A scary strategic problem - no oil

[a_majoor]

Looking over the thread, I see literally dozens of initiatives to produce oil or an oil substitute (Bakken and other unconventional oil plays, means to improve the yield of the tar sands, bio-oil from plants, algae and bacteria, oil from biomass, oil from coal etc.)

Having multiple sources of "crude" allows market mechanisms to work, bidding the price of the feedstock down. As noted, regulatory failure in the form of government interventions can force the price up, but then again there are many means reported on this thread on how to reduce the use of c-18 hydrocarbons (gasoline and diesel fuel) through high efficiency engines, behaviour modification and substitution, activities which will be spurred on by high prices caused by shortages or regulatory failure.

Bottom line, so long as there is a demand for inexpensive energy, there will be lots of people trying to supply it to the market.

 

[a_majoor]

I guess they havn't been reading this thread!

http://green.autoblog.com/2010/04/15/u-s-military-warns-of-oil-production-shortage-by-2015/

U.S. military warns of oil production shortage by 2015

by Nik Bristow (RSS feed) on Apr 15th 2010 at 7:49PM


The U.S. military thinks we're one step closer to peak oil, the point at which oil demand will forever outstrip oil supply, and therefore we're one step closer to fighting over the last rusting cans of gasoline like so many scraps of meat. On the plus side, we're also one step closer to finally equipping our cars with superchargers and massive gas tanks rigged with explosives a la Mad Max and his archetypal peak-oil sled, "the last of the V-8 Interceptors."

The U.S. Joint Forces command has issued a Joint Operating Environment report that states that surplus oil production capacity could disappear within two years and that there could be serious shortages by 2015. From the report:

    By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day, While it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political, and strategic effects such a shortfall might produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed worlds. Such an economic slowdown would exacerbate other unresolved tensions, push fragile and failing states further down the path toward collapse, and perhaps have serious economic impact on both China and India.

The Joint Operating Environment report didn't go quite as far as saying it was time to start dressing in leather, eating canned dog food and carrying sawed-off shotguns, but it didn't exactly paint a rosy picture of what post-2015 America could look like. "One should not forget that the Great Depression spawned a number of totalitarian regimes that sought economic prosperity for their nations by ruthless conquest," the report points out. Ruthless conquest? They might as well say "massive oiled-up dudes wearing hockey masks and riding around the desert on tractors."

We're not sure where the U.S. Joint Forces command got their numbers from, but their conclusion does seem to jibe with a peak oil assessment by a Kuwaiti study and an estimate by Richard Branson's energy taskforce, all of which means we're off to practice our welding skills.

 

[a_majoor]

The fact that a huge supply of relatively cheap oil lies within the borders of the CONUS gives me hope that there will be something avalable to get the US and North American economy going again sometime in the future:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/05/prediction-of-one-million-barrels-per.html

Prediction of one million barrels per day from Bakken Oil Field by 2020

David Hobbs, IHS, Cambridge Energy Research Association (CERA), is forecasting that by the end of the decade, production in the Bakken will be one million barrels a day

    "The potential production is far greater than anyone would have admitted to even a couple years ago. The rate at which innovation is changing the unit costs to bring it into the attractive oil prices - will ensure that activity keeps on going." Hobbs' forecast is based on the acreage that's available and the number of wells that can be drilled on that land. (speaking at Williston Basin Oil Conference in Bismarck)

    70-80 rigs a year can drill 1,000 wells a year... And Hobbs also watched as production rates in the Bakken have reached higher levels with the help of new technology..

    In addition he says the Bakken could out perform what he's predicting because he may have underestimated the improvements in technology

In February, 2010 there was 261,000 barrels of oil per day from North Dakota Oil. There was 65,000 barrels per day from Bakken Oil in Saskatchewan and about 50,000 barrels per day from Bakken oil in Montana.

Underneath most of the Bakken oil field is the Three Forks Formation which doubles the amount of recoverable oil.

North Dakota oil production has been predicted to be 350,000 barrels per day at the end of 2010 and in the 400,000 barrel per day range for 2011-2012

 

[a_majoor]

The art of saving fuel through reduction in friction. Airforce and Navy brass should be very interested in these techniques:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/05/sharkskin-paint-to-lower-fuel.html#more

Sharkskin Paint to lower the fuel consumption of airplanes and ships and Hydrophobic ferns could also lower drag for ships

1. Sharkskin inspired paint made with Nanoparticles reduce drag and lower fuel consumption. If the paint were applied to every airplane every year throughout the world, the paint could save a volume of 4.48 million tons of fuel. The team was able to reduce wall friction by more than five percent in a test with a ship construction testing facility. Extrapolated over one year, that means a potential savings of 2,000 tons of fuel for a large container ship. The nanoparticles which ensure that the paint withstands UV radiation, temperature change and mechanical loads, on an enduring basis. Paint is applied as the outermost coating on the plane, so that no other layer of material is required. It adds no additional weight, and even when the airplane is stripped – about every five years, the paint has to be completely removed and reapplied – no additional costs are incurred. In addition, it can be applied to complex three-dimensional surfaces without a problem."

