National Academy Agrees With Green Machine

I have to boast that once again the Green Machine was years ahead of the National academy in determining that lithium ion batteries will be a betamax. Time to short Teslacle they have hyped their stock back to near 30 that they are on schedule to produce the S sedan. The fools on the street took this to mean that they are on budget as well as schedule. They will never be on budget as their batteries will not cost less. I say it is about a year before Teslacle get castrated and we have to continue with Castrol Motor Oil. Glad to see that Reaser the wealth eraser was delisted from the NYSE. Tell Senator Hatch (Utah) that his support of this thermodynamic joke was a badly Hatched plan

here is an article on the National Academy and Lithium Ion Batteries from the Wall Street Journal

By MIKE RAMSEY
The push to get electric cars on the road is backed by governments and auto makers around the world, but they face a big hurdle: the stubbornly high cost of the giant battery packs, which can account for half the cost of an electric vehicle.
Both the industry and government are betting that a quick takeoff in electric-car sales will drive down the battery prices. But a number of scientists and automotive engineers believe cost reductions will be hard to come by.
Unlike with tires or toasters, battery packs aren't likely to enjoy traditional economies of scale as their makers ramp up production, the scientists and engineers say.
A123 Systems in Michigan is counting on demand for electric cars despite the steep cost of its battery packs.

These experts say increased production of batteries means the price of the key metals used in their manufacture will remain steady—or maybe even rise—at least in the short term. They also say the price of the electronic parts used in battery packs as well as the enclosures that house the batteries aren't likely to decline appreciably.
The U.S. Department of Energy has set a goal of bringing down car-battery costs by 70% from last year's price by 2014.
Jay Whitacre, a battery researcher and technology policy analyst at Carnegie Mellon University, said in an interview the government's goals "are aggressive and worth striving for, but they are not attainable in the next three to five years." He predicted "it will be a decade at least" before that price reduction is reached.
Current industry estimates say the battery pack in the all-electric Nissan Leaf compact car coming out in December costs Nissan Motor Co. about $15,600.
That cost will make it difficult for the Leaf, which is priced at $33,000, to turn a profit. And it also may make the Leaf a tough sell, since even with federal tax breaks of $7,500, the car will cost almost twice the $13,520 starting price of the similar-size Nissan Versa hatchback.

Nissan won't comment on the price of the battery packs, except to say that the first versions of the Leaf won't make money. Only later, when the company begins mass-producing the battery units in 2013, will the car be profitable, according to Nissan.
The Japanese company believes it can cut battery costs through manufacturing scale. It is building a plant in Smyrna, Tenn., that will have the capacity to assemble up to 200,000 packs a year.
Other proponents of electric vehicles agree that battery costs will fall as production ramps up. "They will come down by a factor of two, if not more, in the next five years," said David Vieau, chief executive officer of A123 Systems of Watertown, Mass., a battery maker that recently opened a plant in Livonia, Mich.
Alex Molinaroli, president of Johnson Controls Inc.'s battery division, is confident it can reduce the cost of producing batteries by 50% in the next five years, though the company won't say what today's cost is. The cost reduction by one of the world's biggest car-battery makers will mostly come from efficient factory management, cutting waste and other management-related expenses, not from any fundamental improvement of battery technology, he said.
But researchers such as Mr. Whitacre, the National Academies of Science and even some car makers aren't convinced, mainly because more than 30% of the cost of the batteries comes from metals such as nickel, manganese and cobalt. (Lithium makes up only a small portion of the metals in the batteries.)
Prices for these metals, which are set on commodities markets, aren't expected to fall with increasing battery production—and may even rise as demand grows, according to a study by the Academies of Science released earlier this year and engineers familiar with battery production.
Lithium-ion battery cells already are mass produced for computers and cellphones and the costs of the batteries fell 35% from 2000 through 2008—but they haven't gone down much more in recent years, according to the Academies of Science study.
The Academies and Toyota Motor Corp. have publicly said they don't think the Department of Energy goals are achievable and that cost reductions are likely to be far lower. It likely will be 20 years before costs fall 50%—not the three or so years the DOE projects for an even greater reduction—according to an Academies council studying battery costs. The council was made up of nearly a dozen researchers in the battery field.
"Economies of scale are often cited as a factor that can drive down costs, but hundreds of millions to billions of ... [battery] cells already are being produced in optimized factories. Building more factories is unlikely to have a great impact on costs," the Academies report said.
The report added that the cost of the battery-pack enclosure that holds the cells is a major portion of the total battery-pack cost, and isn't likely to come down much.
In addition, battery packs include electronic sensors and controls that regulate the voltage moving through and the heat being generated by the cells. Since those electronics already are mass-produced commodities, their prices may not fall much with higher production, the study said.
Lastly, the labor involved in assembling battery packs is expensive because employees need to be more highly trained than traditional factory staff because they work in a high-voltage environment. That means labor costs are unlikely to drop, said a senior executive at one battery manufacturer.
When car makers began using nickel-metal hydride batteries, an older technology, in their early hybrid vehicles, the cost of the packs fell only 11% from 2000 to 2006 and has seen little change since, according to the Academies study.
Toyota executives, including Takeshi Uchiyamada, global chief of engineering, say their experience with nickel-metal hydride batteries makes them skeptical that the prices of lithium ion battery pack prices will fall substantially.
"The cost reductions aren't attainable even in the next 10 years," said Menahem Anderman, principal of Total Battery Consulting Inc., a California-based battery research firm. "We still don't know how much it will cost to make sure the batteries meet reliability, safety and durability standards. And now we are trying to reduce costs, which automatically affect those first three things."

