Archive for the ‘Environment’ Category

 

Dec 20

GM Turning Used Gulf of Mexico Oil Booms Into Chevy Volt Parts

 

[ad#post_ad]The oil spill occurring in the Gulf of Mexico last summer was a serious disaster that had a large impact on our environment.

Though the leak was eventually stopped, a large amount of fallout accumulated and still exists.

GM has invented a creative way to utilize some of the toxic debris, they are putting it into the Chevy Volt.

The automaker announced a program to specifically recycle the oil booms that were used to contain surface oil.  The method GM and partners have developed will lead to the conversion 100 miles of the oil-soaked material.

The recycling of this material will lead to the production of 100,000 pounds of plastic resin which will be used for Chevy Volt underhood plastic parts.  That’s enough to build the entire first year production of 15,000 vehicles.

Specifically the parts will be used to deflect air around the radiator and will consist of 25% boom material and 25% recycled tires from GMs Milford proving grounds.

“Creative recycling is one extension of GM’s overall strategy to reduce its environmental impact,” said Mike Robinson, GM vice president of Environment, Energy and Safety policy.  “We reuse and recycle material by-products at our 76 landfill-free facilities every day. This is a good example of using this expertise and applying it to a greater magnitude.”

GM worked with several partners to achieve this objective including a company that harvested the used booms, and others that spun them dry and helped break them down into resin.  The boom transformation effort is already underway and is expected to continue for two more months.

“This was purely a matter of helping out,” said John Bradburn, manager of GM’s waste-reduction efforts. “If sent to a landfill, these materials would have taken hundreds of years to begin to break down, and we didn’t want to see the spill further impact the environment. We knew we could identify a beneficial reuse of this material given our experience.”

Source (GM)

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Nov 22

Q&A With Jim Woolsey, Energy Independence Advocate and Member of the Chevy Volt Advisory Board

 

[ad#post_ad]I had the chance to interview Jim Woolsey, the former CIA Director, who has long been an active proponent of reducing US oil dependence.  He is also one of the 17 members of the Chevrolet Volt advisory board, who along with me has been living with a captured test fleet Chevrolet Volt.

What is your present occupation and activities?
I’m a venture capital partner in a venture capital fund in Silicon Valley, Vantage Point, and I look into start up companies for them in the clean-tech space which is renewable energy and energy security and water purification.

I look for startups that are particularly creative even if they don’t meet all the criteria one would look for in a sound investment, looking especially for ones with creative technology. I found Tesla for them back five six years ago when it was about eight to ten people in a garage.

I found them through a friend who is one of my co-authors, Chelsea Sexton. She and her husband met me at a speech I gave in Southern California back then and I said something about batteries not quite being ready for electric vehicles. She said ‘you’re wrong about the batteries’, and took me a month or so later to Tesla. You can’t always come up with investments through those sorts of contacts but that’s one in which the electric vehicle community actually introduces an EV company to the venture capital world. Once we looked into it Vantage Point decided to invest in it.

Are you one of the founders of the firm?
No. Vantage Point has been around for years. I am a part-time partner for about three and a half years.

But you’ve been particularly interested in this space for much longer than a few years?
Oh Yeah. Ive been interested in doing something about oil since October 1973 when I was general counsel of the Senate Armed Services Committee and I was late to run an important hearing because it was the middle of the Yom Kippur war and the Saudi’s had cut off our oil and I got stuck in a gas line at a gas station for several hours. I remember sitting there seething about it then and I’ve been interested in this space in one way or another; biofuel, electricity, efficiency of engines since then.

I understand you were the director of the CIA for several years; would you say that work opened your eyes to more concerns about energy security and energy dependence than other things you’ve done?
Well I was in the government five times and four of them Presidential appointments in the executive branch, two Republican, and two Democratic administrations and all of it related to national security. I’ve been thinking that our oil dependence is a serious security problem since 73. I wrote a piece called ‘New Petroleum’ about moving towards biofuels, to a Senator Richard Luger back in 1999 in foreign affairs. So this has been a subject that I am especially concerned about but I think it’s fair to say that beginning with the Iranian revolution in 1979 and with each terrorist attack or incident whether its hostage seizing or 9-11 or anything else that has come out of the Middle East, it just doubly underlines how important it is that we not be dependent on oil for transportation. You do not deal with this by just buying less foreign oil.

