The Falling Leaf

The price of the Nissan Leaf fully electric car has been reduced by $6,500 or about 18% of the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP).  Nissan claims this is because the Leaf will now be produced in Smyrna Tennessee rather than in Japan and there will be savings using US labor in the shiny new factory Dr. Chu loaned Nissan.  Actually the price drop is a desperate attempt to keep the Leaf on the Tree of Life and not become a fallen leaf air blown into a large black Hefty garbage bag.

Funny how most if not all air blowers are still gasoline powered and very noisy.  Here in California a good fraction of the “gardeners” who blow leaves around gardens in upscale homes don’t really care about the Nissan Leaf or the Tesla they just worry if their 20 year old Toyota Pickup with 300,000 miles on the odometer they use for their “Mow and Blow” business will not conk out.  These immigrant businessmen know that the internal combustion engine works.  It works on their leaf blowers, lawn mowers, and old pickup trucks.  They do not need Dr. Chu’s money to keep them going, unless Dr. Chu is a Plastic Surgeon and lives in Beverly Hills.

When Nissan drastically lowered the MSRP of a new Leaf they blew away the value of a used Leaf.  The few poor schmucks who bought the old Japanese model saw their Kelly Blue Book (KBB) value drop like a stone.  I checked kbb.com on the retail price of a 2011 Leaf with 3,500 miles and it is about $19,500 at the Infinity dealership 5 miles away.  This is half the original price of the fully electric car when it was new 18 months ago.  The plug in car has all of 3,500 miles as the device has short range and the owner probably had a real second car.  Amortizing the lost $19,500 over the $3,500 miles we have a cost of $5.57 per mile simply for the lost value. 

Interestingly the Chev Volt which has an internal combustion engine to provide it full range and only uses the batteries for a small fraction of its driving has not had a MSRP decrease.  An 18 month old used Volt with 20,000 miles still retains approximately 85% of its original value.   There is no doubt it was dumber to buy a Leaf than a Volt, 18 months ago.   The owner of the Volt should have bought a Chevy Cruze and done better, therefore I will not applaud the Volt’s owner for being a Rhode’s Scholar but at least they are not as dumb as the schmuck who bought a Leaf.  The dumbest guy in the entire group early adopters in the electric vehicle space is the person who bought a Coda.  To guess the loss on a Coda you need a special decoder.

As for Dr. Chu he claims “he is still standing” when asked if he accomplished anything in his first term as secretary of energy.  Yeah Stevie you are making Custer’s Last Stand in the electric vehicle space.  You gave Nissan $1.5 billion for the Leaf and its associated lithium ion battery factory there in Smyrna.   I wonder if Boeing has asked you to solve the pyrophoric problems of their lithium ion battery?  My suggestion to Boeing is to pull out all the lithium ion batteries in the Dreamliner and replace them with heavier and larger nickel metal hydride batteries.  It may waste some space and require a little more jet fuel per trip but at least you will have a fleet of planes that are allowed to fly.  The FAA  may actually be the federal agency that tells us the truth about lithium ion batteries.

Coda Blue

Coda Automotive Inc. is on life support after having only sold perhaps a total of a hundred of their Chinese supplied electric cars to the Los Angeles based privately owned auto company.  Green Car Reports posted two interesting articles showing the desperation at CODA.   The first article reported that the company closed their flagship showroom at the Westfield Century City Mall in Southern California.  The second article reported that the CODA dealership in the San Francisco Bay Area has massively discounted the few remaining CODA’s in stock.

I called the Northern California dealership on Tuesday and they had a lone blue-black CODA in stock and after they sell this car they are closing the CODA showroom that is located in Santa Clara.  The good news for you the tax payer is all of CODA’s losses will be bared by private investors as this is one case where Obama did not provide DOE funding.  I doubt the decision not to fund CODA was because the DOE was suddenly brilliant in its analysis of CODA’s business plan but simply because the folks behind CODA were not bundlers for the president.   In fact, some of the private money invested in CODA came from Hank Paulson the secretary of the treasury under George W. Bush.

