Better Place is Lost in Space Dumb gets Dumber

UPDATE October 6 .  I just added this link that points out more of who is involved in this gangrene saga

http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000788263&fid=4380

Today (0ctober 2 2012) it was announced that Shai Agassi was fired as the CEO of Project Better Place after approximately half a billion dollars of losses in the hair brain scheme be an "operational" company that provides swapped out batteries to electric vehicle owners.

http://www.industryleadersmagazine.com/better-place-ousted-ceo-agassi-due-to-financial-losses/


The blog below was posted in December 2010 the day after Shai Agassi appeared on Charlie Rose to hype his approach to bring electric cars to the world.  Here is a link to the Charlie Rose video of the interview.

 http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11323

 If you have 30 minutes to waste you can watch the interview.  In summary Shai tells Charlie the following:

Shimon Peres the President of Israel challenged him to give up on being the CEO of SAP to start Better Palce

He stated that every 2 years the cost to performance ratio of lithium ion batteries would halve

He stated that by 2020 China will build 40 million electric vehicles a year

He stated that Better Place needed to market a larger car than the Nissan Leaf and hence they chose the Renault.

Here is my blog from 20 months ago that was titled Dumb Gets Dumber



If one set of lithium ion batteries for a plug in vehicle is not a dumb enough idea some guys have come up with the brainwave that multiple sets of lithium ion batteries should be used for a plug in vehicle. Why the need for multiple sets of batteries? So that one can pull up to a service station that has a robot that quickly extracts the on board battery pack and replaces it with a freshly charged pack. Forget that the first battery pack was unaffordable we can quickly change out that unaffordable pack for the next doubly unaffordable pack.

This is the brainchild of a guy named Shai (pronounced Shy) Agassi and his company called Project Better Place. Well my name for his company is “Lost in Space” and his first name should be “Not So Shy” for the almost billion dollars he has raised from idiots in the investment and government community. Last night Not So Shy was on Charlie Rose on Bloomberg touting his brilliant idea and how the great State of California will soon have 50 taxis that run between San Francisco and San Jose that will use his Lost In Space technology. Great a bankrupt state will have 50 taxis out of a fleet of 20 million private vehicles with multiple sets of batteries that no one can afford.

What really got the hair up on my back was when Not So Shy told Charlie Rose that he just met with the Brazilian Foreign Minister and suggested that Brazil use the ethanol the country produces to generate electricity and not use it for a liquid fuel for vehicles. Here is the link to that Charlie Rose interview http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11323 Not So Shy certainly has thermodynamic chutzpah.

I have opined that ethanol as a transportation fuel is dumb, but at least Brazil produces its ethanol from cane sugar and actually has an economic model for ethanol fuel production. Shai here is a lesson from Thermodynamics 101 and Economics 101. Electric power in Brazil is valued at retail at about 8 US cents per KWh. Ethanol is valued at retail at $2.90 per gallon. There are approximately 22 KWh of energy in a gallon of ethanol, therefore as a liquid fuel ethanol’s value is 13 US cents per KWh. OK boy genius Mr. Not So Shy why would a firm take something that sells for 13 cents then lose half the energy generating power while spending tons of capital and then only get half of 8 cents or 4 cents for your product. This is the same economics as your dumb idea to have multiple unaffordable batteries for a car.

Not So Shy does not really care about economics he cares about the environment of our planet and increasing carbon dioxide. Yes his mission is to save the world. His investors and partners include: A123 batteries, HSBC Bank, Lazard, Morgan Stanley, Renault, and Vantage Point Venture Partners. The only guy missing for the take off of Lost in Space is old Bernie who burned on the launch pad. I plead to my readers not to believe this junk science that is made of the same cloth as Bloom Energy.

It is kind of sad that a guy as smart as Charlie Rose could not ask Not So Shy to explain the second law of thermodynamics and how a second set of lithium ion batteries from A123 that cost $50,000 for the Renault ne marche pas Affluence ZE makes any sense to anyone other than Not So Shy who is the grand wizard behind the Lost in Space company.

LEED Gold Destiny for Syracuse Mall

After years of funding problems, legal issues, and construction delays, the Carosel Center shopping mall expansion in Syracuse, NY, dubbed "Destiny USA", made some GREEN news this month. The developer announced the huge 850,000 sq ft. new space will in fact seek Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification including the over 100 new retail tenant spaces.

If other American cities absolutely have to build or expand shopping malls, which is certain to occur under our current economic growth paradigm, then Syracuse's green mall could be an example for others to follow (certainly not the multiple stoppages of construction due to bank loan refusals, layoffs, legal battles, bad press, doubts about how good going green is, etc. but the actual energy and water savings/ recycled materials stuff, yes). Wonder if going green will get any easier?

~Mark Bremer, Green Explored Contributor

Destiny USA in Syracuse Aims to be America's Largest LEED® Gold Certified Commercial Retail Project; More than 100 Tenant Retail Spaces to Also be Certified

1

At 2.4 million square feet Destiny USA will be the country's 6th largest shopping destination

SYRACUSE, N.Y., Oct. 11, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Destiny USA is pleased to announce the successful implementation of the Master Site feature from the 2010 LEED Application Guide for Multiple Buildings and On-Campus, which could permanently alter the way developers approach the construction of large-scale shopping and entertainment venues. The Master Site feature in the 2010 AGMBC allows for the inclusion of the mall master plan that will seek to certify its entire 850,000 square foot expansion project with a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design ("LEED") designation, as well as more than 100 individual tenant spaces within the expansion.

Destiny USA has successfully achieved pre-approval for a number of site-wide LEED credits and prerequisites that are common to all the mall tenants. This effort is the first time a Master Site has been applied to a large mall property, and is a perfect match for the 25-year commitment of Destiny USA founder Bob Congel to cleaning up the Syracuse lakefront area.

Destiny USA's application for LEED certification, with the goal of LEED Gold, includes a variety of cutting edge sustainable features. The project's rainwater harvesting system, in combination with low flow toilet fixtures will conserve more than 4 million gallons of water annually and re-use the gray water in non-potable uses such as toilet flushing. The building's focus on energy efficiency includes daylight harvesting, LED lighting, and a cool roof to reflect heat from the sun. The building's roof already hosts an urban wind demonstration project. Over 90% of all building materials have been recycled, and 7,000 tons of used material has been kept from local landfills. All of the recycled marble, for example, went to Habitat for Humanity. 23,000 tons of 95% recycled steel was used for the project's structure. The vehicles operating during the construction of the expansion have been powered by bio-diesel fuel; with Destiny itself purchasing over 270,000 gallons of bio-diesel that has been consumed.

"I began my career as a contractor working on clean water projects, and I always had a passion to merge economic development with environmental protection," said Mr. Congel, adding that he has been very enthused by the efforts of the U.S. Green Building Council(USGBC), and has closely followed their progress the past few years. "We knew from our first interaction that Destiny was going to be a ground-breaking green project. The history of this site set the perfect foundation for us to seize the opportunity to apply that commitment to sustainability, conservation, and efficiency."

