Energy OptionsEnergy Options for a Sustainable FutureEnerMotion is focused on the efficient use of energy for personal and business transportation needs, and although this is a critical need, it is only one of the many solutions required to enable the world's population to achieve a good quality of life while transitioning to a sustainable energy supply and maximizing crude oil reserves.
Our civilization requires energy for transportation, manufacturing, and residential purposes. To date, these energy needs have been supplied by water power, animals, wood, coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, wind, and solar energy (thermal and photovoltaic). Over the centuries, due to fuel supply restrictions and end use emissions, fuel selections in the world's societies have changed, and the 21st century will be no different, there are many indications of the forces that are altering our energy related technology choices. In 2008 we witnessed
unprecedented high oil prices, and into 2009 initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and changing world economics further improved business cases for enhanced efficiency, alternative fuels, and wind and solar power projects in all energy use sectors. In 2010, environmental disasters are magnifying our perspective on fossil fuel consumption - harsh realities and unpopular decisions are about to meet.
From the figure below, it is clear how back in 2006, the fossil fuels (oil, coal and natural gas) dominated world energy use. Moving to a different energy mix is a colossal task, but the future is not predicted by the present!
Figure 1 - World energy use mix (IEA 2004)
Energy for Electricity GenerationEnergy for generation of electricity is primarily supplied by the fossil fuels of coal, oil and natural gas, nuclear energy, hydro electric power, and more recently, the emergence of large wind and multi megawatt scale photovoltaic applications. Political and economic drivers are the forces that have determined what mix of these energy sources we utilize. For instance, there is far more solar derived energy available in the southern USA than could ever be supplied by the world's oil reserves, but in the recent past solar energy could not be utilized in the same cost effective manner as energy from coal or oil. Hence we have coal fired electricity generation in some of the sunniest places on earth! Conventional energy costs and environmental pressures are slowly tipping these scales, and we now see large scale solar thermal to electricity conversion plants operating in the US southwest states (check out the land grab in Nevada for instance).
Electricity generation worldwide is currently dominated by the combined energy from the fossil fuels coal, oil and natural gas (Figure 2). Replacing these sources with sustainable sources is an enormous challenge. Sustainable options are hydro power, wind, and solar, either as solar thermal power plants or as photovoltaic power. At present wind energy is a rapidly growing contributor to electricity generation with annual installed capacity figures still increasing by about 30% per annum. Total world installed wind generation capacity exceeded 100,000 MW in the summer of 2008, but even this leaves wind as a small although important and growing overall contributor. As oil and coal prices increase, the economics of wind power improve and the wind industry will continue to grow at high rates for the foreseeable future. Some regions of Germany have 20% to 30% of their electricity production from wind machines. Wind power production will become a larger and larger player in world electricity generation, and wind's present growth rate is limited by the number of manufacturers and their annual production capacity. The percentage of wind generation that a grid can support is also limited by conventional grid designs, but with pumped storage and other reactive power controls, wind penetration into grids could be increased.
Figure 2 - World electricity by energy source (IEA 2004)
Electricity generation by solar means is conventionally accomplished either through conversion of solar energy to heat to produce steam to run a conventional turbine, or through the direct conversion of sunlight to electricity using photovoltaics. Electricity generation on a worldwide basis is below 1% from these methods. To date the limited contribution from solar sources is strictly due to economics, neither solar thermal or photovoltaic electricity sources have conventionally been economically attractive compared to coal, oil or natural gas powered electricity production. However, despite this, photovoltaics is a rapidly growing industry with annual production exceeding 30% growth per year. Photovoltaic cell production reached 3,436 MW in 2007, an astonishing 50% increase over 2006 (Worldwatch). With possible technologies that reduce the cost of PV significantly, PV could be the dark horse that changes everything in electricity generation, many investors feel this is so, and research investment in PV remains high, due to its high potential, and ease with which it can be installed almost anywhere.
Figure 3 - Grid connected large scale photovoltaics
Over the past few decades solar thermal generating stations have been developed in various sunny places worldwide and although the technology is entirely feasible, the economics have not allowed the stand alone commercial development of this industry. Also known as Concentrated Solar Power (CSP), solar thermal power typically is deployed in sunny warm locations where high temperatures can be generated using concentrating mirrors in various configurations to produce temperatures necessary to make steam that is used to run turbines to drive generators (as in conventional steam plants). For this type of generation to become a key player in electricity production, storage of the heat or electricity for night usage is necessary and although various thermal storage systems have been deployed successfully, the economics of CSP have not led to large commercial successes to date. Again, increased coal and oil prices and greenhouse gas mitigation pressures change the playing field and there will likely be much more activity in the CSP technology area as the higher costs and environmental impacts of fossil fueled electricity generation level the economic playing field for renewable electricity generation.
