Keep on trucking with natural gas

Electric cars and hybrids get all the media coverage.

Lots of people have taken the hybrid plunge, purchasing a Prius, Ford Escape or a number of other models that couple battery power with a small gas engine to maximize gas mileage. And electric cars have captured the imagination of a nation interested in cleaner air despite the fact that their permanence in the consumer pantheon remains to be seen.

But what's the potential of a natural gas-powered car? America would seem to answer with a collective yawn.

There is an alternative

Does it matter that this country likely has enough natural gas to fill every single commuter's tank for decades? It should. The U.S. Energy Information Administration lists some 35.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in Alaska's North Slope. And analysts at the Potential Gas Committee say that when they combine their findings with that of the EIA, they believe U.S. natural gas reserves to be a future supply of 2,174 trillion cubic feet.

That's an estimated 100-year supply.

And why should we care? There are a number of reasons. President Ronald Reagan put it this way: "Energy independence is the best preparation America can make for the future."

Another is air quality.

Cutting emissions

Exhaust emissions from natural gas vehicles are cleaner than their gasoline- or diesel-burning compatriots.

Natural Gas Vehicles for America says the only production natural gas-powered passenger car, the Honda Civic CNG, produces 95 percent fewer emissions of non-methane hydrocarbons, and 75 percent less emissions of nitrogen oxides than its gasoline counterpart. The EPA rates it as the cleanest internal-combustion car on the market.

Imagine this contrast: Stand behind a city bus that blows by burning diesel. The fumes can be noxious. Natural gas buses on the other hand have none of the soot and are much less likely to cause riders to hold their breath until they turn blue.

Finding opportunity

Companies are beginning to see opportunity, especially since the EIA says natural gas, on average, costs 42 percent less than diesel fuel on an energy equivalent basis and is expected to cost 50 percent less by 2035.

EcoDual LLC has developed a duel fuel system for heavy-duty diesel trucks that allows them burn up to 80 percent natural gas.

"Because heavy trucks use so much diesel and there is such a dramatic price differential between diesel and natural gas, the systems will pay for themselves in only about 12 months of typical use," says Doug Thomson, vice president, government relations and marketing of EcoDual LLC, in an email.

Thomson says the main hurdle is that his company has to certify the emissions for each family of engines. He says the company is working its way through the process with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board. He says the emissions are "definitely better with natural gas, but for now we are focused on just showing off the operating cost savings."

Range is not a problem

And for the popular misconception that compressed natural gas trucks have limited range? Thomson says with new large tanks and his company's technology, "that’s no longer a problem."

Ngvglobal.com reports that EcoDual has won authorization from the EPA to begin installing its systems on 2004 to 2009 Cummins ISX engines.

Natural gas won't end the dangerous climate warming build-up of carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere, but it does provide an inexpensive and cleaner alternative while innovators work the kinks out of other energy delivery systems. It's obviously not the most popular on Wall Street, but it's got a shot and should have a place in the mix.

Fleets going natural

Municipalities, small governments and public entities are certainly paying attention.

Fresno, Calif., which is my neck of the woods, is on board. The city has 66 buses that run on compressed natural gas, four trollies, nine light duty trucks, eight street sweepers and a bunch more.

City officials adopted "Operation Clean Air" in 2003 with other counties, cities, businesses and nonprofits in the region. Fresno continues to update its fleets. The initiative is committed to improving air quality in the San Joaquin Valley, which ranks near the top for worst air pollution in the United States.

Perhaps the highest profile West Coast move to clean trucking has been at the Port of Los Angeles, which estimates it has reduced emissions 80 percent compared with 2007 average air emissions data. Port officials say that as of January 2012, 100 percent of the "cargo gate moves" at port terminals are made with trucks meeting EPA clean truck standards. Many of those trucks use liquefied natural gas or compressed natural gas.

Sharing the highways

Natural Gas Vehicles for America reports that there are about 112,000 natural-gas vehicles on U.S. roads and more than 13 million worldwide. However, there are only about 1,000 domestic fueling stations with about half open to the public.

About 30 different manufacturers in this country produce 100 models of light, medium and heavy-duty vehicles and engines, according to Natural Gas Vehicles. The organization says industry data shows that natural gas consumed by vehicles "nearly doubled between 2003 and 2009."

And demand is growing, especially from bus fleets, at airports and in private fleets.

The EIA shows relatively stable natural gas prices despite recent inventory draw downs that spiked prices. "Natural gas working inventories continue to set new record seasonal highs and ended January 2012 at an estimated 2.86 trillion cubic feet, about 24 percent above the same time last year," EIA analysts write.

Carving out a consumer market

Despite inroads, acceptance of the fuel by the average consumer faces an uphill battle.

For instance, Greencarreports.com offers on its home page a menu that says "car types."

The photo-heavy drop-down offers the latest news on hybrids, electrics, clean diesels and fuel cells with a more specific cluster off to the right drilling down into posts about Chevy's Volt, Nissan's Leaf, Tesla's Roadster and Toyota's Prius.

Nothing on natural gas. Of course, I'm just referring to the menu listings and not the coverage. Writer John Voelcker offers some of the best green car coverage on the web, and his piece on the Honda CNG is a great backgrounder on the only production natural gas vehicle offered in the country. The page design reflects interest.

Honda enters the fray

Yet, the Civic CNG, which just received its nationwide rollout in late 2011, may change some minds. James R. Healey of USA Today gave one a test drive and debates its the pros and cons. He says the main downside is price (at $26,925 still cheaper than a Volt, Leaf or average hybrid) and finding a fueling station.

"Heroic cuts in emissions and fuel costs, but too expensive and too many compromises for most people," Healey writes.

Maybe that will change. Gas prices are expected to climb and possibly break some records this summer.

Young people battle for a cleaner planet, their future

Much depends on the younger generation.

Their habits, priorities and motivations largely will define the directions of development, technological advancement and political leanings. And while this always has been true to some degree, it may matter more now as society ponders the potential crushing cost of climate change, pollution and the cumulative effects of humankind's unprecedented industrialized push forward these past 150 years.

Millennials, or Generation Y, and those born after them will have to seriously consider the environmental impact of everything they do. Mental Klaxons may as well sound a crisis alert every time they consider driving a car, purchasing a house or otherwise taking part in potential carbon-creation.

Passing the Boomers

Growing up, I didn't have to do that. To me, pollution, contamination and too much garbage was the big scare. I remember walking above an abandoned missile site in the middle of nowhere Alaska and thinking about irradiated dirt in 1971. (I was 10, hitchhiking with mom.)

Nukes are bad, certainly. But their impact proves relatively minor as long as they remain in their silos.
Now the passive threat of rising sea level threatens thousands of island nations and low-lying real estate worldwide, and we've blown past the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that scientists say is safe for humanity -- 350 parts per million. Current level is 392 ppm. Yet, we keep pushing it. The stakes are off the charts.

"Danger, Will Robinson!" Or so says voice actor Dick Tufeld in his guise as the Robot in the the 1960s TV show "Lost in Space." But that's Boomer speak. (Another that comes to mind is Rita Moreno bellowing "Hey you guys!" on Electric Company.)

New catchphrases

This generation has its own references, its own icons and its own messages and means of popular delivery. Who over 30 knows of Strong Bad? This phrase is apt: "When all the land is in ruins; And burnination has forsaken the countryside. Only one guy will remain. My money's on Trogdor!"

Whatever.

Many Millennials take their air and water quality seriously. They want to limit commuting, live close to work, walk to restaurants. Potentially, they're creating an entirely different approach to community design, energy use and how resources should be exploited.

And they're hardly shy about expressing their opinions. They're tearing up the Internet via YouTube and social media pathways. But they aren't stopping there.

