A Fiat Multipla Bi-power car being refueled. Credit: Andreas Geick

America’s presidents can’t make up their minds about how to reduce dependence on oil imports.

President Bush was a enthusiastic support of fuel cells, until he was an enthusiastic supporter of ethanol made from switchgrass. President Obama has come out strong for biofuels and electric cars, but he didn’t mention those in his State of the Union address this week. Now he wants researchers to invent new ways to use natural gas to power vehicles.

The hope is to create a market for natural gas, which is pouring from the ground in record amounts in the United States, and in turn driving down natural gas prices to levels not seen for 10 years. 

It’s easy to use natural gas in internal combustion engines, but it’s hard to store much of it on board a car, so natural gas vehicles typically have a much shorter range than gasoline powered ones. The White House announced today that the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) will announce a research competition for either improving natural gas powered vehicles, or developing a cheaper way to turn the gas into an energy dense liquid fuel. (The announcement referred to ARPA-E’s previous funding rounds as “competitions,” so it’s likely this will just be another funding round, not something like the DARPA challenge competition to develop autonomous vehicles.)

The White House also announced a plan to encourage the use of natural gas in trucks: 

Reducing our dependence on oil by encouraging greater use of natural gas in transportation: The President’s plan includes: proposing new incentives for medium- and heavy-duty trucks that run on natural gas or other alternative fuels; launching a competitive grant program to support communities to overcome the barriers to natural gas vehicle deployment; developing transportation corridors that allow trucks fueled by liquefied natural gas to transport goods; and supporting programs to convert municipal buses and trucks to run on natural gas and to find new ways to convert and store natural gas.

Will natural gas transportation prove a fad? Unlike fuel cells, advanced biofuels, and electric cars, natural gas vehicles are already sold in large numbers, particularly outside of the United States. In the long term, especially if natural gas remains cheap, they will find a market in the U.S., too. But if political support for it depends on quick and widespread adoption, or on breakthroughs in turning the gas into liquid fuel, the support won't last, and we can look for some other transportation solution to be highlighted in the next State of the Union speech. 

Credit: Whitehouse.gov, Pete Souza

President Obama seems to have a newfound love of oil.

In his State of the Union Address last night, he emphasized the development of domestic energy supplies, particularly oil and natural gas, but also solar and wind power. 

Although he called on Congress to pass legislation creating a clean energy standard, as he did last year, it was clear that he's focusing on supporting clean energy by doing things within his administration that don't require Congressional support.  

Last year Obama mentioned the word "oil" twice, the first time to call for the United States to end its dependence on it, and the second time to call for funding clean energy development by decreasing tax breaks for oil companies.

This year he mentioned oil nine times (10 if you include a reference to a regulation that categorized cow milk as an oil). Gone was any sense that oil was an addiction, as his predecessor George Bush had called it, or something the United States had to reduce its dependence on. He praised the fact that the U.S. produced more oil last year than it had for eight years, and he said that he is opening more areas for offshore drilling. When he called for the development of alternatives to oil, his reason was that we just don't have enough of it in the United States. 

Although Obama sounded supportive of oil, he did call for an end to subsidies for oil companies and for Congress to "double down" incentives for clean energy. He also said he would continue efforts to make sure oil companies can contain oil spills like the one in the Gulf of Mexico. 

Last year, Obama said that U.S. oil dependency could be broken by turning to biofuels and electric vehicles. He didn't mention either this year. This is in spite of the fact that progress has been made on both fronts. 

Last year was the first full year of sales for new electric cars from GM and Nissan, and several more automakers will start selling electric vehicles this year. The first commercial cellulosic ethanol plants could also start operation this year. Sales of electric vehicles, however, have been slower than expected. And, by now, cellulosic ethanol plants were supposed to have been making hundreds of millions of gallons of ethanol, according to a federal mandate.

