Thesis (M.S.) in Resource Economics and Policy--University of Maine, 2009. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 105-115).

Historically, gasoline and diesel have been used as vehicle fuels for a long time. But the decline of oil supply and unstable oil price drive people to find alternative energy for vehicle fuel. Alternative energy solutions may shift energy consumption to less carbon, less pollutions and provide more energy diversity. These issues are investigated in the present literature review.   The first part of the thesis introduces different kinds of alternative energy for vehicles, such as biofuel, natural gas, hydrogen, liquefied petrol gas, electricity and compressed air. The presentations includes their utilization, production, environment effect, running performance, fuel property, market share, running and investigate cost and production barriers. The second part of the thesis work compares the properties of the alternative fuels and discusses the advantages and drawbacks of different types of fuel energies.   Compared with traditional fuels, alternative fuels have superiority in environment impact, sustainability and energy efficiency. Some of them have been used in reality and show a potential as future fuels. The author found that natural gas and liquefied petrol gas have low running costs, better environment performance and acceptable running range, and thus are able to substitute conventional fuels in the short term. Biofuel has better sustainability than gasoline. It will probably become more sustainable and cost effective in the mid-term period. Electricity can also become a future fuel in mid-term period since it has excellent emission performance and low running costs. Hydrogen is expected to substitute conversional fuels in the long term due to high investment costs and current unsustainable production pathway of the latter. The compressed air turned out not suitable for substituting conventional fuels because of poor efficiency and running range performance.

No description available.

With growing concern for air pollution, global warming, energy sustainability, and oil security, both federal and local governments in the United States have shown greater interest in promoting alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs). Besides attention from the government, consumers in the United States have also shown increasing interest in AFVs, partly due to their concern on the environment and partly due to the increasing gasoline prices. However, despite the raising interest from both the government and the consumers, the number of AFVs in use is still relatively low in the United States. In an effort to promote the adoption of AFVs, the federal and local governments have initiated different incentive programmes for AFVs. Although these “carrots” have been started for more than two decades, studies on the effectiveness of them are still very sparse and are mostly for hybrid vehicles only. Therefore, this study filled in this gap in evaluating the effectiveness of AFV incentives in promoting the ownership and usage of AFVs on a national scale in the United States. As an improvement over prior studies on this topic, this study employed a system of equations approach to capture the interrelationship between households’ vehicle ownership choice and usage, which is often neglected in similar studies. In addition, a Bayesian estimation approach was adopted to overcome the difficulties in the estimation of the system. Using the 2009 National Household Travel Survey data, I found weak relationship between the state level AFV incentives and vehicle ownership and usage. In addition, although I found positive impact of AFV incentives on AFV usage, I also found mixed results on the impacts of the different types of AFV incentives on AFV ownership. These results suggested that further research should be done to investigate why these “carrots” are not as good as expected. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

<p>Environmental protection, shrinking of fossil fuels and problems like energy security has</p><p>resulted in emergence of a rapid growing alternate automotive fuel industry. This research is</p><p>pursued to identify and describe factors that affect sustainable growth of alternative</p><p>automotive fuel industry and advice firms in their strategy development for sustainable</p><p>growth.</p><p>The theoretical framework includes theories including different internal and external possible</p><p>factors that may affect an emerging industry.</p><p>The research methodology of this study constitutes of qualitative research approach,</p><p>comprising of both primary and secondary data. Primary data for this study is collected by</p><p>conducting a total of 9 interviews with officials from three Swedish alternate diesel engine oil</p><p>manufacturing companies. An overall industry analysis is conducted through PEST analysis,</p><p>data for this PEST analysis is gathered through official government websites, press releases,</p><p>newspapers, educational and environmental institute websites and scientific journals.</p><p>Interviews conducted with company officials also served the purpose.</p><p>The analysis of this study shows that government policies and subsidies have played an</p><p>important part to make these companies enter this market. Two of the companies included in</p><p>the case study were already active in closely related fields for a number of years and only</p><p>entered this market when favorable government regulations were available. The future of</p><p>these companies is very much associated with government regulations and companies those</p><p>fall beyond these regulations face difficulties to get subsidies and therefore in their growth.</p><p>Awareness of people about cleaner fuels is brought through media, education and government</p><p>policies that include taxes and tax rebates on different kind of fuels.</p><p>The companies bet on new technologies to resolve concerns generated by their fuels i.e. food</p><p>versus fuel debate. The authors analyzed technology to be an important factor if companies</p><p>want to remain in alternate fuel business for a long period of time.</p><p>The authors suggest companies to build their tangible and intangible resources i.e. raw</p><p>material, technologies, human resource flexibly to adopt diversified businesses in case if some</p><p>radical changes in fuel industry seizes their growth. It has also been seen that standardization</p><p>of products can prove helpful for companies to produce a working market.</p>