USGBC has been involved with Destiny since 2002. Rick Fedrizzi, the founding chair of USGBC, is a Syracuse native and has worked with the Destiny team to encourage them to maximize their green efforts. Fedrizzi has championed LEED, turning it into an internationally-recognized green building certification system. LEED buildings lower operating costs through efficiency, reduce waste sent to landfills, conserve energy and water, and reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions.

"This project is important to me and to USGBC," said Rick Fedrizzi, President, CEO & Founding Chair, U.S. Green Building Council. "Not only is it in my backyard but it will also be a showcase in the community for what can be done with green building and LEED. The visitors who walk through the Destiny USA doors every day will learn about the importance of green building and be able to see today's latest green building strategies in action."

The Destiny USA team also thinks that this commitment to the environment and sustainability is a vital marketing tool when working to attract global retail and entertainment brands. "I've had the chance to get to know and work with leading CEO's of these brands and a major part of their interest in Syracuse, particularly our counterparts from Europe, is the work we have done through the years to revitalize an old oil wasteland into a premier retail destination," said Mr. Congel.

One of the national brands that has already committed to the process to be a LEED certified tenant is modern Mexican food restaurant Cantina Laredo.

"We at Cantina Laredo have been moving closer and closer to LEED over the years by utilizing LED lighting, high efficiency hot water heaters, high efficiency HVAC and energy star kitchen equipment," said Rocky Vanover, VP of Design and Construction. "It is now time to move to the next step, which we are excited that it will be through partnering with Destiny USA."

Mr. Congel grew up just a few blocks from the project, and he vividly recalls the history of the area. Over the past two decades, he and his team have invested over $1 billion in the Syracuse, NY lakefront area. This money and future investment also includes the clean-up of 150 acres of land once dubbed "Oil City" because of the proliferation of petroleum storage tanks that dotted the Onondaga lakefront.

"Our development work goes against the traditional model, from working in an urban setting to the site we chose, with its environmental challenges, when other easier options have always been available," added Mr. Congel

When work is completed on the current phase in spring 2012, the 2.4 million square foot complex will include upwards of 264 different businesses, including new luxury outlets, national restaurants, company stores, off price retail and regional entertainment venues.

Destiny USA is a new 2.4 million square foot destination that includes Carousel Center, a dominant super regional shopping center already attracting 20 million annual visits. The new construction will mix all types of retail including; luxury outlet tenants, restaurants and entertainment. A stunning three-story glass atrium will provide perfect weather year round. This exciting destination is designed to attract tourists, Canadians, destination shoppers and extend the draw of regional visitors well beyond a typical trade area. Oxford Economics has projected an annual visitation of over 29 million. Further development plans incorporate more than 120 acres of adjoining property, including hotels.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/destiny-usa-in-syracuse-aims-to-be-americas-largest-leed-gold-certified-commercial-retail-project-more-than-100-tenant-retail-spaces-to-also-be-certified-131520943.html

Spain Lowers Speed Limit

The Spanish government has announced plans to reduce the speed limit on motorways from 120 kilometers per hour to 110 kilometers per hour. The reduced speed is being implemented not for safety reasons but to reduce fuel consumption in this nation that imports all of its oil. The Green Machine applauds the Spanish government for their understanding of physics. The power needed to break through air resistance is proportional to the cube of the velocity at which the vehicle travels. The power to overcome rolling resistance is proportional to the velocity. On the freeway air resistance is the dominant consumer of a vehicle’s engine power. Performing the tedious math one can concur with the Spanish government’s analysis that by invoking the new speed limit on the motorways owners of gasoline powered cars will save 15% and owners of diesel powered cars will save 10% of their historic fuel consumption. The reason why the savings are larger at this reduced speed for gasoline powered cars than diesel cars is that gasoline cars at the lower speed will operate at a more optimum point in their efficiency versus power curve. Diesel engines have almost a constant efficiency rating at most points in their power curve.

Now that the Spaniards have realized the velocity of vehicle affects the fuel consumption perhaps we will deal with the three other major variables that also affect fuel efficiency. The first variable is the mass of the vehicle, the second the frontal area of the vehicle and the third is the coefficient of drag of the vehicle. Most cars and trucks now all look the same as companies have been able to wind tunnel test their vehicles to develop shapes that minimize the coefficient of drag. The Hummer was a design that simply did not even attempt to lessen the coefficient of drag and resembled the shape of a brick. The Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight can easily be mistaken as the other as these two vehicles have striven to minimize their coefficient of drag. Also smaller vehicles will have smaller frontal area and therefore have improved fuel efficiency. Auto companies are striving to minimize the mass of their vehicles. Alas a Prius still is quite heavy and weighs in at over 3,100 pounds. The Toyota Corolla is perhaps 400 pounds lighter than a Prius but as it is not hybrid powered it is not as fuel efficient as the Prius. The small hybrid system on the Prius allows the engine to operate most of the time at close to its peak efficiency on the power curve.

I have opined many times that lithium ion batteries are best suited in transportation for electric bicycles. The reason this is the case is that the bike has a low frontal area, a very low mass, and a low average velocity. The battery therefore only has to provide 200 watts of peak power and 60 watts of average power to keep a cyclist moving with a velocity of 10 miles an hour on a road that is flat. The electric cycle needs about 6 watt hours of energy per mile. By comparison a Tesla Roadster needs about 360 watt hours per mile on a flat road at velocity of 50 miles per hour. On the surface this sounds good. The Tesla only needs 60 times the energy of an electric cycle to travel a mile. The problem is not with the number of watt hours per mile, but with the power in watts needed to accelerate the vehicle. The Tesla needs a battery capable of providing 185,000 watts of peak power. This is 9,000 times as much instantaneous power as the 200 watts of peak power needed for the electric bike. The cost of a battery depends on both the energy stored (watt hours) and the instantaneous power delivered (watts). This is why the Tesla battery costs $55,000 and the bicycle battery only costs $150. If Spain can only get their speed limit down to 16 kilometers per hour (10 miles per hour) we will see a bunch of Spaniards on electric bikes.

Coda Blue- The new code for a voltage flat line

News from DC is that Hu was on first, Obama struck out Shee was on deck and Biden was not even in the ball park


A blog today on micro hybrids. I kind of like things that are small. Micro hybrids are not small cars but cars that use a small assist from a hybrid technology. The small assist is that the engine shuts off when the car is stopped in stop and go traffic. The engine is restarted when the motorist depresses the accelerator. This means the car’s engine may be stopped and started a couple of hundred times a day. A traditional car is started and stopped perhaps half a dozen times a day. This sounds like a really simple solution to improving the gas mileage of cars as well is lowering pollution in urban areas. Yes it is simple but not that simple. Traditional lead acid batteries cannot handle many thousands of restarts of a car or truck and they would be dead within six months if used as a single battery in a micro hybrid. Automakers are equipping cars with two batteries for this purpose and also they are thinking of improved high tech lead acid batteries for the second battery. The improved technology is either a glass mat or some carbon based high surface material for the electrode. This will only add a couple hundred dollars to the cost of the vehicle and by my estimate the vehicles gas mileage for city driving will improve by about 1 mile per gallon for a compact car and perhaps 1.5 mpg for a larger car or truck. The technology is easier to implement in Europe than the USA as most vehicles in the USA have automatic transmissions and the restart of an engine that has an automatic transmission that is engaged in the D (drive) mode is jumpy. Manual transmission cars typically have their clutch engaged when stopped and the restart of the engine is simple and smooth. The Green Machine estimates that some 10 million cars a year will be equipped with this micro hybrid technology starting in the 2013 model year.

