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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

I marvel at how different the 2009 “Business of Plugging In” conference was in comparison to a number of the other shows I’ve attended recently on renewable energy and electric transportation. Perhaps most obvious was the attention on job creation and a return to prosperity, and how economic issues far outweighed discussion about the environment. There was virtually no mention of global warming, and remarkably little discussion of the consequences of US dependency on foreign oil. Of course, to be fair, the show was about (as its name suggests) the business side of the equation. And it’s hard to lose track of the idea that we were in Michigan, the state with the nation’s highest unemployment rate.

What we did hear a lot over the past few days are what I would call “disingenous self-serving platitudes,” which I refer to as DSPs. One that came up a great deal was the idea that the OEMs, policy makers, utilities, and small businesses are collaborating to make the world a better place for car consumers. Oh please. I find that truly nauseating — not because I wouldn’t dearly like to see it, but because the precise opposite is true. Most of these people are busily but quietly building proprietary standards to lock out competitors and lock in profits — at the expense of what might have otherwise been a smooth and robust adoption curve. A frank admission of this obvious fact would have been really refreshing.

There were dozens of other minor examples that I won’t bore you with; as I mentioned yesterday, almost every speaker had some sort of private business agenda that he/she aggressively pressed down upon the audience. But there were real real doozies as well, a short list of which includes:

DSP #1: Toyota said it will bring along plug-in hybrid technology “soon,” a move that is hailed immediately by the moderator as “bold and courageous.”

The Truth: That company could have, and most people would say should have introduced this technology years and years ago. But, already perceived as being green, the company was under no pressure to do so, and chose to milk the profits out of its current technology platform until it was forced to move along.

DSP #2: GM represented itself as strong, focused, and committed to the plug-in market.

The Truth: Every man, woman, and child in the US was forced to buy GM stock at dozens of times its actual fair market value, because of the company’s astonishing lack of focus and commitment to building cars people wanted.  Here’s an article on AutoBlogGreen that goes into more detail.

DSP #3: The governor of the State of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm, proudly announced that Michigan has received about 60% of the total DoE stimulus money aimed at advanced car batteries, explaining that Michigan had effectively made the case that it was committed to a green automotive future.

The Truth: Could she possibly have been serious in this totally outrageous statement? Isn’t this the home of the most vigorous opposition to CAFE standards? Aren’t two of the three Michigan-based OEMs bankrupt precisely because they refused to build environmentally friendly cars that Americans wanted? This was so offensive that I found myself chuckling — softly but audibly. (You should have seen the glares from a few of those within earshot.)

PhotobucketAt a certain point, it looked as if it was going to be a solid three days of misleading self-congratulations, arrogance, and gleeful ignorance. But then Ray Lane of venture capital giant Kleiner Perkins took the stage with an approach that was honest, and diametrically opposed to most of those who had come before, or who would follow. I had the opportunity to thank him for his candor after his talk.

He told the audience that investment in innovation in the renewables space is an absolute imperative, and that, despite the rhetoric, he sees little sincere commitment. He pointed out that the US has made such investment in Internet technology, and has seen the results in terms of dominating that industry with Google, Mircosoft, Oracle, Cisco, etc. However, he showed us that we’ve done very little in renewable energy, and that almost all the top players in solar, wind, geothermal, hydrokinetics, etc., are outside the US.

He’s certainly right: the time for politics and glib language is over. We need to look the issue honestly in the face, knock off the deceit, and deliver technology that people honestly want. There is a ready and willing customer base who can’t wait to start buying, I can assure you.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

As the name suggests, “The Business of Plugging In” conference in Detroit this week was about business — the profit motive — and there is nothing wrong with that. Yet, though there is widespread agreement that the world should migrate to electric vehicles, there is considerable disagreement as to exactly how this should happen and who should profit as a result. There are a great number of directly competitive strategies in terms of products, business models, and charging infrastructures…..and guess what happens when you put their representatives on a stage in the hopes of calmly and dispassionately discussing these issues? Can you say “rabid dogs?”

I’m kidding; it’s all been fairly professional here, but generally, this is a forum for the presentation of ideas that serve the speaker’s ultimate profit-making agenda, so one hears some pretty wild, and, in my way of thinking, unsubstantiated ideas.

George Patacki, Governor of New York from 1995 – 2006, moderated the opening panel, and made what I thought was the single most important point of the day on Tuesday: we live in a country that has wind energy in the plains, solar energy in the southwest, and geothermal in the mountains — but no infrastructure — physical or regulative — to enable our nation to provide all this wonderful capacity to consumers. He’s supporting legislature that will bypass the boundaries of the literally 2000 local and regional utilities and upgrade the grid at a national level and make possible the sharing of renewable energy.

