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

Why is Russia getting greener?

News out of Russia is that it is one of the few G20 countries that are actually getting greener. Since 1990 greenhouse gas emissions are down by over a third. Before we all celebrate that Putin and his boys are green guardians, most of the reduction is a result of decreased economic activity after the fall of the soviet empire. Of late though the Russian economy has been growing and this resource rich country that spans two continents will again begin to emit increasing amounts of carbon dioxide as living standards improve, more personal vehicles are bought, and Muscovites give up on living like the Honeymooners and emulate the Brady Bunch lifestyle. Perhaps they won’t have eight kids in a household though. The population of Russia is in decline and is now some six million less than a decade ago and the trend continues with a high death rate and an extremely low birth rate.

Russian men drink ethanol at an amazingly alarming rate and this is the dominant reason for a high death rate in their country. Life expectancy for Russian men is only 59 years. For women life expectancy is 72 years. The Russian population is now 142 million and could go as low as 110 million in 2050. In 1939 before the start of world war two the population of the Russian part of the Soviet Union was also 110 million. While the folks in the USA guzzle ethanol in their vehicles to the tune of some 30 gallons a year, the men in Russia think of their bodies as a Chevrolet and guzzle an equal amount of booze in a year. If only alcohol could kill off Clunkers as fast as men we may have a greener world.

While the Russians may have inadvertently become green by closing inefficient state owned heavy industries after the collapse of communism and by loosing population, there is in fact a lesson that should be learned here. These two reasons for the lowering of the environmental footprint of mankind are indeed where the focus of all our attention should be placed. The population explosion is by far the biggest cause of the degradation of the environment. The second is that a country such as China produces half of the steel in the world using primitive steel making techniques that employ coal and are reminiscent of the steel industry in Pittsburgh in the 1930s. If the steel industry is to rationalize and clean up, countries such as Australia and Brazil should produce more than half of the worlds steel supply. Australia has vast iron ore and natural gas reserves and producing direct reduced iron in Australia would yield steel with a third less carbon emissions. Brazil is blessed with vast and excellent grade iron ore. Its neighbor Bolivia has abundant natural gas. These two could combine to form a low cost, low emission steel manufacturer.

Iran and Russia are also blessed with vast natural gas reserves. Even if Iran developed its economy to the point where each citizen consumes as much electricity as each citizen of the USA, Iran has sufficient natural gas to generate electricity for over 200 years. Iran has a population of 66 million and this country has seen its population grow massively from only 17 million in 1950. They are not the only country placing an increased burden on the planet, the USA has essentially doubled its population since 1950. We are told that increased education leads to increased living standards and decreased population growth. The USA should also lead by example and educate it citizens to understand the implications of the suburban lifestyle that Hollywood has glorified to audiences around the world. Perhaps then the Iranians will follow in the footsteps of their Russian friends to the north and slow their population growth and enjoy life albeit shortened by shouting Nasdrovia .

I am posting this cartoon courtesy of the cartoonist Zapiro http://www.zapiro.com/ and the South African Sunday Times. The cartoon says it all for this week. I was granted permission by the cartoonist to post the cartoon but there is a copyright that is held by the cartoonist so do not copy this cartoon and use it elsewhere.

In saying it all the Cartoonist has captured that the leadership of the G20 economies are excusing the others for their ecological misbehavior. It is time that collectively the larger economies do tackle their emissions and do it in a realistic way. The USA can institute a real energy policy of taxing the hell out of gasoline and providing incentives to those who carpool, vanpool, or take public transportation. My firm Genentech where I work has one out of three workers using carpools, vanpools, company operated buses, bicycles, public transportation to get to and from a suburban campus. My commute costs are negative. C'mon politicians do something besides eating beans at the campfire of your next get together. The Green Machine

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

What does the Department of Energy do?

Carl an avid reader of the Green Machine asked me to opine on what the Department of Energy really does. I call this department of the Federal Government the Department of Entropy because it has to be one of the most disorganized and chaotic departments of our government. The new secretary of energy Dr Chu has a lot to chew on to get the mess under control. If we can get the DOE to work on a real energy policy then the US may in fact lower its carbon footprint and lessen its dependence on foreign fossil fuels, the very Reason President Carter asked that this department be created in the first place.

32 years and many hundreds of billions of dollars later Dr Chu faces the same problem as the first secretary of energy James Schlesinger faced in 1977. James was also director of the CIA, and the secretary of defense under President Ford. At least Jimmy and Jimmy crafted an energy policy in the late 70s that was to draw upon oil from coal. Since then no policy at all has been crafted. In a future blog I will discuss the drawbacks of coal to liquids for a transportation fuel but at least these guys had a policy. The two secretaries of energy under GW had to be the two biggest waste of energy ever. Sam Badman sorry Bodman was our last secretary of energy before Dr Chu and old Sam is a disgrace to my Chemical Engineering profession. He should have been a magician instead of a PhD Chemical Engineer. His magic helped turn oil into a $150 a barrel commodity. Maybe Sam had an Uncle not named Sam but named Oillie.

Carl sent me the following in an email:

Subject: Funniest Joke Ever- well maybe not

Absolutely the funniest joke ever......ON US !!!
Let it sink in.
Quietly we go like sheep to slaughter.

Does anybody out there have any memory of the reason given for the establishment of the DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY ..... During the Carter Administration?
Anybody?
Anything?
No?
Didn't think so!