While Obama didn't mention electric vehicles, he did talk about high-tech batteries, saying that the U.S. is "positioned" to become the leading manufacturer of these batteries. Presumably, he's referring to electric car batteries and the large factories for making them that the government has subsized. The U.S. certainly is building a lot of battery factories. But it will be difficult for a new U.S. battery industry to compete with the established battery industry in Asia, and in any case, the success of the new factories will largely depend upon sales of electric vehicles increasing dramatically.

If Obama's biggest emphasis last year was on biofuels and electric cars, this year it was on natural gas. He praised domestic natural gas as a resource that is both clean and cheap, and he said that exploiting it could employ 600,000 jobs by 2020. He didn't say how many of those would be new jobs.

Although Obama praised natural gas, he didn't mention any specific support for the industry. Indeed, his only pledge was that he would regulate it, requiring companies to disclose the chemicals they use in the fracking process for extracting natural gas from shale.

Some support for natural gas could come from the clean energy standard—in lieu of a cap and trade system for reducing carbon dioxide emissions—that Obama asked Congress to pass last year, and again this year. The standards would have supported natural gas over coal, since burning it emits about half the carbon dioxide emissions as coal. 

Although Obama mentioned the clean energy standard, that's not really where he focused his attention last year. Instead, he's been working to push forward clean energy by means that don't require Congressional approval, such as new EPA limits on power plant pollution and tougher fuel economy standards. He spoke of working without the support of Congress in his speech, declaring that his administration would allow more construction of clean energy on federal lands, and that the U.S. Department of Defense would increase its use of clean energy sources. Expect Obama to continue this strategy, especially in an election year, when Congress is expected to get even less done.

In 15 years, a new car that gets less than 50 miles per gallon could be considered a gas-guzzler--if new fuel economy regulations President Obama plans to announce tomorrow stick. Automakers have agreed to support the new standards, which would U.S. vehicles to average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. Current standards require an average fuel economy of 31.4 miles per gallon by 2016.

"If upheld, the plan would lead to the biggest gains in fuel economy since government began setting mileage regulations in the 1970s and could lead to substantial changes to the cars and trucks most Americans drive," according to the Wall Street Journal.

The impact of the fuel economy standards will depend on the details of the regulations. Previous fuel economy regulations have made exceptions for light trucks and SUVs, which helped lead to a boom in sales of these vehicles, cancelling out much of the reduction in fuel consumption provided by more efficient cars.

So far, it looks like that trucks will again receive special treatment. According to the Washington Post,

The White House originally pushed for a 56.2-mpg standard, but automakers demanded a carve-out for pickup trucks, which continue to rank among their top annual sellers. That provision lowered the average fuel efficiency gains to 54.5 mpg.

"...Until the White House provides us the full details, we are not in position to assess whether this is a strong proposal or whether there are any significant flaws," said Roland Hwang, transportation program director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "From what we've read, there are certainly aspects that are encouraging but there are potential loopholes which could be troubling. Now it appears there is an agreement, it's time for the auto industry to work in good faith to not exploit the loopholes that threaten to undermine the consumer and pollution benefits."

One European automaker executive quoted by the Wall Street Journal suggest the rules may lead to the same problems seen in the past. "It's clearly inequitable and favors manufacturers of full size trucks," the executive said. "It could have an adverse effect on real world [gasoline] consumption by driving consumers to trucks."

One provision could lead to the standards being reduced before 2025. According to the Wall Street Journal: "In a key concession to auto makers, the White House also agreed to review the rules part way through the implementation cycle to determine if they are overly harsh or lenient given fuel prices, consumer behavior and technological advancements."

Details about how fuel economy can be assessed can influence what technologies will be adopted. In some standard driving tests, benefits of certain technologies don't show up.

The Washington Post reports that changes will be made to account for potential fuel savings from solar cells and thermoelectric devices, which supply electricity for running auxiliary systems and have an indirect effect on fuel consumption.

The Post didn't provide details about why the benefits of such systems aren't seen in current tests, but here's one guess: A solar cells might run fans that keep a car cool while it's parked. That would reduce air conditioning demand, and improve fuel economy, but that savings wouldn't necessarily be measured in test drives.