More on this soon.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

PhotobucketMy partner at EV World and good friend Bill Moore and I convene in Detroit this week for the “Business of Plugging In” show, which  runs through Wednesday. Upon my return, I’ll deliver a full report on who’s doing what. For now, I can tell you that the show has been sold out for quite a while, and that the interest in this subject is at an all-time high.

Driven by technology breakthroughs in batteries and ultracapacitors, aggressive policy-making at the federal and state levels, and, of course, the formation for capital enabling thousands of businesses to enter the supply chain at all levels, there is no doubt that electric transportation is coming in a big way, and that it will not be derailed this time.

It won’t be long until consumers all over the world join the early adopters in saying, “No plug? No deal.”

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Biomass

Stephen Lacey does a wonderful job in his podcasts for Renewable Energy World, and, I think, covers a multitude of subjects comprehensively and fairly. This week, he pointed out that feed-in tariffs (incentives for utility customers to put renewable energy back onto the grid) have been effective around the globe in spurring on the development of a great number of different technologies. He went on to note that biomass thermal is a viable, commercially ready technology, and deserves same set of incentives that are according to solar, wind, etc.

The federal government abandoned algae-based biofuels in the mid-1990s, but seems to have come around on the issue. The Department of Defense recently gave Solazyme several multi-million dollar contracts to supply jet fuel. Solazyme grows algae in the dark, feeding it with a variety of biomass stocks, and converting the sugars to oil.

The company claims that this process is 1000 times more efficient than growing algae in sunlight. But isn’t it hard to really fall in love with renewable energy technologies that wind up burning hydrocarbons? If we’re going to do this, isn’t it better to concentrate our efforts on technologies like solar, wind, geothermal, etc. that don’t involve carbon emissions? I really don’t see where the passion for biomass comes from.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

For some reason, I have come across a great number of reports recently of people claiming to have solved the riddles of the universe. As I’ve written elsewhere, I try to review all such suggestions with an appropriate mixture of respect and skepticism. I want to be enlightened enough to listen to ideas and appreciate them honestly, but not gullible enough to believe utter gibberish.  I also appreciate that pseudoscientific garbage can be the product either of crackpots (who, by definition, believe in their stories) or charlatans, who, again by definition, do not).

As long as the subject matter isn’t health-related or represents business fraud, claims like these represent no real danger to society beyond wasting people’s time, and thus I believe people have the right to make such statements.  But I also think that society has the right—if not the obligation—to write these people off as nuts.

If you’re interested in pursuing this line of reasoning yourself — or even if you’re just looking for a good example of what I mean — you can go to YouTube and listen to some of the talks of Marko Rodin; he seems to be a text book example. I’m sorry if I’m being too harsh or brief, but he does not make any sense to me whatsoever; this seems like complete tripe, and thus, to me, he’s firmly rooted into the crackpot/charlatan category (though I’m not sure which).

On the other hand, take David Wilcock, who dispassionately and intelligently discusses the 2012 phenomenon (end of the Mayan calendar) , visitation from extra-terrestrials, crop circles, etc.  Personally, I don’t find people like this and their attempts to unravel great mysteries to be crackpots at all.  I think we need some explanation of these gigantic and incredibly complicated phenomena other than a few drunken Englishmen stumbling home through the wheat fields from the pub Saturday night.

At this point, you may be wondering what this could possibly have to do with renewable energy.  Well, it seems possible to me – I might even say probable — that cutting-edge physics – the stuff that defies our intuition and that blasts our existing paradigms of exploration to bits – will someday make revolutionary contributions to energy — and I think we have to be alert to and accepting of them.  Further, I’m prepared for the fact that some of these new principles will strike all of us as quite bizarre.

So let’s talk about some of these aspects of modern physics.  What about zero point energy (which clearly does exist) btw? Regardless of how cold you get a substance, it still has energy, due to the Heisenburg uncertainly principle. If the particle stopped completely, you’d now exactly where it was, and that can’t happen. So there is always some kinetic energy involved with every particle in the universe. But no one has presented a credible explanation of how that energy is in any way available to harvest as useful work. Will it happen some day? I’m not sure, but it most certainly will not be soon.

What about quantum entanglement? Certain pairs of particles – whether they’re separated by an Angstrom or a galaxy – transmit information to and from one another instantly. Does this have ramifications for energy? Some say it’s possible. Most of the people I find most credible simply don’t see it.

