Car dealers hope Cash for Clunkers drives up sales

News 14 Carolina, July 24th 2009
By Miracle King

The government's new Cash for Clunkers incentive program has buyers driving off car lots in droves. The program - formally called the Car Allowance Rebate System - encourages car buyers to trade in older, gas-guzzling vehicles for brand new fuel-efficient ones.
The program started Friday and is not only meant to help the environment, but also car dealers, buyers and North Carolina's economy.
"We have about 600 dealerships in North Caorlina, every one of which is ready to sell a new car and get that old clunker off the road," Bob Glaser, president of the North Carolina Auto Dealers Association, said.
The program helps shoppers buy or lease a more environmentally-friendly vehicle when they trade in a less fuel-efficient car or truck. But not all trade-ins will qualify.
"If it's [an improvement of] at least four miles to the gallon, they get $3,500. If they pick a car ou that gets [an improvement of] 10 milers to the gallon or more, they get $4,500," Todd Holmes, general manager at Leith Honda in Raleigh, said.
And there are more stipulations. The car has to be drivable with at least a years worth of insurance history. It can't be more than 25 years old. You have to purchase a new car when you trade, and the retail price of your new car can't exceed $45,000.
Though the ride may be a little bumpy for buyers, dealerships have finally gotten their safety belt to help them from flying off this crashing economy.
"Our average sales in North Carolina were about 33,000 to 35,000 a month, and with the economic downturn in the fourth quarter of 2008, our vehicle sales have dropped at about 20,000 units per month," Bob Glaser, with the North Carolina Auto Dealers Association, said. "That's about a 40 percent decrease in the state of North Carolina, so we are very pleased to have the Cash for Clunkers program in effect."

U.S. Auto Sales May Reach 10 Million Pace This Month

Bloomberg, July 24, 2009
Alex Ortolani

U.S. sales of cars and light trucks may reach a 10 million annual pace in July for the first time this year, helped by a $1 billion government program to get less fuel-efficient vehicles off the road.
The so-called "cash-for-clunkers" program "is being viewed by automakers as having the potential to drive a meaningful uptick in sales over the final week of he month," Rod Lache, a New York-based analyst at Deutsche Bank, wrote in a report yesterday. He estimated a 10.2 million sales rate.
The pace has been no higher than 9.9 million in any other month this year, as the recession damped consumer confidence and credit tightened. The federal program, implemented today under a law that took effect July 1, provides a credit of as much as $4,500 for buyers who trade in older vehicles to be scrapped for new models with higher fuel economy.
Edmunds.com, an auto-information provider, and market-research firm J.D. Power & Associates also estimated that the July pace will top 10 million, which would be a sign that sales are coming off a bottom. Automakers sold 13.2 million vehicles last year, and averaged 16.8 million from 2000 through 2007.
General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co., Toyota Motor Corp. and other automakers will report July sales on August 3. The June seasonally adjusted rate was 9.7 million.
The July pace may be almost 10.5 million, Edmunds.com estimated in a statement yesterday. The Santa Monica, California-based firm cited "glimmers of hope in the economy" and the cash-for-clunkers effort.
"The program will boost automotive sales and remove some of these vehicles that need to come off the road," said Rachel Richards, vice president of retail strategy for dealership owner Sonic Automotive, Inc. in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Sonic, the third-largest U.S. auto retailer, will soon introduce a Web site to explain the federal program to consumers and will work with the company's dealerships on how to administer it, Richards said in an interview today.
"There are a lot of steps that automotive retailers need to handle to make sure they get their money from the government," she said.
J.D. Power estimated a 10 million rate and credited an increase in sales to fleet customers such as rental-car companies and government agencies. The firm, based in Westlake Village, California, based its projection on sales data through July 15 from more htan 10,000 dealerships.
The federal program has "potential for increased sales in the short term" as some automakers boost incentives to match the government credit, J.D. Power said today in a statement. Chrysler Group LLC announced such offers on July 22.
"Many consumers don't understand the specifics of the program," and sales to individuals this year may be "only incrementally affected," said Gary Dilts, J.D. Power's senior vice president of global automotive operations.
J.D. Power and Edmunds.com both had predicted that the rate for June would exceed 10 million.

