LAS VEGAS--One of the big complaints from consumers who buy General Motors cars that run on E85 ethanol is the lack of places to fill up.
General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner
(Credit: General Motors)GM CEO Rick Wagoner, in a meeting with reporters at the Consumer Electronics Show taking place in Las Vegas this week, says he has received hundreds of e-mails from customers who have bought such cars and are frustrated they can't find ethanol stations.
When GM started selling its flex-fuel cars, there were about 600 stations that sold ethanol in the U.S. Now there are about 1,400 stations.
But there are 170,000 filling stations in the country. The U.S. probably needs around 15,000 to 20,000 ethanol stations, he added.
To this end, GM has been working with big box retailers like Wal-Mart and Target to put ethanol pumps in.
"It has been remarkably difficult" to get pumps installed, he said. "We've been doing more work than I thought we would need to."
Corn ethanol also won't cut it for the long haul, if ethanol demand grows significantly. "To get beyond a certain level, it is going to have to go beyond grain-based in the U.S.," he said. The alternative could well be cellulosic ethanol.
Wagoner is making a rare appearance at CES to promote car electronics as well as GM's more fuel-efficient car. He'll be giving a keynote in less than an hour. During the speech, he will discuss a new prototype, the Cadillac Provoq, which comes with a solar panel on the roof to power the car's electronics, a hydrogen fuel cell, and a lithium-ion battery.
Speaking of lithium-ion batteries, Wagoner says reports that GM has delayed the Chevy Volt, a gas-electric car, are incorrect. The company still aims to come out with the car around 2010.
"Going for 2010 is a stretch, and it still is a stretch," he said, but the test results are coming up reasonably well.
The challenge largely lies in improving the batteries so that these cars will have a range consumers will find acceptable. The Volt is supposed to get around 300 miles before running out of gas and electricity. (The Volt drives on electricity and the gas engine recharges it while driving.)
GM, he added, continues to look at all-electric cars, but that's a tougher challenge and may come, at least from GM, only after electric-assist vehicles like the Volt are out. Automakers may also begin to push the "city car" concept. These cars only go about 120 miles on a charge, but are made for city driving.
The chief problem with the EV1, GM's canceled electric car from a few years back, was the range.
"If you want to drive around and not worry about it (running out of power), that hasn't worked yet," he said.
The EV1, however, didn't completely die. The nickel-metal-hybrid battery from the EV1 will be used in a Chevy Malibu hybrid.
And on the hybrid note, automakers will likely come out with a variety of hybrid drives, depending on the size of the car and its expected power.
"If hybrids take off, you will see a proliferation of different types of hybrid systems," he said.
Cars will continue to run on fossil fuels for a while, he added, but alternatives seem unavoidable. Emerging nations like China are buying more cars, which means greater fuel consumption, and environmental awareness is far higher.
"My sense is that there is a fundamental change," he stated.
View complete CES 2008 coverage from CNET.
Voltaic Systems on Tuesday is set to announce a bag with a 14-watt solar panel for charging laptops at the Consumer Electronics Show, a company representative said.
(Credit:
Voltaic Systems)
It's expected to be released this spring and will cost $599.
A wide variety of solar chargers are available to power up cell phones, iPods, or other gadgets.
As it turns out, I spent many hours during my Christmas vacation researching solar-powered laptops. (News.com will be running a column and photo gallery later this week.)
According to retailers, a 14-watt panel will be good for charging up the laptop when not in use. But running it directly from the sun would require larger, and more expensive, panels.
Still, it looks like Voltaic Systems has done a good job of putting together the charger and bag in a neat package. And it ties into the green theme at the Consumer Electronics Show this week.
View complete CES 2008 coverage from CNET.
Three of the biggest makers of TVs have formed a company to help manage the wave of electronics waste set to swell with the onset of digital television. Panasonic, Sharp, and Toshiba have launched the Manufacturers Recycling Management Co. in Minnesota.
That state last year enacted a law making vendors responsible for their brands' discarded electronics. MRM contracts with third-party recyclers including CRT Processing and Materials Processing Corporation, which specialize in handling tired monitors and televisions.
Old televisions and monitors are laced with lead, cadmium, and toxic flame retardants, but careful recycling can recover valuable and reusable metals and plastics.
Since September, MRM has collected some 750 tons of TVs, PCs, audio equipment, fax machines, and other gear through events such as Plug-In to eCycling programs managed by the EPA and more than 20 tech vendors and stores.
MRM has recycling agreements with vendors including Hitachi, JVC, Mitsubishi, Philips, and Pioneer. The company, which currently has just one employee, plans to make money through fees from manufacturers seeking help to cope legally with cast-off electronics.
MRM is set to expand within the next year in Connecticut, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, and Washington states, and possibly in other states in coming years.
Some 35 states are mulling individual e-waste recycling laws, to the dismay of much of the electronics industry. The Consumer Electronics Association has campaigned for national laws to replace the state-by-state patchwork of regulations. That group runs the Consumer Electronics Show being held this week in Las Vegas, where news of MRM's launch was announced.
