Eschew Obfuscation

Oil Production Energy vs EVs

Max Dunn — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:54:00 -0700

One of the factors that we often forget when comparing Electric Vehicles (EVs) to gas powered cars is that it takes a lot of energy to extract and refine oil into gas.

For instance, in California it takes about 14kWh of electricity to get a barrel of oil out of the ground, and about double that to refine it. About half a barrel of oil gets refined into gas, which means this 20 gallons of gas takes about 21 kWh of electricity.

It also takes a lot of natural gas to refine oil, and if this natural gas was used instead to produce electricity, it would produce about another 20 kWh of electricity.

Therefore in a typical gas car that 20 gallons will last 400 miles. But if we just left that barrel of oil in the ground and used the electricity and natural gas for an EV instead, we could go about 120 miles or about 30% of the distance of the ICE car.

So the next time a comparison is made between the efficiency of gas cars and EVs, remember even before the gas gets into the tank, we are already giving up 30% of the energy that we could have used to power an electric vehicle.

Coal Supply May Be Vastly Overestimated

Max Dunn — Tue, 12 May 2009 09:11:00 -0700

- Michael Reilly, Discovery News, May 11, 2009 – Forget peak oil, a series of new estimates of the world’s coal supply suggests reserves may be vastly overestimated, and if the planet isn’t running on a majority of alternative energies within the next few decades, we could be facing an unprecedented global energy crisis.

On the flip side, a dwindling supply of coal could also throw the breaks on global warming, some argue.

Common knowledge about coal is that major producing nations like China, the United States and Australia, have enough to last hundreds of years, far beyond the reach of oil, which may already be in its twilight years. But worldwide coal production could plateau as early as 2025, according to one new estimate, and a growing group of scientists are concerned that fossil fuel supplies may begin dwindling by mid-century.

Last year, David Rutledge of the California Institute of Technology analyzed the coal production patterns of five regions around the world – eastern Pennsylvania, France, Germany’s Ruhr Valley, the United Kingdom and Japan – each of which was producing at less than a tenth of its peak levels.

He found that each of the depleted regions followed a rough bell curve of production; initial production was followed by a steep ramp-up, a plateau near peak levels, and then a consistent decline.

When he applied the same formula to coal data from around the world, the results were startling: the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s maximum estimate for extractable coal is about 3,400 billion tons. Rutledge’s calculations suggest just 666 billion tons.

Peak oil, not speculation

Max Dunn — Tue, 12 May 2009 08:53:00 -0700

by Steven Kopits, Managing Director, Douglas-Westwood, New York, 5/11/2009

NEW YORK: In seeking to explain the run up in oil prices from 2004 to 2008, commentators often turn to “speculation” as the primary cause. While speculation – or at least a kind of piling-on – may have explained the very late stages of the oil price rally, the willingness to attribute oil prices primarily to financial investors – as the CBS news show ‘60 Minutes’ did a few months back – risks drawing the wrong lesson from the period. Let’s re-wind the clock and recall the events of the time.

Paper versus Polystyrene Cups - Again

Max Dunn — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 14:46:00 -0700

Many organization are looking for ways to reduce their garbage and increase composting of the disposable cups. However, it turns out that the styrofoam (also known as extruded polystyrene foam or XPS) versus paper question is more difficult than it first appears.

One big problem is that the coating on the paper cups which keeps it from leaking also makes it difficult to recycle or compost. And the cups themselves contain very little recycled paper.

An old study from Science shows that on almost every count, except cooling water and biodegradability, the styrofoam cups are more eco-friendly.

A newer study also concludes that to process the raw materials about six times as much steam, 13 times as much electric power, and twice as much cooling water are consumed to produce the paper cup as compared to the styrofoam cup.

The same study found that landfill disposal of the two items under dry conditions will occupy similar landfill volumes after compaction and neither will decompose much. Under wet conditions, styrofoam will not readily degrade but may help other materials to do so, while the paper will decompose giving off methane, a significant greenhouse gas.

Another possibility is to recycle the styrofoam cups, although this is hard to find. There are mail in recycling centers in Redwood City and Hayward that take them and Imagine Surfboards makes surfboards out of used styrofoam cups.

It is too bad that there isn’t an easy solution to making disposable cups more eco-friendly.

A Real Market for Negawatts!

Max Dunn — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 06:39:00 -0800

Negawatts is term coined by Amory Lovins to describe “negative watts” or conservation. It makes sense – instead of constantly building power plants to add more megawatts to the grid, why not let people bid on saving power through negawatts? That’s what New England’s independent system operator started doing last year.

In its Forward Capacity Market, the ISO projects how much power the region will need three years ahead and then runs a descending-clock auction for the right to provide it. The ISO doesn’t care whether it gets its power from increased production of megawatts or from conservation through negawatts. Result: money saved in power plants and wires, more stable electricity bills, and a homegrown incubator for getting bright green ideas off the drawing board.

(Source: Wired Magazine Trade – Electricity Like Pork Bellies)

Wind, Water and Sun Best Energy Alternatives

Max Dunn — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:29:00 -0800

A recent study by Mark Jacobson at Stanford ranks clean energy options and found that wind was by far the most promising. The best to worst electric power sources Jacobson found were:

Wind power
Concentrated solar power
Geothermal power
Tidal power
Solar photovoltaic
Wave power
Hydroelectric power
Nuclear/coal with carbon capture

Jacobson also comes down hard on biofuels, “Biofuels are the most damaging choice we could make in our efforts to move away from using fossil fuels.” He added, “Ethanol-based biofuels will actually cause more harm to human health, wildlife, water supply and land use than current fossil fuels.”

(Reference: Wind, water and sun beat other energy alternatives, study finds)

Tesla Efficiency

Max Dunn — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 11:39:00 -0800

I admit it – I am a numbers geek. I love to play around with numbers and think about them, and no more so than with electric vehicles. So imagine how happy I was too see some fantastic numbers about the Tesla Roadster!

The first of these graphs shows how much energy it uses at different speeds. The fact that energy goes down to a certain point is not surprising – all cars have a sweet spot where they operate most efficiently – but what is surprising that it is about 20 MPH versus about 55 MPH for gas cars. Another interesting point is that at 65 MPH the Tesla uses about 280 Wh per mile. This is measured from the battery to the wheels, so adding in the charging losses will decrease it to about 3 miles per kWh, which is the figure I normally use.

Electric Generation Costs

Max Dunn — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:30:00 -0800

What does it cost to build a new electric power plant? Here is a graph that shows this:

However, you do need to adjust this for utililization, since nuclear operates about 90% of the time, while solar operates only about 20% of the time:

(Source: What does Sustainability Mean for Energy?)

Peak Oil in 2012!

Max Dunn — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 14:24:00 -0800

Sometimes people talk about "running out of oil", but the world will never completely run out of oil. There will always be some oil remaining somewhere that can be scavenged from old fields, reclaimed from tar sands or stripped from oil shale.

There is, however, a limit to how fast we can pull oil out of the ground. Peak Oil will occur when the world hits this peak in production – and this will likely happen soon!

Oil Usage Graph

Max Dunn — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 21:18:00 -0800

Previously, I posted a table showing how oil in the US is used. Here is a graph that shows the same information in a prettier form:

(Reference: Year 2000 data from Ending the Oil Age)

Li-Air Battery - Fill-er up!

Max Dunn — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 10:11:00 -0800

A lithium air (Li-air) battery with a novel structure is looking very promising for use in battery-powered vehicles.

One problem with battery-powered vehicles (and an argument for hydrogen fuel-cells) is that it takes a while to recharge the batteries. While this is fine for city driving (since the batteries can be recharged overnight) it makes it tough to drive a long distance, like driving from San Jose to ski at Lake Tahoe.

This Li-air battery could solve the problem of long charge times by allowing service stations to replace the liquid electrolytes and metallic lithium cassette, allowing battery-powered cars to be driven continuously.

Then the metallic lithium can be electrically regenerated from the used liquid electrolyte making the process sustainable.

This Li-air battery could prove very useful in making battery-powered vehicles more practical.

(Reference: AIST Develops New-type ‘Li-air Battery’)

Coal Tax Needed

Max Dunn — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:00:00 -0800

I just went to an interesting talk about distributed solar and found out that prices of solar PV panels are dropping dramatically. Soon, PV will be about $4 per watt installed (in large installations) which works out to about $0.17 per kWh.

By comparison, coal-fired electricity sells for about $0.05 per kWh. This includes about $0.02 for the coal itself ($2.15 per MMBtu and 1 MMBTU produces about 100 kWh) and $0.03 for all other expenses.

Adding in a $30 per ton CO2 tax would add about $0.03 per kWh to this price, (coal produces about 2 lbs of CO2 per kWh) for a total of $0.08 per kWh.

So even with a CO2 tax, coal electricity will still be half the cost of PV.

Therefore, for coal electricity to cost about the same as PV electricity, a tax of 400% would need to be added to coal!

Electric Power Plant Cost Comparison

Max Dunn — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:43:00 -0800

While looking for the external costs of coal, I ran into a great table that shows how much it costs to build and run various types of electric power plants.

It is interesting to note that while a convention coal plant costs much less to build than a solar thermal plant, the coal plant costs more to maintain so over 30 years, the total costs would be equal.

Table 1: Specification of electric power technologies used in GMM model. All costs are given in $(1998). The progress ratio (pr) is the rate at which the cost declines each time the cumulative production doubles. The data presented in the table comes from various sources: IIASA MESSAGE model database, literature reviews. Characteristics of technologies with CO2 removal are adopted from [8].

