EEVC NEWSLETTER Published by the Eastern Club Peter Cleaveland, Editor Vol 27 No 2 Club Address: P.O. Box 134, Valley Forge, PA 19481-0134 FEBRUARY, 2007 email: [email protected]. Web site: www.eevc.info President: Oliver Perry, 5 Old Stagecoach Turn Shamong, NJ 08088, (609) 268-0944 Copyright © 2007, Eastern Electric Vehicle Club, all rights reserved Now affiliated with EAA

EEVC TO HOST 21ST CENTURY AUTOMOTIVE CHALLENGE Oliver Perry The EEVC is classes, and hosting the hybrid vehi- “21st Centu- cles using ry Automo- any of the tive Chal- previous lenge” June fuels. The 9-10, 2007 in purpose of Burlington the rally is to County, New determine Jersey. This which vehi- event will be cle, in each conducted in category, can the “Spirit of conserve the the American most fuel in Tour de Sol,” practical real which is on world driv- hold for ing. Anyone 2007. is welcome Saturday to partici- June 9th, the pate. activities will Proposed logo for the 21st Century Automotive Challenge (Lindy Groening) (Ethanol as a be staged at fuel is also The Burling- being con- ton County Institute of Technology. Sunday sidered.) June 10th, the vehicles will be placed on In addition to the Drive to the Shore display a few miles away at Historic event, the “21st Century Automotive Chal- Smithville Park, as a part of the annual lenge” will feature acceleration tests, range, Burlington County Earth Fair. and autocross events, with electric and solar June 9th we will feature a “Drive to the electric vehicles. Assuming a volunteer Shore” road rally for gasoline, diesel, and steps forward we can also include NEV, bio-diesel vehicles, each in two weight electric bike, and scooter competition. Ron Groening has volunteered to organize and NESEA board to look at the long term role of supervise the electric wheel chair and three NESEA in the transportation area. David Bar- wheel scooter event, newly added to the clay’s position, as related to me in December menu. of 2006, was as follows. Although David The next few months will very demanding hated to see the Tour put aside for a year he for a few of us. I have assumed the volunteer did not know how to provide for one without role of “2007 Tour Director” in the absence proper funding. I agreed with David that it of the former director Nancy Hazard, who would not be responsible for NESEA to spon- has moved on from NESEA (Northeast Sus- sor a last minute, thrown together Tour, just to tainable Energy Association). Dr. Paul Kydd keep it going. Mr. Barclay felt that whatever has volunteered to supervise a revised form was done, the Tour should be bigger and bet- of what was known the past several years as ter if possible, not smaller and poorer. the NESEA Monte Carlo hybrid road rally. Many of us who have participated in the And as I mentioned above, Ron Groening has Tour for years felt that it would be tragic (as volunteered to take on the electric wheel one of the NESEA volunteers stated) to “let chair event. We are counting on you, our fel- the ice cream melt!” It would be especially low EEVC members, to come along beside hard on schools that had established pro- us and make the “21st Century Automotive grams built around the annual Tour participa- Challenge” live up to its name. tion. Nancy Hazard had expressed similar The word of our event has just reached sediments. “The EV newsstands,” and already it’s the After a month of careful thought and “buzz!” Some very exciting things are falling research, David Barclay accepted my offer on into place. This event is the biggest and most behalf of the EEVC and the Burlington prestigious undertaking in our organization’s County Electechs, to provide a competitive recent history. It should be of the same size event in 2007 called the “21st Century Auto- and scope of several similar events which the motive Challenge. NESEA has notified all EEVC undertook when we hosted several past participants and volunteers of the oppor- Tour stopovers in Boyertown, Pa. back in the tunity for them to participate in our event, nineties. Guy Davis, Pete Cleaveland, Ed and is making the Tour supplies, presently in Kriebick, Dan Carlin, Ken Wells, and Dave storage, available for our use. Nancy Hazard Patterson were some of the major players in has also expressed her gratitude for our those days. efforts and is continuing to be a source of advice and counsel. Background to Tour 2007 Some members of the NESEA Board in For updates on the event, visit the EEVC recent years have considered changing the Web site at www.eevc.info. direction of the American Tour de Sol compo- nent of their wider energy agenda. The Tour has had to adapt to several losses of major “AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH” OR “A funding from the US Department of Energy, CONVENIENT MISTAKE?” , and Honda. For the past several years Global Warming Smear major players, Nancy Hazard in particular, Wall Street Journal Feb 9, 2007 have been volunteering their time, energy, and Oliver Perry even personal funds to keep the Tour alive. At “Mark Twain once