The most global environmental group has just
released a milestone report, "Plugged-in: the End
of the Oil Age." It's written by an oil industry
insider who I see as having come over from the
"dark side." It concludes that the
electrification of transportation is a way out
from our 95 per cent reliance on liquid fossil fuels.

REPORT'S ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT: We have long been
surprised that, compared to other constituencies,
much of the global environmental community has
been slow to recognize the benefits and near-term
practicality of plug-in cars. We hope this report
will help move them forward. We encourage our
readers to forward this email to organizations of which they are members.

ABOUT WWF: It's still known in the US and Canada
as the World Wildlife Fund, but since 1986
everywhere else it's The World Wide Fund for
Nature. With its panda logo, Wikipedia says it's
"the world's largest independent conservation
organization with over 5 million supporters
worldwide, working in more than 90 countries,
supporting 15,000 conservation and environmental
projects around the world." WWF says it
"proposes solutions to stop the degradation of
planet’s natural environment and to build a
future in which humans live in harmony with
nature. Combatting climate change and reducing
threats to biodiversity on land and sea are among
the key priorities for WWF’s work." The
organization, headquartered in Switzerland, has a
decentralized structure, and works with
governments, corporations and non-governmental
organizations globally -- so its endorsement is
very significant. (If "environment" doesn't come
to mind when you hear "WWF," it now should: after
a legal battle several years ago, the Worldwide
Wrestling Federation changed its name to World Wrestling Entertainment -- WWE.)

ABOUT THE REPORT AND ITS AUTHOR: We encourage you
to download the entire 202-page report, not just
the summary and read most or all of it. (You'll
see why when you look at the full table of
contents at end end of this post.) It's a very
broad evaluation of the entire range of fuel and
societal options. It's illuminating and
entertainingly written. It doesn't read like a
study put together by a committee, but rather by
an expert who is not afraid to combine careful
analysis with entertaining color and real
emotion. Here's how the press release describes
the report's principal author, who held a range
of positions at Exxon-Mobile and now works out of the European Policy Office:
Dr Gary Kendall is Senior Energy Business and
Policy Analyst for the WWF Global Climate Change
and Energy Programme based in Brussels. He
joined WWF in 2006 after nine years in the
petroleum industry in Europe and Asia. He holds
a PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Liverpool.

SURPRISING/LITTLE KNOWN INFORMATION: In addition
to its analysis, it brings together much that
hasn't been broadly seen or understood. My
favorite example, which demonstrates the
challenge the world faces in evolving to
low-carbon solutions: report page 25 (PDF page
27) is a page I've printed out to show people anytime. Here's the caption:
Figure 5: The ranking of the top fifty global
corporations by revenue in 2006 shows the
economic dominance of petroleum-based automotive
transport. Nine of the top ten and nineteen of
the top fifty companies operate in either
"Petroleum Refining" or "Motor Vehicles,"
contributing 46% of revenue. (Data source: Fortune Magazine)


DOWNLOADS: The report is currently highlighted on
the WWF home page http://www.panda.org
* Plugged-in: The end of the oil age - Full report [pdf, 1.90 MB]
http://assets.panda.org/downloads/plugged_in_full_report___final.pdf
* Plugged-in: The end of the oil age - summary [pdf, 618 KB]
http://assets.panda.org/downloads/plugged_in_summary.pdf

WWF'S PAGE DESCRIBING THE REPORT: Cars should plug-in to a new future: WWF
http://www.panda.org/index.cfm?uNewsID=129321

CAPTIONS (third photo shows a CalCars 100+MPG PHEV):
-New analysis from WWF shows that the alternative
to a 95 per cent reliance on polluting, climate
damaging and insecure liquid fuels is already here
-The dirtier, more energy intensive and climate
damaging future of liquid fuels - extracting oil sands in Canada
-More efficient and more climate friendly -
hybrid electric vehicles win on both counts even
with majority fossil fuelled electricity grids
and will only get better as more renewable energy
sources are used for power generation.
-From electric cars to electric vehicles -
scooters, bicycles and personal transporters are adding new options to mobility

Gland, Switzerland / Brussels, Belgium:
Dramatically expanded use of plug-in electric and
hybrid vehicles would be a way to a transport
future that doesn't risk climate catastrophe, a
major new WWF analysis has found.

Such a move would also reduce the risk of
conflict over less oil more and more concentrated
in relatively unstable areas of the world.

Plugged In: The End of the Oil Age considers the
future of a transport sector now 95 per cent
dependent on liquid hydrocarbon fuels and
examines the impacts and practicalities of
electric, coal-to-liquid, gas-to-liquid, natural
gas and hydrogen powered transport for the future

It finds that vehicles running solely or partly
on grid-connected electricity are more efficient
and less greenhouse gas intensive than all
alternatives, even with most power now being generated using fossil fuels.

The report also finds that cleaner power
generation and more use of renewable fuels in
power generation will make it certain that the
comparative efficiency and pollution advantages
of plug-in transport will improve into the
future, while the future of liquid fuels is one
of increasing resort to dirtier sources that will
take more energy to turn into fuels.

“We should all be relying more on walking and
biking, on buses and trains, to get to where we
need to go. But cars will inevitably remain a
major part of the transport equation," said James
Leape, Director General of WWF International.

