Summary

This is a four-year outreach and research program intended to address the logistical, operational, and technical problems associated with an alternative fuel-based economy. The program is funded by a group of auto companies, government agencies (including the California Department of Transportation), and major energy companies.

The main objectives are to develop the methods, theories, and tools for self-consistent, transparent comparisons of alternative energy and vehicle pathways, and to apply these methods and tools for the comparison of four general pathways—biofuels, electricity, fossil fuels, and hydrogen.

Biofuels will explore further the work of California Biomass Collective at the University of California, Davis, including the analysis of biorefinery production systems, environmental and land-use impacts, infrastructure strategies, and vehicle analysis.

The electricity tract includes production methods, time-of-day charging impacts, and total grid capacity. Research will also be done on consumer behavior and preferences for electric drive attributes, including all-electric ranges and charging time.

Fossil fuels address petroleum-based fuels as the dominating transportation energy, and as the evolution of fuels produced from other fossil fuel sources, including coal with carbon sequestration, oil shale, and tar sands.

Research conducted under Hydrogen Pathways Program summarizes the hydrogen tract, including the investigation of electricity/hydrogen systems, the impact of alternative policies infrastructure development strategies, and regional transition case studies.

Progress on this project will be published in papers and reports delivered to all program sponsors, an invitation-only annual conference to review the research outputs of the project, research workshops on technical issues and topics (i.e. station sitting and transportation fuel demand scenarios), a special public progress event, and pilot projects.

Related PATH Articles/Journals

Program publications and key presentations can be found at the following website: http://hydrogen.its.ucdavis.edu/publications.