Bottom line ... We've spent several hundred billion dollars in support of an agency...the reason for which not one person who reads this can remember. Ready??????? It was very simple .. And at the time everybody thought it very appropriate.... The 'Department of Energy' was instituted on 8-04-1977 TO LESSEN OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL. Hey, pretty efficient, huh????? AND NOW IT'S 2009, 32 YEARS LATER ... AND THE BUDGET FOR THIS NECESSARY DEPARTMENT IS AT $24.2 BILLION A YEAR


IT HAS
16,000
FEDERAL EMPLOYEES
AND APPROXIMATELY
100,000
CONTRACT EMPLOYEES
AND LOOK AT THE JOB IT HAS DONE!THIS IS WHERE YOU SLAP YOUR FOREHEAD AND SAY 'WHAT WAS I THINKING?' Ah, yes, good old bureaucracy...

Where do you draw the green line?

Sometimes it's easy to be green - turning off the lights, unplugging your cell phone charger, and taking the bus are pretty effortless. But sometimes being green can seem downright silly.

So we have a poll today that asks, where do you draw the green line? Is it making your own sandals from old tires, powering your laptop with your feet, wearing loafers made from beer can pull tabs, or pee-cycling?

Where do you draw the green line?

Can Californians get out of their cars, trucks, and SUVs?

The Green Machine is sorry to report some not very good news from the Golden State. Even with massive unemployment, in the once Golden State, gasoline consumption in May 2009 exceeded that of May 2008. I hope this extra driving is because folks are looking for work and not simply because the price of gasoline this summer is lower than last year. The sales of diesel are however way down from last year to this. Diesel consumption is the most accurate indicator of economic activity as the Californian economy moves on trucks. Imports move on trucks, produce moves on trucks, autos move on trucks, and garbage moves on trucks.


The following is the statement from the California Board of Equalization on August 31, 2009
Old Betty Yee who is the Chairwoman of the Board had to put a spin on the data. The diesel data show a dismal economy. The gasoline sales were up in May from April as May has 31 days versus 30 in April and that equals 3.3% right there.

If I was the Chairwoman I would have said the economy stinks but the average motorist paid 37% less per gallon of gasoline and even though the equity in their homes is nearly worthless they took to the roads in droves to look for treasure troves.

BETTY T. YEE: CALIFORNIA’S GAS USE RISES 0.6%; DIESEL DECLINES 7%
Betty T. Yee, Chairwoman of the Board of Equalization (BOE), today announced that California gasoline consumption rose in May, while diesel fuel continued to decline.
“We’re in an uncertain time,” said Chairwoman Yee. “While more fuel efficient cars and trucks are increasing fuel economy – and in light of some of the recently improved economic statistics – consumers remain cautious in their spending as the economy continues toward an uncertain recovery.”
Figures released today show that gasoline consumption rose by 3.5 percent from April, and was 0.6 percent higher than a year ago. Diesel consumption declined by 4.8 percent from April, and was 7.0 percent lower than a year ago.
May 2009 gasoline sold for use on California roads totaled 1.29 billion gallons of gasoline, which was 0.6 percent above that of May 2008, when Californians consumed a total of 1.28 billion gallons of gasoline.
A month to month comparison shows that gasoline consumption rose 3.5 percent in May when Californians consumed a total of 1.29 billion gallons of gasoline, compared with 1.25 billion gallons in April. Historically, May shows an increase over April, in part because of the Memorial Day holiday, which traditionally is the start of the summer when people travel more and consume more fuel.
The average California gasoline price at the pump in May was $2.53 per gallon, a 37.1 percent decline from the average price the same month last year when it was $4.02. Gasoline sold at the lower price in May generated approximately $241 million in sales tax during that month, an estimated $139 million less than was generated last year.
May 2009 diesel fuel sold for use on California roads totaled 209 million gallons of diesel, which is a 7.0 percent decline, or 15.8 million gallons less than May 2008, when Californians consumed a total of 225 million gallons of diesel. A month-to-month comparison shows that diesel consumption declined 4.8 percent in May when Californians consumed a total of 209 million gallons of diesel, compared with 220 million gallons in April.
California diesel prices were $2.35 per gallon in May down 49.6 percent compared to last year, when the average diesel price was $4.67 per gallon.
The BOE is able to monitor gallons through tax receipts paid by fuel distributors. Figures for June 2009 are scheduled to be available at the end of September 2009. All monthly, quarterly, and annual figures can be viewed on the BOE website at: http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.boe.ca.gov%2Fsptaxprog%2Fspftrpts.htm&esheet=6038921&lan=en_US&anchor=www.boe.ca.gov%2Fsptaxprog%2Fspftrpts.htm&index=1.
Taxable Gasoline Gallons: http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.boe.ca.gov%2Fsptaxprog%2Freports%2FMVF_10_Year_Report.pdf&esheet=6038921&lan=en_US&anchor=www.boe.ca.gov%2Fsptaxprog%2Freports%2FMVF_10_Year_Report.pdf&index=2
Taxable Diesel Gallons: http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.boe.ca.gov%2Fsptaxprog%2Freports%2FDiesel_10_Year_Report.pdf&esheet=6038921&lan=en_US&anchor=www.boe.ca.gov%2Fsptaxprog%2Freports%2FDiesel_10_Year_Report.pdf&index=3