Currently, vehicle-makers, researchers, investors and green technology analysts are involved in a high-stakes game of developing and investing in various battery chemistries and designs which may yield the result of more energy dense, longer-lasting, and less toxic batteries or ultracapacitors. It’s a good thing that more and more social and financial resources are pouring into electric transport and energy storage solutions. Still others are investing in and legislating in favor of solutions that have a more limited future, the biofuel and hydrogen fuel cell options, which unfortunately still have public and political support out of proportion with their short and medium term ability to drive a sustainable transport system. As other analysts and I have already highlighted, these liquid fuel solutions are highly inefficient in converting renewable energy into a fuel. They require vastly more natural resources and man-made instruments to capture an equivalent amount of usable renewable energy than does a electric generation/electric storage/electric drive solution.

But, in actuality, we don’t HAVE TO have better batteries to build the infrastructure for a livable, sustainable society.  Sure it’s going to be nice but we should spread out our electricity-driven transport investments and development efforts.  Before transport planners and consumers gave themselves over completely to fossil-fueled transport, we used to build electrified rights of way for trains and trolleybuses, which now look all the more attractive in an era of rising petroleum costs. Using electrical energy from the grid to power moving vehicles is an established technology that has received too little notice in our efforts to exactly reproduce the conveniences of the now closing fossil fuel era.

Thus, while better batteries are going to continue to be developed, on-grid and grid-optional vehicles will be a key component of a petroleum-free, carbon-neutral transport system. Grid-powered vehicles are already a mature technology so no breakthroughs are required. Thus, if we are serious about getting off petroleum and cutting our carbon emissions, developing a system of transport attached to a grid increasingly fueled by renewable energy sources can function as a “parachute” until more compact, durable and cheaper systems of mobile electrical energy storage can be developed.

On-Grid Transport and Renewable Energy

Transport of people and goods is now precariously dependent upon the output from oil fields and to a lesser extent natural gas deposits, which contribute to climate change. Building out our existing transport infrastructure with tested and easily modified grid technologies, allows us to use the limitless energy of renewable energy sources to generate electricity and drive land-based transport starting today and extending into the indeterminate future. While there are drawbacks to tying transport to the grid, these disadvantages are dwarfed by the mounting problems and expense associated with oil-based transport fuels.

In addition, predicating our transport future solely on the development of mobile energy storage (batteries/ultracapacitors) is putting all our eggs in one, albeit a promising, basket. The batteries are here, sort of, but we have not yet mass-produced battery electric vehicles in quantities that we will require to address our transport needs. There is no question, on the other hand, that we have the technical capacity to build and use on-grid vehicles to address many of our transport needs with no breakthroughs and no exotic materials. On-grid vehicles are already doing much of the heavy lifting in the area of transport in many industrialized countries. Why for the sake of embracing the “latest” or the “new” should we turn our backs on success?

The more developed and economical battery or ultracapacitor technologies become, the less we would need to depend on on-grid vehicles. On the other hand, I don’t believe we are in a position right now to only choose one “perfect” seeming future solution to the massive climate and energy challenge facing us. The challenge is too great and there are multiple excellent alternatives that will enable us to move beyond fossil fuels.

Already, zero emission vehicle and energy systems are here and functioning, often without much fanfare.  The trolleybuses and light rail system of San Francisco’s Muni use hydroelectric power to power them.  Calgary’s C-train system (pictured above) buys wind-generated electricity to power its light rail cars.  Other electric train systems may not draw power from such clean sources, but it is only a matter, then of building renewable generators and energy storage systems to power these systems as well.

Who’s Buying?

The publicity that battery developed and battery-dependent vehicles have generated relative to on-grid vehicles has a lot to do with the fact that we live in a society and economy that has been moved in the last 60 years towards individual and familial consumption and away from public infrastructure investment. In absolute terms, battery-based solutions deserve substantially more media attention than they get as, for example, the New York Times, the US “newspaper of record”, has been functioning essentially as a public relations arm for automakers marketing hydrogen vehicles. In the consumer market, powerful interests supporting biofuels and hydrogen fuel cells have overshadowed battery electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs/EREVs) in the media beauty contest to date. Still, in the world of electric transport, autonomous battery vehicles are the way that people prefer to imagine the future, as a battery electric vehicle, perhaps with quick-charge capability, will mimic what a fossil fueled vehicle would do.

If we rank the amount of media attention that the various electric transport alternatives receive, we put battery electric and PHEVs/EREVs first, then a distant second are new battery electric utility vehicles like trucks and, in last place, are electrified trains and trolleybuses, which, I suppose for the novelty-hungry press are considered “old hat”. This post, I hope will be one attempt to remedy this balance.

One element that reduces publicity for the on-grid alternative is that there are relatively few actual buyers for a massive transport infrastructure in even the best circumstances. Only governments or large private companies will invest in an electrified right of way for obvious monetary reasons as well as possess the legal right to build over or transform a route/road/railway of any length. There are also no giant companies that are yet significantly invested in building the electrical infrastructure, at least enough to suggest to the general public, governments or corporate buyers that this is an important solution for our energy and transport challenges.

While the existing grid-tied alternatives have not been fully brought into public consciousness, a fan-base exists for the sole new monorail-based technology called Personal Rapid Transit or PRT. Because of PRT’s newness and some other potential benefits, there are occasional articles that discuss this technology that will be installed at London’s Heathrow Airport to transport travelers to parking from Terminal 5.

Electrified Rail

The electrification of railways has for a century been the sign of the maturity of a rail route or railway system; the highest traffic routes in the world all tend to be electrified. If given the budget, most designers of rail systems would choose electrification over diesel. The electrification of a rail line costs more initially than simply building a non-electrified line but electric locomotives or “multiple unit” electric motorized trains (with motors in rail cars distributed throughout the train like many commuter trains and subways) are much longer lasting and energy efficient than train propulsion units that rely on internal combustion. Electric motors are simply more durable than internal combustion engines, which must endure millions of internal explosions throughout their lifespan. Electrification also allows for railways to use regenerative braking by returning electrical energy to the grid while braking; one train going down a hill can help power another train going up a hill. Electric locomotives are quieter, can be much more powerful, and, of course, do not emit any pollutants at the point of use.

Beyond the world of strictly electric locomotives there has been an interesting convergence of internal combustion engines and electric motors, that predated the recent convergence of these two types of traction in automobiles.  Most fossil fueled locomotives are “diesel electric”, using a diesel generator to make electricity that drives the electric traction motors that turn the wheels. Some locomotives are “dual-mode” allowing the train to operate on either an electrified track or a nonelectrified track.  Diesel electrics are the equivalent of a “serial hybrid vehicle,” while less common dual-mode locomotives are the equivalent of plug-in hybrids, using either a liquid energy carrier or electricity for locomotion.

There are two predominant systems for electrifying a railway: overhead wires and a third rail. Overhead wires are usually used for long-distance trains and for higher power applications while commuter and urban rail systems sometimes use the third rail. Other than higher voltages/power, overhead wires have the advantage of putting some distance between the electrical circuits and ground-based challenges including flooding or human interference. Third-rail systems are more compact and avoid the visual effect of overhead wires and towers over the railway. In the future, it may be possible to also use track-embedded linear induction motors that can propel railcars through the use of magnetic fields. An advantage of linear induction motors is that they would not pose the same electrocution danger as a third rail system, as electrical contacts are not exposed.

