Fueling the Future of Transport Podcast

On this episode of the Fueling the Future podcast, I spoke with Dr. Dev Shrestha of the University of Idaho about the recent paper he co-authored, “ Biofuel Impact on Food Prices Index and Land Use Change .” The paper found, among other things that short term food price increases have been blamed on biofuel based on simplistic analyses, which may not reveal the main drivers of food ins...

On this episode of the Fueling the Future podcast, I spoke with Rodrigo Favela, a partner in HCX of Mexico. HCX recently completed a study about the Mexican fuel market for the Fuels Institute, Mexico’s Energy Reform: Impact of Mexico’s Deregulation and Liberalization of the Fuels Market . We talked about the study’s findings and the future of vehicles and fuels in Mexico. On Jan...

On this episode of the Fueling the Future podcast, I spoke with Ortwin Costenoble, senior standarization consultant with the Royal Netherlands Standardization Institute (NEN) about the recent research project commissioned by the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) entitled, “ Engine tests with new types of biofuels and development of biofuel standards .” The objective of the p...

On this episode of the Fueling the Future podcast, I spoke with  Ken Dragoon , executive director of the Renewable Hydrogen Alliance (RENEWH2) about the promise and future of renewable hydrogen. Following are a few excerpts from our discussion, which you can download or listen to at the link below or listen to in ITunes. On the Mission of the Renewable Hydrogen Alliance: “Two of our big issu...

On this episode of the Fueling the Future podcast, I spoke with Nick Molden , founder and CEO of Emissions Analytic s, about non-exhaust emissions in vehicles. Following is an excerpt from our discussion, which you can download or listen to at the link below or listen to in ITunes. See also the recent post Tires Not Tailpipe  about this issue on the blog. On What Non-Exhaust Emissions Are: “...

On this episode of the Fueling the Future podcast, I spoke with George Heppel , senior analyst for CRU Group , about electric vehicles and the future of the battery metals markets. Following is an excerpt from our discussion, which you can download below or listen to in ITunes. On What You Really Need to Focus on When Assessing EV Sales Potential: “2017 was kind of when the electric vehicle...

On this episode of the Fueling the Future podcast, I spoke with Nicolas Pocard , Director of Marketing for Ballard Power Systems , about the future of hydrogen. Following is an excerpt from our discussion, which you can download below or listen to in ITunes. On Why Fuel Cells Are the Sweet Spot for Decarbonizing the Heavy-Duty Fleet: “If you think about a truck or a bus, a transit bus, they...

Recently, I talked to Ashley Nunes , a Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School, whose research examines the economics of innovation. Readers and listeners may recall that I referenced Ashley’s work on autonomous vehicles in a post earlier this year revisiting the RethinkX work. Our discussion was wideranging, with a focus on autonomous vehicles , t he Democratic candidates’ vie...

Recently, I talked to Kaloyan Tsilev with NGVA Europe about its GMobility Platform . Following are several excepts from our discussion, which you can listen to or download below or in ITunes. On What GMobility Is and What It Means: “GMobility is a new platform that we here at NGVA Europe started in April, so it’s fairly new, but it’s something that we felt was missing from what&#...

Recently, I talked to Ben Leard , a fellow at Resources for the Future, about the study, “ What Does an Electric Vehicle Replace? ” which he recently commpleted with colleagues Shanjun Li and Jianwei Xing. Following are several excepts from our discussion, which you can listen to or download below or in ITunes. EVs Replace Fuel-Efficient Vehicles: “EVs replace relatively fuel eff...

Recently, I talked to Bill Elrick, Executive Director of the California Fuel Cell Partnership, about the growth in the hydrogen fuel cell market in the state and what the future holds. Following are several excepts from our discussion, which you can listen to or download below or in ITunes. On the California Fuel Cell Partnership: “The California Fuel Cell Partnership started twenty years ag...

Recently, I talked to Greg Dolan, CEO of the Methanol Institute about the methanol markets in China, India and elsewhere globally, as well as renewable methanol, methanol for shipping and as a diesel substitute. Following is an except from our discussion, which you can listen to or download below or in ITunes. On Methanol as a Future-Proof Fuel: We can talk about methanol being a future-proof fuel...