(Reference: Internalisation of external cost in the power generation sector)

Hydrogen Hype

Max Dunn — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:17:00 -0800

Natural Capitalism is a terrific book. But it got one thing wrong – its hope for hydrogen cars. Dan Neil at the LA Times put it well: "Any way you look at it, hydrogen is a lousy way to move cars." (Ref) Here are a few of the reasons why hydrogen won’t work:

Hydrogen is only an energy carrier. It is not an energy source. (Ref)
Hydrogen is made from fossil fuels. And this will likely be the case for the next several decades. (Ref)
Hydrogen production produces CO2. (Ref) For instance, the Honda FCX Clarity hydrogen car indirectly produces 176g CO2/mile while the Toyota Prius hybrid produces less CO2 at 167g CO2/mile. (Ref)
Hydrogen cars are very expensive. The FCX Clarity costs several hundred thousand dollars and it will take many years to even drop below $100,000. (Ref)
Hydrogen leaks. A hydrogen car left in an airport parking lot for two week could lose 50% of its hydrogen. (Ref )
Hydrogen isn’t very efficient. (Ref) Only 20% to 25% of the energy needed to make hydrogen can be recovered. (Ref) Even using renewable energy, battery powered vehicles can still go 3-times further on the same electricity than hydrogen vehicles. (Ref)
Hydrogen cars fill up slowly. It currently it takes about 30 minutes to fill up a hydrogen tank. (Ref)

In the long-term, maybe the challenges with hydrogen cars will be solved. However, it is also likely that the few remaining problems with battery powered vehicles will be solved too. Physics will then remain firmly on the side of battery powered vehicles and it will be easier and more efficient to just transfer renewable electricity over power lines to charge battery vehicles than to convert the electricity to hydrogen, ship it, and convert it back into electricity again.

Sustainable Banking - Lending Club

Max Dunn — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 11:35:00 -0800

With the recent financial breakdown, it was refreshing to hear of a new type of bank at the VLAB event Upside of the Downturn on January 20th, 2008.

Renaud Laplanche, Founder & CEO of the Lending Club described how normal banks pay 2-3% but collect 16%. Lending Club lenders on the other hand, get 10.29% while borrowers pay 13% on average. The Lending Club narrows the spread rates by transacting over the Internet and having people lending to other people. As a lender, you can choose which borrower to lend to which creates a connection and social responsibility among users. Borrowers are also carefully screened and 85% are declined, so only prime borrowers are accepted. This leads to a low default rate of 2.7% and a late rate of 3.8%. The Lending Club is experiencing high growth rates of 50-100%, and in December of 2008, $2.5M was placed.

Maybe this is a new model for more sustainable banking!

Carbon Indulgences

Max Dunn — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:21:00 -0800

In the late thirteenth century, the church came up with the idea of indulgences, which was paying someone else to do the good works demanded of you. Church officials argued that clergy were doing more good works then they needed to, so why not sell them to raise money?

Are carbon offsets like these medieval indulgences? Just reducing our guilt without really helping the planet? Let’s look a little more closely at them.

Lithium Supplies Are Adequate

Max Dunn — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 21:32:00 -0800

There has been some worry that there wouldn’t be enough lithium production to meet the rising demand for Li-ion batteries for electric vehicles. However, a recent study has concluded that due to the recession, demand for lithium will drop and there will be adequate supplies at least through 2020.

(Reference: TRU Presentation Lithium Supply & Market)

The True Cost of Gas

Max Dunn — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 17:35:00 -0800

The price we pay for a gallon of gas at the pump doesn’t include all the costs associated with it, like environmental costs and tax subsidies. One older study found that if we included all of these, we would be paying and extra $5 to $14 per gallon!

However, if we look at just the cost spent on military defense of oil in the Persian Gulf, it would be less than this.

One rough estimate would be to assume that 15% of the $430 billion DoD budget was spent on defending our oil interests in the Persian Gulf. Spread over the 142 billion gallons of gas we use each year, it works out to $0.46 per gallon.

Of course the hard number to determine is how much of the military budget goes to just protecting oil in the Persian Gulf. The $65 billion seems to fall in the middle range of what is spent on that region, but there is a lot of differences in opinion over how much spending would be reduced if we didn’t need to protect the oil there.

Here are some of the studies and what they determined we would need to add to the price of a gallon of gas to cover the cost of protecting oil in the Persian Gulf:

$0.02 to $0.20: Mark A. Delucchi, 2007. Resources for the Future: The Cost of Protecting Oil in the Persian Gulf
$0.03 to $0.15: Mark A. Delucchi, James J. Murphy, 2008. Institute of Transportation Studies: US military expenditures to protect the use of Persian Gulf oil for motor vehicles
$0.35 to $1.05: Ogden, J.M., Williams, R.H., Larson, E.D., 2004. Institute of Transportation Studies: Societal lifecycle costs of cars with alternative fuels/engines

So don’t assume the price you pay at the pump is the true cost of gasoline. There are a lot more costs hidden away in making that gasoline available and in the environmental problems it causes that you pay for elsewhere.

Coming Chaos? Maybe Not

Max Dunn — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 16:24:00 -0800

Here is an interesting article written by Michael W. Foley, a former professor in the social sciences, that looks at various examples around the world where there was social breakdown, what the factors led to ensuing violence, and how the US might react given a similar crisis situation:

Coming Chaos? Maybe Not

He found that while there were many cases where economic and ecological collapse led to violence, there were also many cases where it didn’t. The major determining factors were:

Political motivation
Police
Leadership
Community

His conclusion is that prospects for violence in the US following a “hard landing” are very small, except in some isolated locations where police and community support break down.

Cost of Reducing CO2 with Electric Vehicles

Max Dunn — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:33:00 -0800

There are some questions about whether electric vehicles (EVs) actually reduce the amount of CO2 emitted, especially when electricity is produced by coal. However, we have seen that EVs in clean energy states produce only 1/6 as much CO2, and even in the worst case, produce no more than a regular gas car.

Providing more evidence of this, a new study by Boston Consulting Group not only shows how much less CO2 electric vehicles produce, but also puts a figure on how much this costs:

While this report shows that the cost of reducing CO2 with electric vehicles is not cheap, costing between $7,000 and $14,000 to reduce CO2 in half, the CO2 savings far surpass anything possible with advanced gas (ICE) engines. And the CO2 emissions caused by electric vehicles is only going to get lower as electric power generation becomes cleaner and the premium for electric cars will continue to fall as batteries become cheaper.

(Reference: The Comeback of the Electric Car)

Climate Change Recalculated - Saul Griffith

Max Dunn — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 22:41:00 -0800

On January 16th, the Long Now Foundation sponsored a very interesting talk at Fort Mason by Saul Griffith entitled “Climate Change Recalculated”.

Saul first went through a calculation of his energy usage. However, he did it in a different way – instead of using energy (kilo-watt-hours or kWh) he used continuous power expended (kilo-watts or kW) because this made it easier to add up and compare.

After adding up all his plane trips, driving, food, energy usage and embodied energy in the stuff he buys (which accounts for 1/4 of his energy use), he calculated that he used 18kW. By comparison, a person in Qatar uses 27kW but the average person in the US uses 11kW and the global average is 2.2kW. So he uses a lot more than the average American and way more than the global average. So he decided to shoot for 2.2kW and see how he would have to change his life.

First, he would be able to fly to the East Coast only once per year, and fly to Australia only once every 5 years. He would need to have a car that got 100 MPG, and then could only drive 20 miles per day. He could eat meat only once a week and would need to buy 1/10 of the stuff he does now and make it last 10 times longer. He isn’t quite there yet but has cut down on his travel and the stuff he buys and now is using only 12kW. Interestingly, this has also increased his quality of life. For instance, he isn’t traveling as much so is spending more time with his family.

Next he talked about climate change and what would be necessary to hold CO2 to 450 ppm. Humanity currently uses 16TW (tera-watts or 10^12 watts or a million-million watts) and in order to hold the CO2 limit, we can only burn 3TW of fossil fuels. Since 1.5TW already comes from renewable resources we would need an additional 11.5TW from new renewable sources. To meet this, we would need to produce 2TW of power each year for the next 25 years (not sure how he got this from the 11.5TW figure?), and this would require installing:

Photovoltaic: 100 m2 per second
Solar thermal: 50 m2 per second
Wind: one every 5 or 6 seconds
Nuclear: one new plant every 3 weeks

This is a lot! However, if GM and Ford stopped making cars and started making just wind turbines, they could meet the goal of creating a wind turbine every 5 seconds.

Summary: We need to reduce the power we all use – which we can do but is not easy. We also need to dramatically increase the amount of renewable power production – which we can do but it won’t be easy.

(For more details, see Climate Change Recalculated)

The next by the Long Now Foundation is Social Collapse Best Practices on February 13th and features Dmitry Orlov who witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union and how it survived and applies these insights into how the US might not be able to cope as well with a similar collapse. Should be interesting too!

Crazy RAV4-EV Prices

Max Dunn — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 10:32:00 -0800

The prices that people are paying for RAV4-EVs are a little crazy. Last year, several sold on eBay for over $45,000.

Today there was an auction for a 2003 RAV4-EV with 97,000 miles – which means the battery pack will need to be replaced at a cost of about $15,000. Nevertheless, the sale price was $32,600, so the total cost will be over $47,000 – crazy!

I mean the RAV4-EV is a great car, but it makes more sense to wait for another year or so when the new electric vehicles like the Chevy Volt will be available and will likely be less than $40,000.