The Green Machine estimates that zero Tesla Model S vehicles will be sold in the 2015 model year as Tesla will be dead as dry cell by then. The VCs that funded Tesla have made out like bandits. The boys at Draper Fisher Juvertson sold a bunch of their stock at over $30 per share in late December. This was just after Tesla had a press release that their Model S release schedule is not slipping and they will be on time for the launch. I blogged at that time that the press release did not tell us anything about costs being lowered and that the company will yield a profit by the timely sale of the sedan. Someone must be reading my blogs as Tesla’s stock slumped this week to $23.00. Last week I opined that within a year the Tesla stock will be below the 19 gallons of gasoline they claim are in a barrel. Perhaps I should have said after their next quarterly report the stock will be below the $19.00 a share level.

Talking about taking investors to the cleaners my other villain AONE has lost their CFO. He made about a million dollars selling his shares during 2010 while the stock was high. After 7 years with the company he is leaving to join a LED company. Yeah he saw the light after he made some bucks in the lithium ion business. When will the public wake up and see that the VCs and CFOs of these soon to be dead lithium ion technology based companies have taken them for a ride? Perhaps Obama and Chu will ride off into the sunset in 2014 when the hundreds of billions of dollars of government grants for gangrene technology are all gone and a few thousand low paying green jobs were created. I think Exide, Insterstate and Die Hard will succeed and still be charged in 2015. Their lead acid batteries will be installed in 10 million micro hybrids.

To be fair and balanced the Republicans are also cleaning up on the clean energy boondoggle. Hank the take us to the tank Paulson who let us slide into deep recession and his team at Coda will soon be importing their battery car from China. They hired an ex GM guy as CEO. My prognostication is the Codas will all be painted blue and we will soon use Coda Blue as the hospital code for calling AAA to resuscitate cars with dead batteries that have a flat voltage line at zero.

Teslacle the Gonadwhere Company

Sorry Green Machine readers I have made a new year’s resolution to blog only every fortnight as I am far too depressed after I blog. I know the thermodynamic thieves in government and industry simply won’t change their ways. The latest from Teslacle is that they have saved the world over 22,000 barrels of oil by having sold over 1,500 Teslacles in the past three years since the introduction of the gonadwhere roadster. Their press release is at the end of the blog.

Of course I contacted Teslacle to tell them that their math is wrong. There are 42 gallons in a barrel and 415,000 gallons is only 9,888 barrels not 22,000. They had the chutzpah to reply to my email that there are only 19 gallons of gasoline extracted from a barrel of oil. The remaining 23 become things other than gasoline when refined. Wow this reminds me of my “banter with Blair” a year ago and how I had to help Blair understand that oil yields diesel, jet fuel, residual oil, propane, and other oils and in fact as the crude oil is denser than many of the refined products there is a gallon gain of 5% in the refining process. The best method to evaluate the conversion of crude oil to gasoline is to compare the heat content of a barrel of crude oil with a gallon of gasoline and also account for the energy lost in the refining process. The US DOE uses 5.8 million BTUs higher heating value in a barrel of oil. Gasoline has 130,000 BTUs per gallon HHV. This means there are 44.615 equivalent gallons of gasoline in a barrel of oil prior to accounting for the refining loss. The refining loss is about 5% so we have 42.4 gallons equivalent of gasoline in a barrel of crude oil. If Teslacle were to be thermodynamically truthful, they could have claimed a savings of 9,788 barrels of oil.

It took the Gonadwhere company 3 years to achieve 1,500 vehicles of total sales and they have lost (retained earnings) over $300 million. This is a cost of $200,000 per vehicle sold or $30,653 per barrel of oil saved. The Pres and his Energy Secretary Dr. Chu Chu Train should take note of Telacles accomplishments.

My parting shot to person at Tesla who emailed me is that I predict in less than 12 months their stock will trade for less than their invented number of gallons of gasoline in a barrel and that within 24 months they will join Studebaker, Oldsmobile and Pontiac as a forgotten brand. Here is their press release from January 10 2010:



PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Tesla Motors has delivered more than 1,500 Roadsters worldwide, a significant milestone as the automaker’s momentum builds in North America, Europe and Asia.
The fleet of Roadsters spans more than 30 countries. They have accumulated more than 8.5 million miles (14 million kms) in real-world driving, saving 415,000 gallons (1.6 million liters) of gasoline and more than 22,000 barrels of oil.
“The Roadster has earned global appeal. Our latest delivery milestone proves the Tesla is raising the bar for EVs,” said Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk. “The Roadster’s advanced electric powertrain is the foundation of Tesla’s success.”
The milestone comes after a banner year for Tesla, which acquired an assembly plant in Fremont, Calif., and forged strategic partnerships with Toyota and Panasonic. Tesla also became a public company in 2010.
Tesla also launched the next-generation Roadster 2.5, demonstrating Tesla’s continuous innovation and close feedback loop with its engineers and customers. Tesla opened its first Asian store in October; the showroom in Tokyo’s Aoyama district has the highest foot traffic of any Tesla store worldwide.
In 2010, Tesla delivered cars in more than 30 countries – from Singapore to Switzerland. The most northerly Roadsters are in Narvik, Norway, 140 miles (220 kilometers) north of the Arctic Circle.

LED = Leveen Enlightened Democrats

Lots of news out of Asia that LEDs are gaining market share in the lighting world. I had tried but in vain to enlighten my Congresswoman who is a dyed in the Woolsey democrat. I tried to tell her that the energy policy of Chu Chu Train was headed toward a siding that joins the bridge to nowhere. I wrote her an email this past month saying that had she listened to the Green Machine she may have left a legacy of energy policy that was blazoned in bright white light but alas her legacy is now that of a black hole where no light escapes. Had she listened to the Green Machine she would have been a LED or a Leveen Enlightened Democrat.

LEDs the real ones not the Leveen Enlightened Democrats are amazing devices that emit light with much less energy. Here are two article from a Taiwanese Microelectronics Trade Magazine called Digitimes. Note a lm is a lumen and a 60 watt incandescent bulb emits about 890 lumens. Therefore at $1 per 500 lumens a LED with the same lighting intensity of a 60 watt incandescent bulb will cost $1.80 to produce. A high first cost but the LED will not burn out within 100,000 hours.


Lighting-grade LED chip costs to fall to US$1/500lm in 2-3 years, says Epistar executive

Siu Han, Taipei; Willie Teng, DIGITIMES [Thursday 16 December 2010]


Production cost of lighting-grade LED chips will fall to US$1/500lm in the next 2-3 years, and if that is the case, LED lighting's market penetration will reach 20-30% in 2012 according MJ Jou, president of Taiwan-based LED chip maker Epistar.

At the recent Beijing-Taiwan Science and Technology Forum held in Taichung, Taiwan, Jou said that 40W LED light bulbs are currently US$20-30 and 60W light bulbs are US$40. Judging by market conditions, there is a good chance that the LED sector could beat the target of US$1/500lm in 2015 set by the US' Department of Energy, Jou noted.