The Not So Smart Smart

News from Daimler Benz is that they and their partner Teslacle will offer an electric version of the Smart for Two. The Smart for Two is a two seater car that is overpriced even in the gasoline version. Sales of the basic Smart are stalled and the resale value of used Smarts are low. I saw on Ebay that a two year old Smart for Two is selling for $8,999 or about half of its original cost. The sales of the Gasoline Smart have been declining as it simply is overpriced and underperforms against a Toyota Corolla that gets the same MPG, costs $5,000 less and seats five not two. There are a limited number of buyers for the impish Smart that need it in a cramped urban setting where parking spaces are limited. In Peoria or Pretoria it is simply a novelty that is expensive. Well to add insult to financial injury, Daimler and Teslacle have announced their E Smart that is equipped with Lithium Ion batteries instead of a gas tank.

The E Smart will have a range of about 80 miles on paper but about 60 miles on the road. It will be available for lease at $599 a month. Leasing an E Smart for this price is pretty dumb as one can lease a Gas Smart for $169 a month. When one does the tedious math to calculate the carbon savings of running an E Smart on electricity with power coming for the US Grid versus running a gasoline Smart one sees a savings of about three quarters of a ton of carbon dioxide a year. Calculating the total operating costs of the two alternates (fuel plus lease costs) and dividing the added costs of the E version by the carbon savings one gets that it cost about $6,000 per ton of saved carbon dioxide. Even Alaric La Deux’s The Bloom is off the Rose Box does not have as high a price tag for saved carbon dioxide. The E smart is plain dumb. One can lease a Prius for about $200 a month and have lower emissions than the E Smart and simply pocket $400 a month in savings.

No doubt that Obama and his energy secretary Dr Chew On That will provide Teslacle more money for this dumb idea. Teslacle will never get their S Sedan off the ground and will tell old BO that they succeeded in providing the US consumer an E Smart for a lease of only $599 a month and that the electric car is an American success story. If only Abe Lincoln could come back and see what has happened to the country he so desperately held together. Perhaps in 1860 he should have provided the Pony Express billions of dollars of Federal aid to stave off competition from the Union Express. Had old Abe done this Teslacle could compete effectively against each of us riding a horse to work. Actually in 1898 the gasoline engine was considered the clean alternate to horses as there was no manure to deal with. Back then folks were not worried about greenhouse gases they simply did not want to step in it. Unfortunately now with the pure manure we have as public policy we are swimming in it.