Democracy & climate change

Take Zaheena Rasheed, a former 350.org intern and a resident of the Maldives, a scattered island nation with an average ground level about 4 feet above the sea about 250 miles southwest of India. In an email, she expresses thanks to 350.org, which seeks to build a global movement to solve the climate crisis.

"In under a week, an incredible 35,553 of you signed our petition to world leaders," she says. Her words appear on the group's website in a post by Kelly Blynn. The Maldives have reportedly scheduled democratic elections after President Mohamed Nasheed's troubles that culminated with Canarygate, which involved allegations of corruption.

Rasheed continues. Her words ooze power and conviction: "There is much in common in the battle against climate change and for democracy -- the right to a healthy and dignified life -- and this can happen when people are free to speak their minds, make decisions over their own resources, and have the power to act against injustice."

Eloquent, yet not too unapproachably activist.

Others offer a more laid-back delivery. But the underlying message -- be good to Mother Earth -- remains.

So Fresh, So Green

Sarah Laskow of grist.org stumbled across a video created by a group of seniors from Atlanta’s Marist School. "So Fresh, So Green" was written and performed by Butta Biscuit, Mikey-B, Confucius Rodge and Clive Sensation with the filming and editing handled by Eric Eichelberger.

Laskow says the motivation was Marist's participation in the Green School Alliance’s Green Cup Challenge. She says schools that took part tried to reduce their energy use over four weeks, and some did so by more than 20 percent.

"This stuff isn’t rocket science: They just turned off more lights, readjusted the thermostats and, in some cases, replaced old equipment," she writes.

The video is based on Outkast's "So Fresh, So Clean." The student rappers stick to the basics, encouraging people to recycle, save energy by turning off lights and not just "talk the talk, but walk the walk."

Mr. Eco spreads the word

Another would-be Al Yankovic is Mr. Eco from Cal Poly (known offically as California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo), who has a number of videos devoted to the green cause. Mr. Eco calls himself an environmental rap superhero who incorporates sustainable living tips into parodies and represents the Alliance to Save Energy's Cal Poly Green Campus Program.

In one of his videos, dubbed "Turn Em Out," Mr. Eco parodies rapper T.I.'s "Bring Em Out." That latter video has more than 4.5 million views, while our Mr. Eco at this writing had 3,127. But when we first wrote about him in early November 2011, he had yet to break 1,000.

And Mr. Eco, the outspoken superhero that he is, also has taken his schtick on the road, visiting Ahwahnee Middle School in the scenic confines of our own Fresno, Calif. Mr. Eco, also known as Brett Edwards, is from Fresno. So that helps.

He's making an impact. Ahwahnee Principal Tim Liles even did a plug for Mr. Eco in the video.

One year, zero garbage

The crew at yert.com is tirelessly going from city to city to screen its powerful documentary. The next is March 2 in a Seattle church.

Dubbed "Your Environmental Road Trip" -- thus the acronym YERT -- the film covers all 50 states in a search "for innovators and citizens solving humanity's greatest environmental crises."

The trio of filmmakers says they were "called to action by a planet in peril." Producer Mark Dixon tells me he's up for more screenings. So if anybody's interested ...

I'm psyched.

Get a glimpse of domestic clean energy innovation, screen the YERT film

The folks at yert.com spent about a year on the road gathering material for their documentary on clean energy.

Now that the production and editing is complete, their mission is to get their movie seen by as many people as possible. It's no easy task as any documentary filmmaker will say. Even the duo who put together this year's Oscar winner, "Undefeated," tells National Public Radio how thrilled they were to get the radio interview just for the exposure. And they like NPR.

The crew who put together "Your Environmental Road Trip" isn't in the Oscar running yet. The team nailed a series of interviews with some of clean energy's pioneers and most interesting innovators. A guy who's devised a solar road was the first to capture my interest.

The YERT people describe the film this way:

About the courageous and creative individuals, groups, businesses and leaders of this country who are tackling the greatest environmental threats in history. Called into action by the ever increasing threats of planetary catastrophe (from climate change to toxic pollution, from water scarcity to habitat destruction), the three of us - Mark Dixon, Ben Evans, and Julie Dingman Evans - upended our lives, pooled our collective life-savings, and set off on a first-of-its-kind, 50-state, year-long journey of discovery to personalize sustainability and to answer a critical question: ARE WE DOOMED?

Mark Dixon says YERT is now on its West Coast Screening Tour. He mentions a screening coming up at 7 p.m. in Seattle on March 2. Here's a link: https://www.facebook.com/events/273796256023191/. Location is Keystone Congregational Church, 5019 Keystone Place N, Seattle, WA 98103-6229.

That same day there's another in Gainsville, Florida at the Cinema Verde Enviro Film & Arts Festival. On March 3, they head to Portland, Ore., and at 6 p.m. March 9, they start a two-day showing a the San Luis Obispo Film Festival at the The Palm Theatre, 817 Palm St. Dixon will be there to talk about the film.

If looks at all doable, go to yert.com and put in a request under "Screenings." Look at the trailer while you're at the site. The screening dates of March 12 and 13 are available.
The San Joaquin Valley is a place ripe for clean energy development and the jobs it could generate. The staff at University of California Merced has dubbed the region the Solar Valley for its potential. And developers are in the midst of a record number of commercial, industrial and residential projects.

Anything that jump starts the imagination of Valley residents could be a game changer. Here at the San Joaquin Valley Clean Energy Organization, we talk often about what small event could push all these projects forward like dominoes.

Maybe somebody will agree to screen Dixon's movie in Fresno, and the event's synergy will start more dialogue. After all author and activist Bill McKibben says: "Here's a trip you'll wish you'd taken, and you'll be glad you get to watch! And Jeff Biggers of the Huffington Post writes: "A deeply absorbing ... hilarious ... important film. Audiences will not only cheer, but feel compelled to spring to their feet to join an inspiring movement for change."

Photo: YERT interview with owner of Rufus the solar bus in Hawaii.

Environmental rap superhero spreads clean energy message

The battle to clean the air and water is expected to be a great challenge, testing the mettle of all who partake.

The San Joaquin Valley Clean Energy Organization crossed paths with one superhero who may turn the tide. Mr. Eco, aka Brett Edwards, attends California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo. He came to our attention in 2011 after we spotted his video "Turn Em Out (Official Parody)." At the most recent count, Mr. Eco has 31 videos on his youtube channel that have racked up about 21,000 views.

"You Can't Find Me in the Tub: Official Mr. Eco Parody" is his latest. It unveils his new costume and ecomobile. "You Can't Find Me In The Tub" is done to 50 Cent's "In Da Club" and is off Mr. Eco's parody album, "Get Green Or Die Trying."

Here's how Mr. Eco describes his most recent work: "The song encourages water conservation by using low flow shower heads instead of taking baths. The video was filmed in San Luis Obispo, Avila Beach and Cayucos. It features cameos from Mr. Eco's sidekick 'Lil Nico' and Matt Damon as well of a lot of Brita raising in da club."

Here's a question and answer session Mr. Eco so kindly agreed to:

SJVCEO: What got you interested in green issues and green energy specifically?

Mr. Eco: My AP Environmental Science class my junior year of high school at Clovis West. Without Mr. Mirigian there would be no Mr. Eco! I had a passion for wildlife before that, but I was awakened to the environmental issues in that class.

Mr. (Michael) Mirigian: As a teacher (now retired) we all dream of the day when we discover that a former student has taken to what we expose them and develop it into something of their own interpretation and interest. That is Brett "Mr. Eco" Edwards. While enrolled in my AP Environmental Science course, Brett always demonstrated his ability to "make connections" between all of the topics we discussed. He is a true critical thinker.

SJVCEO: Is there anything that what you’re learning now that could be translated into furthering green activities in the San Joaquin Valley?

Mr. Eco: No doubt what I am learning now could be translated into furthering green activities in SJV. There is a ton of improvement toward sustainability that needs to be made in the Valley, and I hope Mr. Eco can do projects there in the future.

