A significant issue remains unanswered. What about the electrical grid? The widespread national (or even a concentrated local adoption) of electric vehicles can have a significant impact on the electrical grid. The ability to schedule charging for off-peak hours along with utilities providing financial incentives to do so can help overcome this—to an extent. Further, integrating electric vehicles with the batteries into the grid itself can help balance issues relative to to such alternative generation sources as wind. Still, if you add in such consumer friendly (but grid intensive) technologies as fast charging, the grid issue has no easy solutions.

 

How to Introduce New Fuel Offerings

Thursday, September 24 started off with a series of round table discussions on “How to Introduce New Fuel Offerings.” The goal was to brainstorm how you might bring a new fuel to market in an environment that would not necessarily be free market driven. Numerous points were raised by each round table group and there was a lively and lengthy discussion that followed, in which the various points were distilled into some core concepts.

  • The fuel would have to be invisible to the consumer. By that, it should be no more complicated than, and just as convenient as, any fuel on the market today.
  • It would have to achieve all of its performance goals— power, mileage, environmental— somewhat equally. The consumer should not have to sacrifice a performance parameter that is personally important.
  • The fuel would have to fit into the existing infrastructure without a major disruption.
  • The fuel has to be profitable to both distributors and the potential investors.
  • The fuel will have to be safe for both the distributor and the customer.
  • The fuel would have to be widely available without any significant regional shortfalls.

DSCN1533

The author’s observation is that introducing such a new fuel lacks market utility without the greenhouse gas emission goals of the Obama administration and states like California. As the bullet list above suggests, such a fuel would have an extraordinarily difficult path to market in the face of cheap, abundant fossil fuels should those environmental performance drivers slacken in coming years.

Off Site

Thursday ended with a range of field trips and a networking reception at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway-Hall of Fame.

One field trip was a visit the POET Biorefinery in Alexandria, Ind., which produces about 70,000,000 gallons of ethanol per year and a significant quantity of distillers grain that is used as animal feed. Attendees were able to follow the process from a grain truck dropping a load of corn for the underground conveyor system, though the processing buildings and finally to large above ground storage tanks which hold industrial quantities of denatured alcohol. The plant was clean, and seemed well run and efficient. Employee pride was evident. While the author could not take part in the concurrent Battery Innovation Center tour, it similarly received raved reviews.

DSCN1545

 

 Final Day—Consumer Focus and Board Meetings

Friday, September 25 featured a Keynote Address: “How do Consumers Choose?” by speaker Matthew Willcox, Institute for Decision Making. Willcox is the author of “The Business of Choice—Marketing to Consumers’ Instincts.” He discussed how choosing an innovation that is rationally better in terms of performance, cost or the environment does not always come intuitively or naturally to humans.

The remainder of the day involved the institute’s board meetings. Out of that came the election of the 2015–2017 Board of Directors. They are:

  • Jay Ricker (Chairman), CEO, Ricker’s (Anderson, IN)
  • Bob Wimmer (Treasurer), director of energy & environmental research group, Toyota Motors North America (Washington, D.C.)
  • Mark DeVries, director of business development, Poet Ethanol Products (Wichita, KS)
  • Matt Forman, senior manager external affairs, FCA (Washington, D.C.)
  • Doug Haugh, president, Mansfield Oil Company (Gainesville, GA)
  • Steve Loehr, vice president operations support, Kwik Trip, Inc. (La Crosse, WI)
  • Brian Mandell, president, Phillips 66 Company (Houston, TX)
  • Jeff Morris, senior advisor, Alon USA (Dallas, TX)
  • Ron Sabia, president and COO, Gulf Oil, Cumberland Gulf Group of Companies (Framingham, MA)
  • Norman Turiano, principal, Turiano Strategic Consulting LLC (Cape Coral, FL)
  • Michael Whatley, executive vice president, Consumer Energy Alliance (Washington, D.C.)

The Institute’s Board of Advisors for 2015–2017 was also announced. The Board of Advisors is responsible for setting the research agenda of the Fuels Institute and peer reviewing research projects to ensure they are fact-based and free of bias. The 2015–2017 Board of Advisors are:

  • Jay Ricker (Chairman), CEO, Ricker’s (Anderson, IN)
  • Bob Wimmer (Treasurer), director of energy and environmental research group, Toyota Motor North America (Washington, D.C.)
  • Jeremy Bezdek, vice president biofuels and ingredients, Flint Hills Resources (Wichita, KS)
  • Mark DeVries, director of business development, Poet Ethanol Products (Wichita, KS)
  • Matt Forman, senior manager external affairs, FCA (Washington, D.C.)
  • Doug Haugh, president, Mansfield Oil Company (Gainesville, GA)
  • Norman Herrera, managing partner and chief executive office, Sparq Natural Gas, LLC (Oklahoma City, OK)
  • Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis, OPIS (Wall Township, NJ)
  • Anthony Lambkin, EV infrastructure and business development, Nissan North America (Franklin, TN)
  • Steve Loehr, vice president operations support, Kwik Trip, Inc. (La Crosse, WI)
  • Brian Mandell, president, Phillips 66 Company (Houston, TX)
  • Jeff Morris, senior advisor, Alon USA (Dallas, TX)
  • Derek Regal, senior manager fuels and regulatory issues, Tesoro Refining and Marketing Company, LLC (San Antonio, TX)
  • Ron Sabia, president and COO, Gulf Oil, Cumberland Gulf Group of Companies (Framingham, MA)
  • Robert Stein, president and CEO, Kalibrate (Tulsa, OK)
  • Norman Turiano, principal, Turiano Strategic Consulting LLC (Cape Coral, FL)
  • Steve Vander Griend, technical manager fuel and engine tech, ICM, Inc. (Colwich, KS)
  • Michael Whatley, executive vice president, Consumer Energy Alliance (Washington, D.C.)
  • Craig Willis, president ethanol, Archer Daniels Midland Company (Decatur, IL)

 

The Fuels Institute Spring Meeting (the next on the agenda) will be held April 27 – 29, 2016, in San Francisco, Calif.

Pages: 1 2 3