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James Eberhardt '69G has had at least seven different jobs and been involved in four agency-wide reorganizations since he joined the U.S. Department of Energy in August 1975. But he is most proud of the work he's doing now as chief scientist in the Office of Vehicle Technologies. He's a key advocate for moving the nation away from gasoline-guzzling vehicles and toward the adoption of more fuel-efficient diesel-powered automobiles and light vehicles.
"If there's one accomplishment which I am most proud of, it is that," he says. "Diesel engines get about 25 percent to 40 percent more miles per gallon than a comparable horse-power gasoline engine."
Although the auto industry introduced lead-free gasoline and the catalytic converter in the 1970s to reduce the pollutants emitted by gasoline engines, no equivalent converter for diesel engines was produced at the time, mainly because very few passenger vehicles were diesel powered. Diesel engines were largely used in big vehicles such as 18-wheelers and farm tractors.
The infamous gasoline shortages of the mid-'70s prompted the government to encourage Detroit to manufacture more fuel-efficient autos, including more widespread use of the diesel engine. That need has neither abated nor been sated, but we are moving closer to diesel power, Eberhardt says.
Eberhardt headed the Office of Transportation Materials during President George H.W. Bush's administration. His office experimented with lightweight materials, such as carbon fiber composites, hoping to find an alternative to steel so manufacturers could produce higher fuel-efficiency vehicles by reducing their weight.
"We're still working on them because the price [of producing the materials] is still not low enough" to be commercially viable, he says.
When Bill Clinton succeeded Bush, his new energy secretary, Hazel O'Leary, abolished the Materials Office and Eberhardt was named director of the Office of Heavy Vehicle Technologies, an assignment that brought him in contact with the diesel engine manufacturers and the major truck producers.
Asked why the more energy-efficient diesel engine wasn't adopted much earlier, Eberhardt replies simply, "The soot and the smoke, the smell, the noise."
The problem was that diesels were putting out large amounts of soot, "particulate matter, as we call it, and nitrogen oxide," he says. "We decided to tackle that problem head on."
Working with diesel engine and catalytic converter manufacturers, Eberhardt's office helped create a diesel filter. "If you put that on the tail end of a diesel, you can remove the soot particles. However, we found out that we [also] had to get the sulfur out of the fuel for that to work properly," he explains.
They convinced the Environmental Protection Agency that refineries could reduce the sulfur content in diesel fuel to 15 parts per million from the pre-1998 levels of 300 parts per million.
"We were expecting the diesel fuel manufacturers to go absolutely bonkers," he says, because of the expense involved.
But significant opposition never materialized, Eberhardt adds, because a joint government-industry research group that included DOE, EPA and the diesel engine manufacturers proved that removing the sulfur would cost no more than a dime a gallon.
And with the help of the diesel manufacturers, Eberhardt's office created a joint research program to produce clean, light-duty diesel engines.
Eberhardt and his colleagues at the Energy Department and the EPA proved that diesel engines could work in passenger vehicles and also meet the same EPA emissions standards as gasoline engines. In fact, he says, the new diesels are more effective in preventing the release of particulate matter than the catalytic converters on today's automobiles.
As a result, all diesel engine vehicles—from passenger cars to 18-wheelers—manufactured since 2008 must be equipped with control technologies, similar to the catalytic converter, that reduce particulate matter and nitrogen oxide, NOx, for short, the causes of the black "soot" that diesel engines emit.
"Cars consume about eight million barrels of gasoline a day and trucks use only about two million barrels a day of diesel fuel," Eberhardt explains. "It's hard to argue with that logic," he adds, to switch to the more energy-efficient diesel engine.
Since 2006, Eberhardt has been chief scientist in the Office of Vehicle Technology. It's a bully pulpit for him to call attention to the benefits of the diesel-powered passenger car.
"You're going to start seeing very shortly, in model year 2010, a fair amount of new diesel vehicles," he says. And with them will come that 25 percent to 40 percent better fuel mileage than gasoline engines and make a major contribution to energy conservation.
"There is nothing that we have done, we and our partners in the transportation area, that will contribute more to human health and greater fuel efficiency," Eberhardt says.
He predicts that by 2060, 80 to 90 percent of the vehicles on the road will be hybrids, because petroleum-based fuels will be much scarcer and more expensive than they have ever been. "We are finding one barrel of petroleum for every four that we consume, so it won't take long before that supply is all but ended worldwide."
He says the nation must start moving toward all forms of renewable energy now because every giant petroleum field in the world is past its production peak.
"Finally, we have a president who realizes that we are not going to continue to live on fossil resources," Eberhardt adds.
And to those who are looking toward all-electric vehicles to replace the gasoline engine, Eberhardt says the main unresolved problem is energy storage in the batteries that would power them.
"People don't realize how much energy there is in a gallon of gasoline," he says. "It's David Hubler is the associate editor of Washington Technology. very difficult to compete with hydrocarbons for energy density." For the present, gasoline is still the better energy source, Eberhardt adds.
But, he warns, "If you think that $4 a gallon is expensive, that's a joke." In a few years, gas will be four or five time that, "about $20 a gallon—if you can even get it."
And although biofuels are significant, Eberhardt believes the only way ethanol will ultimately make a strong contribution to our energy requirements is if we turn all our corn into ethanol. And even that, he adds, would account for only about one million of the 20 million barrels of oil that are consumed each day. "And clearly we can't turn all of our corn into ethanol," he says.
"Diesels are coming," he says. ~
David Hubler '65G is the associate editor of Washington Technology magazine (http://washingtontechnology.com/)