Time for PlasTax

Americans go through an astounding 92 to 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually, according to various sources. Many locations, such as grocery stores, accept their plastic bags back at the store for recycling, but it’s estimated that only about 5% are actually recycled. So what is the fate of the remaining 95%? Well of course some end up littering roadways and waterways, especially around urban areas. The bags are unsightly and potentially hazardous to wildlife who can mistake them for food and ingest them. About 10 percent of all bags make their way into the ocean and due to currents contribute to huge patches of floating plastic waste like the one in the North Pacific Central Gyre. But the vast majority end up as “trash” in landfills where they leach toxins into the soil, groundwater, and air as they degrade. Or worse, they are burned in incinerators releasing carcinogenic dioxins into the air that we breathe. There is also a production cost: it takes 1 gallon of petroleum oil to make between about 25 and 40 plastic bags, depending on size.

The reason this bag problem is ongoing is that plastic bags are free and the cost of cleanup are externalized. If you put the environmental costs into the bags and make people pay upfront for them, as sort of “PlasTax”, then plastic bag use magically goes way down as people switch to a biodegradable option or reusable tote. Individual retailers have discovered this neat trick as a way to save money on supplying bags to their stores. Aldi, Ikea, Fred Meyer, Loblaw, and Marks & Spencer are just some of the retailers around the world charging customers for plastic bags. Walmart and other retailers are running plastic bag charge pilot programs.

Other larger efforts have also been undertaken in recent years. In 2007, San Fransisco outlawed petro-plastic bags in grocery stores and drug stores in favor of paper, bio-degradable cornstarch, and reusable totes. The results thusfar are estimated to be a 50% reduction in plastic bag litter on the streets. Just this year, Washington DC instituted a 5 cent per bag charge, resulting in an 86% drop in bag usage and $150,000 in its first quarter year. In 2008, China instituted a ban on free plastic bags, reducing bag usage by an estimated 66%. In 2002, Ireland introduced a fee of 22 euro-cents (~29 cents USD) per bag which resulted in a 90% drop in their use, plus it raised a 9.6 million euro fund that year to benefit the environment. Other countries around the world, such as Bangladesh, India, Australia, Greece, Israel, Italy, South Africa, and Taiwan have also instituted taxes or bans on plastic bags. Is it now time for a PlasTax in your city?

~Mark Bremer, Green Explored Contributor

The Not So Green Queen

Old Lizzie The Second is pure gangrene with her big old castles. The photo shows her in blue as I could not find her dressed in green. Here is a report from Yahoo.

Queen tried to get UK poverty fund to heat palace



By RAPHAEL G. SATTER and GREGORY KATZ, Associated Press Writers – Fri Sep 24, 5:19 pm ET
LONDON –

Even a monarch needs a little help from time to time — especially when the cost of heating those drafty old palaces spirals past $1.5 million a year.
But a request for assistance from a government fund that provides subsidized heating to low-income Britons has caused a spot of bother for Queen Elizabeth II, long one of the world's wealthiest women.
Her Majesty's application in 2004 was politely turned down by the government — in part because of fear of adverse publicity — and quietly forgotten until The Independent newspaper published the correspondence Friday after obtaining it via a Freedom of Information request.
The documents quote an unidentified functionary as gently reminding the royal household that the program was meant for people in need, not the upper crust, and he noted the potential public relations disaster.
"I also feel a bit uneasy about the probable adverse press coverage if the Palace were given a grant at the expense of, say, a hospital," the official said. "Sorry this doesn't sound more positive."
Chagrined palace officials confirmed the account on Friday. A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said royal officials explored the possibility of getting money under the program as a way to reduce the monarchy's cost to taxpayers by making the palace more energy efficient.

