World ASPO Conference, Friday morning, continued

ASPO Conference, Friday morning, continued

Transportation

John Heywood, MIT, Sloan Automotive Lab

The world has a rapidly rising stock of vehicles, especially in the developing world. We could go from 750 million today to three times that number in a few decades, assuming there is fuel for them.

Transportation is 30% of U.S. primary energy use.
Personal transportation is 60% of that, air travel 10%, and freight 30%.
The scale of U.S. transportation fuel use is vast, 550 billion liters a year.
Transportation is dominated by internal combustion engines on land and turbines in the air, both powered by petroleum based fuels.
Scale of use is a big problem.

Over the last 25 years the auto industry has managed a 1% efficiency improvement per year.
Europe has developed high efficiency, high performance diesels, but suffers from the high emissions.
Cheap fuel and emissions regs have discouraged diesel use in the U.S.
If we had used all this efficiency improvement to reduce consumption, we could have achieved 30% savings. Instead, we used it for performance improvements – acceleration and power.

Technical options:
Evolutionary improvements in weight, drag, transmissions, and engines
Alt fuels, both fossil and biofuels, althogh fossil alt fuels have a high CO2 penalty
More radical transitions to new vehicle concepts – lighter, smaller, electric. Fuel cells in the long term only.

Amory Lovins calculated: A car in actual use is only 10% efficient, and the payload is 10% of vehicle weight, so only 1% of the fuel consumed actually moves the payload – you.

There is the possibility of improving the energy eff. of engines and transmissions by 3 by 2025
Given the 17 year life of a car, it would be difficult to achieve more than a 5% market share from 2010 to 2025. Plug in hybrids would be best.
A 10% weight reduction would result in a 5% efficiency improvement.
The problem is that performance competes with efficiency and the market drives for performance.
Technology alone will not work – behavioral change is necessary.

Bill Reinert, President of Toyota USA

Restrictions on fast design change: Product cycle is 5 years. Design is restrained by new requirements for pedestrian safety, rollover protection, and side impact protection. Cars can have a 15 to 20 year life span.

Car designers need to work with urban planners as cities expand.
The Middle East and Asia have a youth population boom – future consumers.

Biofuels have problems:
Biomass feedstock requires bulk transportation
Biomass crops grown mostly over the depleting Oglalla Aquifer

Toyota Approach
Balance impacts with consumer demand
Recognize the need for mass market appeal – there is a lack of consciousness, so a too radical car doesn’t sell
Have a consistent energy policy over time
Multiple path on fuels, but all through a hybrid system

US buyers prefer performance over efficiency

Toyota looks beyond a “well-to-wheels” energy assessment to a life cycle energy assessment
Their engineers have a carbon budget as well as a money and weight budget
Steel vehicles actually have a lower life cycle energy than carbon fiber – CF has very high life cycle CO2
Another CO2 source – precious metals for catalytic converters

Going towards plug-in hybrids, although CO2 impact varies with coal use for electrical generation.

Andrew Frank, UC Davis Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering Dept. and Director of the Hybrid and EV Center

Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs)as storage for Renewable Energy Sources

15-30 kilowatt hours (kWh) per car for 30-60 mile All Electric Range (AER)
Our current energy infrastructure is the 120 volt outlet and the gas station
Use smart 2-way outlets to provide distributed energy storage, controlled using existing power company technology for water heaters and air conditioners – charge off peak
Average car sits idle 21 hours a day – available to store or provide power

A plug in hybrid has no weight increase – engine size reduced
Design for an AER of 60 miles
Deplete the battery to 20% of charge and then maintain at 20%
Never use engine to recharge the battery
Engine 1/3 the size, made up by electric motor
Vehicle operates on 90% electricity, 10% liquid fuel
1/10 to 1/3 the cost per mile

Solar electricity pays back better when used as substitute for gasoline
A 10 kW array produces the equivalent of a gallon of gas per hour
Gives a 6 year payback instead of 30
A plug in hybrid gives 3-4 times the range per RE kWh vs hydrogen fuel cells

PHEVs can use and store large scale wind power
PHEVs can provide emergency power for a home

A 660cc engine with a 100 hp electric motor and a constant velocity transmission can equal a 3 liter engine with auto tran in performance. The CVT offers a 10:1 parts reduction.

An average PHEV could run on 100 gallons a year, about 1/10 the average fuel consumption of today. Therefore, we could transition to ethanol without an increase in the present supply.

If 10% of the fleet was 40 AER PHEVs, it would reduce US gas consumption by 300 mbpd, 4.5% of US oil use.

There is tremendous excess capacity in the grid for off peak charging. 20% fleet penetration would use less than half of excess capacity. It would improve economics for consumers and power companies.

I took a lot of notes. You'll have to wait till tomorrow for the rest.