SJVCEO: You come from an area with generally the worst air in the nation. Does that influence what you do as Mr. Eco?

Mr. Eco: It influenced my video Prince of Fresh Air. "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csbu4wXFwWY." I remember only being able to see certain mountains from Fresno after rainy days growing up. That is ridiculous. The air quality sucks and is going to take a change in the way people commute to make a difference. Asthma amongst children is horrific and it is prevalent in the Valley.

SJVCEO: What’s your major?

Mr. Eco: Business, Entrepreneurship concentration. I plan to make the green "money" to save the green "environment."

SJVCEO: What high school in the Valley did you attend?

Mr. Eco: Clovis West Eagles! I graduated in 2009.

SJVCEO: Who came up with the idea of Mr. Eco?

Mr. Eco: I did with the help of my sister, who is my biggest supporter musically. I used to rap in high school with the persona Mister E. My sister said, "You should rap about going green," after I became an intern for the Green Campus Program at Cal Poly, and I ran with the idea from there.

SJVCEO: Does Mr. Eco have a support team? If so who are they and what are their opinions of this green energy movement?

Mr. Eco: My family is my biggest support team. They support the green energy movement, but I there is a lot of room for improvement at my parents house in Fresno. Mikhail Sarkhosh is my film director, we work really well together and he is a part of the team. He has adopted some sustainable habits; I at least have him thinking about it now especially when we are filming because I make us be as sustainable as possible.

SJVCEO: What is your take on the green energy movement?

Mr. Eco: If I had a million dollars, I would invest it all in wind and solar. I truly believe they are going to take off. We need to get rid of our dependency of coal, oil and natural gas. Period.

SJVCEO: How important is this issue to your generation?

Mr. Eco: Vitally. We are at the point in time where we are on top of a mountain. If we continue our path, we will fall down and kill the earth. If we rethink our path, we can safely travel back down the mountain. We have to learn how to do more with less resources. This Earth can't support 7 billion people with our rate of consumption and resources.

SJVCEO: There’s been a lot of hoopla surrounding green jobs. What are you seeing out there? Are any friends getting hired or internships in the sector?

Mr. Eco: Yes, a lot of friends I have met through the Green Campus Program have graduated and been hired into green jobs. Two examples, one is a sustainable program director for a school district in Long Beach and the other is a consultant and a green engineering firm in San Diego.

SJVCEO: What’s Mr.Eco planning in the coming months & this summer?

Mr. Eco: I am going on school assembly tours this spring! They are part of my "Get Green Or Die Trying" parody album release on Earth Day April 22. http://mrecomusic.com/getgreenordietrying. This summer, I am traveling to Costa Rica with International Student Volunteers. Also, if I win America's Next Eco-Star I will be traveling to Austria for a sustainability conference.

SJVCEO: What job do you plan to pursue upon graduation?

Mr. Eco: An environmental rap superhero, I shall call him Mr. Eco.

Editor's note: See more about Mr. Eco at mrecomusic.com.

People can adjust to friendlier streets, fewer cars

If getting automobiles to emit fewer noxious pollutants clears the air and improves the health and well being of the American public, then reducing the number of vehicles overall would make it even better.

Controlling traffic and improving the quality of urban living is the goal of New York City entrepreneur Mark Gorton's Rethinking the Automobile project. Gorton, whose credits include forming almost a half dozen investment firms and other ventures, says what's good for a person -- a safe, slow and not very directional environment -- is not what's good for a car.

And mixing the two has created urban environments that cater to cars and trucks and "hostile for people," he says.

To highlight the car-vs.-people disparity and increase discussion of planning and policy alternatives, Gorton's nonprofit OpenPlans launched a campaign fronted by the Henson-created character Zozo to "protect the spirit and message of Dr. Seuss' acclaimed book 'The Lorax' from crass commercialization."

The medium sends the wrong message

The effort takes aim at a commercial by Mazda promoting its Skyactiv technology engines. Skyactiv, Mazda says, improves performance and reduces emissions through greater compression ratio, improved exhaust and custom piston design. Mazda teamed with Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment on the "Seuss-ified" advertising campaign tied to the release of the animated Lorax movie.

At one point, the ad says Mazda is "Truffula Tree friendly."

That didn't sit well with some. "Theodor Seuss Geisel wouldn't have liked this," comments woodsprout on the youtube post. Other posts call it "drivel" and "disgraceful."

The Lorax makes a pitch

OpenPlans and Zozo are encouraging people to sign a petition urging Mazda and Universal to stop running the ads. "This advertising campaign goes directly against the message and spirit of The Lorax," says Zozo, in prepared remarks. "The Lorax speaks for the trees, not the SUVees!"

The Lorax remains neutral on issue of reducing cars, but he is considered one of the first environmentalists and often is a child's first encounter with the concept of treating nature with respect and tolerance. The character was one of the first non-hippy greenies I encountered as a kid and gave some of the goofy rules my mother espoused some credibility. At least for awhile.

Retiring the Volvo

Mom decided when the Volvo died that cars were costly polluting machines that we could do without. Mom was a trust-fund baby, who embraced the environmental/back-to-nature movement with her entire being. When, sometime in the deep Fairbanks winter of 1971 the mechanic retired our 1964 Volvo Amazon station wagon, we had to hitchhike.

That continued until I started making money and purchasing my own cars. While I can never shake my sincere dislike of hitchhiking, spending all that time on foot gives me an appreciation for Gorton's concept of rethinking urban design and transportation systems. I can also attest that cars are great. I love them. There's nothing worse than walking miles in the middle of nowhere wishing you were anywhere else.

But, certainly, I know what it's like to be a pedestrian. More people ought to get the chance, although I don't encourage ever hitchhiking from Seattle to San Francisco with much of it on Highway 1. Ugh.

Europe is paying attention

I got to bum a bit around Europe in my teens. It was with my perennially adolescent closeted Jewish father, but he was paying. We spent nearly all of one summer on foot. When a bus line ended before our destination, we walked. Once we hoofed it more than 14 miles to an obscure Czech cave and slept in a tiny hotel you'd never find in a car.

The Eastern European cities and towns we visited were designed for foot travelers. We could have been vagabonds chasing down religious sites in the 1300s. Gorton applauds efforts in places like Zurich, Berlin and Copenhagen where policy makers have made pedestrians a priority.

And it's not that difficult. In Old Town Clovis, Calif. where I live, the community comes alive during festivals and every Friday when city officials close Pollaski Avenue. Fridays in summertime is reserved for a farmers' market, street fair and assorted events. It's packed and a great place to rub shoulders with a lot of sweaty Californians, especially when it's 100 degrees or more.

Streetfilms shows how the other half lives

OpenSource's Streetfilms team chronicles benefits of pedestrian, bike and mass transit friendly urban planning across the globe. Some of its most startling mini documentaries show how people have adapted in Bogata, Columbia to Ciclovía, a program that for seven hours every Sunday opens 70 miles of city streets to nothing but biking, walking and general public recreation.

"Two million Colombians use Ciclovía to exercise, de-stress and connect with their neighbors," OpenSource says.

Streetfilms' work is credited with helping inspire Summer Streets in New York City, which during three weekends in August, turns Park Avenue carless, allowing free flow of bikes and people.

Congestion indicates a bad transportation system

OpenSource, which defines itself as a team of 60 transit nerds, journalists and engineers, builds open-source software and offers technical assistance to public agencies on such subjects. It's looking for different approaches to urban living, one not so car-centric.

The approach resembles the sustainable cities movement, which is taking Europe by storm. Hamburg's HafenCity project, which has taken docks and old industrial land in the heart of the German city, epitomizes the trend.

The massive redevelopment project is being engineered to transform 387 acres on the Elbe River into the most energy efficient residential, business and arts sector in the city. Design is compact yet has open space, encouraging living, working and entertainment. The emphasis on sustainable design and its goal to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 40 percent in 2020 and 80 percent by 2050 helped Hamburg win the European Commission's European Green Capital Award for 2011.

