Transportation ZENN

What does Zen mean to you?

I recently took a (somewhat challenging [surprisingly]) course in Chinese Philosophy recently and was introduced to the true and original idea of Zen. Not to imply that I'm somehow better suited to write about this than someone else; you could get the same information from wikipedia.

But I digress.

Zen is short for Zen Buddhism (or Chan Buddhism), a collection of principles of thinking devoted to letting go of all pre-conceived notions and, basically, going with the flow. By accepting Zen into your life you move past emotions and hang-ups and stress and worry in order to find a universal flow. It's a beautiful way of thinking but one I find myself very far from when I am cruising down a 6-lane freeway in SoCal. There is not a lot of Zen to be found on I-5, trust me.

One company, however, is looking to change that idea. Enter ZENNcars.

Here's a pic of one I saw at the Santa Monica Alt Fuel Expo:


ZENN stands for Zero Emissions No Noise and is poised to be the first mass-produced, usable, and widely-available electric car manufacturer to come to the states. Their brand credo:

Since we first began to walk, we have loved the feeling of movement.
To get around and see the world.
To be free.
Cars have given us mobility.
But with the heavy costs of pollution and oil dependency.
ZENN is about returning to the purity of that original feeling.
ZENN may look like a car, but it refuses to act like one.
You'll experience the simple joy of moving freely.
With silent, exhilarating acceleration
ZENN will quietly change the way you think about getting from A to B.
The air is clean and your conscience is clear.
ZENN is a car that, while it runs on electricity, is fueled by optimism,
The belief that individuals can make a difference,
That we can do better.
ZENN is enlightened mobility

That's... that's beautiful. Can you give me a minute?

OK, I'm good.. something in my eye... eyelash or something *sniff* I'm cool.

If anything, they have excellent copywriters, that must be said. The proof, however, is always in the numbers, particularly with cars. So what's the low-down?

I guess I should note thte vehicle I'm talking about. If you're messing about on the ZENNcar website, you're probably seeing the regular ZENN car with a 25MPH speed limit and a 35 miles range. While that's fine and dandy, the car I'm referring to is their upcoming subcompact, the cityZENN. Red Ferret has the skinny:

What’s even more interesting are reports that the company plans on releasing a ‘proper’ highway legal electric vehicle next year called the cityZenn, based around EEstor technology. We’re talking 80 mph and 250 mile range, rechargeable in less than 5 minutes. Yeah yeah, I know, believe it when we see it, but hey, these guys seem kosher and have actually invested substantial money in the EEstore company. We’ll see, eh?

That sounds like the EV silver bullet we've all been waiting for, IMHO. It certainly begs an important question: why does it take an hour or more to charge my cell phone but these guys are claiming a 5-minute recharge? Capacitors, son!

From Cleantech:

"We need to move away from chemical battery technology to a whole new way of storing energy for electric vehicles, with a solid infrastructure to support global roll out," said Ian Clifford, CEO of Zenn, at the company's annual general meeting.
"Through their massive improvements on energy storage and power density, EEStor will virtually eliminate all of the shortcomings of existing and proposed chemical battery technology."

Don't worry, I'll do a Green WotD about it soon.

Before I realized that the car promoted on the ZENN site was not the same as the one that is coming out next year, I built one. MSRP is $19,445, specs area here.


I'm all about the EV. I wasn't always but I am now. Electricity is something that humans are always going to need and in increasing amounts (assuming that the population increases or stays the same). The global energy crisis we're facing/seeing/fearing/blogging about includes, for the time being, two different components: transportation and everything else. The more we understand these two things to be the same, the better we understand the problem as a whole. Our energy problem is a global problem despite borders and wars and obfuscation through vocabulary. Energy is energy and however we get it now or in the future, we're going to need a lot of it. The most renewable options - widal, wind, solar, biomass - are all means for generating electricity and that electricity, in whatever form, will need to go towards powering our vehicles.

That is all.

Green Vocab WotD #003: REEV

A quick one

REEV = Range Extended Electric Vehicle.

From ecogeek.org:

The idea of a REEV is that an electric motor drives the car 100% of the time. REEVs plug in to your house and charge overnight or while you're at work (4-8 hours depending on batteries), and then the REEV drives purely on the more-efficient (though still not carbon-neutral) grid power for a set number of miles (generally betweem 20 and 60.)

