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, supporting both gasoline and CNG). 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 enforcement on 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 cleaner fuels like; natural gas, bio-diesel, and 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 our variety of industries and uses, 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 Britain, 7.5 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 freezing 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. You can see how well you can do with NREL’s PVWatts Calculator here:http://pvwatts.nrel.gov/
More information can be found at:
American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy
Alternative Fuels & Advanced Vehicles Data Center fueling location map
Interesting article on natural gas. No crystal ball for natural gas.
The right most pictures show the solar output going to my youngest son’s bedroom. The electronic load on the floor measures the output and allows us to find the maximum power point.
Soitec has some very efficient PV panels. Their production panels are 30% and they have announced a developmental cell at 44%.