complained that a lie the end of last year’s Tour, (2006) NESEA can make it halfway around the world before leaders felt that the time had finally arrived to the truth gets its boots on.” (Today with the rethink the program. Rethinking a program Internet it can go mega times around the can take considerable time. world before truth even knows there is a lie When Nancy Hazard retired from NESEA being circulated. I recently passed on a chain- in the summer of 2006, it became evident that mail story, thinking it was true because the NESEA would be hard pressed to sponsor the names involved in the account were well Tour in 2007. David Barclay, the new execu- known historical figures. Who would dare to tive director of NESEA, was asked by the publish misinformation so easily documented

2 if it were not true? A friend of mine checked Manchester- to pay individuals for commis- out the accuracy of the story. He forwarded a sioned work. He says that Exxon has con- link to a site which proved the whole thing tributed less than 1% of AEI’s budget over was a hoax. This legend has been being cir- the last decade.” culated around the world on the Internet since “By the way, commissioning such projects the nineties, knowing that suckers like me is also standard practice at NASA and other still bite.) government agencies and at liberal groups “That’s been the case of late in the climate such as the Pew Charitable Trusts, which change debate, as political and media activists have among them spent billions of dollars attempt to stigmatize anyone who doesn’t pay attempting to link fossil fuels to global warm- homage to their “scientific consensus.” ing.” Last week the London Guardian published Further along the Wall Street Journal arti- a story headlined, “Scientists Offer Cash to cle adds; “Yesterday Senators Bernard Dispute Climate Study.” The story alleges Sanders, , Dianne Feinstein, that the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and John Kerry sent a letter to Mr. DeMuth a conservative-leaning think tank in Wash- complaining that should these reports be ington, collected contributions from Exxon- accurate, then it would highlight the extent to Mobil and then offered climate scholars which moneyed interests distort honest scien- $10,000 so they could lobby against global tific and public policy discussions.” warming legislation. “We were told the Senators never bothered Another newspaper, the British Indepen- to contact AEI about the veracity of the dent, picked up on the story and claimed: “It reports, and by repeating the distortions, has come to light that one of the world’s these four Democratic senators, wittingly or largest oil companies, Exxon-Mobil, is not, gave credence to falsehood.” attempting to bribe scientists to pick holes in On page A16 in the Monday edition of the the IPCC’s assessment.” (The IPCC is the Wall Street Journal under the caption “Cli- United Nations climate-change panel.) mate of Opinion,” the editorial warns the “A CNNMoney.com report offered that, “A reader that the fourth assessment from the think tank partly funded by ExxonMobil sent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change letters to scientists offering them up to (IPCC) may be how far it is backpedaling on $10,000 to critique findings in a major global some key issues.” The original UN report warming study released Friday which found that caused such a stir with its dire doom and that global warming was real and likely gloom predictions was only a short policy caused by burning fossil fuels.” report written by policy makers not scientists. The Wall Street Journal continues… “According to people who have seen the full “Here are the facts as we’ve (WSJ) been scientific report due in May, it contains able to collect them. AEI doesn’t lobby, startling revisions of previous U.N. predic- didn’t offer money to scientists to question tions.” The supposedly high flood levels global warming, and the money it did pay for expected by the rapid global warming have in climate research didn’t come from Exxon.” some cases been reduced by one half. Adjust- “What AEI did was send a letter to several ments have been made in some of the sup- leading scientists asking them to participate posedly rapid temperature rises. According to in a symposium that would present a range of the U.S. National Climate Data Center, the policy prescriptions that should be considered world in 2006 was only .03 degrees Celsius for climate change of uncertain dimension. warmer than it was in 2001! Some of the scholars asked to participate, In summation, the jury seems to be still out including Steve Schroeder of Texas A&M, when it comes to arriving at firm scientific are climatologists who believe that global conclusions regarding global warming and its warming is a major problem.” consequences. “AEI President Chris DeMuth says, what Proceed with caution when addressing the the Guardian essentially characterizes as a global warming debate. bribe is the conventional practice of AEI-and It is okay to have an opinion on one of the Brookings, Harvard, and the University of key environmental issues of our day. But,