    The next step was to clarify how the paint could be put to practical use on a production scale. The solution consisted of not applying the paint directly, but instead through a stencil. This gives the paint its sharkskin structure. The unique challenge was to apply the fluid paint evenly in a thin layer on the stencil, and at the same time ensure that it can again be detached from the base even after UV radiation, which is required for hardening.

2. The hairs on the surface of water ferns could allow ships to have a 10 percent decrease in fuel consumption.

    The plant has the rare ability to put on a gauzy skirt of air under water. Researchers at the University of Bonn, Rostock and Karlsruhe now show in the journal Advanced Materials how the fern does this. Their results can possibly be used for the construction of new kinds of hulls with reduced friction. The skirt of air layer prevents the plant from coming into contact with liquid. And that even with a dive lasting weeks.

    Up to now with container ships more than half of the propulsion energy is lost through friction of the water at the hull. With an air layer this loss could be reduced by ten percent according to the researchers' estimate. Since ships are huge fuel guzzlers, the total effect would be enormous. "Probably one percent of the fuel consumption worldwide could be saved this way," is Professor Barthlott's prognosis. "Surfaces modelled on the water fern could revolutionize shipbuilding," Professor Dr. Alfred Leder from the University of Rostock concurs.

 

[a_majoor]

While this technology has a specific application in the article, the idea of spooling up high energy density flywheels and releasing the energy in short, controlled pulses has other military applications such as powering railguns or laser weaponry.

The same technology would make wind generators a viable part of the energy infrastructure, the energy could be collected at any time but released during peak demand (rather than irregular intervals whenever the wind happens to blow):

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/05/designing-building-and-using-larger.html#more

Designing, Building and Using Larger Flywheels

The U.S. Navy is presently pursuing electromagnetic launch technology to replace the existing steam catapults on current and future aircraft carriers.

    The present EMALS design centers around a linear synchronous motor, supplied power from pulsed disk alternators through a cycloconverter. Average power, obtained from an independent source on the host platform, is stored kinetically in the rotors of the disk alternators. It is then released in a 2-3 second pulse during a launch. This high frequency power is fed to the cycloconverter which acts as a rising voltage, rising frequency source to the launch motor. The linear synchronous motor takes the power from the cycloconverter and accelerates the aircraft down the launch stroke, all the while providing "real time" closed loop control.

    The introduction of EMALS would have an overall positive impact on the ship. The launch engine is capable of a high thrust density, as shown by the half scale model that demonstrated 1322 psi over its cross section. This is compared to the relatively low 450 psi of the steam catapult. The same is true with energy storage devices, which would be analogous to the steam catapult's steam accumulator. The low energy density of the steam accumulator would be replaced by high energy density flywheels. These flywheels provide energy densities of 28 KJ/KG. The increased densities would reduce the system's volume and would allow for more room for vital support equipment on the host platform.

    The EMALS offers the increased energy capability necessary to launch the next generation of carrier based aircraft. The steam catapult is presently operating near its design limit of approximately 95 MJ. The EMALS has a delivered energy capability of 122 MJ, a 29% increase. This will provide a means of launching all present naval carrier based aircraft and those in the foreseeable future.

The so-called Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, or EMALS, is now under development in a shore-based test facility at Lakehurst naval air station in New Jersey. However, according to May 12, 2010 reports, the test mass-driver installation suffered serious damage earlier this year in a mishap blamed on a "software malfunction". Apparently the "shuttle" - which moves along the catapult track to accelerate a plane to flying speed - went the wrong way in a test shot and smashed into important equipment. The accident has delayed the shore-based testing by several months. It had been planned to commence launching aircraft - as opposed to test loads - this summer, but that will not now happen until autumn. The next US supercarrier, CVN 78, aka USS Gerald R Ford, is now under construction and intended to join the fleet in 2015. Navy officials confirmed last year that it is now too late to amend the ship's design and revert to steam catapults: EMALS must be made to work or the US Navy will receive the largest and most expensive helicopter carrier ever.

 

[a_majoor]

Of course, simply being more efficient works wonders. I was rather astonished to discover that a Diesel engine has a theoretical efficiency of 75%.

Of course, when Rudolf Diesel made these calculations, the state of the art was nowhere near the ability to extract that amount of energy; apparently his calculations called for a 52:1 compression ratio and used the long cylender throw to extract energy from the @ 20000C flame front at TDC to @ 200oC at BDC. I'm not sure that anything like that could even be built today .

Still, given that most medium duty engines are only at the 35 to 40% mark, there is a long way to go, and lots of room to move.

 

[KingKikapu]

Still waiting on viable fusion.  It's gonna take several years to get there, but it'll beat the pants off the vast majority of the proposals identified on this thread.

 

[a_majoor]

For people who use open flame to cook, a high tech stove that can produce electricity, and utilize thermal energy to make ice.  More versatile than a Coleman stove!

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/07/thermo-acoustic-generator.html

Thermo-Acoustic Generator

There is a development project for using sound based generators that are over 18% efficient at converting heat to electricity. The target is to mass produce the units starting in 2012.

