Wait 'til the farmers see me in my Prius!

I just bought a 2004 Toyota Prius. It has little dings around the edges, but it still runs well and gets over 50mpg. Replacing my long-serving 1988 Honda Accord wasn't easy, but the Prius looks to be up to the task!

When the warranty expires in about six months, I'd like to try converting the Prius to a plug-in electric vehicle (PHEV). Unfortunately, battery packs like the Hymotion cost about $10,000. That price requires some serious reflection on my long-term driving plans. If I drive the PHEV Prius into the ground, perhaps putting another 170,000 miles on it over the next eleven years, I might look back from the year 2020 and say the conversion was worth it....let's do some calculations and try to find out.

First, the basics on PHEVs: they make a lot of sense for shorter trips, either allowing all-electric driving for 10-20 miles at lower speeds or doubling the already high gas mileage of a Prius for faster 30-40 mile drives. Automakers keep talking about selling new plug-in hybrids, but since cars like the Chevy Volt remain in the uncertain future, current examples almost all feature battery conversions of a Prius. These cars must be plugged in all night for a full charge, but this can be done at any outlet and having the gas engine for backup means PHEVs won't leave their drivers stranded by the side of the road when the batteries run dry.

Much of my driving consists of 10-20 mile trips; I only get on the freeway to leave the county about once a week. I'm going to assume that over half of my miles would be battery-powered, a total of 8,000 miles a year (for example, a round trip from my house to the Rexville digester site is about sixteen miles and can be done on back roads driving less than 35mph--if I'm the one who has to visit the project every day, I would put on almost 6,000 all-electric miles a year). Going battery-only on some trips (and battery-assist on many more) will save about three gallons of gasoline a week compared to just driving an unmodified Prius while adding roughly 30kWh to my power bill. At current prices, I'd save about six dollars a week in fuel costs.

I expect the price of both gasoline and electricity to be higher in 2020. Some of the inflation will likely be due to greenhouse-gas regulation, which makes exact comparison difficult. But let's just assume that after subtracting any carbon tax, gasoline costs $5.00/gallon and retail electricity costs $0.13/kWh. In 2020, I'd be saving about eleven dollars a week in fuel costs; over the course of eleven years, I would have saved a total of $5,000 dollars. That's about half the cost of the PHEV conversion.

I subtracted the fuel carbon cost above so I could fairly estimate the real greenhouse-gas savings from driving a PHEV; it looks like I'll have to consider the other half of the plug-in cost as a contribution to slowing climate change. By 2020, my gasoline reduction would be responsible for avoiding fourteen metric tons of carbon-dioxide emissions. Unfortunately, the calculations don't stop there. Since roughly half of Puget Sound Energy's electricity comes from burning fossil fuels, the new electricity I'll use for driving each year will add hundreds of pounds of CO2 emissions. My total net reduction in carbon-dioxide emissions is unlikely to exceed ten metric tons. Those are expensive tons; I'd pay about $500 per avoided ton of CO2!

PHEVs aren't going to save the world. The increased efficiency of electric driving pales in comparison to serious transporation solutions like commuter trains and better bus systems, while larger projects (like anaerobic manure digesters) can cut greenhouse-gas emissions much more quickly and economically. I hope the battery conversion kits come down in price; I may still get one if they don't. It's a subject that deserves plenty of reflection.

A Book That Made a Difference

I read Small Is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher about ten years ago; much of the book was written thirty years earlier. I remember Schumacher's words resonating strongly at that point in my life; now that I've found that I'm meant to be in the manure-to-energy business, the resonance starts to make more sense.

I've run across several references to Small Is Beautiful recently, including this one several days ago on a peak oil website. The author of the piece picked out several propositions from Schumacher's economic ideas, two of which are below:

• First, primary goods (those produced by or extracted from nature--vegetables, coal, lumber, etc) "must come first in any economic analysis because they supply the preconditions for production of secondary goods" (everything else, made from those goods). There are many ways to build a house, for example, but only a tree can produce wood.
• Second, energy "is the gateway resource that allows all other resources to be extracted". Cheap energy allows us to many other things cheaply; the harder it is to obtain energy (think deepwater oil wells), the less resources we have for everything else. This is why we like the 20-to-1 return on energy used to run an anaerobic digester, and we like being in the energy business.

Schumacher also thought a lot about "appropriate technology"; he only saw the first rounds of globalization, so he really wouldn't be impressed by advanced factories in China producing DVD players for export while nearby peasants farm with hand tools. We won't be producing many jobs, but we are glad that manure digesters are relatively low-tech--most repair can be accomplished locally, and we aren't destroying anyone's livelihood by undercutting a more labor-intensive process. So read Small Is Beautiful if you get a chance--if it doesn't appeal to you now, you never know what you might think of it ten years down the road.

