Utilities will work with customers to hook up to new "smart
grid" technology that can program when each car starts recharging. (Photo by Steve Carmody)
Some people are worried that
lots of plug-in electric cars
will cause brownouts or blackouts.
At least two automakers will have
plug-in electrics on the market
next year. But utility companies
say, don’t worry. They’re ready.
Tracy Samilton reports:
Transcript
Some people are worried that
lots of plug-in electric cars
will cause brownouts or blackouts.
At least two automakers will have
plug-in electrics on the market
next year. But utility companies
say, don’t worry. They’re ready.
Tracy Samilton reports:
A lot of electric power plants in the U.S. sit idle between 9 p.m. and noon
each day.
Ed Kjear is head of Electric Transportation for Southern
California Edison. He says, as long as people plug in their electric cars
during those off-peak hours.
“160, 170 million cars could connect
to the grid tomorrow
and we wouldn’t have to build new power plants to meet that load.”
At first, just a few thousand people will own plug-in electric cars at
first. Utilities will work with these customers to hook up to new “smart
grid” technology that can program when each car starts recharging.
“The customer will say, ‘look I need
the car fueled by
6 or 7 tomorrow morning. You know, have at it.'”
Kjear says the technology will be easy to install and use by the time most
of us shift from gasoline to electricity to fuel our cars.
More than half of the mercury switches still on the road are in GM’s cars. But, since filing for bankruptcy, GM stopped paying into the program. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)
The new General Motors, which recently emerged from bankruptcy, wants to create a clean, green image with its Chevy Volt electric car. But GM might have a bit of an environmental PR problem on its hands. Tamara Keith explains:
Transcript
The new General Motors, which recently emerged from bankruptcy, wants to create a clean, green image with its Chevy Volt electric car. But GM might have a bit of an environmental PR problem on its hands. Tamara Keith explains:
Automakers used to use mercury switches for lights and anti-lock brakes. But when old cars are scrapped and melted down, those parts turn into toxic air pollution.
So automakers and environmental groups created a program to recycle the mercury.
More than half of the mercury switches still on the road are in GM’s cars. But, since filing for bankruptcy, GM stopped paying into the program.
Rich Bell is president of the program, and he also works at Ford.
“None of our members are interested in paying for GM’s environmental legacy issues, and so we’re looking for a path forward, and we’re kind of in the midst of that now.”
In a statement, the new GM said those cars with mercury switches were made by the old GM.
The new GM that emerged from bankruptcy is not responsible for those old switches.
Dealers across the country are running out of new cars to sell that qualify for the program. (Photo source: IFCAR at Wikimedia Commons)
Two billion dollars is being added to
the very popular Cash for Clunkers
program. The original one billion dollars
is almost gone. But, Lester Graham
reports, there’s a shortage of new cars
that qualify for the program:
Transcript
Two billion dollars is being added to
the very popular Cash for Clunkers
program. The original one billion dollars
is almost gone. But, Lester Graham
reports, there’s a shortage of new cars
that qualify for the program:
The National Automobile Dealers Association says they’ve been hearing from dealers across the country who’ve been running out of new cars that qualify for the program.
Steve Demers is the General Manager of Cueter Chrysler Jeep Dodge in Ypsilanti, Michigan, a state where Cash for clunkers has been especially popular.
“There’s virtually no vehicles available, so there are other areas in the country that may not be as – the program has not been as popular – so we’re able to pluck some of that inventory out of their states, but it’s a nation-wide problem. I mean, we’re out many, many states away, thousands of miles before we can find a vehicle that can be brought in for one of our custormers.”
Factories are shipping more cars to the dealers but can’t keep up with demand.
185,000 gas-guzzling clunkers have been turned in to be scrapped in exchange for the government incentives.
Car buyers get up to 4,500 dollars toward buying a new fuel-efficient model.
