Energy Alternatives Compete For Leverage

WASHINGTON — In what one industry representative calls a struggle for supremacy, advocates of various sources of alternative energy are beginning to point out the competition's warts.

"Everyone wants to use the energy crisis as leverage to support his solution," said Bob Rose, executive director of the Fuel Cell Council.

But with limited government R&D money for ways to replace oil, any one technology's gain is a loss for the others. So the criticism is flying in all directions.

Solar energy? A retired University of Connecticut physicist who advocates increased development of nuclear power calls solar energy "a fraud."

Ethanol? Some critics say that at best it will swap food for fuel, and at worst it will use more energy than it yields.

Rechargeable batteries for autos? Some call the current technology too expensive and environmentally suspect.

Hydrogen? One advocate of ethanol fuel recently declared that the dream of a hydrogen-based economy is a "hoax."

"Forget hydrogen. Forget hydrogen. Forget hydrogen," are the oft-quoted words of another critic, former CIA Director James Woolsey, who speaks for the Set America Free Coalition.

Woolsey says a hydrogen economy would require the installation of an entire national infrastructure to distribute and sell the fuel.

And that infrastructure won't be cheap because hydrogen, nature's lightest substance and smallest molecule, is something of an escape artist. It would leak through the existing natural gas pipeline system, so special material would be required.

Another problem critics are fond of pointing out is "embrittlement," the fact that when hydrogen leaks through metal, it causes it to become brittle and break.

Woolsey favors the "plug-in hybrid," a concept spearheaded by the Texas utility Austin Energy in which rechargeable batteries would be added to hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles.

A charge would allow the cars to travel up to 35 miles, more than most Americans drive every day. Advocates claim the fuel cost of driving such a car would be the equivalent of around $1.00 a gallon.

But Rose, the fuel cells representative, points out that the cost of batteries may be an equally stubborn problem for the plug-in hybrid.

A Canadian company sells rechargeable battery kits that can be added to existing hybrid vehicles. They cost $9,500 each — if you buy 100 at a time, meaning that so far there have been few customers other than fleet managers.

The company, Hymotion, says on its Web site that an overnight charge for batteries added to a Toyota Prius would cost only about 31 cents and would carry the car 30 miles.

But if gasoline cost $3 per gallon and a Prius gets 45 miles per gallon, then the 31-cent charge would save about $2 a day in gasoline costs. At that rate, it would take 15 years for the battery pack to pay for itself.

Rose also says that plug-in cars would increase demands on the national electric grid, and do little to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

Another hydrogen skeptic is consulting engineer Robert Zubrin, who in a recent magazine article titled "The Hydrogen Hoax" said the government should require car makers to produce vehicles that can use fuel that is 85 percent ethanol.

"That's what a serious energy policy would look like," he said.

Well, that idea has its critics too. They say that like hydrogen, ethanol is expensive to transport. Since it contains small amounts of water, metal pipelines would corrode soon, so it has to be trucked.

They note that it also takes a lot of fossil fuel, primarily natural gas, to produce the fertilizer and fuel required to make ethanol from corn. The most optimistic calculations are that for every calorie of fossil fuel energy going in, society derives 1.29 to 1.65 calories of energy in ethanol.

Some calculations for "cellulosic ethanol" made from grasses and plant wastes come out better, with energy returns of 4.4 to 6.6.

But cellulosic ethanol is not yet commercially viable. And scholars Tad Patzek of the University of California at Berkeley and David Pimentel of Cornell University claim the return is negative, and that cellulosic ethanol is an even greater energy "sink" than corn-based fuel.

One technology that is getting federal funding is solar energy. This month, the Energy Department announced that it would award up to $168 million to some of the world's largest companies to stimulate its development.

Scientists at Georgia Tech will be among those working on projects run by BP Solar and General Electric, which will receive up to $19 million each, according to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.

But "solar energy is a fraud," says Howard Hayden, a retired physics professor at the University of Connecticut. "It's being promoted as the solution to problems it can't solve."

Hayden says he includes wind power in his definition of solar energy because winds are driven by heat from the sun.

Hayden says the government should spending more to underwrite nuclear power instead.