High speed rail, where trains travel in excess of 120 miles per hour (200 km/h) and as high as 200 miles/hour (320 km/h), can compete in terms of convenience and speed with airplane trips of up to 400 miles when all legs of a journey are considered. Europe and Japan now have fairly extensive high speed rail networks and there is now a proposal in California to build a high speed line from San Diego to San Francisco and Sacramento that at least theoretically could reach a maximum speed of 220 mph. High speed rail requires the building of special rail routes with very slight turns, low grades, smooth railbeds with welded rails. The fastest scheduled rail segment (of the French TGV) averages 173 mph (279 km/h) while the railed speed record also belongs to a specially prepared TGV that achieved 357 mph (574.8 km/h) in 2007 on an ordinary high speed route in France.

In America, where most areas are starting from a deficit of passenger rail options, the cachet of high speed rail projects may distract from building a functioning (electric) regional and commuter rail system where appropriate. With a wider dispersion of population such as in the West or between major business centers like New York and Chicago, high speed rail projects will be a more feasible and practical option. One could imagine, for instance a high speed line that ran from New York to Chicago with stops in Pittsburgh and Cleveland. On the other hand such a route would benefit from coordinated regional lines from surrounding cities, as well as a local train system. Because of the low friction of rails, ordinary express trains can maintain speeds of well over 100 mph on well maintained tracks which are fairly straight.

A systemic approach to rail is preferable to a sole focus on single marquee projects that advertise an intention but may overshadow equally useful regional and local rail projects. California’s High Speed Rail initiative is a good start but it is only the starting point for improving rail infrastructure in the West.

The electrification of trains does not in itself solve the multiple problems associated with transferring more people-moving and freight tasks from the roads onto rails. A railway can typically carry more freight or passengers per unit area than a road system yet a bi-directional dual track corridor is less flexible than a multilane highway, which can carry both passenger and freight vehicles. In the United States, railways are oriented mostly towards freight while in Europe, passenger rail predominates to the detriment of freight. As anyone who has traveled on Amtrak outside the Northeast knows, heavy freight and passenger traffic do not mix well on rails, so a stable solution would be to have separate passenger and freight tracks in most situations. High speed rail adds an additional set of tracks on routes where this is feasible. A high volume of rail traffic can also interfere with road traffic and interfere with surrounding communities unless grade separated and with pedestrian overpasses or underpasses.

Building more sets of rails, reviving existing rails, grade-separating road and rail and then electrifying those rails are all projects that require large public and/or private investment. The extent to which the United States or for that matter other advanced industrialized countries will pursue a strategy of pushing most transport onto rail will depend, in part on both the commitment to rails as well as a cost accounting of the alternatives and the need for immediate action on climate, energy and transport.

Magnetic Levitation (Maglev) Rail

While the land speed record for passenger rail is still held by the TGV, magnetic levitation rail holds out the possibility of trains that can cruise at a higher rate of speed than ordinary rail. While ordinary trains on well-maintained rails encounter very little friction as compared with wheeled transport on roads, magnetic levitation reduces to practically zero the friction of the train with the track by lifting the train up over the surface of a specially prepared track through the force of electromagnets that repel each other. It is not yet clear whether the additional expense and energy requirements of a maglev system have a significant enough advantage over a high speed rail system to warrant those one-time and on-going expenditures. The only maglev train in operation is a shuttle between Shanghai city center and Pudong airport, a 30 km (18 miles) trip that is covered in 7 minutes, 20 seconds, reaching at one point 267 miles per hour (421 km/hr). There is a controversial proposal that a maglev line be built between Disneyland in Anaheim California and Las Vegas, though such a project seems designed more as a tourist attraction than a replacement for either road or high volume air traffic. Maglev is yet another step into the realm of high profile newer technologies that while potentially promising, are even longer-term prospects than building a functioning rail network of any description.

New Electrified Urban and Commuter Rail

Even in the United States during the cheap fossil fuel era, some urban and commuter rail projects were built as a sign of urban revitalization and smart development efforts. While subways were usually built in the pre-1970 era of massive infrastructure projects, surface rail projects, sometimes called light rail have been built more recently in cities like Portland that were modeled on European street rail systems. These rail projects can operate both above and below ground, thereby blurring the distinction between subway and surface rail. Los Angeles’ Metro light rail system with underground and surface segments, which initially was considered by critics to be an expensive feel-good project, may start to become more useful to Angelenos as high oil prices start to take their toll.

While light rail is popular with commuters, there are controversies associated with it, including whether to grade-separate light rail from automobile traffic and pedestrians. While the initial selling point of light rail was its lesser expense than subways, grade separation adds considerable additional expense.  A controversy in Los Angeles about a new line to the West Side, now splitting formerly allied transit advocates, illustrates some of the tough issues associated with the degree to which streetcars are integrated or separated from traffic.  

The implementation of regional or suburban commuter rail on existing tracks would seem to be less expensive, though coordinating and balancing passenger traffic with freight traffic remains a challenge. The electrification of stretches of rail will require coordination between private freight companies that own the rights of way and the public agencies that now run US passenger rail.

Electrified Roadway Systems

Trolleybuses

Trolleybuses are one of the “sleeper” solutions to our climate and energy concerns in urban, suburban and even medium-sized towns. Almost any bus route can be turned into a trolleybus route with the installation of overhead wiring, making them substantially less expensive per mile to build than rail-based systems. Trolleybus systems were most popular in the middle of the 20^th century and remain particularly widespread in cities of Central and Eastern Europe. The advent of cheaper and more flexible diesel bus systems led to a decline in trolleybuses which of course require the greater initial capital expense. In the US, trolleybus systems are operating in San Francisco, Seattle, Dayton, and Boston. Dayton has used electric public transport for now almost 120 years continuously.

Trolleybuses are ordinary buses with an electric motor instead of a diesel engine and twin trolley poles on top that connect the bus to the electric grid. Because electric motors have greater torque than equivalent diesel engines trolleybuses are well suited for very hilly cities and are equally good at flat stretches with excellent acceleration and high power-to-weight ratio. Negatives for trolleybuses, as for all transport systems using overhead wires, are the visual appearance of wires and designing the system to enable buses to pass each other. Transit riders also prefer riding smoother railed systems and while trolleybuses avoid the smell of diesel buses still share the ride quality of other buses.  Also trolley poles can come off the wires requiring manual or automatic pole replacement. As climate and energy concerns rise in importance, the drawbacks of trolleybuses start to seem trivial or mere technical challenges.

Bus-Rapid Transit and Trolleybuses

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is a system that segregates bus traffic from other traffic, allowing buses to achieve average speeds closer to 20 mph including stops rather than the more typical 8 mph in regular traffic. BRT can be applied to any buses but if combined with Trolleybuses, BRT allows trolleybuses to achieve faster travel speeds through crowded urban and suburban streets than when intermingled with traffic.  The much studied transit system of the Brazilian city of Curitiba makes extensive use of BRT.

Grid-Optional Road Vehicles

A very exciting area of growth despite little attention has been the development of “dual-mode” or hybrid road vehicles that can travel attached to the grid or can use a battery or diesel engine to travel independently of the grid for a few miles or many miles. Newer trolleybuses now have a battery pack that allows these buses to travel a few miles on battery power alone. Currently in operation in Boston is a dual mode diesel and electric trolleybus called the Silver Line, which travels from Logan Airport as a diesel bus then attaching within a minute to overhead wires to traverse a dedicated BRT/subway into the center city. While currently something of a novelty, this type of re-attachable vehicle will have a vast set of applications in a world of diminishing oil and rising climate concern.  One can imagine long-distance trucks that take advantage of grid electricity on stretches of highway, detaching from the grid to make deliveries and then returning to use grid electricity on truck routes.

