Chester News and Reporter
Monday
November 12, 2007
GUEST COLUMN: Saw future drive by on electricity
Photo by A special hybrid Prius with an extra strong battery visited Chester last week.
By Bill Floyd
Hey y'all! The future is here, and it passed through Chester last Thursday. I saw it myself. I was backing out of my parking space at CVS, glanced in my side mirror and saw a Toyota Prius parked behind me. It had writing on it, and reading backwards in the mirror I could tell it said, "Plug In Hybrid" and "100+ mpg." I thought, "Wow! I gotta learn more about this!" So I waited for the driver to come out of the store. He was sandy-haired, mid 30's in a business suit and tie. I said, "Sir, I couldn't help but notice your car." He smiled like a proud papa and proceeded to tell me about his "baby". This was James Poch, executive director of Pluginhybridcoalition of the Carolinas, based in Charleston.
This was no ordinary Prius. The stock 0.8 kilowatt battery had been replaced by a 4.5 kilowatt lithium ion battery. (That would make the Energizer Bunny proud!) They added some gadgetry to charge the battery and a plug to fit in a regular household outlet. He plugs it into an outlet in his garage and lets it charge overnight when power demand is low. This battery is the latest model, and they estimate it will last seven to 10 years, which is about how long most people keep a car. This custom-built car cost $40-$50,000, but would come down to a couple thousand more than an ordinary hybrid with mass production.
For local driving or a short commute to work, this car would use no gasoline. The cost to charge this vehicle would add around $30 per month to the electric bill, as compared to $150 per month for gasoline. The battery charge would have a range of 20 to 60 miles without recharging or using gasoline. If the battery fades, the gasoline engine kicks in. This certainly ought to let you drop the kids off at school, go to work, get groceries and go to church and out for Sunday dinner, all without using any gasoline. It's certainly much more than a golf cart on steroids. Is this the best that this technology will ever be? I doubt it. This technology will improve in the coming years and get better and cheaper. That's why we call it research! But it's a great start. Go to www.plugincarolina.org to learn more.
But it raises some interesting questions. If cars average 20 mpg today, and in five years enough people embrace plug-in hybrids to raise the average mileage on our roads to 40 mpg, revenue from road taxes paid on motor fuel will drop by half! That means way less money for fixing pot holes and bridges. They don't pay me to think about problems like that, so I'll leave that for the long range planning committee of the State Budget and Control Board to worry about.
But right now, driving a hybrid which supplements the road fuel with "free" electricity is perfectly legal and applauded as "wonderful," "marvelous" and "the right thing to do" by everyone except the guy in charge of collecting road use taxes. Is supplementing road fuel with untaxed electricity from the power grid legal? Apparently. James Poch is driving all over the state proudly proclaiming his plug-in hybrid technology, which is sponsored by corporate giants like Duke Energy, SCE&G, Progress Energy and others.
But what about other fuel supplement technologies? The Charlotte Observer carried a June 13, 2007 story about Bob Teixeria who spent $1,200 to convert his 1981 diesel Mercedes to run on vegetable oil. He bought cooking oil in 5 gal jugs, spending about 30 percent more per gallon than diesel would cost at a filling station. He was so proud of his environmentally responsible project that he put a "Powered by Veggie Oil" bumper sticker on his car. North Carolina law enforcement took him at his word, pulled him over, tested his tank and fined him $1,000 for using untaxed fuel on a public road, and told him to expect a similar fine from the feds. "Tax evasion" they call it. He was told he needed to post a $2,500 bond to legally use veggie oil on public roads. Outraged Illinois lawmakers quickly waived their state's $2,500 bond requirement when an elderly man was busted for using waste veggie oil in his car. Is this the case on South Carolina roads?
I detect a discrepancy in the law here. We are encouraged to be environmentally responsible, to conserve and recycle. President Bush has declared us a nation addicted to foreign oil, and that we need to reduce our dependency on oil imports. It's quite acceptable to supplement road fuel with electricity generated by stock modifications on a hybrid car. It is apparently legal to supplement road fuel with untaxed electricity drawn from the power grid. But it appears to be illegal to supplement road fuel with recycled cooking oil. A fuel supplement is a fuel supplement, isn't it? Both extend the miles per gallon of petroleum-based fuel. Yet a viable alternative meets with governmental punishment. Why is this?
Or how about oxy-hydrogen supplements? Kits are available to install in a car (gas or diesel), add a gallon of water and use electricity from the battery/alternator to decompose the water into hydrogen gas and oxygen gas. This gas supplements the fuel by bleeding into the air intake after the oxygen sensor. It is reported to increase fuel mileage by 20 to 50 percent resulting in cleaner emissions and a 20 to 50 percent reduction in road use taxes paid.
Conceivably, some curmudgeon in the state or federal government could throw a serious wet blanket over these things by charging people who find ways to supplement their road fuel with tax evasion. Government can either promote and encourage alternative fuel supplement technologies to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and be environmentally responsible, or can punish those who try to be environmentally responsible and do the right thing by seeing it as tax evasion. Technology is advancing more rapidly than the law. The law needs to adapt to these evolving technologies or it will lose its relevance and become a hindrance to progress.