Cars stacked up and waiting to be shredded at United Iron and Metal in Baltimore, MD. (Photo by Tamara Keith)
The scrap heap, what's left of hundreds of cars and other metal waste after they go through a shredder. (Photo by Tamara Keith)
Engines in storage at All Foreign Auto Parts. This is the one piece of the car that absolutely can't be resold under the Cash for Clunkers program. (Photo by Tamara Keith)
The federal Cash for Clunkers
program kicked off this weekend,
and dealerships were pushing it
hard to sell new cars. The program
was created by Congress last month
to give a boost to the struggling
auto industry while helping the
environment. The idea is to get
older polluting cars off the road
for good and replace them with
new more-efficient ones. Tamara Keith has this report
on what will happen to all the
clunkers:
Transcript
The federal Cash for Clunkers program kicked off this weekend, and dealerships
were pushing it hard to sell new cars. The program was created by Congress last
month to give a boost to the struggling auto industry while helping the environment.
The idea is to get older polluting cars off the road for good and replace them with
new more-efficient ones. Tamara Keith has this report on what will happen to all the
clunkers:
Car dealers suddenly have a whole bunch of cars on their lots they have absolutely
no use for. The clunkers cannot be re-sold. That would defeat the whole green goal
of the program.
So all those old trucks and sagging sedans, they’re headed to places like M and M
Auto Parts in Stafford, Virginia. Most of us would call it a junk yard. But don’t tell
that to owner Rick Morrow.
“Long before green was popular, this kind of operation, even though a lot of people
said, ‘Oh junk yard.’ But they were actually recycling cars. They were making use of
what the component was built for in the first place.”
His company’s logo prominently features a large green recycling symbol.
“This is the dismantling area where after the cars come are inventoried and then take
them apart.”
Morrow’s business is all about re-use. A fender, or a tail light, or maybe an alternator
from this car will live to see another day in a car that needs a replacement part.
You’d think Morrow would be totally excited about Cash for Clunkers. But he’s not.
Because the one component from the clunkers that absolutely cannot be re-sold is
the engine – pretty much the most valuable thing in the car.
“If we do a few dozen cars and it looks like it’s costing us more money than it’s worth,
we’ll say, ‘sorry.’”
From an environmental perspective, it absolutely makes sense to prevent those
engines from ever polluting again. But, from a business perspective it’s a real
problem for the nation’s auto recyclers.
“It will make it extremely hard to make money on a car.”
Scotty Davis is the vice president of All Foreign Auto Parts in Fredericksburg
Virginia. He says it costs him $1800 in labor to take apart a car.
“It’s going to cost me money to do this. It’s one of these things. I have to bring the
car in. I have to get rid of the tires. I have to get rid of all the fluids, the freon,
process it – just to crush the vehicle.”
Davis specializes in newer foreign vehicles. Parts from a clunker won’t help stock
his shelves. But he feels like he has to take the cars to stay in the good graces of
the auto dealers he sells parts to.
“And I’ll be very honest with you. A couple of them I do a lot of business with, I said,
‘I will take your cars.’ And they said, ‘what are you going to do with them?’ I’m going
to crush ‘em. I mean they’re not of any value.”
(sound of a shredder yard)
Once all the usable parts are removed, and the toxic chemicals cleaned out, most
cars will end up at a scrap yard like United Iron and Metal in Baltimore.
“Right now you can see the tail end of a car coming on the conveyor belt down into
the shredder.”
“A tremendous amount of friction is going on as these hammers are pulverizing that
car into small pieces.”
Bruce Savage is with the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries – a trade group. It
only takes 15 seconds, and when the shredder is done with a car, it isn’t even
recognizable.
“That big pile over there is the end result. It’s just a big pile of metal pieces.”
Savage says the metal is then sold. Whether scrap recyclers will cash in on Cash
for Clunkers all depends on the commodities prices for metal in the coming months.
“What was an old car can become a new car or can become a dishwasher or siding
for a home. It depends on the materials. But everything is being reused,
reprocessed and renewed.”
So maybe a 1989 suburban can be reborn as a 2010 Ford Focus Hybrid.
‘Cash for clunkers’ became popular before all the rules were final. For the past few weeks there’s been a growing backlog of orders at dealerships.