I spoke with Nigel Clark about a study we recently completed, “Effects of Ethanol Blends on Light-Duty Vehicle Emissions: A Critical Review” with colleagues Terry Higgins and David McKain. The Urban Air Initiative supported the study, which was conducted independently. UAI_Final_Report_FIN Download We covered several points, including the following: Measured and modeled effects of etha...

Recently I talked to Allen Schaeffer, Executive Director of the Diesel Technology Forum about the future of diesel. Allen is my first repeat guest, having joined the program in 2016 . Following is an except from our discussion, which you can listen to or download below or in ITunes. (A little warning: I’m afraid the sound quality on side this time is not good with new headphones that didn&#8...

Recently, I spoke to Ron Alverson, past chairman of the American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE), about a “passion project” he’s been working on for a a number of years: soil carbon sequestration for corn, something that for him, goes back to his university years. He has been measuring soil carbon on his farm for over 30 years. That passion took on new meaning in this era of lifecycl...

Jennifer Holmgren , the Chief Executive Officer of LanzaTech , joined the podcast to talk about the company’s focus, on the renewed optimism in the advanced biofuel and advanced alternative fuels space, the importance of carbon recycling and being carbon smart and what we really need to do to combat climate change. Following are some excerpts from our discussion, which you can listen or down...

Rachel Muncrief with the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) joined the podcast to talk about The Real Urban Emissions (“TRUE”) Initiative .  TRUE seeks to enable evidence based policy and consumer choices by revealing the gap between tested and real world emissions from the vehicles on our roads. Following is an excerpt from our discussion about the Initiative. We als...

Recently I spoke with Paul Argyropoulos , the former Senior Policy Advisor within U.S. EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality (OTAQ) and who just retired barely a month ago. Paul has been involved within EPA and during a stint in the private sector in just about every major federal fuels program over the last 30 years. This includes lead phase down, volatility, federal reformulated g...

Recently I spoke with Tom Voege, Policy Analyst at the International Transport Forum (ITF) within the OECD. In his role at the ITF he leads activities relating to Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), including working groups, roundtables and research into vehicle automation, new mobility concepts, and Big Data/Open Data. He is one of the key thought leaders and experts advising government minister...

As I said in this recent post , I was intrigued when I saw the title, “ Lies, Damned Lies, AVs, Shared Mobility, and Urban Transit Futures”   by Graham Currie , who is Professor of Public Transport at Monash University and Director, Public Transport Research Group. Currie argues in the paper that the current thinking that public transport is increasingly irrelevant because of the rise of aut...

Without a concurrent shift away from private vehicle ownership and toward ride sharing, the potential for electric, autonomous vehicles to reduce traffic and sprawl are severely limited, and CO2 reductions will be significantly less than with sharing, according to the report, “ Three Revolutions in Urban Transportation ” completed by the University of California at Davis’ Sustain...

In 2020, battery electric vehicles (BEVs) will be a cheaper vehicle option than fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) for the majority of the light duty fleet (79-97%), according to the study “ Relative Economic Competitiveness of Light-Duty Battery Electric and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles ,” lead by Geoff Morrison of the Cadmus Group. Geoff was one of the lead authors of this study cond...

Recently I spoke with David Rapson , Associate Professor in the Department of Economics and Co-Director of the Davis Energy Economics Program (DEEP) at the University of California at Davis (UC Davis) about a study he co-authored with colleagues from UC Davis, Yale and MIT called, “ Attribute Substitution in Household Vehicle Portfolios .” Essentially, the team revealed an unintended c...

Recently I interviewed Jeffrey Rissman of the NGO Energy Innovation about an interesting couple of articles recently published on Forbes online and the NGO’s Energy Policy Simulator . What caught my eye was the headline, “ Four Policies Can Reduce U.S. Transport Emissions 45%, Cut Oil Use 23%, Save 5,300 Lives Per Year ,” which was produced based on analysis conducted using the S...

Recently I interviewed John DeCicco, Research Professor at the University of Michigan Energy Institute , about a study he and his team completed last year on the Carbon Balance Effects of U.S. Biofuel Production and Use . In August 2017, a team lead by Ford published a commentary on that study which prompted a reply from Professor DeCicco. That prompted me to ask both the Professor and a represent...