Electrified Highways

With grid-optional road vehicles that can detach and reattach to the grid either in staging areas or on the go comes the possibility for road-going dual mode trucks and buses to use the grid to travel long distances just as do trains but with greater flexibility. An electrified highway with overhead wires allows all-electric or dual-fuel large road-going vehicles to travel long distances without carrying large batteries. A challenge in such a set up would be maintaining voltage levels in such a wire as demand for power would be unscheduled unlike that experienced in a closed train or trolley system. The power management system as well as the attachment and reattachment devices for such vehicles would require some development and testing. Electrified highways could enable the continued usage to something approaching their capacity of existing highway infrastructure in tandem with railways in an era of ever more expensive fossil fuels.

Trolleytrucks

As suggested above, a trolley or pantograph can be mounted on any vehicle with a electric motor as a means to connect the vehicle to the grid for energy. Trolleytrucks have been used in urban delivery and in mining operations. If electric wires can be strung over or next to a field, tractors could use trolleys rather than batteries to do work in the fields. 18-wheelers and other long-distance trucks would be naturals for using a trolley, if catenary wires are strung over highways. An energy storage medium, either a battery or an electric generator using liquid fuel, an electric motor, and a trolley to tap into electric can allow any vehicle with tires to become a grid-optional vehicle.

Personal Rapid Transit

A new system of public transport has been under study for the last 20 years that seeks to combine the best of private vehicle use with public transport. Personal Rapid Transit or PRT uses advances in computer control and satellite navigation to create a system of automated 4-6 person lightweight vehicles or “pods” on an elevated or ground-based track that can be entered by passengers at a number of stations around a network-like system. Passengers then select a destination and the vehicle then takes them to the selected end-station. Personal rapid transit has, at least in theory, the potential to be one of the most energy efficient means of transporting people in suburban or dispersed urban areas, as vehicles are only activated and use energy when there is demand for them. By contrast scheduled mass transit can usually only achieve at best a load factor of 20-30%, meaning that on average 70-80% of seats are empty on buses, trams, and subways. Especially at off hours, mass transit will generally operate at low load factors.

By contrast PRT in theory offers the possibility for higher load factors and lower energy use, especially at off hours, as each “pod” might contain only 2 to 4 seats. PRT also offers the possibility for a variety of sizes of “pod” depending upon the size of the group, though this variety would add to the complexity of PRT stations. Theoretically PRT could approach a load factor of 50% and lower overall system energy use with 24 hour availability.

PRT however is a controversial concept as its advocates have often portrayed mass transit in pejorative terms that confirm the prejudices of individual vehicle owners that riding with strangers is a dangerous and unpleasant affair. In Austin, TX, advocates of a light rail system and those of a PRT system were diametrically opposed and highly critical of each others’ plans. The lack of experience especially with rush hour conditions make PRT plans seem at the moment more theory than practice. The idea that PRT would require a new system of suspended guideways at height of approximately 20 feet over ground might be more intrusive than the ground-level transit options it attempts to replace.

It may be that in a post fossil fuel age that mass transit and PRT might both have a place in an electric transit system. PRT’s strength at off hours may complement mass transit’s strengths at rush hours.

Pulling the Ripcord

Battery electric vehicles are coming and will enable a new age of sustainable automobility. However, it will be a long time before we can store anything close to the amount of energy in diesel fuel in the same weight and volume in a battery. To enable electricity and eventually renewable electricity to power transport as soon as we need it, an electric transport infrastructure that directly powers trains, trolleybuses, streetcars, and perhaps other work vehicles from the grid will enable commerce to continue without a dependence on scarce fossil fuels.

To do this, governments and large companies involved in transport need to start planning for and investing in the post-fossil fuel world. It requires a leap but, given the chaos that fluctuations in oil markets can deliver to our economy, the leap to an electric transport infrastructure is a necessary one.  In California, we have an opportunity this fall to the take the first step, but this is only a first step on a long road.  Government should take the lead, as building the transmission and distribution infrastructure for electric transport requires the reach and authority of government. On the other hand, supplier firms can help create markets for their products and services by alerting government officials to current and near-future technical possibilities.

On a Top Gear show aired last night on BBC America, the well-respected actress Kristin Scott Thomas (”The English Patient”, “Four Weddings and a Funeral”,  “Mission: Impossible”) confesses to the bloviating but funny Jeremy Clarkson that she drive the G-Wiz electric mini-car when she is in London.  This is a brave move on a show more tuned to the nuances that distinguish the Ferrari F430 from the Porsche 911 Turbo.  Of course it helps that Scott Thomas is beautiful, witty and able to discuss and comment on some less eco-friendly rides.

Her confession is also somewhat less daring or surprising in England, as the London Congestion Charge has stimulated the market for electric vehicles, especially the small low-speed electric vehicle class that we call “Neighborhood Electric Vehicles” or NEVs (If you are interested in finding out more about life with the NEVs in Britain check out the video blog “Danny’s Contentment”).  The G-Wiz, made by Reva, is not uncontroversial as it lacks many of the safety features of larger vehicles as it is classed as a “quadricycle”.  Despite not being an ideal EVs, the G-Wiz and other NEVs such as the Think! and the Kewet Buddy have gained a devoted following in Britain.  Having a G-Wiz or other, what the leaders and founders of Tesla Motors, call “punishment cars” have been functioning as status symbols of eco-awareness in Britain, not unlike how the Prius has functioned here in the last few years.

While Britons may be more likely to embrace a mini-car like the G-Wiz due to a history of smaller vehicles, higher fuel prices, a national love of quirkiness, and less huge vehicles on the road, a serious turn towards electric vehicles here in the US will see a rise in mini-cars here as well.  For one, the (gas-powered) Smart car has arrived and is gaining a small following despite decidedly mixed reviews.  More importantly, the inexpensive lead-acid batteries which these cars are built around will remain the cheapest option in batteries for a long time to come.

With, other than public transit where available, electrics being the only sound refuge from escalating gas prices, more Americans, I believe, will shed more of the large-car prejudices they have for simply being able to charge up and get around.

So I welcome the image of Hollywood and British film royalty getting in and out of small electric cars, even though there are, with the advent of more capable batteries, more capable and capacious electric cars coming down the pike.  Right now, I don’t think we can afford to celebrate ONLY the more technically advanced options, especially if we are serious about getting off petroleum.

In the leisurely way I have been writing and posting on my blog, I have not yet completed my series on how energy supply and energy demand will look in the future, what I am calling the Renewable Electron Economy. Yet, as events are unfolding more rapidly in the world around us, we may see some form of an Electron Economy, perhaps fueled by renewable energy, sooner rather than later. So this post is inspired by recent news more than

The Oil Price Spike

The theory of Peak Oil, once the province of a few oil industry renegades and a sundry bunch of people who like depressing stories, is going mainstream. With crude oil prices spiking on Friday by $10/barrel to record highs ($139/barrel) and petroleum prices at the pump now at their inflation-adjusted highs (finally beating their peak in the early 1980’s), the idea that inevitable declines in oil production could wreak havoc in the global economy seems almost like common sense.

One area of the economy that almost all people are feeling the oil price spike is in the price of food. Food prices are also climbing as we start to see how much the global food system is dependent upon fossil energy to produce food and get it to market.

Oil prices, however, affect most sectors in modern economies, as logistics and international trade is heavily dependent on oil. Ordinary citizens in the US, Canada and Australia are in many areas almost entirely dependent on petroleum to do most activities of daily living including getting to work and shopping for, among other things, food.

Whether we see the “End of Suburbia” and severe economic contraction will depend on a number of factors including the willingness of governments to act quickly to both help people adapt to expensive oil and to prepare for a “post-oil” world. As with climate change, there are two levels of response: short-term adaptations and long term energy strategy. Both levels will be necessary to avoid the worst effects.

There are those, critical of the certainties of Peak Oil theory, who say that we are experiencing a speculative bubble in oil prices, which will recede later this year. But Peak Oilers, at least, will say that this amounts to “whistling past the graveyard”, as limits to oil supplies and rising demand will inevitably raise the price of oil dramatically whether this year or next.