So what should the law do? Any time you mention alcohol or motor fuel, the first thing the government does is stick its hand out for money. Both are controlled substances. But Government has had much longer to get a handle on alcohol. The law allows a head of household to make 200 gallons of alcohol per year for personal consumption. Selling it to others is illegal. Maybe this is a good approach for alternative fuel supplements. Allow an individual to supplement his own fuel by any means without interference from the government. This will allow the motivated back-yard tinkerer to get the bugs worked out of simple systems right now while we wait for government labs and big industry to come out with their solutions years from now. Like most folks, I'm not that concerned about a great new development 10 years from now. I want something to get me to work tomorrow morning.
This was no ordinary Prius. The stock 0.8 kilowatt battery had been replaced by a 4.5 kilowatt lithium ion battery. (That would make the Energizer Bunny proud!) They added some gadgetry to charge the battery and a plug to fit in a regular household outlet. He plugs it into an outlet in his garage and lets it charge overnight when power demand is low. This battery is the latest model, and they estimate it will last seven to 10 years, which is about how long most people keep a car. This custom-built car cost $40-$50,000, but would come down to a couple thousand more than an ordinary hybrid with mass production.
For local driving or a short commute to work, this car would use no gasoline. The cost to charge this vehicle would add around $30 per month to the electric bill, as compared to $150 per month for gasoline. The battery charge would have a range of 20 to 60 miles without recharging or using gasoline. If the battery fades, the gasoline engine kicks in. This certainly ought to let you drop the kids off at school, go to work, get groceries and go to church and out for Sunday dinner, all without using any gasoline. It's certainly much more than a golf cart on steroids. Is this the best that this technology will ever be? I doubt it. This technology will improve in the coming years and get better and cheaper. That's why we call it research! But it's a great start. Go to www.plugincarolina.org to learn more.
But it raises some interesting questions. If cars average 20 mpg today, and in five years enough people embrace plug-in hybrids to raise the average mileage on our roads to 40 mpg, revenue from road taxes paid on motor fuel will drop by half! That means way less money for fixing pot holes and bridges. They don't pay me to think about problems like that, so I'll leave that for the long range planning committee of the State Budget and Control Board to worry about.
But right now, driving a hybrid which supplements the road fuel with "free" electricity is perfectly legal and applauded as "wonderful," "marvelous" and "the right thing to do" by everyone except the guy in charge of collecting road use taxes. Is supplementing road fuel with untaxed electricity from the power grid legal? Apparently. James Poch is driving all over the state proudly proclaiming his plug-in hybrid technology, which is sponsored by corporate giants like Duke Energy, SCE&G, Progress Energy and others.
But what about other fuel supplement technologies? The Charlotte Observer carried a June 13, 2007 story about Bob Teixeria who spent $1,200 to convert his 1981 diesel Mercedes to run on vegetable oil. He bought cooking oil in 5 gal jugs, spending about 30 percent more per gallon than diesel would cost at a filling station. He was so proud of his environmentally responsible project that he put a "Powered by Veggie Oil" bumper sticker on his car. North Carolina law enforcement took him at his word, pulled him over, tested his tank and fined him $1,000 for using untaxed fuel on a public road, and told him to expect a similar fine from the feds. "Tax evasion" they call it. He was told he needed to post a $2,500 bond to legally use veggie oil on public roads. Outraged Illinois lawmakers quickly waived their state's $2,500 bond requirement when an elderly man was busted for using waste veggie oil in his car. Is this the case on South Carolina roads?
I detect a discrepancy in the law here. We are encouraged to be environmentally responsible, to conserve and recycle. President Bush has declared us a nation addicted to foreign oil, and that we need to reduce our dependency on oil imports. It's quite acceptable to supplement road fuel with electricity generated by stock modifications on a hybrid car. It is apparently legal to supplement road fuel with untaxed electricity drawn from the power grid. But it appears to be illegal to supplement road fuel with recycled cooking oil. A fuel supplement is a fuel supplement, isn't it? Both extend the miles per gallon of petroleum-based fuel. Yet a viable alternative meets with governmental punishment. Why is this?
Or how about oxy-hydrogen supplements? Kits are available to install in a car (gas or diesel), add a gallon of water and use electricity from the battery/alternator to decompose the water into hydrogen gas and oxygen gas. This gas supplements the fuel by bleeding into the air intake after the oxygen sensor. It is reported to increase fuel mileage by 20 to 50 percent resulting in cleaner emissions and a 20 to 50 percent reduction in road use taxes paid.
Conceivably, some curmudgeon in the state or federal government could throw a serious wet blanket over these things by charging people who find ways to supplement their road fuel with tax evasion. Government can either promote and encourage alternative fuel supplement technologies to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and be environmentally responsible, or can punish those who try to be environmentally responsible and do the right thing by seeing it as tax evasion. Technology is advancing more rapidly than the law. The law needs to adapt to these evolving technologies or it will lose its relevance and become a hindrance to progress.
So what should the law do? Any time you mention alcohol or motor fuel, the first thing the government does is stick its hand out for money. Both are controlled substances. But Government has had much longer to get a handle on alcohol. The law allows a head of household to make 200 gallons of alcohol per year for personal consumption. Selling it to others is illegal. Maybe this is a good approach for alternative fuel supplements. Allow an individual to supplement his own fuel by any means without interference from the government. This will allow the motivated back-yard tinkerer to get the bugs worked out of simple systems right now while we wait for government labs and big industry to come out with their solutions years from now. Like most folks, I'm not that concerned about a great new development 10 years from now. I want something to get me to work tomorrow morning.
Floyd, a Chester resident, is a chemist.