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There are strong incentives in terms of national energy and environmental policy to encourage the commercialization of electrically powered vehicles in the U.S. Among these incentives are reduced petroleum consumption, improved electric generation capacity utilization, reduced IC engine emissions, and, depending on the primary fuel used for electric power generation, reduced emissions of carbon dioxide. A basic requirement for successfully commercializing any motor vehicle in the US is provision of adequate passenger comfort heating and air conditioning (cooling). Although air conditioning is generally sold as optional equipment, in excess of 80% of the automobiles and small trucks sold in the US have air conditioning systems. In current, pre-commercial electric vehicles, comfort heating is provided by a liquid fuel fired heater that heats water which is circulated through the standard heater core in the conventional interior air handling unit. Air conditioning is provided by electric motor driven compressors, installed in a system having, perhaps, an {open_quotes}upsized{close_quotes} condenser and a standard evaporator (front and rear evaporators in some instances) installed in the conventional interior air handler. Although this approach is adequate in the near term for initial commercialization efforts, a number of shortcomings of this arrangement, as well as longer range concernsmore » need to be addressed. In this project, the long term alternatives for cooling and heating electric vehicles effectively, efficiently (with minimum range penalties), and without adverse environmental impacts have been examined. Identification of options that can provide both heating and cooling is important, in view of the disadvantages of carrying separate heating and cooling systems in the vehicle.« less

Although China is a poor country, with much of its population still farming for basic subsistence in rural villages, China is rich in energy resources. With the world's largest hydropower potential, and ranking third behind the US and USSR in coal reserves, China is in a better position than many other developing countries when planning for its future energy development and self-sufficiency. China is now the third largest producer and consumer of commercial energy, but its huge populace dilutes this impressive aggregate performance into a per capita figure which is an order of magnitude below the rich industrialized nations. Despite this fact, it is still important to recognize that China's energy system is still one of the largest in the world. A system this size allows risk taking and can capture economies of scale. The Chinese have maintained rapid growth in energy production for several decades. In order to continue and fully utilize its abundant resources however, China must successfully confront development challenges in many areas. For example, the geographic distribution of consumption centers poorly matches the distribution of resources, which makes transportation a vital but often weak link in the energy system. Another example -- capital -- is scarcemore » relative to labor, causing obsolete and inefficiently installed technology to be operated well beyond what would be considered its useful life in the West. Major improvements in industrial processes, buildings, and other energy-using equipment and practices are necessary if China's energy efficiency is to continue to improve. Chinese energy planners have been reluctant to invest in environmental quality at the expense of more tangible production quotas.« less

LBNL-58636 Best Practices for Energy Efficient Cleanrooms Efficient HVAC Systems: Variable-Speed-Drive Chillers Tengfang Xu June 15, 2005 The project is funded by the California Energy Commission’s Industrial section of the Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program (http://www.energy.ca.gov/). This work was supported by the Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Office of Building Technology, U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.

Increasing urban albedo can reduce summertime temperatures, resulting in better air quality and savings from reduced air-conditioning costs. In addition, increasing urban albedo can result in less absorption of incoming solar radiation by the surface-troposphere system, countering to some extent the global scale effects of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. Pavements and roofs typically constitute over 60% of urban surfaces (roof 20–25%, pavements about 40%). Using reflective materials, both roof and pavement albedos can be increased by about 0.25 and 0.15, respectively, resulting in a net albedo increase for urban areas of about 0.1. On a global basis, we estimate that increasing the world-wide albedos of urban roofs and paved surfaces will induce a negative radiative forcing on the earth equivalent to offsetting about 44 Gt of CO2 emissions. At ∼$25/tonne of CO2, a 44 Gt CO2 emission offset from changing the albedo of roofs and paved surfaces is worth about $1,100 billion. Furthermore, many studies have demonstrated reductions of more than 20% in cooling costs for buildings whose rooftop albedo has been increased from 10–20% to about 60% (in the US, potential savings exceed $1 billion per year). Our estimated CO2 offsets from albedo modifications are dependent on assumptions used in this study, but nevertheless demonstrate remarkable global cooling potentials that may be obtained from cooler roofs and pavements.

