This essay is my personal experience in having had a lack of
representation from my Federal Government.
I write for The Tiburon Ark (my local paper), GreenExplored.com, and Breitbart.com. But at heart I am a Chemical
Engineer. Actually I am a
well-regarded Chemical Engineer who was awarded the 2011 Professional
Development Award by the Northern California Section of the American Institute
of Chemical Engineers. This award for a
lifetime of work in Chemical Engineering has traditionally been bestowed on a
distinguished professor at Berkeley or Stanford. On this basis, I believe I have standing as a
Chemical Engineer. I did graduate
studies in thermodynamics and have worked for over 35 years in applying
Chemical Engineering. This work included
manufacturing of cryogenic materials, solid state devices, and complex
biological monoclonal antibodies and proteins.
Based on the aforementioned capabilities one would think
that my Congresswoman (Lynn Woolsey) the
ranking Democrat for the house subcommittee, for science, space and technology
might have listened to my numerous pleas.
I requested a review the science supporting the “Obama-Chu energy policy”
and I forewarned her that much “government money” would be wasted on what I
termed as Betamax Technology. My
Congresswoman has placated me and simply ignored my pleas. Worse still totally ignored my sage advice that
could have been used for our collective good.
She was not a high ranking Democrat in DC and she often acted as a submissive
puppy dog of her party, however she was the ranking democrat on that important subcommittee
and she could have acted forcefully on my apolitical concerns. My biggest disappointment was that she was my
representative in my House of Representatives and she simply did not represent
me. Thankfully, she will retire this
year and I am hopeful that whoever assumes her chair will start to more ably
represent not only myself but all other constituents in our congressional
district.
I did not solely ask my representative to convey my views on
the wasteful funding of so called “green technologies”. I also continued to alert readers of my blog
and newspaper articles as to waste going on in Sacramento and Washington DC. I hosted an internet radio show on Blog Talk
Radio that exposed the gangrene nature of these “supposed green technologies”. One firm in particular caught my
attention. This firm is now defunct but was
then trading on the New York Stock Exchange and this firm was Raser
Technologies of Utah. Raser had been touting
that their modified Hummer achieved an efficiency of 100 MPG. Raser had excellent PR folks that convinced then
Governor Schwarzenegger of California and Senator Hatch of Utah to publicize
the brilliance of their improved Hummer.
Their modified Hummer essentially mimicked a Fisker or a Volt by using a
small gasoline engine which charged a set of lithium ion batteries. The batteries were also charged with a plug
in from the electric grid.
I reviewed the claims Raser was making. I quickly realized their claim of 100 MPG was
when the vehicle undertook a trip that was propelled mainly by a fully charged
battery and then was powered for a minimal remaining distance by running the
gasoline engine. Raser then divided the
full trip mileage by the small quantity of gasoline they used. Voila the
behemoth vehicle was “capable” of achieving 100 MPG. Raser did not account for the energy used to
charge the batteries which propelled the vehicle for the majority of the
trip. This calculation was never told to
then Governor Schwarzenegger or Senator Hatch.
In fact Raser took these two important elected officials for a ride. In July 2009, I had Raser’s VP of Marketing David
West as a guest on my Blog
Talk Radio show. It was apparent
that the thermodynamic knowledge and he were distant cousins. I predicted Raser’s demise and it did occur soon
thereafter.
In January 2010, I followed Raser’s press release that announced that
their CEO Kraig Higgenson was to be a witness at a committee hearing to be held
in the US Senate on February 23, 2010. The hearing titled “Electric vehicles in the light duty automotive
sector” was held
before the US Senate Committee on Appropriations. For those who are interested here is
the webcast
of the proceedings of that hearing.
Hearing that The CEO of Raser would present the fantasy of a
100 MPG Hummer at a US Senate appropriation committee hearing got my juices
flowing. I knew I would likely not be
called as an attending witness to the hearing.
I then submitted an essay on the science behind lithium ion batteries as
an outside witness to the hearing. I
knew that
this essay would become part of the record. This essay titled “The Thermodynamics and Economics of Lithium Batteries” has now become
the “I told you so” event foretelling the debacle of electric and plug in
vehicles. The debacle started with the
demise of Raser Technologies, and then continued with the disastrous
performances of ENER1, Fisker, Tesla, and A 123.
One may ask: why a sole experienced Chemical Engineer could
have been far more correct than all the minions of folks who benefitted from
the lithium ion fake out? I think it is
because I studied thermodynamics at Iowa State University in 1977 as a graduate
student and I never sold out the laws of thermodynamics. I simply looked at the technology and without
bias and I chose to report the science not the hope of the technology. In 2003 I had similarly written a book titled Hydrogen Hope or Hype?
that simply explained energy and sustainability.
Secretary Chu and his team at the Department of Energy (including
Dr. Henry Kelly who also gave testimony at the February 23, 2010 Senate hearing)
had this naïve and erroneous belief that the costs of lithium ion batteries
would drop as had computer chips and LCD displays. Having worked on producing computer chips and
LCD displays I knew that electrons do not take up volume but the ions of
chemicals and the chemicals themselves do take up volume. I knew that to lower the cost of computer
chips was not a problem constrained by thermodynamics and reaction kinetics. I also knew batteries are constrained by
these basic chemical engineering principals.
You see I knew that hope was not a strategy to lower costs!
Unfortunately even after massive failure bordering on
disgraceful waste of taxpayers’ money, Secretary of Energy Chu continues to
place unbridled hope on continued cost reduction in green technology. In an article he recently coauthored in the
prestigious journal Nature (Volume 488 August 16, 2012 pages 294 to 303) the
Secretary admits the lithium ion batteries still cost $650 per kilowatt hour of
usable energy to produce. Dr. Chu
continues to believe the cost will drop to $150 per kilowatt hour by 2030. If the batteries have a production cost $650
per kilowatt hour, and the battery manufacturer needs a margin to remain in
business, they have to sell the batteries to a car company for at least $800
per kilowatt hour. A car company like Tesla
also has to make a margin on the sale of their car causing them to charge
$1,000 per kilowatt hour in the battery pack of their car. If the base model Tesla S has a battery pack
with 40 kilowatt hours, Tesla has to sell only the battery pack for $40,000. We will simply never have the $50,000 Tesla
Model S for the masses. Dr. Chu you
loaned Tesla almost a half billion dollars to produce the $50,000 car that
cannot be produced with a profit.
Profits sustain businesses!
Clint Eastwood used the metaphor of an empty chair for the
absent President. I have the feeling Mr. Eastwood would use the dim flickering of
an almost dead flashlight losing charge as the metaphor of the Secretary of
Energy and his dream of low cost lithium ion batteries.
For me the election of 2012 is about representation. I expect the next President to listen to
Science when it comes to Energy Policy.
I hope my next Congressman (yes two men are running) will embrace the
advice of a concerned citizen who has some wisdom to shine on the energy policy. Voting is important but representation is paramount. I do not want any more empty chairs or
flashlights that are about to go out. I
want the chairs to be occupied by capable leaders and I want the flashlights to
shine brightly on a coherent and Science based Energy Policy. As a start I suggest that all who set energy
policy read two items I have written.
The first is the outside witness testimony to the US Senate from
February 2010 and the second is Hydrogen Hope or Hype? my book on energy and sustainability
from 2003. You see thermodynamics never
changes but those who lead certainly will.