Raleigh shop wins work to install fuel system at state's port

Triangle Business Journal, July 24, 2009

The Raleigh office of Jones and Frank Corp. has won a $126,000 contract to install three biodiesel tanks and the related fuel systems at two North Carolina ports, the North Carolina State Ports Authority said in a statement.
Two of the biodiesel tanks - one 20,000-gallon tanks and one 10,000-gallon tank - are for the Port of Wilmington. The company will install a 10,000-gallon tank at the Port of Morehead City.
A North Carolina Clean Air grant is funding $104,000 of the cost, while ports authority revenue will pick up the remainder.
The ports authority board of directors' executive committee approved the contract earlier this month. Norfolk, Va.-based Jones and Frank Corp. is a petroleum equipment distributor and service provider. It has nine offices, including the ones in Raleigh and Charlotte.

North Carolina Roadmap to Electrifying Transportation Meeting Announcement

Interested in air quality, energy security, and the future for electric vehicle transportation in North Carolina? You're invited....

Charting the Course for Electric Transportation
July 28th, 2009
1:00pm-4:00pm

Agenda includes:

• Vehicle and infrastructure updates
• Education, legislation, and funding opportunities
• Project Get Ready/Raleigh Get Ready
  
• Open discussion on opportunities, challenges, and the course ahead

Speakers include:

• Robert Underhill, Advanced Energy
• Mike Rowand, Duke Energy
• Anne Tazewell, NC Solar Center
• Mike Waters, Progress Energy
• Vikram Rao, Research Triangle Energy Consortium

RSVP by noon July 27th, 2009 to chelsea_conover@ncsu.edu to participate online.

Alternative energy summit discusses benefits of greener fuels

WWAY TV, July 20, 2009

A year ago gas prices reached four dollars per gallon and consumers were calling for alternative sources of energy. Monday at UNCW, Representative Mike McIntyre hosted an alternative energy summit; an effort to keep southeastern North Carolina on the cutting edge of cleaner, greener fuels.
"We've got to be preparing now for the future and how to deal with getting away from being dependent on foreign oil," said McIntyre.
Summit speakers mentioned the potential energy benefits in the ocean, biofuels, and solar power that are abundant in our area. McIntyre said, "It can help provide jobs for people who can go to work and help convert these resources into energy for practical use."
Demonstrations are already taking place locally. The North Carolina Farm Center has received funding to show the effectiveness of Biochar, a product to help crops grow in sandy soil. "That whole marketing of Biochar, would be a wonderful clean, green economy for North Carolina," described Richard Perritt of the NC Farm Center for Innovation and Sustainability.
Progress Energy has already started work on a solar powered plant off of Highway 421, in response to a law requiring utility providers to start producing renewable energy sources.
"It means there are a lot of oppourtnities. It also means that our children will live a lot cleaner life than we have been living," added NC Farm Center for Innovation and Sustainability's Roger Sheats.
Brunswick Community College and UNCW are one of the leaders in the research on alternative fuels. The two colleges are conducting experiments that would turn algae, found in local bogs and swamps, into a source of energy.

NC firm completes FedEx trucks converted to hybrid

The Associated Press, July 21, 2009

FedEx Express is taking delivery of more than 90 delivery trucks a North Carolina company converted from standard diesel-powered vehicles to electric hybrid trucks.
The delivery giant's vehicle fleet vice president on Tuesday sends the trucks journeying from Charlotte to California. They'll be used in LA, San Diego and San Francisco.
FedEx has been using hybrid trucks for more than 5 years, but these are the first switched from conventional to hybrid power.
Can-Am Custom Trucks Inc. co-owner Terry Potts said the Charlotte company completed the conversions with parts supplied by Gaffney, S.C.-based Freightliner Custom Chassis Corp. and Eaton Corp.

