The 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid. (Photo courtesy of Ford)
New car models are hitting the
dealers’ showroom floors. Lester
Graham reports not as many fuel
efficient cars are selling in the
wake of the government’s Cash-
for-Clunkers program:
Transcript
New car models are hitting the
dealers’ showroom floors. Lester
Graham reports not as many fuel
efficient cars are selling in the
wake of the government’s Cash-
for-Clunkers program:
It’s hard to miss the ads for new models.
(montage of car advertisements)
But in September, fuel-efficient cars didn’t sell that well.
Mark Gillies is the Executive Editor for Car and Driver magazine. He says vehicles that get good gas mileage probably won’t start selling until gasoline prices go up – just like last year.
“That’s when you saw a big move to buying more fuel efficient vehicles. And I think the obvious thing about oil prices is that long term the trend is that they’re going to go up and they’re going to stay that way.”
Fuel-efficient models did sell in August because of Cash-for Clunkers, but Gillies says people bought low-end models this time because they were cheap – not necessarily because they were fuel-efficient.
When you think of diesel engines, you might think of big, noisy, stinky trucks. But that’s changing. And a domestic automaker has plans to bring a cleaner, higher performing diesel engine to passenger cars. The company insists: it’s not your father’s diesel. The GLRC’s Julie Halpert has the story:
Transcript
When you think diesel engines, you might think of big, noisy, stinky
trucks, but that’s changing and a domestic automaker has plans to bring a
cleaner, higher performing diesel engine to passenger cars. The
company insists: it’s not your father’s diesel. The GLRC’s Julie Halpert
has the story:
In Europe… people have been hearing this catchy little tune on a
television commercial…
(Sound of commercial)
If you hate something, improve it. That’s the message of this Honda UK
commercial that highlights the historically loud, smelly diesel engines.
It’s intended to promote Honda’s new, cleaner diesel, something it’s
launching in Europe.
Diesels have always been more popular in Europe than the U.S. That’s
because there diesel fuel is roughly 20 to 30 percent cheaper than
gasoline there, and diesels get great fuel economy… 30 percent better
than in gasoline engines.
Here in the U.S., diesels haven’t sold well. In the 1970s, when diesel
fuel was cheaper than gas, diesels gained in popularity briefly, but people
didn’t like the stench of the smoky fumes and the clunky sounds of diesel
engines. Those lingering attitudes have scared Honda off from bringing
its new diesels here.
But Daimler/Chrysler is trying to change all that. The company is
drawing on its European expertise to bring advanced technology diesels
to more U.S. passenger cars, and now, they think Americans will buy
them.
Jim Widenbak is a manager of small diesel systems for Daimler/Chrysler.
“We think that there’s a niche for diesels in the North American market,
and We’re not sure exactly how big, but I would characterize us as kind
of bullish on diesels. We really think there’s a place for them and
that customers will ultimately be very happy with diesel products.”
Daimler/Chrysler currently offers a diesel engine on its newer models of
the Jeep Liberty and the Mercedes E-320. Sales of these vehicles were
more than double what the company expected – 10,000 for the diesel
Jeep Liberty and 5,000 for the E-320.
Widenback says that electronic controls have improved over the past 30
years, making diesels better performing, more fuel efficient and cleaner
burning.
The company is in negotiations with the Environmental Protection
Agency to use a new technology, currently in use in Europe, that cuts
pollution further – just in time for tough new federal emission controls
that take effect by 2008. The process uses a material called urea that’s
injected into the exhaust before the exhaust hits the pollution control
device. This ultimately removes troublesome emissions of nitrogen
oxides.
There is one problem with the pollution control system, though.
Anthony Pratt directs power train forecasting for J.D. Power Automotive
Systems. He says the car periodically will run out of its supply of urea.
“So, in other words, you’re not getting the injection of urea in the
exhaust, the vehicles will continue to perform normally as if the urea
tanks were full but they will not meet the more strict emission
standards.”
If the company finds a way to ensure the tanks stay full, Pratt thinks it
will work. Pratt projects diesel engine sales will grow from 3 percent of
the market in 2005 to seven and a half percent in 2012, overtaking sales
of hybrid vehicles, which are only projected to be 4% of the market.
“I think the vehicle manufacturers will be successful in ultimately
educating the consumer in that the new diesel technology is not the dirty,
clanky, loud and sluggish technology they may be familiar with from the
late 70s and early 80s.”
(Sound of car dealership)
That message – that diesels are worth buying – is falling on deaf ears for
the customers of Schultz Motors. Tyler Shultz, the general manager, doesn’t
think it will fly, based on what he’s seen.
“As diesel prices went up in the last six months to a year, we virtually
have lost interest. Again, it’s not that the consumer doesn’t want it, but
when they see fuel prices go above gasoline prices, it was almost like
somebody flipped a switch.”
Shultz says it’s too expensive to buy and maintain a diesel and customers
won’t recoup the cost savings from better fuel economy unless they own
their car for several years. He, and some other dealers in the area don’t
think diesels will ever become popular.
Daimler/Chrysler’s Widenbak disagrees. He expects those fuel prices to come
down, and as they do, he says people will start buying diesel vehicles.
“We’re confident that our vehicles, diesel vehicles in general and our vehicles
specifically, can appeal to people.”
Daimler/Chrysler is so confident, it expects to roll out diesel engines in
more of its passenger cars over the next few years.
Researchers are developing models to try to
determine what the effects of global warming will be on the
Great Lakes region. Photo by Jerry Bielicki.
Some scientists in the Great Lakes basin are looking at how global warming might be affecting the region, both today and long into the future. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has the story:
Transcript
Some scientists in the great lakes basin are looking at how global warming
Might be affecting the region, both today and long into the future. The
Great lakes radio consortium’s Lester graham reports.
