The first regional Wind Energy Conference, sponsored by the Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association, took place in Detroit April 20 and 21. Bringing together for the first time under one roof, the major players from government, utilities, universities, and private enterprise everyone had a chance to focus on what the experts had to say about the state of the art in wind energy production and the role it will play in the transformation of Michigan’s economy.

A highlight of the intensive two-day Michigan Wind Energy summit, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm stated in a keynote speech that the goal of her efforts was to make Michigan the “Saudi Arabia of wind energy.”

In her enthusiastic ‘let’s get serious’ attitude about making change, Gov. Granholm reiterated that no one is hungrier for change and the jobs that ‘going green’ will create than Michigan. Term-limited out from another term as governor, Granholm wants her legacy to reflect Michigan as the “poster child state” for moving from the industrial age ‘rust belt’ to the information age ‘green belt’. Citing the strengths in educated workforce, high-tech infrastructure, strategic location, and the Great Lakes for supplying the wind and transportation, Granholm charts a path for transforming automotive technology and resources into the clean energy industries of wind, solar, geothermal.

Targeting development to the Great Lakes Bay region, Granholm (left) expects the Saginaw Valley area to emerge as the “Silicon Valley” of the clean energy industry. To do this she envisions centering the whole supply chain, from engineering to manufacturing training and education in Michigan, and re-brand Michigan from the ‘automotive state’ to the ‘clean energy state’.

Already over $100 million has been invested in the wind energy business in Michigan. As an example, the governor mentioned the alliance between Michigan-based Dow Chemical and Oakridge Laboratories in Tennessee, in the development of low cost carbon fiber turbo wind blades that can be used for off shore wind farms that are under development. The cost of this composite blade material had been brought down to the ‘China price’, making for a huge competitive advantage even before factoring ‘out’ the cost of shipping.

In addition to the ‘wind’ initiatives, Michigan is also making progress in other areas of renewable energy production including the engineering and manufacture of high capacity batteries for plug-in electric vehicles, another area that Gov. Granholm is targeting.

At the conclusion of her address, Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association president Howard Edelson  presented the governor with the first ‘Leadership in Renewable Energy Award,’ that in the future will be known as the ‘Granholm Award.’

Article by Douglas Elbinger appearing courtesy Environmental News Network.

photos: eXtension Ag Energy, Douglas Elbinger

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In Cape Town, South Africa, as well as in many U.S. cities, wealthy suburban dwellers choke roads driving into the city, eschewing the public transit that shuttles blue collar workers. The addition of bus and rail lines in the city’s center in anticipation of hosting the 2010 World Cup has city leaders increasing efforts to get people out of their cars and on to public transit.

In Cape Town, most white collar workers drive themselves to work, fearing crime on trains and on the 20-seat shared taxis that shuttle one-third of inner city commuters. Business leaders from the Cape Town Partnership, along with the University of Michigan and Ford, are working with the city’s largest employers to get more of the 400,000 daily commuters moving by alternative modes of transportation by establishing mobility hubs.

The mobility hubs will enable people to seamlessly switch between transportation modes, including getting off of trains and private cars and on to buses, green taxis, and bikes. These transfer points with heavy commuter populations will provide information to show the locations of the best transportation options for reaching their final destinations.

“The (transportation) grids are not aligned,” says Susan, Zielinski Managing Director of the Sustainable Mobility & Accessibility Research & Transformation (SMART) initiative at the University of Michigan, and a consultant on the project. Zielinski says commuters don’t have the ability to synchronize their traveling between buses and trains, and many don’t know that services like car shares and bike rentals exist.

The Cape Town project, which has involved 200 people from the public and private sectors, will identify 4-5 hubs that are critical transfer points with a bounty of commuters. The hubs will include signs to aid people getting around, and the city wants to add bike rental programs and car share programs nearby to encourage reduced-carbon commuting.

A proposal has been drafted to provide communications through a website to kiosks and mobile phones that would provide all forms of transit schedules and traffic information. Zielinski envisions creating a single payment system via a debit card for taking public transit and renting cars or bikes by the hour.

The problems of too many cars and underutilization of public transit are common across the globe, and Zielinski says the knowledge gained from Cape Town could be applied in Ann Arbor, Detroit, Atlanta or Los Angeles.

Ford, which has provided funding for the Cape Town project, as well as others in Bangalore and Salvador, Brazil, believes it can play a role in solving the IT and logistics challenges in better organizing urban commuting. David Berdish, Ford’s Manager of Sustainable Business Development, says the company will apply its experience in logistics in moving vehicles and freight to urban mobility.