Environmental protection, shrinking of fossil fuels and problems like energy security has resulted in emergence of a rapid growing alternate automotive fuel industry. This research is pursued to identify and describe factors that affect sustainable growth of alternative automotive fuel industry and advice firms in their strategy development for sustainable growth. The theoretical framework includes theories including different internal and external possible factors that may affect an emerging industry. The research methodology of this study constitutes of qualitative research approach, comprising of both primary and secondary data. Primary data for this study is collected by conducting a total of 9 interviews with officials from three Swedish alternate diesel engine oil manufacturing companies. An overall industry analysis is conducted through PEST analysis, data for this PEST analysis is gathered through official government websites, press releases, newspapers, educational and environmental institute websites and scientific journals. Interviews conducted with company officials also served the purpose. The analysis of this study shows that government policies and subsidies have played an important part to make these companies enter this market. Two of the companies included in the case study were already active in closely related fields for a number of years and only entered this market when favorable government regulations were available. The future of these companies is very much associated with government regulations and companies those fall beyond these regulations face difficulties to get subsidies and therefore in their growth. Awareness of people about cleaner fuels is brought through media, education and government policies that include taxes and tax rebates on different kind of fuels. The companies bet on new technologies to resolve concerns generated by their fuels i.e. food versus fuel debate. The authors analyzed technology to be an important factor if companies want to remain in alternate fuel business for a long period of time. The authors suggest companies to build their tangible and intangible resources i.e. raw material, technologies, human resource flexibly to adopt diversified businesses in case if some radical changes in fuel industry seizes their growth. It has also been seen that standardization of products can prove helpful for companies to produce a working market.

Transportation policy is playing an increasingly important role in the transition towards more fuel-efficient vehicles and alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs). Whether the policy seeks to promote adoption through mandatory requirements or through monetary incentives, or to address issues related to adoption of AFVs, it is clear that such policies can have large-ranging impacts on the future of the US transportation system. The work I conduct in my dissertation seeks to understand these policies, in the past, present, and future. I evaluate the effects of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPACT) on the adoption of HEVs. As part of EPACT, a tax credit incentives program was implemented for consumers purchasing HEVs. Using a unique fixed effects regression approach with lagged instrumental variables, I am able to estimate the effects of the incentives. I find most significant responses occur when incentives exceed $1,000 in tax cd credit. Depending on the vehicle model the presence of EPACT yielded increases in sales of 5% to 15%. This increase is relatively smaller compared to many existing studies, which my work indicates is likely the result of over-attribution of sales to policy. I go on to examine the effects of the adoption of electric vehicles on funding for transportation infrastructure. A significant portion of revenue for transportation infrastructure comes from taxes on gasoline, these funds will likely be diminished to some extent as electric vehicles are adopted as they consume little to no gasoline as fuel. Using several existing electric vehicle models, I find that at the per-vehicle level, revenue generation can be upwards of 50% lower in certain states depending on how fees are charged. The total annual revenue generation at the federal level could decrease by as much as $200 million by 2025, though this is quite a small portion of total revenues for transportation infrastructure. I demonstrate that the revenue decrease can easily be made up through small policy fee changes in either flat fixed or through incremental increases in use fees, though implementation of such policies can be difficult politically. I also focus on the recent implementation of alternative fuel vehicle incentives in the 2009 update of the CAFE standards. I demonstrate that while the AFV incentives help spur the production and adoption of AFVs, there is a short-term emissions penalty due to the structure of the policy. i find that every AFV sold results in an increase in emissions rate for another vehicle of 50-400 grams of CO2 per mile, comparable to adding an additional conventional vehicle onto the road. The cumulative effect is an increase of 20 to 70 million metric tons of CO2 for vehicles sold between 2012 and 2025. I further extends this work by investigating how other policies promoting AFV sales interact with the CAFE policy. I focus specifically on the California ZEV mandate interaction and find that there is an increase of 120 million metric tons of CO2 for new cars sold between 2012 and 2025. The analysis also demonstrates a counter intuitive effect: the greater the success of ZEV in inducing adoption of AFVs, the greater the short-term emissions penalty due to the two policies. Finally I examines the response of driving behavior response to changes in gasoline prices. Using a unique dataset obtained from Pennsylvania's Department of Transportation, we are able to observe annual driving behavior at the individual vehicle level from 2000 through 2010. We observe heterogeneity of price elasticities using two methods: separating data by quantiles over the factors of interest and by interacting the factors of interest as categorical variables with gasoline prices. We find statistically significant variations in elasticities: for driving intensities we observe values of -0.172 increasing up to -0.0576 as the amount driven annually increases, for gasoline prices we observe a range of elasticities from -0.002 to -0.05 for prices below $4/gallon with a sudden increase to -0.182 for prices above $4/gallon, lastly for fuel economies we find that below 20 MPG elasticities are highest at -0.173 with decreasing responsiveness as vehicle fuel economy increases. Heterogeneity needs to be accounted for in order to properly understand policy effects: responses based on average elasticity values are likely to be incorrect.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Delaware, 2010. / Principal faculty advisor: Young-Doo Wang, School of Urban Affairs & Public Policy. Includes bibliographical references.

