Clean Transportation
Look up "clean transportation" on the Internet and there are over 35,000,000 hits at your fingertips. It is an international, national and local topic that ensures lots of conversations and questions, if not solutions.
Globally, the International Council on Clean Transportation (www.theicct.org) is made up of over 30 government officials from the top ten motor vehicle markets. "[They] meet every 18 months to protect public health, minimize climate change and improve quality of life for billions of people as the world's transportation infrastructure grows...in 20 years the number of cars on the planet is expected to go from one to two billion; based on current projections [and] the amount of energy used for transport will double by 2050."
And the four regions that the ICCT focuses on each have their own challenges. In Asia, China and India are becoming so motor mobile that even major efficiency is overwhelmed by volume of vehicles, but emission regulations are being put into place. In Europe, the EU has become a global leader in controlling pollutants and gases, and vehicles are going to reduce carbon emissions by at least 40 percent in 10 years. Latin America has some of the worst pollution, but Mexico has been working on a plan since 2004 to clean up their air and has made inroads. Brazil has a sugar cane-based ethanol fuel industry which is a model of sustainability but cannot be reproduced elsewhere. North America is a leader in reducing conventional pollution, but we are remiss in establishing fuel economy and greenhouse standards. For more information about global initiatives, visit www.theicct.org.
On a national level, the United States is throwing money at the problem. In 2009, the DoE, as part of the Clean Cities Grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to support clean fuels, vehicles and infrastructure development, invested over $300 million in clean transportation initiatives. For a distribution map of the Clean Cities chosen, go to www.energy.gov/recovery/cleancities.htm
Scientific American has a lengthy article concerning U.S. transportation and raises the question of exactly how to further fund the issue and where it should go. "The biggest problem is probably the source of money. Generally these bills have been heavily funded by gasoline tax [however] the tax has lost 33 percent of its purchasing power over the past 15 years. In other words, it is two-thirds less than it was fifteen years ago. So either the gas tax must be raised considerably or a new source of significant funding needs to be identified and chosen."
Along with the issue of how to fund is the thorny issue of "Where should the money go?" The automobile industry has been heavily favored in funding, but since "transportation is responsible for about one third of greenhouse gases emitted in the US (approximately 17 percent due to light duty trucks and autos alone) the transportation sector is the sector where the emissions are growing the fastest." And as article author Zachary Shahan says, "We should be making a U-turn on greenhouse gas emissions, but [we] are struggling to even slow down."
But is South Carolina and Greenville in particular part of the solution or the problem? Gordon Branson, chairman of the Greenville Chamber of Commerce's Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, notes, "We have the lowest gasoline tax in the Southeast (16 cents a gallon) and the fourth lowest in the country and that means funding to study what is the best direction to go in — more concrete or a totally different mode of transporting goods and people — is difficult to come by." But the S.C. Budget and Control Board's State Energy Office has split $4.5 million among 11 organizations, and it awarded the City of Greenville $94,100 to convert 10 city vehicles to propane and install a refueling station.
Another real advancement for Greenville in the energy war is Proterra selecting CU-ICAR (Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research) as their manufacturing and R&D center. In turn, a $25 million federal stimulus to purchase electric buses is a benefit to Proterra — the only electric bus maker to meet federal standards.
South Carolina is the only state that operates the public school bus system and purchases school buses on a statewide basis. The Department of Education is on the road to purchasing low-emission hybrid diesel buses. According to Ron Barrett in USA TODAY, "The [South Carolina] system uses 12.2 million gallons of diesel to run 5,076 buses over 7.87 miles last year. A 50 percent cut in diesel consumption could save $18.3 million a year."
Another positive note for Greenville and the state is the formation of the New Carolina Initiative with Greenville's George Fletcher as executive director. This group defines itself as "a non-profit working to increase South Carolina's economic competitiveness through a cluster development strategy." Within this strategy are automotive, distribution, hydrogen and fuel cell clusters that are looking at transportation as it relates to the growth of the state. For more information, visit www.newcarolina.org.
The Palmetto State Clean Fuels Coalition, one of 88 designated "Clean City" programs under the Department of Energy, is tasked with promoting energy that is "clean, safe, less dependent on foreign sources and sustainable." The South Carolina Coalition met in October in Greenville at CU-ICAR to discuss alternative fuel vehicles. For more info, visit www.palmettocleanfuels.org.
There is no argument that we need cleaner transportation, and the ways to achieve it are being carefully discussed and studied from the local to the international level. But as Gordon Branson says, "As individuals, we need to become aware of our own personal use of transportation as a start to solving the problem. Awareness and then a resulting action to make our cities cleaner is something we can all do now."
Check out Columbia Business Monthly's feature on fuel cell research at USC online at columbiabusinessmonthly.com and Pee Dee Business Journal's feature on South Carolina's bioenergy revolution at greaterpeedeebusinessjournal.com