Countering the Criticism of Electric Cars : A UAE Context

Being an engineer and an automotive enthusiast as past blog articles might tell, I'm in general very interested in transportation related sustainability initiatives that attempt to plant seeds now for a long-term alternative energy future. Within the UAE, this long term vision, that I think is very well outlined in the UAE State of Energy Reports (SEOR), can be considered nothing short of a sea-change. 

First, a pertinent reminder is that transportation accounts for some 17-20% of UAE’s total CO₂ emissions according to aggregated statistics in World Bank Indicators.   

Secondly, the positive sectoral energy trends in UAE transportation are worthy of mention. The UAE Supreme Council of Energy has made it a long term policy to enhance sustainable transport. Both Abu Dhabi and Dubai have made headway into understanding the transportation emissions issue and solutions have been implemented. Some examples are required to put this into context.

Announced in 2015 was the development of a Federal energy policy, which aims to supplement the Climate Change Strategy for the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and the Dubai Integrated Energy Strategy (DIES). Another historic development in the same year was the nationwide reforms of fuel subsidies to better reflect real energy prices vis-à-vis world trends. Even though fuel is currently cheap, it is no longer pegged and is subject to increase. Therefore, drivers will have to live with the idea of paying out of pocket for what was previously externalized - the energy security of fuel.  

The Dubai metro and Dubai Tram systems, since their introduction, have diversified public transportation infrastructure in a way that doesn’t tax the road traffic system. According to earlier numbers from the RTA, the Dubai metro serves around 500,000 persons a day. That's 500,000 people kept away from the roads by being offered another mode of transport. This is significant.

Within road transport, the initiative towards introducing CNG into the transportation fleet and diesel made with a portion of waste cooking oil are worthy of mention. The RTA’s current fleet of buses are designed to Euro 4/5 emission standards and low sulfur diesel (10ppm gasoil) has been made available to maximize the benefit from these systems. Alongside the push towards alternative fuels, there are official moves to introduce EVs and hybrid vehicles and a network of charging stations as infrastructural support. 

The market for hybrids has already been set into motion this year.  The Toyota Prius Hybrid, a road worthy hybrid car well established in the U.S, was officially launched in the U.A.E in January. After seeing the 1.8L hybrid on a test drive, it comes to my knowledge that it has nearly 71 HP of output from just the motor generator and an impressive 121 HP from combined engine + motor operation. Having personally driven this vehicle, I can tell you that the transition between engine and e-motor operation is as smooth as a baby's bottom.

At present, the hybrid car is a suitable answer for those in the UAE looking to travel medium to long distances without having to become battery charge anxious. Those who could could care less can opt for PHEVs and BEV's that are fully electric. While there are reports of people privately importing Teslas and other electric cars into the UAE for personal use, the market in this segment has yet to go mainstream in the emirates.

Analysts who are fairly entrenched in old style economics look at these developments and cite various reasons to stay away from electric cars. The Tesla, in spite of significant developments that come as a technology disruption for conventional cars, has unfortunately become the poster child for critics.

For example, Robin Mills in an article to the National, is partly correct in stating that electric vehicles are only as clean as their energy source. But he stops short of developing his title any further than the headline, while the body of the article is mostly centered on Tesla, a car not sold in the UAE.

While the fully electric vehicle might take longer to be introduced in the UAE, the cost conscious Mills overlooks the interim development of the introduction of a hybrid vehicle in the country. Infact, the first cost of a Toyota Prius Hybrid is on par with that of a basic 2016 Honda Accord LX, with the latter's price significantly increasing for add-on options. Therefore, it's 92,600 and change for the Prius vs 100,000 AED or more for the Honda. We can also assume some level of dealership programs incentivizing potential buyers of the hybrid since it is the first introduction in the UAE. This has potential to knock off additional numbers from the sticker price of these cars.

Critics like Mills often point to the out-of-pocket first costs of these cars as a reason to be cautious of adoption. But as I mentioned before, this is old style economics that does not work for a post COP21 world anymore.

Consider the fact that there is a growing body of research into the climate forcing aspects and human health effects of GHG and air pollutants. Some widely cited atmospheric research studies talk about coupling between GHG and air pollutants in a way that further enhances the overall net climate forcing. Therefore, one is forced to re-think a "black and white" approach for a more nuanced understanding of our climate system where myriad sources, sinks and interdependencies are more complex than previously thought.

