Energy Resources: The Paradox of Paucity in the Midst of Plenty and Hybrid Solutions

Energy Resources: The Paradox of Paucity in the Midst of Plenty and Hybrid Solutions

By Stephen Metzger, PhD., Senior Editorial Advisor, IUV Magazine

Energy development and policy is constantly in the news and bears monitoring for our industry for obvious reasons.  Most of the purchasers of utility vehicles and mobile equipment are commercial businesses that fix a keen eye on return on investment, as well as regulatory constraints, in their choice of products.  Fuel costs and pollution control measures are increasingly focused upon by the industry.

Energy Resources:  Scarcity in the Midst of Plenty

Surely one of the paradoxes of modern times - and modernity so driven by energy usage - is that new, hydrocarbon resources are being discovered daily.  New technology such as hydro-fracking has opened up commercially viable oil and natural gas resources on a vast scale all over the world—and, specifically in the United States.  Significant resources nowhere close to full development exist in Canadian tar sand deposits, in the Alaskan Wildlife Preserve, and even in offshore areas of the Gulf of Mexico.  Vast undeveloped oil reserves exist in Iraq, Russia, and offshore Brazil.  A reputedly giant offshore natural gas deposit lies in the Mediterranean, close to Israel.  All this potential exists alongside the fields already producing in the Middle East, Far East, the North Sea, and North and South America.

Why then are energy prices, particularly those of oil-based hydrocarbons, so high?  Why are natural gas prices, in terms of their ratio to oil prices, so low?  This has little to do with imperfect markets, dastardly oil companies exercising monopoly power, or international banks manipulating currency values (or, whatever).  It has everything to do with political power and politics.  The political conspiracy of OPEC, along with warfare in the Middle East (including the “little” fight in Libya, and scaling all the way up to fears of Armageddon), combined with an ideologically bound, global warming phobia pervasive among the policy drones of Western governments, have resulted scarcity in the midst of plenty. 

Artificial Scarcities Breed Artificial Solutions

Within the tangle of global geopolitical power plays and the nests within nests of domestic constraints and regulations, the American entrepreneurial spirit searches out incentives and acts upon them, as best it can.  With regard to energy usage there is an on-going effort to improve the efficiency of energy conversion from one form to another and finally from various forms to work.  With regard to issues of pollution and global warming, the effort is to place emphasis on relatively non-polluting energy forms, such as natural gas, hydrogen, and nuclear, and make more polluting forms, especially coal, more costly.  Among the pampered non-polluting energy sources are the subsidy-laden triumvirate of solar, wind, and geothermal.  Pampered because these are the favored alternatives of the political elite, which (I have a sneaking suspicion) know they are unworkable.

I am a follower of John Petersen, a Basil, Switzerland-based attorney and expert on start-up companies in the field of battery technology.  His writings appear on Seeking Alpha, a blog support system.  An engaging and incisive analyst, he has over 50,000 followers, which he confronts with an array of politically (and economically) incorrect articles on battery storage and energy issues.  Here is an excerpt from one of his recent offerings:

“The mathematically challenged optimists in our midst earnestly believe we can solve our energy problems with cool toys like wind turbines, solar panels, electric cars and other materials intensive energy schemes that fire the imagination but can never be sustainable. These aren’t solutions!... In the final analysis, the dreamers who want to waste metals and other natural resources in the name of conserving coal, oil and natural gas are not saviors. They’re unwitting saboteurs who can only make the problems worse!

“The only alternative energy investments that stand a chance of survival, much less profitability, are basic efficiency technologies that slash waste and deliver real savings for every ounce of natural resource inputs.”

Shifting Gears to the Micro Level

So let’s turn to some of those “basic efficiency technologies.”  One of the alternatives to government-imposed market incentives that Mr. Petersen would certainly agree with is the development of hybrid drives for a wide range of mobile platforms and equipment.  Much of this issue of IUV Magazine is devoted to these products and their components.

One of the anomalies of looking at micro-level, solution-driven energy products, in contrast to the rather forbidding “big picture”, is that many of them work and will work in a fully competitive market.  Take for example, hybrid drive solutions to fork lifts (or lift trucks). 

Toyota introduced its diesel electric hybrid lift truck in mid-2009 and is currently selling this product in the Japanese market.  The vehicle, called the Geneo-Hybrid forklift is powered by a 2.5-liter diesel engine combined with a 26 kW electric motor and nickel metal hydride battery pack.  It is capable of lifting 3.5 tons and reportedly uses 50-percent less fuel with an equal reduction in carbon emissions.