At the moment, lighting-grade LED chip costs have reached US$1/200lm at the lowest, and could become the average in 2011.

In the past, manufacturers added red phosphor powder to warm white LEDs, which reduced luminance by 30-40%, Jou said. Epistar's red LED chip has improved from 165lm/W to a laboratory-achieved 180lm/W in December.

According to Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) data, Taiwan's LED lighting production totaled NT$93.6 billion (US$3.1 billion) in 2009 and will rise to NT$16.77 billion in 2010. LED chips and modules will account for 64%, backlight applications 31% and lighting applications 5%. Taiwan has about 50 LED chip makers, 60 chip packagers and 100 end-use application companies, ITRI noted


TSMC aims to become top-5 LED player worldwide
Siu Han, Taipei; Yvonne Yu, DIGITIMES [Wednesday 15 December 2010]


With its LED lighting R&D center to be finished soon, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) hopes to become a top-five LED player worldwide in the future.

TSMC noted that with the LED lighting market taking off, the lineup of current global top-five LED players is expected to change. In addition to players from Japan and Korea, there will be one more player from Asia in the new top-five.

Current top-five LED players are Royal Philips Electronics, Osram, Cree, Nichia and Toyoda Gosei.

TSMC's LED R&D center will be completed at the end of 2010 and start mass production in the first half of 2011. Unlike other LED players using sapphire substrate for production, TSMC will use silicon and will focus on the cost advantages of mass production scales, producing own-brand LED light sources and light engine products and produce LED lighting products through a vertical integrated system.

TSMC noted that although most players expect demand for LCD TV backlighting to increase significantly in 2011, LED-backlit TV market share is expected to be lower than in 2010 due to high prices. Unless LED-backlit TV prices drop significantly, LED-backlit TV market share will not be able to reach 40% as expected.

Demand for LCD TV backlighting brings new hope for the LED industry and is causing players to actively expand their MOCVD sets, overall MOCVD sets in China are expected to reach 300, and 100 sets in Taiwan. However, players did not expect the usage of LEDs in TV backlighting to be reduced through design, resulting in reductions in LED chips while LED-backlit TV shipments continue to increase. Korea-based TV vendors' strategy for LED-backlit TVs is expected to affect the schedule for LED lighting to take off. Once LED capacity exceeds demand, players will become more active to generate growth in the LED lighting market.

All the Leaves are Brown and the Sky is Grey, the EPA is Dreaming and we are Going to Pay

All the Leaves are Brown and the Sky is Grey, the EPA is Dreaming and we are Going to Pay

More fake science from the company that brought us the Le Car. They made the claim the Leaf will get 100 miles on a charge now the US EPA has measured the real distance the Leaf can travel at only 73 miles on a full charge. The batteries in the Relief only have 24 kilowatts of stored energy. The 73 mile range translates into a unit energy consumption of 328.8 watt hours per mile. This is what I had estimated a year ago and I had blogged that the 100 mile range was a figment of the French imagination just like a victorious army. Now the zinger the idiots at the US EPA will allow the Frogs to place a sticker on the overpriced heap of junk that the voiture d’electric gets 99 miles per gallon.

Here is the news release from AP.

Nissan Leaf runs equivalent of 99 miles per gallon
By KEN THOMAS, Associated Press – Mon Nov 22, 5:13 pm ET
WASHINGTON – The Nissan Leaf, an electric car aimed at attracting environmentally conscious motorists, will get the equivalent of 99 miles per gallon in combined city and highway driving, based on government testing.
Nissan Motor Corp. said Monday the Environmental Protection Agency's fuel efficiency window sticker, which provides information about the car's energy use, would estimate the electric car will achieve the equivalent of 106 mpg in city driving and 92 mpg on the highway.
EPA's tests estimate the Leaf can travel 73 miles on a fully charged battery and will cost $561 a year in electricity. Nissan has said the Leaf can travel 100 miles on a full charge, based on tests used by California regulators.
Nissan and General Motors Co. are both releasing electric cars within weeks in the auto industry's most prominent attempt at mass-producing vehicles that shift away from petroleum. The Leaf does not have a gas engine and must be recharged once its battery is depleted.
The tests show equivalent fuel efficiency of nearly twice the Toyota Prius, which gets 50 mpg in combined driving.
GM's entry, the Chevrolet Volt, uses an electric battery for the first 25 to 50 miles and a small gasoline engine to generate electricity once the battery runs down. The gasoline engine can generate power to run the car another 300 miles. GM has not yet revealed the mileage rating for the Volt.
Mark Perry, Nissan North America's director of product planning and strategy, said the vehicle's range would vary based on driving conditions. Tests conducted by the Federal Trade Commission, which regulates advertising claims, had estimated a range of 96 to 110 miles per full charge and the company's internal tests had found a broader range of 64 to 138 miles, Perry said. The California Air Resources Board estimated a range of 100 miles.
"As we've said all along, your range varies on driving conditions, temperature, terrain and we've talked about, very openly, this idea of a range of ranges," Perry said in an interview. The Leaf's label will indicate the vehicle is the best in class in fuel efficiency and tailpipe emissions.
Nissan will start selling the Leaf in California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona and Tennessee in December with a sticker price of $32,780. The Leaf will go on sale in other markets through 2011 and be available nationwide by the end of next year.
The Volt will have a sticker price of $41,000 and GM will sell it first in California, then make it available in New York; New Jersey; Connecticut; Washington, D.C.; Michigan and Texas. The car will be sold nationwide in 12 to 18 months.
Both vehicles qualify for a $7,500 federal tax credit. Some states and communities are offering additional tax breaks that will lower the price further.
GM spokesman Greg Martin said the automaker was working with EPA and expected to announce details of the Volt's mileage estimates soon.
EPA calculated the Leaf's fuel economy based on a formula that says 33.7 kilowatts per hour holds the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline. The label estimates a charging time of 7 hours on a 240-volt charge. Cost estimates were based on 15,000 miles per year at 12 cents per kilowatt-hour.

OK so the US EPA says a gallon of gasoline holds 33.7 kilowatt hours and the Leaf needed 24 kilowatt hours to travel 73 miles. The idiots at EPA then do the math of 33.7 times 73 divide 24 and viola ce sa they get 102.5 mpg. Now my thermodynamic friends how did the EPA pull of this slight of hand. Well of course a gallon of gas has 115,000 BTU which equals 33.7 kilowatt hours at a rate of 3,412 BTU/kwh. But first to get 24 kwh of direct current energy into the battery one needs 26.67 kwh of alternating current energy from the grid. But the electrical energy was not generated with 100% efficiency from a fossil fuel. The US DOE reports that the average kwh of electricity generated by natural gas over the past 12 months to the grid required 7,234 BTUs. Therefore if one applies the 10% loss for AC transmission and distribution and converting from AC to DC plus the energy lost in electric power generation one gets the real equivalent fuel efficiency of 43.5 MPG. Of course this is better than Arne’s Bummer but the 99 MPG is pure fantasy of pathological liars at the EPA who believe that the President of the Ignited States can mandate out any real thermodynamics and wish that the French will save America. France is a minor economic power and the Leaf is a minor automotive power that is not as efficient as the Prius, The Leaf cost 50% more than a Prius and will last on the market about as long as a Dauphine or a La Car.