* Target of 100-150 Watts electrical thermo-acoustic generator (stove, fridge, electricity) for £20 in 1 million quantities with half the wood and no smoke
* weight: 10-20kg
* 1.6 kWth for cooking and 0.75 kWth for simmering.
- Fuel: consumption 1 kg/hour, wood, dung and other bio-mass.
* fuel is placed inside the stove and burned. The fire heats compressed air that has been pumped into specially shaped pipes located inside the stove's chimney and behind the stove. The heated air begins to vibrate and produce sound waves. Inside the pipes, the noise is 100 times louder than a jet taking off. But because the pipes are stiff and do no vibrate, the sound waves have nowhere to go. So outside the pipe, people hear only a faint hum.

* The sound waves vibrate a diaphragm located at the end of the pipe. The diaphragm is attached to a coil of metal wires that sit inside a magnet. As the wire coil vibrates — about 50 times per second — it generates an electrical current, which is captured by wires and converted to the proper voltage.
* The stove has electrical sockets, where the homeowner can plug in, for example, a mobile phone for charging. Or she can sell the electricity as a phone-charging service.
* For refrigeration, the heated, compressed air is sent through a different part of the pipe, where sound waves cause the air to expand. As it expands, it cools to a temperature that can produce ice. It takes about two hours of stove use to produce enough ice that will keep the fridge cold for 24 hours. But homeowners have the option of producing more ice to sell for income.

* Across the world, two billion people use open fires as their primary cooking method. These fires have been found to be highly inefficient, with 93 per cent of the energy generated lost. And when used in enclosed spaces, smoke from the fires can cause health problems.

In August 2009 a propane fueled Score stove produced 19.5 Watts of power. This allowed it to power lights and simultaneously charge a mobile phone.

The ice that is produced could be placed into the 5-6 day commercial coolers. A constant supply of ice would enable the coolers to constantly keep food cold. The thermo-acoustic generator would be very useful for camping or for survival situations.

 

[a_majoor]

And a totally different proposal, with the huge bouns of harnessing market power! I am a bit sceptical of the price of full fuel flexibility being only $100/unit (methanol is pretty corrosive, and the entire fuel system and all seals and gaskets need to be made of different materials in response), and Diesel engines are still far more efficient (can Diesel engines run on Methanol? Yes in theory, but very practical problems exist, such an engine would probably be single fuel only)

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/2/open-standards-for-auto-fuel/print/

ZUBRIN: Open standards for auto fuel
Let the market decide - oil, ethanol or methanol

By Robert Zubrin

4:45 p.m., Friday, July 2, 2010

Ladies and gentlemen of the left and the right: Let's be realistic. There is no chance whatsoever that the U.S. political system will either: A) Pass carbon or gas taxes sufficiently punitive to compel Americans to curtail their driving substantially, or B) Support rapid expansion of offshore drilling for the foreseeable future.

Therefore, if neither conservation nor production is in the cards, how can we hope to deal with our nation's dangerous and ever-growing dependence on foreign oil?

Here's my answer: We need to cure our cars of their oil addiction. To paraphrase Shakespeare, the fault is not in ourselves, but in our cars; we are made underlings.

Let's stop the guilt-ridden breast-beating and place the blame where it belongs. We are not addicted to oil. Our cars are addicted to oil. They are like a tribe of people who, because of some unfortunate flaw, can only eat one kind of food, say herring. Thus, if the herring merchants combine to rig up the price of their product to $100 per pound, the tribesmen have no choice but to submit. They would be far better off if they could become omnivores, capable of eating steak, ice cream, corn, eggs, apples, etc., as the power to use such alternatives would make them immune from herring-cartel extortion.

Our four-wheeled servants have the same problem; they can only drink one kind of fuel. Unfortunately, because we are the ones who must foot the bill for their singular habit, their problem is our problem. We need to cure them.

Fortunately, such a cure is at hand. The technology exists to make cars that are fully flex-fueled, able to run equally well on gasoline, ethanol or methanol, in any combination. If installed at the time of manufacture, the inclusion of this feature adds only about $100 to the cost of a typical car. The benefits of making such a childhood immunization against oil addiction a standard requirement for all new autos sold in the U.S. would be profound.

Were it the rule that only oil-addiction-immunized cars could enter the U.S. market, foreign carmakers would waste no time in switching over their entire lines to flex fuel. Thus, not only Japanese cars sold in America, but also those sold in Japan and everywhere else would be omnivores, as would nearly all other cars sold in any serious way internationally. Within a very few years, there would be tens of millions of cars in the U.S. endowed with the capacity for fuel choice, and hundreds of millions more internationally. Under those conditions, gasoline would be forced to compete at the pump against both methanol and ethanol made from any number of potential sources all over the world. This would put a permanent competitive constraint against future rises in the price of oil. Such a constraint is vitally needed, as without it, current $75-per-barrel recession oil prices could easily explode under conditions of economic recovery to levels of $150 per barrel or more, thereby aborting the recovery itself.