3 hopefully EEVC members will remain respectable by not claiming that we know for sure all there is to know about global warm- ing and its causes. To jump onto a political bandwagon that furthers our wishes with claims that scientific evidence backs our cause, at this point is foolhardy. It is far better to proceed with caution and let the real experts battle it out to a conclusion before we weigh in. For even a fool can be deemed wise if he keeps his mouth closed. Making claims that later may be proven wrong will put egg Also on display were a number of “pro- on our faces needlessly. duction debut” vehicles, for which availabili- ty for purchase varies from soon to who knows? These included the BMW Hydrogen BIG DOINGS AT AUTO SHOWS (above), which burns the hydrogen, rather Multiple auto shows have taken place in the than using it in a fuel cell, the GM Yukon last month or so, with interesting announce- Hybrid, the GM Aurora Green Line hybrid ments and vehicles at several of them. and the hybrid. One true electric was there as well: The Philadelphia ZAP Xebra three-wheeler. At the Philadelphia Auto Show, which ran Feb 3 to 11, there were some expected and Washington Auto Show some unexpected cars. A highlight of the The usual contingent of commercial D.C. Auto Show, hybrids were there, including the held January 24 - Silverado and Tahoe; the ; the 28, was the Ford Honda Accord; the GS 450h, LS 600h Edge with Hy- L and RX 400h; the Mercury Mariner; the Series Drive™, Altima; and the , High- billed as the lander and Prius. world’s first drivable fuel cell hybrid electric But there was also the West Philadelphia vehicle with plug-in capability. Like the High School Hybrid Attack, the fantastic stu- , it’s a series hybrid, using a dent-built biodiesel hybrid that won first powertrain first showcased in the Ford place in the road race for alternative fuel Airstream Concept at the Detroit Auto Show vehicles in the 2005 Tour de Sol. With a 150 and, also like the Volt, can use a fuel cell, hp diesel engine and a 200 hp electric motor small gasoline or diesel engine at the front in a 2520-pound car wrapped in slick carbon- end, along with a set of lithium ion batteries. fiber body, this thing can beat almost any- thing that comes along, electric, hybrid or otherwise. HIGH PERFORMER FROM ZAP There was also a Ford Reflex hybrid con- cept that combines a diesel engine, electric motor and solar panels. Auto Show The Chicago Auto Show, running Feb 9- 18th, had the usual hybrids and a good num- ber of concept cars: the Chevrolet Volt, the Honda FCX. Several vehicles were listed as “may be” or “might be” appearing, including the Tribute SUV Hybrid and the Toy- ota FT-HS hybrid sports concept.

4 On January 30 ZAP, of Santa Rosa, CA cerned, a California State Assemblyman has announced plans to display the ZAP-X, an introduced a bill in the legislature that would EV based on Lotus Engineering’s advanced outlaw the sale of incandescent light bulbs APX concept car at the North American between 25 watts and 150 watts by 2012. Dealers Association annual meeting and The fact that there are no compact fluores- exhibition in early February. The two compa- cents available for many applications, includ- nies plan to use the APX platform to create ing flame-shaped candelabra bulbs and bulbs an electric version of the Lotus which is used with dimmers doesn’t seem to phase this expected to have a top speed of a 155 mph guy. Another legislator is quoted as asking provided by four wheel hub motors with total “What, we're going to tell people we'll have output of 644 hp. Other touted features light bulb police?” include 10 minute recharge time and a 350 Anything is possible around here, howev- mile range. er. Remember that the city of San Francisco passed a local ordinance banning private ownership of handguns or ammunition for INNOVATIVE LAWS AND LAWSUITS them (it’s tied up in lawsuits at the moment) By California Pete and the Peoples’ Republic of Berkeley California continues to declared itself a nuclear-free zone in 1986, “out there” in a variety of with provisions for fines for nuclear ways. At the beginning of weapons-related activities and declared a February BP, which has boycott of any company involved in U.S. been touting itself as a nuclear infrastructure. Of course UC Berke- green oil company (lots of ley has long been a center of nuclear ads stressing their “green” weapons research, and the University of Cali- credentials, and even fornia manages Los Alamos National Labo- claiming that “BP” stands ratory and Lawrence Livermore National not for “British Petroleum“ Laboratory, but we’re not supposed to notice. but for “Beyond Petroleum”) agreed to fund a $100 million grant to develop new biofuels to NEWS UPDATE a consortium called the Energy Biosciences Institute, led by UC Berkeley teamed with the Rendell unveils energy independence University of Illinois. The center will fund strategy “radical research