Sustainability is people friendly

The American Society of Landscape Architects says urban development should be guided by a sustainable planning that promotes interconnected green space, multi-modal transportation systems and mixed-use development. Or that it should be people friendly.


Rethinking the Auto with Mark Gorton from ReThink TheAuto on Vimeo.

Gorton says we've learned a lot about living with the automobile. He says New York City streets reflect its influence with narrower sidewalks, more dangerous crossings and a "damaged human living environment." He says relatively simple policy changes can transform communities.

"People will adjust," Gorton says.

So along with emissions reductions from the average American vehicle, wouldn't it be something to have cities that encouraged mixed-use, pedestrian friendly zones? Certainly pollution would suffer, and the air would improve.

What's not to like?

For those interested in seeing "Dr. Suess' The Lorax," here's a review by David Edelstein for npr.org.

Alternative fuels gain favor & could gas up 600,000 jobs

The average fuel economy of the U.S. new-car fleet is increasing, and carbon dioxide emissions show incremental reductions.

A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report projects average "real world" CO2 emissions dropping to 391 grams per mile in 2011 and mileage creeping up to 22.8 miles per gallon for new cars. That compares with 394 grams per mile and 22.6 mpg for 2010.

Definitely baby steps. But change, as Sam Cooke sang so sweetly, is gonna come.

Wheels start turning

Too much is going on geopolitically, environmentally and technologically to ignore. Electric vehicles are no longer just a subject of a whodunit film. Models with various ranges and engine configurations are available for even middle-income buyers. And an alternative fuel -- natural gas -- may even cut into the diesel market, providing a viable option for long-haul truckers and a segment of the American population willing to search out fueling stations.

"We are making significant strides toward saving families money at the pump, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and cleaning up the air we breathe,” says Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA’s unfortunately named Office of Air and Radiation, in a statement accompanying the study: "Light-Duty Automotive Technology, Carbon Dioxide Emissions, and Fuel Economy Trends: 1975 Through 2011."

And it's all coming from the private sector, in some cases with a little federal help.

Innovations arrive

Chevy and Chrysler plan new natural-gas trucks, joining Honda's Civic as the only production passenger vehicles that use the fuel exclusively. Odyne Systems LLC, which has been working with the U.S. Department of Energy, is developing sophisticated plug-in hybrid systems for medium and heavy duty trucks. And CleanFUEL USA and Freightliner Custom Chassis Corp. have unveiled a propane option for the medium-duty commercial truck market.

It's as if the debate about climate change doesn't exist. The question is more of opportunity. Fuel costs raise the ire of Joe Consumer. Give him an alternative (or a beer) and he calms down. A six-pack costs about the same as a gallon of gas, depending on your taste in beer.

Look to the actuaries

California has asked about 300 insurance companies, representing a majority of the industry, for an assessment of how they account for climate change in risk management analysis. The response should be telling. This is no political debate, just a straight-up assessment from actuaries in the trenches.

How much money do they believe climate change will cost? Mark Hertsgaard of Yale Environment 360 says "the insurance initiative is but the latest example of California’s far-reaching policies to confront climate change." His report says the exercise likely will cause the insurance industry to do things differently.

Kind of a wake-up call.

Journalist Richard Schiffman in Huffington Post quotes Marsh & McLennan, one of the world's largest insurance brokers, calling climate change "one of the most significant emerging risks facing the world today." Schiffman says insurance giant AIG even established an Office of Environment and Climate Change to review and assess risk.

Traditional energy development

The problem has been recognized. Yet the symptoms that led us to this precipice continue. Exxon Mobil Corp. says it plans to spend about $150 billion over the next five years to find more oil and natural gas, and Associated Press reporter Chris Kahn quotes Exxon Chief Executive Rex Tillerson saying: "Unprecedented levels of investment are needed to meet the scale of the energy challenge."

Certainly, energy is important. But how it's developed, what is extracted and how nations choose to deal with fossil fuels are likely to become increasingly contentious.

Frank Stewart, a board member of the American Association of Blacks in Energy, says in a Huffington Post piece that state regulation plays an integral role in the new rush for underground resources. He says New York has spent about three years studying its natural gas development, addressing issues that that created controversy in places like Pennsylvania, where fracturing as a form of natural gas extraction drew serious criticism.

Stewart says New York's plan "includes a raft of new requirements for natural gas operators, from drinking water protection measures to disclosure of additives used in the hydraulic fracturing process." He says development of what the U.S. Energy Information Agency lists as a 100-year supply of natural gas is too important not to get it right.

For gas to sell as a successful alternative -- or as T. Boone Pickens calls it, "a bridge fuel" -- it must be safe.

Gas up 600,000 jobs

President Barack Obama has called for safe development of the nation's natural gas reserves. In his Blueprint for America -- issued about the time of the 2012 State of the Union -- he says shale gas development, according to independent estimates, will support more than 600,000 jobs.

Obama, speaking before United Parcel Service workers in Nevada, called the United States the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. He said tapping the nations reserves could "power our cars and our homes and our factories in a cleaner and cheaper way," writes Christi Parsons of the Los Angeles Times.

Obama's goals include proposing new incentives for medium- and heavy-duty trucks that run on natural gas or other alternative fuels. He's also engaged the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy, known simply as ARPA-E, to work with the country’s "brightest scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs to find ways to harness our abundant supplies of domestic natural gas to lessen our dependence of foreign oil for vehicles."

Innovate an old fuel source

Quite a bit is riding on the ability of American entrepreneurs to come up with solutions. And at least at the moment, encouragement is preferred by government over heavy-handed regulation. It's up to consumers to buy into the change.

Certainly natural gas will start looking good when truckers see it as a viable alternative. It costs about half as much as diesel.

At the Green Truck Summit in Indianapolis where Energy Secretary Steven Chu gave the keynote address, trends, efficiencies and alternative technologies received red-carpet treatment. CleanFUEL USA, a supplier of propane autogas delivery and engine systems, used the event as an opportunity to unveil its new liquid propane-injected engine technology developed with Frieghtliner. And some of the top experts in the country headed up a seminar about the future and potential of so-called gaseous fuels in the trucking industry.

Prognosis? It's excellent.

Building better trucks

And Obama, speaking at a Daimler truck plant in Mount Holly, N.C. where natural gas vehicles are built, lauded workers for their contributions to clean energy. "You're building better trucks," he said. "These trucks can save $15,000 a year."

Obama also said the United States must pursue a diversified approach to energy, explaining that a country that has 2 percent of the world's oil reserves but uses 20 percent of its supply must use less to lessen its dependence on foreign sources. He also announced an “all of the above” approach to assist adoption of alternative fuel technologies, reports Jeff Cobb of hybridcars.com.

The all-of-the-above proposal would commit $3.7 billion to clean energy tax credits another billion to a National Community Deployment Challenge effort "to spur deployment of clean, advanced vehicles in communities around the country, and an 'EV Everywhere' plan," Cobb says.

Propane and propane accessories

Propane will be another clean fuel to watch. Credit must be given to Hank Hill for his participation in its media exposure. The cartoon character from "King of the Hill" always mentions his job in "propane and propane accessories."

According to globalenergyworld.com, propane is the third most widely used transportation fuel behind gasoline and diesel, and there are more than 52,000 autogas refueling stations and 17 million propane-powered vehicles worldwide.

Christopher Demorro of gas2.org shed some light on the move by U.S. auto manufacturers to diversify into gaseous fuels. In a piece about GM and Chrysler's latest forays, he writes that Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup trucks will come with Vortec V8 "that will switch between gasoline and CNG seamlessly."

