LA Auto Show: Schwarzenegger Comes to the Show
by Jeff McIntire-Strasburg, St. Louis, MO on 11.30.06
Word started spreading yesterday afternoon that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger would be making an appearance at the LA Auto Show this morning, and that he might even use the appearance to announce a new biofuels initiative. Fifteen minutes before he appeared, one of his people also said an announcement was coming. Unfortunately, all the buzz was wrong -- the Governator did appear, and praised the show itself (this is the 100-year anniversary), the automakers there, and the state's initiatives to minimize emissions spewed from millions of California cars, but announced no new plans for biofuels. He was joined by executives from BMW, GM, Tesla, Honda and Daimler-Chrysler, as well as a representative of the Union of Concerned Scientist. We all received a press release noting the governor's environmental achievements.
Needless to say, we were a bit disappointed. The governor's appearance did, however, underscore the theme of environmental impact running through the show, and variety of strategies (some really impressive, some notably disappointing) the auto industry is implementing to address personal transportation's heavy environmental footprint. So far, we've seen lots of hybrids and fuel cell concept cars, so were happy to see the Tesla Roadster (an electric vehicle) get prominent placement at this morning's news conference. One point that industry reps have also been making throughout the show -- fuel cell cars are electric cars. We don't know if these means that hydrogen represents the primary means by which car makers will pursue electric vehicles; we do know that they're pretty excited about it in spite of the long timeline projected for commercial viability of fuel cell cars.
Again, Shell Oil has sponsored my trip, and asked us to post this disclaimer:
Shell has underwritten Jeff McIntire-Strasburg's travel expenses to attend the LA Auto Show. Jeff is not required to blog about Shell products or initiatives. The only Shell requirement as a condition of underwriting these expenses was to include this disclosure of this relationship on Treehugger.
More to come... ::LA Auto Show and California Office of the Governor
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Alka Zadhaonkar, a professor in India has successfully created a method of melting/transforming plastics into energy as a source of fuel. Tried and true and invested by Banks and State;
why is the U.S. struggling to come up with a substitute for oil and coal as energy sources?
Or am I missing something?
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Writer's note: Rosie -- do you have a link for that information? Sounds fascinating...
Jeff -
Rosemary is referring to Alka Zadgaonkar, an Indian chemist who has come up with a more efficient method of plastics depolymerization. It doesn't really "substitute" oil as an energy source - it just reverts plastic back into lighter petroleum products.
It's a good way to reduce petro-plastic waste, but it's still using petroleum as an energy source - just one that was temporarily used as plastic.
A brief article is here: http://www.goodnewsindia.com/index.php/Magazine/story/alkaZ/
Jeff -
Rosemary is referring to Alka Zadgaonkar, an Indian chemist who has come up with a more efficient method of plastics depolymerization. It doesn't really "substitute" oil as an energy source - it just reverts plastic back into lighter petroleum products.
It's a good way to reduce petro-plastic waste, but it's still using petroleum as an energy source - just one that was temporarily used as plastic.
A brief article is here: http://www.goodnewsindia.com/index.php/Magazine/story/alkaZ/
I'm pretty sure that for a while the european plastics organistaion was recommending burning plastics as the most efficient thing to do after use. I think the calorific value per kg is actually higher than oil. Seems to be a bit less of a priority now:
http://www.plasticseurope.org/content/default.asp?PageID=94
Rosemary, what is the plastic made from?
Most plastics are fossil-fuel-based so all you'd be doing is delaying the inevitable, not replacing oil as an energy source. On the other hand, if the process works for bio-plastics as well, it could certainly be an alternative to simply burying the stuff...
Then again, burying plastic could be considered a form of carbon sequestration. Maybe burning the stuff and releasing the carbon back into the environment isn't such a great idea.?.
Looking forward to seeing some links!
Andrew.
