Hot new car class--the extended range electric

Plug-in hybrids are all the rage, but pure electric cars are making a surge, with the announcement by several major car companies of new manufacturing plans for electrics.

And hot off the design tables is a new class of vehicle—not a gas or diesel, not a pure electric, not a hybrid. It's the “extended range electric vehicle.” More on that later.

The hottest electric vehicle out there may be the sleek Tesla Roadster (blue car above), which is promised out next year (2009). It will cost well north of $100,000, for or five times the price of a
Prius.

Nissan is the latest in the electric car field, with a proposed zero emission car that will be available in limited numbers within two years and in mass production by 2012. That's what Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn told National Public Radio.

He told the New York Times that what's driving Nissan's interest is that consumers appear to be ready for them, finally—even if government agencies haven't mandated the shift to cleaner, more efficient vehicles.

“What we are seeing is that the shifts coming from the markets are more powerful than what regulators are doing,” Ghosn told the Times.

This isn't new ground for Nissan, which put out an electric car as early as 1947. In 2000, it developed the Hypermini Urban Electric Vehicle (green Hypermini at right), which was

tested in the U.S. but never developed into a commercial model. The Hypermini was a two-seater, with batteries down low under the floor for stability. It could reach 60 miles an hour, had a 60-mile range. It was a tiny thing, eight feet long.

But it was different from the doorless golf-cart-looking vehicles that some associate with electric vehicles. The U.S. Department of Energy refers to those as NEVs, for neighborhood electric vehicles. The Hypermini fell into the class of UEVs or urban electric vehicles.

The new Nissan electric may be the same car announced in January 2008 by Renault. (Renault and Nissan are partners.) That electric car was to be built in Europe and initially sold in Israel. Some reports indicated it would be built along the lines of Renault's Megane Sport Saloon.

(Megane Sport Saloon at right)

That's a standard-looking family car, and is likely to be far more acceptable to many consumers than something looking like the Hypermini.

Hybrids, and something new

Virtually every car company is now producing or working on a hybrid car, which can run off petroleum fuel or electrical power, or a combination. They get substantially better fuel mileage than standard fuel engine cars.

What many don't know is that a couple of new classes of cars have snuck in between the hybrid and the pure electric.

One is the plug-in hybrid. Simply, it's a hybrid car that also lets you charge its batteries from the grid. The plug-in Prius, to be available next year (2009) will be the first internationally marketed plug-in hybrid.

But that's not all. There is now also the the extended range electric car.

Nissan's Ghosn said his firm could produce Renault's electric Megane in an extended range model. That car would have a gasoline engine on board—but it would only recharge batteries. It would not directly drive the car. It would be something like carrying a little generator along.

In the Wall Street Journal Thursday (May 15, 2008), Ghosn said the range extender could push the 100-mile range of a pure electric to 400 miles.

Chevrolet's Volt car, to be out in 2010, will also be an electric with a range extender. Chevy says it could have a range of 640 miles.

What this all suggests is that we're going to have to develop a new automotive lexicon.

It used to be you had the car, the truck, and later the SUV.

There's the gasoline fuel vehicle, and the diesel, and the natural gas-powered car.

And the one that can use up to 85 percent ethanol, the E85.

The straight electric vehicle (EV, plus of course modifications like the NEV and the UEV above). This one you just plug into the wall when the batteries are discharged.

The hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) of which there are now more than a dozen models on the market. Generally, this is a car whose wheels can be powered either directly from the battery bank, or directly from a fuel engine, or in various sorts of combinations—as an example, the car runs off battery until there's a demand for extra acceleration, and then the fuel engine kicks in.

The plug-in hybrid (PHEV)--the promised 2009 Prius model has gotten the most notice. With it, you can minimize the use of liquid fuel, but still have the security of being able to fuel up for long trips away from electric grids.

And the finally there is the extended range electric vehicle (EREV). As we understand it, the difference between an HEV and an EREV is primarily that the engine on the EREV cannot be used to directly power the wheels—it only generates power to the batteries.

This month's (May-June 2008) Technology Review, in an article by Kevin Bullis, makes the distinction:

"'Extended-Range Electric' vehicles represent a radical departure from conventional hybrids. Whereas in conventional hybrids, the wheels are turned by an electric motor, a gasoline engine, or both, the wheels in these new cars will be turned only by a large electric motor. For short trips, the motor will run on battery power alone. For longer trips, a gasoline-powered generator kicks in to supply electricity.”