To make a compelling case for government incentives as a stimulus for alternative fuel vehicle adoption, this thesis assesses the preliminary impacts associated with the elimination of Georgia’s income tax credits for low-emission and zero-emission vehicle purchases. The thesis identifies policy factors that appear to impact alternative fuel vehicle (AFV) adoption in the United States, with a focus on government incentives. Specific policy factors are discussed in the context of state and federal laws. For Georgia, motor vehicle registrations were collected to track AFV adoption rates before and after the change in law. Electric and hybrid vehicle registrations in Georgia have plummeted since the income tax credits were eliminated on June 30, 2015. Income tax credit data were collected to chart the significant increase in zero-emission and low-emission vehicle purchases and leases since electric vehicles started flooding the market. The primary outcome of this research is a set of distinct, measurable policy factors that influence AFV adoption in the United States. The factors identified include: 1) reward amount to income ratio, 2) ease of policy comprehension, 3) consumer awareness, 4) fuel/vehicle coverage of incentives, 5) incentive user groups, 6) forms of incentives (grants, income tax credits, etc.), 7) number of incentives available, and 8) dollar values of incentives. The conclusion presents factors for use in choice model estimation. These factors should be useful by policymakers who are trying to understand the true value of government incentives for alternative fuel vehicles.

With a surge in future demand for hydrogen as a renewable fuel, the specific aim of this study was to develop a novel strategy in photosynthetic hydrogen production from green algae, which is one of the cleanest processes among existing hydrogen-production methodologies currently being explored. The novel strategy designed was a spectral-selective PSI-activation/PSII-deactivation protocol that would work to maintain a steady flow of electrons in the electron transport system in the light-dependent part of photosynthesis for delivery of electrons to hydrogenase for photo-hydrogen production. The strategy would work to activate PSI to assist in driving the electron flow, while partially deactivating PSII to a degree that it would still supply electrons, but would limit its photosynthetic oxygen production below the respiratory oxygen consumption so that an anoxic condition would be maintained as required by hydrogenase. This study successfully showed that the implementation of the spectral-selective PSIactivation/ PSII-deactivation strategy resulted in actual and relatively sustained photohydrogen production in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii cells, which had been dark-adapted for three hours immediately prior to exposure to a PSI-spectral selective radiation, which had a spectral peak at 692 nm, covering a narrow waveband of 681-701 nm, and was applied at 15 W m⁻². The optimal condition for the PSI-spectral-selective radiation (692 nm) corresponded with low cell density of 20 mg chlorophyll L⁻¹ ("chl" henceforth) with cells grown at 25⁰C. At this condition, the PSI-spectral-selective radiation induced the maximal initial hydrogen production rate of 0.055 mL H² mg⁻¹ chl h⁻¹ which statistically the same as that achieved under white light of 0.044 mL H² mg⁻¹ chl h⁻¹, a maximal total hydrogen production of 0.108 mL H² mg⁻¹ chl which significantly exceeded that under white light of 0.066 mL H² mg⁻¹ chl, and a maximal gross radiant energy conversion efficiency for hydrogen production of 0.515 μL H² mg⁻¹ chl L⁻¹ that statistically matched that under white light of 0.395 μL H² mg⁻¹ chl L⁻¹. The study also successfully demonstrated the reversibility feature of the novel strategy, allowing for the cells to alternately engage in photo-hydrogen production and to recover by simply switching on or off the PSI-spectral-selective radiation.