aimed at probing the emerg- One February 1 Pennsylvania governor Ed ing secrets of bioscience and applying them to Rendell released his Energy Independence the production of new and cleaner energy, Strategy, which is intended to save con- principally fuels for road transport," accord- sumers $10 billion in energy costs over ten ing to the company's Web site. BP has stated years. Key parts of the plan include smart that California’s recently-enacted legislation metering, rebates would be provided for cus- on limiting greenhouse gas emissions was a tomers turning in old, inefficient air condi- factor in choosing CAL. tioners and refrigerators, subsidies for resi- At the same time our new state attorney dential solar panels, legislation allowing large general, Jerry Brown (yes, he’s still around) energy consumers to enter into longer-term announced that he would continue a lawsuit contracts with their electricity providers, and against six major automakers for building more. For details check out vehicles that emit too much greenhouse gas. www.depweb.state.pa.us/energindependent/li He suggested a meeting with the automakers b/energindependent/documents/pr- (who at the same time are suing California to 020107.doc. stop the aforementioned cap on greenhouses gas emissions). Brown has offered to meet DOE announces $17M to increase auto- with the CEOs of the firms involved with an motive energy efficiency eye to settling their differences, but I On January 23 DOE Assistant Secretary wouldn’t bet on any result. for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy As far as interesting new laws are con- Alexander Karsner announced that DOE

5 intends to issue $17 million in solicitations to forecast that the region's energy imports will improve automobile efficiency and reduce jump to 65% of consumption by 2030, when U.S. dependence on foreign sources of oil. 84% of gas and 93% of oil will come from The funding will be offered as two separate overseas, and sets out ways to reduce the solicitations, one for $14 million to support dependence on Russia and other suppliers. plug-in technology and another for $3 million for research to improve E-85 engine efficiency. COMING EVENTS DOE’s FreedomCAR and Vehicle Tech- nologies Program will lead the efforts, stress- SAE 2007 World Congress ing research on PHEVs and E85-blended April 16-19, 2007, Detroit. Go to fuel. The $14 million cost-shared solicitation http://www.sae.org/congress for PHEV battery development aims to Battery Council International 119th Con- improve battery performance so that plug-in vention and Power Mart hybrid vehicles can deliver the 40 miles of April 22-25, 2007, Myrtle Beach, SC. Phone: electric range required for most round trip 312/644-6610, Fax: 312/527-6640, daily commutes. DOE has also created a [email protected]. PHEV test bed at DOE’s Argonne National 21st Century Automotive Challenge Laboratory. June 9-10, Burlington County, NJ. For infor- The $3 million cost-shared solicitation will mation contact Oliver Perry, 609-268-0944, support engineering advances to improve the [email protected], or visit www.eevc.info. fuel economy of E85 engines and reduce Fuel Cell 2007 vehicle emissions. The solicitations are sub- June 14th - 15th, Rochester NY. Contact ject to Congressional appropriations. Marsha Hanrahan, marshah@infoweb- com.com or go to www.fuelcell- U.S. wind power market booming magazine.com/fc_2007 conf_index.htm On January 23 the American Wind Energy Duryea Day #42 Association (AWEA) announced that wind Sept. 1, Boyertown, PA. Call 610-367-2090 power generating capacity in the United or go to www.boyertownmuseum.org. States increased by 27% in 2006 and is Panasonic World Solar Challenge expected to increase an additional 26% in October 21-28, Australia. CAll 61 8 8463 2007. The U.S. wind energy industry invest- 4500 or go to www.wsc.org.au ed about $4 billion in 2454 MW of new gen- Michelin Challenge Bibendum 2007 erating capacity in 2006. New wind farms Shanghai, Nov 14-17. Contact mail.chal- boosted cumulative U.S. installed wind ener- [email protected], www.chal- gy capacity by 27% to 11,603 MW. lengebibendum.com Nuclear and renewable energy in Europe On January 10 Marketwatch reported that the European Commission had called for a MEETING SCHEDULE "new industrial revolution" via increased Meetings are held in Room 49, Plymouth- investment in renewable energy and nuclear Whitemarsh High School, 201 East German- power to combat climate change and reduce town Pike in Plymouth Meeting, PA, and Europe's energy dependency. It also vowed to begin at 7:00 p.m. curb the power of large energy utilities and said it would keep pushing for the liberaliza- tion of Europe's gas and electricity markets. April 11 The proposals come as concerns over Europe's energy security are making head- May 9 lines as a bitter dispute between Russia and Belarus has disrupted the transit of oil sup- June 13 plies to Europe. The commission's proposals are based on a July 11

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