Bio Solutions Manufacturing, Inc. to Collaborate With Wake Forest University

Marketwire, July 20, 2009

Bio Solutions Manufacturing, Inc. together with Hammerhead Engineering LLC, has been working jointly with Wake Forest University, (Winston-Salem, North Carolina) one of the nation's leading research institutions, in validation of a Wake Forest technology to viably pre-treat liquid brown grease into a reduced FFA (Free Fatty Acid) feedstock. This feedstock is the raw material that will be use for further conversion into B100 biodiesel, by the Bio Diesel Fuel Production Facility which Bio Solutions Manufacturing plans to build and operate in the near future. Historically, FFA conversion has been the stumbling block in being able to viably produce biodiesl from liquid brown trap grease.
Hammerhead Engineering LLC is on schedule to deliver a completed pretreatement process and engineering design for a production facility capable of producing 6,000 gallons a day of B100, a biodiesel fuel, which meets ASTM standards. This process wlil offer the municipal waste water treatment market a viable solution to dispose of both brown and black grease by converting this organic waste into B100.
Conversion of this waste grease in this manner will eliminate the need for incineration of land disposal methods, provide a more environmnetally friendly solution, deliver a renewable energy source and reduce fuel costs to municipal agnecies in mutually beneficial partnering arrangements.

Study Finds Environmental and Tailpipe Pollutants Benefits in Using Biodiesel in Construction Vehicles

Green Car Congress, July 19, 2009

Using biodiesel in construction vehicles offers promising environmental benefits in terms of reduced tailpipe emissions as well as reductions in fuel cycle emissions of selected pollutants, according to a new study by researchers at North Carolina State University. A paper on their work was published July 16 in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology.
The researchers developed an updated and modified life cycle inventory (LCI) to estimate fuel cycle energy consumption and emissions of selected pollutants and greenhouse gases. Key improvements in the LCI included an update of combusion emission factors based on 2006 US national average emission rates; comparison of pre-NSPS (New Source Performance Standards) and NSPS-compliant soyoil plants; and the use of portable emission measurements system (PEMS) data for real-world tailpipe emissions factors based on 15 nonroad diesel vehicles: five backhoes, four front-end loaders, and six motor graders.
Vehicle emissions scenarios included: baseline petroleum diesel (PD) in-use measurement data based on PEMS; estimated B20 vehicle emissions based on EPA's engine dynamometer data; and estimated B20 vehicle emissions based on NREL's chassis dynamometer data.
Life cycle fossil energy reductions are estimated at 9% for B20 and 42% for B100 versus petroleum diesel based on the current national energy mix. Fuel cycle emissions will contribute a larger share of total life cycle emissions as new engines enter to the in-use fleet.
Seven scenarios were use in the LCI analysis.
Read More

Could $20-Per-Gallon Gasoline Make Us Happier?

NPR, July 16, 2009

When it's time to fill up the gas tank, many fear the price of gas will return to the $4-a-gallon days of last summer.
But according to author Chris Steiner, our lives would be a lot happier and healthier if gas prices rose into the double digits.
Steiner explains himself, and the title of his book: $20 Per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline will Change Our Lives for the Better.