While ethanol can make a significant contribution - it has replaced 7 percent of the gasoline used in the U.S. and more than 50 percent in Brazil - the real key here is compatibility with methanol, which can be made in limitless quantities from anything that either is or once was a plant, including coal, natural gas, recycled urban trash or any kind of biomass, without exception. Its current price on the international market is $1 per gallon, equivalent in energy terms to gasoline at $1.90 per gallon - without any subsidy. If we cure our cars so they can drink this fuel, we will protect ourselves from extortion by the oil cartel, forever.

A bill has been introduced in Congress to do exactly that. Known as the Open Fuel Standards (OFS) Act, it has truly bipartisan support, with its Senate version (S.B. 835) sponsors including such liberals as Sen. Maria Cantwell, Washington Democrat, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota Democrat; moderates such as Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent, and Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican; and conservatives such as Sen. Sam Brownback, Kansas Republican, and Sen. John Thune, South Dakota Republican. Similarly, its House version (H.R. 1476) supporters run the political spectrum from Rep. Eliot L. Engel, New York Democrat, to Rep. Bob Inglis, South Carolina Republican. Under the bill's provision, by 2012, 50 percent of all new cars sold in the U.S. will need to be fully flex-fueled, with the number rising to 80 percent by 2015.

With a stroke of a pen, Congress can break the power of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to tax the world. The OFS bill will not cost the Treasury a dime, and it will protect the nation from hundreds of billions of dollars of potential losses because of future petroleum price increases. Those reluctant to support it need to answer the question: In whose interest is it that Americans lack fuel choice? In whose interest is it that our cars remain addicted to oil?

Robert Zubrin is president of Pioneer Astronautics and the author of "Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil" (Prometheus Books, 2007).

 

[a_majoor]

The upside is US oil shale can probavly be processed using the same methods. The downside is this will cut the legs from global demand, with the negative impact on Alberta/Saskatchewan in particular and Canada's oil export industry in general. Still, inexpensive energy is the true key to prosperity:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/07/china-has-catalyst-to-convert-shale-oil.html#more

China has a Catalyst to Convert Shale Oil Directly into Transportation Fuel

Greencarcongress.com - China has identified a catalyst—NiMoW—for the hydrotreating of the diesel distillate fraction from Fushun shale oil to produce a product that can be directly used as a transportation fuel.


In China, reserves of oil shales account for about 500,000 billion tons. It is distributed mainly in Fushun, Liaoning province, Huadian, Jilin province, and Maoming, Guangdong province... However, the shale oils produced from oil shales contain a considerable amount of heteroatomic compounds, especially unsaturated hydrocarbons, which may cause many troubles, such as, instability of fuel during its transportation or storage...Catalytic hydrotreating may be considered as the only convenient way to remove heteroatomic compounds from shale oil. However, many papers showed that severe process conditions were needed during catalytic hydrotreating of shale oils. The concentrations of heteroatomic compounds in shale oils could be reduced, but they were still too high to be used as a transportation fuel. Denitrogenation was more difficult than desulfurization for shale oils.


That quote from the article is probably some kind of typo (500,000 billion= tons ?). It is difficult to nail down a clear estimate of the oil shale in China. One issue is the huge difference between proven reserves or economically developable at the time. Below are some other estimates.

Wikipedia lists China's oil shale at 32 billion tons.

There was an estimate of 3.3 trillion barrels of oil shale in world. 2.6 trillions barrels oil shale in the USA.

World Energy Council - Between 2004 and 2006 China undertook its first national oil shale evaluation, which confirmed that the resource was both widespread and vast.


According to the evaluation, it has been estimated that a total oil shale resource of some 720 billion tonnes is located across 22 provinces, 47 basins and 80 deposits
.

Energy & Fuels Journal - Catalytic Hydrotreating of the Diesel Distillate from Fushun Shale Oil for the Production of Clean Fuel



Because of high contents of nitrogen, sulfur, and unsaturated hydrocarbons in shale oil, its potential use as a substitute fuel is limited. In this paper, catalytic hydrotreating of the diesel fraction (200−360 °C) from Fushun shale oil was preliminarily investigated in a fixed-bed reactor. Hydrotreating experiments were carried out using various available commercial catalysts, including CoMo/Al2O3, NiW/Al2O3, and NiMoW/Al2O3, at different conditions of temperature, hydrogen pressure, liquid hourly space velocity (LHSV), and ratio of hydrogen/feedstock. The results showed that the NiMoW catalyst was most active for heteroatom removal, in comparison to other catalysts. Under relative mild conditions, it was possible to produce clean diesel from a Fushun shale oil distillate. The produced oil had low contents of sulfur, nitrogen, and alkene, reduced density, and increased cetane number, and it could be used as a more valuable fuel.

 

[CougarKing]

Business Week link

Saudi King Seeks Wise Oil Use, Not Output Ban, Sfakianakis Says
July 04, 2010, 4:39 AM EDT


July 4 (Bloomberg) -- King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, holder of the world’s largest crude-oil reserves, encouraged using the fuel wisely to protect the interests of future generations, rather than a ban on exploration, an analyst said.