I also see that Alaric Galoric has now admitted to corn ethanol as a failure. More on that in my next blog. I bet old Alaric was the one who provided the EPA in conveniently untrue formula for MPG calculations of the E vehicles as of course EPA stands for Electricity Produced by Alaric.

Cogeneration

When most of us think of energy efficiency we probably think of buying an Energy Star appliance or replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents. While those efforts do save a few kilowatt hours used in our homes and businesses, large amounts of energy are saved or gained with industrial cogeneration. Cogeneration involves capturing heat wasted by industrial processes to make surplus electricity. By putting that waste heat to work, plants can double their efficiencies. And the energy savings can really add up.

A prime example is outlined in the new book $20 Per Gallon, by Christopher Steiner. West Virginia Alloy’s silicon plant uses 135 megawatts to bake quartz in its 6,000 degree Fahrenheit furnaces. That’s enough electricity to power 120,000 homes. This year, the plant will debut a retrofit to capture the waste heat currently being vented to the atmosphere. For $75 million, a giant vacuum system will duct off the 1,400 degree exhaust to make steam that will produce around 50 megawatts of free electricity. Efficiencies at the plant will double. To make that amount of electricity it would take $300 million worth of large wind turbines. So it’s relatively cheap. Plus, WVA stands to save tens of millions of dollars per year in electricity costs, making it the lowest cost silicon supplier in the world.

Another way to go about cogeneration is how United States Gypsum is reconfiguring several of its drywall plants. Typically they dry the wet gypsum slurry in 700-degree natural gas-heated ovens and use electricity from the grid for other applications in the plant. When retrofitted, they will burn natural gas turbines to make electricity for the plant and use the 900-degree exhaust to bake the sheetrock. Again, efficiencies double and USG saves tens of millions of dollars in energy costs annually. This type of cogeneration could also be used to power and heat entire city blocks in densely-populated urban centers.

The Department of Energy estimates 135,000 megawatts of cogeneration opportunities exist in the U.S. Since efficiencies typically double, there would effectively be 67,000 megawatts generated for free. By the way, that’s the equivalent of $3.75 trillion worth of solar panels! Cogeneration has more bang-for-your-buck efficiency than any other green technology and will certainly be a part of our energy future.

~Mark Bremer, Green Explored Contributor

Should you buy cans or bottles of beer?

Many readers of the Green Machine drink beer and are concerned about their carbon, land, and water footprints that result from their choice of packaging for their beers. There is great debate of whether to opt for aluminum cans over glass bottles. From a taste and quality perspective there is a bias towards glass bottles. I am no beer aficionado and my opinion on quality and taste can only be based on the fact that aluminum cans are coated and do not likely impart any taste to the beer. Also in a blind taste test if the subjects drink the beer out of a glass rather than the original container it has been shown that there is no statistical difference or preference between the two methods of packaging beer. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,582616,00.html
http://www.triplepundit.com/2006/09/askpablo-bottles-and-cans-just-clap-your-hands/


Beer packaged in an aluminum can also has a longer shelf life as no oxygen can enter the beer. Caps on bottles do not completely seal out oxygen in the air from diffusing into the bottle and reacting with the beer. Also beer is sensitive to light and photoreactions occur in beer, therefore a can that completely blocks the beer from light is preferable even to amber glass bottles. For the purposes of our eco analysis I will assume that good beer in either method of packaging has no taste difference or price difference and that the consumer is basing their selection purely from a Green perspective.

The analysis of comparative carbon, water and land foot prints is dependant on the following primary parameters. The distance from the brewery to the point of sale, the distance of the brewery from the point of manufacture of the container, whether the container is manufactured from virgin or recycled material (the recycle rate for containers in that location), the distance of the container manufacturer from the recycling center or the glass or aluminum foundry, the source of energy used in the glass or aluminum foundry, and the volume of beer within the container. A local brewery in a major metropolitan area like San Francisco, that does not transport the beer very far for sale nor haul empty bottles very far from their point of manufacturer should continue from a green perspective to use glass bottles unless the recycle rate for aluminum cans is more than 75%. Below this threshold of recycling the mining of bauxite and the upgrading of bauxite to alumina and the final refining of aluminum from alumina simply is too energy, land, and water intensive to displace new glass bottles from an Eco footprint perspective. Remember that the simple act of recycling a single beer can saves the equivalent amount of electricty to run your television three hours.

For larger breweries that are less proximate to their markets, aluminum cans even with a recycle rate of only 50% are likely the more eco friendly option. If the aluminum smelter is in Iceland and the electricity for the smelter is generated by hydroelectric dams, then there is no doubt that an Icelandic brewery should use aluminum cans and not glass bottle. Also I am fairly certain that Iceland has a relatively high recycle rate on their beer cans.

The nutrition value (energy content) of a 12 ounce can of beer is approximately 150 Calories. This is only one half of the energy that was required to produce the can if the aluminum was made from virgin bauxite. If the can was made from recycled aluminum, then the energy content of the beer is about fourfold the energy content of the can. SAB Miller is selling some pretty anemic beer now with only 57 Calories, in this case the sickle cell beer has the same energy content as the can made of recycled aluminum. Drinkers of this type of beer with only 2.5% alcohol don’t really care about taste they only care to be true Green Machines and their selection of this brand is all about eco footprint. Here is an interesting link to the calories in various beer brands. The greater the alcohol content the greater the calories. This makes sense as alcohol has carbon bonds with hydrogen that yield energy when metabolized. http://www.beer100.com/beercalories.htm

I have used up my space for this week’s blog and I will therefore continue the discussion on beer in my next blog. As they say Skal for Cheers in Iceland. I bid you all Skal and I hope the beer you drink does not hurt your skull. Here is a link on from Denmark on how to say Cheers in many countries. http://www.awa.dk/glosary/slainte.htm

Please provide comments below. And please recycle all of your beverage containers, plastic, glass and aluminum

Changing Federal Gasoline Tax Structure

When gasoline prices go up, as they did in 2008, people use less gasoline. That year, Americans drove 100 billion fewer miles than the year before. So in a world of peak oil and rising gasoline prices, fewer miles will be driven. That also means fewer emissions, fewer crashes, and crumbling roads. Huh?

Gasoline taxes are the main source of funding for road and highway systems. When less gasoline gets used, less tax money gets collected. Much less. In 2008 it was about $800 million less. Ouch. Making matters worse, the cost of asphalt and other construction costs go up with higher oil prices. Our nation’s roads and highways are already in need of repair and replacement because of their general age. One out of four bridges in the U.S. is “structurally deficient” or “functionally obsolete”. One out of seven miles of pavement is rated “not acceptable”. How will we pay for the fixes when gasoline tax funding decreases?

One solution is to change the structure of the gasoline tax from a fixed amount to a percentage. The Federal government currently charges the same 18.4 cents per gallon whether the price of that gallon is $2.25 or $4.50. If the gasoline tax were changed to 10% per gallon, the government would receive 22.5 cents on $2.25 gas and 45 cents on $4.50 gas. The extra taxes will more than offset the revenue decrease when fewer miles are driven. This measure is politically difficult, but will become necessary as our surface transportation system funding problems deepen.