After those 20 - 60 miles of driving, a small onboard generator kicks on to recharge the batteries and "extend the range" of the electric vehicle. This onboard generator can be anything that produces power: gasoline engine, diesel engine, ethanol engine, or even a hydrogen fuel cell. The vehicle remains as efficient as a hybrid even after the grid power is all used up because they still use regenerative breaking.

The engine (meaning that which does some kind of power production: gasoline/diesel combustion, ethanol combustion, fuel cell, etc) does not power the wheels, it charges the batteries. That means that forward motion is only being caused by an electric motor so they are, in all sense, electric vehicles (or EVs).

I think this is an interesting concept but I wonder: is this just another technology to "get us through the now" (such as the Prius - good for now but not forever) or is this our answer for the next century+? Something to think about...

Green Vocab WotD #002: Biodiesel

Thought the WotD was a one-time thing, huh?

biodiesel

Before anyone gets up in arms about my reduction of such a cool technology to a simple vocabulary word, realize that there are not a lot of people out there who really know what biodiesel is. And, who better to explain it to the people than me, right? My readership, at this point, must be in the low millions, my delivery style is smart but accessible, and I almost have a degree so... yeah.

First thing is first - let's consult Wikipedia on the matter:

This article is about transesterified plant and animal oils.For thermally processed biodiesel, see Biomass to liquid. For hydrogenated alkane renewable diesel, see NExBTL. For organic waste to light crude production, see Thermal Depolymerization. For unmodified vegetable oil used as motor fuel, see Vegetable oil used as fuel.

What the...? Already we have a problem: there are a bunch of different kinds of biodiesel. Maybe that is where some of the common confusion comes from. We'll get into a technical description of all of that in a bit.

For a more general description, I went to biodiesel.org. They tell me that there are three different kinds of "biodiesel" happening in the world today (I assume these are the pirmary types with many other variations)...

-> The fuel with the true Biodiesel moniker is one made of "mono-alkyl esters of long chain fatty acids derived from vegetable oils or animal fats." Long chain fatty acids are components of fat (yes, that fat) and it is what gives them their greasy feeling and ability to cling to your dishes. This also means they are "hydrophobic" or do not mix with water (for all of you that thought 'non-polar,' that's right too). Calling something a 'mono-alkyl ester' means that, instead of an acid group (making it a 'fatty acid'), there is an ester group (the acidic hydrogen of the acid is replaced by one carbon and three non-acidic hydrogens). This process basically makes the compound more energetic and easier to burn.


-> The next fuel that is more or less biodiesel but doesn't get the name is Renewable Diesel. This is described as "fuel produced from biological material using a process called 'thermal depolymerization.'" Polymerization is a process (natural and otherwise) where small molecules are turned into larger molecules. As an example, plastics are polymers - 'poly' indicating many repetitions and 'mer' indicating a unit. So, reverse it and think about what happens when you depolymerize something thermally - you change the temperature enough so that large (in this case biological) molecule break into smaller ones to be used. As molecules polymerize, they typically become more stable and less likely to combust. Break them down and you might get something that can burn.


-> Last but not least (and possibly more likely to be popular for the time being) is co-produced renewable diesel which is generated "when an oil company adds small amounts vegetable oils or animal fats to the traditional petroleum refining process when producing diesel fuel (coprocessing)." Think E85 but, like, B15. A portion of the diesel fuel being produced is replaced with something renewable, likely similar to the biodiesel defined above. This, IMHO, is a nice gesture but too little too late.

Here are the FAQs (that I've heard at least)

Can any diesel car run on biodiesel?

This is a great question and the answer, through the reading that I have done, is yes. I've read that it may have a better solvent effect (meaning that material is more easily transported by biodiesel compared to regular diesel) which actually would lead to a cleaner engine and fuel system. This, however, may also "degrade natural rubber gaskets and hoses in vehicles [mostly found in vehicles manufactured before 1992]" (Wiki). All-in-all, you shouldn't have to worry about it too much but, to be safe, I would probably recommend taking your car to a good diesel mechanic and consulting him/her about it (JIC).

Does biodiesel have a greater or lesser impact on the environment?