The monarch told Saudi scholars studying in Washington that he had ordered all oil exploration to cease “in order to keep the earth’s wealth for our sons and grandsons,” state-owned Saudi News Agency reported yesterday.

“The King’s statement shouldn’t be perceived as a message that Saudi Arabia is stopping its capacity expansion projects but rather that Saudi Arabia has to be mindful of the future needs of the country and be cognizant of its usage wisely and prudently to support future generations,” said John Sfakianakis, chief economist at Riyadh-based Banque Saudi Fransi.

Saudi Arabia, the largest member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, boosted oil output capacity to 12.5 million barrels a day last year to meet future global demand. State-owned Saudi Aramco plans to invest more than $120 billion in the next six years on crude oil and petrochemical projects, Chief Executive Officer Khalid al-Falih said Jan. 31.

“Even though Saudi Aramco’s conventional crude oil reserves are the largest in the world, at slightly more than 260 billion barrels, we operate an extensive and aggressive exploration program to ensure we will have the petroleum resources to meet domestic and world demand for many years to come,” Aramco said last month in its 2009 annual review.

Aramco, the world’s largest state-owned oil company, is drilling a record number of wells to find more hydrocarbons resources, Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said in December.

Aramco plans to drill 45 to 50 oil exploration wells in 2010, Abdulla al-Naim, vice president for exploration, said in December.

Saudi officials have begun to issue notices against expanding domestic energy use. Saudi Arabia’s demand will rise to 8.3 million barrels a day of oil equivalent in 2028 from 3.4 million barrels in 2009 unless the kingdom becomes more efficient, Aramco’s al-Falih said in April. The increase in demand may be cut by 50 percent through improved energy efficiency, he said.

--Editors: Claudia Carpenter, Leon Mangasarian

To contact the reporter on this story: Ayesha Daya in Dubai adaya1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steve Voss at sev@bloomberg.net

 

[a_majoor]

The reason electric cars will not make a dent in the market unless or until energy storage issues are resolved. In the here and now, directly harnessing the high energy density of hydrocarbon fuels using a fuel cell is the only practical method, batteries with that sort of energy density simply don't exist, and current electrochemical theories sharply limit the amount of energy batteries can hold in theory:

http://american.com/archive/2010/july/the-automobiles-forgotten-secret

The Automobile’s Forgotten Secret
By Ralph Kinney Bennett
Wednesday, July 14, 2010

The automobile’s potential is its greatest secret—an open secret and yet, it often seems, a forgotten one. The big SUV in my garage may occasionally make a 10-mile trip to Walmart or 2-mile run to the volunteer fire station when the siren sounds. But it has the potential—the size, the power, the range—to take me, my friends, and our bicycles over the mountain to a distant bike trail, or 1,100 miles with a load of furniture and books to my son’s house in Florida.

A century ago, the gasoline-powered automobile revolutionized personal mobility. It did it so profoundly and swiftly as to make it a routine aspect of our daily lives. Wide-ranging mobility is so normal that many people, particularly in the anti-car crowd, have forgotten its importance. On whatever day you may happen to read this, Americans will travel 11 billion miles in their cars, going to work or to lunch with friends, shopping, visiting the doctor or dentist, picking up materials for a home project, transporting kids to soccer or a pet to the vet—compacting into a few hours tasks which, had they even been contemplated before the automobile, would have taken carefully planned days or weeks.

A century ago, the gasoline-powered automobile revolutionized personal mobility.This marvelous potential, whether we use it a little or a lot, is woven deeply and invisibly into the fabric of our economy and of our lives. We Americans do not buy cars merely to get from point A to point B. We do not buy cars to meet average 20- to 40-mile-per-day travel expectations. We buy them with the idea that they can take us where and when we want to go, day or night, good weather or bad. What’s more, we buy them for their potential to carry not just ourselves but our families, friends, poker cronies, softball teammates, dogs and cats, antiques, tools, fishing rods, Avon deliveries, picnic lunches, easels and paints, Salvation Army donations, church bazaar cookies, saddles and tack, groceries, vacation paraphernalia, and whatever else we may dream of with some degree of comfort and safety across town or country. And, oh, yes, we might be dragging a boat or a couple of dirt bikes or a pony trailer behind us as well.

This powerful potential is at the crux of replacing internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles with electric vehicles (EVs). Can EVs ever develop the potential that ICE cars routinely deliver? This is not merely an issue of range, but range plus the sheer reserve power to carry real-life loads, deal with emergencies, and finesse the unexpected detour or delay.

Because of motorcars’ potential, Americans continue to embrace the most articulate, the most useful, versatile, and satisfying means of personal transport ever devised.Take, for instance, the case of the celebrated and much-anticipated (coming to the United States in December) Nissan Leaf EV, with its projected range of 100 miles. This car has been touted as a breakthrough on range for a “decent”-sized EV with seating for five. We cautioned recently that its 100-mile range might not be realistic. Now, one of Nissan’s top engineers has warned that the Leaf’s range may be reduced by as much as 40 percent under what most drivers think of as typical driving conditions. Hidetoshi Kadota, the Leaf’s chief engineer, says, for instance, that if you are driving in heavy traffic on a cold day and using your heater you should expect your range to drop to about 62 miles. And that is predicated on your driving at about 15 miles per hour. At higher speeds the range will presumably drop more.