Depolymerizing polymers back to the original monomeric structure is often called "reverse methanolysis" or "RM" The several commercial efforts at doing this over the last decade have proved uneconomic and were closed down. RM won't work on plastics where a high fraction of mineral salts or fibers have been added (such as PVC) nor will it work on anything less than a single polymer feedstock: hence the risky economics. The other problem is that the very firms best capable of performing RM and consuming the resulting product tend to be the same firms which already make "virgin" monomers from petrochemicals.. You can imagine the internal competition that results over pricing, especially if the RM produced monomer was able to be made more cheaply for some reason. Hence, although it seems like a holy grail of sorts, because of the potential to empower a closed loop or "up cycling" of wasate plastics, in practice it has not panned out.
Well, that explains Shell Oil's friendly supprt on Treehugger. Cheery posts like "Shell Draws A Bright Line: No Food For Fuel" already showed how Treehugger is in Shell Oil's back pocket, but this is totally ingregious greenwashing. This is just plain out unethical and really disgusting.
Shell Oil isn't a reformed company, they just hired a top notch PR firm in Oct 2005 which is doing things like paying junkets for journalists, like this one for Treehugger. If that isn't unethical I don't know what is.
Shell Oil is guilty of not only enviromental crimes but of political and human rights offences that have resulted of the murder of thousands in Africa and elsewhere. Nothing can stand in their way as they destroy lives and damage the environment. They are by far the most unethical and flagrant offenders of all the oil companies. This is not old news, this is still going on; google "shell oil" and "murder" and you'll get the picture.
That Treehugger would take junket money from Shell Oil blows my mind. I am disgusted and have completely lost any respect I had for Treehugger.
Visit Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Dutch_Shell_Environmental_and_reputational_issues
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editor note: Cheery posts like this? The post isn't even about Shell. Shell isn't mentioned at all except at the end to be transparent. Who say they are a "reformed company" except you? Drop the straw men and accusations please.
"The post isn't even about Shell."
Perhaps you have forgotten your sponsor...
you know:
"Again, Shell Oil has sponsored my trip, and asked us to post this disclaimer:
Shell has underwritten Jeff McIntire-Strasburg's travel expenses to attend the LA Auto Show. Jeff is not required to blog about Shell products or initiatives. The only Shell requirement as a condition of underwriting these expenses was to include this disclosure of this relationship on Treehugger."
Can you say the words "buying influence"? Didn't think so.
Can we really dismiss these concerns so completely?
Shell's payment for treehugger goodwill is a tax deductible investment from their point of view. What is it from your point of view? How deep are you really willing to dig into Shell's bad behavior once they've paid for your room and travel and meals?
It's a legit question.
We're all obviously holding out hope that treehugger will go deep on Shell, but until then, we have to wonder.
For example, how about a story on why Shell pays for things like treehugger participation in an auto show. Who runs the Shell PR operation. What is the Shell PR plan? Where does there money go? Why do they have to do PR in the first place?
Absent any deep investigative pieces, we are left to assume you are giving them a pass because they are giving you money. Tell us we are wrong and why.
I'm reposting my comment from another set of anonymous critiques here:
You do indeed raise real questions.
But I call this building a relationship with real people. That doesn't mean the Rain Forest Action network, for example, is going about it the wrong way, just that there are many avenues to change.
My take is that giant companies, even ones who do bad things, are full of good people trying to make change. Those are the people TreeHugger seeks to activate and involve ourselves with.
To cynicaly dismiss anything that shell or GM does is like saying "all Americans are evil".
The folks involved in Shell's alt fuel program in the United States, for example, have as much to do with Nigeria as you have to do with bombing Iraq. That is to say - they are unfortunately connected and might do well to speak out, but as far as anyone's personal relationships are concerned, that is where the comparison ends.
That said, it is fantastic that you bring these issues to people's attention and I encourage you to continue to do so - only with activated, intelligent readers like yourself will TreeHugger strengthen in integrity and transparency.
Regards,
Nick Aster, CTO