This report has been assembled to provide the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) with an idea of how the American public views various transportation, energy, and environmental issues. An issue that still needs attention from EERE is the finding that the public tends to lack information about hybrid vehicles, hydrogen, and alternative fuels for passenger vehicles. Also, the public seems to want fuel-efficiency improvements and cleaner fuels, but is not very willing to pay for these benefits. The public also says that it supports initiatives to promote energy conservation over increased production and that it is willing to make changes such as driving less in an effort to reduce oil consumption.

Since the 1970s, numerous transportation strategies have been formulated to change the behavior of drivers or travelers by reducing trips, shifting travel to more efficient modes, or improving the efficiency of existing modes. This report summarizes findings documented in existing literature to identify strategies with the greatest potential impact. The estimated effects of implementing the most significant and aggressive individual driver behavior modification strategies range from less than 1% to a few percent reduction in transportation energy use and GHG emissions. Combined strategies result in reductions of 7% to 15% by 2030. Pricing, ridesharing, eco-driving, and speed limit reduction/enforcement strategies are widely judged to have the greatest estimated potential effect, but lack the widespread public acceptance needed to accomplish maximum results. This is one of a series of reports produced as a result of the Transportation Energy Futures (TEF) project, a Department of Energy-sponsored multi-agency project initiated to pinpoint underexplored strategies for abating GHGs and reducing petroleum dependence related to transportation.

In 2006-08, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in collaboration with several industry partners, collected real-world performance and situational data for long-haul operations of Class-8 trucks from a fleet engaged in normal freight operations. Such data and information are useful to support Class-8 modeling of combination truck performance, technology evaluation efforts for energy efficiency, and to provide a means of accounting for real-world driving performance within combination truck research and analyses. The present study used the real-world information collected in that project to analyze the effects that vehicle speed and vehicle weight have on the fuel efficiency of Class-8 trucks. The analysis focused on two type of terrains, flat (roadway grades ranging from -1% to 1%) and mild uphill terrains (roadway grades ranging from 1% to 3%), which together covered more than 70% of the miles logged in the 2006-08 project (note: almost 2/3 of the distance traveled on mild uphill terrains was on terrains with 1% to 2% grades). In the flat-terrain case, the results of the study showed that for light and medium loads, fuel efficiency decreases considerably as speed increases. For medium-heavy and heavy loads (total vehicle weight larger than 65,000 lb), fuel efficiency tends to increase asmore » the vehicle speed increases from 55 mph up to about 58-60 mph. For speeds higher than 60 mph, fuel efficiency decreases at an almost constant rate with increasing speed. At any given speed, fuel efficiency decreases and vehicle weight increases, although the relationship between fuel efficiency and vehicle weight is not linear, especially for vehicle weights above 65,000 lb. The analysis of the information collected while the vehicles were traveling on mild upslope terrains showed that the fuel efficiency of Class-8 trucks decreases abruptly with vehicle weight ranging from light loads up to medium-heavy loads. After that, increases in the vehicle weight only decrease fuel efficiency slightly. Fuel efficiency also decreases significantly with speed, but only for light and medium loads. For medium-heavy and heavy, FE is almost constant for speeds ranging from 57 to about 66 mph. For speeds higher than 66 mph, the FE decreases with speed, but at a lower rate than for light and medium loads. Statistical analyses that compared the fuel efficiencies obtained when the vehicles were traveling at 59 mph vs. those achieved when they were traveling at 65 mph or 70 mph indicated that the former were, on average, higher than the latter. This result was statistically significant at the 99.9% confidence level (note: the Type II error i.e., the probability of failing to reject the null hypothesis when the alternative hypothesis is true was 18% and 6%, respectively).« less

Low emission development strategies (LEDS) articulate economy-wide policies and implementation plans designed to enable a country to meet its long-term development objectives while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. A development impact assessment tool was developed to inform an analytically robust and transparent prioritization of LEDS actions based on their economic, social, and environmental impacts. The graphical tool helps policymakers communicate the development impacts of LEDS options and identify actions that help meet both emissions reduction and development goals. This paper summarizes the adaptation and piloting of the tool in Kenya and Montenegro. The paper highlights strengths of the tool and discusses key needs for improving it.