Many researchers in a number of different fields are coming to the same basic conclusion: the earth is warming and it’s affecting the Great Lakes. So far, the effects have been difficult to track, unlike watching the day-to-day changes in the weather. Measuring climate change requires measurements over many decades, or better yet over centuries. There are only a few places where weather measurements have been taken over that long of a period. But, where they have, researchers are finding weather is becoming more chaotic and indications are that the long-term climate is warming.
Many climatologists believe that warming is due at least in part to greenhouse gases, that is, pollution in the upper atmosphere trapping more of the sun’s heat, much in the same way a greenhouse works.
Taylor Jarnigan is a research ecologist with the U-S Environmental Protection agency who’s been looking at one aspect of climate change. He’s been studying whether increasing amounts of lake effect snow from Lake Superior over the past century, especially the past 50 years, is evidence of a change in the temperature of the lake. Preliminary study suggests that the lake’s surface temperature is warming, and that causes more snow when cold air passes over it. But he says the amount of snow has varied widely from year to year.
“Some of this variability is certainly due –in my opinion– to an increasing volatile climate system itself. El niño and la niña are becoming more intense, so you have an increasing oscillation between, say, an usually warm summer followed by an unusually cold winter which tends to produce an unusually large amount of snow.”
The surface temperature of the lake has only been monitored for a few decades, while snowfall depths have been recorded for much longer. Jarnigan says, since there seems to be a direct correlation between the surface temperature of the lake and snowfall, he can calculate the temperature of the lake going back more than a century, and finds that Lake Superior is getting warmer.
When researchers find direct measurements that have been taken for more than a century, they feel fortunate. For example, John Magnuson with the University of Wisconsin has been reviewing the conclusions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That’s the international organization established by the United Nations to study global warming. As a part of that review, Magnuson has been looking over shipping and harbor records that date back 150 years or more to see if there’s evidence of global warming. One thing he’s learned is that lakes and streams aren’t iced over for as long as they once were.
“And in the last hundred-and-fifty years we’ve seen significant changes in lakes around the entire– lakes and streams around the entire northern hemisphere. The date of freezing on the average and the date of break up is changing by about six days per century.”
And Magnuson says that six day change on both ends of the freeze-thaw cycle mean that there’s nearly two weeks less ice coverage than a century ago.
That seems to bolster research at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Ecological Research Laboratory. Studies there indicate that over the last several years Great Lakes ice coverage on average is not as far ranging and doesn’t last as long as it did historically.
There’s no certain way to tell what might happen to the Great Lakes if the apparent warming trend continues.
But there are some ways to speculate. There are at least two computer models that try to estimate how much warmer the climate in the Great Lakes region might become by the year 2090. Based on those models, researchers have tried to figure out what that might mean for the area. Peter Sousounis was working at the University of Michigan at the time of that research. He says using either computer model it looks as though crops would produce more. Soybean yields could double. But other predictions are not as beneficial. It looks as though Great Lakes water levels would drop, probably about three feet more than they’ve already dropped, causing some problems for shipping. The study also found algae production would decrease by 10 to 20 percent. That’s important because algae provide the base for the Great Lakes’ food chain. Pine trees might also be all but eliminated from the region, and Sousounis says dangerously high ozone days might occur twice as often.
“Our findings indicate there are some potentially serious consequences in terms of reduced lake levels impacting shipping across the region, some serious economic impacts that if we don’t learn how to deal with these, there are going to be some serious changes in our lifestyles.”
Critics say the models can’t represent all of the variability in nature, so it’s difficult to be sure about any of the predictions. An adjustment here or there can lead to all kinds of alternative scenarios. Sousounis concedes more work needs to be done and more variables plugged into the models, but he’s convinced change will come; the degree of change is the only question.
These days, very few scientists argue against the studies that suggest the earth is warming. John Magnuson with the University of Wisconsin says a few DO argue that the change might merely be natural climate variability – that is, Mother Nature taking an interesting twist– and not necessarily a warm-up caused by manmade greenhouse gases.
“The skeptics, or the more cautious people, what they do when they look at that range of variation over the last thousand years, what they see is there is a signal in the warming that’s coming above the historic variation of climate. And, the climatologists of the world collectively feel there’s very strong evidence that warming is occurring, that greenhouse gases are a very significant part of that warming.”
Magnuson says most mainstream scientists agree climate change is happening, and even dramatic reductions in greenhouse gases won’t prevent some continued global warming over this century. But most say reducing pollution would slow the rise in temperatures and curtail the warming sooner. Only time will tell how that warming will change the Great Lakes region, and all of the researchers we talked to say in the meantime we’ll likely see more chaotic roller coaster type weather patterns as never before in recorded history.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Researchers are developing models to try to
determine what the effects of global warming will be on the
Great Lakes region. Photo by Jerry Bielicki.
Researchers are trying to determine how global warming might affect this region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Researchers are trying to determine how global warming might affect this region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.
Using two different sophisticated computer climate models, researchers are asking questions such as what happens to the water levels in the Great Lakes. Both models predict they drop even farther, causing shipping problems. They predict crops will produce more, and they predict some trees will die off. Peter Sousounis is one of the researchers studying the models. He says the region needs to consider what appears to be happening.
“I’m concerned that we won’t be prepared, we will not have done our homework. I think as a society we can certainly adapt, if we are given enough time. And if we don’t adapt, life might adjust to a new mean state all around.”
While nearly all climatologists believe the earth is warming, not everyone agrees whether the changes will be harmful. Sousounis agrees more research needs to be done to try to determine what the effects might be. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
The 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid. (Photo courtesy of Ford)