Another solution is to charge usage tolls for rush-hour travelers. In 2003, London implemented a usage toll system to charge vehicles entering its central business district. License plates were photographed and the drivers charged up to $14 to enter. Since then London has seen a 30% decrease in congestion, 25% increase in average vehicle speed, and a more efficient bus system with 37% more riders and 24% less wait time. Air pollution was reduced, as well. Carbon dioxide emissions decreased 20%, smog-inducing nitrogen oxides decreased 18% and unhealthy particulate matter dropped 22%. To top it all off, the system pulls in a net profit of $200 million annually. Similar systems have been implemented in other European cities with success. It is only a matter of time before major American cities implement similar solutions to deal with crowded, crumbling roads.

~Mark Bremer, Green Explored Contributor

Cash for clunkers was a bust

I have opined a few times that the cash for clunkers program that our pres and congress touted so much did nothing to save the planet. Now a large organization Edmunds has reported the very same analysis of this dumass program from DC. Here is the Edmunds report

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — October 28, 2009 — Edmunds.com, the premier resource for online automotive information, has determined that Cash for Clunkers cost taxpayers $24,000 per vehicle sold.
Nearly 690,000 vehicles were sold during the Cash for Clunkers program, officially known as CARS, but Edmunds.com analysts calculated that only 125,000 of the sales were incremental. The rest of the sales would have happened anyway, regardless of the existence of the program.
Ironically, the average transaction price for a new vehicle in August 2009 was only $26,915 minus an average cash rebate of $1,667.

"This analysis is valuable for two reasons," explained Edmunds.com CEO Jeremy Anwyl. "First, it can form the basis for a complete assessment of the program's impact and costs. Second—and more important—it can help us to understand the true state of auto sales and the economy. For example, October sales are up, but without Cash for Clunkers, sales would have been even better. This suggests that the industry's recovery is gaining momentum."
"Our research indicates that without the Cash for Clunkers program, many customers would not have traded in an old vehicle when making a new purchase," Edmunds.com Senior Analyst David Tompkins, PhD told AutoObserver.com. "That may give some credence to the environmental claims, but unfortunately the economic claims have been rendered quite weak."

To conduct the analysis, the Edmunds.com team of PhDs and statisticians examined the sales trend for luxury vehicles and others not included in Cash for Clunkers, and applied the historic relationship of those vehicles to total SAAR to make informed estimates. These estimates were independently verified through careful examination of sales patterns reflected by transaction data. Once the numbers were determined, Edmunds.com's analysts divided three billion dollars by 125,000 vehicles to arrive at the average $24,000 per vehicle.

Of course the pres the congress and their supporters are arguing that cash for clunkers was an enormous success and Edmunds was invaded by the GOP. But now the pres will give mega bucks to the smart grid for dumb Americans. How many dumasses will rid themselves of six TVs, three refrigerators, and their 2,000 watt hair dryer just because they have a smart meter that the utility company will install on their incoming electric line. Why don’t we just charge more for electricity, more for gasoline, more for natural gas and give the added money to folks who actually will help save the planet? Who are these people? They are children who need a real education and may not be as dumb as the generation of adults who bought SUVs, large houses miles from nowhere, and have to have six TVs and three refrigerators for their beer to watch TV. Let’s get real big brother does not need to watch an electric or gas meter spin, it needs more of your money. It should just admit that a $10 per million BTU energy tax is needed. We use 80 quadrillion BTUs of fossil fuel and doing the math the government can raise $800 billion a year right there to pay for real education for the future generation that will also need to be good at breathing carbon dioxide.

Lindsay Leveen The Green Machine Top Ten Notable Quotables

“You can fuel some of the people some of the time but you can’t fuel all the people all of the time”

“Be green when all are fearful and be fearful when all are green”

“Some are green others are gangrene”

“Words speak of your noble intentions but actions should win Nobel prizes”

“Soon all the icebergs will be lettuce”

“There is no fuel like an old fuel and fossil fuels are very old”

“Expensive weak batteries killed the electric car”

“The convenient truth is Alfalfa won the PowerPoint Piece Prize’

“When I die I want a thousand Hummers to drive over my grave, I want to be buried at sea”

“Stop the world I want to get off so I can discover what kind of fuel am I?”

Congresswoman Woolsey will take my letter to her house subcommittee

Folks: I received an email Friday from my Congresswoman's chief of staff. She has extended an offer to deliver a letter from me to all house members who sit on the house science subcommittee on energy. Here is the letter I sent to my Congresswoman today:

October 10, 2009

Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey
US House of Representatives
Via Fax 707 542 2745


Re - House Science Subcommittee on Energy

Dear Congresswoman Woolsey

Thank you for granting me this opportunity to write this letter that you will forward to all the members of the House Science Subcommittee on Energy. The representatives who sit on this science subcommittee have an awesome responsibility. Our standard of living as well as our national security and well being are based on good policy coming forth from this subcommittee. Unfortunately the record on energy policy ever since the Department of Energy was created in 1977 has been dismal. Without boring you with detail I list the failures in chronological order: Coal to Liquid and Gaseous Fuel; Energy Deregulation; MTBE and Reformulated Gasoline; Cold Fusion; Hydrogen; Fuel Cells; Corn Ethanol; Clean Coal; and Cellulosic Ethanol.

A new Administration and a new Congress will now be spending even more money on the “energy problem”. Most energy technologies are Betamax technologies from a thermodynamics perspective. A little about my background and why think I can help. I graduated in 1973 with a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg S. Africa. I received my MBA from the same university in 1975 and went to work on coal gasification in South Africa. I came to the USA on a fellowship from the Monsanto Corp to study for my MS in Chemical Engineering at Iowa State University and my field of graduate work was in Thermodynamics. I graduated with a MS Chemical Engineering in 1977. I worked for 12 years in cryogenics and became well versed in hydrogen. I then spent 16 years becoming an expert in microelectronics fabrication leading teams in the design of chip, LCD and nonmaterial making facilities the world over. For the past four years I have worked at Genentech and lead teams in the chemistry, manufacturing and control of biopharmaceuticals. My education and work experience is deep in the fundamental technologies that relate to energy past and present. I am not a registered Democrat yet Andrew Tobias, the Treasurer of the Democratic National Committee, has referred to me on his blog as me being “frighteningly bright”. Enough said on qualification to opine on matters before your subcommittee.

The single point I wish to communicate is that very few technologies have a “Moore’s Law” rate of learning. I had the good fortune to lead the design of Intel’s chip fabrication facilities in the Silicon Valley for six years and lived Moore’s Law. I have written and lectured extensively that fuel cells will never approach a high rate of learning and hence cost reduction. I have written and lectured that the same slow rate of learning will hold for photovoltaic cells. I have written and lectured that corn ethanol would be a bust.

