Tesla Model 3

There was lots of Hoopla and Excitement this week about the reveal of the Tesla Model 3.  The Green Machine’s opinion is that this is one wonderfully engineered car.   No doubt that this car sets the standard for what can be done with a vehicle powered by lithium ion batteries. 

Tesla revealed that over 190,000 people had made their $1,000 reservation for the car at an average price of $42,000 each.  Sadly for many of these folks they won’t be getting the $7,500 tax credit unless the Feds change the law.  The law as presently written is that only the first 200,000 electric vehicles of any one manufacturer qualify for the $7,500 credit.  I am sure that Elon must have his lobbyists working on changing the law.

The car has an EPA range of approximately 200 miles.  The frame and body of the Model 3 are made of steel not aluminum like the Model S.  This was done to lower cost but adds to the mass of the car.  My guess is the car will weigh around 4,500 pounds and will have 55 to 60 kilowatt hours of batteries.  These specifications have not been revealed.

In 2013 Dr. Chu who was Secretary of Energy wrote a paper that the cost of lithium ion battery packs including all controls and thermal management was approximately $650 per kwh.  Folks are claiming the Model S battery pack will cost Tesla only $100 per kwh when the car starts selling in late 2017.  My educated guess is that the cost of the battery pack at the end of 2017 will still be $350 to $400 per kwh and that each pack will cost around $20,000 to $24,000.  This leaves approximately $18,000 to $22,000 for the rest of the vehicle.

You all may ask why I do not believe the $100 per kwh is possible?  This is because the cost of raw materials for the batteries will experience price increases.  Cobalt, lithium, graphite, copper, etc. will see inflation.  What will be very likely is that he Model 3 will be the last car that folks ever buy.  The batteries might well last 5,000 cycles for a lifetime of a million miles.  I actually think this is the real selling point of the car.  A car that lasts a lifetime!

The styling of the car is superb and Tesla has established their brand as the highest quality most sought out vehicle.  No other brand of vehicles comes close to Tesla for customer appeal and satisfaction.  I still think that the Toyota Prius should outsell the Model 3.  Time will tell how successful the Model 3 becomes and how much profit Tesla makes.   I have to hand it to the team at Tesla they sure know how to create excitement.

NBC Further Exposes Bloom Energy Bloomdoggle

This link is the fourth in a series by NBC Bay Area Investigates that exposes the Greenwashing by Bloom Energy

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/State-Regulators-Consider-Decision-to-End-Big-Benefits-for-Fuel-Cells-374152691.html

New data I have obtained from Delaware show for the 9 months June 2015 through February 2016 CO2 emissions from the Bloom Coffins are 896.12 pounds per megawatt-hour.  Bloom permitted only 773 pounds per mwh.  In these 9 months Bloom emitted an extra 10,419 tons of CO2 over and above than they claimed they would.  This is like Al Gore driving 3,000 cars 15,000 miles a year.  I only wish Al would go 45 million miles away and that would get him halfway to the Sun that he created when he was not busy inventing the internet.  Albert Gore is no Albert Camus he is more like Albert Tochus.

The Bloom is Wilting.

Bloom Energy’s Twinkie (Bagel) Defense

I asked the US EPA to investigate the Bloom Energy Bloomdoggle in Delaware and the rest of the country regarding the hazardous waste they send for treatment to an EPA licensed facility in Texas.

I now have a letter from the head of the EPA in the Philadelphia region to the cabinet secretary of the environment (DNREC)  in the state government of Delaware.  The letter exposes the following:

Bloom and DNREC claimed the tightly sealed strong metallic containers holding the hazardous waste were simply part of the manufacturing processing unit (MPU) and even when they were disconnected, placed in a truck, transported thousands of miles, and delivered to the Hazmat site in Texas these containers still functioned as part of the Bloom Coffins (MPUs) placed in the protected coastal zone of Delaware.

Bloom hired one of the most expensive seasoned lawyers in the country to come up with the Twinkie in a sealed canister defense (a BS defense).  She is Michele B. Coresh of Morrison Foerster.  Her link is below.  This 70 year old super lawyer lives in a $7 million penthouse in San Francisco on Green Street no less.

http://www.mofo.com/people/c/corash-michele-b

The B in her name is for Beigel so we will call the Twinkie defense the Bagel defense.  The spelling of bagels is also beigels .  This all comes from Polish where Bagels were first invented.  Forget that the bagel is in the shape of a zero and that the defense amounted to one big zero let’s see what the EPA told the head of DNREC.

In polite language on September 8, 2015

“EPA has determined that Bloom Energy’s Desulf Units do not fall in the MPU exemption and your June 3, 2015 conclusion is based upon an interpretation that is less stringent than the federal program and inconsistent with how the exemption has been implemented nationally.”

“EPA has determined once the Bloom Energy Desulf Units are disconnected from the facility’s fuel cell module, the MPU is no longer applicable and the spent filter material within each disconnected Deslph Unit is a solid waste that is subject to DRGHW Sec 262.11.”

“EPA looks forward to discussing the issue with you and your staff in order to identify steps that Bloom is in compliance with the hazardous waste regulations and the waste is properly managed.”