If you happen to be driving on a very hot day, using your air conditioner, you should expect a range of 70 miles—if you keep your speed under 50 mph. But on a really nice day, when you don’t need either your heater or your air conditioner, you may be able to drive more than 130 miles in your Leaf, provided you cruise at a steady 38 mph. Kadota’s estimates not only contemplate speeds the vast majority of drivers would find laughably unacceptable, they are also apparently based on the Leaf with a single driver. No passengers. No noticeably heavy cargo.

One of Nissan’s top engineers has warned that the Leaf’s range may be reduced by as much as 40 percent under what most drivers think of as typical driving conditions.This is not the potential most Americans expect in their cars. While in some quarters it may be exciting to contemplate even a theoretical 100-mile range, let’s put that in a little perspective. Here’s a headline from Motor World, January 15, 1914: “Ford To Build That Long Looked For Electric Car.” A subhead notes that the car “Will Employ Special 100-mile Edison Battery.” The article reveals that the great Thomas A. Edison “has been developing a battery especially for the purposes of the Ford electric and has succeeded so well that a 400-pound battery, capable of operating 100 miles without recharging, is assured.”

Well, history tells us nothing was assured about Edison’s battery or the Ford electric, which was never built. It is sobering to consider that after almost a century Nissan—with its $18,000 lithium-ion “sandwich” battery pack that weighs 660 pounds—is promising the same range that had been “assured” with the Edison battery, back before the First World War.

The electric car industry of a century ago seemed instinctively to admit—without quite admitting—that it could not offer the potential of its gasoline-powered rival. Go back and review automobile advertising between 1900 and 1920. Ads for electric cars tended toward pictures of light, elegant, glassed-in carriages pulled up to a city curb with a stylishly clad lady at the tiller. Ads for gasoline cars tended toward roaring “touring” cars on the open road to somewhere, laden with passengers and with a raffish, goggle-bedecked man hunched over the huge steering wheel.

The early EV makers quietly offered “odorless” and “noiseless” transport to milady’s hair dresser, the department store, or garden club. The ICE makers offered power, glamour, and the limitless adventure epitomized in one of the most famous auto ads of all time, written for the 1923 Jordan Playboy, a two-seater roadster which was shown in blurred silhouette roaring “somewhere west of Laramie" with a “broncho[sic]-busting, steer-roping girl” at the wheel. Sure, it was a masterpiece of Madison Avenue hyperbole, but it spoke to the truth of the motorcar’s potential (not to mention that ineffable something that makes us love or hate our cars).

We Americans do not buy cars merely to get from point A to point B.Because of this potential, Americans continue to embrace the most articulate, the most useful, versatile, and satisfying means of personal transport ever devised.

Now the Obama administration is backing a Congressional effort to dole out $6 billion more in subsidies to promote EVs through more battery research, building of home charging devices, and tax credits for EV buyers. The government has already poured $2.8 billion into battery research, begun doling out $25 billion in loans to auto makers for EV programs, and continues with $7,500 tax credits to EV purchasers. This is accompanied by vast and vague promises to wean us off our “petroleum dependency.”

These efforts may create a firmer niche for EVs in the American auto marketplace. In other words, we will be creating, at great public expense, another entitlement—a second or third “short trip” car for those who can afford it or simply can’t afford to miss those attractive tax rebates. But EVs will never supplant or even significantly augment ICE cars until and unless they can come near to matching the full potential that gasoline- or diesel-fueled cars have promised and delivered for more than a century.

Ralph Kinney Bennett writes the Automobility column for THE AMERICAN.

 

[a_majoor]

How not to save oil:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-gm-volt-fascism-strikes-the-auto-industry/

The GM Volt: Fascism Strikes the Auto Industry

Corporatism produces one of the worst cars ever built, and citizens pay for it with their taxes and their liberty.
August 8, 2010 - by Jeff Perren 

Yet another example of crony capitalism rolls off the assembly line soon, in the form of the GM Volt — an electric hybrid that’s absurdly overpriced and woefully underperforms.

It’s set to sell for $41,000, and travels an underwhelming 40 miles before needing a charge (340 miles when the gas engine is invoked, defeating the basic purpose). It seats four, uncomfortably (thanks to the battery pack down the middle).

But there’s more to the story than just a poorly designed, expensive car subsidized with taxpayer money.

