The use of biodiesel has increased "greatly" over the past five years, dropping off, though, over the past year and a half due to the cost of the plant oil, said Dennis Miller, a professor of chemical engineering at Michigan State University.
Unlike Santa Cruz's fuel, most biodiesel comes from soybeans, canola and other sources, all of which have increased dramatically in price because of increased demand and speculation on demand, he said.
Locally, there is a "small but passionate group of individuals" running their vehicles on biodiesel, said Maggie Striz Calnin, program coordinator of Greater Lansing Area Clean Cities, a nonprofit coalition of local governments and businesses.
"For one, they see the connection between the environment and public health and alternative fuels," she said. "They're also starting to see the benefit of using domestically produced fuel rather than imported fuel, because our lives are so interconnected with transportation."
Santa Cruz estimates that to fill the 25-gallon tank of his 2004 Dodge Sprinter van with regular diesel fuel, it would cost $125.
But by using 50 percent biodiesel in the van's tank, he's only paying half the price, saving him anywhere from $300 to $400 a month on fuel costs.
"I'm a green-feeling person," Santa Cruz said. "I take this with sincerity: We're in a real crisis, and I think we need to look at alternative means." Got grease?
Biodiesel isn't the only alternative that's attracting interest.
Sales have increased for Greasecar Vegetable Fuel Systems, which bills itself as the nation's largest retailer and manufacturer of vegetable oil kits, said Justin Carven, founder and owner of the company based out of Easthampton, Mass.
The fuel system allows diesel vehicles retrofitted with conversion kits to run on straight vegetable oil, or grease, often obtained from restaurants for free.
Carven said slightly more than 5,000 kits have been sold in the last eight years, most of which were sold in the last two years.
As fuel prices climb, he said, so has interest in the system.
"There's not too many places for people to turn, and this is a relatively straightforward and affordable way to go," Carven said.
In 2007, he said, Greasecar sold just fewer than 1,000 kits. Carven expects 2,000 kits to be sold by the end of this year.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Researchers work to turn car's exhaust into power
The stinky, steaming air that escapes from a car's tailpipe could be an answer to using less gas.
Researchers are competing to meet a challenge from the U.S. Department of Energy: improve fuel economy 10 percent by converting wasted exhaust heat into energy that can help power the vehicle.
General Motors Corp. is close to reaching the goal, as is a BMW AG supplier working with Ohio State University. Their research into thermoelectrics -- the science of using temperature differences to create electricity -- couldn't come at a better time as high gas prices accelerate efforts to make vehicles as efficient as possible.
GM researcher Jihui Yang said a metal-plated device that surrounds an exhaust pipe could increase fuel economy in a Chevrolet Suburban by about 5 percent, a 1-mile-per-gallon improvement that would be even greater in a smaller vehicle.
Reaching the goal of a 10 percent improvement would save more than 100 million gallons of fuel per year in GM vehicles in the U.S. alone.
"The take-home message here is: It's a big deal," Yang said.
The DOE, which is partially funding the auto industry research, helped develop a thermoelectric generator for a heavy duty diesel truck and tested it for the equivalent of 550,000 miles about 12 years ago.
John Fairbanks, the department's thermoelectrics technology development manager, said the success of that generator justified the competitive search in 2004 for a device that could augment or replace a vehicle's alternator. Three teams were selected to participate in the program, with GM and thermoelectrics manufacturer BSST separately working on cars and a team from Michigan State University focusing on heavy-duty trucks.
Fairbanks said thermoelectric generators should be on the verge of production in about three years.
"It's probably the biggest impact in the shortest time that I can think of," he said.
The technology is similar to what NASA uses to power deep space probes, a perk being it doesn't seem to be susceptible to wear. Probes have used a thermoelectric setup for about 30 years.
Thermoelectric devices can work in two ways -- using electricity to provide heating or cooling, or using temperature differences to create electricity.
The second method is Yang's focus, and for good reason.
In an internal combustion engine, only about a quarter of the total energy from gasoline is used to actually turn the wheels, while 40 percent is lost in exhaust heat and 30 percent is lost through cooling the engine. That means about 70 percent of the available energy is wasted, according to GM.
"If I can use some of that heat energy and convert it to electricity, you can improve the overall efficiency," Yang said.