She said the royal household did not know at the time that the government money was targeted for low-income Britons. She spoke anonymously in line with royal policy.
The revelation touched a nerve at a time when Britain is facing severe budget cuts in the midst of a prolonged recession.
Graham Smith, spokesman for the anti-monarchy group Republic, said the queen's attempt to access low-income funds was shameful.
"It is clear evidence of the contempt the palace has for ordinary people in this country," he said.
Some Londoners agreed.
Nick Bowring, a 23-year-old fitness instructor, said he didn't think the queen should get help paying heating bills. "There are people who need it a lot more than she does," he said.
The queen's finances have been controversial in the past, with occasional debates about whether Britain's head of state — whose role is largely ceremonial — costs taxpayers too much.
The 84-year-old monarch has royal residences across Britain, including Balmoral Castle in Scotland and Sandringham House in eastern England. Other residences, such as the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh and St. James's Palace in London, are used as offices or for functions.
She has many other assets, including an extensive art collection and a fleet of the world's finest automobiles at her beck and call, although the royal yacht has been sold.
Buckingham Palace has been in royal hands since King George III bought it in 1761 and has been the official London residence of Britain's monarchs since 1837. While it has magnificent gardens and grand state rooms with priceless paintings and furniture, large parts of the sprawling 775-room palace have not been modernized and are cold and drafty. Many of the rooms used by staff are downright dingy.
Insulation is poor and the heating system needs replacement, as do many of the windows, which lack proper glazing. Thermal imaging testing, used to identify and measure energy waste, showed heat escaping through palace windows, the roof and cracks in the walls.
Taxpayers fund the royal household to the tune of $60 million (38.2 million pounds) a year, which the monarch's official website points out costs Britain's 62 million people less than a dollar (62 pence) each.
It notes that royal spending has been cut substantially over the past two decades, dropping from $138 million (87.3 million pounds) in the 1991-1992 fiscal year to $60 million (38.2 million pounds) this year. That amount doesn't include the cost of providing security for the queen and her family.
The queen also receives $12.5 million (7.9 million pounds) of public money each year to pay for staff and other costs, an amount that has not risen in 20 years.
The accounts show the government spent more than $23.4 million (15 million pounds) on the upkeep of royal residences including Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, and almost $6.2 million (4 million pounds) on royal travel.
While some criticized the queen for trying to get still more government help, others defended her.
Ian Laming, a 49-year-old carpenter, said the government should have OK'd her request.
"She helps a lot," he said, adding that the monarch was a big boon to the U.K. economy.
"You just have to walk down to Buckingham Palace to see all the tourists."

Obama Calls In For Votes

Another week and another trillion pennies wasted by the Feds. The President made a grand speech this week about how brilliant his team was in spending recovery money on technologies of the future. Yeah the election is near and the speeches are heating up. The President happened to make this week’s speech by calling into the opening of A 123’s new lithium ion battery plant in Michigan.

"This from WBUR dot org

BOSTON — A123 Systems of Watertown has opened what is says is the largest lithium ion battery manufacturing plant in the country, in Livonia, Mich.
President Obama phoned in to the grand opening, calling it the birth of a new industry.
“I am calling to congratulate A123 Systems on this tremendous milestone,” Mr. Obama said.
Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm called the stimulus-funded project a start for her hard-hit state.
“A123 represents a slice of success for Michigan,” she said. “This commercialization and taking this technology to scale, putting Michigan workers to work in it — and the partnership that grows in it — can be replicated not just in Michigan, but in this country, to keep advanced manufacturing jobs here.”
Many of the 300 employees who were at the event are former auto workers.
A123 got a $249 million grant from the federal stimulus, and an additional $125 million in state tax incentives to build its factory in the Detroit suburbs. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick acknowledged that the Bay State could not offer a competitive package to build closer to company headquarters in Watertown.
A123 also plans to open another plant near the Motor City next year.
Despite the fanfare, there are big commercial hurdles to battery technology in cars."

I love the last line of the WBUR dispatch. The fanfare was for vote getting this November. The reality of thermodynamics and reaction kinetics that translate into economics will be evident when the bucks given to A 123 and other Betamax companies runs out and we are left holding the dead battery that results.