Looking to the past 3 National Communications that the UAE has submitted to the UNFCCC, the last emissions inventory done for base year 2005 reflects the fact that that transport sector CO2, N2O, NOX, CO, NMVOCs and SO2 emissions were 23%, 5%, 18%, 36%, 28% and 40% respectively of the total emissions profile of the energy sector. 

This should not come as a surprise because at the root of this challenge is population growth, the growing vehicle numbers in the UAE and the growing use of transportation fossil fuels over the last several years. One study I did recently looked into this trend over a multi-decade timeline. I present two plots below (forgive me for how busy they look). Note that the black circles show the number of total vehicles in the UAE for the years in which data was available. Fuel consumption is indicated in Terra Joules to associate emissions with the absolute energy content burned in the transport sector.

The plots shown above are distinct to the national and local urban circumstances of the UAE but as indicated before, the initiatives taken within the various UAE sectors to move away from these unsustainable trends should be commended, rather than criticized. 

The introduction of hybrids in the UAE are a tiny drop in the ocean of what can be broadly called strategy. I personally don't see fully electric vehicles for pas-car being introduced until the energy source for charging EV's and their charging stations come predominately from clean sources of energy. At-least this is what makes sense from a well to wheel standpoint.

The numbers to be remembered are 7% and 5%, i.e in Abu Dhabi, the leadership has committed to secure 7% of its total energy needs from renewable sources by 2020 while Dubai has committed to a 5% target. Therefore, I see a push into marketing full EVs falling in line with those targets whenever they materialize. On this basis, I see little cause for concern just yet and it is premature to criticize a Tesla adoption in the UAE.

The other aspect that I reminded Mills on Twitter about are the external costs of using conventionally fueled cars, which his article fails to make a note of. 

Studies on air pollution costs have recognized impact categories in health costs, building and material damages, cross losses in agriculture and impacts on the biodiversity and ecosystems. Experts in Europe have already put monetary numbers into these damages. Just as an example, chronic health effects are valued at a recommended value of €50,000 while acute health effects have a recommended value of €75,000 per year of life lost. 

Now multiply that with the number of people admitted as respiratory and cardiovascular patients and years of life lost and one should get an economic perspective on the magnitude of one category of air pollution costs.

Moreover, we also know from WHO studies that Ischemic heart disease which happens to be the number one killer of people in the world has statistically significant association with air pollution. Total person deaths in six GCC countries due to respiratory infections, respiratory and cardiovascular disease are shown below for year 2012.

I rest my case that to even begin to understand how some initiatives like electric vehicles contribute in the long run means to come to the table and frankly discuss all the social and monetary damages that using clean energy offsets. It is definitely not over-hyping anything. Looking at the current state of affairs, I observe that critics of clean energy have yet to shift away from short term rudimentary types of analyses which is quite unfortunate. Here's hoping that this mindset shifts quickly in the UAE and elsewhere in the world.

Mars One Needs a Dose of Reality in the U.A.E

I'd taken a stand not to spill digital ink about Mars One on this blog. That was until two days ago, when the crew of Dubai Eye 103.8 - Alex Hirschi and Tim Elliot - invited Mars One chief Bas Lansdorp to speak on the evening's Drive Live show. I started to shake my head. 

In 2014, Mars One had pinched some local nerves when the grand mufti of Dubai issued a fatwa (an Islamic ruling) prohibiting Muslims from being volunteers for one-way interplanetary travel.

But on the radio show, there was little sign of defeat. With continual praising of the U.A.E and it's forward thinking stance, Mr. Lansdorp's tireless dance for manned one-way trips to Mars might have gotten more than a few listeners, albeit expats, breathless. 

And those listeners might be forgiven. Afterall, October was the month when NASA hyped a bit about the presence of liquid water on Mars. Ridley Scott had also released The Martian, an entertaining but pseudo-scientific space survivalist movie about a lone astronaut fighting for his life on Mars in the wake of a fairytale dust storm.

Mr. Lansdorp wasn't here to merely get cozy with two U.A.E volunteers he'd shortlisted as potential crew members for this future "mission". As it's becoming painfully evident, Mars One is around $15 million short of funding, and it's come to bear that some of it's money making strategies didn't help.