A Suburban produces 15 kilowatts of exhaust heat energy during city driving, which is enough to power three or four air conditioners simultaneously.
But it's not possible to harness all the exhaust heat a vehicle produces, so when the Suburban is cruising between 50 and 60 mph, the generator can produce about 800 watts of power, Yang said. That electricity could go to accessories such as a GPS device, DVD player, radio and possibly the vehicle's water pumps.
Yang's prototype device is to be tested in a Suburban next year. A similar prototype created by Ohio State scientists and BSST should be tested in a BMW in 2009.
The thermoelectric generator works when one side of its metallic material is heated, and excited electrons move to the cold side. The movement creates a current, which electrodes collect and convert to electricity.
While it's not clear how much the device would add to the price of a vehicle, the whole point of the research is to make it cost-effective, Yang said.
"There are several other steps that are required to commercialize the material, but we're cautiously optimistic that these steps can be carried out successfully," said Lon Bell, president of BSST, a subsidiary of Northville-based thermoelectrics supplier Amerigon Inc.
Researchers are competing to meet a challenge from the U.S. Department of Energy: improve fuel economy 10 percent by converting wasted exhaust heat into energy that can help power the vehicle.
General Motors Corp. is close to reaching the goal, as is a BMW AG supplier working with Ohio State University. Their research into thermoelectrics -- the science of using temperature differences to create electricity -- couldn't come at a better time as high gas prices accelerate efforts to make vehicles as efficient as possible.
GM researcher Jihui Yang said a metal-plated device that surrounds an exhaust pipe could increase fuel economy in a Chevrolet Suburban by about 5 percent, a 1-mile-per-gallon improvement that would be even greater in a smaller vehicle.
Reaching the goal of a 10 percent improvement would save more than 100 million gallons of fuel per year in GM vehicles in the U.S. alone.
"The take-home message here is: It's a big deal," Yang said.
The DOE, which is partially funding the auto industry research, helped develop a thermoelectric generator for a heavy duty diesel truck and tested it for the equivalent of 550,000 miles about 12 years ago.
John Fairbanks, the department's thermoelectrics technology development manager, said the success of that generator justified the competitive search in 2004 for a device that could augment or replace a vehicle's alternator. Three teams were selected to participate in the program, with GM and thermoelectrics manufacturer BSST separately working on cars and a team from Michigan State University focusing on heavy-duty trucks.
Fairbanks said thermoelectric generators should be on the verge of production in about three years.
"It's probably the biggest impact in the shortest time that I can think of," he said.
The technology is similar to what NASA uses to power deep space probes, a perk being it doesn't seem to be susceptible to wear. Probes have used a thermoelectric setup for about 30 years.
Thermoelectric devices can work in two ways -- using electricity to provide heating or cooling, or using temperature differences to create electricity.
The second method is Yang's focus, and for good reason.
In an internal combustion engine, only about a quarter of the total energy from gasoline is used to actually turn the wheels, while 40 percent is lost in exhaust heat and 30 percent is lost through cooling the engine. That means about 70 percent of the available energy is wasted, according to GM.
"If I can use some of that heat energy and convert it to electricity, you can improve the overall efficiency," Yang said.
A Suburban produces 15 kilowatts of exhaust heat energy during city driving, which is enough to power three or four air conditioners simultaneously.
But it's not possible to harness all the exhaust heat a vehicle produces, so when the Suburban is cruising between 50 and 60 mph, the generator can produce about 800 watts of power, Yang said. That electricity could go to accessories such as a GPS device, DVD player, radio and possibly the vehicle's water pumps.
Yang's prototype device is to be tested in a Suburban next year. A similar prototype created by Ohio State scientists and BSST should be tested in a BMW in 2009.
The thermoelectric generator works when one side of its metallic material is heated, and excited electrons move to the cold side. The movement creates a current, which electrodes collect and convert to electricity.
While it's not clear how much the device would add to the price of a vehicle, the whole point of the research is to make it cost-effective, Yang said.
"There are several other steps that are required to commercialize the material, but we're cautiously optimistic that these steps can be carried out successfully," said Lon Bell, president of BSST, a subsidiary of Northville-based thermoelectrics supplier Amerigon Inc.
