Hydrogen Road Tour in Chattanooga

Monday two of my students (Shuguang Ji and Casey Langford) and I went to the Hydrogen Road Tour in Chattanooga (http://hydrogenroadtour08.dot.gov/). For a couple of hours about a half dozen hydrogen powered cars (internal combustion and fuel cell) were displayed and demonstrated. It was quite an impressive demo, if you could ignore the tractor trailers with giant hydrogen tanks that accompanied them. This certainly demonstrates the chicken or egg challenge associated with developing cars first or hydrogen infrastructure. Not every H2 car can have a "station" following them wherever they go. Regardless, the vehicles were silent and local pollution free. It was also interesting seeing the different technology strategies involved, like the hydrogen gas powered fuel cell cars, with high pressure tanks, and BMW's internal combustion engine with very cool liquid hydrogen. The engineer told me the tank is so insulated that it would take 80 days for a cup of boiling coffee to become drinkable inside. Pretty amazing. At any rate, the reason I attended was to brush up on some of the technology, along with infrastructure challenges for a research project I am working on with Casey, along with Wayne Davis here in the Civil Engineering department. We are identifying infrastructure and fleet challenges associated with developing a hydrogen powered bus fleet in Knoxville. On a semi-related note, I've seen a few stories about using baking soda/water mixture that can supposedly boost fuel efficiency by 10-100%. I have been thinking about trying it out on my new moster truck (what do I have to lose?). I came across this PM article that tests it and so far has debunked it as a myth that violates thermodynamic laws.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/how_to/4276846.html?series=19

If I decide to go for it, it might be a fun experiment.

E-Scooters vs Motorbikes in Vietnam

With the price of gasoline increasing by over 30% in Vietnam, former e-scooter skeptics are re-considering whether e-bikes will enter the market and what affect they might have on local air quality. Here is my take that I just posted on the Sustran listserve.

E-bikes emit a less on almost all levels than motorbikes. Some recent work we've been doing in China shows that e-bikes emit 1/3 the CO2 as a motorbike. Similar improvements can be seen on almost all local pollutants with the exception of SO2, which has comparable rates, but this highly depends on local electricity generation mix. Another issue where e-bikes have an advantage is the ability for agencies to manage a few point emission sources (power plants), compared to millions of tailpipes. Finally, emissions from power plants are generally more remote and thus populations have less exposure to the pollutant than ground-level tailpipe emissions in dense urban areas. In the context of local "tailpipe" emissions electric bikes/scooters/motorbikes perform much better than gasoline motorbikes.

Lead pollution on the other hand is where electric bikes do not perform so well. This is something that the Vietnam EPA is addressing by developing a lead acid battery recycling system that encourages take-back into the "formal" sector, rather than backyard recyclers. I am working with them on this along with the development of an eco-label for sustainable battery production with an NGO, OK International (www.okinternational.org). Whether the Vietnamese can succeed in managing a "clean" lead battery supply chain is uncertain but they are certainly making an effort to address it, before e-bikes flood the market. Because of Vietnam's poor recycling infrastructure, a lot of lead scrap in Vietnam is being exported (illegally) to China, but that could change as more recyclers enter the market. It could be beneficial to begin looking at new battery technology for this new market, now that Lead has gotten expensive and Li-ion is coming down in price. One still has to address the recycling problem, but Li-ion could be more manageable than Lead.

There is also some work in progress looking at some market analysis, using a stated preference survey that we conducted in June. The initial results actually show quite a strong preference for e-scooters, based on performance, cost and other metrics. I will send an email to this listserve when I have a report with some solid findings.

To summarize, e-scooters will improve local air quality, energy efficiency, and GHG emissions in Vietnam (perhaps also improving cost effectiveness of travel and safety at the same time). Introducing e-vehicles into the cities will increase lead pollution, simply because most current e-scooters use large lead batteries, frequently. The cost of alternative technology (Li-ion) is coming down, potentially leading to more adoption (maybe with the help of regulators). Also, Vietnam policy makers have been more pro-active than most in addressing lead problems in the past couple of years (in my opinion), so there is a higher chance that there will be a robust take-back policy like we see in the North America or Europe, and hopefully this will lead to high rates of formal recycling.