My understanding of basic economics would indicate that the Peak Oilers are right about the overall trajectory of oil prices even if the production peak has either already happened or will happen in 5 years time. The way in which energy economics has been treated as exceptional, let’s call it “oil exceptionalism”, is itself a cause for wonder. In addition to the immediate economic crises associated with much more expensive oil, there may as well be a huge crisis in confidence in the profession of economics and political leaders who have not prepared us for what in retrospect may appear to have been an inevitability, predicted over 50 years ago by M. King Hubbert.

The Electric Vehicle Solution

In discussions of the presumed-to-be-distant post-oil future that one has seen in the media, one is presented with a colorful assortment of possibilities that makes for diverting journalistic fare but hides the fundamental physics of energy and energy conversion technologies. The picture is not nearly as complicated which may be unfortunate for those looking for a good story as well as commercial interests betting on biofuels or hydrogen fuel cells. For most transport uses, with a few modifications in technology and some large infrastructure projects, electric motors will drive most on-land transport and machine tools, with biofuels and hydrogen generated from clean electricity used for some specialty applications.

Unbeknownst to most people who use them, electric motors, especially those of medium and larger size, convert 90% of the electric energy they receive into torque, the whole point and purpose of using motors and engines. They are also relative to their power output much more compact as demonstrated by the photo on the left of the Tesla Roadster motor which has a peak output of 248 hp. By contrast, the modern internal combustion engines used in vehicles convert around 20-25% of the energy of the fossil or biofuels into torque, dissipating most of the rest of the energy as heat. That 75-80% loss of energy means that more energy is required to do the work that we ask of these machines.

In an era of plentiful and cheap fossil fuels, the massive energy losses associated with internal combustion engines have been deemed acceptable or at least largely invisible to the unconcerned public. But in an era in which energy will need to be actually “produced” from capital-intensive renewable energy conversion technologies or from very capital-intensive nuclear power plants, a more efficient solution is going to deliver more end-use utility from scarcer usable energy. Furthermore most of the renewable energy conversion devices that we have already invented convert renewable energy into electricity; these devices are many times more efficient in producing usable energy than photosynthesis in fuel crops.

I won’t rehearse the whole argument here why electric vehicles that store their energy in batteries, flywheels or ultracapacitors are our first line of defense against climate disaster and peak oil. Ulf Bossel, Joe Romm, Patrick Mazza and Roel Hammerschlag have run the efficiency analyses to show that electric drive vehicles as opposed to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are going to enable us to use most renewable energy sources to do work in a way that is truly conservative of the energy we will have available, at least in the coming several decades.

There are challenges ahead in extending and reinforcing the electric grid, in improving the energy density of batteries, and in building electric overhead or third-rail energizing infrastructure for trains, trolleybuses, trolley trucks, etc. But electric vehicle (EV) technology is rapidly maturing.

The Turning Point

Much has been written recently about high profile EVs like the Tesla Roadster and the Chevy Volt (a PHEV or EREV but still driven by an electric motor). Developing an attractive substitute for the family or personal car involves creating an EV that mimics the aesthetic and broad range of uses of current personal vehicles that run on oil. If oil becomes prohibitively expensive and scarcer, the pressure to create an electric vehicle that just offers basic transportation becomes much greater. However it is apparent to me and other observers of the electric vehicle scene that low mileage fleet vehicles and local delivery vehicles are already the “low hanging fruit” for EV development.

Local fleets of utility vehicles and trucks can use somewhat larger and heavier conventional battery packs to go the 40 or 50 miles that they need to traverse every day. Fleet vehicles can also pioneer fast-charging infrastructure and/or battery pack exchanges. Vehicle fleets can leverage the existing electric forklift technology that one finds in warehouses and factories making for a faster development and production timeline.

The announcement last week that the Japanese post office is planning a transition to an all-electric fleet indicates to me that it is only a matter or time before most managers of local fleets will start ordering electric vehicles, driven by the rising price of diesel or gasoline. This would mean potentially the purchase of 21,000 electric vehicles. The French post office is starting a similar project. The post office of tiny Monaco is already making a similar move. There are other electric vehicle and plug-in hybrid fleet test projects at other large state agencies. These orders and projects already add to moves by private companies in Europe who have put in orders for or are already using electric delivery trucks by Smith, Modec and other manufacturers (in part a response to the London congestion charge).

Though these vehicles may be moving below the radar of personal car buyers and car fans, they will provide a means to build electric vehicle manufacturing infrastructure. Furthermore, a vehicle that does the work that is asked of it using electricity will become in the future more “sexy” than a vehicle that requires expensive inputs like petroleum fuel to move. More important for achieving economies of scale are fleet buyers who with their buying decisions, can help EV companies survive and thrive. Rather than having to convince or market to often-finicky individual consumers, corporations and governments can lay out their functional requirements to which companies can build vehicles. From this basis, more adventurous EV designs for the public can be attempted.

Shai Agassi’s Project Better Place, which promotes an all-inclusive vehicle plus charge infrastructure package for localities, has a more ambitious plan of converting personal transport to electricity by using a subscription model. PBP has gotten interest from localities that are actual or virtual “islands” where EVs with contemporary batteries would have little problem fulfilling most transport tasks.

Plug In Hybrids

For more sparsely populated regions or users that require trips of variable length, the plug in hybrid or extended range electric vehicle has become the option that has gained a great deal of visibility. The Chevy Volt is now the highest profile PHEV/EREV project. Toyota may respond with a plug in version of the Prius, which has been the object of most aftermarket PHEV conversions. While still 2 to 3 years away as a production vehicle, PHEVs or EREVs will probably gain wide market share, especially with high gas prices continuing. As they have received more coverage, have a number of websites and organizations (calcars.org) devoted to them and are a growing topic unto themselves, I will discuss PHEVs/EREVs in another post. Once available, PHEVs or EREVs will also attract fleet buyers.

I realize I overlooked in my last post some technologies that will also play a major role in cutting our GHG emissions. This is an oversight on my part. I am not claiming that these 4 additional technologies will lead to more overall GHG reductions if we fully deploy the 20 listed in the first post (I arrived at a figure of approximately 93.7% reductions over 2000 emissions) but they deepen the choices and reiterate the contention of many in the anti-global warming movement that exploratory research is nice but not necessary to cut emissions substantially. More importantly, technologies already exist or will emerge, so the original list is not meant to be exhaustive or final.

Geothermal electric power – “Heat farming” from the heat of earth’s crust and mantle.  currently geothermal electric power is restricted to certain hot zones such as Iceland, parts of the western US, Italy and Australia, but an emerging technology called EGS (enhanced geothermal systems) which drills holes deep into the the heat of the lower bedrock will allow geothermal to extend its range to almost any location on earth. Advocates of EGS are asking for $1 billion of research into this technology but additionally, regulatory incentives will drive drillers, currently concentrating on oil drilling to participate with EGS plant developers. (>4% GHG reduction)

Hydroelectricity/Pumped Storage - While the building of hydroelectric dams played a key role in galvanizing the early environmental movement and still provoke strong pro and con feelings, the emergence of global warming as one of the main concerns for the well being of planetary eco-systems has raised the profile of hydroelectricity.  Some are unwilling to consider hydroelectricity at all as an option but this fundamentalist position must be reconsidered in light of newer technologies that are more conservative of river environments.  Existing dams without hydroelectric facilities can be made productive of power, while new small and medium size dams can be constructed in ways that interfere much less than traditional large hydroelectric dams.   Hydroelectricity is one of the higher quality sources of electricity and can integrate well with intermittent renewables.  Pumped storage is one of the key storage media other than CSP with thermal storage that can balance energy production with energy demand. (>5% GHG reduction)