It is interesting that John Bryson the commerce secretary under Barak H. Obama is also an investor in CODA.  John was a director of Boeing and we know how Lithium Ion batteries have caused the grounding of the entire fleet of Dreamliners.   Lithium was not good for CODA and Boeing but it may be needed by the pundits who thought the Sino-US tie up in CODA would be the wave of the future in automobiles.  One such pundit was Thomas Freidman who is the “futurist” at the New York Times.  In December 2009 Friedman wrote:

“The Coda, 14,000 of which will be on the road in California over the next year and can travel 100 miles on one overnight charge, is a combination of Chinese-made batteries and complex American-system electronics — all final-assembled in Oakland (price: $37,000). It is a win-win start-up for both countries.“

It is quite amazing how wrong Thomas Friedman, Hank Paulson, and John Bryson were on the suitability of Lithium Ion batteries in plug-in automobiles.   Actually these three big shots never studied Thermodynamics 101 and should simply stick to their knitting.  Yeah they should repeat one thousand times “one plain, one pearl” as they spin their yarns about the demise of the internal combustion engine. 

The Debt Crisis – Dr. King and Obama

In 1963 when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made his “I have a dream” speech in the nation’s capital the US had a debt of $254 billion.  Dr. King eloquently reminded the crowd that the US also had a debt and a promissory note to offer all of its people equal rights.  Dr. King addressed this promissory note as follows:

“In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Fast forward to Obama’s second inauguration today, our government has signed promissory notes to the extent of $16 trillion some 64 times as much as was financially owed back in 1963.  Yes the note back at the time of the declaration of independence was the guaranteed right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  It was never intended that the US would go on a joy ride and simply owe the Communist Chinese over a trillion dollars with a president who is doing nothing about it.

Obama can pretend he is the reincarnation or King, Lincoln, and Washington but he is simply fooling himself and the American people.  His task ahead is to start to pay the promissory notes and not to add to them.  We all want our inalienable rights.  The first of which is government of, for and by the people.  Obama may want to stop global warming and continue to invest in green energy which was part of his address today but first he has to take accountability for his past mistakes and sheer incompetence.

Dr. King continued his famous speech as follows:

“It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.”

Dr King intended that the Negro would attain the prosperity of the rest of Americans and not that the rest of Americans would drop their living standards to those who live “on a lonely island of poverty”.   If Obama has any talent, skill, honesty, capability, or leadership he will quickly drop the idiotic notion that Al Gore’s green agenda will create economic uplifting jobs.  Obama will realize while he signs executive orders on recycled paper to lower carbon emission the Chinese build coal power stations and buy our promissory notes to own us. 

Kicking the fiscal cliff can down the road is precisely the “gradualism” Dr. King warned of.  Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of financial irresponsibility and now is the time to reinstate the “solid rock” of our bond rating.  Mr. Obama I bet if Senator Lloyd Bentsen was still alive he would say  today “ I knew Martin Luther King, Martin Luther King was a friend of mine,  Mr. President you’re no Martin Luther King.”

I Have a Dream - MLK and Green

Tomorrow we celebrate the birthday of a very fine American as a national holiday.  Martin Luther King Junior was born on January 15, 1929.  His given name was Michael Luther King Jr. and he changed Michael to Martin.  He also simply changed the world by the speeches, actions, and deeds he gave us all in his short life.

The conservatives are claiming that MLK was a conservative hero.   The progressives have always claimed that MLK was a liberal.  It is very befitting that folks from both sides of the political spectrum claim MLK as a hero as he is and must continue to be a hero to all. 