Farm Power connections

Now that it's summer, we at Farm Power are finally getting to work on long-delayed projects. To keep everyone updated, we're trying to provide more outlets for news. Yielding to the 21st century, we've finally set up a Farm Power twitter account and are learning how to use it. The Farm Power Facebook group has been around for a year, but we're using it more now.

And what is the news that needs outlets? Well, construction is accelerating--the digester tank is almost complete and the roof panels will start going on in early June. We have also received a permit from the state to raise more money to help fund future projects, something we're pretty excited about; the word is starting to spread and we're holding public meetings throughout Western Washington. I can't guarantee a steady stream of updates, but enough is going on that there will be plenty to talk about--I hope you keep following our progress.

Good Friday

Farm Power turned two yesterday, on Good Friday. Late the previous evening, the Washington State House of Representatives gave us an early birthday present, passing SB5797 by a vote of 97-0. We've been working on this bill for almost three months, making regular trips down to Olympia to visit our elected representatives and testify in front of committees. The "Sundial" on the picture above was a common meeting spot, located right between the two main legislative office buildings.

SB5797 allows anaerobic manure digesters to add a portion of food processing wastes (which feed more efficient bacteria methane production) without putting the regulatory "solid waste" designation on the manure supplied by dairy farmers. This solves one of our biggest challenges; co-digesting manure with food-processing waste makes digesters efficient enough to operate without subsidies, but no dairy farmers would accept this if it turned them into solid waste handlers. Passing this legislation, with the cooperation of the Departments of Ecology and Agriculture, lays out the rules for optimized energy production from digesters.

Many of our friends and neighbors were concerned after the Skagit Valley Herald broke the story on this issue, but the paper has been running regular updates on the legislative progress. We look forward to the bill making its final trip--to the governor's desk--and then becoming part of the Revised Code of Washington. We'd like to thank SB5797's prime sponsor, Senator Mary Margaret Haugen, secondary sponsors Senators Ranker, Brandland, and Hatfield, and the rest of the manure digester community for getting this legislation to the finish line.

It's Not A Joke--Just Economics

Yesterday, at my local market, I purchased a gallon of generic 2% milk for $1.89 and a two-pound block of Tillamook cheddar for $4.99. Again, I wasn't finding falling prices at a WalMart Supercenter or buying off a pallet at Costco--just stopping at the little downtown Mount Vernon Red Apple. I haven't seen prices like this in years; farmers are getting about one dollar a gallon for their milk right now, so it had to filter through to the consumers eventually. Those farmers are also losing at least $0.25 for every gallon they produce. It takes almost two and a half gallons of milk to make a block of cheese, so the farmer-owners of the Tillamook Creamery have got to be hurting too (especially as their directors pursue growth in the desert and through acquisitions).

One year ago, consumers from the rest of the booming Pacific Rim were eagerly buying a significant portion of the Northwest's milk products. Now, international demand has collapsed while Americans cut back on their cheese and ice cream. It's a perfect storm for dairy farmers, who can only hope for economic recovery and milk supply cuts from cooperative-funded cow-reduction programs. The stimulus package doesn't contain a dairy section, so we need people to respond as the economics textbooks predict--buy some more of that cheap cheese and enjoy it!

Farm Power Visibility

If this blog provides your primary perspective on the operations of Farm Power, you and other readers may easily start to think that life is pretty quiet at our little company....but you would be wrong. Between the regular pushes necessary to keep our first project moving towards completion, we've been keeping very busy both at home and in the region.

We had another reminder of all the support we've benefited from when we were nominated for Skagit County Startup Business of the Year. At a banquet put on by Northwest Business Monthly magazine, we ended up being chosen for the honor in front of hundreds of local businesspeople.

A Seattle Times article two weeks ago focused on the digester recently brought online by Qualco Energy just south of Monroe. We received a few lines at the end of the piece, including mention of our work near Enumclaw in southeastern King County--an effort we had quietly announced on our website a few days before.

So, some news makes it onto the website first or shows up on the Farm Power Facebook group before being posted here. Plenty will be happening during the coming weeks, so we'll do our best to keep the information flowing so you never doubt we're staying busy!

"Green Drinks" comes to Mount Vernon

Who has complained about the limited sustainability community in Skagit County? I must admit that I have, but those complaints will soon become a thing of the past: after a great turnout at Renewable Energy night last week, it also looks like the "Green Drinks" movement has come to town to stay. Mount Vernon is the latest (and smallest) community in Washington state to start a sustainability-themed after-work gathering. This month, the Trumpeter Public House right downtown is hosting Green Drinks on Tuesday the 24th from 5-7pm. If any readers are in the area, I hope to see you there.