Subtitle C—Clean Transportation (page 108)
SEC. 121. ELECTRIC VEHICLE INFRASTRUCTURE. (page 108)
I have to admit, I can’t work up any enthusiasm for electric cars at this time. The weight, cost, driving range, durability and charging time for batteries just aren’t there yet. An electric car with a fuel cell makes more sense, but they aren’t talking about that in this section. I could change my mind if there is some breakthrough in battery technology. I also considered flywheels, which are replacing batteries in some applications, but there are issues with using them in a vehicle.
SEC. 126. DEFINITION OF RENEWABLE BIOMASS. (page 122)
I’m still not too keen about cutting down trees for fuel. As far as I’m concerned they are natural carbon sequestration system. W-M can’t seem to make up it’s mind, because in other places they have subsidies for planting trees.
SEC. 127. OPEN FUEL STANDARD. (page 126-128)
Salt Mines? It looks like someone inserted a floor speech here about how we need ethanol, biodiesel etc. for our national security. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised to find somebody’s shopping list in here.
SEC. 130A. REPORT ON NATURAL GAS VEHICLE EMISSIONS REDUCTIONS. (page 136)
Actually compressed natural gas isn’t that bad an idea, but right now hybrids produce less GHG . They actually built a CNG Prius, but it only dropped from 104 g/km to 92 g/km of CO2. I’m leaning to Ammonia as a longer term solution. It doesn’t produce any CO2 at all, just nitrogen and water. Natural Gas does make sense from an energy security point of view and less environmental impact than ethanol.
References:
Ammonia
http://nh3car.com/FAQ1.htm
http://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/blog2/?s=ammonia
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