"The cars of the future must be much more
efficient -- smaller, lighter, more aerodynamic
-- and they should, increasingly, be powered by electricity,”

As oil becomes more difficult to access,
techniques to create liquid fuels from coal are
now being vigorously pursued in the US, China,
India, Australia and South Africa.

“Coal-to-liquid fuels are costly, energy
intensive and extremely polluting, and have
previously only been used on any significant
scale in countries facing a state of emergency,”
said report author Dr Gary Kendall.

Other alternatives to traditional oil extraction
include exploitation of oil sands, which
generates three times the emissions of petroleum
processing and causes devastation to the local
environment. Natural gas suffers from similar
looming supply uncertainties to oil and makes its
greatest beneficial climate impact by displacing
coal in heat and power generation.

The report also finds that the electric vehicles
can be three times more efficient than
hydrogen-fuelled vehicles. More importantly
perhaps, electric vehicles can be widely
introduced using existing technologies and distribution infrastructure.

“Automotive transport is ripe for
transformation,” said Dr Kendall. “We need to
accelerate the commercialisation of vehicles with
diversified primary energy sources, high
efficiency and compatibility with a sustainable,
renewable energy future. The electrification of
automotive transport offers a promising way to achieve this objective.”

To do so, the report recommends dismantling
market barriers to superior technologies and
removing a host of hidden and overt subsidies to
liquid fuel use. Vehicles should be subject to
similar energy labelling and efficiency
improvement requirements as other
energy-consuming appliances. Liquid-based
measures of fuel economy (e.g. litres per 100km
or miles per gallon) and CO2 emissions targets
should be replaced with technology-neutral
indicators of energy consumed per kilometre.

“We cannot depend upon today’s dominant transport
solution providers to drive the shift away from
liquid hydrocarbon fuels,” Dr Kendall
said. “Other business sectors – such as power
utilities for instance – will come to the fore in
recognizing the business opportunities of grid-connected transport.

“But ultimately, leadership on moving to the best
transport fuel mix will need to come from governments."


PLUGGED IN TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS 6
PREFACE 7

PART I CONTEXT 15
Lessons from History 16
Wonderful Crude Oil 17
Transport Equals Oil 19
Oil Equals Power 24
Oil Security 27
High Oil Prices and Their Effects 29
Peak Oil 32
The Rise of National Oil Companies 33

PART II OIL, TRANSPORT AND CLIMATE CHANGE 37
Structure of the Oil Industry 39
Oil versus Transport 41
A Boost for Renewables? 42
Core Business 47
Unconventional Oils 48
Oil Sands 50
Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) 55
Coal-to-Liquids (CTL) 58
The Convergence of Transport and Power 64

PART III A DIFFERENT ROAD 67
The End of the ICE Age 67
Escaping Lock-in 68
Transformational Change 70
Disruptive Technologies 72
The Great American Streetcar Scandal 74
“Beyond Petroleum” 75
The China Factor 76
250 Million Vehicles 76

PART IV THE ELECTRIC POWERTRAIN 79
Life-cycle Analysis 79
Electrons versus Liquids 82
CO2 Emissions 86
Resource Efficiency 91
Stationary Emissions 97
Technology Options 98
Limitations of Battery Electric Vehicles 98
The Rise of the Hybrid 104
The Ultimate Flexible Fuel Vehicle 107
A Boost for Renewables? 110
Grid-Connected Vehicles in Practice 112
Battery Electric Vehicles 112
Plug-in Hybrids 116
Fuelling the Plug-in 120
Residual Liquid Demand 120
How Much New Electricity? 122
Electricity is Not Just for Cars 125
Electric Buses, Trucks, and Vans 125
Electric Two-wheelers 127

PART V OTHER ALTERNATIVE FUELS 129
Hydrocarbon Gases 130
Liquefied Petroleum Gas 130
Compressed Natural Gas 131
Growth and Dependency 132
Oil Companies and the Hydrogen Highway 133
Blinkered to the Range of Solutions 135
The Hydrogen Car is an Electric Car 136
The Hydrogen Economy 137
Hydrogen Production 138
Hydrogen Distribution and Storage 141
Hydrogen Fuel Cells 142
Well-to-Wheel Comparison of Fuel Cell and Plug-in Electric Vehicles 143
Hydrogen in Internal Combustion 147
The Hydrogen Future 147

PART VI HOW TO GET THERE 151
Policy Options 151
Picking winners? 152
An Integrated Approach 153
Appliance Energy Efficiency Standards 154
CO2 Intensity of Energy 157
Zero-Emission Vehicle Mandates 159
Consumer Incentives 160
Infrastructure 162
Taxation 162
Government Research 163
Public Procurement 163
Emerging Business Models 164
Car Conversions 164
Car Sharing Clubs 165
Mass Transit Partnerships 167
Energy Services 167
International Oil Companies 168
Unintended Consequences 170
Battery Impacts 170
A Boost for Nukes? 171
Induced Demand 172
Geographical Focus 173
North America 174
European Union 175
Japan 175
Rapidly Emerging Economies 176

PART VII CONCLUSIONS 179

REFERENCES 184
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 197


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Felix Kramer fkramer@...
Founder California Cars Initiative
http://www.calcars.org
http://www.calcars.org/news-archive.html
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