Thriving in the world of utility giants
In these days of skyrocketing energy prices, owning an electric company is a good way to keep costs under control.
Just ask some folks in Burrillville, where the Pascoag Utility District, owned by its customers in Pascoag, serves that village and part of neighboring Harrisville with electricity as well as water service in Pascoag.
They are paying a little over 7 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for electricity. By contrast, National Grid, which serves the rest of Rhode Island except for Block Island, recently won a rate increase from the Public Utilities Commission, upping its charge for the electricity to light lights, power air conditioner, and supply the juice for the televisions, radios, computers and myriad other necessities of the plugged-in society of the 21st Century, to 12.4 cents per kWh.
That means the average monthly electricity bill for the typical Rhode Island household — once distribution rates, taxes and a list of other confusing charges are added up — is about $93 a month, while Pascoag Utility customers pay just $71. So more than $260 a year stays in the Pascoag family’s budget for food, gasoline, clothing and all the other things whose prices are also increasing inexorably. Customers of the even tinier Block Island Power Co., which generates electricity using expensive diesel power, pay — this is not a typographical error — $330 a month for the typical 500 kWh.
How does this mini-utility district (just 5,000 households) manage to obtain and distribute electricity so much cheaper than the international energy conglomerate that serves the rest of the state’s 240,000 electricity-using households?
“We’re the littlest guy in the world with a stone and a slingshot,” says General Manager Ted Garille. But he says Pascoag bargains hard when it signs contracts to buy electricity.
“When we put out a request for proposals and get prices back, that isn’t the end of the story, it is the beginning,” Garille says, “we negotiate from there.
“It’s a wonder they don’t throw me out of their office, some of these big guys,” Garille adds with a chuckle when recalling previous bargaining sessions.
Pascoag has been able to survive and thrive in a time when the energy business is dominated by huge mega-corporations, Garille asserts, because, “we went with the concept of having the lowest rates possible and the highest level of customer service possible. That is more than an inscription on a piece of paper. It is truly our mantra up here. It is how we do business.”
As an example of the customer service Pascoag provides, Garille noted, “our typical response time to a trouble call is between 10 and 15 minutes.” He notes that almost all of the employees live in Pascoag and Harrisville or nearby, so are available quickly in an emergency.
The community utility was created back in 1887 as the Pascoag Fire District, and in 2001 General Assembly passed legislation allowing the electricity and water providers to split from the fire service and form a quasi-municipal, not for profit corporation.
The district holds regular meetings where Pascoag residents and property owners vote to, among other things, elect a seven-member board of commissioners that sets policy and hires administrators.
“The people we are serving are literally the owners,” Garille said. “There are no shareholders, there are no dividends to be paid.”
That not-for-profit, quasi-municipal status gives Pascoag numerous advantages. A principal one is that it allows the utility to purchase cheap hydroelectric power from the New York Power Authority (NYPA), something that is not available to National Grid. When NYPA recently tried to cut back the amount of power it sold outside of New York, many of its customers had to cut the amount of power they purchased in half, but Garille said Pascoag managed to purchase a bit more than it had been from the generator in Messina, New York, on the St. Lawrence River and the same amount that it had been from Niagara Falls.
Tom Kogut, spokesman for the RI Public Utilities Commisison (PUC) explained that because those generating facilities were developed using tax dollars, NYPA is directed to sell to bordering states. Because a “water border” exists between New York’s Fisher’s Island Sound and Rhode Island’s Block Island Sound, Rhode Island qualifies as a border state.
The low-cost hydroelectric power comprises at least 20 percent and sometimes as much of a third of what Pascoag buys.
Another 25 percent or so comes from a 40-year contract Pascoag has to buy electricity from the Seabrook nuclear plant in New Hampshire. The utility has been a participant in the Seabrook facility since 1986 and its contract runs until 2026.
For the rest of its load, Pascoag puts out requests for proposals to energy providers, most of which generate power using fossil fuels like oil, natural gas or coal.
By comparison, National Grid gets just 3.2 percent of its power from hydroelectric, according to David Graves, the company’s spokesman, while 33 percent comes from burning natural gas, 28 percent nuclear, and lesser amounts of coal, oil and diesel.