Demorro says the trucks come with a 17-gallon carbon fiber-wrapped CNG tank that, with the standard gas tank, offers more than 650 miles of range. "Horsepower and towing capacity is not reduced in any way," he says. Chrysler's Ram pickup has similar statistics but shorter range.

VW invests big in green

Meanwhile, Greenbiz.com reports that Volkswagen plans to invest $52 billion in "fundamental ecological restructuring." The goal, the automaker claims, is to drop average CO2 emissions from its new vehicles to 192 grams per mile. Existing is 216.8 grams CO2/mile. That's far better than the U.S. national average but quite a hurdle for a company targeted by Greenpeace over its alleged lobbying against deeper cuts to European Union emissions targets, Greenbiz.com says.

Obama's measures also include assisting development of an automobile battery that costs half as much as current automotive batteries and enables cars to have a 300-mile range. He also is promoting a measure to build electricity fueling stations to support electric cars and alternative-fueled trucks.

Positive news keeps coming on the electrical car front, despite Chevy's recent move to temporarily halt assembly of its Volt because of flagging demand.

Beast in the East

While this vehicle may never see our shores, Tata Motors' tiny Megapixel may have influence well beyond its home in India. Mike Hanlon of gizmag.com says the car "uses four in-wheel 10 kilowatt motors and a 325 cubic centimeter single-cylinder petrol range-extending engine that generates 22 kW while charging the lithium ion phosphate battery." Range is 559 miles overall and 54 miles electric-only.
Definitely interesting. Hanlon writes, "As a global car concept, this is both the company's evolving idea of the ideal city car for global urban environments."

And India, which has a billion people and growing economy, will be a driver of innovation likely encouraging more of it on this side of the global pond.

Overall, sustainability is gaining favor, especially in the corporate world. When cost-savings are at stake, surprisingly quick decisions can be made.

Expect more natural gas and propane refueling stations along with electric car fast-charge docks at businesses around the country and maybe even some off  national highways.

Sustainia: a great place

Even former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has resurfaced, this time heading up the Sustania initiative, which essentially is a vision of what a sustainable world would look like and be like to live in. The group supporting the concept includes Microsoft, General Electric, Ikea, Cisco and other corporate heavyweights.

A directive from the group that caught my eye was to "sell dreams, not nightmares." In other words, focus on the positive, don't over sell and practice what you preach. It's not the end of the world. Yet.

Firebaugh finds green beyond its verdant fields

The City of Firebaugh is now home to a total of 81 brand new light emitting diode, or LED, street lights, and they’re casting a brighter glow on City streets than the old high-pressure sodium bulbs they replaced.

The new lights are also significantly more energy efficient, saving the City much needed cash on its utility bills.

What this means to the average taxpayer is significant savings to City coffers through lower utility bills. The energy efficiency retrofits when complete will save the City about 26,516 kilowatt hours of energy per year. This roughly equates to a savings of about $3,372 a year.

And that’s a big deal in these troubled economic times.

Another big deal is that the entire project isn’t costing the City a dime. The money that makes the project possible comes from an Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant provided through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The program is administered through the U.S. Department of Energy and the California Energy Commission.

The project is one of several the City is pursuing to improve its future. The west-side Fresno County community of 7,000 hasn't let size get in its way of its ambitions, attracting solar and biofuel interests and pursuing sustainability.

Firebaugh's long-term strategy is to lower its greenhouse gas footprint and improve its quality of life. The City is working with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development through its Sustainable Communities Initiative. The goal of the program is to provide equitable development, planning and development approaches for achieving shared prosperity.

The City also launched an effort to better connect with the free-flowing San Joaquin River. The community began as a ferry crossing when most traffic into the Valley traveled via a much more robust waterway.

For the street light project, Firebaugh joined with 35 other cities and counties in the region to form the San Joaquin Valley Clean Energy Partnership, which is led by the San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District with the assistance of the nonprofit San Joaquin Valley Clean Energy Organization. The Partnership administers the more than $4 million in grants and provides technical assistance to local governments.

The City worked with Pacific Gas and Electric Co., which installed the lights through its LED street light retrofit program.

Coda ships first car; electric vehicle news accelerates

Coda is shipping its small electric cars to customers.

Mercedes, meanwhile, has confirmed that it will begin building an electric version of its SLS super car .

And recharging stations are popping up. Oregon's got a 160-mile section of Interstate 5 covered with eight recharging stations, enabling electric-car drivers to conquer range anxiety. Even in California's sunny and fossil-fuel dominated San Joaquin Valley, such docking stations may be on their way.

"Change is coming," writes John Voelcker, senior editor of Green Car Reports, in a piece about the declining price of electric car batteries that touched on EV trends. He advises taking the long view of the industry and forecasts a price decline in batteries of about 7 percent a year.

Developments continue

Activity in the electric car sector -- despite the lackluster sales of the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf in recent months -- has been nothing short of frenetic. Automakers and parts and component manufacturers just keep announcing developments, far beyond the prototype stage. And while Coda's deliveries are about a year and a half later than initially promised, the cars are on their way to a dealer network. Tesla's also planning to bring its Model S sedan to market in big numbers next year, and its Model X SUV is in the works.

Even the resurrected DeLorean Motor Co. is back with an electric version of its flagship gull-wing "Back to the Future" car.

Now there's even an option for the person of means. Say this average high-brow consumer has a little spare cash, maybe something north of $200,000, for a unique environmentally conscious ride. The Mercedes SLS E-Cell would be the perfect selection.

Indubitably.

Electric cars can perform

And it will be U.S. made. Brian Dodson of gizmag.com says the offering from Mercedes-AMG has been "confirmed for production in Detroit in January will be available in 2013."

Dodson says the E-Cell accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in 4 seconds, just a hair shy of its gas-powered counterpart, which covers the same distance in 3.8 seconds. The e-version tops out at 155 mph, while the other can manage a whopping 197 mph.

"You will not believe the performance," says David Coulthard, former Formula One race car driver from Scotland and sometime TV commentator. That's him in the video.

Another sports car heavyweight, Porsche, has a monster of its own in development, the 918 Spyder. It boasts two electric engines, one for the front wheels, another for the back and an 8-cylinder engine. In all the hybrid offers up 770 horsepower, says Damon Lavrinc in jalopnik.com.
Smaller market larger

OK. So most people will be thinking smaller. Coda comes to mind. And the Tesla Model S does 0 to 60 mph (about the same as 100 kilometers) in 4.4 seconds.

The intent of Benicia, Calif.-based Coda Automotive appears to be the average, environmentally minded consumer who's not afraid of dealing with occasional range anxiety. The targeted consumer would see the car as a plus, a way to save gas on perhaps about 90 percent of his or her routine travel.

Ben Coxworth of gizmag.com says three buyers snapped up the Coda soon after its debut, two from the Los Angeles dealership and another in Northern California. He says the car reportedly averages 88 miles on a charge despite a maximum listed range of 125 miles.

Market for the Coda

The Coda has an understated and rather generic look, bypassing the otherworldly unique design of the Leaf and the custom and aggressive stance of the Volt. In a somewhat counter intuitive move not likely to attract a thrifty audience, the Coda has been priced at $44,900, higher than the Leaf at $35,200 and the Volt at $39,145.

"As an upstart automaker, Coda Automotive always faced an uphill fight against electric cars like the Nissan Leaf," says Chuck Squatriglia of wired.com's Autopia. "Slapping a $44,900 price tag on its forthcoming EV has made the road ahead that much steeper."

Federal tax incentives for electric vehicles shave up to $7,500 off the sales price. Residents of California can qualify for a $2,500 tax rebate through the state's Clean Vehicle Rebate Program.

EV forecast cloudy

The reign of the electric car remains somewhere in the future. Coda and struggling competitor Fisker, which also recently rolled out its first cars, don't appear likely to alter that forecast. Escalating gasoline prices enhance consumer interest, but the American public is notoriously fickle and resists change.