Excerpt from book:

There's something guttural, something personal, about the price of gas. Even though we've pared our driving, there's a feeling that there's more to this, more than $2 versus $4, more than the price of our weekly fill-up. At the gas pump, we're egregiously offended by big numbers and comforted by small ones. Big numbers make us sick. But why?
The price of commodities, the price of nearly everything we use in abundance, has shot up in the last five years. So what makes gasoline so special? We don't have the same visceral reaction to, say, the price of grain - even though it goes into half of everything we eat and its price has more than doubled in recent years. Why does gasoline set off different, shriller alarms than other things we consistently buy? Perhaps that's our human intuition - an evolved sense that there's more to a situation than the mere face of it. It turns out that our intuition, honed by millennia of survival, is quite canny. The inexorable rising price at the pump represents several worlds of change beyond smaller cars and cumbersome gas station charges.
The price of oil - and thus, gasoline - affects our lives to a degree few realize. It's not just the BP or Shell portion of your Visa bill. It's the bricks in your walls, the plastic in your refrigerator, the asphalt on your roads, the shingles on your roof, the synthetic rubber in your ball. With every penny that gasoline moves up, so, too, does the price of most things we consume. Stop what you're doing. Look around. Look at your desk, at your shoes, at your shirt, at your windows, your kitchen - how much of it comes from oil? More than you think. Look out you window - look out at the world - how much of it owes its existence to oil? Again, more than you think. The United States imports 67% of its oil, but only 40% of that goes into our vehicles' fuel tanks. The rest is used to make, fortify, and shape just about anything you can imagine.
But there's more to this than the price of our stuff. The mounting cost of gas will dictate cultural changes, housing changes, civic changes, education changes - it will leave nary a sport on the globe, or how we live, unchanged. There will be pain involved in our adaptaions, yes, but not all of the change we face is gloomy. In fact, many people's lives, including many Americans' lives, will be improved across a panoply of facets. We will get more exercise, breathe fewer toxins, eat better food, and make a smaller impact on our earth. Giant businesses will rise as entrepreneurs' intrepid minds elegantly solve our society's mounting challenges. The world's next Google or Microwoft, the next great disrupter and megacompany, could well be conceived in this saga. It could be a battery company, a breakthough solar outfit, or a radically innovative vehicle manufacturer. This revolution will be so widespread and affect so many that it will evoke the Internet's rise in the late 1990s.
Read More

Thirteen Businesses in Three States Receive Green Plus Recognition

Green Plus, July 9, 2009
By Kirsten Hausman

Four North Carolina Businesses Become Green Plus Certified - Including Bland Landscaping, a commercial and residential landscaping company in Apex, NC.

"Bland Landscaping... requires monthly community service by all of its senior management and has noteworthy programs to engage all of its employees in the success of its business. 'The future of any business will impend on its ability to be a responsible corporate citizen that makes a positive impact on society while earning a profit,' said co-owner Kurt Bland. 'Using the Green Plus tools and pursuing the certification, business owners are empowered to better guide their organizations along the path of long-term success. We are proud to be part of the most recent Green Plus graduating class,' Bland concluded."
...
"Since 2005, Bland Landscaping has implemented a variety of environmental and social initiatives to reducecosts to the company, improve the lives of its employees, clients, vendors and reduce waste to the environment. Among other environmental initiatives, Bland Landscaping uses hybridized 4-mix engines instead of traditional 2-cycle engines when purchasing handheld tools, has an extensive recycling program, uses vehicles powered by B20 biodiesel, and uses environmentally friendly pesticides. Bland Landscaping also prides themselves on social initiatives such as mandatory paid community service days each month, cultivation of elementary school gardens, and Habitat of Humanity landscaping projects. Bland Landscaping is committed to a triple bottom line approach where people, profit, and planet are equally emphasized."

U.S. EPA's Region 4 Awards More than $1.9 Million in Recovery Funding to the ALA of the Upper Midwest to Reduce Diesel Emissions and Create Jobs

EPA News Release, July 10, 2009
In a move that stands to create jobs, boost local economies, reduce diesel emissions and protect human health and the environment for people of the Southeast, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded $1,921,768 to the American Lung Association of the Upper Midwest to assist trucking companies in replacing older, more polluting vehicles and installing idle-reducing battery-powered air conditioners. This clean diesel project will create jobs while protecting the Southeast's air quality.
....
This project will reduce diesel emissions from approximately 180 vehicles in the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee by replacing older trucks with vehicles using cleaner diesel technologies and installing battery-powered air conditioners in existing trucks to reduce engine idling. It is estimated that the project will result in emission reductions of 864.9 tons of nitrogen oxides, 19.7 tons of particulate matter, 2.3 tons of hydrocarbons and 9.5 tons of carbon monoxide.