Not satisfied with violating bondholders’ rights during bankruptcy proceedings, Obama twisted GM’s arm into producing the car, despite a lack of projected demand to justify the investment economically. As is usual in such arrangements, Obama added some large carrots to the stick. According to the New York Times:

Quantifying just how much taxpayer money will have been wasted on the hastily developed Volt is no easy feat. Start with the $50 billion bailout (without which none of this would have been necessary), add $240 million in Energy Department grants doled out to GM last summer, $150 million in federal money to the Volt’s Korean battery supplier, up to $1.5 billion in tax breaks for purchasers and other consumer incentives, and some significant portion of the $14 billion loan GM got in 2008 for “retooling” its plants, and you’ve got some idea of how much taxpayer cash is built into every Volt.

Whether the American taxpayers get their money’s worth out of the investment, which they won’t, is beside the point. The precedent has been set for a massive public-private partnership in the auto industry, which can easily spread to other industries (and already has). Granted, Chrysler gets partial credit for that precedent, owing to its $1.5 billion loan in 1980. Giving credit where it’s due, Chrysler’s loan did get paid back. But several things are different now that raise the Volt fiasco to a new level.

First, there’s no Lee Iaccoca in charge at GM. Second, that loan wasn’t made contingent on satisfying a quixotic “green” dream. To the contrary, Chrysler was forced to abandon continued development of a turbine engine as a precondition for obtaining the loan. Third, Congress’ 1979 bill required that Chrysler raise the money privately (though the Feds co-signed the note). Fourth, the amount was “only” $1.5 billion, a large sum even then, but not onerous to the public Treasury. (More importantly, the common view that in the end all worked out hunky dory back then is simply a myth.)

The most important difference, however, is this: in 1980, the government did not become a major stakeholder in the company. There was oversight, and arm-twisting, to be sure. But the Feds did not then take a 61% ownership stake in the company, despite influential economist John Kenneth Galbraith encouraging it. (After an upcoming stock sale, the govenment’s stake in GM is expected to be reduced to below a controlling share.)

And that 61% stake, not to put too fine a point on it, is fascism [6].

Soft fascism, but the squishy kind inevitably leads to the more robust variety. Even the former is ruinous for prosperity and freedom.

One of the chief characteristics of fascism is this sort of public-private “partnership [7].” A business is still nominally private, but its fortunes are controlled lock, stock, and executive compensation barrel by the government. In essence, under that arrangement, there’s no important difference between public and private; executives become civil servants in disguise. And that’s a fundamental shift — just the sort Obama had in mind during the campaign — from the normal way of doing business even in mixed-economy America.

Onerous regulations that distort market signals are impractical. Putting a heavy thumb on the scale [8] in favor of unions is wrong. Both lead to bad business outcomes and large-scale injustices; both violate the right of voluntary trade and hobble efficiency. But unfair and costly as those are, they don’t amount to a wholesale blending of government and private enterprise. That is what the semi-nationalization of the auto industry has done, and the Volt is how badly that scheme always turns out.

The fact that it will lose money is far from the worst effect. To envision the endpoint of this philosophy, one need only look to Italy during the ’20s and ’30s [9], when dissent was outlawed and opposition newspapers shuttered. Even in the milder version in America during the Wilson administration [10], dissidents were jailed, books burned, forms of free speech banned, and conscription instituted. In short, freedom shrank.

Sure, it’s just a car, and GM’s management invited the Feds into the boardroom. But history shows it’s not a long trip from the senior “partner” dictating compensation policy to Yellow Shirts bashing heads in the streets. Anyone who believes that liberal fascists [11] will stop at throttling “the rich” (as if that were OK) can find a roadmap there.

When government gets in bed with business, citizens lose a lot more than money.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Article printed from Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com

URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-gm-volt-fascism-strikes-the-auto-industry/

URLs in this post:

[1] Image: http://pajamasmedia.com/eddriscoll/files/2010/08/Obama-VW-Lemon-Parody-8-6-10.jpg

[2] New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/opinion/30neidermeyer.html?_r=2

[3] a quixotic “green” dream: http://pajamasmedia.com../../../../../blog/obamas-solar-energy-fantasy

[4] required that Chrysler raise the money privately: http://uspolitics.about.com/od/economy/a/chryslerBailout.htm

[5] a myth: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/1983/07/The-Chrysler-Bail-Out-Bust

[6] fascism: http://pajamasmedia.com/eddriscoll/2010/08/06/new-for-2011-the-chevy-volts-wagen/

[7] public-private “partnership: http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2009/04/obama_and_the_reawakening_of_c.html

[8] a heavy thumb on the scale: http://www.mackinac.org/4020

[9] Italy during the ’20s and ’30s: http://www.thecorner.org/hist/total/f-italy.htm

[10] during the Wilson administration: http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/wilson/essays/biography/4

[11] liberal fascists: http://pajamasmedia.com/eddriscoll/2008/03/17/a-century-of-liberal-fascism/


Jeff Perren is a freelance writer. Educated in philosophy and physics, the lure of writing soon outweighed science. He lives in the Pacific Northwest

 

[a_majoor]

If this technology pans out the way it is claimed, then re engining the various vehicle fleets will do wonders:

http://green.autoblog.com/2010/08/26/autobloggreen-qanda-with-transonic-combustion-can-supercritical-f/

AutoblogGreen Q&A with Transonic Combustion: Can supercritical fluids give a 30% mpg boost?
by Sam Abuelsamid (RSS feed) on Aug 26th 2010 at 8:00PM

Given that the traditional four-stroke Otto-cycle engine piston engine only has a thermal efficiency of 25-30 percent, there is clearly still plenty of room for improvement. While most of the green automobile attention in recent years has been focused on electrification, liquid fuels still have about 100 times the energy density of today's best lithium-ion batteries, a difference that probably won't change significantly any time in the near future.