However, Boulder, Colo.-based Pike Research projects that by 2017 "more than 1.5 million locations to charge vehicles will be available in the United States, with a total of nearly 7.7 million locations worldwide."

About a third will be home-charging units

Charging centers coming

Infrastructure to support electric cars is beginning to materialize. A $200,000 grant issued by the California Energy Commission to the San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District will enable the regulatory agency to study the best locations for plug-in recharging stations and assist jurisdictions in crafting permitting processes. The Air District plans to set up a coordinating council to help promote the use of the cars in the politically and fiscally conservative region.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Energy has offered up a new grant program intended to take a bite out the diesel and natural gas big truck market. The agency, which has done quite a bit promoting the electrification of the highways in the past several years, has made up to $10 million available to proposals that "demonstrate and deploy electric transportation technologies for cargo vehicles, such as trucks and forklifts."

The Energy Department's intention is to help reduce the nation's reliance on gasoline and diesel and diversify the nation's energy portfolio. Money would go to "demonstrate cost-effective zero emission cargo transport systems and collect detailed performance and cost data to analyze the benefits and viability of this approach to freight transportation."

Getting electric power into cargo transportation is the goal. The move, if successful, would significantly cut consumption of fossil fuels and slash greenhouse gas emissions.

Integration takes coordination

The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions is working a different angle with similar intent. The nonprofit succeeds the Pew Center for Global Climate Change and generates analysis and seeks to find solutions to avert global warming.

The center, in the report "An Action Plan to Integrate Plug-in Electric Vehicles with the U.S. Electrical Grid," says electric cars could become an important part of the U.S. market if given "a fair chance to compete with conventional vehicles."

It proposes standardizing regulations as they relate to the electrical grid. These are multi-tiered involving everything from commercial recharging stations, home chargers and the finance of such infrastructure to protecting the grid, rate structures and encouraging beefing up the system for demand.

Jacking the grid

Between a major new source of energy consumption (electric cars) and power generation (solar, wind and other renewables), utilities will have a heck of a time sorting it all out while providing a steady stream of consumeable current over power lines. Analysts expect changes at many levels with smart grid technology emerging as an important element to maintaining system integrity.

This includes integrating smart meters, meter networking and communication, in-home energy management, demand response, meter data management, other smart grid software and services and related gear into an outdated and often overtaxed grid, according to Jeff St. John of greentechmedia.com.

"The smart grid market continues to move ... to a wide swath of new, advanced applications ranging from consumer behavior analytics, to next-gen control and protection, to greentech integration and grid optimization," St. John writes.

How all this turns out is anybody's guess. We were talking with our friends at the Air District about the subject, and the conclusion is that we probably won't be seeing noticeable change, at least in the San Joaquin Valley, any time soon.

Other stories of interest:
The DeLorean is back and this time it's electric
Electric car sales ramp up, is change coming?
Stockton electric truck company scores big with UPS

Sick of traffic? Try peddling an e-bike

Plan to leave downtown San Francisco in a car at rush hour?

Forget about it. Drivers are instantly locked in a metallic struggle pumping out CO2 while inching toward the Highway 101 on ramp.

A solution may be to pick up a bike. Maybe a 2012 Kalkhoff Sahel Pro S11 electric bike. A little pricey, but definitely more maneuverable.

In the United Kingdom, sales of the rather pricey bike are picking up as gas prices push the $10 per gallon mark.

"The big petrol price hike is happening right now and the phones are much busier than we would expect this early in the year," said an official of UK-based 50cycles.com via web chat. And is it a trend? "Too early to tell, but the signs are good."

Battling traffic

Commuters' battles with traffic congestion can shave years off their lives. Many stagger their drive time. Arrive early, leave early. They figure out a drill. Seattle to New York City, it's all the same.

However, change is coming with higher fuel prices and a cultural shift. No longer does everyone want to live in far-flung suburbia. The allure of a cookie-cutter home on a street named Willow Brook Lane and surrounded by a stone wall and electronically controlled black metal gates is growing a bit stale to the younger generation.

There's growing demand for homes closer to work, shops and mass transportation. Home builders, redevelopers and even some urban planners are beginning to see opportunity, fueling a growing sustainable communities movement.

Sustainable living

The voices for rethinking urban living are growing stronger. For instance, even the American Society of Landscape Architects says urban development should be guided by a sustainable planning that promotes interconnected green space, multi-modal transportation systems and mixed-use development. In other words, it should be people friendly.

New York City entrepreneur Mark Gorton is a big proponent of getting more bikes and fewer cars on the road. Controlling traffic and improving the quality of urban living is the goal of his Rethinking the Automobile project. Gorton, whose credits include forming almost a half dozen investment firms and other ventures, says what's good for a person -- a safe, slow and not very directional environment -- is not what's good for a car.

And mixing the two has created urban environments that cater to cars and trucks and "hostile for people," he says.

Bike riding open to new riders

So, should you buy a bike? The question until now has been generally "No." But that could change with the advent of technology that allows a relatively out-of-shape person on the aforementioned Kalkhoff to blast up to 40 miles on a charge on a electric-powered bike.

50cycles Ltd., which markets the Kalkhoff in England, explains it this way in a recent statement: "Unpowered bikes are great if you're super fit, in no big hurry or relaxed about wearing acres of day-glo Lycra. Electric bikes encouraging a new and broader range of cyclists to take to the roads."

Nicely put. I've commuted via bike. Not bad but getting to work covered in a sheen of sweat doesn't necessarily blend with the necktie.

Here's a testimonial also provided by 50cycles.com:

Mike Sandford bought his Kalkhoff Agattu electric bike to continue riding into his 70s. The official of the London Marathon modified the bicycle to precisely measure the course distance before last year's race. "It is perfect for this," Mike says, "because it flattens the hills and overcomes the wind. I no longer get tired and very slow as I did in my 60s."

There you have it.

E-bike players increase

German-made Kalkhoff is hardly the only one in the game. The company markets the bikes in this country through the Portland, Ore.-based Kalkhoff USA. The Sahel costs a little south of $3,500, about the price of a really nice road bike or about 35 times the price a meth head would charge on the streets. But his are stolen.

I digress.

Another is Currie Technologies, a Chatsworth, Calif.-based developer and distributor of electric-powered bikes and scooters marketed under the IZIP and eZip brands.

And there is Optibike, a company that engineer and tri-athlete Jim Turner started out of his Boulder, Colo. garage. His vision, according to Optibike's website: "Make the world's best electric bicycle, with no compromises in quality, performance or style." Price for the Commuter is $5,995 and a range of 20 miles.

Truly, another e-biking offers another option. But it's one that may evolve into a successful sector in the already burgeoning battery-powered market. Cars are coming online rapidly, either as full-on electric, hybrid or plug-in hybrid. The jury's still out, but gas prices certainly have people thinking about alternatives.

Other stories of interest:
People can adjust to friendlier streets, fewer cars
Coda ships first car; electric vehicle news accelerates

Matt Falcon: Confessions of an e-bike rider in Fresno, Calif.

We ran across electric-bike enthusiast Matt Falcon via Pete Moe, who is one of the organizers for Fresno Earth Day 2012, which is from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, April 14 at 2672 E. Alluvial Ave. in Fresno. I'd just completed a post on e-bikes. The concept of independent power (other than a 2-cycle engine) on a two-wheeler fascinated me ever since living in rural Fairbanks, Alaska and having to peddle 10 miles of hills just to get to the outskirts of town.

I asked Falcon to answer some questions. He's a trailblazer in a trend that Boulder, Colo.-based Pike Research says is "being driven by macroeconomic trends such as the growth of urbanization and the increasing need for low-cost transportation in developing markets."