Real Electric Vehicle Costs

Max Dunn — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 11:42:00 -0800

Interested in what it really costs to operate an electric vehicle? Here is what one RAV4-EV owner estimated his costs to be, including replacing the battery pack:

First 115,000 miles:

$30,000: Original price minus $20,000 rebate
$5,000: Charger, solar panels, some grid power
$4,000: Tires, brake pads, minor dent removals, AAA, rear glass, seat covers, registration
$6,000: Insurance
$45,000: Total, or $0.39 per mile

Next 120,000 miles:

$15,000 battery pack replacement
$3,000 electricity
$5,500 tires, registration and others
$4,000 insurance
$27,500 total, or $0.23 per mile

The takeaway from this is not just that the total per mile cost of an electric vehicle will be lower than a regular car, but also that replacing the battery pack can be done economically.

Source: RAV4-EV Archives (registration required)

Biggest Threat to Polar Bears

Max Dunn — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 09:22:00 -0800

With all the talk about global warming, we sometimes forget that man is damaging the planet in far worse ways. Take for instance, polar bears. They have become a cover issue for global warming and are prominent in Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”. One study found a decline of 15 bears per year in the western coast of Hudson Bay and there was a sighting of 4 drowned bears after an abrupt windstorm. Both of these have been attributed to global warming.

However, in Baffin Bay the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board will allow 105 bears to be killed this year, even though biologist feel that the quota should be 64 or less to avoid overhunting.

Whatever the number, whether 64 or 105, it is obvious that man is responsible for directly killing more polar bears than are harmed by global warming.

Toyota and GM Canoe Race

Max Dunn — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:35:00 -0800

Here is a little humor to brighten your day. (I don’t know where it originally came from because it has been floating around the Internet for a while.) And while its barbs are aimed at the scoundrel of the moment, all businesses are sometimes guilty of this too.

—-—-—

Toyota and GM decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River.

Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

BUT on the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action.

Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing. So American management hired a consulting company referred to them by the US Government and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.

The consultants advised that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing. To prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team’s management structure was totally reorganized into 3 steering supervisors, 1 area steering superintendents, 1 publicity manager, 1 HR diversity coordinator, 1 union rep, and a rower.

They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the “Rowing Team Quality First Program”, with a lunch and a free company pen for the rower. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes, and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and performance-tied bonuses but that decision was held up in committee.

BUT the next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment.

The money from all sales and all forecasted moneys saved from further competition was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year’s racing team was out-sourced to India.

Military Cost of Oil

Max Dunn — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 08:43:00 -0800

It is well known that a large part of our military expenses goes to protecting the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf. What has not been as clear is the actual cost of this protection. However a recent study sheds some light on this hidden expense.

In this study, Mark Delucchi of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis estimates that American taxpayers spent between $27 billion and $73 billion in 2004 (which was the most recent year data was available) for military protection of US oil interests in the Persian Gulf region.

While this is a huge number by itself, it works out to only $0.03 to $0.15 cents per gallon of gas for motor vehicle use.

180,000 Battery Miles

Max Dunn — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 07:44:00 -0800

One of the arguments against electric vehicles (EVs) is that the batteries won’t last very long and are expensive to replace. However, even the 10-year old NiMH batteries in RAV4 EVs can last up to 150,000 miles and we now we have test results showing that Li-ion batteries can last over 180,000 miles.

Since batteries can now last longer than the car itself, this argument can finally be put to rest.

Paper versus Polystyrene Cups

Max Dunn — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 07:29:00 -0800

I just finished my Sustainable Design class in the Stanford Continuing Studies program taught by Mark Martin. It was a really interesting, well taught class and I learned a lot.

One of the main points that Mark made was that it is difficult to tell how eco-friendly a product is without a in-depth study. As an example, he had us discuss which we thought was more eco-friendly: paper or polystyrene coffee cups. (Polystyrene is sometimes called Styrofoam or Polyfoam.) We all pretty much all agreed that paper cups were better, and then Mark showed us this study:

On almost every count, except cooling water and biodegradability, the polystyrene cups are more eco-friendly.

In a more recent study polystyrene was also found to be better:

In raw material requirements the paper cup required about 2.5 times its finished weight of raw wood and about the same hydrocarbon fueling requirement as is needed for the polystyrene foam cup. To process the raw materials about six times as much steam, 13 times as much electric power, and twice as much cooling water are consumed to produce the paper cup as compared to the polystyrene foam cup. Emission rates to air are similar and to water are generally higher for the paper cup.

Another interesting ramification this study pointed out is that in a wet landfill, the polystyrene will remain stable while the paper will decompose giving off methane gas and contributing to the instability of the land surface.

This just goes to prove what Mark taught in this class – it isn’t always obvious which products are eco-friendly.

Oil Price Fluctuations, Part 2

Max Dunn — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:25:00 -0800

Previously we discussed oil price fluctuations in terms of non-elastic supply and non-elastic demand. Here is a short video that graphically illustrates this same principle:

CFL versus LED bulbs

Max Dunn — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 07:05:00 -0800

I have always thought that LED bulbs should provide the best energy efficiency and lowest lifetime cost of any bulb. However, looking into this more, I am not so sure.

An article on Salon by Ask Pablo (who happens to be a graduate of the Presidio School of Management) showed this comparison:

Bulb	Cost	Output	Power	Efficiency	Lifetime Bulb Cost	Lifetime Power Cost	Lifetime Total Cost
CFL	$7	500 lumens	10 watts	50 lumens/watt	$35	$55	$90
LED	$60	500 lumens	7 watts	71 lumens/watt	$60	$38	$98

(Note: Lifetime is 50,000 hours, and I used an electricity cost of $0.11/kWh)

Even though LED bulbs are much more expensive than CFLs (compact fluorescent), they are also about 40% more efficient, so adding in lifetime electricity costs their total cost would be about the same.

However, there is a catch. If an LED bulb is used 4 hours per day, it would last almost 35 years – and what is the chance that over those 35 years the LED bulb gets broken or there is a power surge that damages it? Probably pretty good! So assuming that LED bulbs actually last on average only 10 years, this would make them twice as expensive as CFLs.

So until the cost of LED bulbs come down quite a bit, CFLs will still be the better buy.

U.S. Renewable Electricity At 11%

Max Dunn — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 07:25:00 -0800

According to the EIA’s Monthly Electricity Review, net US generation of electricity from renewable energy sources surged by 32 percent in June 2008 compared to June 2007.

Renewable energy (biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, wind) accounted for 11.0 percent of net US electricity generation in June 2008 compared to 8.6 percent in June 2007.

Hydropower still accounts for a large part of this renewable energy, but over this period wind power leaped by 81.6 percent and solar surged by 42.6. Now non-hydroelectric renewables account for just under three percent of total net U.S. electricity generation.

Oil Price Fluctuations

Max Dunn — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 14:36:00 -0800

Oil went up to $147 per barrel and is now down to $64. Does this mean that the oil shortage is over and that we can go back to driving SUVs? No, not unless you can afford to drive your gas hog when the price of gas goes back up over $4 per gallon. Actually, this type of wide oil price fluctuation is to be expected.

The reason for these fluctuations is the inelasticity of both the supply and demand for oil. On the supply side, nowhere in the world is it possible to just turn up a tap and pump more oil – everyone is pumping as much as they can. (Saudi Arabia and Iran do have extra capacity for heavy, sour crude, but that doesn’t help.) So in order to increase the supply of oil, it is necessary to drill more wells or employ advanced extraction techniques, all of which take time.

On the supply side, demand is very inelastic as well. When the price of gas goes up, you don’t immediately ditch your SUV and buy a Prius or find a job closer to home. In the short term, you still need to drive to work, take the kids to school and heat your house, so you pay whatever it costs.

So now we have an inelastic supply meeting an inelastic demand and what do you get? That’s right, wildly fluctuating prices! As soon as demand creeps just a little bit above supply, the price shoots up. Then when the supply goes up just a little, and demand goes down just a little, prices fall.

This is a classic pattern and one that we have seen before with whale oil. Whale oil mimics closely what we are seeing with fossil oil in that techniques to extract it got better and better and overran the natural supply. As the supply started to peak, prices went through some wild fluctuations too:

So don’t be fooled by the current low oil prices. They are not a sign that all is well, but only a sign that the worst is yet to come.

(For more information, see Peak Oil and EVs)

Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES)

Max Dunn — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 08:10:00 -0800

Much of the criticism of solar and wind energy is that they don’t produce power all the time and that we don’t have any good way of storing electricity. There is some pumped hydro storage, but it is only able to contribute less than 3% of the power, and it is not likely that we will be able to build more.

However, another way of storing energy is to compress air underground. There are a lot of areas that can be used for this underground air storage including underground aquifers, carved out salt caverns, depleted natural gas wells and old mines.

The air is compressed using an electric turbine which can be driven by solar, wind or even off-peak electricity. Then when it is needed, the compressed air is fed into a natural-gas fired electric plant which normally would need to use a lot of energy to compress the air. This makes CAES systems almost 3 times more efficient than single cycle gas-fired plants, and almost twice as efficient as combined cycle plants. In addition, CAES equipment is simpler and has lower operating costs.

Currently there are two CAES plants in operation around the world. A 290 MW plant in Germany operating since 1978, and a 110 MW plant in Alabama operating since 1991. Now, there is a third 200 MW CAES plant being built in Central Iowa (ISEP) that received a federal funding earmark in 2009 for $1.5 million.

CAES is a very promising technology that can make sustainable energy much more practical and we should be working harder and faster and devoting more money to develop this technology.

References:

Does Protecting Old Forests Help Reduce CO2?

Max Dunn — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 07:31:00 -0700

In a previous post, I discussed some of the problems with carbon credits. Here is another example of a project that doesn’t seem like it is really reducing CO2.

The Garcia River Forest project is a certified carbon offset project that PG&E is sponsoring and protects trees that would otherwise be harvested. This seems like a good thing – leaving forests standing rather than cutting them down seems like it would reduce CO2. Right?