Ground Source Heat Pumps - Ground source heat pumps are an existing technology that cut heating and cooling costs by 60 to 75%. Expensive as a retrofit, the additional cost of trenching or bore holes can be reduced when installed with the foundation during new construction. (>6% GHG reduction)

High Voltage Transmission - A much overlooked and sometimes hated part of our landscape, the direct current version (HVDC/HVAC) is a more compact, more environmentally friendly, and more efficient version. No GHG emissions are directly attributable to HVDC/HVAC but transmission will allow widely dispersed renewable electricity generators to coordinate and supply electric demand. Transmission allows the most of the top renewable generators to serve electricity demand. (enables >59% GHG reduction with renewable generators)

These can all be described as  existing or emerging.  However, the EGS system still requires a good deal of rather capital intensive development, so EGS gives partial support to the contention of the “Dangerous Assumptions” authors that research is required for carbon neutral technologies to become available, however it also highlights the need for a market incentive to drive the development and deployment of that particular technology. A temporary premium price per kWh for an EGS plant would, for instance, array market forces behind the development and eventual deployment of EGS plants. This is however, among the 24 technologies in this list one of the few in which R&D is a pre-requisite to deployment.

(With this post I’m skipping a little ahead of my series on the Renewable Electron Economy but policy debates are starting to heat up as we head into the election year. )

A recent controversy has sprung up around the criticisms of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) by a group of fairly well-known analysts, who say the IPCC has severely underestimated the need for heavy investment in basic technology research to solve the climate crisis. In a piece called “Dangerous Assumptions” written for Nature magazine’s Commentary section, Roger Pielke Jr, Tom Wigley and Christopher Green say that “enormous advances in energy technology” will be needed to stabilize carbon levels in the atmosphere at somewhere near the target 450 ppm or below. This contradicts assertions by the Nobel Prize winning body of climate scientists that in fact we already have or soon will have the technology we need to reduce our carbon emissions to acceptable levels. Al Gore, who is due to expand upon his ideas for global warming solutions in upcoming months, has reiterated recently that we already have the technology that we need to meet the climate challenge.

In response to the Nature piece, Joe Romm, on his blog, Climate Progress, has written that Pielke Jr et al. are an example of a species that he calls “delayer-1000s” by which he means that these are people who would allow carbon dioxide concentrations to slide up to 1000 ppm or more than double current levels. Romm, a former Deputy Sec’y of Energy in the Clinton Administration, whose current mission is to popularize climate science and solutions to climate change is not averse to painting a vivid picture of what might happen under various climate scenarios. One would expect no less from the author of “Hell and High Water”, a view of what climate change has in store for us.

Romm has pointed out that Pielke and the physicist Marty Hoffert who has staked out a similar position are both affiliated with the Breakthrough Institute. As readers of this blog may remember, the Breakthrough Institute is the brainchild of controversial critics of the environmental movement, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus who declared the “Death of Environmentalism” a few years ago. Romm has been critical of Shellenberger and Nordhaus for their propensity to attack the environmental movement and to advocate, long term research projects in ways that at least divert attention from taking immediate action on global warming. Their institute, after all, is named “BreakThrough” the point being they want to inspire government to invest heavily in long-range scientific research that they hope might lead to those technological breakthroughs.

The Big Question: Do We Have the Technology?

All personal disputes aside, the main question that is dividing Romm, Gore, the IPCC on the one hand and Pielke et. al. Hoffert, Shellenberger & Nordhaus and perhaps Google in its RE<C form on the other, is whether we, with our current technology or technologies that are in the research pipeline, can build essentially carbon neutral societies the world over within a period of approximately three to four decades. Three decades is a long time, so the notion that technology might be “frozen” at the current state of development is perhaps the first red herring that this controversy generates; within three decades new technologies will emerge in some form or other whether we have a policy for it or not. No one is suggesting that we NOT invest in research and development, though we are starting in the US at a point where much can be improved upon in the area of clean technology research.

The “Dangerous Assumption” that these critics of the IPCC are decrying is that a normal rate of technological improvement is inadequate to the task of cutting GHGs by 80% or more. Their favored policy recommendation is to have the (US) government invest massively in long-range research projects that contrasts with their critics’ emphasis on policies that speed the deployment of existing technologies. They make little positive mention of policy tools like carbon pricing or feed-in tariffs that are designed to speed the development of existing technology. The implication is that those who suggest policy drivers for deploying current technology are naïve and operating under a “dangerous assumption”. Another favored criticism that Shellenberger and Nordhaus tend to level at their opponents is that their opponents are acting/talking like the (tired, ineffective) environmental movement. Romm believes that those who support the Breakthrough concept are devaluing if not opposing immediate policy recommendations that target current technologies and current technology use.

What then is the current set of technologies that we already have or can expect to have within the next decade? I will give my account below of current and emerging technologies and list what their advantages are for reducing carbon emissions. The analysis below is represented in chart form <== or here. Following the Renewable Electron Economy scenario that I believe has the highest probability of success, I have ordered these in approximately descending order of overall carbon emissions reduction potential. Note that the order of these is approximately the reverse of the famous Vattenfall-McKinsey chart which lists the least expensive options first; here the keystone technologies of a completely carbon neutral economy come first, some of which are currently more expensive. (I am italicizing technologies in this list that overlap with previous listings in terms of their GHG reduction potential; I am putting those technologies that can act as carbon sinks in bold):

1) Combination renewable energy power plants – emerging technology that coordinates intermittent and periodic renewable electric generators (wind, wave, tidal, and solar photovoltaic or CSP without storage) with dispatchable renewables (biomass, hydroelectric, CSP with storage, and pumped hydroelectric) to serve electric load. (59% GHG reduction potential)

2) Concentrating solar thermal power (CSP) with 6 to 18 hours of thermal storage – existing and emerging technology can reduce coal use for electricity generation by 85%-90% in areas up to 2500 miles away from the world’s deserts. (45% GHG reduction potential)

3) Photovoltaic cells – existing and emerging technology that is deployable in distributed energy, remote settings. (25% GHG reduction potential)

4) Forest preservation, restoration and expansion – existing and emerging technology to fix atmospheric and newly emitted carbon dioxide; reduce emissions from deforestation. (>18.2% GHG reduction potential)

5) Wind turbines – existing technology that may be able to cover as much as 33% of electricity demand with appropriate grid integration. (15% GHG reduction potential)

6) Modularized construction of buildings with ultra-high efficiency/Passivhaus concept – reduction of 85% of space conditioning energy use. (12% GHG reduction potential)

7) Electrification of Rails and Roadways – Rail and road electrification is an existing technology that can be extended to more large vehicle traffic in regional and intercity routes (11% GHG reduction potential)

8 ) Biomass pyrolysis and biocoal burial – an emerging technology that generates a bio-oil and carbon rich “bio-coal” or charcoal that when buried fixes carbon for hundreds of years. Reduces production of energy from biomass in exchange for fixing carbon. Biocoal can act as a soil enrichment. (>10% GHG Reduction potential)

9) Batteries/Ultracapacitors with 200 Wh/kg energy density or greater/variety of chemistries - allow 90% of local and regional traffic to be electrified reducing transport energy use by 70% or greater (>9% GHG Reduction potential)

10) Biomass-fired power plants- an existing technology that with carbon capture could act as a carbon sink; dispatchable and can back up wind or solar generators. Require policy regulation to ensure non-competition with agriculture for food. (6% GHG Reduction potential)

11) Vehicle Recharge Infrastructure – existing infrastructure in detached houses, emerging in public areas; emerging quick charge infrastructure. Enables battery electric vehicles or plug in hybrids to extend all-battery range indefinitely (4% GHG Reduction potential)