An intelligent listener would have recalled that Mr. Lansdorp had recently admitted at a Mars Society face-off with an MIT team (who happily demolished him for the seemingly brazen lack of any feasibility in the $6 billion dollar mission plan) that Mars One doesn't have the financial capability currently to pay any credible scientific group to undertake full-fledged R&D studies.

The other cat that jumped out of the bag in the same debate with MIT was that, as of August 2015, the Mars One mission had no fixed project scope, no fixed project time-line and no fixed project cost. It was evident that he had little concrete to offer in the rebuttal of MIT's independent feasibility assessment. Unfortunately, Mr. Lansdorp's weak conclusion that day was : "The Mars One mission is not to do the mission the way as it is exactly described on the website."

Sadly, none of his comments from the debate have been posted as an updated disclaimer on the Mars One mission road-map. The "plan" continues to hold that it will send one way manned missions every two years to Mars beginning in 2026. 

Why, pray, is there a need for Mars One if it's own chief calls into questions the Mars One plan? Might it be wrong now to assume that several hundred patrons might have been duped?  I won't be trying to answer how these people justify their return on investment in this case. It's really fuzzy.

But now you say hindsight is 20/20, that I'm just another naysayer piggybacking on the MIT study. While I understand any technical product will not sell without a strong commercial proposal, Mars One is awfully lacking in the former. One wonders whether Mr. Lansdorp truly stays awake at night as he fishes out new reasons to try and oversell this plan, particularly in the U.A.E.

At this point, I'd like to state two things in my analysis. One, I find interesting, is that the Mars One chief appears to take pleasure in bashing NASA's seemingly slow MARS schedule as the basis for his role in introducing Mars One.  

To be honest, this can be forgiven on NASA's part for the U.S Congress' space exploration budget cuts in the recent past. NASA must also get a bit of the benefit of doubt because it follows a prudent systems-validation based approach to assessing technical feasibility in putting people and equipment in space. 

Secondly, Mr. Lansdorp appears to be fixated on a misunderstanding that the Apollo Lunar program had virtually nothing to show technically when Kennedy made his 1961 speech spurring the moon mission. On this basis, he seems to be telling everyone that his Mars One plan deserves a chance as well.

Never mind the fact that the Apollo manned moon program had some 12,000 companies, 400,000 people and a backing of $25 billion to make it happen. Never mind the fact that it had no less than 33 flights, 22 of which were unmanned missions to specifically qualify the launch vehicle and spacecraft for manned flight and 4 of the 11 total manned flights were to man-rate the final 7 flights for lunar missions. Also, never mind the facts that NASA had the Saturn rockets going for them and the genius in Wernher Von Braun to provide technical advice during those years.

What a lot of people will tend to the forget is that the real need for an Apollo mission to the moon was never really scientific. The strongest impetus for Apollo was the uncompromising competition the Americans had with the Soviets in the space race. The Soviet secrecy around it's own space program never made the Americans comfortable that they were any ahead in this race, even to the very day Apollo 11 launched. Rational or irrational, this conveniently placed call of the Cold War captured hearts and minds and turned a nation on it's heels.

In short, yes the moon mission was extremely risky but NASA had a big part of the workable solution already in it's arsenal, which they tested the living daylights out of. They managed out risk. They also had a resounding patriotic call to arms behind the moon endeavor. Both of these are truly lacking in the Mars One plan. 

Mars One, as it currently stands, calls for taking ordinary people on a never-to-return one way trip to Mars in 2026. Due to the nature of this mission, one might be right to assume that these people are to live dull lives to their deaths as technicians - building, fixing and repairing technology - in a mega experiment that has seldom been tried before.

One has to appreciate Bas Lansdorp's energetic parade going around the world flaunting Mars One. But I believe it would be in his best interests to remain truthful about the project realities, re-assess his technical and cost plans and make modifications in the light of technological and procurement readiness. Right now, the Mars One plan rests, at best, on faulty and misleading data.

There are the geo-political challenges of an Outer Space Treaty. In this regard, I predict Mr. Lansdorp will have little option but to sooner or later join hands in cooperation with the rest of the world's space agencies. Countries aren't going to be friendly knowing that a single entity might potentially monopolize the exploitation of areas of Mars, which by his own admission on 103.8,  is a behavior that cannot be controlled from earth once the mission has landed on the planet.