Ford is using the pilot projects to understand the business opportunities and see where it can play, because “cars aren’t always the answer,” according to Berdish. Ford’s SYNCH technology could potentially play a role in sharing mobility information between vehicles and the built environment.

Ford will gather information from the projects about traffic patterns, the concentration of commuters, and where they change cars for other forms of transportation. Berdish says that “NYC has a lot more in common with Bangalore than it does with Wyoming,” when it comes to urban transit.

The Cape Town project leaders are working with some of the city’s largest employers to create group transportation solutions. One of the options is to provide security guards on trains and to escort workers on a “walking bus” to their office that would address safety concerns. “It’s totally out of the box thinking for business people in South Africa to take public transport to work,” says Claire Janisch, of the Cape Town Business Partnership. So far employers Investec, Woolworth’s, Nebank and BP have expressed interest in changing commuting behaviors for workers who live in the suburbs, she says.

The Partnership is developing a website to provide information about the various transport options, many of which have been recently added in preparation of the World Cup. But it has been slow going to get funding from the city or federal government for the SWITCH website. “Cape Town is called the mother city because it takes nine months to deliver,” says Janisch.

Urban mobility presents a unique opportunity that crosscuts IT and automotive industries, and that’s why Ford, IBM, Cisco and others are eyeing the space. As vehicle ownership per capita stabilizes or even goes down in North America, auto companies need new methods to remain relevant. Urban mobility projects can also minimize the congestion from introducing more vehicles to emerging metropolis by keeping the cars out of high trafficked areas. It may be a bit out of Ford’s comfort zone, but learning urban transit so that you can assume a new role is much smarter than thinking that the world of transportation isn’t changing.

Andrew Russell, who runs Rikki’s green taxi service in Cape Town, says the first meeting about mobility hubs took place in 2007. Russell, whose company runs a taxi service for students who stay out late (aka the “Drunk Bus”) sees public transport as an effective means for reducing congestion and carbon emissions.

The project team is also recommending other ways to reduce carbon emissions, including encouraging employers to put bicycle lockers in their buildings, and to use video conferencing instead of flying to meetings. “White collar workers cause 90 percent of the (transit) problems,” says Russell.

Appearing courtesy the Matter Network.

[photo credit: SMART]

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Converting hybrid vehicles — particularly the Prius and Ford Escape — into plug-in hybrids has become a profitable niche industry for a few specialty companies. But the net impact of this new mini-industry has been much greater by influencing consumer and industry opinions.

Promoting the technical feasibility of PHEVs has been a significant factor in the auto manufacturers’ decision to develop the dozens of plug-in and all-electric vehicles now scheduled for delivery in the next five years.

But the earliest and strongest voice promoting PHEVs isn’t happy with that limited success. Felix Kramer, the founder of CalCars.org, says that getting to a million electrified vehicles by 2015 won’t do nearly enough to address climate change and energy independence, and now he’s setting his sights on electrifying internal combustion engine vehicles. He’s clearly on to something.

CalCar’s new “Big Fix” initiative wants to electrify some of the biggest emitters and gas-wasters — pickup trucks, SUVs and vans (PSVs). When used in delivery routes that are often well under 40 miles per day, they spend much of their time starting, stopping, and idling, and get among the worst MPG ratings around. Converting one of these vehicles to a PHEV or EV will reduce fuel consumption and emissions to a much greater degree than trading in a Sebring for a Prius.

SPVs, most notably the Ford F-150, have been among the top sellers for more than a decade, creating an inventory of millions of vehicles that could be converted. They also have much more space for battery packs, which makes for a simpler conversion than a compact car. Former Intel CEO Andy Grove and electric vehicle guru Andy Frank are fully on board, lending their considerable credibility to the idea.

The Japanese postal service has already begun converting its fleet of vehicles to EVs, and the U.S. Postal Service wants to do the same with more than 140,000 of its delivery vehicles. The cash-starved agency could save millions per year if the federal government decides to provide assistance, which would be more sustainable than a bailout.

The biggest impediments are the cost and potential resistance from the auto industry. The battery cost can be upwards of $20,000, making for a slow payback period if gasoline stays around $3 a gallon. The economics will improve over time, especially if conversion kits are produced in volume and battery manufacturing ramps up as the technology evolves.

