Alternative Fuels Need More Than Hype to Drive Transportation Market

[OKIsItJustMe]

https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/alternative-fuels-need-more-hype-drive-transportation-market

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Alternative Fuels Need More Than Hype to Drive Transportation Market[/font]

By Kat Kerlin on March 2, 2016

[font size=3]Hype followed by disappointment: That’s been the general pattern over the past few decades when an alternative fuel is presented to the public. It’s a fuel du jour phenomenon, from methanol to hydrogen, where government leaders and the media hype a new fuel, only to abandon it when lofty expectations are not met.

…

The study, published in the journal Nature Energy, looks unsparingly at the history of hype around alternative fuel vehicles and what policies and innovations are needed to move from current shortfalls to widespread commercialization of low-carbon vehicles.

“Transportation is one of the biggest challenges in climate change abatement,” said lead author Jonn Axsen, an environmental professor at Simon Fraser University. “We are a long way from where we need to go. A full-on transition to alternative fuel vehicles needs to start today to have any hope of cutting our emissions by 80 percent in 2050.” That is a target to limit global average temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius.

…

The study shows that public attention has jumped from one alternative fuel to the next in continuous waves: first with methanol, natural gas and plug-in electric vehicles in the late 1980s and early 1990s, then to hybrid electric vehicles, hydrogen, and biofuels in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Most recently, attention has shifted back to plug-in electric vehicles.

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[immoderate]

1. Don't forget the aircar!

--imm

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. How could I!?

(as much as I might like to…)

[bananas]

3. Or the Thorium Car! "Nuclear quackery at its best."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x310925

txlibdem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-11 01:39 PM
Original message

U.S. Researcher: Cars Powered by Thorium

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Fledermaus Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-20-11 12:09 PM
Response to Reply #45

47. I want this post to live forever! Nuclear quackery at its best.
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[happyslug]

4. Lets look at some perspectives, the switch from the horse....

Contrary to popular opinion, most people prior to the automobile rode a horse to work, instead they walked. My Father, born in 1919, was the first generation to actually own an automobile, and that is NOT till after WWII. His father, nor his wife's father own an automobile, both walked to work (and my paternal Grandfather also walked to various job sites, he was a roofer for steel mills and thus traveled all over the country, mostly by foot, rarely by train, NEVER by automobile).

Similar stories are heard from most families that can trace their histories before WWII.

Now the first automobiles made for actual use (as oppose to show pieces) was in the 1880s, more in the 1890s. Wikipedia goes on and report that:

France, where 30,204 were produced in 1903, representing 48.8% of world automobile production that year

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_automobile

Thus a decade after the first "Successful" commercial automobile (We are assuming 1890 as the date for the first successful automobile, but that was actually in 1886), you still had less then 70,000 automobiles WORLD WIDE. Here are the number of automobiles owned by Americans per 1000 Americans
since 1900:

1900......0.11
1905......0.94
1910......5.07
1920....86.78
1930...217.34
1940...245.63
1945...221.80
1950...323.71
1960...410.37
1970...545.35
1980...710.71
1990...773.40
2000...800.30
2007...843.57
2009...828.04

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle

Thus a little less then one out of 1000 people had an automobile by 1905, Just under .5% (Yes a half of a percent) of Americans had an automobile by 1910, 20 years after the first commercial automobile (Actually 24 years if we used 1886, but I am using 1890 for that is when you had several types available for sale).

The boom in the US caused by WWI, lead to a massive increase in Automobiles between 1910 and 1920, but that still meant only 8.6% of Americans owned a Automobile by 1920, 3 decades after the first commercial automobile. The boom of the 1920s lead to over 20% of people owning an automobile by 1930, the Great Depression and the decision by the Texas Railroad Commission to stabilize the price of oil lead to just under a 1/4 of Americans to own an automobile by 1940.

Side note: Ownership of Automobiles prior to about 1920 was restricted to the Rich and Upper Middle Class, less then 10% of all Americans at that time period. In the 1920s a switch was made to get Rural Farmers to buy automobile for they had extra cash for after WWI Europe refused to buy Soviet Wheat, thus had to rely on US Wheat exports, which produced increase profits till Stalin decided to dump wheat onto the European Market in 1927 in exchange for industrial goods. That sent the Farmers into the Great Depression in 1927, two years BEFORE the Stock Market Crash.

This emphasis on Rural America continued into the 1930s, most urban residents did NOT buy an automobile in the Great Depression. While the rural interurban Streetcars went out of business in the 1920s do to many of their riders converting to Automobiles, urban streetcars systems either held they own or expanded ridership in the 1930s and during WWII. For example the Los Angles streetcar system had its highest streetcar ridership in 1944, Pittsburgh had its highest ridership in 1927, but stayed close to that number till after WWII).

1954 is generally given as the year more people were buying replacement Automobiles as oppose to the first automobile in their families. Post WWII credit restrictions slowed down the process, but it perked up after 1948 (Credit Controls on the late 1940s including a ban on any installment plan to buy an Automobile that lasted more then 18 months, this was an effort to contain prices do to the huge demand built up during WWII).

500 care per 1000 people means one car for every family, but few second car. After 1954 you started to see more and more families with one automobile for the Husband and one for the Mother, but that did not become the "Norm" till the 1960s (and even as late as the 1970s, Husband and wives shared the same automobile). This is reflected in the numbers. By 1960 you had 410.37 automobiles per 1000 people, by 1970 that had increase to 545.35 cars per 1000 people, thus most "husbands" had a car by 1970, most wives still did not, but that changed in the 1970s for by 1980 you had 710,71 cars per 1000 people, enough for all men to have one, and many women to have one (and some children to have one).

I do not want to sound to sexists, but in most families of the 1950s till the 1980s the Husband was seen as the main bread winner and thus had first claim on the family automobile. Women quickly came to equal them in the number of automobiles, thus the push upward beyond, till in 2009 you had 828.04 Automobiles per 1000 people, Given at least 10% of the people of the US are below age 16, AND almost equal number of people are over age 70 AND have given up driving AND about 5% of the population takes mass transit to work (Less the people who collect cars, but most such collectibles are in a separate category).

Now in 2009 2.8% of workers walk to work (down from 5.6% in 1980), only .6% bike to work. In the 50 largest cities in the US, the percentage who walk to work is 5% in 2012, but a much lower number in Rural And Suburban American. Walking to work in more common in the Northeast, followed by the Midwest, least common in the American South. Biking is more common in the West and Alaska:

http://www.census.gov/hhes/commuting/files/2014/acs-25.pdf

76% of people drive alone to work, 5% take mass transit, 9.4% carpool and 4.4% work from home:

http://www.census.gov/hhes/commuting/files/2014/acs-32.pdf

Back to non Oil cars. It took till 1940, 50 years after the first successful commercial automobile for 1/4 of the population to own an automobile. It took well into the 1920s, 30 years after the first successful commercial automobile, to have 10% of the American people to own an automobile. If we assume the introduction of the Prius into the US in 2000 as the start of the alternative fuel automobile age, we are on the same pattern as the Automobile itself. In fact we are adopting such alternative fuel vehicle quicker then Americans adopted the Automobile after 1890.

For all practical purposes, we are more in the 1900 period of Auto usage, yes people know about them, some people are buying them, but the vast majority of people are avoiding them except to talk about.

It took to the mid 1920s to get 10% of Americans to buy an Automobile, that would be the equivalent of 2035 for the US to exceed 10% of Americans owning a alternative fuel vehicle, and 2050 before 25% owns one.

Just a comment about keeping this in prospective, and the original automobile adoption is a good comparison.