 Matt Falcon: I'd be SO happy to be part of this! In all my years of being an online activist (don't say it ... don't say it ... "Slacktivist" ... OK, FINE, I said it!), I haven't ever really even been as much as quoted by someone else ... which is kinda sad! Really wish more people could see my experiences. I think a lot of people could benefit from a change in perspective every once in a while ... :)

San Joaquin Valley Clean Energy Organization: What’s your profession and full name and any other biographical information about yourself you can think of?
Falcon: My name is Matt Smith, although I often prefer to go by Matt Falcon due to my almost embarrassingly generic full name. I'm an IT guy for Lance-Kashian & Co. (in Fresno, Calif.), which I refer to as "the company that owns River Park" (though I'm not speaking on their behalf; this is all personal experience). I'm a "geek." I can fix pretty much anything involving electronics or computers (don't throw anything out -- it can almost always be fixed!)

Most of my belongings, including the laptop I'm writing this on now, were junk-pile discards due to some malfunction or blown-out part -- usually failed capacitors from the 2003-2007 years. I take these things in, figure out what's wrong with them, fix them up (for the laptop, I literally baked the video card in an oven for 5 minutes while monitoring it with an IR temperature probe), and put them back to use. I recover data from peoples' computers that think they "lost it all," and I breathe new life into computers that were messed up from peoples' friends who think they know how to "fix" a computer by carrying around a Windows installation CD! I also do a little bit of web work and built the websites falconfour.com and hostfile.org, among a few others -- though I don't do that as a business due to the work involved in writing it by hand.

I've also got a particular "soft spot" for F-16 fighter planes and a sort-of secondary interest in aviation, although bare-essentials finances keeps me from actually pursuing my interest in aviation. F-16s may seem kind of strange for an "eco-geek" like me to admire so much, but, hey, we all have our quirks, right?

Personally, I love them not for their blowing-stuff-up abilities but for their elegant, beautiful design and flying capabilities -- the most stunning ones I've seen are unarmed with nothing hanging from the wings! Also, as the name might imply, I really admire birds of prey - particularly the peregrine falcon - as my sort of personal "symbol." Truly a magnificent and beautiful bird, although I have yet to actually see one in person. Hopefully that'll change some day!

SJVCEO: How did you get interested in electric bikes?
Falcon: I literally just Googled it one night, thinking, jokingly, "yeah right. If they exist, I could never afford one." I've always been an advocate of battery-powered electric vehicles and swore up and down I'd make my first car an electric car since I was about 10 years old (when the EV1 was just coming around). They're geek, they're chic and by all scientific metrics, they are the definitive solution to our energy and oil problems. But my first car ended up being (and still is) an '87 Fiero, that gets roughly 16 miles per gallon with short trips around Fresno, but about 25 mpg on the highway. My trip to work is so short, the engine would barely get warmed up -- and while the engine is cold, the engine sucks up twice the amount of fuel while idling and driving.

There had to be a better way -- for a while, I rode an '07 Kawasaki Ninja 250 on my daily commute and got around 60 mpg, but that ended in disaster when an ex-roommate's druggie friend came and set fire to our motorcycles over a feud I wasn't even involved in. No insurance since I wasn't exactly expecting arson to be the cause of my bike's demise. So I got $100 from the scrapyard for it, and lost $4,000 of a sub-10,000 mile bike. Police refused to take a report and wanted me to fill out a "vandalism report." Crushing. But with that, I couldn't invest in a new motorcycle, and I certainly couldn't afford an electric conversion for my car.

A bike, maybe? No way. I'm a geek, not a jock -- I can't even jog more than 2 minutes without collapsing for breath! Riding a bike is an exercise in futility -- it'd get shelved and I'd go right back to the car. I remembered the idea of mopeds, and I got to wondering "is there such a thing as an electric bike?" When I Googled it, Google's shopping results popped up a shocking almost-typo-esque price tag - $350! "Say whaaa?" And the rest ... well, you can imagine. I first ordered my bike from Best Buy, but after placing the order, they went on "back order" with a 30-day window. "Waah ... I want it NOW!" It was really that exciting for me! Amazon had it for $450 (free expedited shipping with Prime - yes, even for an 80-pound bike!), and I made a deal with my roommate/friend to buy my gaming laptop for ordering the bike (and a few hundred more, later). Done.

SJVCEO: What’s the make of your e-bike and why did you choose it?

Falcon: It's the Currie Technologies eZip Trailz bike. I chose it strictly for its price tag and the whole "electric" thing, which I started eagerly talking to everyone I knew about from the moment I ordered it. I've never really had any decent experience on a bike and didn't own one for more than 10 years before buying this, so I had no idea what to shop for! Absolutely no regrets, though. After assembly and set-up, the thing has been a dream ever since.

SJVCEO: What’s it like battling traffic in some of Fresno’s toughest streets, for instance the high traffic of Blackstone Avenue?

Falcon: I think the best way to describe it is "semi-organized chaos." The streets are well designed for cars, but bikes are often less than an after-thought in street planning and striping. (More often than not, it's a striping problem!) Blackstone is a mess, hopping up onto the sidewalk and back down into the street as lanes widen and narrow, pushing me into the potential path of cars going 40 mph (while I'm doing 17).

Then, sidewalks have control boxes and fire hydrants strategically placed in clumps to make it a fighter-pilot-like test of steel nerves and driving skills to avoid getting part of the bike caught on while passing through at 10-15 mph. (I've failed once, almost broke the pedal getting caught on one of those dang boxes in the sidewalk). Bike lanes are few and far between, but are still a godsend. I can stop worrying about being in the way of someone turning or passing, since it's clearly defined for them.

Problem with many Fresno bike lanes is that they're such an afterthought. Many streets are wide enough for them (Blackstone, for example) but don't have them marked. Others come and go on wild whims over "county islands" like Sierra/Fresno and Herndon/Fresno, where huge dirt/weed lots break up the easy-going ride into nervous chaos.

I actually mucked up the bike mechanics pretty bad trying to get from the corner of Fresno/Herndon to Blackstone/Herndon through the dirt "sidewalk path" (where a sidewalk should be) at the 41 onramp, and getting stuck in some mud. The street is too narrow to ride on, and the path is too unstable to ride through, though it's supported on both ends of the dirt path by sidewalks. It's like someone intentionally said, "Ha-ha! We hate bikes."

Another common problem with bike lanes is that they end into right-turn lanes at intersections, putting "Me Versus the Cars" while cars have a poor driving habit of slowing down in the last 10 feet to stop, they approach the ending bike lane at 30MPH and I'm still slowing down at 14. Then, I'm nervously either stopped in the rightmost straight-through lane, or (as I'm often doing now) taking the sidewalk to stop at the crosswalk, then crossing back into the bike lane or edge of the road when the light turns green. That's been my safest and least obstructive option so far.

All in all, once I get a route planned, it's easy cake. Only unfamiliar streets tend to have these problems, and the only problems that come from them are from drivers that don't realize I'm doing 16-17 mph and try to zip past me to get into that right-turn lane instead of just slowing down to pass safely behind me. It's not too bad, and with the electric motor, it's easy to stop on a dime and zip back up to speed to avoid problems without any major inconvenience.

SJVCEO: How frequently do you ride?

Falcon: Every. Single. Day. It's completely replaced my car, which the roommate is now borrowing while he gets his car fixed. I ride to work every day (as was the original plan). And with a home-made lithium-polymer (LiPo) battery upgrade instead of the stock SLA (lead) battery, I'm excited to take it around and show off its power. I ride to work, I ride to friend's houses, I ride just to get out and find some place to go. At work I even find excuses to go visit the River Park management office and say, "Hi," and zip around River Park without pedaling, turning heads. It's always fun to hop up a curb at low speed without pedaling. The motor is powerful enough to get both tires up the curb with just a little jerk of the front wheel!

SJVCEO: If you are not already, would you consider commuting to work? If you already are, what’s it like?