Those built-in advantages Pascoag has as a non-profit, quasi-municipal agency are just one reason that Graves says that comparing National Grid with Pascoag is “apples and oranges.” Garille agrees, using the same words in a separate interview.
“Pascoag serves 5,000 customers in a highly concentrated geographic area,” Graves told The Times. “They have limited equipment to maintain in terms of poles, transformers, miles of wire, that type of thing. They also don’t pay municipal taxes. They pay something in lieu of taxes, but National Grid pays tens of millions of dollars in property taxes to cities and towns and to the state as well.” In 2006, the last year for which figures are available, Graves said National Grid paid $20 million in property taxes to Rhode Island cities and towns.
“We also have a renewable surcharge that we pay of about eight-tenths of a cent per kWh,” to acquire a portion of the energy supply from renewable resources, he said. “We also support an entire infrastructure throughout the entire state. We’ve got about 5,100 miles of overhead line, over a thousand miles of underground cables, 115 substations.”
Despite the criticism it has taken lately for sharp rate hikes cause by increases in the price of natural gas and oil, Graves said National Grid’s “standard offer” to household customers “served the people quite well for a long period of time,” Graves said. “It is only in the last few years that we have seen some spikes in the cost of the commodity.
“Up until August, 2004,” he added, “customers paid less than six-tenths of a cent per kWh. It is only in the last four years, as the price of natural gas and oil have run up, have the cost of a kWh increased as well.”
Garille warns that the cheap ride may not last forever.
One of its contracts with a fossil fuel provider, Dominion Power of Virginia, expires in 2010. “Am I going to be able to go out to the market and get another 7.6 per kWh contract? I don’t know the answer to that.
“I can tell you that when I look at the daily spot market prices, it’s 10 cents, it’s 12 cents, it’s 14 cents, so it’s moving around all the time,” Garille said.
Recently, he suggested, “there has been a reluctance on the generators’ part to give you a benefit” for multi-year contracts. “We have seen a complete reversal of that, whereby generators have refused to enter into long-term contracts or have quoted a higher price out three or four years.”
So that means power in Pascoag could become more expensive in the coming years?
“Absolutely,” Garille answers, adding quickly, “I hope not.”
Just ask some folks in Burrillville, where the Pascoag Utility District, owned by its customers in Pascoag, serves that village and part of neighboring Harrisville with electricity as well as water service in Pascoag.
They are paying a little over 7 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for electricity. By contrast, National Grid, which serves the rest of Rhode Island except for Block Island, recently won a rate increase from the Public Utilities Commission, upping its charge for the electricity to light lights, power air conditioner, and supply the juice for the televisions, radios, computers and myriad other necessities of the plugged-in society of the 21st Century, to 12.4 cents per kWh.
That means the average monthly electricity bill for the typical Rhode Island household — once distribution rates, taxes and a list of other confusing charges are added up — is about $93 a month, while Pascoag Utility customers pay just $71. So more than $260 a year stays in the Pascoag family’s budget for food, gasoline, clothing and all the other things whose prices are also increasing inexorably. Customers of the even tinier Block Island Power Co., which generates electricity using expensive diesel power, pay — this is not a typographical error — $330 a month for the typical 500 kWh.
How does this mini-utility district (just 5,000 households) manage to obtain and distribute electricity so much cheaper than the international energy conglomerate that serves the rest of the state’s 240,000 electricity-using households?
“We’re the littlest guy in the world with a stone and a slingshot,” says General Manager Ted Garille. But he says Pascoag bargains hard when it signs contracts to buy electricity.
“When we put out a request for proposals and get prices back, that isn’t the end of the story, it is the beginning,” Garille says, “we negotiate from there.
“It’s a wonder they don’t throw me out of their office, some of these big guys,” Garille adds with a chuckle when recalling previous bargaining sessions.
Pascoag has been able to survive and thrive in a time when the energy business is dominated by huge mega-corporations, Garille asserts, because, “we went with the concept of having the lowest rates possible and the highest level of customer service possible. That is more than an inscription on a piece of paper. It is truly our mantra up here. It is how we do business.”
As an example of the customer service Pascoag provides, Garille noted, “our typical response time to a trouble call is between 10 and 15 minutes.” He notes that almost all of the employees live in Pascoag and Harrisville or nearby, so are available quickly in an emergency.