Mitsubishi introduced its diesel hybrid forklift, the GRENDiA EX at this year’s CeMat.  Following the show’s sustainability theme, Mitsubishi Forklift Trucks placed the GRENDiA in their range of 4.0 to 5.0 ton capacity hybrid forklifts. The vehicle is configured with an electric battery/diesel-engine and lithium-ion batteries.  This truck is reputedly capable of a 39 per cent increase in fuel efficiency over a traditional IC engine truck of similar capacity and cuts engine displacement by one-third and significantly reduces CO2 emissions.

The prospects for hybrid forklifts are excellent in the increasingly restrictive environment of pollution control and high energy costs.

Hybrid Utility Vehicles

One of the most exciting developments in hybrid technology is its application to utility vehicles, or what I call somewhat more broadly, small, task-oriented vehicles.  In category of electric STOVs, range anxiety exists almost as much as it does for on-road electric vehicles.  Of course the latter has been researched here and abroad to the point of overkill.  The bottom line is that range anxiety is real, even if largely unsupported by typical driving habits.  The other factor influencing on-road and STOV vehicle sales is the length of time for refueling.

Now, both these barriers to market acceptance can be greatly mitigated via hybrid technology.  In the realm of on-road vehicles, many analysts believe the readily available hybrid vehicle will be a far greater factor in meeting mileage and pollution standards than pure electrics.  With regard to STOVs, many models of which meet LSV standards and are deemed road worthy, the same sort of benefits apply.  Let’s take a look at some of the “hybridizations” on the market now.

The Tomberlin Group—Michael Tomberlin, President and CEO, has taken out a patent on what is described as an off-grid range extender.  The patent description reads, in part:  “A low speed electric vehicle (LSV) with an off-grid battery charger to extend the range of the vehicle including an internal combustion battery charging generator carried in the trunk space of the vehicle and an optional solar panel mounted on the roof of the vehicle.”
I understand this range-extending generator can be added to the company’s line of LSVs at dealerships.  Despite this, Tomberlin gives very little play to this simple innovation, which, in my humble opinion, would greatly boost their sales and put worries (rational or not) about the 30-40 mile distance limitation to rest once and for all.

Ben King, MetroGolfCars—Ben King, President of MetroGolfCars, Dallas/Ft. Worth, manufactures a line of electric 4x4s called the HuntVe and has given us the scoop on the introduction of the extended range, hybrid powered HuntVe this September.  Ben says, “We are releasing our electric HuntVe 4x4 Tatonka HRE (Hybrid Range Extender) in September. It will feature a 4500 volt generator with the ability to support 4 110v accessory plugs. This vehicle will sustain electric energy/ generator supported range for 125 miles+ in off road conditions. The plug system will invert power to the land manager and commercial user by creating utilitarian purpose in supplying power to electric circular saws, electric chain saws, electric trimmers, lights and many other electric apparatus.”

Solar panel range extenders—There are a number of companies that have developed solar panels geared to recharge the small vehicle battery pack. SolarDrive, based in Denmark, has an on-going association with Club Car to accessorize Club Car vehicles with the company’s  S2E solar panel mounted on the roof of the vehicle. 

Cruise Car of Sarasota, FL features solar power-enhanced utility passenger and utility vehicles and are teaming with Long Drive Solar of Marietta, GA.  And there a number of other solar panel companies catering to the small vehicle market.

Depending on whom you talk to, solar panels either work well and are a definite enhancement to vehicle distance and cost of operation, or, in the opinion of some are difficult to justify based on the upfront additional cost to the vehicle.  Perhaps everyone agrees they are going to work best in sunny climes, where they are in a constant recharge mode.  By contrast, generator-based hybrids need not be on all the time and are designed to switch on and off as needed.

Hybrid Power Will Grow the Industry

I firmly believe that generator-based hybrid power will be the wave of the future in the small, task-oriented vehicle industry and will ultimately penetrate the recreational/utility, side-by-side market, where ICE predominates.  In particular, I look for the electric hunting vehicles (Stealth, Tomberlin Vanish, King’s HuntVe, Bad Boy Buggies), equipped as hybrids, to move out of the narrow confines of the hunter market into a much broader-based multi-use, multi-segment market—and accomplish this in the next 3-5 years.

About the Author:


Stephen Metzger, PhD, is Managing Director of International Market Solutions, LLC, an internationally-based market research firm.  He is also Principal of International Competitive Assessments, the market research arm of IMS.  ICA has produced four major studies of the small, task-oriented vehicle market since 2000.  Mr. Metzger is Senior Editorial Advisor for Industrial/Utility Vehicle Magazine.