Some positive news for the week in that some really hard working and smart guys did manage to achieve the target of a 100 mpg vehicle that is not some slight of hand like Raser (now trading below 30 cents a share) and their political team of Arnie and Senator Orin Hatch. Readers have to admit that I am fair and balanced in knocking the opportunists on both sides of the isle. Here is the news report on the teams that shared the $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize. I like the Edison as it rhymes with Edsel.


"WASHINGTON (September 16, 2010) – The X PRIZE Foundation, an educational nonprofit prize organization, and Progressive Insurance, the country’s fourth largest auto insurance group, today, at the Historical Society of Washington, D.C., awarded $10 million to three teams who successfully completed the rigorous Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE. The winning teams—Edison2 of Lynchburg, Virginia; X-Tracer of Winterthur, Switzerland; and Li-ion Motors Corp. of Mooresville, North Carolina—emerged from an original field of 111 competing teams, representing 136 vehicle entries from around the world. The winning vehicles were showcased to an audience of auto industry, business and government leaders. Each of the winning teams was also presented with a towering bronze trophy designed by Harry Winston, Inc.
The Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE was launched in 2008 to inspire a new generation of viable, safe and super fuel-efficient vehicles capable of achieving 100 miles per gallon or the energy equivalent (MPGe). Now, after nearly 30 months of vehicle and business plan development, on-track testing at Michigan International Speedway which included dynamic safety testing by partner Consumer Reports, and laboratory verification at the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Lab, three vehicles emerge as winners:
$5 Million Mainstream Class Winner:
• Edison2 “Very Light Car #98” (Charlottesville, VA)
• Economy: 102.5 MPGe
• Fuel: E85 ethanol
• Boasting the lowest drag coefficient of any car with four wheels tested in the GM wind tunnel and at the Chrysler Proving Grounds, this vehicle demonstrated over 100 MPGe on the test track, and verified in the lab, under stringent testing conditions using a highly innovative small displacement engine. Its low weight of just 830 pounds is a tribute to its use of light weight materials, reduced engine displacement and a host of other weight-saving innovations.
$2.5 Million Alternative Side-by-Side Class Winner:
• Li-ion Motors Corp “Wave II” (Mooresville, NC)
• Economy: 187 MPGe
• Fuel: Battery Electric
• This side-by-side two-seat battery electric car was built on a lightweight aluminum chassis and weighs in at only 2,176 pounds, despite the weight of its powerful lithium ion batteries. The Wave II demonstrated outstanding
• low mechanical and aerodynamic drag that resulted in 187 MPGe in combined on-track and laboratory efficiency testing, a 14.7s zero-to-60 mph acceleration time, and over 100 miles range over a real-world driving cycle.
$2.5 Million Alternative Tandem Class Winner:
• X-Tracer Team Switzerland “E-Tracer #79” (Winterthur, Switzerland)
• Economy: 205.3 MPGe
• Fuel: Battery Electric
• This tandem two-seat vehicle combines the best of motorcycles and automobiles. This clever design has two extra outrigger wheels that deploy at low speed to stabilize the vehicle. At 1436 pounds, the E-Tracer is able to deliver over 100 miles in range, led the competition with over 200 MPGe in combined on-track and laboratory fuel efficiency and achieved a zero-to- 60 mph acceleration time of just 6.6 seconds.
The awards ceremony participants included Representative Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives; Progressive Insurance President and CEO Glenn Renwick; X PRIZE Foundation Chairman and CEO Dr. Peter H. Diamandis; Representative Edward Markey, Chairman, House Energy and Environment Committee; Cathy Zoi, Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy; Dr. John P. Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; and Senator Mark R. Warner, U.S. Senator from the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Also present at today’s announcement were several of the other vehicles that competed in the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE. Specifically, vehicles on display included: Spira4U, of Thailand; Commuter Cars’ Tango of Spokane, WA; amp’d Sky of Blue Ash, OH; Aptera 2e of San Diego, CA; RaceAbout of Finland; TW4XP of Germany; Western Washington University’s Viking 45 of Bellingham, WA; the ZAP Alias of Santa Rosa, CA; The West Philly EVX of Philadelphia, PA; and Illuminati’s Seven of Springfield, IL.
While the prize has now been awarded, the journey continues for the winning teams. They will immediately begin leveraging their winning status, prize money and connections made over the course of the competition to catapult their vehicle into the consumer market. Under a U.S. Department of Energy-funded technical assistance program, qualified Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE competitors will also gain funding support for access to key automotive expertise and test facilities. The aim of the program is to assist teams in readying their vehicles and technologies for introduction to the market.
