Welcome to Bizarro World

Several years ago the supposed answer to many of our problems was to develop fuel from alternative sources. How miraculous would it be to take something like corn or even soybeans and turn it into a new gasoline. Every six months a whole new crop would sprout from the ground. Goodbye OPEC and hello American farmer, suddenly made whole after years of neglect and limited markets.

Then some wise guys started to speculate that there might not be enough corn to go around. That even if every acre of exploitable land was converted to the raising of crops for bio-fuels it wouldn't be enough. Oh yeah, it would lead to an ear of corn costing a dollar or more. How crazy was that thinking? How bizarre.

Faster than we could have imagined and without huge ranches being taken over by bio-fuel production the world is apparently experiencing a food shortage. I heard a researcher the other day from AG Research say that the production of bio-fuels has led to an increase in food prices of 33%. Once again, that's with just some of our crop production being dedicated to bio-fuel. Who knew that the balance was so tenuous?  Who knew it was this bizarre.

Maybe if the administration had watched the movie "King Corn" that details how much this country already relies on corn for everything from sweeteners in cereal and soft drinks to the feed for cattle they would have lowered or changed the expectations. Bio-fuel was such a great idea that it's a shame that it's going to require that we make other sacrifices for it to work.

The alternative fuel that seems to have the most potential now is hydrogen but it will still be years before the infrastructure is in place. Right now it costs more in pollution to produce the hydrogen. That will go way down as the demand for hydrogen increases. Of course there also has to be the same kind of support from the auto industry to make the cars that burn hydrogen as there has been in the past couple of years for hybrids.

I hope that those manufacturers learned the lesson of the hybrid that drivers don't want something too different. Look at the success of Honda's Insight with it's long tail and fenderskirts compared to the Toyota Prius which looks not too different from the other cars on the road. Convert the cars and trucks that we already know to run on hydrogen and they will be accepted by a much broader audience.

Hopefully the "Hydrogen Highways" in Scandinavia and in California will prove that this can work and will demand the amount of production to make the technology economically and environmentally worthwhile. These two projects involve a network of hydrogen filling stations along well-traveled corridors. California currently has 24 hydrogen filling stations but hopes to increase that number several times over as part of the Hydrogen Highway.  More filling stations means that car makers can sell more hydrogen fuel-cell cars. It will take a leap of faith on the part of all sides but from some of the BMW commercials being aired and the proclamations of politicians in California and elsewhere it appears that the stars are close to being in alignment within a few years. Let's hope so because this whole corn thing just ain't working.

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Steve Eldridge is a long-time reporter, observer and commentator on the Washington region's transportation issues. You can contact him directly by writing to: Steve@SprawlandCrawl.com. Unless otherwise requested, letters or portions of letters can be used within future columns. Letter writers will be identified by their first name and city/neighborhood.

Comments

[Beach Bum]

Actually, Brazil has had cars fueled by alcohol for 30 years now, since the OPEC crisis in the late 70's.

Somehow it never really caught on in the rest of the world, but in Brazil about half the cars run on alcohol, and a lot of new cars can use both fuels. (Alcohol is much cheaper, but slightly less efficient than gasoline, however it's renewable fuel, since it's extracted from sugarcane).

[DC]

Hydrogen isn't really fuel - it is an energy storage medium. You can't go and get hydrogen, you have to make it form some other energy source (usually natural gas). In a sense it is similar to a battery.

Hybrids today run entirely on gas but conserve energy that traditional cars used to waste by storing it into a battery.

New cars - like the Chevy Volt (yes GM is on the cutting edge, who knew) - will be plug in hybrids. They will flip the equation. They'll run primarily on electricity from the grid - stored in a battery, using an ICE as a back up and a range expander. You will actually plug this car in to a standard outlet and get up to 40 miles of driving before you switch to the gas tank.

Power off the grid is significantly more efficient and clean. A big power plant can get more power per gram (and per pound of CO2) than thousands of small power plants (which is what an ICE is) can. Additionally, the percentage of grid power that's from renewable sources has been increasing, 9.5% as of 2006, and will continue to thanks to government mandates and market forces.

Later version will involve batteries with such a long range that the ICE will be dropped. You can charge your car at any electrical outlet (much easier to find than a gas station).

Further out cars will have solar panels built into the roof and hood that will further extend the range. Your car will recharge for free while you're at work. Run out of charge? Park in the sun and wait.

That is where the most promise is. Now will fuel cells make better batteries than NiCad or NiH batteries? It's hard to say, but fuel cells require an extra step - using electricity to break up water molecules to get to the Hydrogen. That's a pretty big hill to climb up so I know where my money is.

[JP]

Alternative fuels are only part of the solution, but we need all the facts, including getting information on which technologies are getting federal subsidies.

You describe some of the problems with producing ethanol from corn, but there are many more. I recommend that folks read up on the WP article 'Siphoning Off Corn to Fuel Our Cars' as part of the food crisis series this week. For instance the quote that the amount of corn used to produce ethanol to fill a hummer gastank is enough to feed a human for a year.

There is no questions that the magic promise of hydrogen power is mesmorizing (clean water out of the tail pipe) but it will take 40 years, how will we travel in the meantime? The hydrogen-highway concept has a long way to go, and will be very expensive, who will pay for the cost of creating a whole new fuel delivery system?

Clearly, we need to stop dreaming of some magical technological innovation that is just around the corner in hopes that it will allow us to keep living status quo.. the times are a-changing..

Please listen to our informed policy experts (of which there are many in DC) who are right to warn us from choosing a certain technology (like Ethanol or Hydrogen), and instead we should force Congress to enact real efficiency laws (from cars, appliances, homes, etc) to create a system that prices actual costs of energy (including carbon and pollution) that will allow 'the market' to innovate and bring the best solutions and products forward.

Until the new innovative solutions come our way that we can support, we can start focusing on our own behavior, after all we are the ones creating the traffic:

How much do we travel, can we drive less? and carpool? How far do we live from work? What modes of travel do we chose? Which politicians (local, state, and fed) are proposing the best solutions? Where are the products we buy made? etc.

Get 'er done Steve!

[ara]

You neglect to mention electric cars. The technology is here today so why wait for hydrogen? Granted, coal is usually the source of our electricity, but it doesn't have to be that way. Our household's energy source is wind (VA's energy choice laws allow us to purchase wind power) so our electric bicycles are charged by the wind!

[Joe]

There's an article in the Washington Post today about the food-oil link. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/29/AR2008042903092.html?hpid=topnews

[Gilahi]

Actually, there was a recent article in "The Washington Post" which reported that the hybrid cars that don't look any different from their standard counterparts actually DON'T sell as well as the ones that look very different and are obviously hybrids. It seems that there's some superiority mentality out there, and people who own hybrids want other people to know it.