12) Voluntary Veganism – vegans eat no animal products so if people go on a vegan diet for 5 days/week or more we would reduce a massive amount of GHGs. The figures from WRI I used attribute 5.1% GHGs to livestock but I have seen figures as high as 18% of global GHGs are attributable to livestock. Numerous environmental benefits are attributable to plant-only agriculture though there is and will be massive resistance to forgoing meat and milk products (including from me). I quite like meat and cheese though I did have a pretty tasty vegan meal at Café Gratitude not too long ago; this technology can be further developed by chefs and by consumers. (>4% GHG reduction)

13) High efficiency lighting/daylighting – High efficiency fluorescent lighting, daylighting, tubular skylights are here, LEDs and fiber optic daylighting are emerging cutting >75% of lighting energy over incandescents (4% GHG reduction potential)

14) Sustainable biofuels – Cellulosic ethanol is an emerging technology – because of our current liquid fuels paradigm much touted and over-hyped. To be sustainable require strict policy oversight or voluntary certification – in the Renewable Electron Economy would fuel air and sea transport along with bio-oil. (3% GHG reduction potential)

15) Wave and tidal power – Existing and emerging RE generation technologies (3% GHG reduction potential)

16) Electric Arc Heating/Biocoal – Electric arc furnaces already are used in melting steel scrap and a similar principle or biomass substitutes could be used in high temperature industrial applications in place of coal and natural gas (2% GHG reduction potential)

17) Magnetic Induction Heating – Existing technology allows for hyperefficient stovetop cooking with electricity; future applications may allow for more efficient electric ovens. (1.75% GHG reduction potential)

1 Syngas waste to energy – Generation of a syngas from municipal waste avoids the formation of dioxins and other toxins; emerging technology can reduce waste by 95% entirely avoiding methane emissions (substituting less potent carbon dioxide) and reducing the need for landfill space except for separated toxic metals, producing dispatchable electricity from the combustion of the syngas in a gas turbine (>1.5% GHG reduction potential).

19) Methane harvest from sewage – capturing methane to generate power or fuel vehicles from sewage (CH4 to CO2) (>1.0% GHG reduction potential)

20) Enhanced telecommunication technologies/holographic presence – reducing business travel by 75% - extension of Internet/videoconferencing capabilities. (>0.5% GHG reduction potential).

These by the standards of 2008 exciting but in no way futuristic technologies deployed on a global scale have the potential to reduce our GHG emissions by at least 93.7% with little effect on end user “utility”. The most significant change in end use, and perhaps the most challenging, is the voluntary (or incentivized) reduction in the use of animal products.

The conclusion then to be derived from this analysis is that we do not NEED radical new technologies to reduce GHGs very substantially, especially if we follow the Renewable Electron Economy model and are willing to invest as a government AND a society in clean technology. Such innovations might be nice to reduce costs or ease the transition but they are not necessary.

Therefore it would seem that Pielke et al. and their supporters’ assertions would seem to be more lobbying for gee-whiz science projects rather than scientific analysis.

Potential Criticisms of This Model

1) I am using year 2000 data that may be no longer reflective of current emissions or future trends.

a. Response: These technologies are mostly highly scaleable so that more or less of them could be deployed in response to changes in GHG emissions profile

2) Veganism is a substantial sacrifice for most inhabitants of the developed and rapidly developing worlds

a. Response: If this is a planetary emergency, some sacrifice of personal utility may eventually seem like a rational response. Even if people choose a reduced meat/dairy diet, which will have substantial GHG benefits, they will not lose the taste experience or dietary benefits of these foods. This remains by no means a high tech or inaccessible solution and culinary giants might even improve the technology through inventive use of vegan ingredients.

3) The numbers I am using for GHG reductions are guesstimates.

a. Response: Each of these technologies substantially reduces GHGs in each of the major acknowledged GHG sectors; most can be scaled up or down with fairly wide latitude, even accounting for a 30% increase in global population.

Do These Roads Diverge?

If what I have laid out here is anywhere close to being a realistic assessment of existing and emerging technologies, the course of action is pretty obvious: get as many of these technologies in deployment as soon as possible. Pricing may be higher in the beginning, which could be shouldered by richer countries but then economies of scale in manufacture will bring many or all of these within reach of some of the rapidly developing countries that are the focus of concern.

I believe the strongest policy combination is some form of carbon pricing with the addition of performance based incentives, such as feed in tariffs to promote key technologies more rapidly than the politically acceptable carbon price will allow.

Research and development is not excluded from any policy recommendation but the emphasis on technology investment almost to the exclusion of contemporary policy drivers is a curious phenomenon. Research and development, be it at current levels or at levels 50 or 100 times as high, is a traditional role for the US government and is no departure from business as usual.

Will an Emphasis on R&D Lead to Delay?

Rather than resort to name-calling, there is a very serious issue here that has been lent extra urgency by the publicity lent to Pielke’s/Breakthrough’s position through its publication in the prestigious Nature journal.

As I state above, Breakthrough/Pielke are packaging their position as heterodox and daring when in fact it is a simple restatement of a very common position that the US government has occupied throughout the last half century: the funder of basic and applied research in the sciences and energy. Maybe the AMOUNTS that Pielke/Breakthrough are asking for are larger and are applied to a new theme (solutions to climate change) but the format and relationship of government to constituency are the same.

The folk at Nature may have felt that as it is a plea for more money for research it is a natural fit for their science journal. However, they may not have been in a position to evaluate how uninspired the Pielke piece is in terms of its actual policy recommendations.

Nordhaus and Shellenberger, the founders of BreakThrough, seem to be laboring under the belief that their advocacy of more money for research is a break from the past and perhaps it is a break from THEIR past. They have made a great deal of their differences of opinion with leaders of the environmental movement and, in a way, are more likely to discount anything that agrees with the consensus of that movement. Thus they are able to occasionally get publicity from the wider media world as they “turn state’s evidence” against their former colleagues. In a way, Joe Romm, by attacking Nordhaus and Shellenberger is continuing to play into this game.

Whatever their motivation, if someone were to consult Nordhaus and Shellenberger as policy experts, they would get the distinct sense that all the action is with R&D investment and carbon focused policy instruments are at best dull necessities.

If a policymaker came away with that impression, I believe there would be a lost opportunity to create policy drivers that incentivize accelerated deployment of existing technologies.

Apollo Project or Liberty Ships?

Furthermore, there is a tiresome formula into which the S&N recommendations as well as the public face of Google’s RE<C fall into: that technology advances are about what might be called ecstatic gee-whiz moments of wonder, of dramatic breakthroughs. The microelectronics and the biotechnology revolutions have, I believe, spoiled the public, investors and commentators into thinking that innovations occur in an accelerating crescendo. A study of renewable energy flux, along with its synchronization and storage problems leads us to the conclusion that the creation of large industrial scale operations to build large numbers of renewable generators and install them more efficiently will be a much bigger portion of the renewable energy revolution than the micro-world of molecules and atoms. Yes, there are admirable and elegant designs and inventions that have already occurred and that will occur in the future, but there will also need to be large scale deployment and manufacturing in a way that hasn’t been seen here since the second world war.

In a way, the beguiling high-tech metaphor of the Apollo Project, which Nordhaus, Shellenberger and others drew upon in founding the Apollo Alliance, is a little misleading. Apollo rockets were one or two of a kind, though obviously some of the technologies were later commercialized in larger numbers. What we are talking about more is the far more profound and economically stimulative wartime mobilization of WWII where one had both a Manhattan project going on and the broad participation of the population in accelerated wartime production. In fact, as impressive as some of the achievements of the Apollo project were, the manufacturing techniques that enabled shipyard workers to build a complete Liberty Ship, on average in 42 days through pre-fabricated assembly of ship parts will be just as or even more crucial than more glamorous inventions of the past half century.