What about cold fusion? As I’ve wrote in my Three Brass Tacks reports, I think there is credible evidence both that cold fusion exists, and that it has a reasonable trajectory for actual utility here several decades hence. But it will take a huge investment of resources that I see as unlikely in the realities of today’s world.

Having said all this, from what sources are breakthoughs most likely to issue?  From the Ph.D.s in the great universities, or from people who have no formal training in the subject?  To me, this study of paradigm-shattering is an interesting one.  People working too close to a subject tend to think in narrow and traditional ways, cut off from creative, new ideas.  As I like to say, they tend to “breathe their own exhaust.”  But people who really have no understanding of the subject are hard-pressed to ask themselves meaningful questions and pursue a breakthrough in a way that makes sense.

And the neat thing about scientific exploration is that a lot of it happens by accident, where some genius finds a previously unseen correlation between two subjects that had appeared to be completely unrelated. Thus it’s possible that the secret to an infinite supply of useful energy will come from someone who had set out to mix a better martini.

Personally, my money remains on existing, idiot-simple technology that we’ve known about virtually forever (e.g., solar thermal) and are just now coming across the imperative – as well as breakthroughs in materials science – to make feasible.  In any case, I try to keep an open mind — and I urge you to do the same.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Solar Thermal

PhotobucketI was delighted to see Siemens’ recent acquisition of Israel-based Solel Solar Systems for US$418 million.  To me, this again signals mega-corporations’ commitment to the concentrating solar thermal power (CSP) market. René Umlauft, CEO of Siemen’s Renewable Division remarked in an interview, “The market for solar thermal energy is highly promising, and vigorous growth is expected to continue for Solel.”

The German technology behemoth appears to be pursing a strategy of vertical integration, building or buying companies that provide troughs, collectors, and other components required for solar thermal deployment.

As I’ve often pointed out, solar thermal is not right for every geography; if you’re Iceland, you’re going to have to come up with a different plan if you want renewables. But a huge percentage of the Earth’s population lives in areas that would be conveniently served by large, hot, and otherwise unusable land masses, like the deserts of the southwestern US. Likewise, Siemens recognizes that solar thermal power production is most efficient in the sunbelt, and predicts significant development in the Middle East and Chile.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Current Book Outline – Shooting for April Publication

Working Title: “Renewable Energy – Facts and Fantasies”

 Chapter Concept  Current Status — All Completed — Interviews Conducted with ..
 1. Introduction (written by Craig)
 2. Peak Oil Matt Simmons
 3. Oil and National Security James Woolsey
 4. Global Climate Change Dr. V. Ramanathan
 5. Renewable Energy and the US Federal Government National Renewable Energy Labs’ George Douglas
 6. Preserving the Wilderness Audubon’s Brian Rutledge
 7. The Smart Grid and Vehicle-to-Grid EPRI’s Mark Duvall
 8. Fuel Cells Steve Ellis
 9. Business and Consumer Incentives – The Regulatory Environment Electric Drive Transportation Association’s Brian Wynne
 10. Electric Vehicle Advocacy Plug-In-America’s Jay Friedland
 11. Sociology of Driving Trinity Universty’s Dr. Michael Kearl
 12. Washington Watchdog National Resource Defense Council’s Johanna Wald
 13. Mobilizing the Private Sector Carbon War Room’s Jigar Shah
 14. Solar Thermal Ausra’s David Mills
 15. Wind  Energy Clipper Windpower’s Dr. Amir Mikhail
 16. Geothermal Energy Ormat’s Paul Thomsen
 17. Hydrokinetic Energy Universiry of Washington’s Dr. Brian Polagye
 18. Photovoltaics Bruce Allen
 19. Biofuels Scripps Instutution’s Dr. Greg Mitchell
 20. Renewable Energy Media Renewable Energy World’s Steve Lacey
 21. Renewable Energy Activism Sustainable Business’s Dr. Rona Fried
 22. Renewable Energy Economics 2GreenEnergy’s Bill Paul
 23. Intelligent Energy Management Steve Nguyen
 24. All the Physics Most People Will Ever Need to Know in 10 Pages (written by Craig)
 25. Cutting-Edge Physics – Possible Faces of Renewable Energy in 50 Years Wally Rippel
 26. Renewables in Municipal Government Santa Monica’s Rick Sikes
 27. Conclusion (written by Craig)
Again, thanks for your help!
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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

PhotobucketAdvocates of electric vehicles understand that there are many interesting variations in potential drivetrains, and that ideally, we would combine ultracapacitors with batteries to deliver stored energy as needed to provide power intelligently, based on the needs of the driver.  Where batteries separate positive and negative charges chemically, capacitors do so physically, much like the static electricity that builds up on the surface of a balloon. And where a battery relies on a chemical reaction to release energy, which is relatively slow, the discharge rate of capacitors is typically much faster, which is handy for creating rapid acceleration.