The only thing you do by drilling more domestically is you help to balance the payments, and that’s not negligible. We borrow a billion dollars a day to import oil and if we cut our imports by ten percent, through efficiency or biofuels or electricity, the Saudis and their colleagues in OPEC will just pump a million barrels of oil a day less to keep the price jacked up. They already are pumping slightly less per day than they did in the early 1970s. World demand for oil has certainly gone up but during that time they got close to 80 percent of the world’s reserves and they (OPEC) are only producing about 40 percent of the world’s oil each day, and the reason they withhold so much from the market is to keep the price up and keep control of the market.

We’re not going to change the dominance that they can create with several dollars barrel oil that they sell for eighty. By us being able to produce oil for about 50 to 60 dollars per barrel, we’re not in any terms going to halt or to interfere with their cartel operation just by making moderate reduction in the amount of oil we use. If we try to do it regionally if we buy less from the Saudis and more from Norway then somebody else will just buy less form Norway and more from the Saudis.

So an awful lot of the solutions that people come up with have almost nothing to do with the problem of oil dependence.

Cap and trade may be a reasonable way to eliminate emissions from power plants but it has virtually nothing to do with oil because a dollar a ton of CO2 price is a penny a gallon at the pump.
A lot of people get enthusiastic about nuclear power or wind and cleaning up our emissions from power plants and that’s important, those are some of the way to do it, but they don’t have anything to do with oil dependence. Since only about 1 percent of our electricity comes from oil you can switch around between coal and nuclear as much as you want and not do anything about our oil dependence.

So the public debate insofar as it’s been focused on ‘drill baby drill’, cap and trade, and so forth has virtually nothing to do with oil dependence.

We got to go right at it, and I think electrification is an important way to go right at it. Biofuels and efficiency of internal combustion engine are important too.

Besides the financial and national security consequences of oil dependence how to you feel about the concept of peak oil, and do you think the oil supply will become very tight over the next 10 or 20 years especially with China and Indian demand growing?
You’ve got several things going on, one is increasing Indian and Chinese and other demand as a result of those countries getting more prosperous and buying more and more cars. There’s also the possibility of peak oil. The range of disagreement about that is not huge. It’s between whether it’s occurring around now or will occur within the next ten or twenty years. It will be different times in different fields but if you talk about net overall based on what we know, most people think even if we’re not in peak oil now it will be another twenty years max.

That will put pressure on the price, because it doesn’t mean you run out right away but it means that an oil field like the big one in Mexico is past its peak it means cost of production goes up and cost goes up and that looks like its happening in more than a few oil fields round the world.

Looking at the EV early adopters its seems like national security is the main interest but marketing people talk about environmental impact and global warming as motivators. What’s your feeling on that?
I think CO2 is part of the story and quite probably an important part of the story of the risk of producing anthropogenic climate changes, and there are a lot of other things going on as well, it’s a very complex subject. There are very complex models dealing with it, but I don’t think one has to believe that CO2 emissions from largely oil and coal are the entire story in order to be concerned about the amount of CO2 emissions.

Even if cigarette smoking is 50 or 55% creating the risk of lung cancer, and there are other factors, it doesn’t mean we should dash out and start smoking five packs a day.

I think climate change is part of it but I think because the administration and Congress have emphasized the cap and trade so much they’ve really gotten away from doing anything about emissions from oil. They need to focus more on that. They’ve done some positive things like the tax credit on the batteries and some aspects of R&D on biofuels, but they really need a concerted program to go after oil dependence. I think one important part of that is the so-called aromatics that replaced lead to increase the octane in our engines.

About a quarter of what is in your gasoline tank is benzene, toluene, and xylene and those are highly carcinogenic. If you emitted even tiny bits of those form a chemical plant, you would be in deep trouble with the regulatory system but that junk can come out the tailpipes of every car in substantial quantities and it is not effective regulated under US law. EPA has the authority to regulate the aromatics but they haven’t done it for the forty years of the existence of the Clean Air Act.