The community utility was created back in 1887 as the Pascoag Fire District, and in 2001 General Assembly passed legislation allowing the electricity and water providers to split from the fire service and form a quasi-municipal, not for profit corporation.
The district holds regular meetings where Pascoag residents and property owners vote to, among other things, elect a seven-member board of commissioners that sets policy and hires administrators.
“The people we are serving are literally the owners,” Garille said. “There are no shareholders, there are no dividends to be paid.”
That not-for-profit, quasi-municipal status gives Pascoag numerous advantages. A principal one is that it allows the utility to purchase cheap hydroelectric power from the New York Power Authority (NYPA), something that is not available to National Grid. When NYPA recently tried to cut back the amount of power it sold outside of New York, many of its customers had to cut the amount of power they purchased in half, but Garille said Pascoag managed to purchase a bit more than it had been from the generator in Messina, New York, on the St. Lawrence River and the same amount that it had been from Niagara Falls.
Tom Kogut, spokesman for the RI Public Utilities Commisison (PUC) explained that because those generating facilities were developed using tax dollars, NYPA is directed to sell to bordering states. Because a “water border” exists between New York’s Fisher’s Island Sound and Rhode Island’s Block Island Sound, Rhode Island qualifies as a border state.
The low-cost hydroelectric power comprises at least 20 percent and sometimes as much of a third of what Pascoag buys.
Another 25 percent or so comes from a 40-year contract Pascoag has to buy electricity from the Seabrook nuclear plant in New Hampshire. The utility has been a participant in the Seabrook facility since 1986 and its contract runs until 2026.
For the rest of its load, Pascoag puts out requests for proposals to energy providers, most of which generate power using fossil fuels like oil, natural gas or coal.
By comparison, National Grid gets just 3.2 percent of its power from hydroelectric, according to David Graves, the company’s spokesman, while 33 percent comes from burning natural gas, 28 percent nuclear, and lesser amounts of coal, oil and diesel.
Those built-in advantages Pascoag has as a non-profit, quasi-municipal agency are just one reason that Graves says that comparing National Grid with Pascoag is “apples and oranges.” Garille agrees, using the same words in a separate interview.
“Pascoag serves 5,000 customers in a highly concentrated geographic area,” Graves told The Times. “They have limited equipment to maintain in terms of poles, transformers, miles of wire, that type of thing. They also don’t pay municipal taxes. They pay something in lieu of taxes, but National Grid pays tens of millions of dollars in property taxes to cities and towns and to the state as well.” In 2006, the last year for which figures are available, Graves said National Grid paid $20 million in property taxes to Rhode Island cities and towns.
“We also have a renewable surcharge that we pay of about eight-tenths of a cent per kWh,” to acquire a portion of the energy supply from renewable resources, he said. “We also support an entire infrastructure throughout the entire state. We’ve got about 5,100 miles of overhead line, over a thousand miles of underground cables, 115 substations.”
Despite the criticism it has taken lately for sharp rate hikes cause by increases in the price of natural gas and oil, Graves said National Grid’s “standard offer” to household customers “served the people quite well for a long period of time,” Graves said. “It is only in the last few years that we have seen some spikes in the cost of the commodity.
“Up until August, 2004,” he added, “customers paid less than six-tenths of a cent per kWh. It is only in the last four years, as the price of natural gas and oil have run up, have the cost of a kWh increased as well.”
Garille warns that the cheap ride may not last forever.
One of its contracts with a fossil fuel provider, Dominion Power of Virginia, expires in 2010. “Am I going to be able to go out to the market and get another 7.6 per kWh contract? I don’t know the answer to that.
“I can tell you that when I look at the daily spot market prices, it’s 10 cents, it’s 12 cents, it’s 14 cents, so it’s moving around all the time,” Garille said.
Recently, he suggested, “there has been a reluctance on the generators’ part to give you a benefit” for multi-year contracts. “We have seen a complete reversal of that, whereby generators have refused to enter into long-term contracts or have quoted a higher price out three or four years.”
So that means power in Pascoag could become more expensive in the coming years?
“Absolutely,” Garille answers, adding quickly, “I hope not.”
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