"We do desire a federal program and will continue to work toward that," said Christopher Loncto, a spokesman for Sharp.
New rules in Minnesota, for one, appear to be driving up recycling rates there. At the Mall of America in November, for instance, organizers concerned about the danger of traffic jams canceled an e-waste recycling drive that drew overwhelming crowds.
As big brand names try to manage the growing tide of e-waste, small-time entrepreneurs also hope to profit by giving new life to old gadgets. New Web-based companies such as BuyMyTronics and Second Rotation offer to buy people's old iPods and mobile phones.
It's easy to feel overwhelmed by the vast waste of materials at the gargantuan Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Mobile phones frozen into buffet ice sculptures just scratch the surface of the showcase of an industry that thrives on planned obsolescence.
Three years ago, I'd asked the planners of CES about its waste management, receiving befuddled looks in return. But then I stopped worrying and learned to love my free CES vinyl laptop bag, stuffed with plasticky swag that will outlast the bones of any great-grandchildren I may ever have.
Sure, there were e-waste recycling awards back then, the ceremony shunted into early Saturday hours. Yet amidst the construction project of CES sprawling over an area larger than five dozen football fields, no recycling was obvious in the old days.
Fast forward nearly three years, however, and times are changing. The Consumer Electronics Association, which runs CES, announced earlier this month that it will "green" the whole show--starting with a soy-based ink and recycled paper schedule in each attendee's hand, and ending with the donation of leftover food to a homeless shelter.
Carpeting, batteries, bottles, bulbs, cans, and gadgets will be recycled. Cleaning supplies will be nontoxic. Three quarters of the utensils and food containers will be biodegradable. A portion of one of the world's largest tech fairs will highlight sustainable tech, and hotels will broadcast a plug for the green efforts.
The greening of CES could mark a big shift for conventions, with potentially lucrative opportunities for companies that make bioplastic forks, recycled booth dividers, and such.
Whether wary of being accused of greenwashing, determined to do well by the planet, or both, the organizers of many confabs ramped up their event-greening attempts this year. Unsurprisingly, those with the highest hippie quotient seem to have made the most progress. Among the highlights of some green events I attended:
On the surface, the least green aspect of so many get-togethers (Society of Environmental Journalists, Greenbuild, and Burning Man included) is the amount of fossil fuel that powers all the tour buses, cars, and planes carting around so many far-flung people.
Nevertheless, any group can attempt to mitigate the damage by buying controversial carbon offsets. The U.S. Green Building Council that ran Greenbuild did just that (so will CES, and so did West Coast Green).
Despite a flap over lead-laced coffee cups, West Coast Green was meant to be green to the last drop, including handouts of recycled grocery tote bags similar to those at Green Festivals.
Greenbuild 2007's booth materials were recycled, and electricity was conserved during setup and disassembly. It was held in Chicago's McCormick West Center, newly certified by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design benchmark. The Green Festival kept 96 percent of its garbage out of landfills, while West Coast Green's targeted 75 percent and AlwaysOn aimed for zero waste. SolFest was entirely solar-powered.
Among the many events that shunned the use of virgin paper, the Austin Clean Energy Venture Summit program came in a recyclable cardboard binder (CNET News.com's Martin LaMonica went, not I). Even the Office 2.0 conference took a green twist this year by forbidding paper, including business cards, and handing out iPhones. Still, this writer spotted forbidden swag including stinky plastic bouncing balls. In the end, after all, the responsibility for greening any event rests not only with the planners, but with those who show up.
| Programs, signs, and badges | Food | Waste | Event energy and materials |
CES 2008 goals | Recycled; soy inks | Biodegradable table settings | To be recycled; leftover food donated | Recycled booth materials; carbon offsets |
Office 2.0 | None; business cards even banned | Local, organic | Recycled | |
Discover Brilliant | Recycled linen program with bamboo binding; low-VOC inks | Reusable table settings | Recycled | |
AlwaysOn Going Green | Recycled paper | Local, organic; reusable table settings | Recycled and composted | |
West Coast Green | Recycled; vegetable inks | Local, organic; biodegradable table settings; no water bottles | Recycled and composted | Carbon offsets |
Society of Environmental Journalists |
| Local, organic; biodegradable table settings | Recycled and composted | |
Greenbuild | Recycled | Local, organic; no water bottles; biodegradable table settings | Recycled and composted; leftover food donated | Recycled carpet; green cleaning supplies; carbon offsets |
Green Festival | Recycled | Local, organic; biodegradable table settings | Recycled and composted | |
Solfest | Recycled; soy inks | Local, all organic; biodegradable table settings; no water bottles | Recycled and composted | Solar-powered |
Bioneers | Recycled; natural inks | Local, organic; biodegradable table settings; no water bottles | Recycled and composted | |
Burning Man | Recycled; natural inks | Fair trade coffee; no water bottles | Recycled and composted; leftover lumber donated | Off-grid; solar, wind power and biofuels used; carbon offsets |
| Paper, signs, and badges | Food | Waste | Event energy and materials |
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