Read More...
Details on EPA's implementation of ARRA in Region 4

NCSU researchers land $1.3 million grant for advanced battery research

WRAL Local Tech Wire, July 8, 2009

Researchers at North Carolina State University will look for ways to improve the batteries in hybrid electric vehicles thanks to a $1.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.
The funds were directed to NCSU's Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management, or FREEDM, Systems Center.
The FREEDM Center was created last year through a five-year $18.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation.
Xiangwu Zhang, assistant professor of textile engineering in NC State's College of Textiles, will lead the study. Also participating will be Alex Huang, the FREEDM Systems Center director, as well as Peter Fedkiw and Saad Khan, of the College of Engineering.
Zhang and other will focus on so-called "electrospinning technology" that will integrate lithium alloy and carbon into novel composite nanofiber anodes, NCSU said. These anodes will hold more energy, cost less and tolerate abuse better than materials found in existing batteries, according to the university.

Duckweed "Quacks" Volumes of Potential

From Ethanol Magazine
By Bryan Sims

The drive to develop sustainable nonfood, starch-based ethanol feedstocks and more efficient conversion processes is intensifying as the U.S. attempts to reduce ethanol's carbon footprint by transitioning from corn to cellulosic ethanol. That has prompted researchers at North Carolina State University to take a closer look at plants, such as duckwee, that could be a potential feedstock for ethanol production.
Duckweed has traditionally been studied becuase of its inherently rich protein content at 30% to 35% on a dry-weight basis. the purpose was to explore whether duckweed could be a protein source for animal and human food. A growing interest in sustainable ethanol feedstock development, however, has researchers exploring the plant's starch content.
NCSU researchers Anne-Marie Stomp, associate professor of forestry, Jay Cheng, professor of biological and agricultural engineering, and Mike Yablonski, post-doctoral research associate, are discovering that duckweed can be used to clean up animal waste at industrial hog farms and could be used to make ethanol. They have determined that duckweed grown on swine wastewater can produce fice to six times more starch per acre than corn, according to Stomp, who co-authored the research with Cheng.
The research, funded by the Biofuels Center of North Carolina, was presented at the annual conference of the Institute of Biological Engineering in March in Santa Clara, California.
"The original investigations focused pretty much entirely on the protein side," Stomp says. "At the time all of that work was being done, there was no compelling economic reason to domesticate this plant because we had plenty of other plant protein sources in grains and legumes. Back then, the prices of those grains and legumes were low and the market was fully supplied."
The one challenge that has impeded duckweed's progress in becoming a sustainable, dedicated energy crop for biofuels production or being used as a bioremediator for farm or city wastewater treatement operations is the fact that it wasn't domesticated. "The trick to domesticating duckweed is going to be how much it will cost per ton to grow this stuff," Stomp says, adding that data on ecnomic feasibility will be released later this year. "That number provides a threshold for commercial viability," she adds.
Cheng and Stomp are currently developing a pilot-scale project to further investigate the best way to establish a large-scale system for growing duckweed in animal wastewater, and then harvesting and drying the plant. "We're actually exploiting a lot of existing technology used in the food industry, because duckweed is like a slurry," Stomp says. You can pump it, sieve it and do other things."
Read More Here