“We’ve seen a shift in the market since we first launched this competition, and a greater awareness by people everywhere to think more seriously about the actions we take, and how they affect our environment,” noted Peter Diamandis, Chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation. “Gas mileage ranks as one of our top concerns when purchasing a new vehicle and I believe strongly that the innovations showcased throughout the life of this competition will continue to impact and improve our car buying options for the future.”
“Congratulations to the winners and to all the teams who competed over the course of this competition. Their innovations and hard work are truly inspirational,” said Glenn Renwick. “We’re extremely proud to support a competition that will result in more super fuel-efficient vehicle choices; choices that will make people’s lives better.”
The Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE is the second X PRIZE awarded by the X PRIZE Foundation, known worldwide as a leading organization for bringing about radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity through incentive prizes.
For detailed information about each winning team and to learn more about the competition, visit www.progressiveautoxprize.org.
For all the highlights and drama of the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE, please tune in to a one-hour documentary entitled, "X PRIZE Cars: Accelerating The Future" debuting tonight (September 16) at 9PM ET/6PM PT on the National Geographic Channel.
The X PRIZE Foundation prides itself on making the impossible, possible; addressing the issues that people prize the most.
ABOUT THE PROGRESSIVE INSURANCE AUTOMOTIVE X PRIZE
The goal of the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE is to inspire a new generation of viable, super fuel-efficient vehicles that offer more consumer choices. Ten million dollars in prizes will be awarded to the teams that win a stage competition for clean, production-capable vehicles that exceed 100 Miles per gallon or energy equivalent (MPGe). The Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE will place a major focus on efficiency, safety, affordability, and the environment. It is about developing real, production-capable cars that consumers will want to buy, not science projects or concept cars. This progress is needed because today's oil consumption is unsustainable and because automotive emissions significantly contribute to global warming and climate change. The ten million dollar purse and partial funding for prize operations was provided by Progressive Insurance. Additional major funding for education, outreach, and technical operations was provided by $9 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Energy. Additional funding for prize operations was provided by Cisco and private donors. For more information about the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE, please visit www.progressiveautoxprize.org or email progressiveautopress@xprize.org.
ABOUT PROGRESSIVE:
Progressive, founded in 1937, is one of the country’s largest auto insurance groups and a leading insurer of motorcycles, recreation vehicles, boats, and commercial vehicles. The Company offers competitive rates and innovative products and services that meet drivers’ needs throughout their lifetimes as well as 24/7 online and in-person customer and claims service. One of Progressive’s Core Values is Excellence. To the Company’s more than 24,000 people, it simply means seeking constant improvement. Over time, this has meant introducing revolutionary ideas that make car insurance easier to shop for, buy and use. It’s this same innovative spirit that’s behind the Company’s sponsorship of the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE. The Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE will inspire innovation that will produce more fuel efficient vehicle choices, helping to make a difference in people’s lives. Progressive’s products and services are available locally through more than 30,000 independent insurance agencies in the U.S., online at http://www.progressive.com, and by phone at 1-800-PROGRESSIVE (1-800-776-4737).
ABOUT THE X PRIZE FOUNDATION
The X PRIZE Foundation is an educational nonprofit prize institute whose mission is to create radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity. In 2004, the Foundation captured world headlines when Burt Rutan, backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, built and flew the world’s first private vehicle to space to win the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE. The Foundation has since launched the $10 million Archon X PRIZE for Genomics, the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE, and the $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE. The Foundation is creating and conducting competitions in four prize groups: Exploration (Space and Oceans), Life Sciences, Energy & Environment, and Education & Global Development. The Foundation is widely recognized as the leader in fostering innovation through competition. For more information, please visit www.xprize.org. "

