ENERGY 101: ELECTRIC VEHICLES
While the North American International Auto Show is slated to kick off today in Detroit, and the industry is already abuzz with the latest innovations in electric vehicles, we wanted to take a moment to highlight how electric vehicles (EVs) work and what current and future models are doing to cut transit costs, reduce emissions, and strengthen our nation's energy security.
The basic principles behind the technology are this: the electric vehicle’s battery transfers energy to an electric motor, the motor turns a drive train, which then turns the wheels. Up to 80 percent of the energy in the battery is transferred directly to power the car, making it a highly efficient mode of transportation. That means as the owner of an all-electric vehicle, you never have to fuel up at the gas pump -- instead, you just recharge the battery at home or at charging stations along your route.
Compared to conventional vehicles, the driving range of an all-electric EV -- typically about 100 miles per charge -- may seem limited. However, when you consider the average American daily commute is under 40 miles roundtrip, it becomes clear that EVs are a reliable and comfortable way to regularly get from point A to point B, while reducing a dependence on oil and gasoline and contributing to a sustainable environment. And with an ever-increasing number of public charging stations, it's also becoming easier to top off your charge, even when you're on the go.
Take a lot of lengthy road trips and worried if the range of an all-electric EV can meet your needs? Then maybe an "extended-range" electric vehicle is more your style. These vehicles rely primarily on an electric motor, but switch over to a gasoline-fueled engine to supplement power when the battery is low.
The costs of today's EVs are coming down relative to similar-sized conventional and hybrid vehicles, and long-term savings can be realized through fuel savings and by taking advantage of a federal tax credit
and state and local incentives.
Learn about the advantages of electric vehicles, see EVs in action, and find out how they work by checking out the video above and exploring our alternative fueling station locator to find a list of public charging stations in your area.
With all 15 EcoCAR 2 teams arriving last week to present their work to panels of expert judges, the competition finals for Year 1 are underway in Los Angeles, California.
EcoCAR 2: Plugging into the Future is a three-year collegiate engineering competition that challenges 15 student teams across North America to develop highly efficient vehicles using technologies that can save consumers money at the pump and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Student teams explore a variety of powertrain architectures, with a focus on electric drive technology, in a pursuit to improve vehicle efficiency while retaining consumer acceptability, performance, and safety. The competition is sponsored by the Energy Department and General Motors, as well as Natural Resources Canada and 25 other industry sponsors who make this competition possible.
This year, the competition allowed students to lay a solid foundation for their designs by focusing on modeling and simulation. After selecting their vehicle architectures, teams used software and other tools provided by sponsors such as MathWorks, dSpace and Freescale to run virtual tests on their chosen designs. These sponsors not only provide tools, but also lend expertise and mentoring to the student participants. At the finals, panels of judges from sponsoring organizations and other experts in the field determine whether team designs meet the competition’s criteria. Upon the judges’ approval, each team will receive a 2013 Chevrolet Malibu, donated by General Motors, to begin the hands-on component of the competition, implementing their designs in an actual vehicle.
Teams have already demonstrated their Hardware-in-the-Loop strategies to the judges, which allow an evaluation of individual components in a simulated vehicle environment. They have also presented their outreach plans for raising public awareness, as well as their business plans, which describe how they operate their teams in a way that matches real-world automotive industry practices. Over the next few days, the teams will delve into even more technical subject matter as they present detailed plans on the mechanical, controls, and electrical systems that will support their designs. The Year 1 competition will conclude today, with winners in each of these categories and several others.
While we look forward to seeing who comes out on top in Year 1, we also anticipate seeing what the teams accomplish in Years 2 and 3, when they first integrate their systems into a “mule” vehicle and then refine their vehicles to meet consumer standards. No matter what the final outcome, we are confident that the students are all learning skills that will prepare them to design the next generation of highly efficient automobiles far beyond the competition.
Michael Hess
Digital Communications Specialist, Office of Public Affairs
How does this innovation work?
A plasma reformer attached to the engine extracts hydrogen from the fuel.
The device injects the hydrogen into the combustion process making the fuel burn more completely.
A catalyst attached to the tailpipe cleans up 85 percent of remaining emissions.
In just a few months, startup company Umpqua Energy will open its first manufacturing facility with 50 new employees producing an emission control system that can potentially reduce the emissions from vehicles by 90 percent.