McDonald's Deploys Plug-In Car Charging Station

HybridCars.com, Sunday July 5, 2009

The McDonald's restaurant in Cary, NC will become the first location in the fast food restaurant chain in more than a decade to offer electric car recharging. The deployment of a ChargePoint charging station for plug-in vehicles is part of the Cary restaurant's efforts to go green. Ric Richards, the independent owner of the McDonald's, is building the new restaurant with eco-friendly materials and technologies.
"Our customers will have a dedicated place to park and recharge their vehicles," said Richards. "McDonald's is enabling a better environment for future generations by supporting zero-emissions transportation infrastructure." The new "green" McDonald's in Cary will open on July 14.
A McDonald's location in Phoenix, AZ installed a charging station in the late 1990s to accommodate a previous wave of electric cars. There are also plants to install plug-in car charging stations at McDonald's locations in Sweden.
Widespread adoption of plug-in cars will partly depend on the establishment of convenient recharging locations where drivers live and work. ChargePoint and other providers are installing its first charging stations to anticipate the introduction of electric cars and plug-in hybrids-not expected in significant numbers until 2011 or later. Analysts forecast that as many as 1 million charging stations will be installed throughout the US by 2015. ChargePoint is a private fee-based network of charging stations, providing grid access and related services for owners of plug-in cars.
Read More...

Biodiesel Sector at Disadvantage in N.C., Says Proponents

From Triangle Business Journal, Friday July 3
By Frank Vinluan
North Carolina's goal of boosting in-state biofuels production is hitting a speed bump.
The state has a target for 10 percent of all liquid fuels sold in the state to be made in North Carolina from renewable sources by 2017. But incentives in other states make North Carolina's biodiesel comparatively more expensive, leading distributors to go out of state to buy their renewable fuel.
Meanwhilte, some North Carolina biodiesel producers are running on fumes as they produce below their capacity and cast about for ways to compete. Zack Hamm, president of Triangle Biofuels in Wilson, says he wonders if he can make it through the summer.
"We're not that far from shutting down," he says.
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The North Carolina Biomass Roadmap, written by the North Carolina Biomass Council at the request of the State Energy OFfice, recommends that North Carolina displace 10% of its gasoline and diesel fuel consumption by 2017 using in-state biomass resources while incorporating energy efficiency measures, and states that it is possible to do so using exisiting resources.

Grant aims to help clear diesel pollution

From the Charlotte Observer, Wednesday July 1 2009
By Bruce Henderson

Mecklenburg County will get $1.1 million in federal money to help stanch pollution from diesel engines, the Environmental Protection Agency says.
While Mecklenburg's air pollution focus for years has been on highway traffic, diesel emissions from trucks, buses and off-road equipment such as bulldozers also play a big role.
Off-road machines, fueled by gasoline or diesel, release about a third of the county's vehicle emissions of ozone-forming nitrogen oxides. They emit three-quarters of the tiny particles, or soot, that have been linked to heart and lung problems and premature death.
The EPA grant, part of the federal economic stimulus package, will expand a diesel-pollution program that Mecklenburg County has operated for two years, said Leslie Rhodes, the county's mobile source program manager.
The program aims to replace old, high-polluting diesel engines in off-road construction machines in Mecklenburg and six surrounding N.C. counties.
The new money will enlarge the program to 13 counties, including some in South Carolina, and add on-road diesel vehicles and stationary equipment such as generators. Those counties are expected to fail a new ozone standard the EPA adopted last year.
Mecklenburg will work with regional councils of government to distribute the grant money, Rhodes said.
The EPA said that $1.1 million will be enough to replace at least 28 diesel engines and retire six or more pieces of equipment. That would reduce nitrogen oxides releases in the area by 166 tons a year, the agency said, and lower particle emissions by 10 tons.
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Mecklenburg County will use the money to expand its GRADE (Grants to Replace Aging Diesel Engines) program.
On April 16th, the North Carolina Solar Center Clean Transportation team awarded the Mecklenburg County Air Quality GRADE program an NC Mobile CARE Award for being the first local government incentive program to reduce air pollution from off-road construction equipment.
Visit the Mecklenburg County Air Quality home page to apply for grant money once the funds have been distributed.