(Photo by Samara Freemark)
Today is the first official day of the cash for clunkers program. The government program offers you up to $4500 to trade in your gas guzzling car for a more fuel efficient new car. Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Today is the first official day of the cash for clunkers program. The government program offers you up to $4500 to trade in your gas guzzling car for a more fuel efficient new car. Lester Graham reports:
The goal is to clean up the environment and give sagging new car sales a boost.
‘Cash for clunkers’ became popular before all the rules were final. For the past few weeks there’s been a growing backlog of orders at dealerships.
At Varsity Ford in Ann Arbor, Michigan, people have been seeing if their clunkers qualify, and picking out a new car that they’ll finally be able to drive off the lot today.
Matt Stanford sells cars there. He says as far as he’s concerned, ‘cash for clunkers’ is already a success.
“We’re going to sell new cars. We’re going to get cars that don’t really need to be on the road off the road.”
The National Autobmobile Dealers Association says some dealerships have been holding off until they learned more about the rules of ‘cash for clunkers’ which were just cleared up last Friday.
The clunkers will be scrapped. The cash ends when the one-billion dollars in government money runs out.
Sysco - a major food distributor - is part of a year-long government funded
project. They're running seventeen of their forklifts using hydrogen powered fuel cells. (Photo by Mark Brush)
This is how the hydrogen arrives at the Sysco warehouse in Michigan. The hydrogen is made in Megog, Quebec. (Photo by Mark Brush)
Six years ago, President Bush proposed to end our addiction to oil by building a hydrogen
economy. At the time, driving a hydrogen powered car didn’t seem that far off. But today, the
reality of mass produced hydrogen powered cars has hit some bumps in the road. Mark Brush
looks at the challenges ahead:
Transcript
Six years ago, President Bush proposed to end our addiction to oil by building a hydrogen
economy. At the time, driving a hydrogen powered car didn’t seem that far off. But today, the
reality of mass produced hydrogen powered cars has hit some bumps in the road. Mark Brush
looks at the challenges ahead:
It’s all about the fuel cell. The cell converts hydrogen gas into electricity that can power up a
motor. And when that’s done – the only thing that comes out of the tail pipe is crystal, clean
water.
So there’s a lot of enthusiasm to build hydrogen powered cars. If you live in Southern California,
you can drive a hydrogen powered car right now.
(sound of a hydrogen car commercial)
But you can’t buy this car. You can only lease it. And you have to have a pretty good map.
There are only 2 places where you can fill the car up with hydrogen.
And that highlights just one of the challenges facing the hydrogen car right now. There’s no
infrastructure – no network of gas stations – to support it.
Steven Chu heads up the Obama Administration’s Department of Energy.
“It’s an infrastructure that is as extensive as the infrastructure for gasoline and diesel. And that
doesn’t come overnight.”
Chu wants to eliminate all the research money for hydrogen powered cars and trucks. He says
there are too many big problems to solve. There’s the infrastructure problem. Fuel cells are
expensive. The cheapest way to make hydrogen right now releases pollution. And there are
problems with storing the gas.
In an interview with MIT’s Technology Review, Energy Secretary Chu referred to these problems
as the four miracles. And that didn’t go over too well with some people.
“A miracle? Really? How many miracles have you seen? I’m not sure I’ve seen a real miracle in
my life.”
Levi Thompson directs the Hydrogen Energy Technology Laboratory at the University of
Michigan.
He says talking about these problems as miracles sends the wrong message. He admits, there
are some big puzzles to solve. But he’s convinced scientists can solve them.
“If you believe this is the savior, that this is going to transform the way we do things, I think you
have a responsibility to invest – even though that you see that it’s far behind.”
Thompson says the ultimate goal for a hydrogen economy is to get the hydrogen from water
using electricity from renewable resources like wind, solar, and hydro-power. So you get the
clean burning gas you’re looking for.
It can be done today, but it’s expensive. Thompson thinks it’ll get cheaper as alternative sources
of electricity become more widespread.
The Energy Department doesn’t want to give up on hydrogen research altogether. Secretary Chu
says fuel cells do make sense on a small scale – like to power fork lifts in a warehouse.
(sound of a warehouse and forklift)
Here at this Sysco warehouse in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a mini hydrogen experiment is
underway.