So there are a lot of reasons to move off oil, and cancer is one. There’s an added cost of 200 billion per year due to health consequence of the aromatics.

We see GM, Nissan and others are producing electric cars finally. Do you feel these companies’ moves and motivations are going to produce a lasting change or do you think the oil industry will try to limit this to an extent?
I think the big danger is not from the international oil companies, it’s from OPEC. The international oil and gas companies don’t really own the oil they produce and some of them including Exxon are very heavily and increasingly selling natural gas. That’s a whole separate issue. Once you get the cleanup of the hydrofracturing water from the gas shale done right I think there’s at least a reasonable opportunity that we could be relying substantially more on natural gas for electricity generation and for transportation both if you end up with open standard flexible fuel vehicles with methanol made from natural gas that you can make now for about eighty cents per gallon. And also even directly putting CNG into vehicles particularly for interstate trucking, since you don’t need a lot of natural gas pumps to do that. I’m not much of a fan of natural gas for the family car. Because you’d have to have natural gas filling stations all over. But for fleet vehicles like city buses and interstate trucking there’s potentially a lot of utility there. A lot of the big international oil and gas companies are pulling a lot of their exploratory and other interests towards gas. But for OPEC and even those countries that do produce gas going to LNG increases the cost and most of those places don’t have pipelines. And in any case they make more money on oil. They control much more of the market to jack prices up anyway they want. So I think the real folks who are solidly opposed to electrification of transportation, biofuels, and efficiency is OPEC and their national oil companies, not so much the internationals.

Do you think OPEC can possibly influence the growth of the EV industry?
Well they’ll do their darnedest with lobbying. Look up the registered law firms, lobbyists, and advertising agencies for the Saudis alone and those OPEC countries that do nothing but pump oil. If you have some institution directly or indirectly speaking for ARAMCO let’s say, in Washington, that’s OPEC governments at work.

Influencing policy in this country?
Oh sure. Absolutely.

Do you think the current efforts of companies like GM and Nissan as real efforts that will change the nature of our automotive fleet, or do you think this is greenwashing?
I think certainly the hydrogen highway business back at the beginning of the decade was greenwashing. But I think EVs are different because we all have access to electricity and more public charging networks will come in and things will get easier. And if you’ve got a garage you got it already.

I think the existence of the electric infrastructure and I think for the new era of EVs for a lot of people even if they very rarely use a vehicle to go more than 30 to 40 miles per day, the range anxiety is always there. That’s one reason why the plugin hybrids and vehicles like the Volt with extended range are so important because you can have confidence that you can stop by any filling station to extend the range. In a Volt three out of four days for the average drive it’s an all-electric vehicle. To be able to have the liquid fuel in the tank in case you have an emergency and you don’t want to have to worry about stopping for an hour and finding a plug, the extended range from the liquid fuel is I think a very important aspect of bringing about change.

Now in time the batteries may get good enough and cheap enough that it won’t matter, and for people who may only use EVs as a second car, or as fast chargers start appearing, this may all go away in a couple of decades, but initially being able to have the liquid fuel extend the range is a really important aspect of the whole thing.

So I guess on a personal level you had been looking forward to getting your Volt?
Absolutely. I also drive a plugin converted Prius with an A123/Hymotion batter and it’s got a bumper sticker on it that has a picture of Bin Laden and it says Bin Laden hates this car.
I have one ready to go for the Volt, and will be even more deserved for the Volt as 40 miles is certainly better than 10 or 15.

Do you have any comments on your experience so far driving the Volt?
Terrific to drive. The panels, gauges, etc. are easy to read and driver-friendly. The 25-50 mile electric range is just right to let you drive all-electric most days, not need a huge battery, and have no range anxiety (because of the liquid fuel). Really looking forward a lot to Volt ffv’s (I understand 2012-ish) so I can use virtually no petroleum products at all.
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Nov 20

Chevrolet to Invest $40 Million in Clean Energy Projects

 

[ad#post_ad]Shortly after their recent stock sale, General Motors announced it would be spending $40 million on clean energy investments across America.

The company said its goal in doing so was to reduce carbon emissions by eight million metric tons over the next few years.  The eight million ton value is the same amount of carbon dioxide produced by electricity use in nearly 1 million US homes, and is the same amount 1.7 million acres of pine forests can absorb.