In a significant technological jump, the startup’s system is scalable to any engine including those of cars, trucks, trains, or even power plants.
Equally impressive is the fact that this technology was sitting in Argonne National Laboratory not so long ago, and now it’s drawing attention from the State of California and major automakers. Umpqua Energy licensed a part of its system under an agreement with the National Lab as part of the America’s Next Top Energy Innovator program. The program reduced the upfront cost of obtaining an option agreement to license national lab technologies and simplified the process in an effort to make the discoveries made by the labs more accessible to entrepreneurs.
As a result, Umpqua Energy and 35 other startups licensed 42 patents from the labs. For an upfront fee of $1,000, each company could license up to three patents of the 15,000 patents held by the labs. Fourteen of those companies entered into the America’s Next Top Energy Innovator Challenge to compete for the spotlight at 2012 ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit.
Last week, Secretary Chu recognized Umpqua Energy as one of the top three companies selected by an online vote and a panel of experts, who evaluated the company’s propensity for social and economic impact.
The catalyst developed at Argonne completes the revolutionary system by cleaning up 85 percent of the NOx as it escapes through an attachment on the tailpipe. The first applications for the company will be retrofits to car and diesel fleet vehicles. Argonne originally developed the catalyst with power plants in mind, so the next application will likely be scaled up to industrial power generation, according to Williams Evans, Umpqua Energy CEO and founder.
Umpqua Energy is on the forefront of the reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing gas mileage and increasing fuel savings, which is why they were selected as one of America’s Next Top Energy Innovators.
GOING BIG: BUILDING THE LARGEST EVER
ENERGY EFFICIENCY PROJECT
The popular expression “go big or go home” means to go all the way. And an energy efficiency project at a paper manufacturer in Longview, Washington, went so big that it’s thought to be the largest of its kind in the United States, ever. It’s so big that the energy experts at ESource, who answer thousands of energy-related questions every year, couldn’t find a reported project that’s saved more energy.
NORPAC is the largest newsprint and specialty paper mill in North America. Its 33 year-old mill produces 750,000 tons of paper a year and on a daily basis makes enough paper to stretch a 30 foot wide sheet from their Northwest mill all the way to Miami, Florida. NORPAC is the largest industrial consumer of electricity in the State of Washington, requiring about 200 average megawatts of power, which is about 1.75 million times more power than the average household uses in an entire month.
In the face of high manufacturing costs and a declining newsprint market, NOPRAC President Paul Whyatt says, “conserving and mitigating the costs of electricity is core to our survival.”
NORPAC buys its electricity from Cowlitz County Public Utility District (PUD), who buys wholesale power from the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). BPA, Cowlitz PUD and other public utilities in the Northwest work with industrial companies to identify energy-savings opportunities.
“Energy efficiency is the first-choice, least-cost alternative for meeting the increasing demand for
electricity in the Pacific Northwest,” says BPA Administrator Steve Wright. “This is a breakthrough project that sends a signal about the incredible opportunities out there.”
It takes a lot of energy, water, and wood to make paper and the process begins with wood chips. Refining wood chips is a mechanical process that requires large amounts of energy. (Refining machines are driven by numerouselectric motors that require thousands of connected horsepower.) BPA and Cowlitz PUD are funding the installation of new screening equipment between refiners that reduces the electricity and chemicals used to refine wood chips.
The project, known as the Chip Pretreatment Interstage Screen Project, adds two new components to the NORPAC facility. Phase one, which was completed last summer, added new equipment that treats wood chips with steam and chemicals before they get refined into pulp. The second feature, the interstage screening, allows paper-ready wood fibers to bypass the second stage of refining. With less pulp in the secondary refiners NORPAC can cut its power requirements by about 12 percent. Once complete, the project is expected to save NORPAC 100 million kilowatt hours of electricity a year (12 average megawatts), which is enough energy to power 8,000 Northwest homes. In addition, the construction created 64 full-time jobs in Longview.
The improved refining processes have also allowed NORPAC to expand its product line. The result is NORPAC’s newest product, its Norbrite 92 high-grade office copy paper, which it began marketing in June.
The mill can now produce a brighter and whiter paper that’s made from less wood chips than a similar grade from their competitors.
