One of its maiden projects reflects the philanthropy’s nontraditional approach. According to people briefed on the program, the organization, called Google.org, plans to develop an ultra-fuel-efficient plug-in hybrid car engine that runs on ethanol, electricity and gasoline.As much as I love plug-in hybrids, this needs something else if it's truly going to help global warming. Conventional ethanol is no help, gasoline obviously won't help, and most US electricity comes from coal. Moreover, the Google boys either haven't been paying attention or they're more interested in competing in the private market, because plenty of companies are already working on exactly this.
The philanthropy is consulting with hybrid-engine scientists and automakers, and has arranged for the purchase of a small fleet of cars with plans to convert the engines so that their gas mileage exceeds 100 miles per gallon. The goal of the project is to reduce dependence on oil while alleviating the effects of global warming.
I don't mean to be down on this, but there are far more underserved aspect of the global warming problem - carbon-neutral liquid fuels, renewable electricity generation - that Google could be spending it's money on.
All the same, the more money we have working on this, I suppose the more credibility it will have. Now if only GM, Toyota, and Ford could get their asses in gear.
1 comment:
Well it sounds like an extremely good start to me. Petrol engines are only about 17% efficent compared to up to 90% efficency for an electric engine. Several energy storage methods have charge and discharge efficencies of over 95%. Although there may be 7% power loss as power is sent through the grid and perhaps another 7% loss as it is converted to charge batteries. If the power generated comes from a coal power plant that operates at 45% efficiency then once we do the sum we find that a car that uses grid electicity has an efficency of about 32% which is which is almost twice as efficent as a petrol powered car. If we assume that two thirds of grid electricity comes from coal and the rest from low emmissions sources such as wind, nuclear and hydroelectric, then a car that runs of grid electricity should produce considerably less than half as much CO2 as a petrol powered car.
It should even produce less CO2 than a diesel powered vechile.
Electrical power can come from low emission sources. For example, the University of Queensland in Australia built a two seater hybrid car with solar panels that could travel up to 60 kilometers a day on solar power alone. (Of course solar power may not be that helpful during a Canadian winter.)
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