Ford Green at the North American International Auto Show

I'm in Detroit for the North American International Auto Show, as a guest of Ford Motor Company (courtesy of the Clever Girls Collective. This was a more-or-less live blogging experience; I've revised it several times today).

We are actually a part of the Ford Exhibit here today in Cobo Hall - an entire lounge area devoted to green and tech bloggers (with some moms thrown in). 

There's wifi for us here, but I have a feeling we have taxed the network - it's a little spotty. I may have to run over to the actual media room to get a reliable internet connection. 

Ford has invited a number of experts to come and answer questions for us while at the show. The first one was Jennifer, the very knowledgeable engineer who talked me through some of the new Ford MyTouch technology in the new vehicles.

I guess you could call it SYNC 2.o - and they are still using the brand name "SYNC." I suppose my first question to them would be if they are phasing out the SYNC name, or what the difference actually is between SYNC and Ford MyTouch. Whatever you call it, I find it the easiest in-vehicle technology I've ever used and wish I had it on my aging Volvo (or at least, could find a REAL job so I can afford to buy a new car with new tech).

With Jennifer there, I didn't feel quite as guilty for slipping away to see what else is at the Auto Show - and it's quite spectacular (as is the Ford display, which is completely different from the one they had in L.A. And that one was one of the largest they've ever had there). One surprise: even though this show is the biggest in the US, L.A. feels bigger. Maybe I'm missing a huge part of Cobo Hall. Which is another reason why I needed to investigate!

The Ford presentation this morning was pretty spectacular, as were the cars they debuted (which included the new Focus Electric model and a cute little family car called the C-Max). I used my camcorder more to cover these events, which means I get more accurate quotes - but it also ends up taking me longer, as I have to review the video. So expect another post on these cars in the near future. 

In the meantime, here are some photos:

Ford invited Stewart Brand (the Whole Earth Catalog) and Sheryl Connolly(Ford's Manager of Global Trends & Futuring) to answer questions about the company's commitment to green technology. This was an exclusive opportunity for the 100 or so bloggers from around the world who were invited to be here as the company's guests.

Brand warned us that his Powerpoint presentation would be dense with information and that he would speak quickly - and he was right. He told us how as an environmentalist, he used to oppose nuclear energy and "clean coal" as solutions to our energy woes -- but has since changed his mind. Then he told us why. Here are some bullet points from his presentation:

Hydro-electric, wind and solar power are the only "clean" sources of energy, but all have their problems. The conversion of wind and solar energy into electricity requires the use of a lot of the earth's landscape:

In the case of wind, it takes 250 square miles of wind mills to generate 1 GigaWatt  of energy; Solar requires 50 square miles to generate the same amount. Brand said this isn't a problem in areas like the Sahara, but in "green deserts" like California's Mojave, we lose a lot more than we gain. 

Brand termed sources like coal, gas and nuclear as "energy factories" because he says they have less impact on the landscape.

Brand said he became a convert to nuclear energy because it creates a lot less waste than coal and he says it can be controlled.

 Brand pointed out that fighting climate change was the equivalent of defending civilization from a natural system (climate) doing its thing.

He termed our response as “planet craft” – and the realization that we are already doing it, and badly at that. He said that thanks to climate change, the classic environmental reflex to "love the tree but not its genome" needed to be turned around to the engineering approach of  "messing around with genomes to makes sure that more trees can grow naturally."  An example would be tree farms and fish farms, which he said he now supports.

Brand sees a generational environmental transformation. He finds that newer environmentalists are much more comfortable with the fast pace of technology, while his own generation (“mossback environmentalists”) have a tough time with it.

Brand recalled the "no nukes" movement of the 1970's. He termed Three Mile Island a success story, because you had a meltdown and the safety systems worked to contain it.

All of these big power sources are problematic, Brand says. "We like gas more than coal but a lot of people are dying from gas in some quantities too," he noted (he named the San Bruno gas fire as an example).

Brand said that environmentalists' attitude on nuclear has a lot to do with how they feel about climate change. Climatologists are advocates of nuclear because efficiency is huge. Solar is good but not the whole answer. He concluded that nuclear is a good large scale energy source.

One of the bloggers brought up the carbon emissions standards in Europe. Brand said that the E.U. is going through an interesting thing with its clean energy portfolio because they have France right in the middle selling nuclear energy at a French price. For a while, they were trying to say they would only do renewable energy but then realized there’s no hope for that, so now they are including nuclear.

Brand said that we all may have to shift from “clean power” commitment to “green power.”

There is a split among environmentalists about things like genetically modified (GM) crops  and nuclear. These are good in terms of climate, but bad in terms of waste. Either we split or we say ok, climate is the main event, and decide what to do to take it seriously.

Brand asserted that we need to employ risk balancing, which is not something environmentalists have been comfortable with. "But we can’t live that way. We have to try stuff," he said. 

Ford paid for my travel and accommodations at the two-day Driving Green Technology event. I was not compensated by them in any other manner for my time - however, I will also be writing some freelance posts about the show in general over at AskPatty. As always, my opinions posted here are my own.

Comments

[LDAR]

WOw! Thumbs up for Ford!

[car finance]

Kudos to Ford for spearheading efforts in green technology. I don't think any other car manufacturer has advanced as far as Ford in terms of electric cars.