But the harder sell will be convincing the auto industry that keeping vehicles on the road instead of buying new vehicles is a good thing, and that they should be a part of that business. Upgrading existing SPVs could be a multi-billion dollar business, extending the life of vehicles and preserving the energy cost sunk into building them. While Ford, GM and Chrylsler are best-suited to engineer conversions, this mass rethinking of the company would be an even bigger shift than the current change to becoming manufacturers of PHEVs and EVs.

Convincing fleet operators to convert will likely be easier than the consumers, legislators and car companies needed to make it happen. It’s not impossible, but it will take an extensive and well-orchestrated effort.

Appearing courtesy of Matter Network.

[photo credit: Flickr]

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It’s good to have friends in high places. The Windy City is privileged to have the support of the man holding the highest office in the land, President Obama, to back a hub-and spoke high speed transit network with Chicago as its epicenter. The wheel sprawls in all directions, covering most of the major cities of the Midwest.

Obama is not the only proponent of the high speed rail in the Midwest. Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle is firmly behind the proposal. His conviction comes from a fact-finding mission to Spain he undertook this past winter. The Governor traveled on the Spanish high speed rail, the AVE (Alta Velocidad Española), and came back a believer of the system.

Governor Doyle was not only impressed by the comfort and speed of his journey, he saw the potential for jobs to be created in the manufacturing, maintenance and operation of an American high speed rail network running through his state into Chicago and beyond.

The Midwest has historically been known as America’s industrial heartland. Much of it now is classified as the rust belt. Cities of towns that have had production closed or outsourced abroad because of lower labor costs. Detroit, which will be connected to this network, has fallen on very hard times as auto manufacturers have filed for bankruptcy and laid off thousands of workers.

High speed rail production is an opportunity to have a Renaissance in Midwestern manufacturing. Plants that built cars before being shuttered could be converted to making the trains that will be needed to service the lines. This conversion is not that difficult to make. As America became active in World War II, car factories became tank factories overnight. With proper investment in manufacturing plants plus research and development, America could become a player in the lucrative passenger train building business now dominated by Europeans. The creation of this industry would employ thousands of people on a permanent basis.

The fact that high speed rail is expanding across the globe gets little notice in the media. It is often repeated that the US is generations behind Japan and Western Europe in this regard. This is true, but even more troubling is that countries in the developing world are moving forward with plans at a much faster rate than the American government. China has an aggressive high speed rail strategy. South American countries, notably Argentina and Brazil, have high speed rail aspirations as do Eastern European countries like Poland and Russia. Further delays in high speed rail planning and construction will leave American rail infrastructure on par with Africa and parts of Southeast Asia.

The Chicago transit corridor will not only benefit Midwestern travelers, but those in need of employment. Reviewing the full benefits of a high speed rail network, it is quite plausible that the Midwest has the most to gain out of the project. A little known fact is that 50% of the US population lives within 500 miles of central Ohio. That distance is the optimal range for high speed trains, due to its time advantage over planes. Population density and job potential make high speed trains an ideal fit for the Midwest.

This is the 8th of a 13-part series on high speed rail in the USA. Read previous articles:

• High Speed Rail – 12 Corridors to be Stimulated
  
• High Speed Rail at 90 mph?! ARRA & the Northeast Corridor
• California High Speed Rail – Who will pay for $40 billion?!
• Planning High Speed Rail Line For 17 Years: The Pacific Northwest
• (Anti-)High Speed Rail: Republicans & the Gulf Coast Corridor
• Airlines & Oil Barons in Fear of High Speed Rail: The South Central Corridor
• High Speed Rail Line Gets Federal Funding: Los Angeles to Las Vegas

[photo credit: harshilshah100]

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Detroit car makers would increase profits by $3 billion annually and significantly boost sales if they improve the fuel economy of their vehicles by 30 percent to 50 percent, according to a new study.

Conducted by the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute, the study found that a major reason for the precipitous decline of Detroit’s sales and profits in recent years was the refusal of the Big Three automakers to recognize the importance of fuel economy to consumers. That failure meant the steady loss of market share to foreign car companies whose vehicles got significantly better mileage, the study said. Had the Big Three paid attention to their own market research showing the importance of fuel economy, “they would not be in Chapter 11 today,” said a co-author of the study.

The study concluded that increasing average mileage to 35 to 40 miles per gallon would boost profits and increase sales equal to the production from two large vehicle assembly plants.

This article originally appeared on Yale Environment 360 at http://e360.yale.edu

[photo credit: nolageek]

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