“The best ways to improve energy security, mitigate global warming and reduce the number of deaths caused by air pollution are blowing in the wind and rippling in the water, not growing on prairies or glowing inside nuclear power plants”, says Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford.

Best to worst electric power sources:

1. Wind power

2. concentrated solar power (CSP)

3. geothermal power

4. tidal power

5. solar photovoltaics (PV)

6. wave power

7. hydroelectric power

8. a tie between nuclear power and coal with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS).

Best to worst vehicle options:

1. Wind-BEVs (battery electric vehicles)

2. wind-HFCVs (hydrogen fuel cell vehicles)

3. CSP-BEVs

4. geothermal-BEVs

5. tidal-BEVs

6. solar PV-BEVs

7. Wave-BEVs

8. hydroelectric-BEVs

9. a tie between nuclear-BEVs and coal-CCS-BEVs

10. corn-E85 12.cellulosic-E85.

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles were examined only when powered by wind energy, but they could be combined with other electric power sources. Although HFCVs require about three times more energy than do BEVs (BEVs are very efficient), HFCVs are still very clean and more efficient than pure gasoline, and wind-HFCVs still resulted in the second-highest overall ranking. HFCVs have an advantage in that they can be refueled faster than can BEVs (although BEV charging is getting faster). Thus, HFCVs may be useful for long trips (more than 250 miles) while BEVs more useful for trips less than 250 miles. An ideal combination may be a BEV-HFCV hybrid.

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