To drive this scale of production, there will not only need to be government involvement but also stimulation of private actors through regulation and market incentives to move this process forward. To push all of the action off on R&D and government spending is not to grasp the need to drive change, in the most effective and forward-thinking way, in the entire economy.

With adequate information about the dangers AND opportunities we face both economically and ecologically, more and more people will realize that cleaner and better energy and energy services will need to be paid for. While Romm seems to shy away from embracing the fundamental break with what I call the Cheap Energy Contract, Nordhaus and Shellenberger are still obeisant to the assumption that people in the US will not be willing to pay more for energy in order that it become both a source of employment and profit for them and their neighbors and free us from some of the geopolitical problems we have blundered into.

I believe this attitude of remaining entirely supine in front of our own wishes for cheap stuff is unsustainable for us as an economy; eventually we will need to be willing to or required to pay each other for our work and pay for a cleaner environment rather than continue to pay more and more for our fossil fuel addiction.

I wanted to alert readers of this blog to an interesting exchange I had a few weeks back with Phil Timmons on my posts on the Electric Farm from last November.  I appreciate Phil’s expertise in this area and willingness to think out of the box about the practical equipment requirements that face farmers (and miners).  Given the ongoing price spikes in food and oil, I am hoping that the Electric Farm concept gets some more attention.  If interest grows among farmers, engineers and tinkerers we might be able to get more minds working on the problem of developing a sustainable but machine-assisted agriculture, where farmers can either generate their own energy for machines on the farm or draw energy from a increasingly clean grid.

I’m reposting the exchange below:

Phil Timmons:

Hello,

Read this story after finding a link to the earlier first part. Thought the first was an excellent overview.

I am an EE working on utility scale RE projects, and from prior life experience, electric farming is of particular interest.

Just as observation — it seems this follow-on story falls in the Electric Vehicle “battery trap.”

Why the assumption that it would be needed or desired to operate the equipment on batteries? That tends to be very lossy — first in charging the battery, and then in recovery of the energy from the battery.

Electricity tends to be dynamic and likes to be used as it is generated. Have you began any studies into non-battery farming applications, or have any interest in that?

Thanks for your efforts, I think you are doing very good work.

• Edit Comment

By: Phil Timmons on March 11, 2008
at 7:40 pm

Phil,
The point of the Electric Farm concept and the Renewable Electron Economy idea is that you are using batteries to power devices for a number of reasons outlined below. The Electric Farm wouldn’t be electric without batteries, though I suppose that a PHEV or multifuel tractor are suitable transitional vehicles.

The 15% round-trip loss of batteries charging and discharging I don’t consider to be very significant in comparison to the energy losses associated with competing fuel cycles. With biofuels or petrodiesel you lose 70% of your energy to heat in the engine which doesn’t even include the highly inefficient process of turning sunlight into biofuels via plants (as well as all the other issues associated therewith) which contains perhaps 0.5% of the original solar energy in it. The hydrogen fuel cycle loses 65-75% of the original energy of the renewable electricity and hydrogen has its storage problems as well.

So if we are to create a sustainable, affordable, mechanized agriculture, we will either need to prioritize and subsidize the use of petroleum in ag until the point when batteries and RE comes down a lot in price, or certain brave souls and companies will start pioneering the use of electric drive tractors fueled by renewable electricity. It will help if there emerges a discipline called “agro-ergonomy” which studies and reduces the amount of mechanical work per unit crop output, thereby reducing the amount of mechanical energy required to produce food (no- and low-till organic ag would be starts). It could be that we become so clever in our use of mechanical energy to farm and biofuels progress to the point where we won’t need much of them to cultivate food. But you will still be able to do many times more work with less of an ecological footprint with electric tractors and renewably generated electricity, stored in batteries that will be more energy dense than the current crop.

By: Michael Hoexter on March 11, 2008
at 9:57 pm

Phil Timmons:

I guess I am still lost on the MUST-HAVE-BATTERIES dogma. (or bio-fuel for that matter).

Sorry, but I did not see any reasoned connection between converting available electric power to battery stored power and then converting it back to electric power just to use the electric power that was present to begin with. Does doing that make sense to you?

Not only are the losses (already mentioned present), but the start-up costs are much higher for including those batteries, as well as long term maintenance and replacement as they are limited life equipment.

Like I said, I think you started hard on the right track with citing the local generation of renewable energy to power equipment. That is great. But to not just use the power directly while it is there does not make sense. To borrow an old farming phrase — Make hay while the sun shines.

Your targeted numbers — 250 kW for example — is an excellent farm scaled application. (btw, while the exact math may say that is over 300 hp, in practice we do not budget much more than 1 hp per kW.) 250 kW / 250 HP is a reasonable output from an acre of solar thermal electric generation — which already is cheaper than coal — not talking PV, but rather solar thermal.

So sitting one acre aside can run all the power consumed by 100’s of acres. If this is roof mounted, a couple of large barns, as well as housing and garages can be placed under this.

So that 250 HP can easily run irrigation during solar prime time, as well as most other equipment during other times.

Maybe the battery thinking is from being sort of stuck on a model of equipment that goes round and round and back and forth across a field? As you may know center pivots (irrigation) and linear irrigation already do that with electric drive and no batteries.

Further, large scale electric equipment does not need batteries by virtue of its size, either. I have worked with 1500 hp draglines (large shovel cranes that could eat a whole farm in a day) and these use no batteries — just cord connections from line power.

While I can see the use of some battery vehicles to zip hither and yon (have put an forklift drive motor on a small tractor, myself, and run it both by cord and batteries), to do the mass grunt work with batteries is not real sensible to me when straight up direct power (DC or AC) is available.

Maybe this is a concept conversion thing we are stuck on? Sort of like a farmer of old looking over a modern tractor to figure out where the hay and oats go in? (still thinking in “horse” mode).

Electric farming would not need or probably even want to have equipment that was designed and optimized around petrol in a post-oil world, any more than one would want or need a harness or whip to drive a tractor.

But if you are interested in doing an exploratory essay on methods for profitable post-oil, all electric farming without batteries, I would be happy to help.

• Edit Comment

By: Phil Timmons on March 12, 2008
at 6:22 am

Phil,
Thank you for your out of the box thinking. It may very well be that electric farming implements or vehicles will be able to remain plugged in as they do their work. I have seen pictures of old Soviet farm equipment that uses trolleybus style poles on overhead wires.

Staying plugged in may be an option for some farms or types of farming but in other settings it may soon require too much electrical infrastructure built around some fields.

Also, I think commercial farmers would have a lot to say about the inability to use energy when the sun ISN’T shining. Our agriculture has evolved both under animal and now fossil fuel energy inputs to be able to work at night or under poor light conditions. At harvest or planting time, some farmers will work around the clock. There are so many timing issues involved that I wouldn’t want to dictate to farmers when they would have to use energy. There are going to be a lot of crop losses if farmers can’t use their machines whenever they need them.

Batteries (or a grid connection if the implements /vehicles can remain plugged in) will be well worth the investment. As I point out in my essay, the extra weight of batteries can be used as ballast for pulling heavy loads: now tractor operators need to add weights when they need extra traction. Plus having a stack of batteries connected to the grid will give farmers an additional source of income to help stabilize the grid (selling ancillary services) or store cheap nighttime wind power from neighboring wind farms. So, while I can see that you engaging in a thought experiment, my sense of the future indicates lots of electric energy storage. On the other hand, experimenting with different task requirements with different energy requirements will continue to occur, perhaps minimizing the need for storage.