If MLK was still alive he would be happy with the progress the country has made in race relations.  But I think he would be mighty sad about how the pretend do-gooders and their puppet government have used the green calling to screw the poor and middle class with high price renewable electricity and fuel.   He would be disgusted how we use 40% of our corn crop for ethanol and how this caused food shortages for many in Latin America and Africa.   He would be disgusted that the President has selected Hagel for defense secretary when Hagel was the loudest proponent of corn ethanol and the loudest opponent of the Kyoto Protocol when he was the Senator for the Cornhusker State.

He would be utterly dismayed that an ex Vice President of the USA is making a fortune promoting an inefficient, dirty and expensive power generation technology in the Bloom Box and that the Federal Government gives a 30% investment tax credit to the rich owners of the device so the poor and middle class can pay high prices for electricity under long term power purchase agreements their state governments have mandated.  Delaware even pretended the natural gas that powers the bloom box is a “renewable” fuel to meet renewable mandates.

He would be disgusted that the Secretary of Energy who won a Nobel Prize in low temperature physics could have blown billions on private companies that had Rube Goldberg technologies in the green-space simply because his boss told him to ignore science and assist the political bundlers who helped get the boss elected.  He would be disgusted that it costs a billion dollars to buy the presidency.

When MLK made his I have a dream speech on August 28, 1963 he could not have imagined that the US would amass 16 trillion dollars of debt over the next 50 years with much owed to the communist Chinese and still not be able to educate its children well nor provide basic services for its citizens.  He certainly knew that greedy people would manipulate the populace with propaganda.  But he could not have dreamed how far an ex Vice President of the USA would take this manipulation of the truth to the next level simply to pocket hundreds of millions of bucks.  Fifty years after the “I have a dream” speech America wake up and listen to your real heroes like MLK and discard fake prophets like Al Gore who simply profit from your misfortune. 

I too have a dream and it is that you all reflect on the words of MLK speech that are copied below.   He truly was a hero to all and the conservatives as well as the progressives should reclaim liberty for all and rid ourselves of disgusting opportunists who prey on all.

By The Rev. MARTIN LUTHER KING Jr.

Aug. 28, 1963

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.

But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

Fisker Gets a Makeover But DOE May Not

The Detroit Auto show featured some fine new automobiles.  This year the electric plug ins took second stage to powerful new cars with internal combustion engines.  Fisker the brain-child of Al Jazeera Gore did not attend the show as they simply have not built a car in the last seven months and they are awaiting a new supply of batteries from the now bankrupt A 123.  But there was a modified Fisker that was a star of the Detroit Auto Show

This car is the VL Destino which is a Fisker Karma with the crappy electric and puny internal combustion engine drivetrain removed and replaced with a massive 670 horsepower V8 from a Corvette ZR1.  Voila the Fisker became a real car and stole the show.  Interestingly the Destino is more than half a ton lighter than the Karma by jettisoning the heavy battery pack that Al Gore invented when not working on the internet or counting his millions of dollars.  Yes the man who could not carry his own state in the 2000 presidential elections pocketed another $29 million for his Apple stock options.

Amazing how Alaric can make so much money and be so wrong.  The only thing he added to Apple was to convince them to use his Bloom Energy Box at their data center in North Carolina.  Apple could have simply bought power from the grid but chose to self-generate their own power using the Bloom Boxes Al and his pals at Kleiner Perkins own.  I have often blogged that based on the permit application data in Delaware the Bloom Boxes are dirty, inefficient, contain hazardous material, and of course generate power for three times the cost of alternate cleaner methods. 

Yes Al Gore pockets $29 million for his Apple options while the rest of Apple’s shareholders get screwed by the company’s decision to deploy Bloom Boxes.  Reuters finally reported on how Kleiner Perkins lost it by investing in green companies.  Perhaps Al can give the $29 million of ill-gotten gains to other rich people who lost money by investing in green funds run by him at Kleiner Perkins.