Figure 4 - Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) using parabolic mirrors
Nuclear power remains on the radar as a potential growth industry, but actual plant starts have been minimal worldwide for several decades. Concerns over nuclear waste storage, management and potential consequences of terrorist actions as well as the long term decommissioning costs of nuclear plants continue to be topics of discussion, and uncertainty surrounds their resolution. Key to the downside of nuclear is that it does not use a sustainable or renewable fuel source and nuclear waste is expensive to manage. Worldwide resources of uranium are finite, just as for oil, and with a significantly expanded nuclear power industry eventually price escalation, just as with oil, will occur. While some countries are phasing out their reliance on nuclear energy, others are planning expansion. In any event, the massive expansion of nuclear power plants to replace a significant portion of electricity presently produced from fossil fueled electricity production has enormous challenges and nuclear's future is very uncertain. Fusion reactors as an alternative to today's fission reactors are often called upon as the solution to reactor fuel supplies, but no commercial fusion reactors exist or can be reliably projected to exist in the near term.
Other niche players in power production at the moment are wave, tidal power, as well as underwater turbines utilizing water currents and ocean thermal technologies. Technology exists for tidal power extraction, but suitable locations world wide for the economic application of this technology are limited. Wave, underwater turbines, and ocean thermal are technologies in the commercialization stages, they have large potential but must prove themselves in the trials underway.
Electricity, Transportation and EnerMotionHow do low emissions electricity production and the need for cleaner transportation come together? The potential widespread use of electricity in pure electric or hybrid electric plug-in cars creates a linkage between transportation and the electrical grid that is new, and as yet the eventual impacts of this linkage are not well understood. No doubt the widespread usage of grid charged electrical vehicles would have a significant impact on the energy required from the grid, and where that energy would come from is a subject of much debate. If the grid continues to be powered by coal, natural gas, oil and uranium, there is little environmental benefit of enhanced electricity usage by the transportation sector, or a sustainable future for that scenario. If the grid becomes green, utilizing large scale wind, and solar thermal or electric energy sources, the electric vehicle charged by a grid becomes a more sustainable form of transportation. Below we look at how vehicle technology options fit various future energy source scenarios.
The necessary and ultimate replacement of fossil fuels for
electricity production naturally falls into the hands of the sustainable energy sources of the wind, sun and water, these are the only resources that will meet the combined needs of being economical and sustainable for the next 100 years or more. They are the resources we relied upon in the past, and will very likely be the ones that carry our planet safely into the future.
Energy for Consumer and Industry TransportationWhat does EnerMotion see as the next generation of transportation energy sources and how do they fit into the PIAXP competition for instance? Key for the needs of consumer and industry transportation is the portability and rapid recharging of a vehicle's energy supply. Gasoline and diesel have proved themselves over the last century as excellent energy sources for these purposes, and our vehicle energy supply infrastructure has been built around the safe and timely supply of these fuels. This supply infrastructure can continue to be cost effective with the use of most liquid fuels but is limited when we diverge from these fuel types. The present infrastructure of underground storage tanks and liquid filling stations would not be of much use with a battery based electric car fleet, nor with a hydrogen or other low temperature liquid or high pressure gaseous fuel. These fuel distribution infrastructure limitations will continue to be a significant driver of the technologies employed in our near future personal transportation devices. Although visions of a hydrogen powered vehicle fleet are appealing, EnerMotion believes there are many years between then and now, and the world requires low emissions vehicle solutions for today and tomorrow. EnerMotion's focus is on highly efficient hybrid electric vehicles that offer lower fuel consumption today and a pathway to greener fuels, such as renewable energy generated hydrogen for tomorrow.
The infrastructure dilemma!Although visions of nuclear powered and flywheel powered cars have been tossed about over the last 50 years, even the widespread adoption of a simple battery powered electric car has not, to date, proved to be commercially possible. The quickness of refueling, simplicity of fuel transportation, high vehicle range between refuelings and world wide availability of today's liquid transportation fuels has proved impossible to beat as a mainstream transportation energy source. Although the use of electricity as primary drive power for personal vehicles has been tantalizingly close to commercial success many times over the last 50 years, it has struggled to be more than a niche player. The idea that a vehicle can be refueled by simply being plugged into the electrical grid has an almost universal appeal, and the seemingly low or even zero emissions possibility of pure electrically powered cars has attracted many well financed attempts to produce viable electric cars. They have not succeeded in broad appeal because replicating the energy density of liquid fuels and the durability of the piston engine has not been possible with past technologies of battery stored electricity, and to date the use of fuel cells is restricted to limited production very expensive test vehicles that remain under the control of their manufacturers.