Birthdays Party

It is the Birthday season in the Cherry household. Julie's is July 12th, Chris' is July 30th, Kylie's is August 10th, and Avah's is August 13th. So we have one birthday party after another. Julie's was at...well Chris' friends house, a big reunion of all the childhood buds. Chris' was up in the Smokey mountains on a camping trip. Avah and Kylie get to share their party because they happen to be three days apart. We had a "water fun" party. Basically a bunch of kids, old and young jumping around in the water. Everyone had tons of fun, even if the birthday girls were a little slow waking up from their afternoon naps. So we have a "wonderful" two year old and soon to be four year old. We also went fishing on the boat today and Avah got to reel in her first fish, about an 8" smallmouth bass.

Catching up with the Joneses

So, we went there. I used to be a bass fisherman and be on the water several times a month. I went to college in Berkeley and it became too difficult to get connected with fishing clubs etc, not that I had any time between kids and grad school. As a result, my fishing gear collected dust and I only went out a couple of times in several years, fishing from the shore and not having much luck. One of the problems is that I'm used to fishing from a boat. Well, my dad hadn't been using a boat much so last week he offered to lend it to us, and we took him up on that offer. We had it shipped out and it arrived last Saturday...only problem is that we didn't have a vehicle to launch with. My Vespa wouldn't do it and our Chevy Malibu wasn't able. So we were shopping for something that could pull a boat...dare I say SUV. Yes, we were shopping for an SUV, which started with a mid sized Land Rover, then to a Dodge Durango. No luck on any of these. What did we get...a huge Ford Expedition. OK, this was bigger than we wanted, but it had what we needed, pulling power and a third row. This is the best time to buy a gas guzzler, but I was slightly embarrassed driving it today. On top of that, it defies what I would consider my moral fabric. See this link to know what I mean http://christiansandclimate.org/. OK, my only rationalization (not justification) is that it will be parked 9 out of 10 days. OK, this thing also is 10 years old and has 152,000 miles and cost us $3100 so it hopefully won't depreciate much more. I think this is a good time to buy a gas guzzler. I am going to do a little experiment and see if the "vehicle effect" will actually increase my household's vehicle miles traveled (VMT) like the travel demand models predict. Check back in a year on that one. For what it's worth, here is the beast and our new boat that we took out today for the first time. We are trying not to catch up with the Joneses, but we are living blocks from a lake and a boat is going to be tons of fun for the family and me.

Thailand beach and back to USA

We are back! We had a great time in China. The trip started with about a week in Beijing for a conference and some meetings, followed by two months in Kunming, then about a week in Thailand. On the side, I had a couple of trips to Shanghai and Hanoi to build some partnerships and initiate some research. The Bluey Louey saga has ended, with Bluey locked up for good, destined to rust away in a junk yard. Avah and I went to try to get her out once and we were able to see her one last time, but too much paperwork and fines to pay to justify going for the release.

We had a great time in Thailand. I spent the first day meeting with faculty from King Mongkut University of Technology Thonburi. This was a very good meeting and I was very happy to meet the faculty there. I think that this will be a good interaction. After that meeting, we flew to Thailand to have some fun in the sun for a long weekend. We went to Khao Lak, about an hour north of the Phuket airport. It was wonderful, just the way I like it. I've heard that Phuket can be a tourist circus, which is what I try to avoid on my vacations. Khao Lak is a quiet village, still with plenty of local food and amenities, but without the hassle of being constantly hounded by people trying to squeeze your last Baht out of you. The place we stayed...Baan Khao Lak was pretty great, centrally located and there were only about 5 families in the whole resort (summer is off-season because of the monsoon storms). It only actually rained for a few minutes on the first day, so we really lucked out. We rented a motorcycle to get around, which was admittedly risky, but also very fun and mobile for all involved. We took it all over, up into the mountains, through the town, etc. Much better than walking in the July heat. Kylie didn't like the beach so we spent a lot of time in the pool. Avah learned to swim for the most part and both girls had a lot of confidence in the pool. We rode an elephant through the jungle and visited some waterfalls. Overall, it was a great vacation. It was a little eerie being in the location in Thailand that was hardest hit by the Tsunami. Even four years later there is still evidence. Most striking was the destroyed and abandoned resort down the beach from ours that was slowly being swallowed by the jungle.

We are back in the states now, visiting Julie's family, then to a wedding, then visiting my family for a couple of days in Prescott. Then back to "normal" life in Knoxville to write some papers and prep my new class for the fall.