However, there is a problem. A growing forest sequesters a lot more carbon than a mature one. Of course, if the forest was cleared by burning, that would be bad because it would release a lot of CO2. But, if the forest was responsibly and sustainably harvested to make lumber, the CO2 would effectively be sequestered and then the young forest would soak up additional CO2.

So for maximum CO2 sequestration, it would actually be better to harvest as many forests as possible for lumber and re-plant them! Of course forests offer a lot of other benefits besides just CO2 sequestration, so we would never want to cut them all down. But the point is, if we really want to make a dent in CO2, we have to look carefully at all the effects of our efforts and not just make quick assumptions.

Growth of Wind Power

Max Dunn — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:07:00 -0700

Many people are dismissing wind power as irrelevant in solving our energy problem since wind power has been in production for a long time but the total output is still relatively small. However, it is useful to compare the ramp-up of wind power to nuclear power:

It is interesting how closely these two growth curves align! In the US today, nuclear provides about 20% of our electricity so it is not unreasonable to assume that wind power can be ramped up to eventually provide the same percentage of power.

(References: The Oil Drum – Making the case for wind, again and Pure Power – Wind Energy Scenarios up to 2030)

GCEP Fourth Symposium

Max Dunn — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 09:45:00 -0700

The Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP) held its fourth annual energy research symposium at the beginning of October.

GCEP is an interesting group based at Stanford University that seeks new solutions to one of the grand challenges of this century: supplying energy to meet the changing needs of a growing world population in a way that protects the environment. With funding of $225 million from Exxon, GE, Schlumberger and Toyota, GCEP supports a lot of diverse high-risk and high-reward projects in areas such as solar energy, batteries, cellulosic ethanol, hydrogen, CO2 capture and storage, advanced combustion and more

This was a fantastic symposium where researchers from Stanford and around the world discussed GCEP’s projects. Some of the highlights for me were:

Burning coal in super-critical water to capture all CO2 and other emissions
The benefits of using miscanthus for cellulosic ethanol (which is better than switchgrass)
Using nano structures to improve photovoltaics
Using biological organisms to split hydrogen
Various techniques to make fermenting cellulosic ethanol a reality
Improvements in lithium-ion battery cathodes

For more information, see my notes of the symposium presentations..

Zapino Lithium Battery Update

Max Dunn — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 10:52:00 -0700

I just talked to Bob in customer service at Zap. He said that they are testing Lithium (Li-ion) batteries for the Zapino scooter right now and that they should be ready in 4 to 6 months. The cost will be between $1,500 and $2,000 and will include the batteries and charger, but no battery management system (BMS).

So for now, the best option will probably be to use Thunder Sky batteries from Elite Power. They have a package of 20-40Ah batteries and charger for $1600 that should work well in the Zapino. While half the weight of the current lead-acid battery pack, they are a 1/2 inch higher so there might be some rework needed to fit them in.

Offshore Drilling - Not A Solution

Max Dunn — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:44:00 -0700

If anyone still believes that offshore drilling will significantly increase our oil supplies, take a look at the map below. The areas in blue are those that are already being drilled and also those with the most oil. The areas in white are the ones they might open for drilling, but these areas aren’t expected to yield much oil anyways:

If that isn’t enough, consider that the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently did a detailed study of the likely outcome of offshore drilling. Their conclusion:

The projections in the OCS access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030.

(References: The Oil Drum – Offshore Drilling Debate, Climate Progress – EIA Bombshell)

Nanosolar 1GW Machine

Max Dunn — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 20:21:00 -0700

It is so incredible it is a little hard to get my brain around. Several months ago, without any fanfare, Nanosolar showed off its new production tool that can produce 1GW (gigawatt) of solar cells per year.

To put this in perspective, most plants produce less than 100 MW (megawatts) per year, less than 1/10 of Nanosolar’s 1GW machine. For instance, here is a Masdar plant being built in Germany that will produce 70MW a year and cost $230 million. So it would take 14 of these plants to equal the output of one of the Nanosolar machines.

The cost of the Nanosolar machine? $1.65 million! This is 2,000 times less than the Masdar plant! (While this is a comparison of a production tool to an entire plant, it is still an astounding difference.)

[Also: Higher-resolution download of video (6.5MBytes)]

How Much Does Clean Coal Cost?

Max Dunn — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 21:07:00 -0700

So how much does it cost to clean the CO2 from a coal-fired electricity power plant? The numbers of FutureGen’s clean-coal project at the 275 MW Matoon Illinois plant gives an indication. The DOE pulled back on the project last December over the concerns of cost overruns that would likely propel FutureGen’s $1.5 billion cost estimate to $1.8 billion or higher.

Let’s look at the numbers here to see how much this carbon capture would cost. Over a 30 year lifetime, if the plant was operating 80% of the time, it would log 210,000 hours (24 * 365 * 30 * 0.8). So the 275 MW (megawatt) plant would produce 58 billion kWh of electricity over this time. (275,000 * 210,000). So the $1.8 billion cost would add about $0.03 to each kWh of electricity produced (1.8 / 58). Since a coal power plant produces electricity at about $0.03 to $0.04 per kWh, this would effectively double the cost of the electricity it produces. And this doesn’t take into account any ongoing costs of sequestering the carbon.

So with all this talk about clean-coal, we have yet to see an implementation of it at a utility scale power plant and it appears that the cost of carbon capture at a coal-fired power plant using today’s technology would make it uneconomical.

Converting Trucks to Hybrids - HEVT

Max Dunn — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:24:00 -0700

At Plug-in 2008, Andy Grove presented his vision of converting 10 million SUVs, trucks and vans to electric hybrid operation in the next 4 years. Many people in the audience doubted that this goal was achievable, and wondered if the technology to convert an existing vehicle over to hybrid electric operation was even feasible.

However, a company that was exhibiting at the show did exactly this. Hybrid Electric Vehicle Technologies based in Chicago had on the floor a Ford F-150 truck that they had converted to electric hybrid. They did this by leaving the gas engine alone and adding an electric motor to the back of the rear differential. Then the put a 12kWh battery pack behind the seat and used a controller that would regulate the power to the gas and electric engine to achieve hybrid operation.

The F-150 conversions are currently very expensive running $60,000. However, they hope to get the price down a lot as their volume of conversions increase.

Andy Grove should invest a lot of money in HEVT because their technology might be the key to achieving his vision.

EV Charging Infrastructure by Coulomb Technologies

Max Dunn — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:57:00 -0700

Electric Vehicles (EVs) will have limited range at first due to battery limitations. To increase their range, they will use “opportunity” charging, which basically means trying to find a plug wherever they are.

To help with this, Coulomb Technologies announced at Plug-in 2008 their smart charging infrastructure for plug-in vehicles. One of their offerings is the Smartlet Charging Station so subscribers can charge their EV at any Smartlet station using a supplied smart card.

Let’s hope that Coulomb is successful and receives plenty of funds to continue operations while EV usage ramps up. These charging stations will be one of the keys that will make EVs successful.

CARB ZEV Standard to be Raised

Max Dunn — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:24:00 -0700

Many of us EV advocates were disappointed by the ZEV mandate revisions that CARB enacted this year. So we are glad to hear that at the Plug-in 2008 conference today, CARB board member Dan Sperling said that he agreed that the revisions this year were too complex and too soft and next year they expect to simplify them and also increase the number of vehicles required – possibly by an order of magnitude. Wouldn’t that be great!

Why Can't Hobbyists Buy A123 Batteries

Max Dunn — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:49:00 -0700

Another interesting tidbit of information that I got from Elizabeth from A123 Systems at the Plug-in 2008 conference was why A123 doesn’t sell batteries to hobbyists for use in electric vehicles. Her answer: liability.

A123 is worried that someone will put together an unsafe vehicle and then A123 would be sued when it catches on fire or someone gets hurt. This extends also to organizations like CalCars that is working on plug-in hybrids. So A123 only supplies batteries to OEMs and manufacturers where they can be sure the batteries will be used in a safe way.

Why PHEV Engines Always Turn On

Max Dunn — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:40:00 -0700

One downside to current plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) is that the gas motor always turns on when first starting out. At the Plug-in 2008 conference I asked Elizabeth from A123/Hymotion why this was and she said that the engine needed to turn on for about 57 seconds when first starting out to warm up the catalytic converter, otherwise the car wouldn’t pass smog tests. It is too bad that on short trips the gas engine still needs to turn on, but at less than a minute this shouldn’t waste too much gas.

Oil Price Increase Due to Dollar Devaluation?

Max Dunn — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:49:00 -0700

It is commonly thought that a large part of the increase in the price of oil is due to the devaluation of the dollar. For instance, since the the euro is now 60% higher than the dollar it seems to make sense that 60% of increase in the price of oil is due to this devaluation of the dollar. However when you look more closely at the economics behind oil pricing, you will find that this is not the case at all. Actually, it doesn’t make any difference what currency oil is priced in because the price would still be the same.

EEStor UltraCaps - Too Good To Be True?

Max Dunn — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:56:00 -0700

If EEStor can achieve what they claim, it will blow open the electric vehicle market which is currently held back only by battery technology. Here is what they claim:

For a 52 kWh unit, an initial production price of $3,200, falling to $2,100.
No degradation from charge/discharge cycles
4-6 minute charge time assuming sufficient cooling of the cables.

Currently, a lithium battery pack this size would cost more than $30,000, would last less than 2,000 cycles and takes at least a couple of hours to charge.

However, EEStor is a private company and is not releasing much information to be able to verify their claims. Let’s hope that they are successful!

(Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EEStor)

Slight of Hand - 20 Foot Sea Level Rise

Max Dunn — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 08:58:00 -0700

There are many ways to distort the truth. One of them is to suggest something as a possibility and then let uncritical minds repeat it as a fact. This is what is happening with Al Gore’s look at a 20 foot sea level rise.

Price Elasticity of Oil - Short Term and Long Term

Max Dunn — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:17:00 -0700

When the price of something goes up, it makes sense that demand for it should go down and production should go up. But in the case of oil, that doesn’t seem to be true. Oil prices have gone up 400% over the last 5 years while consumption has been flat in the US and global oil production has been relatively flat for the last 3 years.

Proven Oil Reserves - Fact or Fiction?

Max Dunn — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:33:00 -0700

When people attempt to prove that the world has plenty of oil left, they often quote oil reserve numbers. But can we really trust these numbers?

Here is a graph of the commonly accepted ‘proven’ oil reserves:

Will Increased Shipping Costs Decrease Globalization?

Max Dunn — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:09:00 -0700

There is speculation that the increased cost of shipping due to rising oil prices will reduce globalization since it will be cheaper to make products locally than ship them all over the world. For some bulk items where shipping is a major component of the price, this could be true. But for many high-value items, manufacturing them in low-cost countries and then shipping them by boat will still be more economical than making them locally.

eVolvo - Electron Hog

Max Dunn — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:30:00 -0700

You have heard of a “gas hog”? Well my eVolvo is an electron hog!

Most electric cars get between 2 and 4 miles per kWh. The ones that are light and streamlined and have efficient AC motors with regenerative breaking get the best mileage – and my car is none of these. It is a heavy car with a big DC motor and no regenerative braking. It does have a lot of zip, but at the cost of poor electron mileage.

Battery to wheel, I get about 2.5 miles per kWh. This is based on my maximum range so far of 25 miles, the battery pack of 15 kWh maximum, and a Peukert effect that reduces the useable energy from the lead-acid AGM batteries to about 10 kWh.

However, the Soneil 1206S chargers that are being used are not very efficient, probably around 75%. That combined with charging efficiency of the batteries which is probably around 85% gives a charging efficiency of only about 64%. So from the wall to the wheels I am getting about 1.6 miles per kWh. This figure is consistent with the data I have been collecting:

Miles	kWh	Charge Time	Miles/kWh
22.2	14	–	1.6
6.6	4.3	–	1.5
4.6	3.4	6 hrs	1.4
13.3	8.4	17 hrs	1.6
18.3	11.9	–	1.5

eVolvo Specs

Max Dunn — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 06:49:00 -0700

For those of you wondering what is in my eVolvo, here are the specs:

Batteries: Deka AGM 8A31DT 105AH @ C/20. 144 volts: 4 batteries in front, 8 in back
DC-DC converter 55 amp: IOTA DLS-55
Auxiliary battery: Deka Gel 8GU1H 32AH
Charger: 12 – Soneil 1206S 3amp (one on each battery)
Motor: Advanced FB-4001a (19 HP continuous, 85 HP peak)
Controller: Auburn Scientific PWC600-144 Kodiak water cooled
Brake vacuum: Thomas 107CDC208
Belt: A/C, Steering, Alternator

Top 5 US Oil Importing Countries

Max Dunn — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 07:59:00 -0700

What are the top 5 countries that the US imports its oil from?

Most people would probably guess that Saudi Arabia is on the list, but they might also think that Russia is on it too, which it isn’t. (Russia is at number 14.)

Surprisingly, Canada is at the top of the list with 1.9 million barrels per day (mbd) and Canada exports more oil to the US than it uses itself. It gets about half of its oil from tar sands, and while there is a lot of oil locked up in tar sands it takes so much natural gas and water to get the oil out that it is unlikely that the daily production can be increased much more.

Saudi Arabia is second on the list and while it exports a total of about 9 mbd, the US gets only 1.5 mbd of this.

Mexico is third at 1.2 mbd which represents 80% of their exports, but their production is falling. The Cantarell field was the second largest producing oil field in the world before it peaked in 2004, and since then its output has fallen by an ominous 50%.

Would you guess that Nigeria is the 4th largest importer to the US at 1.1 mbd? It is, however Nigeria is a very unstable country and militant attacks routinely cause production to fall below its maximum potential.

Lastly, at number 5 is our friendly South American neighbor Venezuela at 1.0 mbd.

This list often surprises people. Most wouldn’t know that Canada is the top provider of our imported oil and that Nigeria is close behind at number 4.

References:

Do Oil Companies Make Too Much Money?

Max Dunn — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:08:00 -0700

According to the accounting firm Ernst and Young, in 2007 the average manufacturing company made 8.9 cents per dollar of sales. The U.S. oil industry did slightly worse at 8.3 cents per dollar of sales, even though this was a record year for them. Contrast that to beverage and cigarette companies that earned 19.1 cents and drugmakers that earned 18.4 cents. So even though oil prices have skyrocketing, are oil companies really making too much money?

(Source: Forbes June 2, 2008 Page 30 Shooting Ourselves in the Foot)

25 Watt Fuel Cell - Only $5,000

Max Dunn — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:26:00 -0700

With all this talk about fuel cells, I have been wondering if it is possible to actually buy one. Here is one I stumbled across a reformed methanol fuel cell that puts out 25 watts. With the standard 12 oz cartridge of methanol, it will produce power for about 7 hours. One drawback is that it takes between 12 and 30 minutes to start-up, not very convenient if you need to get someplace quick. However the real kicker is the price – $5,000! If you wanted enough of these to power a car which takes about 15,000 watts, it would cost over $3 million! Or course this is a methane fuel cell and not a hydrogen one, but it provides another reason to believe that fuel cells are not the answer to the future of transportation.

Book Review - Zoom, The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future

Max Dunn — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 19:03:00 -0700

ZOOM: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future
by Vijay Vaitheeswaran

I wanted to like this book – I really did. With a name like "Zoom" and the promise to show the car of the future, I was excited to read it. But in the end, the book turned out to be at best a dud, and at worst misleading and harmful to the future of transportation.

Easy CO2 Calculation for Vehicles

Max Dunn — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 17:05:00 -0700

Sometimes you will hear that electric vehicles produce more CO2 than gas vehicles, however, this isn’t true. Let’s look at an easy CO2 calculation to see why.

Burning a gallon of gas creates 20 lbs of CO2. So a car that gets an average of 20 MPG produces 1 lb of CO2 per mile. Ok so far?

Electric cars get an average of 3 miles per kWh and 1 kWh creates an average of 1.3 lbs of CO2. So an electric car produces about 0.4 lbs of CO2 per mile. So electric cars produce only about 40% as much CO2 as gas cars. Easy, right?

eVolvo - My Electric Car

Max Dunn — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:04:00 -0700

I finally did it – I got an electric car!

We had been considering a Miles NEV, but were concerned that even after tweaking it to go 35 MPH (rather than the 25 MPH it is supposed to go) that we would still get run over when driving on streets where the speed limit was 40 MPH or higher. The Miles also would have cost close to $20,000, and even then it was pretty minimal – vinyl seats, manual crank windows and no air-conditioning. So when a converted 1995 Volvo 850 came up for sale nearby for $14,000 we jumped on it!

Is the Solution to High Oil Prices to Open Up More Drilling in the US?

Max Dunn — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 08:07:00 -0700

There is a lot of talk floating around that if the US would just end the ban on drilling in environmentally sensitive areas, we would find plenty of oil and prices would go down. Let’s look at this more closely to see if it is true.

Gas Prices Around the World

Max Dunn — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:04:00 -0700

Some countries tax gasoline heavily, others subsidize it. Here is a chart that shows how much people pay for gas around the world:

(Source: The Economist – Crude measures)

Powering Electric Vehicles

Max Dunn — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:34:00 -0700

One question that is often asked is that if we start to have a lot of electric vehicles, won’t this strain our electric system and require us to build a lot of new electric power plants?

The answer is no – at least at first. The reason is that electric usage goes down considerably at night. By simply charging at off-peak times, then we can use electricity from the plants that would have otherwise been idle.

Let’s look at the math. An electric vehicle consumes 1 kWh from the wall socket for every 2-4 miles driven. The average car is driven about 30 miles per day – so the average daily energy needed per car is only 10 kWh. If these vehicles are charged over 10 off-peak hours, the average power consumption per car is 1 kW. Since California has 25 GW of spare off-peak electric capacity, this can power 25 million electric cars in California alone.

This is just a rough calculation, but the same conclusion was reached in a detailed analysis which found that 84% of all cars in the US could be powered by the existing electricity infrastructure.

Gas vs Electric Motor

Max Dunn — Sat, 31 May 2008 16:27:00 -0700

Which do you think provides more performance by weight and size – a gas motor or an electric motor?

You are right if you said an electric motor. Here is a picture of an electric motor that provides twice the performance of the gas motor, yet is much smaller and has only 1 moving part!

(Reference: EVDrive BMW Project)

3rd Generation PV

Max Dunn — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:42:00 -0700

There was an interesting talk at the Woods Energy Seminar at Stanford yesterday by Dr. Gavin Conibeer about 3rd generation photovoltaic (PV) devices.

The 1st generation are the PV cells we have now that cost around $6/watt and are around 20% efficient. The 2nd generation are the thin film cells which cost around $1/watt but are only about 12% efficient. The 3rd generation cells will use quantum dot technology created using thin-film manufacturing methods, so they will be a lot less expensive than 1st generation devices but will also use a variety of techniques to boost efficiencies up to 65% which will drive the cost down to $0.20/watt.

This sounds pretty great! However, the catch is that when asked when these 3rd generation PV cells would start going into production, his answer was “It is still a long ways away.”