I told the National Hydrogen Association meeting in 2005 that hydrogen was a great chemical and a pathetic energy carrier. At this very meeting Secretary of Energy Sam Bodman handed out $100 million to GM for their science fictional fuel cell. I was one of the few antagonists to MTBE back in 1989. I have said that cellulosic ethanol will be a bigger bust than corn ethanol. And I now say that lithium ion batteries will not become sufficiently inexpensive for the Volt to stand a chance against a Prius. Carbon sequestration will also not happen in sufficiently large measure to do much and will remain prohibitively expensive. I say to you the House Science Subcommittee on Energy that these assertions you hear that economies of scale and mass production will drive down the cost of these technologies are not realistic.

What is realistic from a thermodynamics perspective are improvements to wind farms, improvements to geothermal, improvements to solar thermal, improvements to nuclear power generation, improvements to pumped hydro and compressed air energy storage. Certainly improvements in the rate at which we consume energy can and should be made. I also have prognosticated that is possible from a thermodynamic point of view to develop gasoline engines that operate at the same high compression ratio and in the same un-throttled mode as diesel engines. Running all engines in a mode that mimic diesel engines will yield massive improvements in fuel economy. Simply promoting the use of diesel for private vehicles will also make a big difference in fuel consumption.

You may ask why did computer chips and LCD screens enjoy a rapid learning rate and why won’t these other technologies improve in likewise manner? I would like the opportunity to address that fundamental question by detailed explanation of Thermodynamics, Learning Rates, System Fabrication, Reaction Kinetics, and Resource Limitations. This of course cannot be accomplished in a simple introductory letter. I remind you all of a sign that hanged in Albert Einstein’s office in Princeton. The sign read “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts “. Likewise the laws of thermodynamics will prove that hope is not a strategy for a realistic energy policy and if what we do is going to count let’s allow the laws of thermodynamics to take precedence over our man made laws.

Sincerely,


Lindsay Leveen

Can Lithium batteries solve our oil addiction?

I have thought long and hard and read all I can on whether there will be cheaper lithium batteries in five years that make plug in cars affordable. Alas my friends the lithium plug in hybrid or all electric plug in is another thermodynamic dead end. A company A 123 went public this week and their stock soared. Their hype is that they will make affordable lithium batteries for vehicles. If I was a stock analyst and I am not I would say short this stock. They will short circuit and be a goner in a few years. This is not about Google or a wonder drug company this all about electrochemistry and thermodynamics and the truth is one needs a certain mass of electrolyte, anodes, cathodes, spacers, housing , wiring etc. to get a certain amount of stored energy. My research shows that the raw materials make up 75% to 80% of the total cost of the lithium battery. The materials will actually have inflationary pressure on their prices and if anything 80% of the battery cost will trend upward. The other 20% that is labor, capital, and non raw material inputs may experience a learning rate and economies of scale may lessen this small fraction of the total battery cost, however the raw material costs are just too large a fraction of total cost to allow a learning curve.

Technological novices will argue that alternate cheaper materials will be found and that there will be a way of reducing the quantity of raw materials. I argue that we have found the least expensive materials that actually work electrochemically and that less materials just means less power stored in the battery. Last week A123 put a Google ad on my site. I have no control over who advertises. A 123 has this battery pack as an after market add on for a standard Prius to make it plug in and capable of going 15 miles on the battery. I called the company and got the following information. The battery is a 5 kilowatt hour battery. It costs $11,000 and if I drove 12,000 miles a year with their system I would save approximately 180 gallons a year of gasoline compared with the base Prius. OK I will need to pay the electric company something like $200 per year for the electricity and I save $540 a year in gasoline at $3 per gallon. So my net savings are $340 a year. I need more than 30 years to pay for the batteries. But the story gets worse the batteries are only good for a maximum of 8 years. So every 8 years I pay $11,000 to get back $2,720. I think A123 should change their name to the Made Off Battery Company.

I have been trying for four months to see my congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, the ranking democrat on the house sub-committee on energy technology. I have been blocked and stonewalled by her staffers. Just today I wrote to the Committee Against Government Waste http://www.cagw.org/ as their head had commented on the waste of tax payer dollars money that the Feds just gave to Fisker a plug in hybrid company funded by Alfalfa Gore and his VC group. Here is a copy of my email to CAGW:

I am outraged by the waste of tax payers’ dollars on plug in vehicles. I am a chemical engineer and a pretty well known expert in thermodynamics. I blog at http://www.greenexplored.com/ The Lithium plug in will be as big a waste as Fuel Cells, ethanol and bio-diesel. I am convinced that batteries will cost more not less in ten years. These proofs of concept are just pure ways of giving money away. Lithium Ion batteries are expensive because the raw materials are expensive. Raw materials account for 80% of the cost and the other 20% may have some economies of scale but the inflation in raw material costs will simply overwhelm the decrease in costs from economies of scale. The plug in electric vehicles or hybrids are a betamax technology. Great play things for a few rich folks. We need many diesel vehicles, we need many basic hybrids with small batteries, we need an energy policy based on the laws of thermodynamics not the laws of the Washington pig farm. I think I can help you with the supporting science, engineering, thermodynamics and get our voice out there. For four months I have been asking for an audience with my congresswoman. One Lynn Woolsey who is the ranking democrat on the house sub-committee for energy technology. I have been given the run around. No doubt because she has to follow her party and follow her guru one Alfalfa Gore. please go to http://www.greenexplored.com/ and then let's chat. I have no commercial interest in any technology, business, or organization involved in energy. I only care about the country and the planet. Lindsay Leveen The Green Machine

Who is the most gullible venture capitalist in the world?

The prize for the most gullible private venture capitalist maybe goes to Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures. Old Vinod whose name in Hindi means Joy or Happy is also the slang name for a clown in certain Indian traditions. This guy who has no basic knowledge of thermodynamics has been the spokes person for alternate biofuels for the venture capital industry. Perhaps even more than Alfalfa Gore another thermodynamic want to be, Vinod has led the US and California governments astray with promises of unlimited bio fuels from all sorts of cellulosic sources with unrealistic expected costs.

On August 27 the Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125133578177462487.html reported on the fallacy of the biofuel industry and that it is running on empty The Wall Street Journal article focused on a company called Cello Energy of Alabama. Quoting the Wall Street Journal “The sector suffered a major setback this summer after a federal jury ruled that Cello Energy of Alabama, a plant-fiber-based biofuel producer, had defrauded investors. Backed by venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, Cello was expected to supply 70% of the 100.7 million gallons of cellulosic biofuels that the Environmental Protection Agency planned to blend into the U.S. fuel supply next year. The alleged fraud will almost certainly prevent the EPA from meeting its targets next year, energy analysts say. “

I guess old Vinod was taken by Cello. The story gets even more interesting and again quoting the Wall Street Journal article “This year, Khosla representatives took samples of diesel produced at the new Cello plant and sent them off for testing. The results showed no evidence of plant-based fuel: Carbon in the diesel was at least 50,000 years old, marking it as traditional fossil fuel.

The EPA wasn't told about the test, and continued to rely on Mr. Boykin's original claims when it asserted in the Federal Register in May that Cello could produce 70% of the cellulosic fuel targets set by Congress that are due to take effect next year.”

