Why electric cars and plug-in hybrids mean a boost to bioenergy
At some point in the past, someone, somewhere, 'killed' the electric car and with it the dreams of efficiency afficionados who wanted clean and lean vehicles. Since its death, the electric car has become nothing more than an urban myth and hobby object for battery-obsessed people with a large garage and a lot of spare time. But now the e-vehicle is being resurrected by major car manufacturers. Maybe, this time, it is here to stay.
French automaker Renault announced yesterday that it will roll out an electric vehicle in 2010 aimed mainly at European fleet markets. The automaker said in a statement that "the project has reached an advanced stage" and that "It is already working on all the future vehicle's components."
The company follows in the footsteps of Nissan Motor, which earlier said it would bring an all electric car to market before the end of the decade. Besides this project, Nissan has also launched a series of programs aimed at speeding up the introduction of 'plug-in hybrids'. GM and Mitsubishi are going electric too, as are a whole series of small manufacturers who are producing electric specialty vehicles, such as light-duty vans, urban mini-cars or heavy-duty trucks.
Electricity, an energy carrier
Despite marketeers' insistence, none of these vehicles are "zero emissions" per se, for the obvious reason that electricity -- just like hydrogen -- is merely an energy carrier, not an energy source. You need a primary energy source to produce the electricity these vehicles' batteries will consume. At the 'tailpipe', electric cars are clean, but this doesn't hide the smokestacks that pump out CO2 at the point where the electricity they use is generated.
So where will the power for these plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars come from? If it is generated from fossil fuels, these vehicles would be very dirty and they would contribute massively to dangerous climate change. This is a real risk. But luckily, we have renewables - wind, solar and bioenergy - which offer the alternative. The question then becomes: which of these clean primary energy sources is most viable over the long-term?
Biomass, fuel of the future
Renault, for one, considers bioenergy to be the most versatile, most competitive and most universally applicable source for power generation (click image). Biomass is solar energy converted into plant matter that can be transported, distributed and managed in a flexible manner:
biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: renewables :: emissions :: electric cars :: hydrogen :: bioenergy trade :: developing world
Unlike photovoltaic and wind power, biomass can be used everywhere and 24 hours a day. A staggering diversity of energy crops exists that can be used to grow biomass adapted to local agro-ecologic circumstances: from drought-tolerant perennial crops in semi-deserts and grass species in the subtropics, to trees in peri-arctic environments.
The electric car implies a boost to solid biomass. Many studies and analysts have indicated that it is more efficient to use biomass to generate power in highly optimal plants (such as combined heat-and-power plants with efficiencies of up to 90%) than to transform this biomass into liquid fuels for use in inefficient internal combustion engines. A German scientist working for the IEA's Bioenergy taskforce on Biomass Combustion even calls first generation biodiesel 'economic nonsense' [*German]; better use the land where rapeseed or soybeans grow, to cultivate solid biomass crops for electricity.
Of course, ordinary diesel and gasoline ICE vehicles will dominate the car fleets of this world for a very long time, which is why liquid biofuels will be produced on a vast scale.
Over the very long term and only if electric cars were to capture a huge market share, would solid biomass as an energy source for transport take over from liquid transport biofuels.
Final blow to the hydrogen economy?
But the increased attention for electric cars may also signal the final blow to the much hyped 'hydrogen economy'. Let us compare the electric future with the hydrogen future. Which one would be most efficient and cost-effective? We can do this in a systematic manner by looking at two phases: a first phase aptly called the "well-to-tank" phase, which analyses how much energy, CO2 emissions and money goes into transforming the primary energy source into hydrogen or electricity, and how much it takes to get this power to the "tank" of the vehicle (to its fuel cells, ICE or its batteries, respectively). In a second phase, one looks at the "tank-to-wheel" efficiency and costs. Which technology is most efficient in transforming the hydrogen/electricity into traction? Fuel-cells, batteries or hydrogen ICEs?
Answers to these questions can be found in detailed studies, and they all seem to point at the fact that hydrogen production (well-to-tank) and its use in fuel cells (tank-to-wheel), is not really more efficient than other fuel production and utilisation paths (such as biomass-to-electricity for use in battery electric vehicles) (see a recent well-to-wheel study made by the EU, which we referred to earlier).
The main reason why hydrogen is such an unfeasible option for the future, is that it has the disadvantage that the gas is costly to produce, difficult to store and not easy to transport or distribute. The hydrogen economy requires the construction of an entirely new, trillion-dollar infrastructure consisting of pipelines, storage facilities and special hydrogen stations where end users can refill their gas-tanks. This may take ages to build. The electric infrastructure on the contrary already exists. To function as the power instructure for transport, all it needs is some grid-extension and the construction of public recharging outlets.
Trading biomass
The advantage of biomass as the primary energy source for electricity generation is the fact that it can be traded internationally, unlike photovoltaic and wind-power which are locally rooted and can be used economically only under optimal conditions (strong winds in specific locations or ample sunshine). If you want to transport solar energy over long distances, you can only do it by embedding it in biomass; that way, you can ship it over oceans to markets where it fetches the best price. This is impossible with electricity derived from wind or photovoltaics.
The IEA Bioenergy Task 40 group, which analyses sustainable international biomass trade, has carried out many studies which show that it is cost-effective to grow biomass in the tropics, where ample land, sunshine and water are available, and to transport it over long distances to markets. The energy balance and greenhouse gas emissions balance of such long-distance biomass trade remains very favorable (see the IEA Task 40 studies on International bioenergy transport costs and energy balance).