So, I don’t see the emphasis on batteries as a lack of imagination or a fixation: the functionality they offer is well worth the 10-15% charge-discharge energy loss they represent.

Still, you may well yet invent the grid-tied farming systems of the future, I would assume in close collaboration with commercial farmers!

• Edit Comment

By: Michael Hoexter on March 13, 2008
at 6:06 am

Phil Timmons responds:

Hey Michael, interesting discussion, thanks.

Used to do commercial farming back a life-time ago. Corn, wheat and soybeans.

Can’t remotely take credit for any invention in this regard, just observation of another industry that tends to use non-battery electric power day or night, in 24 hour operations, year around, with all sorts of weather (far more demanding than farming).

Mining.

Typically mining operation have far more material moved, are far more remote than most farms, and much larger footprints. (all challenges to full electric power). But the typical mine operation uses almost all electric — either self-grid or commercial grid operations.

Electric mine cars trains for underground, dragline shovels above ground, and conveyors and electric trains above ground. Even the typical large Terex dump trucks (diesel) that we tend to associate in popular culture with mining (sort of like tractors are associated with farming) are used less and less, and now only until the conveyor(s) (all electric) get built.

Like I was mentioning above, a solar thermal electric system (and again NOT PV) of about one acre produces power to more than cover the heaviest use by most farming applications. Most of the year would just be sending power up to the grid. During times of heavy operation or off-hours the farm can draw from the grid. But when looking at electric power sales versus electric power costs, that should be a net money maker for the farm, as well.

=============

I know the following is not your issue, but for other readers, I probably need to jump into some myth busting at this point . . .

There is no electricity shortage in the US. At most there is a time of use issue. Only during times of “peak” use do we come close to using what is available. Peak in the market I design for – Texas and the West – only happens in the middle of Summer, in the middle to late afternoon. Everyone has on the Air Conditioning. And that is it. We turn on all the Gas plants and hydro in addition to the base load coal and nuke plants and run them into early evening while the day cools down.

Most of the time, there is so much base-load power available that entire coal plants are shut down and taken off line for rebuilds in the Spring and Fall, when electric power use drops.

The sham “need to build more nukes” you hear from folks with no knowledge of the power industry is ALL marketing hype being mindless repeated. The proposals for building of new nukes are that it would 80% government funding. Not only costs more, but takes years and years to build. This is a huge welfare program for the contractors/builders. Costs more to operate and then leaves a mess to clean up, as well. Build, operate and then clean up – all losses.

There are lots (and LOTS) of surplus electricity on the grid. Base load power is cheap to buy and there are large discounts to use it off-peak. Solar thermal electricity produces best during the peak use – the methods discussed here would put MORE power on the grid during peak and only consume from the grid during off peak.

With that out of the way . . . back towards what drives all the tractor and energy use on the typical crop farm . . .

================

Creation of the seedbed.

The need for a good seed bed is what drives the use of a plow. A mold board plow flips the dirt like a slow motion wave breaking along a sea shore. This places weeds and organics at the bottom of the wave to compost, and fresh dirt to the top. For tmi — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plow

The entire mold-board plow system is what created the need for the high pulling power for the high traction and high power tractor. Often a tractor is described in draw bar horse power – which is essentially its pulling power. An interesting aside — the “traction” portion of the word Tractor is now what we now totally associate with farming just as somewhere around 100 years ago, draft horses would have been totally associated with pulling plows (hence “horse power”).

The rest of the seedbed creation — After the mold board plow turns over the soil, a disk harrow is pulled over it to break up the clumps, and then a wide “drag” is pulled to smooth the soil to plant seeds. So that is typically four passes across the field just to get the seeds in the ground.

The “lite” version uses what is called a chisel plow that is a one pass plow to break up the top of the soil, followed by a drag and then planting. Again that is covered in the wiki article.

But in al that, it is the high traction / pulling power tractor is needed for plowing that is driving the methods – which are modeled after the horse methods they replaced. The other implements are made wider and wider to attempt to efficiently use all that horse power available.

There are a couple of alternatives to using this method to create a seedbed. Like you mentioned the Soviets did have some creativity. Even using surplus Army tanks (high power and high traction) to pull plows.

One alternative to tractors I have seen from the Soviet era was a cable pulling method that would drag a plow across a field to a stationary winch. The winch was moved down the edge of the field, so the motive device was required to only be mobile in one dimension. A present day electric grid application of this may be to run a power line down the edge of the field to power the winch and pick the power from the line as the winch moved along.

Current US farming does something like the cable pull method in a system called “travelers” for irrigation. An anchored cable is pulled onto a winch on a mobile wagon-mounted irrigation water gun. The power of the pumped water pulls the cable onto the wagon, moving it across the field while dragging a large water hose behind. These are often electric (grid) powered via a motor and pump which provides the water pressure that makes the whole system work.

A method that I am looking at for total electric (non battery) creation of seed bed is use of tiller/cultivator methods – and yes, this is typical small garden method, but there are commercial farm tractor methods of using tillers – here is an example — http://www.riouxinc.com/BushHogTiller.htm

As these require mostly rotational power – and not traction power, like a plow – they are well suited to be turned by electric motors. As they churn and pass through the soil they create a seed bed that is suitable for planting, and a planter can pass along behind in the same travel. This does the entire 4 pass (plow, disk, drag and plant) in one pass.

I am looking at mounting large scale electric motor powered tillers on a frame like a center pivot, with electric motor wheels – again like a center pivot. So all this could be done while using no batteries, hydrocarbon based fuel, nor bio-fuel, just electric line power, either produced at the site or from the grid, with the power coming down the frame.

After planting comes fertilizing, irrigation and cultivating (mechanical removal of weeds) if desired. As you are probably familiar center pivots and other style irrigators, you can probably see that using liquid fertilizer can directly deliver fertilizer to the field without use of petrol, bio-fuel or batteries. Again just line power driving the pump and drive wheels.

Mechanical cultivation is one area I can see use of small battery power tractors such as you are discussing, however, with current planting methods and weed herbicides, this is not often done in commodity grain crops anymore.

And then finally getting the crop out of the field. The largest challenge with a combine/harvester is tire floatation – or bearing of the weight — on the soft field surface – not really a power or traction issue. Adding battery weight to this would not be a good thing.

It is often the weight of the grain being collected on board that bumps the limits of design capacity. A 300 bushel grain tank holds 9 tons. (300 bu. X 60 lbs/bu = 18,000 lbs = 9 tons).

I recall one Thanksgiving Day some years ago — working 23 hours straight as a Canadian blizzard was bearing down on us. Only stopping to refuel and grab some turkey and keep going. What forced the situation were wet fields and the weight of the combine would sink and get stuck in the mud. We had to wait until the ground froze and then beat the snow. Finished the last hour as snow was blowing in about horizontal in a 40 mph wind.

But what drove all that fun was the equipment and the methods used – which is still about the same today — 25 years later.

A method I am pondering for this is again using the center pivot style frame with small grain heads (the front end of a combine) attached, feeding a cylinder (the part of the combine that breaks the grain from the shell or cob) and then vacuum/blowing the grain back to a central collection point down the structural pipe that would normally be used to provide water out along the irrigator. Again, no petrol, bio-fuels, or batteries required. This keeps the weight of the collected grain back at central storage area, rather than being hauled around the field.

If folks really really wanted to use the conventional tractor methods, I have considered some options for that as well – one could take an old Steiger and put a 200 to 400 HP industrial electric motor in it in place of the diesel and have a super tractor for about 1/5 the cost of a new diesel. Run it from dragline cable – like the mine shovels discussed above, and off you go. That would last for decades and save its cost many times over in the (non) use of fuel.