More from a report by The Environmental Transport Association of the UK on the Edison 2

"The Automotive X Prize, a competition to find the best super-efficient vehicles capable of 100mpg (or energy equivalent), has been won by the Edison 2 Very Light Car. This fuel efficiency equates to 120mpg imperial.

The Edison 2 four-seater design was today awarded the top $5m prize. The vehicle uses a rear-mounted, single-cylinder motorcycle engine running on a blend of 85 per cent ethanol and 15 per cent petrol to produce 40 horsepower.

In order to qualify for the main prize, vehicles had to have four wheels and be capable of carrying four people a distance of 200 miles on one load of their chosen fuel.

In addition, they had to be capable of accelerating from 0 to 60mph in 12 seconds and reaching a top speed of 100mph."

PG&E Pathetic Grotesque and Evil

I am extremely saddened by the explosion and fire that occurred two days ago here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Four lives were lost, scores of homes were damaged, and 37 homes were burned to the ground when a high pressure natural gas transmission line ruptured and ignited in the suburban town of San Bruno. I work all but two miles away from the site of this horrific tragedy and a couple of my co-workers lost their homes. The cause of the event (note I do not call it an accident) was the rupture of an old and probably severely corroded underground steel transmission line that conveys natural gas under high pressure to users in San Francisco.

The line was a 30 inch pipeline that was buried underground in 1956. The operating pressure of gas transmission lines exceeds 200 psig and this line may have been operating under even greater pressure. The gas distribution lines to you home operate at reduced pressure and the gas lines within you home operate at even lower pressure as the utility installs a pressure regulator with your meter. The following link from the American Gas Association explains how gas is conveyed from the gas well to your home.

http://www.aga.org/Kc/aboutnaturalgas/consumerinfo/NGDeliverySystem.htm

"http://www.aga.org/Kc/aboutnaturalgas/consumerinfo/NGDeliverySystem.htm"

PG&E our local electric and gas monopoly is embarking on a program to install smart electric and gas meters for its residential customers. These meters are expensive and pretty worthless to the consumer. PG&E is hyping the program on the basis that the consumer will be able to view and analyze their energy usage. Yeah we can view and analyze our energy usage but who is going to turn off their refrigerator simply because we now know the refrigerator is using electricity. The whole program that will be paid for by the consumers is a way of PG&E getting rid of meter readers and making more profit, it does not save one kilowatt hour of usage. PG&E now joins BP as having a second name given to it by the Green Machine. Its new name is Pathetic Grotesque and Evil. This utility should have been spending money to replace 54 year old transmission lines that run directly under heavily populated towns, not wasting our money on some hair brain schemes of smart meters and other junk science they are promoting. These idiots are buying several modified trucks from Raser the wealth eraser that made the claim of the 100 mpg Hummer. Raser has hoodwinked PG&E into claiming they will have service trucks that get 100 mpg. Come on PG&E forget the hype and stick to the basics of why you were granted monopoly rights for gas and electric service. Yes you are supposed to provide safe and efficient gas and electric service.