In this sense, the development of electric cars would once again mean a boost to the bioenergy industry in developing countries. It doesn't really matter in which form these regions' biomass potentials come to market (liquid biofuels for ICEs, or liquid and solid biomass for the production of electricity for battery cars), the main point is that they have a competitive advantage over biomass producers in the North.
French automaker Renault announced yesterday that it will roll out an electric vehicle in 2010 aimed mainly at European fleet markets. The automaker said in a statement that "the project has reached an advanced stage" and that "It is already working on all the future vehicle's components."
The company follows in the footsteps of Nissan Motor, which earlier said it would bring an all electric car to market before the end of the decade. Besides this project, Nissan has also launched a series of programs aimed at speeding up the introduction of 'plug-in hybrids'. GM and Mitsubishi are going electric too, as are a whole series of small manufacturers who are producing electric specialty vehicles, such as light-duty vans, urban mini-cars or heavy-duty trucks.
Electricity, an energy carrier
Despite marketeers' insistence, none of these vehicles are "zero emissions" per se, for the obvious reason that electricity -- just like hydrogen -- is merely an energy carrier, not an energy source. You need a primary energy source to produce the electricity these vehicles' batteries will consume. At the 'tailpipe', electric cars are clean, but this doesn't hide the smokestacks that pump out CO2 at the point where the electricity they use is generated.
So where will the power for these plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars come from? If it is generated from fossil fuels, these vehicles would be very dirty and they would contribute massively to dangerous climate change. This is a real risk. But luckily, we have renewables - wind, solar and bioenergy - which offer the alternative. The question then becomes: which of these clean primary energy sources is most viable over the long-term?
Biomass, fuel of the future
Renault, for one, considers bioenergy to be the most versatile, most competitive and most universally applicable source for power generation (click image). Biomass is solar energy converted into plant matter that can be transported, distributed and managed in a flexible manner:
biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: renewables :: emissions :: electric cars :: hydrogen :: bioenergy trade :: developing world
Unlike photovoltaic and wind power, biomass can be used everywhere and 24 hours a day. A staggering diversity of energy crops exists that can be used to grow biomass adapted to local agro-ecologic circumstances: from drought-tolerant perennial crops in semi-deserts and grass species in the subtropics, to trees in peri-arctic environments.
The electric car implies a boost to solid biomass. Many studies and analysts have indicated that it is more efficient to use biomass to generate power in highly optimal plants (such as combined heat-and-power plants with efficiencies of up to 90%) than to transform this biomass into liquid fuels for use in inefficient internal combustion engines. A German scientist working for the IEA's Bioenergy taskforce on Biomass Combustion even calls first generation biodiesel 'economic nonsense' [*German]; better use the land where rapeseed or soybeans grow, to cultivate solid biomass crops for electricity.
Of course, ordinary diesel and gasoline ICE vehicles will dominate the car fleets of this world for a very long time, which is why liquid biofuels will be produced on a vast scale.
Over the very long term and only if electric cars were to capture a huge market share, would solid biomass as an energy source for transport take over from liquid transport biofuels.
Final blow to the hydrogen economy?
But the increased attention for electric cars may also signal the final blow to the much hyped 'hydrogen economy'. Let us compare the electric future with the hydrogen future. Which one would be most efficient and cost-effective? We can do this in a systematic manner by looking at two phases: a first phase aptly called the "well-to-tank" phase, which analyses how much energy, CO2 emissions and money goes into transforming the primary energy source into hydrogen or electricity, and how much it takes to get this power to the "tank" of the vehicle (to its fuel cells, ICE or its batteries, respectively). In a second phase, one looks at the "tank-to-wheel" efficiency and costs. Which technology is most efficient in transforming the hydrogen/electricity into traction? Fuel-cells, batteries or hydrogen ICEs?
Answers to these questions can be found in detailed studies, and they all seem to point at the fact that hydrogen production (well-to-tank) and its use in fuel cells (tank-to-wheel), is not really more efficient than other fuel production and utilisation paths (such as biomass-to-electricity for use in battery electric vehicles) (see a recent well-to-wheel study made by the EU, which we referred to earlier).
The main reason why hydrogen is such an unfeasible option for the future, is that it has the disadvantage that the gas is costly to produce, difficult to store and not easy to transport or distribute. The hydrogen economy requires the construction of an entirely new, trillion-dollar infrastructure consisting of pipelines, storage facilities and special hydrogen stations where end users can refill their gas-tanks. This may take ages to build. The electric infrastructure on the contrary already exists. To function as the power instructure for transport, all it needs is some grid-extension and the construction of public recharging outlets.
Trading biomass
The advantage of biomass as the primary energy source for electricity generation is the fact that it can be traded internationally, unlike photovoltaic and wind-power which are locally rooted and can be used economically only under optimal conditions (strong winds in specific locations or ample sunshine). If you want to transport solar energy over long distances, you can only do it by embedding it in biomass; that way, you can ship it over oceans to markets where it fetches the best price. This is impossible with electricity derived from wind or photovoltaics.
The IEA Bioenergy Task 40 group, which analyses sustainable international biomass trade, has carried out many studies which show that it is cost-effective to grow biomass in the tropics, where ample land, sunshine and water are available, and to transport it over long distances to markets. The energy balance and greenhouse gas emissions balance of such long-distance biomass trade remains very favorable (see the IEA Task 40 studies on International bioenergy transport costs and energy balance).
In this sense, the development of electric cars would once again mean a boost to the bioenergy industry in developing countries. It doesn't really matter in which form these regions' biomass potentials come to market (liquid biofuels for ICEs, or liquid and solid biomass for the production of electricity for battery cars), the main point is that they have a competitive advantage over biomass producers in the North.
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