Following are the notes I took during his talk:

Clouds and Gusts = Regulation Problems

Max Dunn — Wed, 28 May 2008 12:26:00 -0700

All of the major electricity generating systems in use today have a fairly steady output. Whether they are powered by nuclear, coal, hydro or natural gas, the electricity output will be fairly constant unless there is a malfunction. However, solar and wind systems aren’t consistent – clouds can dramatically affect the output of solar systems, and lulls and gusts can affect wind systems.

In our electrical grid, it is important that the supply of electricity consistently matches its demand. This will become more challenging once solar and wind systems are producing a larger percentage of the total electrical power, and there are currently no good ways to smooth out these fast fluctuations. Spreading the solar and wind units far apart helps so that clouds and gusts won’t affect all the units at the same time. Also pumped hydro (where water can be pumped up into a dam using electricity as well as letting it out to produce electricity) can help smooth things out as well as using natural gas spinning reserves.

However, we will still need more regulation that is much faster than these, and this is where Vehicle-to-Grid can help. If we can reach a level where a significant amount of electric vehicles are hooked up to the grid with fast command communication, they will be able to quickly smooth out the electrical surges and lulls from solar and wind systems. Otherwise, we will likely run into severe regulations problems with these systems due to clouds and gusts.

RAV4-EV Sold for $70,000

Max Dunn — Wed, 28 May 2008 08:33:00 -0700

There certainly a lot of excitement over electric cars these days. A 2001 Toyota RAV4-EV with over 47,000 miles sold on eBay for almost $70,000! (The selling price listed was $89,000 but this was an illegally retracted bid and the seller confirmed that it was sold for $69,850.)

It was in good shape with only minor scuffing on the left bumper and had an HOV stickers so it can drive in the car pool lane, but $70k seems like a lot of money for an electric car with almost 50,000 miles. Hopefully next year we will start seeing brand new electric cars closer to $40,000.

If you still are dying to get one, there is another RAV4-EV for sale on eBay and the bidding is currently at $50,000.

Gas at $100 per Gallon

Max Dunn — Tue, 27 May 2008 10:59:00 -0700

Here is an interesting thought experiment: how would our lives change if gas cost $100 per gallon?

AGM Battery Charging - Temperature Dependent

Max Dunn — Fri, 23 May 2008 19:00:00 -0700

As we have seem, the biggest per mile cost of running an electric vehicle is not the electricity, it is the battery depletion. So it is important to maximize the life of your batteries. One trick that works with all battery techologies is to take short trips and recharge after each one. By minimizing your depth of discharge (DOD) you will maximize the total energy that the batteries will deliver over their life.

Another very important factor is to charge the batteries correctly. Especially for sealed lead-acid batteries like gel or AGM, correct charging is critical. Deka states that if their batteries are continuously charged with a voltage that is only 0.70 volts over the proper charging voltage, it will reduce the battery life by 60 percent! This is because if sealed batteries are overcharged, they will dry out and there is no way to replace the lost moisture. It is likely that all sealed lead-acid batteries will suffer from this, not just Deka batteries.

Here is the kicker: the proper charging voltage varies depending on the temperature. It ranges from 15.10 volts when it is below 40 degrees 13.60 volts when it is above 120 degrees. And it is not good enough to just measure the air temperature, instead it is important to measure the temperature of each battery since they will often be warmer than the outside air.

So unless your charger or BMS has a temperature probe on each battery, it is almost guaranteed that the batteries are not being charged correctly and that their potential life span will be reduced.

Ford EV Ranger Cost Analysis

Max Dunn — Wed, 21 May 2008 11:19:00 -0700

BlueSky Motors in Sacramento periodically sells EV Ford Rangers on eBay.

When I contacted them about the reserve price for a previous EV Ranger, here is what they said:

The reserve on the vehicle is $26,998 + License, Calif. sales tax, doc fee, and registration. The total cost with a PSC charger ($600.00) ends up close to $29,000. You can call for a test drive – (916) 929-7508 ask for Scott.

Paying almost $30,000 for a Ford Ranger seems pretty expensive – is there a way to justify this? One way is to think about the extra cost as just “pre-paying” for your gas.

The gas 1999 Ford Ranger gets a combined mileage of 16 MPG, so this is about $0.25 per mile at $4 per gallon. Assuming electricity will cost $0.05 per mile, you will save $0.20 per mile with the EV Ranger. (The EV Rangers NiMH batteries will likely last for the life of the car, or about 150,000 miles, so you don’t need to worry about battery replacement costs.)

So one way of looking at the extra $20,000 that this EV Ford Ranger costs is that you are just pre-paying for gasoline at $4 per gallon for the next 100,000 miles and after that, it is like getting free gas. And when gas goes up to $6 a gallon or more, this will seem like a real bargain!

Hill Climbing in EVs

Max Dunn — Mon, 19 May 2008 08:42:00 -0700

When driving an electric vehicle (EV), it is important to know how far you can go on a full charge. On flat ground, the range will be pretty consistent and the only variable will be if you are driving around town or on the freeway. But how will your range be affected when you are driving up a hill?

This is an important question to me because I like to go surfing in Santa Cruz which is about 30 miles away and requires a climb of 1500 feet over a mountain range.

As a rule of thumb, you can add 10 miles for every 1000 feet you climb. So to take the Santa Cruz example, the peak is 15 miles away and a climb of 1500 feet, so it would actually take 30 miles of energy to get to the peak.

Going downhill of course, won’t take as much energy and will actually add some energy if you have regenerative braking. So the total trip to Santa Cruz is likely to take about 37 miles worth of energy.

RAV4 owners have reported that it takes less energy to climb a hill, only 6 miles per 1000 feet. One owner reported driving to Mt. Baldy which was 20 miles away and a climb of 6000 feet. He used about 60 miles worth of charge to get to the top. However, coming back down he added 20 miles of charge, so the round trip only took 40 miles of charge, or only the linear distance disregarding the climb. Ref

Bottom line is that while you need to be aware that it takes extra energy to climb hills, EVs can handle them with no problem.

Zapino Batteries Weakening

Max Dunn — Wed, 14 May 2008 11:10:00 -0700

While Altairno batteries have demonstrated 25,000 cycles, my Zapino batteries are starting to weaken after less than 500 shallow cycles.

This was evident in a ride I took today to Los Gatos to get a new battery for my MacBook. (Yes, even the lithium-ion battery in my MacBook gave out after less than 300 cycles! But this was likely just a manufacturing problem, not an inherent limitation.)

I knew the Electier batteries in my Zapino batteries were getting weak, so I rode in the “economy” mode the whole way, accelerated slowly and rode 25 MPH or less. There were some small hills but I took it really easy going up them. Nonetheless, by the time I was approaching home, the needle was dipping into the yellow upon acceleration and even starting to get in the red. The entire ride was 14 miles, and I probably could have nursed it another 3 to 5 miles, but this was still only about half of the 30 mile range that we got when the Zapino was new.

Altairnano Batteries - 25,000 Cycles

Max Dunn — Mon, 12 May 2008 18:45:00 -0700

The electricity to power an electric vehicle costs very little – usually around 3c per mile. A bigger cost is the wear-and-tear on the batteries, which will cost 8c a mile or more.

For instance, if an electric car has a range of 75 miles with a 25kWh lithium-ion battery pack that has a life of 2,000 cycles, then the car could go 150,000 miles on the battery pack. If the batteries cost $25,000, this adds about 17c per mile to the cost of operating the car in addition to the electricity.

But what if the batteries lasted longer – much longer? Then the total cost per mile would be a lot lower.

For instance, lets say that instead of 2,000 cycles you could get 25,000 cycles out of the batteries. Maybe these batteries cost twice as much, but this would still bring the cost per mile down to about 3c per mile.

Well it appears that Altairnano might have done this. In their recently released 2007 annual report, it states that in January 2007 they completed 25,000 deep charge/discharge cycles of their batteries and they still retained over 80% of their original charge capacity.

The batteries are not cheap – it appears they are selling them for about $2,000 per kWh, about twice what other lithium-ion batteries sell for. But if they can really go 25,000 cycles in the field, it will be an exciting breakthrough!

Hydrogen 13 Times More Expensive Than Electricity

Max Dunn — Mon, 12 May 2008 08:59:00 -0700

Here is another illustration of how expensive hydrogen is. Popular Mechanics looked at how much it would cost to drive across the country in vehicles using different types of fuel. As a baseline, a car getting 33 MPG would cost $213 (with fuel at $2.34/gallon). A hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle would cost $804, while a battery electric vehicle would cost only $60!

Popular Mechanics: Fuel of the Future

Slippery Slope: Cantarell Leading the Way?

Max Dunn — Thu, 01 May 2008 10:10:00 -0700

Once everyeone realizes that oil production has peaked, the main factor on whether the world can make an orderly transition to renewable energy depends mainly on how fast production falls. If oil production falls slowly, we will be able to build up our alternative energy infrastructure with only major inconveniences. However, if it falls rapidly, dire consequences could result including recession, famine and war.

The best way to tell whether the decline will be fast or slow is to look at existing large oil fields that are in decline. If we base this on Cantarell, the news is not good.

Cantarell was the second largest producing oil field in the world. It peaked in 2004 and production fell 31% in the following 3 years. This year, it will likely decline by 18%. At this rate, production from Cantarell will drop by 80% in just 5 years.

Let’s hope that Cantarell is not indicative of the other super-giant oil fields, or the world would be in for severe trouble.