Sysco is a major food distributor. This warehouse is part of a year-long government funded
project. They’re running seventeen of their forklifts using hydrogen powered fuel cells made by a
company called Plug Power.
Darin VanDuyn is with Sysco. He says, mostly, they’ve had a good experience with these fuel
cells.
“We’ve had about 80 hours of lost time due to repair – minor failures, things like that – but nothing
major has disrupted their operation.”
VanDuyn says the company hasn’t decided yet whether they’ll move forward with the fuel cell
program. But policy makers say real-world experiments like these move us closer to mass
produced hydrogen vehicles.
Even though the Obama Administration wants to cut funding for hydrogen powered cars and
trucks, Congress holds the purse – and has the final say. So far, it looks like Congress will
continue to fully fund the research.
Automakers say the ups and downs of federal funding don’t affect their plans. Several
companies say they’ll start selling hydrogen powered cars in 6 to 8 years – and they’ll let the
market decide the fate of the hydrogen economy.
VW's Jetta TDI - a diesel that the EPA estimates at 40 miles per gallon (Photo by Julie Grant)
If you’re thinking about buying a cleaner, more fuel-efficient
car, you might think a hybrid is your best option. But some
automakers want people to look at an older technology when
they’re looking for green cars: the diesel engine. Julie Grant
reports:
Transcript
If you’re thinking about buying a cleaner, more fuel-efficient
car, you might think a hybrid is your best option. But some
automakers want people to look at an older technology when
they’re looking for green cars: the diesel engine. Julie Grant
reports:
Lots of automakers make diesel cars – BMW, Ford, General
Motors, Volkswagen. But they sell most of them in Europe,
not the U.S. Diesel engines have a bad rap here.
Just ask Jerry Doble; he used to drive a diesel truck.
“They’re noisy and they’re smelly and they’re hard to start in
the winter. And that’s about it, I guess.”
But Doble hasn’t seen the new diesel cars making their way
from Europe.
Mike Omotoso is an auto industry analyst with JD Power and
Associates.
He says diesel carmakers have lowered their tailpipe
emissions. They’ve put in extensive filtering systems. Plus,
the fuel, itself, is cleaner than it used to be.
Diesel used to have lots of stinky sulfur – up to 500 parts per
million – now it has only 15 parts per million.
But Omotoso says when most Americans think of clean cars,
diesels aren’t the first thing that come to mind.
“When people think of clean vehicles they think of the Prius
first, and then they think of Toyota and they think of Honda
as well. The manufacturers, especially the German
manufacturers, are having to do a job catching up to the
positive publicity of hybrids. So they have to persuade the
American public that diesels can be clean as well.”
That’s why you may have seen those Volkswagen
commercials on TV – where one neighbor has a Prius, and
the other a new Jetta TDI-diesel:
VW: “A TDI set a Guiness World Record – 58 miles per
gallon.”
Prius owner: “58 miles per gallon!”
VW: “But this baby hauls. It’s like errr…errr… What does
your Prius sound like?”
Prius owner: (sound of quietly exhaling)
VW: “Oh. That’s cool.”
There’s a couple of things going on in that commercial.
It’s pushing the diesel as a green car. It’s also trying to
dispel the image of diesels being slow and clunky. They’re
trying to push diesels as green, muscle cars.
At this Volkswagen dealership, salesman Aaron Heinlein
says these commercials are having some success.
He says the only people who used to buy diesels worked
with the railways, in construction, or on farms. But this
week, he sold a TDI Jetta to a dietician.
“She would be the customer that, if she came in four years
ago, I would have said, ‘wow, you want to look at a diesel?
Cool, I’ll show you one.’ Now it’s just, that’s the norm. It’s
the lawyer, it’s the dentist, it’s the traveling salesperson who
is in their car a lot and needs better fuel mileage that you
wouldn’t have seen four years ago.”
Diesels cars still makeup less than 1% of the market.
Americans want power and speed and that’s not how they
think about diesel engines. Things are different in Europe,
where gas is upwards of $8 per gallon and consumers are
focused on good gas mileage.
