Author: Dugan Flanakin
August 9, 2024
Two months after taking office, Joe Biden announced a $2 trillion infrastructure plan that includes $174 billion in grants, subsidies and other spending to encourage Americans to switch to battery electric vehicles (BEVs). Since that initial “investment,” billions of dollars have been poured into increasingly unsuccessful efforts to convince or trick car buyers into switching.
These huge expenditures, combined with COVID-19 and war funding, have ballooned the national debt to the point where 76% of income taxes are needed to pay interest on the debt. Many fear that profligate spending will bring the country's economy to the brink of collapse.
The mistake lies in the concept that “the government knows best”. Nothing illustrates this tautology better than the plethora of battery-electric vehicle alternatives appearing on the world stage – including a variety of hydrogen-powered engines and new self-rotating engines. None of this is heavily subsidized, nor does it require a heavily subsidized national network of charging stations.
Some may be surprised, but even new york times As early as 2021, people questioned the wisdom of Biden's bold move into pure electric vehicles. Niraj Chokshi writes that $174 billion “may not be enough to push most Americans toward electric vehicles.”
Joshi doubts that “the generosity of the federal government” only transfers part of the cost of pure electric vehicles from buyers to the public, and whether consumers can be convinced of the benefits of electric vehicles. Biden's subsequent resort to short-term authorization of a technology that lacks a track record “only reinforces Chokshi's observation.”
Chokshi's report made clear that the $15,000 EV battery and its constant need to charge would remain the biggest obstacle to public acceptance of what was then seen as the “only” path to a clean energy future. There is no talk on Capitol Hill or in the media of support for other low-carbon or “carbon-free” engine technologies.
But now it's clear that several companies are already working on developing alternatives to vehicles that require charging almost every day. This might be convenient enough for wealthy people whose garages and home electrical systems can accommodate two charging ports, but for everyone else it's quite difficult and time-consuming.
A recent article noted that Stellantis is investing $6 billion to build a new generation of engines that can run on gasoline or Brazilian ethanol and incorporate plug-in hybrid technology. Kohler Engine Co. launched its KDH hydrogen internal combustion engine last year, and BMW, Toyota, Triton EV, Hyundai and many other automakers are also making hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engines.
Despite the federal government's push for a “one-size-fits-all solution” to the supposed CO2 emissions problem, these and other automakers continue to pursue unsubsidized alternatives, possibly to themselves. Do they “know” that pure electric vehicles will never become popular?
Just this week, a new report touted a liquid nitrogen engine based on 1990s University of Washington research that would be cheaper and lighter than a BEV, even with a 100-gallon nitrogen tank. The operation is similar to a steam-driven engine and produces zero pollutants. Refueling at existing petrol and diesel stations only takes a few minutes.
The prototype liquid nitrogen engine is far from ready for highway use, but like other alternatives to grid drainage plugs, has been overlooked as a potential solution in the federal budget. And, like all other alternative engines, it does not rely on a Chinese-controlled lithium market.
Washington’s “wisdom” has long been to create an all-electric vehicle fleet that relies entirely on today’s crumbling grid as baseload power plants are shutting down in favor of intermittent wind and solar power. But research published in 2021 by Oak Ridge National Laboratory suggests that taking multiple paths to clean-burning vehicles is a superior approach.
“Hydrogen fuel cells are ideal for the trucking industry because their refueling times and range are comparable to gasoline-powered (diesel-powered) trucks, and their routes are predictable, which lowers the barrier to development and refueling,” said ORNL scientist David Cullen. facility. [Read: Every truck stop in America could easily accommodate hydrogen-fueled trucks.]
ORNL notes that hydrogen fuel cells (or any other hydrogen engine) contain more energy per unit mass than lithium batteries or diesel fuel. More energy and less weight are gold for the trucking industry, which consumes a quarter of U.S. fuel consumption while driving only 10% of total vehicle miles traveled.
Hydrogen may be an equally better option for other heavy-duty vehicles, including school buses, but the Biden administration has offered huge subsidies for all-electric school buses with often unsatisfactory results (despite strong support from the vice president) .
The Montgomery County Public School District in Maryland is the largest purchaser of electric school buses in the United States, with 326 buses ordered, delivered, or in operation as of December 2023, at a cost of $168 million. But the county’s inspector general’s office reported that the district’s rush to purchase all-electric buses “resulted in millions of dollars in wasted expenditures,” in part because of delayed deliveries and maintenance issues.
From February 2022 to March 2024, these pure electric buses failed to complete the route 280 times, with an average maintenance time of 13 days. Last October, the school board deemed it necessary to purchase 90 diesel buses to compensate for the breakdown of BEV buses.
Nationwide, more than 90 percent of the more than 21 million students who ride school buses ride on diesel buses, with most of the remainder relying on propane. Today, less than 1% of children ride BEV buses, and many of the 12,000 “promised” BEV buses are not yet in operation. Despite billions of dollars in generous federal funding, hydrogen-powered buses could be delivered faster, cost less to buy, and be more reliable in everyday use.
Two-thirds of the “committed” all-electric buses are funded by the EPA's Clean School Bus Program, which has allocated more than $900 million in 2022 for nearly 2,300 buses in 365 school districts. In the second year, EPA invested another US$1 billion to purchase 2,700 more BEV buses in 270 school districts. In the third round, it invested another US$900 million to install 3,177 BEV buses in 500 school districts.
The Biden administration's parting grants include another round of Clean School Bus Program funding as well as the EPA's new Clean Heavy Vehicle grant program, which targets garbage haulers, dump trucks, bucket trucks, utility trucks and other box-type trucks. School buses receive the largest subsidy in the $1 billion plan. Biden has indeed poured billions of dollars into hydrogen producers, but very little to support hydrogen engines.
Has the federal government taken a closer look at the cost and performance comparisons of the various low- and zero-emission engines already on the market or being tested in the field? Have government officials consulted automakers around the world about why they are developing non-electric vehicle engines?
Or is there another reason why the Biden administration, where Vice President Harris has been a leading spokesman for electric school buses, is betting everything on a technology that is tightly controlled by China?
Duggan Flanakin (duggan@duggansdugout.com) is a senior policy analyst at the Council for a Constructive Tomorrow, writing about a variety of public policy issues.
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and provided via RealClearWire.
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