Friedman: Our Political Brownout on Energy Policy

Max Dunn — Thu, 01 May 2008 08:40:00 -0700

Thomas Friedman, author of ‘The World is Flat just wrote a very intelligent op-ed piece for the New York Times titled: ‘Dumb as We Wanna Be’. Here are some edited excerpts:

Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy – this is money laundering. The idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away.
Good for Barack Obama for resisting this shameful pandering.
The McCain-Clinton proposal is a reminder to me that the biggest energy crisis we have in our country today is the energy to be serious — the energy to do big things in a sustained, focused and intelligent way. We are in the midst of a national political brownout.

NanoSolar: The Company That Might Save the World

Max Dunn — Thu, 01 May 2008 07:44:00 -0700

Yesterday, I shook the hand of the man whose company might just save the world.

He is Martin Roscheisen, CEO of NanoSolar. He alluded that they are producing solar panels at about $1 per watt with a complete system cost of $2 watt when installed in municipal scale of 1MW to 50MW. This is about the same cost as a coal-fired power plant!

Furthermore, their panels can be installed at the rate of 1MW per day, and need 5 acres per MW, which means a municipal sized system of 50MW can be installed in about two months. This contrasts with coal-fired plants that can take 4 years or more to build.

Drawbacks? Their German plant is producing only about 420 MW of solar capacity per year and their San Jose plant which will open in 2009 will produce about the same. While this is very high by normal PV standards, it would help the world greatly if this went up by several orders of magnitude.

Just think – instead of building more coal plants we can start building clean solar power systems at about the same cost!

Feed-in Tariffs

Max Dunn — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:27:00 -0700

Wind power can now produce energy as cheaply as coal, about 5c per kilowatt hour (kWh). Solar power is almost to the point where it can produce energy at the marginal electrical rate of about 10c kWh. So with oil prices over $100 barrel, natural gas prices doubling, and all the concern about CO2 and other noxious emissions from coal plants, why aren’t more wind and solar projects being built?

GreenVolts Seminar

Max Dunn — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:59:00 -0700

Last night I attended a seminar put on by the Going Green! meetup group and the speaker was Craig Lewis who is VP Government Relations with GreenVolts. GreenVolt’s goal is to “deliver power to utility companies at fossil fuel costs”.

Craig talked a little about the GreenVolts product, which is a concentrating solar collector system with advanced tracking and is designed to be interconnected at the 12kv distribution level in sizes ranging from 1 to 20 mega-watts (MW). However, his main topic was “Accelerating the Transition to Smart Energy.” His conclusion was that to make alternative energy sources take off, the government needs to shift the subsidies paid to oil companies into long-term feed-in tariffs, i.e. requiring the electric companies to buy power at a set price for the next 10 to 15 years. This would allow alternative energy projects to have a guaranteed return and thus enable them to get long-term financing.

While Craig wouldn’t divulge the cost of their system, he did say it was about half of a typical flat-panel installation, so I am guessing that the cost is about $4 per watt, which would mean they could produce power at less than 9.5c per kilowatt, which is the rate they would be selling it to the utilities.

He also threw out some other interesting numbers:

Their system requires 3 acres per MW or 100 MW per square mile, which is a higher power density than other systems
Oil imports comprise more than half of the U.S. deficit
Oil companies received about $17 billion last year in subsidies while solar industry only got $200 million.

Here are the complete notes:

RAV4-EV 146,000 Miles and Still Going

Max Dunn — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 08:33:00 -0700

RAV4-EV owners have a very high level of satisfaction with their electric cars. In particular, they pleased that their RAV4-EV NiMH batteries are still going strong past 100,000 miles and are only showing signs of slowing down when they start approaching 150,000 miles. As Avi Shai reported on the RAV4-EV mailing list:

Mine is at 146,037 miles. It sure is showing signs of advanced age.
The maximum SOC I see, after full charging, is around 92%. The volt meter movement is almost directly coupled to the accelerator paddle. Even moderate acceleration causes the needle to deep precipitously close to the yellow range. Going uphill is a risky business and I try to stay in the right lane and go slow (60-65 mph) otherwise I get a visit from the turtle.
The car still fatefully does the job it was intended to, and it takes me through my 90+ miles daily commute with no problem (charging at both ends).

So even though Avi’s batteries are definitely worn down, they still get him to work and back, which is a commute of over 90 miles. And this is on battery technology that is over 10 years old. With real-world experience like this, who can still say that battery technology isn’t ready yet to support electric vehicles?

Cost of a Solar Nation

Max Dunn — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:36:00 -0700

How much would it cost to build a solar nation? Here are some interesting numbers:

The IEA estimates that it will take a worldwide investment of $5.4 trillion dollars in oil exploration and development in order to meet the demand for oil in 2030, if oil usage continues to grow at its current rate. Since the U.S. uses about 25% of the worlds oil, our cost would be about $1.35 trillion.

Scientific American estimates that if we provide less than a third of this amount as a subsidy – $420 billion – then we can build a solar collection, storage and distribution system that would provide 69% of America’s electricity and 35% of it’s total energy by 2050.

So, can anyone say that building a solar nation is too expensive?

Solar Concentrators Below $1/watt

Max Dunn — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:58:00 -0700

Today I went to an interesting Energy Seminar at Stanford. The speaker was Scott Elrod who works for Parc and studied Applied Physics at Stanford. He was talking about a product they are working on called the SolFocus which is a concentrating solar collector and their hope is to get this down to $1/watt. Here are the notes from the talk:

NOVA Car of the Future

Max Dunn — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:29:00 -0700

Last night, NOVA broadcast an interesting and informative show about cars of the future. It includes segments on ethanol, biofuels, hydrogen, plug-in bybrids and electric cars. You can watch it online at:

NOVA – Car of the Future

China's CO2 Explosion

Max Dunn — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 23:02:00 -0700

China has overtaken the U.S. as the world’s biggest contributor to CO2 emissions, and a new study shows it growing much faster than expected.

Previously, experts put growth at 2.5% to 5% per year, but the real rate may be 11%, according to a new study. If this is the case, then between 2000 and 2010, the increase in China’s CO2 emissions will be more than 5 times greater than all the reductions that were expected under the Kyoto Protocol.

(From BusinessWeek, March 24, 2008)

Hydrogen Fueling Station: 10 Times Less Efficient

Max Dunn — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 13:21:00 -0700

A new $3.2 million hydrogen fueling station opened in Sacramento last week that has 80kW of solar PV panels are used to produce the hydrogen, so it won’t use any outside energy. Let’s take a look at how efficient this is:

SOLAR OUTPUT:

80 kW * 5hrs = 400 kWh per day

WITH FUEL CELL CARS:

400 kWh / 65 kWh per kG (Stuart Energy) = ~6 kG per day (AT 5000 PSI)
6 kG * 45 miles per kG = 270 miles per day
100,000 miles per year

WITH ELECTRIC CARS :

400 KWH * 3 miles per kWh (RAV4 EV) = 1200 EV miles per day
438,000 miles per year

Considering the solar array probably cost probably cost around $10/watt, or $800,000 out of $3,200,000, the hydrogen “refueling station” cost approximately $2,400,000.

If that money had been used to build $2,400,000 of solar installation plus $800,000 of EV chargers – about 240 kW of solar and 160 EV charger stations – enough for well over a million miles per year (80 cars worth) instead of just a hundred thousand hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle miles (8 cars worth). So the hydrogen fueling station is only 10% as efficient as building solar recharging stations for battery electric vehicles.

(From RAV4-EV Digest, Vol 58, Issue 12, comment by William Korthof of EESolar)

Cost Breakdown of a Gallon of Gas

Max Dunn — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 08:49:00 -0700

With gas prices spiking up, it is interesting to look at the breakdown of the cost of a gallon of gasoline.

A barrel of oil holds 42 gallons. So if oil is at $100 per barrel, a gallon would cost about $2.40. Refining the oil adds another $0.35 and taxes about $0.65 (in California). Add another $0.10 for distribution, marketing and profits, and you have a gallon of gas costing $3.50.

Using these same numbers, if oil goes to $200/barrel, a gallon of gas will cost almost $6!

How Not To Hire

Max Dunn — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:16:00 -0800

The other day, I was talking to my friend Bill Keller about the best way to hire people. He mentioned that it was important to have a defined company culture and to hire people that fit in with that culture. I thought this was a good idea. We also agreed that the normal process of interviewing people across a desk was almost worthless and only proved whether people had interviewing skills, but not whether they had the necessary job skills.

Another thing we agreed on was that most people will only hire people that are not as good as they are. Generally this is a self confidence issue because people worry that the person they hire could take over their job.

I certainly have fallen into this, in particular in a job a had right before I graduated from college. I had to hire a programmer to continue my work while I went home to fulfill a summer obligation. I was very conscious to hire someone that was good, but not too good so that I would have a job when I got back!

So if this is how most people behave, what happens when you allow a large group of people to decide who to hire? You end up with someone that is less capable than everyone making the decision!

So while it is good to involve other people in the hiring process and get their feedback, the worst thing to do when hiring someone is to do it based on the consensus of a group.

Surfline's April Fools Joke?

Max Dunn — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:23:00 -0800

The Surfline report said this morning about 38th Street:

Pretty much flat this morning

and about Pleasure Point

Maybe you could get up on a longboard but its pretty desperate.

Well Mark and I went anyways and were rewarded with a fantastic day of surf. For the first 40 minutes, we were the only two out at 38th Street. Then a few other people came, but it never got crowded. The waves weren’t big, lots of 2 and 3 foot waves, but they had nice shape and Mark and I caught a ton of waves and had a great time practicing walking on the board. The water was still a little cold, but the sun was out and the weather was nice and warm. I am not sure if Surfline meant this as an April’s Fool joke, but the bad report sure kept away the crowds and made it a fantastabulous day for us!