In most parts of the world where electricity generation is dominated by the use of fossil fuels, there is little benefit to the electrification of the vehicle fleets. The burning of coal to make electricity to then charge a battery in a vehicle hundreds of miles away is just not an improvement environmentally over the direct burning of fossil fuels by the vehicle. This of course changes as the grid becomes powered by clean sustainable sources of energy, but today's and the near future's grid is not, thus low emissions vehicle solutions cannot rely on today's grid energy. EnerMotion believes the grid will become cleaner, and avenues will open up for higher levels of grid electricity to be used in vehicles,
but the next decade will be a transition period where vehicles must be capable of being grid independent and have low emissions, or they may have plug-in capabilities for areas or homes with sustainable electricity production. EnerMotion's technology platform therefore is one based on the flexibility to either allow a plug-in hybrid capability, or be stand alone liquid fueled using the existing vehicle refueling infrastructure.
Today's most efficient hybrid vehicles use an internal combustion engine with various configurations of electric energy storage and electric motor assist to the conventional engine. In the context of technology development, hybrids are newborns and much evolution of this technology has yet to occur. The key areas for optimization of these drivelines are the battery, power transmission and engine - electric motor management for highest energy efficiency in given use scenarios.
It is possible that two types of hybrids will succeed in the marketplace. One will be highly reliant on the electricity grid, it will effectively be an electric car with an auxiliary ICE engine for range extension. In today's energy mix; this type of vehicle will be most suitable for regions that have grid power from low emissions sources. In Canada and the US at present, these would be regions with high percentages of hydroelectric power in their grid supply mix, such as Quebec and British Columbia. In states and provinces with high percentages of coal fired electricity, there would be less benefit from the use of these plug-in hybrid vehicles over similar sized but efficient conventional ICE engine vehicles, that is until alternative renewable forms of energy become available. From a greenhouse gas emissions standpoint this creates an interesting legislative issue of how to manage emissions once the emissions from electricity production become part of the vehicle fleet emissions. This issue has yet to be dealt with in any North American region.
Low environmental impact Hydroelectric dam - China
The introduction and commercial success of this type of plug-in hybrid electric vehicle is based on the assumption that cost effective batteries are available for these high discharge rate designs. At present, battery technology in even the most advanced Nickel metal hydride or Lithium ion batteries is such that battery life will be limited to a few years in a plug-in vehicle using a large range of charge and discharge. It has yet to be shown if consumers will accept the battery replacement issues associated with this type of vehicle. Further improvements in battery cycle life are likely but they are achieved with great expense and take a considerable amount of time. EnerMotion is designing and providing hybrid control systems, alternative energy solutions and the required system integration services for the near future and as such accepts that although batteries will improve, there are performance limitations on even the best of today's battery technologies.
The second type of ICE-electric hybrid is one that has a more limited battery capability and the option to run without grid electricity charging, especially for those regions that have high grid related emissions. This vehicle would likely have less than 20 km pure electric range, and would be configured to minimize battery depth of discharge to enhance battery life. The low emissions profile of this vehicle would primarily be the result of overall low weight, highly efficient transmission configuration and optimal engine and electric motor management strategies. For the near future, fuel options for this vehicle would likely be diesel, bio-diesel and gasoline, and with the vehicle attaining over 100 mpg (2.8 l/100km), the use of fuel is dramatically lower than today's mainstream midsize cars. The customer of such a vehicle (e.g. automobile, pickup truck or tractor-trailer) is still provided levels of safety and comfort equivalent to today's midsize passenger vehicles and the like.
The Future?Looking beyond the next five to ten years, how might this highly efficient hybrid vehicle evolve so as to maximize fossil fuel reserves? One option could be to utilize an emerging hydrogen fueling infrastructure. The EnerMotion hybrid energy system can be configured to utilize several fuel types. Although it's possible that fuels cells may be economically viable alternatives to ICE power units by say 2020, fuel cell and ICE-electric hybrid "well to wheels" efficiencies are at present very similar.
Until the fuel cell power source actually becomes more competitive at the OEM price level and much more efficient too, the ICE power unit in conjunction with an electric motor will offer better value at equal levels of energy conversion efficiency. EnerMotion, while recognizing there will be an eventual transition to other power conversion technologies, sees the highly optimized ICE-electric hybrid in various configurations as having a long life thereby sustaining society's need for clean mobility options.
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