the price of gasoline is the most obvious, as the cost of driving one mile has nearly doubled since 2002. Strong international demand does not appear to be lessening, and according to Lee Schipper of the University of California, Berkely “about 5.7% of the average U.S. household’s spending went to gasoline — a level not seen since 1983.” In addition to gas prices, American’s should expect utility company rates to rise because of strong international demand for commodities and fossil fuels.

This means one thing for the consumer: either become more efficient in your use of energy or begin paying the cost. The economics are forcing people to change their ways, but this will be a change for the good. Even if energy prices begin to fall in the near future consumers should see the benefits of a more energy efficient lifestyle and continue this new found ecological awareness.

Rick Wagoner, CEO of General Motors was on a trip in Germany when he discussed the company’s plan for electric vehicles. The interview will be published May 23rd in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, but the following excerpt is available today:

“The company previously said it plans to start serial production of an electric car, the Chevrolet Volt, by the end of 2010. ‘Our two challenges are lowering the cost of batteries and convincing consumers of the advantages of the Volt,’ Wagoner told the newspaper”

The Volt has been a public concept car for a couple of years now and the timetable on its commercialization continues to move forward. General Motors gambled by developing this car long before battery technology made the actual vehicle feasible, but as the batteries continue to improve their energy storage, heat, size and cost issues GM is now positioned to capitalize.
Because of its early investment, GM is primed to win the race to the electric car and the prizes are many: new customers for the brand, accolades from the international media and the attraction of new outside investment for the company.

Being the first automaker to bring a fully electric car to market is the green motoring equivalent of the first moon landing. An electric vehicle will be a game changer, a vehicle that can ease environmental concerns, save consumers from high prices at the pump, make government fuel economy standards achievable and usher in wholesale changes in automotive components, maintenance and manufacture. General Motors has moved one step closer to winning this race.