Trouble In Tibet: Rumors and Facts

Max Dunn — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:48:00 -0800

It is amazing how distorted a story can be when you hear only rumors about it. For instance, it was my impression that the recent trouble in Tibet was caused by the Chinese cracking down on the Tibetans, and this was also the impression of several people I talked to. But then I read “Trashing the Beijing Road” in the March 22nd, 2008 edition of The Economist and got quite a different picture.

It turns out that it wasn’t the Chinese security forces that started the trouble – the Tibetans started rioting after hearing rumors that the police beat a couple of Buddhist monks. The Tibetans smashed into non-Tibetans shops, pulling merchandise from the stores and lighting it on fire. Many Han Chinese were quick to flee, otherwise the death toll might have been much higher than the 13 people the government reported were killed by rioters, mostly in fires. Shops owned by Tibetans were marked with traditional white scarves – almost every other one was wrecked. During the night, fire trucks were sent in, backed by armored personnel carriers with riot police, to put out the biggest fires. But the police did not immediately move into the alleys where rioting continued for a second day.

Overall, the efforts of the security forces appeared relatively measured. Rather than going in with guns blazing, which was the tactic used in the last outbreak of anti-Chinese unrest in Lhasa in 1989, they chose to let the rioters vent their anger, then gradually go in several days later. The government’s decision not to declare martial law showed its concern about the Olympics, since the Olympic flame is due to arrive in Lhasa on June 20th.

While the rioting was started by the Tibetans, the Chinese government is not completely blameless. The surge of spending in Tibet and the region’s high growth rate has been seen as benefitting mostly the Han Chinese. Tibetans also resent the hardline tactics of Tibet’s party chief – a Han – who is seen as harassing the Tibetans and stepping up the official criticism of the Dalai Lama. Nonetheless, whether or not it was true the the monks were beaten, it was the Tibetans that started the riots and the security forces that showed restraint.

So here is an example where the real facts of a story were quite different from the initial impression. We should all keep this in mind when hearing rumors and wait for the full story before making any judgments.

CUSD Teachers' Raises

Max Dunn — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 05:51:00 -0800

Previously we looked at Cupertino Union School District (CUSD) teacher’s compensation. What about salary raises? Over the last 7 years, the CUSD teachers have received a cumulative raise of 38%:

2006-2007 8.39% increase in salary
2005-2006 5.00% increase in salary
2004-2005 3.07% increase in salary
2003-2004 0% (district funding was cut mid-year 1.2% during this year)
2002-2003 2.04% increase in salary
2001-2002 3.87% increase in salary
2000-2001 11.02% increase in salary

Reference: Negotiation Questions from the Community II

Boarding Pass Shiraz 2005

Max Dunn — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 11:46:00 -0800

Anyone can walk into a wine store and spend a lot of money to get a good bottle of wine. However, for my wife and me the fun part about buying wine is trying to find a good wine for less than $20 – preferably less than $15. These are not easy to find, and we end up with a lot of wine that is fine, but not great.

That is why we were very pleased to find that the Boarding Pass Shiraz 2005 was a really nice wine for about $15. It has a high alcohol content at 15.7%, but the fruit was not overpowering and it has a particularly nice herbal undertone. My wife is not a big Shiraz drinker, but she also enjoyed this wine, so that means it must be good!

Only Locally Grown Food After Peak Oil?

Max Dunn — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 20:33:00 -0800

Many peak oil people envision that after oil becomes scarce, civilization will revert back to the way it was 100 years ago. In particular, they feel that large, centralized farms will not be viable and that only locally grown food will be available. I believe otherwise. I think that centralized farming is much more energy efficient than a multitude of local farms and will continue to supply the bulk of our food.

This was reinforced by some statistics I saw that showed that out of the total energy needed to produce and prepare food, only 14% was related to transportation of that food. Since this is a small percentage of the total energy usage, and electric vehicles could make this even more efficient, you can’t make an argument that transporting food is going to be the main problem after peak oil

(From University of Michigan: Food Fact Sheet)

Cupertino Teacher's Compensation

Max Dunn — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 06:31:00 -0800

Most people assume that teachers make very little money. In some parts of the country, this is very true. However, in the Cupertino Union School District in California (CUSD), teachers are paid some of the highest salaries in the country.

For instance, a first year teacher starts at $51,071 per year. After 7 years, they can make $62,321. After 15 years, it jumps to $80,836. (These last two salary brackets require additional semester units be completed.)

What about work hours? Their contract requires teachers to work 6.75 hours per day (7.25 hours with a 30 minute lunch) for 187 day s a year. However, teachers will often spend more time preparing lesson plans, having parent conferences, coaching a team or working on a school play. So let’s assume most teachers work a 40-hour week. But teachers only work for 187 days a years, less than the average of 225 days that most Americans work.

This means that teachers work about 20% less days. Factoring this into their salary gives the equivalent (using the figures above) of about $61,000, $74,000 and $97,000 respectively.

Reference: CUSD Teacher Salary

Zapino Battery Report - 1000 miles

Max Dunn — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:18:00 -0800

I have put over 1,000 miles on my Zapino since we got it last August, and I was wondering if I needed to get a battery management system (BMS) to keep the batteries going as long as possible. So today, after a pretty long ride where the indicator started to dip into the red, I took off the covers and checked the voltage.

The batteries were labelled:

Electier
Danwant Silicone Power Battery
6-DW-38Ah (12V38Ah)

Before charging, the voltage on all 5 batteries was between 12.58V and 12.61V. During charging, it was from 14.5V to 14.9V. Then about 30 minutes after charging was done, they were between 13.52 and 13.54V. This is very close and within specs, so it looks like the batteries are doing fine and don’t need a BMS, at least for now.

Farting Along With Air Cars

Max Dunn — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 16:32:00 -0800

I was trying to explain to my wife how an air car worked, and with a smile on her face she said “So it farts as it moves forward?” Well maybe that sums it up nicely.

But do air cars really make sense? The information from the manufacturers seem like they are the solution to our energy crisis, and to everything else too [1]. But there are several fundamental problems with air cars.

Will Canadian Oil Sands Save Us?

Max Dunn — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 20:04:00 -0800

There is a lot of oil in Canadian oil sands. So it is easy to believe that even when OPEC’s production starts to fall, Canadian oil sands can make up the difference. However, the problem is not the amount of oil – the problem is separating the oil from the sand which is a slow and resource intensive process.

According to the Master’s thesis of Bengt Söderbergh [1], natural gas availability is likely to limit oil sands production in the long term to about 3.6 million barrels per day (mbd).

David Hughes, a geologist with Natural Resources Canada, believes that the peak will never exceed 2.5 mbd due to natural gas, water, diluent and infrastructure constraints. [2]

For comparison, the U.S. uses 22 mbd and worldwide demand is 86 mbd. So it is unlikely the Canadian oil sands will be able to ever provide a significant amount of the world’s oil.

Saudi's Admit Peak Production?

Max Dunn — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:02:00 -0800

Last weekend, the Saudi Oil Minister, Ali al-Naimi said, “From now there’s a line below which prices won’t fall.” Further, he added that the Saudis have no plans to expand oil production beyond the 12.5 million barrels per day it hopes to have by 2009.

This statement could be the first real admission by the Saudis that they can’t pump as much extra oil as they previously claimed, and a real sign that they have reached, or are close to, peak production.

What is Web 3.0?

Max Dunn — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 08:08:00 -0800

Even while we continue to work on and define what Web 2.0 really is, many people have started to ask what is next; what is Web 3.0? Here is the answer: Web 3.0 is when all the Web 2.0 applications can start working together.

Independent Summary For Policymakers (ISPM)

Max Dunn — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:07:00 -0800

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the scientific body that researches climate change for the United Nations (UN) and released their Fourth Assesment Report (AR4) in 2007. There are numerous experts participating in the IPCC, and a lot of good science is contained in these reports.

However, there is a big problem with the summary that is included with the IPCC report – the Summary For Policymakers (SPM). This summary is not written by the scientists themselves but by unnamed bureaucratic delegates from the participating countries. As such, they tend to oversimplify and bias the actual results contained in the full report.

So I found that the Independent Summary For Policymakers to be more balanced and representative of the actual report than the SPM itself. The ISPM was prepared by qualified experts, but who were not themselves IPCC chapter authors. The ISPM was subject to expert review and the reviewer’s responses are tabulated so there is a clear record to the extent that the reviewers agreed or disagreed with the ISPM.

Electric Vehicle Battery Costs Per Mile

Max Dunn — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:44:00 -0800

When companies talk about electric vehicles costing pennies per mile in electricity costs to operate, they are being truthful. However, with current battery costs and lifetimes, the battery replacement cost in an electric vehicle will be more than the electricity cost. Let’s look more closely at this.

What is a "Moped"?

Max Dunn — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:07:00 -0800

After my stop yesterday by the policeman who thought my electric Zapino scooter was a motorcycle and I shouldn’t be riding in the bike lane, I decided to try to find out more information about what California Motor Vehicle law says about this. I found this interesting “Motorized Bicycle Instruction/Application” from the DMV site that defines a “motorized bicycle” (also commonly known as a “moped”):

Having two or three wheels
Fully operative pedals or powered solely by electric power
Maximum speed of 30 MPH on level ground
Automatic transmission and a motor with less than 2 gross brake horsepower

The first two requirements are easily met, and for the third, Zap states that it can only go 30 MPH, but the Zapino actually can go a bit faster. Regarding the fourth point it does have an automatic transmission but the 3000 watt Zapino motor puts out about 4 HP, which exceeds the maximum 2 HP allowed for a motorized bicycle.

Based on this, the Zapino is close to being a motorized bicycle, but not quite since it has more power than is allowed. However, since most people want know the conversion between watts and HP, it is not obvious whether the Zapino is a motorized bicycle or not.