No less important are the unsaid conflicts of interests in demanding the unquestioning service of human volunteers in such a short time and cozying up with investor driven business commitments and schedules. 

We're lacking in the long term understanding of planetary group survival through a longitudinal study here on earth. Some papers written after outpost like simulations exist and do not paint a pretty picture. A 2009 paper by the Mars Society on stress and coping in a 4 month arctic Mars simulation on Devon Island in Canada concluded, very subtly :

"Stress increased for males while decreasing for females. Males consistently used more avoidant coping while females utilized task coping and social emotional coping. Males also demonstrated higher levels of excitement, tiredness, and loneliness. Simulations situated in environments characterized by prolonged real isolation and environmental challenges appear to provoke true demands for adaptation rather than temporary situational accommodation as has been evidenced by shorter simulations in laboratories or more benign environments".

We're yet to take this further and quantify the human capability to cope under long term duress. Hollywood cannot dictate how you will eat , drink, procreate (or whether babies will be mutation free), romance, control criminal behaviors and so on. These have to be tried and tested in environments as close as possible in conditions to Mars.

I doubt the leaders of Mars One will not know all this, but the exploration of U.A.E to build an outpost, where temperatures climb to 45 degree C in summer, is rather strange. More to the point, how this plays out in the context of an active fatwa is a mystery.

Never to be one taken by hype, I stand cautious of the Mars One adventures. There's a lot of things to make Mars One flop. But there's a huge room to correct mistakes now.

U.A.E Fuel Deregulation and Some Implications

July 28 Update : U.A.E Fuel prices committee has released revised fuel prices for August 2015.

In what's most likely a watershed moment in the U.A.E economy, from August 2015 petrol prices will no longer stay regulated at $0.47/liter as has been the case for many years. Diesel prices will decrease. The decision is, as I see it, in line with several precursors steering the U.A.E towards a realistic existence amidst our 21st century issues. Let's take a look at some of these.

The U.A.E government's strategy for a "Green Economy", a vision launched in 2012, aims for a reduction in domestic consumption of oil by 7-10%, natural gas by 7-20% and electricity by 11-15% year on year through to 2030. An 18.4% CO2 emissions contribution from the transportation sector (2011 World Bank data) doesn't appear to support that vision.

The Dubai Strategic Plan 2015 had the Road and Transportation Authority (RTA) setting a target of 30% of the population using public transport in 2020, compared with 12% in 2010 (UAE State of Green Economy Report, 2014).

To cope with the ever-rising traffic volume and road congestion in Dubai, the Salik toll collection system was rolled out in 2007. In October 2013, car-pooling was legalized.

Lots of money was pumped into the vitalizing a metro and the tram system. Biodiesel was investigated for the public buses. In Abu Dhabi, a park and ride system was started whereby someone from the outskirts could park their car and take a shuttle into the interior of the city for free.

Charging stations were introduced in a move to build an infrastructure for electric vehicles.

A Dubai Bicycle Plan aims at providing 850km of bikeways in strategically located areas and other cycle tracks have already been developed for the sports minded.

The U.A.E GDP grew 27 times since the 1975, largely supported by oil and gas revenues. In a double whammy, $50/barrel oil price not only squeezes that share but also discourages the proliferation of renewable energy technologies. It gives an opportunity for everyone to sit up and take notice of the gorilla in the room - regulated pump prices. If you ask me, this has been long overdue.

What might some of the implications be from new fuel prices to be announced soon?

1) Firstly, people taking long trips are going to obviously going to think twice. Let us suppose gas price in U.A.E increases to $1/liter, a 113% increase. Driving a car with an average fuel efficiency of 25 mpg (9.4 L/100km, a figure representative of my 2 year old Mitsubishi), a round trip to :

a) Sharjah (22.08km away) and back would cost 4.2L of petrol and 4.2 x $1 = $4.2 = 15.79 AED versus 7.52 AED with current price of $0.47/L.

 

b) Abu Dhabi (152.4km away) and back would cost 28.66L of petrol and 28.66 x $1 = $28.66 = 107.76 AED versus 51.74 AED with current price of $0.47/L.

