Ben Cipiti, of Sandia National Laboratories, has written what Renewable Energy Access titled "An Unbiased Approach to Evaluating Transportation Fuels." The piece has excited the REA readers (43 comments and counting) as it attempts to put ethanol, battery-powered vehicles (PHEVs and hybrids and BEVs) and hydrogen into a clear ranking system. The takeaway lines for me are these:
It turns out that when compared side by side, an electric vehicle economy will be more than twice as efficient as a hydrogen economy. In other words, the hydrogen economy would require building twice as many new power plants as compared to converting to electric vehicles.
For the rest, read the original, and don't miss the warnings about ethanol (the studies that find good things about ethanol are often funded by pro-ethanol forces). It's hard to escape - from Cipiti's article and from the general messages I've been hearing over the last 20 months of writing for AutoblogGreen - is that pure electric vehicles (or EVs with a range extender) are the best hope for the future, hopefully starting right here in 2008.
[Source: REA]
It turns out that when compared side by side, an electric vehicle economy will be more than twice as efficient as a hydrogen economy. In other words, the hydrogen economy would require building twice as many new power plants as compared to converting to electric vehicles.
For the rest, read the original, and don't miss the warnings about ethanol (the studies that find good things about ethanol are often funded by pro-ethanol forces). It's hard to escape - from Cipiti's article and from the general messages I've been hearing over the last 20 months of writing for AutoblogGreen - is that pure electric vehicles (or EVs with a range extender) are the best hope for the future, hopefully starting right here in 2008.
[Source: REA]
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