Two down, one to go

We left China yesterday, bound for Bangkok. Overall, this has been one of our most interesting and rewarding trips. This was the first time I’ve gone as a faculty member and clearly the first time I have ever brought students along. It is also the first time I’ve had two kids along (no I’m not referring to the students). It has had its share of challenges and adventures. This trip was possibly busier than any other trip to China. This time I spent more time managing and planning projects than actually collecting data (like on my dissertation research trips. We were (are) working on five projects in two countries, coordinating with three of my students, several Chinese faculty and students and several Vietnamese researchers. Here is a list of the projects that we collected data for and are currently working on.

1) E-Bike Use in China: Patterns, Dynamics, Determinants, and Environmental Impacts (Luke Jones, along with Xiong Jian (Kunming University of Science and Technology))-Partial Funder: UT

2) E-Scooters in Vietnam: Factors Influencing Market Potential and Improvements to Local Air Quality (Luke Jones, along with Nguyen Quang and Vu Tuan (Hanoi University of Transport and Communications))-Partial Funder: Swiss Vietnam Clean Air Partnership

3) Lead Acid Battery Take-Back Policy Development and the BEST Eco-Label in Vietnam (Luke Jones and Perry Gottesfeld(OK International), along with Vietnam EPA)-Partial Funder: NCIIA

4) Illegal Pedestrian Crossing Behavior and Countermeasures (Elliott Moore, along with Xiong Jian (KMUST))-Partial Funder: UT

5) Intersection Design to Reduce Conflict and Improve Capacity (Terrance Hill, along with Xiong Jian (KMUST))-Partial Funder: National Science Foundation

Luke and Elliott left early in the week to get some R&R on the beach in Thailand. Unfortunately, they left early and my other student, Terrance, didn’t overlap with them much. He seems like he will do fine on his own though. My family and I came to Thailand yesterday and this morning I met with faculty at King Mongkut University of Technology Thonburi about renewing a MoU between our Universities that has recently expired. The meeting was very promising and the all of our research interests are aligned. I think that this could be a very promising relationship. Tonight we are going to Khao Lak to take a much needed long weekend on the beach. It should be quite nice before the twenty something hour plane ride back to Knoxville. The pictures are of our beast of an SUV and the one day all of my students were in town the same day, along with Professors He Min and Xiong Jian, and students Xie Chunrong and Ren Zhong.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

I am on a whirlwind trip to Shanghai. I’ve been promising various people in the Shanghai area that I would come for a visit and I realized that I was running out of time quick. I flew into Shanghai this morning and met with the director of the Clean Air Initiative for lunch. CAI is the benefactor of some of the e-bike work that I’ve been doing lately and it seems that they would like me to do some more in Southeast Asia. This is a nice fit with the Vietnam work that we started last week. The survey in Hanoi should go on this week and Luke and I have been working real hard to get the instrument in order. I sent it off at 2:00 am and then set the alarm for 5:45, to get to my 8:00am flight to Shanghai. OK, back to Shanghai. I met with several faculty members from the Transportation Engineering College at Tongji University. I’ve worked with a faculty member in the planning department on my dissertation, but never with the Transportation Engineering department (which split from Civil Engineering in 2000). Overall, we had a good meeting and I was able to present some of my work to them. This meeting was fruitful and will hopefully lead to future collaboration. I hope this will help build UT’s existing collaboration with Tongji University. Finally, I rushed off to the Shanghai train station to catch the train to Jinhua City, the location of Luyuan Electric Vehicle Company. I will get there by midnight I hope. I am meeting with the president of this company tomorrow morning. I’ve visited several e-bike makers over the last few years and Luyuan is by far the most forward thinking that I’ve encountered. After lunch I am back on the train to (hopefully) make the connection to the airport and get back to Kunming by the weekend. We booked our tickets to Bangkok. I will meet with some faculty at the King Mongkut University of Technology Thonburi to see about renewing a linkage agreement that Arun Chatterjee established, but is unable to continue due to his retirement. After that meeting, a couple of much needed beach days to relax before we get to hectic life in the USA. As an aside, I met an interesting fellow today. He is (was) a member of the infamous religion/cult (depending on where you stand) that is prohibited in China. He was discovered by authorities and he told me about his two years spent in the “re-education unit”. It didn’t sound like much fun.