© 2008 Jan W. TenBruggencate

The Big Dogs in emissions: electricity and transportation

We can talk about recycling newspaper and aluminum cans, composting and reusing our containers, but the big dogs in the global climate issue are electrical use and transportation.

(Image: The tailpipe is one of the major producers of carbon dioxide in the U.S.)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in a report issued in April 2008, showed that among sources of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the nation's leading culprits are electrical generation and transportation.

They're huge.

The extensive executive summary for the report is available here: http://epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/downloads/08_ES.pdf. Included is a list of greenhouse gas emissions through 2006. (For the whole report, see http://epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/usinventoryreport.html.)

If your eyes glaze over when you see a lot of numbers, here's the short version: Between two-thirds and three-quarters of all carbon dioxide emissions in the United States come from electrical generation and transportation.

What to do about it? A few ideas are to find ways to cut your electric bill, drive less or in a more fuel-efficient car, and minimize long-distance travel.

For folks who like numbers, here are some: In 2006—the most recent year for which there are data—the nation is calculated to have produced 5,983.1 teragrams of CO2 and CO2 equivalent greenhouse gases. It's a big number—nearly 6,000 grams with 12 more zeros after it: 5,983,100,000,000,000.

If my calculations are right, that amounts to 6.6 billion tons. (Does your car weight a ton? Imagine the weight of 6.6 billion cars. And incidentally, 6.6 billion was the July 2007 estimate for the number of humans on the planet, but we digress.)

Of that total, the burning of fossil fuels represents 5,638 teragrams, more than 94 percent.

And of the fossil fuel burning, electrical generation is 2,328 teragrams or 41 percent and transportation is 1,856 teragrams or 33 percent.

Together, electrical generation and the fuel in your cars and planes represent 74 percent of all fossil fuel emissions, and 70 percent of all CO2 emissions from all sources.

Industrial fossil fuel emissions come in a poor third after power plants and motor vehicles.

As an aside, let's talk about a natural source of CO2.

Every now and then, you may run into someone who minimizes the human impact on climate, with the argument that volcanoes put lots more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than humans.

That argument is laughably off the mark. See a U.S. Geological Survey. Hawaiian Volcano Observatory post of last year: http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/2007/07_02_15.html.

It says, in part, that all the volcanoes in the world produce less than one percent the CO2 that human activities do. All the volcanoes in the world produce less than a fifth of greenhouse gas emissions of the United States alone.

© 2008 Jan W. TenBruggencate

New genetic study throws 'ōhi'a (Metrosideros who?) into identity crisis

There's nothing easy about the Hawaiian 'ōhi'a.

Researchers doing genetic analyses of the trees are finding that they are just as confusing inside (genetically) as they are outside (in their physical appearance).

(Image: The shiny red leaves of a young 'ōhi'a, whose genetic makeup is now in doubt.)

'Ōhi'a are the dominant trees in many native Hawaiian forests. And they are amazingly variable.

Many folks search the forests for alternative flower colors. The starburst blossoms are generally seen in shades of red, but rarely are found in orange, salmon and yellow colors.

The leaves can be round and stiff or lance-shaped and delicate. They can be hairy or smooth, dull or shiny. New leaves can be greenish with purple-red veins or entirely red. The 'ōhi'a can grow into a towering tree or remain a shrub. In bog habitats, mature flowering trees can be found just a few inches tall, natural bonsai.

It's no wonder that the dominant Hawaiian species is known as polymorpha, many forms.

Over the years, scientists have sought to classify the 'ōhi'a, a member of the myrtle family whose genus is Metrosideros, by its appearance. One problem was that in the same small grove, they would find many different-looking trees growing together and presumably interbreeding.

New research is suggesting that, with 'ōhi'a, you can't make species distinctions based on appearance. More on that later.

Previous genetic work has suggested that the tree crossed the Pacific from New Zealand, and that it may have made the jump to Hawai'i from the Marquesas, where botanists find the closest relatives of Hawaiian 'ōhi'a.

And scientists have long believed that the tree that now dominates much of the Hawaiian natural landscape was a comparatively late arrival—showing up as little as a million years ago.