Falcon: Absolutely. I ride to work every day it's not raining. (And I've even rode in the rain!) It's routine now after three or four weeks of riding almost every day (except the recent rains). The route passes by a gas station on the way, and I sometimes let off the throttle a little late, showing off that electric "zzzz" as I approach the stop sign! It takes roughly 15 minutes to get to the office from my front door, for about a 3 mile trip.

SJVCEO: Do you get stares when people figure out there’s something different about your bike?

Falcon: Ah, I had that "Don't talk to strangers" thing beaten into me when I was young and in school, which made me somewhat of a keep-to-myself person in public. I never really notice. But when I'm stopped, I think I've had one or two people ask me about it. I really rely on the battery pack on the side, the lack of pedaling, the speed, and the sound of the motor to answer peoples' silent questions about it.

SJVCEO: What do people say when they find out?
Falcon: The obvious, usually, "An electric bike?"... No, it's powered by unicorns! ... "What's the range on one of those things?" ... Infinite, as long as you can pedal -- but about 10 miles with my 260-pound, 6-foot 1-inch (frame) being hauled around on pure electric power. ... "How fast does it go?" ... Legal speed, which is under 20 miles an hour (le sigh). And of course, "How much does one of those cost?" which is surprisingly one of the less common questions. And, of course, I quote it as $450, since that $350 one at Best Buy was out of stock. People often sound interested, like they didn't know this thing actually existed.

SJVCEO: What’s the range?

Falcon: I've found it can be determined roughly by "1 amp-hour per mile." So if you've got a 10Ah battery, it's about 10 miles of electric power. It varies based on your weight, though -- 1Ah/mile is what I get. Friday (March 23) I took it out with the new lithium pack I built (10Ah, 25.9 volts), and the original SLA battery (10Ah, 24 volts) in tow as backup, all the way along the Sugar Pine trail from start to end. Around Old Town Clovis at the 10-mile mark, the lithium pack reached its end. So I wired up the SLA batteries to the charger I use (iCharger 208B+) and fed the lithium pack with 10 amps (I added heavy-duty charge wiring inside the pack - much thicker than the stock wires) and kept riding, while the battery charged when I let off the throttle or stopped.

After the trail (very abruptly!) ended along Clovis Avenue into a dirt trail, I took it down to McKinley/Clovis to catch a passing glimpse of those F-16s I admire. It got me the rest of the way home with a little dead-battery pedaling when they both went dead. When I got home, the trip meter (calibrated and tested to its wheel size) indicated 25 miles on that trip. What a day!

SJVCEO: Do you have it configured to carry cargo?

Falcon: It comes with a little metal strap-down rack in the back. And I used the elastic-cord cargo net from my old Ninja days to strap down my Solo "Smart Strap" laptop bag (retracting shoulder strap, so it doesn't hang loose on the bike). That holds my laptop and various other things for work, and I take it every day. I've also routinely used it for carrying groceries and other shopping goods, as long as I've got that strap. It's a really basic setup, but it works great!

SJVCEO: Do you use it to shop?

Falcon: Absolutely. Can't stack a whole lot on it, but I have done some grocery shopping and even carried home a new pillow hanging off the handlebar! I haven't started up the car in over a week, especially now with the roommate driving it.

SJVCEO: What about locking it up? Are you concerned about somebody taking it, and what measures do you take?

Falcon: Shoot, I'm worried sick about getting it stolen! I've watched surveillance footage of some people going up to a bike, pulling bolt cutters out of a backpack, clipping a lock off, and riding off with the bike. Because it's so easy to break a simple cable lock, I originally bought both a cable and a U-lock - the cable lock to go from the frame, through the front wheel, to the rack; the U-lock then goes through the wheel to the rack to hold it all in place.

The cheap $15 U-Lock at Target was so poorly constructed, though (shame on you Master Lock for putting your name on that thing!), that the key broke off in the lock a week after buying it, with almost no pressure! I got the key part out, soldered it back together (did you know keys can be soldered? I only found out by trying it!), and got the lock off to return it. Now I lock it up at work with a Kryptonite Kryptolok Series 2 cable/U-Lock combo -- a very thick cable and a very thick U-lock with a sturdy key, from Amazon for only about $30. For short term lock-up, I just use the cable lock.

As an additional security measure, though, I also have photos of the bike and the serial number, as well as photos of the home-built battery pack (and its cells I bought online), and pay $20 a month for personal property insurance with a $100 deductible through Wells Fargo. If the bike ever gets stolen, as I understand it, it should be covered. But I really don't want to have to see if that's true. ;)

SJVCEO: Would you recommend electric bikes to others?

Falcon: Ab-so-friggin'-lutely! I scoff mercilessly as I see Hummers and huge hulking SUVs on the road that pass me just to stop at the upcoming red light. They must love their gas bills. I've saved over $60 in gas in the month I've owned this bike so far, just by not having to burn any gas at all. Charging the battery literally only costs about $0.04 per charge in electricity, and that's being generous. If more people rode electric or drove electric, there'd be a lot less use of foreign oil.

Since electricity is generated here in the good ole' USA -- you can't import electricity, but you CAN generate it yourself -- we wouldn't be tearing up forests in Canada to extract bitumen for tar sands oil over the Keystone XL pipeline. And we wouldn't be polluting thousands of towns' groundwater by fracking for natural gas to be used in processing that dirty oil either. There's a long, long line of benefits, both economic and environmental, to driving or riding on electric power that can be generated with nearly anything that moves, turns or heats. It's just tough breaking a century of old habits and perceptions.

SJVCEO: What advice would you have to a new buyer? (and anything else you can think of)

Falcon: If you're in the market for a new car, check out the Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt, the plug-in Prius or the upcoming Tesla Model S. But if you're not in the market to drive electric, at least ride electric. You can do what I did and buy the $450 Currie eZip Trailz, or one of the other reasonably-priced offerings from Currie. Or you can keep your eye out for other options.

Most electric bikes are insanely, senselessly and prohibitively overpriced in the $1,000-3,000 range, while really offering nothing that the eZip doesn't. They may be hand-crafted and one-off manufactured, but so were cars before Henry Ford figured out how to do it cheaper. There are also conversion kits available, such as hub-motors (motor inside the wheel) and chain-drive conversions for existing bikes with a quick Google search (I'd imagine "e-bike conversion"), in the $300-$500 range.

In terms of battery technology, you get what you pay for. Lead batteries are 150-year-old technology and are cheap but have a limited lifespan. They HATE being fully discharged and hate staying that way even more! (Lead batteries are) quoted around 200 charges, but the performance decreases pretty dramatically over time.

Lithium batteries will pretty much last forever, but e-bike manufacturers put the price around $200-300 for a pack. The Currie-manufactured lithium upgrade pack/charger for the eZip is on Amazon for $400. Not sure where they got that price from. Converting my SLA (lead) pack into lithium cost me $150 in LiPo 5Ah cells from Hobby King, and about 6 hours of rather tedious and mind-altering (yay, soldering fumes!) assembly and testing. So the price isn't exactly unjustified; they're just expensive. Well worth it, though. The power boost is incredible. Lithiums don't "drop out" under load like leads do and can power the bike so rapidly, I can keep up with accelerating cars at a green light. And the pack will last pretty much forever if you treat it right (quoted around 8,000 cycles).

Get a decent lock to protect your bike, as mentioned above. Get a speedometer/computer for keeping track of your speed and miles, for your range monitoring and your own information. Last but not least, keep everything maintained. I found my tires went from 60 psi down to 25 psi over the course of riding for a month, and the speed and range went down as well! After a month, brakes were covered in road dust (and mud, from that ugly dirt-lot mishap), and squealing like nails on chalkboard. Chain was grinding with dirt and gunk. Air compressor, wet paper towel, and chain lube, and it's much happier.

If you don't like high gas prices, stop buying gas! :)

Another post of interest:
Sick of traffic? Try peddling an e-bike