More saliently, it is also the same amount of carbon dioxide the 1.9 million Chevrolets expected to be sold in 2011 will produce.

As such,  the funding for this initiative will come specifically from the Chevrolet brand and will be spent over the next 3 to 5 years on various projects that “promote energy savings, renewable energy, responsible use of natural resources and conservation in communities across the United States.”

Funds will be awarded through third-party non-profit organizations such as the Bonneville Environmental Foundation based in Portland, Oregon.

Projects to be considered for funding may include the following:
* Providing energy efficient technology such as smart energy sensors and solar panels to schools and other community-based facilities in need of upgrades to decrease carbon dioxide emissions and reduce heating bills.
* Supporting wind farms and solar projects that deliver renewable energy to the grid and also help family farms increase their revenues per acre.
* Capturing flammable methane from community landfills that delivers clean energy to the grid and improves local air quality and safety.
* Contributing to forestry projects throughout America.

“GM has made great progress in reducing our environmental impact, but we know we can do more,” said GM CEO Dan Akerson. “Chevrolet’s investment is an extension of the environmental initiatives we’ve been undertaking for years because the solution to global environmental challenges goes beyond just vehicles.

“This is an opportunity to connect with Chevy customers through clean energy projects that directly impact them,” he added.

A website has been set up to help explain the program: http://www.chevycarbonreduction.com/

Chevrolet has also produced a Tim Allen-narrated TV commercial called Spaceship Earth promoting the program and starring guess which car?





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Sep 06

Leaked Study by German Military Predicts Dire Consequences of Peak Oil

 

[ad#post_ad]Peak oil is the theory and study of the time when global oil production reaches its maximum rate and then declines terminally, despite growing demand. Peak oil is a fact of nature that either will shortly occur or is presently occurring; oil is a finite resource and at some point remaining reserves will decline and not be able to keep up with demand.

It is a very compelling reason to move towards electrification the automobile.

Generally large western democratic governments do not publish reports on the study of peak oil or its consequence, for fear of causing public distress. However a document produced by the German military was recently leaked to the media via the German outlet Der Spiegel.

This document was never meant to be seen by the public and outlines some very dramatic, drastic, and sobering consequences of peak oil.

The report claims there is “some probability that peak oil will occur around the year 2010 and that the impact on security is expected to be felt 15 to 30 years later.”

Analysis of the report has led to seven key findings.

  • Oil will determine power:
    Oil producing nations will gain considerable power in the international landscape and will use this power to expand their domestic and foreign policies in their own best interests.
  • Increasing importance of oil exporters:
    Oil importing countries will have to compete with each other to obtain oil from oil exporters. This will allow the oil exporting countries to implement their political, economic, and ideological goals on dependent nations including the use of aggressive and assertive tactics.
  • Politics in place of the market:
    The global oil market will retract from free-trade mechanisms and degenerate into two-way contracts between oil producing and oil importing nations.
  • Market failures:
    The report paints a bleak picture of the global economy as oil shortages develop. Since all goods depend on oil to transport them, shortages and price escalations of vital goods will arise. “In the medium term the global economic system and every market-oriented national economy would collapse,” the study authors conclude.
  • Relapse into planned economy:
    Since all economic sectors are reliant on oil, peak oil could lead to complete or partial failure of all markets. This could lead to goverments’ rationing of vital goods.
  • Global chain reaction:
    There will not be enough time to restructure oil supplies among dependent nations.  Since those nations are so closely intertwined, including Germany, economic crises or crashes will rapidly will spread throughout the developed world.
  • Crisis of political legitimacy:
    So potent is the grip of oil dependence, the report predicts that it is possible even democracy itself won’t be able to survive peak oil.  The would create openings for extremist forms of government, intense political distress, and even open violent conflict in the streets.

Clearly these predictions are drastic, but it is important to take note that this report wasn’t written by some fringe psychopathic recluse, but by the military of one of the largest democratic economies in the world.

I’m not sure what I can do about it, but hopefully buying a Chevy Volt is a first step in the right direction.  Let’s hope we have enough time and ingenuity to avert this potential outcome.

