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AUSTIN POWER ( excerpts )
In Quest for Cleaner Energy, Texas City Touts Plug-In Car
March 26, 2007 Wall St. Journal , By JOHN J. FIALKA
AUSTIN, Texas -- Of all the plans cooked up by cities to combat pollution and global warming, the one hatched here is among the most ambitious -- and, some say, one of the more quixotic.
Mayor Will Wynn is pushing a new version of the electric car called the plug-in, which runs almost entirely on electricity and has a big rechargeable battery. But that's not all. Mayor Wynn envisions the parked electric cars plugging into a network operated by the city's utility, which would then use the powerful car batteries as a big storage system from which to draw power during peak demand.
Roger Duncan, deputy manager of Austin Energy, the city-owned electric utility, dreamed up the scheme three years ago. ... If there were enough plug-ins around Austin, Mr. Duncan figured, he could buy more wind-generated electricity, sell it to plug-in owners at night, then buy some of it back during the day from cars sitting in parking lots equipped with special sockets.
The mayors of 50 major cities, several environmental groups and hundreds of utilities have endorsed the campaign, and many are intrigued by the power-storing concept. In California, the Bay Area Rapid Transit System, or BART, is looking into setting up a similar system for tapping into electric-car batteries in commuter parking lots, and several large utilities are studying the concept.
Big hurdles remain. The cars require expensive lithium-ion batteries that haven't been perfected. Production of plug-ins is at least three to five years off, and experts say the cars could cost $50,000. Austin takes pride in both its environmental record and its quirkiness.
In 2006, Austin's city council ponied up $1 million to mount a national campaign to drum up support. Mr. Duncan hit the road with a PowerPoint presentation, telling audiences that the cost of driving a plug-in car was comparable to paying 56 cents a gallon for gasoline.
Plug-ins need big lithium-ion batteries, 200- to 300-pound versions of the ones used in many laptop computers. The batteries have to store ... five times as much as batteries in current hybrids. Batteries for prototype plug-ins, Mr. Pesaran says, run $15,000 to $20,000 apiece.
Mayor Wynn says Austin's City Council has already set aside $1 million to fund rebates for the first 1,000 residents to buy plug-ins. The city intends to change building codes to require plugs in municipal parking lots, with Internet connections to Austin Energy. After that, the mayor explains, "we'll be able to start harvesting parking garages."
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http://zfacts.com/p/734.html | 01/18/12 07:19 GMT
Modified: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 16:44:21 GMT
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