New dating is being reported in a paper in the “Proceedings of the Royal Society B,” by Diana Percy, Adam Carver, Warren Wagner, Helen James, Scott Miller and Robert Fleischer, all of the Smithsonian Institution, and Clifford Cunningham of Duke University. The paper is entitled, “Progressive island colonization and ancient origin of Hawaiian Metrosideros (Myrtaceae).”

Their genetic research finds that 'ōhi'a has been in the Hawaiian Islands for about 3.9 million years, and perhaps a million or two more. At that time, Kaua'i and Ni'ihau were the only emerged islands among the current main Hawaiian Islands, meaning that 'ōhi'a must have channel-jumped to newer islands as they formed.

'Ōhi'a seeds are tiny, can be dispersed by wind, can survive a while in salt water, and the tree grows quite well on new lava flows. So the genus is clearly capable of making such journeys.

The researchers studied 97 'ōhi'a samples from five islands. Their samples included representatives of the five accepted Hawaiian Metrosideros species: macropus, polymorpha, rugosa, tremuloides and waialealae. They also looked at samples of Metrosideros collina from the Austral, Society and Marquesan islands, Metrosideros excelsa from New Zealand and Metrosideros nervulosa from Lord Howe Island.

Molecular dating work on the samples suggests Kaua'i was inhabited first by Metrosideros, and that from there the genus jumped to O'ahu. Moloka'i was populated on at least two different occasions from O'ahu, but also on one occasion directly from Kaua'i. Maui got its 'ōhi'a from Moloka'i, and the Hawai'i island got its from Maui about half a million years ago.

“Metrosideros...appears to have diversified in the Hawaiian Islands following the geological succession of islands,” the authors write. “The chloroplast data present a distinct geographical pattern that supports a hypothesis of sequential colonization of progressively younger islands.”

The scientists were able to confirm that the Hawaiian 'ōhi'a are most closely related to the Marquesan forms than any other. They are, in fact, close enough that the authors argue that the Marquesan and Hawaiian plants ought to be part of the same genus. They suggest that the name Metrosideros polymorpha be used for both.

Wagner, in an email, said the research will require botanists to reconsider the way Hawaiian wildlife evolved, since it's now clear that the 'ōhi'a was a part of the Hawaiian botanical picture far earlier than anyone previously thought.

“An older origin of the genus in the Hawaiian islands significant implications for understanding the evolution of Hawaiian ecosystems of which 'ōhi'a is a major component and the evolution of endemic organisms that may have co-evolved with Metrosideros,” Wagner wrote.

The other thing that's new is that current understandings of how to differentiate the members of the genus are going to require rethinking.

Wagner said their work indicates that the physical appearance of the plant doesn't correlate with its DNA, and that physical characteristics don't accurately reflect differences at a molecular level. That means that if you separate the Hawaiian 'ōhi'a into different species and varieties based on their appearance, you'll run into trouble.

“This was both a surprise and not surprising. This Metrosideros has been a challenge to biologists trying to classify it for many decades with various systems proposed by each of the major botanists to have studied the Hawaiian flora,” Wagner said. And in that list of botanists, he includes himself.

Not only isn't the physical appearance an unreliable guide to how the plans are actually genetically related—it turns out it's no guide at all.

“To find a situation where we are not sure how dependable the characters are is not so surprising. That there was essentially no correlation was a surprise,” Wagner said.

There are a number of theories on how this could happen. One is a whole lot of interbreeding within the 'ōhi'a clan. Another is that different genetic lines could evolve into similar-looking plants. Or perhaps something else.

“We are embarking on additional studies to attempt to determine more definitive answers to this puzzle,” Wagner said.

© 2008 Jan W. TenBruggencate

Climate emissions metrics: figuring it out so you can manage it

The issue of metrics is compelling: You can't manage what you don't understand.

That is one reason the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa has signed up as a founding member of The Climate Registry.

The university hopes to manage its output of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and is joining others around the United States and Canada to try to get a handle on just what greenhouse gases they are producing, and to develop some kind of standard on how to measure them.

The Climate Registry has among its members 75 cities, counties, corporations and non-profits. UH Mānoa is the first university member.

Its goal is to produce verifiable reports that will be publicly available. Thus, UH Mānoa will annually issue a statement that recounts its greenhouse gas emissions in a standardized form under The Climate Registry General Reporting Protocol. The standards were established based on ones developed by the World Resource Institute and the World Bank Council for Sustainable Development.