A very important question, especially when you start talking about a fuel that is known for being, in the past at least, quite dirty. Here's what biodiesel.org has to saw about the matter (in their FAQ section):

A 1998 biodiesel lifecycle study, jointly sponsored by the US Department of Energy and the US Department of Agriculture, concluded biodiesel reduces net CO² emissions by 78 percent compared to petroleum diesel. This is due to biodiesel’s closed carbon cycle. The CO² released into the atmosphere when biodiesel is burned is recycled by growing plants, which are later processed into fuel..Is biodiesel safer than petroleum diesel? Scientific research confirms that biodiesel exhaust has a less harmful impact on human health than petroleum diesel fuel. Biodiesel emissions have decreased levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and nitrited PAH compounds that have been identified as potential cancer causing compounds.

Brilliant! I, honestly, never realized how green that fuel really is. A diesel hybrid running off of biodiesel fuel is a great way to drastically reduce your carbon footprint and save a bit of cash!

FYI, EPA says a 67% reduction... a bit less


Is it hard to find? Does it cost more?

There are over Does biodiesel have a greater or lesser impact on the environment?">1,200 places pumping biodiesel fuel in the United States so, no, not too hard to find if you're near a major metro area. Cost-wise, it's hard to say... I want to swing by Pearson Fuel nearby my place to see what it goes for. There is not a lot of current, accurate information on how much biodiesel costs; I've seen $1 to 2 or $3 to more in my random Google search.

There is certainly much more to know and learn... this is a technology I'm going to keep my eye on.

Green Vocab WotD #001: Cogeneration

My, aren't I being optimistic by numbering this one 001 and though I expect 998 more of them! I'm hoping to bring a little more information into my blog here as well as keep myself "in the know." No use talking about stuff I know very little about, eh?

Cogeneration:

From Wiki:

Cogeneration (also combined heat and power, CHP) is the use of a heat engine or a power station to simultaneously generate both electricity and useful heat.

Hence, COgeneration. It goes on...

Conventional power plants emit the heat created as a byproduct of electricity generation into the environment through cooling towers, as flue gas, or by other means. CHP or a bottoming cycle captures the byproduct heat for domestic or industrial heating purposes, either very close to the plant, or —especially in Scandinavia and eastern Europe—for distribution through pipes to heat local housing.

This goes back to the LED lights I put on my X-mas tree. I told you that there is no hear coming off of them and that is where the energy savings is. In this case, the "byproduct of electricity generation" is heat and there is nothing to do about that (for now). So, there is waste energy. Remember, heat = light = electricity = radiation = energy. They are in different forms but it's all, thermodynamically, the same thing. We could theoretically power our own biological processes with electricity... in fact some of them are (nervous system, anyone?)

Cogeneration is another example of "Big Picture" thinking. Someone realized, decades after the discovery, that, hey, energy is energy. Waste heat (like your car engine) is wasted energy from gasoline. Get rid of the waste heat and you use less gasoline, plain and simple. In the case that you can't get rid of the heat (like your car engine), use it somehow.

In the United States, Con Edison produces 30 billion pounds of steam each year through its seven cogeneration plants (which boil water to 1,000°F/538°C) before pumping it to 100,000 buildings in Manhattan—the biggest commercial steam system in the world.

Cities are disgusting, pollution-soaked, dangerous clusters of wasteful humans... for now. They are also beautiful in their design and complexity and a great place to start using green technology. I find cities fascinating and will likely never live outside of one. Despite the destruction and waste that goes into maintaining them, it is better, in my opinion, than sprawl. Working to make NY, LA, Seattle, etc. cleaner will always trickle down to other locations.

Where was I going with that? Oh yeah... that kind of heating couldn't really happen in Spokane or Poway or any other small city. The electricity generation has to be massive and the populated areas have to be nearby. Look forward to systems like this pervading the nation.

Byproduct heat at moderate temperatures (212-356°F/100-180°C) can also be used in absorption chillers for cooling. A plant producing electricity, heat and cold is sometimes called trigeneration or more generally: polygeneration plant.

Heat used for cooling?! That's witchcraft!!! Not really... refrigerant like what is in your car/home AC is simply moved and vaporized using heat. Refrigerant cools things down by evaporating, like how your hand gets cold when you spill rubbing alcohol on it. It's all thermodynamics!

Cogeneration is a thermodynamically efficient use of fuel. In separate production of electricity some energy must be rejected as waste heat, but in cogeneration this thermal energy is put to good use.

Amen to that!

Hopefully we all learned something... I know I did :)