The fools in Washington DC who have spent over ten trillion pennies on the junk science of fool cells, hyped batteries, and not so smart meters also should share the blame in this tragic event. Just as the guys who were overseeing BP’s operation in the gulf the morons who pretend to work for our government should be telling utilities to replace any buried gas transmission line that is over forty years old. President Obama if you want to have a stimulus package that actually provides jobs and has a legacy that does some good lets spend ten trillion pennies on rebuilding our dilapidated and very dangerous system of underground gas, water and sewer lines. When the ruptured line that was first installed in 1956 I have to believe the engineers of record assigned no greater than forty years of useful life to the system. They also specified steel pipes that were US made in mills owned by US Steel or Bethlehem Steel. The replacement pipe will likely be sourced from China as our steel industry has collapsed just like everything else about us. The moronic Jolly Green Giant Governator was on a trip to Asia so he was not at home to deal with the crisis. Hey Arnie bring some steel pipe home so we can repair the pipeline! Arnie the idiot made a joke while his plane was flying over Alaska en route to the Orient that he could not see Russia as a way of chiding Sarah Palin. Of course Sarah tweeted in response that Alaska has a surplus and does not have a failed economy. We all remember the high point of Sarah’s VP campaign two years ago that she was proposing a high pressure natural gas transmission line to deliver stranded gas in Alaska to the markets of the lower 48. I just hope that when that line gets built neither BP nor PG&E have anything to do with its design or operation and that someone remembers to rebuild the line in 2050. Of course the natural gas may have run out by then and the line could just be used for sewage that will still pour from politicians and CEOs mouths.

GM = Great Morons

For my readers who read my blogs several years back, you all know how I said (over and over) that General Motors was being run by morons. Well the truth of the stupidity of Rock Wagoner (CEO) and his executive team now comes out in a book by Steve Rattner the auto czar that was appointed by President Obama to get GM straight after our government gave them billions of our tax dollars to save the company. In 2002 I witnessed first hand how dumb Larry Burns the vice president of research and strategic planning at GM was. He presented a paper at a conference on hydrogen fuel cells. He presented data that violated the laws of thermodynamics and showed data that his production of hydrogen had more energy leaving the system than was entering the system as natural gas. I pointed out his error to him a fax I sent him. The idiot responded in an email to me that his brilliant understudy one Byron McCormick the head of the fuel cell program at GM had given him the calculation. I exchanged several emails with Byron to explain the mistake in his calculations and of course he never retracted the false claims as GM was receiving a slew of money from Sam The Sham Badman the then Energy Secretary for President Bush (GW). A first year chemical engineering student studying Thermodynamics would not have made the basic error that the head of fool cells at GM had made. I predicted back in 2002 that GM was doomed as it was being run by thermodynamic idiots.

Here is an article that appeared today on CNBC about Rattner and his disdain for the stupidity and sheer incompetence at the top of GM when he had to save the company from its own management.

Rattner's Book Shows Ghosn Could Have Had It All
Published: Friday, 3 Sep 2010 | 10:29 AM ET Text Size
By: Phil LeBeau
CNBC Correspondent

As advance copies of former Auto Czar Steve Rattner's book start to filter around, one of the more intriguing nuggets is the story surrounding the interest Rattner had in Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn. In his book Rattner says he offered the GM CEO position to Ghosn, but the Renault-Nissan boss politely declined. That offer and rejection says a lot about both Rattner and Ghosn.

For Rattner its yet another example showing that he and the auto task force had little use for Rick Wagoner, Fritz Henderson, or many of the other GM executives. This is not the first time we've heard this. Rattner and his team concluded early on the only way to re-make and save GM would be booting out the old guard with old views of the auto business. It speaks to the reason they brought in Ed Whitacre Jr. as chairman. They wanted and got fresh blood that would eventually purge a lot of the old GM leadership.

As for Ghosn, the story shows his desire to add GM in a Nissan-Renault alliance was more important than the chance to run GM by itself. And in fact, Rattner's book says that when Ghosn turned down the GM CEO offer he indicated he wanted GM to join his alliance. Some might find this baffling. I don't. Ghosn has instilled a culture in Renault-Nissan that he wants and believes in. Why would he give that up to go through the long road of gutting and changing GM?

Ultimately Steve Rattner trying to lure Ghosn confirms what we suspected at the time and what we know to be true now. The White House was hell bent on re-making the GM leadership with aggressive executives who would take advantage of the lifeline that had been thrown to the auto maker.