The question then should be asked is why did Vinod not reveal to the EPA the results of his test of Cello biodiesel that was carbon dated to long before when Fred Flintstone drove his foot mobile? Maybe Vinod had egg on his face or maybe he was trying to recover the millions of dollars he invested in Cello? My conclusion is that the US government is the most gullible venture capitalist in the world and the EPA stands for Easily Prayed Animals. The sad truth is for years I have been saying biofuel is biofool and Mother Nature never intended photosynthesis to provide liquid fuel for a billion internal combustion engines. Perhaps Vinod and Alfalfa will write a book tilted the “Convenient Untruth” when they reflect upon the nonsense they sold the EPA, CARB, and the US public on biofools.

This comment came from a Reader Phil Borland

Subject: Vinod Koshla retortDear Lindsay,I’m unsuccessful in trying to add the following to your article on our “friend” Vinod Koshla, can you help, please? Many, many thanks. As a point of personal reference, we met several times years ago at Marin Professions. I still remember you holding up you pressure vessel for filling up celebratory balloons! Hope that you made a killing on it!"There have been many more than Vinod Khosla who have been sucker-punched/duped by the expectations of bushels of money flowing into their pockets by supposedly cashing in on “helping” the environment. There are very few people, now, who actually believe that ethanol derived from corn is a sensible business or environmental solution – save those who are still trying to fund their failing and ever-subsidized ethanol ventures before the jig is up! Why do we insist on using food crops for fuel when there are other options? For your reference, please review the following article on Mr. Vinod Koshla:http://cleantech.com/news/928/cellulosic-ethanol-to-be-cost-competitiAnother field, Koshla is investing in – cellulosic ethanol – is most probably also doomed. The large scale of the conversion plants and the massive amounts of biomass required to constantly feed them are standing in contradiction to the low energy contents of biomass. The logistics just do not pencil out. A Japanese scientist has recently presented at a symposium on biomass-derived fuels that the threshold for transporting biomass is at 30km or about 18 miles. Another point is that the ethanol pocess can only convert the cellulose, but not the lignin, which is a large share of the biomass. This is burned in boilers to provide the process heat. This again show the bad energy balance this process has. So even if it ever can become cost competitive, it is environmental nonsense – too little energy from too much feedstock transported and converted in an inefficient way. We have calculated that with the process explained now, it is possible to yield more than two times the energy from the same feedstock, which reduces the transport distance by 50%.There is a scientist in Germany who spent over 30 years working for the giant company, Siemens, pioneering in the development of a waste-to-fuel technology that mimics what took Mother Nature 300 million years to develop but is now done in a continuous three minute closed-loop cycle. This tried and proven technology, called the KDV is an acronym which means low pressure and low temperature catalytic depolymerization – that’s a mouthful, better use the letters, KDV! Dr. Christian Koch has, in effect, dedicated his life’s work in finding a way to convert almost all organic waste into a fuel that can be used worldwide. In case of biomass as feedstock, the fuel is an ultra low sulfur diesel fuel oil, a synthetic oil because it’s not derived from fossil fuel like other petroleum products. Dr. Koch has managed to convert all matter of hydrocarbon wastes: waste oil, bunker oil, cardboard, construction waste, plastics, and crop wastes (corn, sugar cane, African palm, pineapple, banana, etc., etc.) into this high grade diesel fuel oil which has both an extremely high lubricity and clean burn rate – a far cry from conventional diesel fuel AND no additives are needed or being blended like bio-diesel or ethanol is; it can be used straight from the tap, as is!Here’s my gripe: for obvious reasons, oil companies detest this technology, and members of our esteemed U.S. “bureaucracy” prefer to spend $385 million for a questionable technology, while they will not heed the call to convert organic “waste” into a very useable, in many cases carbon-neutral fuel that is less expensive than “regular” diesel, has obvious environmental benefits, is socially responsible, and can create more U.S. jobs. Interestingly, our foreign neighbors to the north, east, south and west are more strategic, they immediately see the value of diverting their waste stream into diesel fuel instead of going to the ever over-filling garbage dump. Moreover and here’s the worldwide clincher: the KDV technology can process, convert the hydrocarbon content in pre-sorted MSW, municipal solid waste, too. Yes, it’s more complicated and more costly (a longer ROI, Return On Investment) than a fast-track bean counter would like to see BUT the global benefits are what we’ve all been waiting for, praying to see for many years AND this alternative energy development couldn’t be more timely.If you are interested in learning more, please visit www.energy-visions.com and you will see that the future is here, now.Phil Boland"Phil BolandPresident & CEOEnergy Visions, Inc.55 Rodeo Ave, Suite 25Sausalito, CA 94965 +1 415.298.3582 Direct p.boland@energy-visions.com +1 415.499.8242 Office www.energy-visions.com philipboland Skype www.EnergyOutOfWaste.com

Can methane hydrates supply the world with energy?

Markus an avid reader of this blog asked me to opine about methane hydrates. First I need to explain what methane hydrates are. Hydrates of chemical compounds are formed when the compound is also loosely bound to water molecules. Common hydrates are salts such as Magnesium Sulfate, Calcium Chloride, and Sodium Carbonate. The following link explains the chemical formula of these salt hydrates: http://chem.lapeer.org/Chem1Docs/HydrateLab1.html Anhydrous (without water) Calcium Chloride is used to keep closets from getting musky and damp. The dry or anhydrous salt will bond with water vapor in the air and become hydrated. When you buy one of those systems to keep closets dry you are simply buying a pound or two of anhydrous Calcium Chloride. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_chloride

Gas hydrates are also possible and are now known to be extremely common in the depths of oceans as well as occurring in permafrost. The gas hydrate occurs when the loosely bound water forms a crystal like structure that is bonded to methane. The crystal is ice-like due to the pressure that deep ocean water applies on the chemicals. This article from Popular Mechanics provides a simple yet comprehensive explanation of Methane Hydrates: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/2558946.html
On the second page of the Popular Mechanics article the following data is provided by the US Geological Survey: Somewhere between 100,000 and 3 million trillion cubic feet of methane exists in hydrate form on planet earth. For comparison the US consumes approximately 23 trillion cubic feet a year of methane for home and business heating, industry, and electricity generation. The world uses about 90 trillion cubic feet a year of methane. Therefore there are between 1,100 and 33,000 years of the global usage of methane gas trapped as hydrates. That is the good news. Now we hear the bad news. Extracting the methane from the hydrates is not simple and will require the engineering of systems that lower the pressure applied by the deep ocean. Also we do not want to inadvertently release copious amounts of methane as this gas has 21 times the global warming effect on a pound for pound basis versus carbon dioxide.

In fact there is a scare regarding the uncontrolled release of methane from hydrates that are trapped below permafrost. In this case, the hydrate forms because of low temperature rather than high pressure. Thermodynamically one can think about the equilibrium of solids and gases kind of like the way dry ice sublimes. As dry ice warms the solid becomes gaseous. To prevent dry ice from subliming one can either keep it very cold or store it under high pressure so that the conditions favor it remaining a solid. Similarly methane hydrates will remain in the hydrated condition if the pressure remains high (under the sea) or the in the case of permafrost the temperature remains very cold. I have no doubt that after we have exhausted the conventional methane sources in about fifty years in the future we will engineer systems to recover methane from hydrates. The company that commercializes the process will dwarf Exxon Mobil and Shell.