The university's report will then be verified by an independent agency appointed by The Climate Registry.

UH Mānoa's Mānoa Climate Change Commission helped move the institution into the registry.

The importance to the University of this kind of climate impact tracking was presaged in February 2007 by then-interim campus chancellor Denise Konan, and now economics professor, who wrote:

“The University of Hawai'i at Mānoa has been heavily reliant on fossil fuels through our consumption of electricity, travel patterns and other practices. We are also well equipped to explore alternative technologies and choices that promote our lifestyles through more sustainable practices. By tracking and demonstrating our impact on reduction of the generation of greenhouse gases we can serve as a living educational model,” Konan wrote as part of Mānoa's Climate Commitment.

The campus is committed to reducing its energy use by 30 percent by 2012 and to promoting the development of renewable energy resources—enough to have a quarter of the campus energy come from renewables by 2020.

“The emissions template developed by Mânoa provides accurate reporting that is specific to Hawai‘i. By taking a lead, Mânoa will ease the way for others to make a public commitment to our climate,” said Laurence Lau, the state Health Department's deputy environmental health director.

For more information on the Mānoa Climate Change Commission, see http://sustainability.hawaii.edu/group/Climate.

For more on The Climate Registry, see http://www.theclimateregistry.org.

© 2008 Jan W. TenBruggencate

Alaska quake: no tsunami threat, but a caution

A powerful earthquake Thursday afternoon in the Andreanof Islands of Alaska's Aleutian chain did not launch a tsunami toward Hawai'i, but it's a clear warning.

Two of the most damaging tsunami in Hawai'i history came from the same region.

(Image: Pacific Tsunami Warning Center chart of the recent Alaska temblors.)

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center report of no tsunami hazard went out at 3:46 p.m. Hawai'i time, just 12 minutes after the 3:34 p.m. shake, which registered a 7.0, although later recalculations dropped it to magnitude 6.6.

“A destructive Pacific-wide tsunami is not expected and there is no tsunami threat to Hawai'i,” said a statement from the center.

The quake was centered at 51.8 degrees north and 177.6 west. That placed it a little more than 1,200 miles from Anchorage.

“It was a pretty good-sized quake. It was heavily felt in the Adak area,” said Bruce Turner, geophysicist and science officer with the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center.

It normally takes a considerably larger quake to generate a significant tsunami, but it was interesting that Alaska had a very active day Thursday from an earthquake perspective. (see http://earthquake.usgs.gov/data/).

Just a day earlier, at nearly the same location, there was a 5.1 quake. And smaller shakers have rumbled up and down the Aleutian chain during the past 24 hours, most of them located in the immediate vicinity of these earthquakes.

For a list, see http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.php.

The 1946 tsunami that caused severe damage in Hawai'i came from a location at 52.8 degrees north and 163.5 degrees west, about 900 miles away.

The 1957 tsunami came from a quake quite close to yesterday's temblor. It was at 51.5 degrees north, 175.7 degrees west, just 84 miles away and within the Andreanof Islands.

Thanks to an advanced Pacific tsunami warning system, Hawai'i residents are likely to get several hours of notice of the arrival of a tsunami generated from the Alaskan region—plenty of time to update their evacuation kits and get away from the coast.

Locally generated tsunami are a different story. There may be only minutes. And if you're on the island where the wave was generated, you need to move to high ground as soon as you feel the ground shaking.

From a statistical standpoint, Hawai'i has been free of damaging tsunami for an unusually long time. Does it mean one is imminent? Not necessarily, but it pays to be ready.

One ready place to look for information is the phone book. The directories once had the emergency information section reliably in the front pages, but some now have those pages in the middle section of the book.

These pages include tsunami inundation maps. If you live within a few blocks of the shore, check the map to see whether you are in an evacuation area.

Most residents should have an emergency evacuation kit at hand. It will include your prescription medications, glasses, cash and special items like special foods, diapers for babies and important personal documents. It might also include a personal first aid kit, water, flashlight and other gear. A more complete list is in the phone book.

Here are other earthquake resources:

Earthquakes Data Magnitude 5.0 and Over 2005 - 2014
http://krilloil.com/blog/earthquake-data/
In addition you can find more info on the topic below:
Seismic Monitor
http://www.iris.edu/seismon/
Quakes - Live Earthquakes Map
http://quakes.globalincidentmap.com/

© 2008 Jan W. TenBruggencate