The great news of the week from Bloomberg was that the Chu Chu Train is leaving the Department of Entropy.  Not a moment too soon for this other Nobel Prize winner who cost us billions of dollars for his green dreams and flopped investments in crappy companies like Fisker and A 123.  Perhaps Chu will also be invited to join the board of Apple or become a partner at Kleiner Perkins. 

But hold your ten gallon gasoline hats he may not actually be leaving.  Huffington reports the Chu Chu is not leaving the station with the burning platform and is “focused on his job”.  Well Stevie Wonder I hope that you find a new optometrist to give you a new set of specs so you can actually focus correctly because you have been blind for four years.

Perhaps Chu can go to Detroit and inspect the Destino and can then opine on the merits of removing the A 123 battery pack he sponsored from the crappy Karma he sponsored.  Looking at the shiny big V8 engine in the Destino may help him focus more clearly on real energy policy if we are unfortunate to have him continue as being the US Secretary of Entropy.  It kind of makes sense that the signals out of the department of entropy about Chu’s future are disordered and in chaos. 

A Cold Morning In California

My car had ice on its windshield this morning.  San Francisco California is actually colder today than New York City.  Typically the cities on the Atlantic coast such as Boston, New York, and Baltimore have a very cold January the 13^th while San Francisco is considered to be a warm weather winter destination.  Right now it is 45 degrees Fahrenheit in New York City and only 40 degrees in San Francisco.

Al Jazeera Gore is not pronouncing that a cold Pacific is a result of global warming yet he is quick to pronounce that the warmer than usual Atlantic is certainly caused by global warming.  But Al Crapone is taking his eye off of the Atlantic and is now focusing on the Pacific.   Is he going to move to San Francisco now that it is really cool to be here?  No he is eyeing China as the cornerstone of his global automotive enterprise.

Gore’s brainchild electric plug in auto company Fisker is now eyeing partners in China to continue the charade of saving the world from carbon emissions.  “BEIJING, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Top executives at Fisker Automotive Inc., maker of the sleek Karma plug-in hybrid, are scouring Asia - in particular, China - for funding and strategic partners that are viewed as crucial to the automaker's success, four people familiar with the matter said.”

Fisker lied to the State of Delaware that they would employ thousands of folks in the First State to build the Fisker Karma and then the Fisker Atlantic.  Even the darling of the left Governor of Delaware, Mr. Markell, is now questioning whether this failed auto company that sells auto igniting cars to the rich and famous will ever build a single “affordable” $50,000 Atlantic in the assembly plant the State of Delaware has been paying utility bills to keep “warm” and ready for Fisker’s promised to be large auto assembly operation.

Alfonso, I personally welcome your strategy to rename the Atlantic the Pacific and move to the very Far East.  Please go with Fisker on a slow boat to China and please never return!  While you do this please take your Bloom Box with you and leave the small state free of any wasteful connection to your plain dumb gangrene ideas of plug in cars and fool cells.

I will not tell the Chinese the actual carbon emissions of your Bloom Box that we all know by your own admission in Delaware to be 884 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour.  You and your team can continue to use the faked out numbers you claim on Bloom’s web site.    Your Fisker can plug into the Chinese power grid with the highest fraction of coal generation other than in South Africa.  Yes you can lie in Mandarin that you have green technology to offer the Chinese as they embark on emitting more and more carbon dioxide, acid rain forming gases, and mercury and other poisonous heavy metals to keep Fisker a going concern.

But before you abandon the warm Atlantic for the cold Pacific I expect you and your partners will pay back the US Government and the State of Delaware the tax payer funds you obtained with lies about your Fisker and your Bloom Box.  Perhaps the newly Jazeerad up Current TV can provide the renewable electric current to the Chinese for charging up the “Fisker Pacific”.  The Chinese may love the anti-American reporting and will get a charge that a person who once took the oath of office for Senator and Vice President of the United States is a partner of Al Jazeera. The flu epidemic is bad this year but Al you actually will make SARs look like a common cold after you infect the Chinese with gangrene.