A windmill in the process of being built in Canada near Lake Huron just east of Highway 21

Automobiles and their fuel.

My car was a 2000 Ford Contour with the Compressed Natural Gas option (a.k.a. FlexFuel option). These were only sold through fleet sales since they were built in response to a congressional act requiring half of every fleet in America to be using alternate fuel vehicles before the end of 2000...........oops, I guess someone in Congress forgot to see about enforcing that one. The lucky automobile manufacturers still got stuck with a multi-million dollar bill for the design, development, and production facilities for these cars of which they sold only a handful. The last production year of the Natural Gas Contour was 2000; about 2,000 cars were ordered, less than a month’s production. Where were all the environmentalists? The Ford Contour is no longer manufactured. Currently the only CNG production car that I know of is the Honda Civic. It is dedicated, not FlexFuel, so unless you install a home fueling pump this car may not be for you. Check out www.cngnow.com for a completely biased opinion. :-)

The Last Chapter

In early 2009 during rush hour, I (and many others) ran over a wheel in the middle of the expressway lane. Significant transmission damage was done and my Contour had to be laid to rest. Almost 180,000 miles, many on CNG.

Michigan’s Meijer’s gas stations have been great supporters of clean(er) fuels, natural gas, bio-deisel, and ethanol. I sure hope (yes, I know hope is not an engineering parameter) that we learn how to efficiently produce ethanol.

Michigan CNG pumps

Meijer installed CNG pumps in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and Jackson. The Jackson pump failed in 2007 and has been removed. There are also CNG pumps at Pacific Pride in Grand Rapids and at Wessco in Muskegon.

Living Green

Windmills

I like windmills, but I am also not such a romantic that I am blinded to the fact that they are unable to  put a large enough dent in the energy needs of this country to make a big difference by themselves. Sure, for those who are willing to spend a chunk of their own hard earned cash to put one up, they can make economic sense. For a country with industry, unemployed, streetlights and so on, they will not solve our grand scale energy needs by themselves. Their service life is too short, contribution to the grid too variable, to satisfy the future american needs without other energy sources.

If you want to check out a really big windmill, you have to go to Germany, 7+ Megawatts.

Once a year the CNG pump (the big high pressure pump, not the one you drive up next to when filling up) needs to be ‘dried out’. This is usually done before winter to avoid problems during winter from moisture in the gas.

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Solar Photovoltaic

Living in Michigan makes photovoltaics a hobby, not a solution for home power. I have a 55 watt panel on the south side of the house, at an angle that is too steep for optimal sun angle, but too shallow for snow shedding (which has to be nearly vertical). This is a Seimens 55 watt panel which gives us about 33 watts on the best of days at the 43rd parallel with this mounting angle. Cloudy days are 2 to 7 watts.