Though batteries tend to gather more attention in the news, I’m always interested in breakthroughs in either device, as both are important in moving the migration to EVs along.  Augmenting a battery back with ultracapacitors increases the range of an EV by as much as 400% over that which would have been achieved with batteries alone — so this is a very big deal, as one can readily understand.

I spoke just now with Jack Mastbrook, the chief marketing officer of Northern California-based Reticle Carbon, whose technology seems to represent a quantum leap in the appeal of capacitors in EVs.

Briefly, capacitors are typically granulated, porous, highly conductive carbon. The problem that most manufacturers face (e.g., Maxwell and Nesscap) , is that the process of consolidating this material greatly compromises its utility; the glues and resins reduce the carbon’s porosity and conductivity. Reticle’s patented breakthrough is a consolidation technology that does not use these binders, resulting in much higher surface area and conductivity of the carbon, thus a thicker electrode. The result: 10 – 20 times the power density. Jack is understandably both proud and excited. “To augment a 350V lithium-ion battery pack, Maxwell’s capacitive array weighed 150 pounds. Ours would have weighted 20 pounds,” he told me.

The company’s trying to raise investment capital. Given the interest in EVs in today’s market, that doesn’t sound like too difficult a task.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

PhotobucketI just got back from California Polytechnic Institute, or Cal Poly as it’s popularly called — at which I interviewed Dr. Tom Mackin, chairman of the mechanical engineering department for my upcoming book. The focus here, of course, is nurturing innovation in the next generation — and I can tell you, few people are more dedicated to the cause than Tom.

I guess what impressed me most was the idea that every incoming freshman hears moments after stepping on campus: “If you can dream it, you can build it.” Here you have thousands of kids from all over the world, in one of the most intellectually stimulating environments imaginable, coming to grips with the realities of science and technology — and how they apply to overcoming the challenges of the real world. Some are developing human powered vehicles that go 60 MPH; another team is working on a gas-powered mini-car that gets 2200 MPG.

And, outside of safety, there are no rules. Think a different approach to aerodynamics will reduce turbulence? Go for it. Whatever you’re doing, you’re free to build it in the most innovative, most imaginative way possible. Tom told me as I was leaving, “Perhaps the greatest thing about the world today is that we do not stigmatize failure. It didn’t work? No problem. Try again.”

Thanks for making a difference in thousands of young lives, my friend.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Yesterday’s interview with my friend Wally Rippel that I conducted for the book I’m preparing on renewable energy is a moment in time I’ll never forget. I know I’ve commented on Wally numerous times here, and so I’ll try not to burden readers with too much repetition on the wonderful grasp he has on both physics and philosophy, blending what we must do with why we must do it.

Perhaps my favorite few minutes of our dialog over lunch concerned the “Drake’s equation” – the famous attempt to quantify the probability of extraterrestrial life. Drake famously identified and multiplied together the many factors that come together to affect this number: the total number of stars in the universe, the percentage of those with planets, the percentage of those planets with carbon, water, etc.

Wally pointed out the most important factor in all of this may be the brief period of time between which life initiates on a planet until that life is extinguished. Until the advent of nuclear weapons less than a century ago, few people considered the possibility that life on this planet could come to an end in the absence of an extremely unlikely, naturally occurring event, e.g., a collision with a huge asteroid or the sun’s burning out. But now we have the interesting possibility that extraterrestrial life might be hard to find because there is a very brief window between the point that a civilization develops radio technology (enabling us to find them) and the time at which they develop nuclear weapons (enabling them to destroy themselves). The question then becomes, of course: Are we teetering on the edge ourselves?

This subject came up when I had exhausted by list of questions about from quantum physics and its applications to real-world technology. From there, we moved to a discussion of the politics that makes certain technologies far more likely to be deployed than others. Not to oversimplifiy, but the question is really one of good and evil. I hesitate to make such broad generalities, but I really see people who actively inhibit the rapid migration to renewable energy in a world desperately trying to stem global warming as evil. I wouldn’t know what else to call someone who considers his personal profit more important than the health and safety of the other 6.8 billion people on the planet.

In any case, I have to say that the process of conducting these interviews is among the most stimulating thing I’ve ever done in my 54 years traipsing around this planet. As I told my wife when I got home last night, if a fraction of the leaders of this world were as enlightened as Wally, this would be a terrific world in which to live.

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