AL FREELAND

I don’t claim to be an expert on this subject, but I would like to throw out a thought and see what others think. The subject is, “How green are hybrid and/or electric cars in reality?”

I am really quite amused when I see the recent car ads as a result of the current oil crisis. I know this is deadly serious, but the reason I am amuse d is that I am finally old enough to remember the other oil crisis in the 1970’s, and some interesting results from it back then. Today’s car ads toot how “fantastic” these new cars are in getting 28, 30, 32, 34 miles per gallons, as if this is some great feat. The younger generation of today seems to think this is super, and how great the car companies are in responding to the crisis with these earth saving cars.

I hate to burst their bubbles, but in 1981 I bought a 1972 Chevy Vega. It was a snappy little 4 cylinder car with a 4-speed manual transmission. In driving back and forth from my home in Iowa to Northfield (55 mph was the rule then on the Interstate), I fairly consistently got 40 mile per gallon. My point here is that the technology to get 40+ mpg is not something “new” that auto companies have just developed. In fact, few even claim that good of mileage to best of my knowledge. I have just recently read of a European version of the Ford Focus – diesel – that gets 58 or 59 mpg on the highway I believe. It appears that “we have the power” already to change the face of oil consumption if we wanted to.

My next point, and I really am just throwing this out for discussion, and claim no unique knowledge here, is how green is green really? What I mean is, there are some points about hybrid or electric cars that mystify me. Here they are:

1. It seems to me that for a strictly electric car that you plug in to charge a battery bank, they are not really that “clean”. It seems to me that we are deluding ourselves if we think that electricity is really clean – at least the way that most of the world generates its power. Let’s say that we are generating electricity with coal (most do I believe). First you burn coal, make steam, turn a generator, transmit power through lines with the aid of transformers, and it arrives at your house. You plug in your car, charge a battery and it then propels your car. Count how may states the energy changes form. Each one cause a loss in this power. So you have a dirty power generation source (coal) and an enormous power loss or inefficiency, versus just burning the fuel directly in the car, get 40-50 mpg, and clean up the little exhaust you really have. It is true that the pollution from dirty coal plants can be mitigated some perhaps with precipitators on the exhaust of the power plant, but that scrubber work is not free in the energy end of it either. Another power loss or inefficiency to contend with. Maybe if you throw in nuclear or wind/wave/geo/solar for 100% of our power it would change this equation?

2. Now let’s take hybrid cars – some gas and some battery. There are many different versions of these vehicles I know. But let’s take a version with a gas engine and regenerative breaking that charges the batteries when you brake the car. I have been told that at highway speeds the gas engine is practically running full time, no electric. So at highway speeds you are no better for pollution that an efficient engine (see the points in no.1). In city driving, there is an advantage and less pollution at the point of driving. I don’t think that these facts are very clear in advertising. The next fact is one that I can’t claim a thorough knowledge of, but this is what I have heard and read a bit about. It seems that the nickel metal hydride batteries used in hybrids are quite dirty to produce (nickel production is extremely dirty and polluting) – not a good thing. Also, if just a small percentage of the world’s car were to use these batteries, there would not be nearly enough natural resources to produce the batteries needed. I have also heard that the actual production of the batteries and the manufacturing of the hybrid cars versus standard car technology bring into question the actual “greenness” of these vehicles.

I have heard about a flurry of what appear to be BRILLIANT possibilities for super energy efficient cars. Some of these seem like fantastic solutions to the problem of pollution and efficiency. One of these is the hydrogen fuel used in Europe and to a small extent in the US. The hydrogen is generated from water, stored in an anhydrous state in the car’s trunk, and the only exhaust is water. The engine needs little modification, and home hydrogen generators are a distinct possibility.

I think it is a true statement that if we were to try to justify the actual cost of hybrid or electric vehicles and the potential cost to maintain, there is not doubt that current, fuel efficient gas/diesel cars would far win out. So if it isn’t a cost advantage, we must be very sure that if we are all going to throw our “eggs in the basket” or the hybrid vehicles is yielding the old remaining reason for switching to them – cleaner vehicles.

I would venture the guess, that many other creative schemes are out there, and I would love to hear any comments on these ideas. Once again, I am no expert and merely want to see what you all think since we are all in this together and of course want to clean up the earth, and save money at the pumps. I am not a conspiracy thinker, but am just a little leery that the auto industry may be trying to come up with solutions that merely feed us with currently technology to keep profits flowing, and are shying away from just cleaning up our act with efficient gas and diesel options that already exist.

What do you think?