In plain language EPA did not buy the Bagel Twinkie defense that Bloom’s very high priced lawyer Ms. Michele Beigel Corash used.  The EPA took the Big O out of Corash and what you have is a CRASH when her defense Bloomeranged and bit Bloomdoogle in the Behind.

A Danish Bloomdoggle

The Danes are being ripped off just like Americans by a HUGE greenwashed project

https://fuelcellsworks.com/news/air-liquide-is-leading-the-largest-power-to-hydrogen-project-in-europe/

Electricity generated from wind will be used to electrolyze water to produce hydrogen that will be used in vehicles and also used for grid backup.  One megawatt of electrolysis for $16 million, CRAZY!   The Danes could have stored the wind generated electricity in lithium ion batteries in a project that cost one tenth as much and the round trip efficiency of the battery project would be 90% or greater while the Rube Greenberg hydrogen project has a round trip efficiency of approximately 25%.  That is to say 75% of the energy is lost in the Leaky Air project while only 10% of the energy would be lost in the battery storage project.

In Denmark surnames end in SEN

http://www.mydanishroots.com/surnames-meaning-and-origin/the-100-most-common-surnames-in-denmark.html

I guess Rube Greenberg would be known as Rube Greenbergsen for this greenwashed project.

Headlamps and MPGs

Headlamps and MPGs

While driving on the Golden Gate Bridge this week, I remarked to my wife that all cars now have unique Headlamps and that this only came about 30 years ago.  Before that headlamps were either round or square and mounted flush with the grills of the vehicles at 90 degrees to the road.  The old round and square headlamps caused air flow to be interrupted and increased the coefficient of drag of the vehicle.

The photo below of a 1980 Honda Accord shows this

  

By 1985 Honda was hiding the headlamps in a retractable housing

Then came the molded plastic headlamps in 1990 and the beginning of more aerodynamic fronts to vehicles

 Now that we have reached 2016  the fronts are far more aerodynamic and streamlined

Folks back in the 1930s also produced streamlined vehilces.  The Tatra pictured below is one such vehicle.  Read up on it in the wiki link as well

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatra_77

The poor Tatra tried to make the most out of the old round Headlamps.  Interestingly the Tatra had a coefficient of drag of 0.24.  The Hummer H2 which is like moving a brick through air has a coefficient of drag of 0.57.  The amount of power needed to break through air at the same speed is directly proportional to the coefficient of drag.  If 24 BHP were needed to break through the air for the Tatra at speed X then 57 BHP would be needed for the Hummer to break through the air at speed X.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_drag_coefficient

The Tatra of eighty years ago had the same coefficient of drag as the Tesla Model S.

If Tatra had the opportunity to use headlights from 2016 rather than what was available eighty years ago the Tatra not the Tesla would be the talk of the town and Hand Ledwinka not Elon Musk would be on every Greenies’ lips.  Interesting the first three letters in Ledwinka are LED and we are now moving rapidly to adopting LED headlamps for vehicles.

By my estimate the 800 million vehicles on the roads of planet earth that have molded headlamps save 25 gallons each a year compared to if they had the old fashioned flat round or square headlamps.  Each gallon of gasoline emits approximately 25 pounds of CO2 (well to wheels).  Therefore molded headlamps save 500 billion pounds of CO2 emissions per year or 250 million short tons a year of CO2 emissions.  This is approximately equal to the amount of CO2 that 1.4 billion humans breathe out.  I love the style of the new headlamps and there should be a headlamp exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art.

Bloom Waste in Delaware

Calculation to get the 1,185.6 tons of waste per year sent from the pristine protected coastal zone of Delaware to the EPA licensed hazmat site in Texas

Low Oil Prices and Suez Canal

I came upon a very interesting article in CNBC linked below

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/26/cargo-ships-could-save-thousands-by-skipping-the-suez-canal.html

In essence because oil prices are so low ships are avoiding using the Suez and Panama canals and going the extra miles around the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn to save paying the toll on using the canals.  Shipping charter rates are so darn low that wasting the extra time for the far longer journey and paying the extra fuel is far less than paying the toll to the Egyptians or the Panamanians.

Of course the solution is to lower the toll to use the Suez or Panama Canals to levels such that it is more economical to use the canals rather than making the far longer voyages.  There have been over 100 voyages that went the longer routes and each voyage emitted an extra 6,500 metric tons of CO2.  This is equivalent to adding 100,000 cars to the road.  Also bunker C fuel for ship engines is full of sulfur and these ships spew acid rain forming gases of SOx and NOx.

Eventually the price of oil will increase and hopefully very shortly the Egyptians and Panamanians will lower the tolls on their Canals.  Sadly for Egypt and Panama they each spent many billions of dollars expanding their canals thinking China would expand at a fast pace and shipping would boom for a long time to come.  These are two very poor countries and revenues from their canals are a large part of their economies.

Perhaps Al Gore can go on a speaking series on cruise ships that would have used the canals but now go the longer routes.  Folks can then listen to him for five or six extra days explaining how green he is and why low oil prices are bad for the world.  If I was aboard a ship with Al Gore I would go over bored (get the pun)