In both these cases, one can expect roughly the same % increase in travel costs as the 113% increase in fuel costs.

2) I see more people investing in GPS units (best "Ecoroute", that kind of thing) and utilizing smart driving services like apps, which give real time traffic information. Trip planning could take more prominence.

3) I hope this sets in motion a massive awareness for fuel efficient vehicles. It makes promise for vehicles such as the Toyota Prius, Nissan Leaf or the Tesla BEV's. It also makes promise for diesel cars. While their first costs might be a bit on the high side, the lifecycle operation costs of using a higher energy density fuel will be low.  I'd like to see these vehicles in U.A.E showrooms ASAP. A hybrid or a diesel should be choices that people can make without having to resort to importing. I'm a bit upset there has been a vacuum in the UAE so far for these models.

4) I hope it allows people to think about methods to economic driving as well.  Less displacement is really better. Turbos are not just for sportscars. Driving slower is good for your pocket. Lower engine RPM's are good. This has the benefit of reducing speeds on Dubai roads as well. And does a family of 2 really need a towering 4x4? An Aston Martin to go to Carrefour? How about a Toyota or a Kia for that purpose? Retailers and showrooms have got some work to do to in educating the masses about these things.

5) I suspect the fuel price hike will change the trend for people to clog up toll-free roads. The difference between money saved by avoidance relative to the extra fuel needed to go the longer toll-free distance will most likely vanish.

6) Bicycle commuting lanes on the roads? Anyone? I'd champion this any day. We'll have to wait and see if the RTA plans on introducing dedicated lanes on the roads so that those who don't wish to drive or take the public transpo have an option. While it's easy to say this, I imagine a single bicycle track, an artery, running from the innards of Deira all the way to Jebal Ali along the Sh. Zayed Road would be just awesome. It could have multiple take off points so people could divert to key locations along the way. I don't see this happening any time soon but I eagerly await a more comprehensive picture of the Dubai Canal works to see what we can expect come 2017-2018.

7) Status boosting is the itch to buy a gas guzzling V8 and a 4 digit number plate to go along so you look good at the water cooler in the office. Well, I for one do hope the fuel degregulation makes a strong attempt to demolish this trend because it borders on discourteousness to the rest of the economizing society.

8) What I would also like to see is a massive turnaround in the trucking fleet in the U.A.E. This is one of the other low hanging fuits for improvement in terms of fuel efficiency and emissions. To see clean stuff coming out of the tailpipe from a rickety Volvo or a people carrier is, I suspect, what many people would also like to see while driving on Sh. Zayed Road. It's about time people in the trucking fleet community started talking about EGR, SCR systems, clean combustion diesel, things of that nature. Educate the drivers as well, especially about proper tire pressures! Why? Because it eats into fuel efficiency!

I'd like to conclude that if you're one among the bunch looking for a vehicle in 2015/16, knock yourself out and go through this handy EPA dataset of vehicles listed according to fuel economy. While I hope there's a datasheet more representative of vehicles in the U.A.E, it should at the minimum give someone a clue about what is the state of the art in fuel economy numbers these days. Thanks.

Some Feedback on Elon Musk's Hyperloop

The Hyperloop opensource transportation concept by SpaceX/Tesla is outlined by Elon and his cohorts in this 50 page alpha study. The "capsule" looks quite cool on paper but I'm disappointed there was no room for a cowcatcher in the concept! Now that would have been a cooler looking hyperloop!

The proposal is to use a low pressure tube to transport streamlined pods at subsonic speeds on air bearings between L.A and SF. The idea is that this would be a faster and lower cost passenger carrying alternative to an existing proposal for a high speed rail system between the two cities. With a broad brush of optimism, 300 odd miles can be covered in 30 minutes or less according to the report. And Elon Musk has marketed it pretty darn well.

Whether the idea is an original one I don't know since evacuated tube transport in capsules have been proposed before in the 90's (see image on right from one 1997 patent by Daryl Oster) and some even before that (see Atmospheric Railway). There's a lot of existing material on this topic however let's take a look at some of the aspects of the new study here.

In the order of importance, I think that the tube construction will be prime since it has to withstand the pressure differential between atmosphere and negative pressure in the tube. I'm sure some ideas can be borrowed from systems such as large water pipes and tunnels. However, transporting passengers in this fashion will require extra factors of safety to make it idiot proof. Whether the imagineers behind Hyperloop will take a second look at welded steel for the tubes is to be seen.