Auto industry analysts are expecting to see a jump in diesel
sales in the U.S. in the next few years.
But JD Power and Associates doesn’t expect all this
marketing to make a huge dent in American car sales.
They’re forecasting diesel car sales at 4% to 5% of the
market by 2016.
That’s when the new federal fuel standards take effect.
A phantom traffic jam is when everyone slows down or stops, but starts to go again inexplicably (Photo source: Crazytales at Wikimedia Commons)
According the the last report from
the Texas Transportation Institute,
traffic congestion in the US causes
more than four-billion lost hours stuck
in traffic and nearly three-billion
gallons of wasted fuel. Lester Graham
reports mathmeticians have found – on
paper – one type of traffic jam looks
something like a bomb going off:
Transcript
According the the last report from
the Texas Transportation Institute,
traffic congestion in the US causes
more than four-billion lost hours stuck
in traffic and nearly three-billion
gallons of wasted fuel. Lester Graham
reports mathmeticians have found – on
paper – one type of traffic jam looks
something like a bomb going off:
Phantom traffic jams are frustrating. You know the kind – traffic slows downs or completely stops, and when you finally get to the end, there’s no wreck, no closed lane – nothing.
Mathematicians at MIT say these phantom jams are a lot like detonation waves produced by explosions.
Morris Flynn is the lead author of the report published in the online edition of Physical Review E.
“You have a single person who taps on their brakes. The driver behind them will over-react, hit their brakes just a little bit harder than the person in front. And this disturbance is just cascaded all the way back so that eventually you get this very rapid deceleration.”
And, phantom traffic jam.
Solutions: more lanes on the highway, and automated signs that warn drivers about slowed traffic ahead.
It is hoped that the "Cash for Clunkers" bill will stimulate fledgling car sales (Photo by Samara Freemark)
The so-called “Cash for Clunkers” bill has passed the US House. Automakers say it could help boost sluggish sales if it passes the Senate and gets signed into law. But as Rebecca Williams reports some people think the bill isn’t very green:
Transcript
The so-called “Cash for Clunkers” bill has passed the US House. Automakers say it could help boost sluggish sales if it passes the Senate and gets signed into law. But as Rebecca Williams reports some people think the bill isn’t very green:
If you have a car or truck that gets 18 miles per gallon or less, under this bill, you’d get to trade it in for a more fuel efficient car or truck. The old car would get scrapped.
You’d get a voucher for several thousand dollars. Old gas guzzlers would get taken off the road.
But Ann Mesnikoff points out: in the House bill you could trade in an old SUV that gets, say, 14 miles per gallon… for a new SUV that gets just two miles per gallon more.
She directs Sierra Club’s Green Transportation Campaign.
“The key things to change in the cash for clunkers program are to ensure that taxpayer dollars are going to buy vehicles that have at least better than average fuel economy. Not those that can’t even meet today’s fuel economy standards.”
Congress is also going to have to figure out how to pay for the bill. It’s expected to cost about 4 billion dollars.
One paint technology that GM is developing uses quantum dots - shown here irradiated with ultraviolet light (Source: Walkman16 at Wikimedia Commons)
Even though General Motors has filed for bankruptcy, Rebecca Williams reports the company is still dreaming big:
Transcript
Even though General Motors has filed for bankruptcy, Rebecca Williams reports the company is still dreaming big:
Someday you might be able to power your radio through your car’s paint.
Christopher Webb is GM’s senior creative designer.
He says GM’s research teams are giving some thought to solar powered paint. He says it might start with tiny solar cells called quantum dots.
“You could suspend these solar cells in a resin system or a waterborne or solvent carrier and spray it over the surface of the vehicle. Technically the entire surface of the vehicle could become almost a solar conductor.”
Webb says nobody knows exactly how this might work yet. But he says he’s confident that GM will continue their research into new technologies like this even with the bankruptcy announcement.
Something else that’s being talked about is using volcanic rock in paint. It could be a coating that would reduce a car’s interior temperature by reflecting heat – so you could use the air conditioning less often.
Utilities will work with customers to hook up to new "smart grid" technology that can program when each car starts recharging. (Photo by Steve Carmody)