Source (Der Spiegel)
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Jul 25

GM to be First to Use Greenhouse Gas Friendly Air Conditioner Refrigerant

 


[ad#post_ad]Air-conditioning coolant made of hydrofluorocarbons is a significant greenhouse gas that may contribute to climate change.

These molecules accumulate in the atmosphere, break down very slowly, and trap heat there. This is in addition to any ozone-depleting effects.

The currently used coolant in automotive air conditioners is called R-134a which has an average atmospheric lifespan of 11 years. This translates to a global warming potential (GWP) of 1400. GWP is the ratio of a given gases behavior to carbon dioxide.

GM has just announced it will begin using a new air-conditioning refrigerant called HFO-1234yf, which is supplied by Honeywell in all of its vehicles beginning in 2013.

GM says using this new coolant will keep cars cool while at the same time reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 99%. The new coolant only has an atmospheric lifespan of 4 days, giving it a GWP of just 4 times carbon dioxide.

Since the EPA awards credit for this improved environmental performance it can be used to help achieve the 40% improvement in fleet fuel economy that is required by 2016.

“The use of HFO-1234yf will help GM vehicles significantly exceed its targets under the new regulations,” said GM in a statement.

“GM’s decision to adopt this new refrigerant is additional proof of our commitment to be on the forefront of green technologies that will keep our planet healthy for our children and grand-children,” said Mike Robinson, GM vice president of Environment, Energy and Safety Policy. “It’s not just about meeting regulatory requirements; it’s about environmental leadership and GM plans to lead in developing new technologies that will take the vehicle out of the environmental debate.”

Source (GM)

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Feb 23

Chevy Volt Cold Weather Testing Update

 

[ad#post_ad]We learned that GM has been testing several Chevy Volt preproduction vehicles in extreme winter conditions in Kapuskasing Ontario, where temperatures have been ranging from minus 40 to minus 5 degrees Celsius in winter.

Teams have actually been up there for several months looking at performance both from a battery and range perspective, as well as durability and control on snowy roads.

Voltec engineer Pam Fletcher and Volt chief engineer Andre Farah took some questions from the web, and offered some video responses. Some interesting facts were learned.

Range

GM has long stated they intend for the Volt to obtain up to 40 miles of electric range in most driving circumstances.  Though Bob Lutz recently told reporters he only got 28 miles of winter range with his driving behavior, the Volt team insists longer cold-weather ranges would be possible.

Farah notes that even in very cold winter temperatures its still possible to hit 40 miles of EV range, and says ranges “anywhere from from 32 to 40 without difficulty” are likely depending on drivers preferences for cabin heating.  Accessory electric draw for cabin heating, and excessive power demands from aggressive driving style will reduce range.

Power

It is well known that lithium ion batteries tend to lose power in cold temperatures.  Sub-optimally managed batteries in some electric cars, like the MINI E, experience a drop in acceleration and top speed performance in very cold weather.  According to Fletcher and Farah this will not be the case in the Volt.  They state there will be no loss of power in cold temperature, and that the car is designed to achieve the same specs in EV mode and range extended mode across the entire temperature spectrum.

Engine Preheating
An advantage the Volt has over pure EVs is that when its very cold, the batteries can be heated using the gas generator.  If the car is plugged in it will condition the battery using grid energy, if it is not, and its very cold, 30 degrees below 0, the generator will go on at the outset.  Cabin temperature can be pre-programmed or set via mobile phone app to warm the car using grid energy as well.

Farah stated he learned that if that cars were soaked in the cold temperatures outside overnight, the batteries did not drop fully to the outdoor temperature.

He also noted that from a very cold start after the ICE goes on to warm the battery, roughly within 3 miles it will be warm enough to allow the engine to turn off.

Battery Life
It was also mentioned that cold temperature operation is not expected to reduce battery longevity. Farah said heat will have a negative impact on battery life, the extent of which Farah said GM is still determining “exactly what that is,” because its hard to test longevity versus temperature using laboratory models.

Traction
They noted Volt snow traction is very successful, though Farah was able to get one Volt stuck with severe “limit case testing” on a snowy road. It had to be towed.  These limit cases are what the engineers test, but Farah indicates these are not scenarios everyday drivers would expect to encounter.
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