Secondly, the study does not mention that passengers are expected to wear pressurized suits. Traveling in a low pressure tube will be like flying above 150,000 feet altitude. The cabin pressure has to be set to the right altitude to prevent passenger sickness and other physical harm. If compressors are expected to deliver the cabin pressure from bleed air, they have to be absolutely fail safe since it is a life system now, not just an air sucking device in front of the pod.

Related to this point, I don't know when was the last time an axial compressor flew at 150,000 ft. The maximum height an air breathing jet engine has flown is 85,135 feet which has been set by none other than the SR-71. Interestingly, the axial compressor spools in that engine would have been just windmilling at those cruise speeds as most of the thrust in the aircraft was delivered from the ramjet effect. To the same point, a jet engine operates in open air. The compressor in the Hyperloop is asked to operate in an evacuated tube. Can it work? I'll get back to the compression aspect later.

Thirdly, I'm reminded that an SR-71 executing a 6g turn at Mach 3 had a turn radius of 11 miles. Even though the speeds are much lesser in Hyperloop, centrifugal forces can be of concern. To transport 7.4 million people every year at over 700mph, optimum turn radii for the tube has to be evaluated along the route so as to keep g forces within acceptable levels. Some research indicates that the I-5 highway runs on topology that has small radii and varying terrain, flat in some places, steep in others. We can assume with reasonable confidence that the pylons and tube itself will be asked to do similar things.

Assuming the route is narrowed down, ride comfort evaluation has to done for a realistic group of people - average children, women and men. I'm sure there are rigorous industry standards that prescribe acceptable vibration and g forces in high speed railways and whether all the stipulations in these standards can be met is one big risk item.

Onto packaging. The study calls attention to keeping the capsule/tube area ratio as high as possible to avoid unfavorable aerodynamics, as the maximum speed possible in a pod within a low pressure tube is limited by something called Kantrowitz limit beyond which airflow is apparently choked and drag in front of the vehicle increases. I admit I haven't heard of this limit before but after a cursory glance at the physics, these limits seem to apply largely to supersonic speeds. Its desirable to shed further light on the time at levels spent in subsonic and supersonic modes to understand how these aerodynamic trade-offs factor into a representative transport situation.

Axial compressors are not known for high pressure rise within a stage. Some preliminary calculations I did suggest that to compress air of molecular weight 28.7 with desired weight flowrate of 30 lb/min from 100 Pa, 292K suction condition to 2100 Pa at discharge requires nearly 16 stages (mean blade velocity assumed to be 720 fps, pressure co-efficient = 0.29).

Assuming I'm right...

With the roughly 4.5 foot by 6 foot frontal dimensions of the proposed pod, I wonder how an onboard 16 stage compressor with intercoolers, valves, instrumentation and associated pipework can be squeezed into it and still expect to maintain aerodynamic shape. Of course this is just for the supplementary propulsion, as there is another compressor outlined in the study that supplies pressurized air to the air bearings and the cabin. If existing technology is used, the real estate for interstage coolers itself could be substantial.

Finally, there are key hardware items that require more refinement - the pumps needed to bring down the pressure of the tube to 90 thousandths of an atmosphere, the performance aspects of air bearings and linear accelerators to lift and move the pod, the performance of solar energy to power the pod in lieu of regional and seasonal differences in solar input. Finally, weather proofing those arrays...

I think that the biggest risk involved in Hyperloop is the proposal to use new technologies that have no previous run history. Hence, the validation/testing in terms of time and cost must not be underestimated. Those are the hidden costs of this project and if we consider those dollars as well, I wonder how the Hyperloop will compare to more conventional ideas.

A more refined Beta study including pertinent engineering details of various systems is required and this is where substantially more collaboration is needed. Being an opensource project, I take it that many engineers and corporations with expertise in various systems proposed here would like to rise to the occasion to help out.

Visionary thinking starts out with crazy initial concepts. The inertia to an idea is high, its something to be dealt with. I can already say that you'd need good bit of political muscle to get this idea across head honchos in government. Other engineering considerations have been outlined on other websites. I liked this particular one from Richard Gray at the Telegraph.