With that in mind, there is still plenty of effort being expended on improving the humble internal combustion engine. These efforts range from completely different architectures like EcoMotors' opposed piston opposed cylinder (OPOC) to new combustion processes such as homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI). One of the more interesting combustion-related developments comes from a California-based startup known as Transonic Combustion. In 2007, the company was claiming it could get an ICE vehicle to 100 miles per gallon. A lot has happened since then, and we finally have a better idea what the company's technology is. We sat down with CEO Brian Ahlborn to learn more about what the company is working on, and you can read all about it after the jump.


Gallery:Transonic Combustion





The heart of Transonic's technology is a new fuel delivery system conceived by company founder Mike Cheiky. Cheiky's idea was to get the liquid fuel into a supercritical state before injecting it into the combustion chamber. Traditionally, matter has been thought of as having three states, solid, liquid and gas and any given material can exist in one of those at any point in time depending on the temperature and pressure. Fuels like gasoline and diesel generally only burn after they are vaporized.


The supercritical state is essentially a fourth phase of matter that lies between liquid and gas that has properties of each as well as unique properties of its own. Achieving a supercritical state requires raising the temperature above the boiling point of the fluid while also increasing the pressure. According Ahlborn, the supercritical fluid can burn much faster than it can in a "normal" gaseous state, something that provides a number of advantages with respect to efficiency and emissions.

There are two major aspects to Transonic's technology, the fuel preparation and the direct injection system. The fuel delivery system is an evolution of current direction injection systems that use a common high-pressure (200-300 BAR) rail to deliver fuel directly to each each combustion chamber through individually controlled injectors. Before fuel is injected, the preparation system gets it into the supercritical state and this, according to Ahlborn, is where the "secret sauce" lies.

Ahlborn was reluctant to get into too many details of its proprietary system, but did reveal that the fuel temperature is increased from about "100 degrees centigrade to approximately 350-400." The fuel is also catalyzed, and although Ahlborn again declined to be specific about exactly what this means, he did respond to our query with, "I wouldn't necessarily draw the conclusion that we heat it in the presence of a catalyst." Ultimately, the goal is to have the fuel "be better prepared for an optimal combustion" says Ahlborn.

In a traditional piston engine, up to one-third of the energy of combustion is lost to heat transfer through the cylinder walls and into the coolant. One way to reduce some of this energy loss would be to have the actual combustion concentrated closer to the center of the cylinder and away from the walls. The claim from Transonic is that the faster burn rate of the supercritical fuel consumes the fuel before the flame front gets to the cylinder walls, thus reducing the heat transfer. In this way, more of the available chemical energy in the fuel can be transformed into mechanical energy to push the piston down.

With traditional fuel delivery systems, ignition typically occurs while the piston is still rising up in the cylinder, leading to pumping losses as the expanding gases push back against the piston. The faster burn rate of the supercritical fluid would make possible to delay ignition to either top dead center or afterwards, thus reducing those losses. Transonic's current prototype engines use compression ignition, like a diesel, while running on regular 87 octane gasoline. However, unlike homogeneous-charge-compression-ignition (HCCI) engines, they require no spark-plug or cylinder pressure sensor. As with many other details, Ahlborn declined to reveal the compression ratio being used in the prototype Transonic engines, although it's believed to be about 15:1.

The Transonic system also allows the engine to run at air-fuel ratios that are, in Ahlborn's words, "much leaner than conventional," going as high as 80:1. Normally, such lean air-fuel ratios can lead to combustion temperatures that rise above 600 degrees C, which in turn leads to the production of nitrogen-oxides. This is exactly what happened in modern diesel engines as the air-fuel ratios got leaner, in part to reduce particulate emissions. Ahlborn declined to get specific about the combustion temperature but acknowledged that it is below the NOx generation temperature and the engineers are doing some "neat tricks" to keep it there.

Transonic has consistently claimed that its engines are able to meet all current Tier 2 Bin 5 emissions limits without resorting to the expensive and bulky particulate filters and selective catalytic reduction systems required on contemporary diesel engines. The only after-treatment required by a Transonic-equipped engine is a conventional three-way catalytic converter. Supercritical fluid fuel injection is also claimed to be compatible with a range of fuels including gasoline, diesel, ethanol and butanol. While the engines have been tested with multiple fuels, most of the ongoing work is focused on optimizing for gasoline since the retail infrastructure is the most prevalent.

While Transonic's approach will obviously slash the cost of the exhaust after-treatment, it's unclear how much of a price premium the fuel pre-treatment will add. According to Ahlborn, the system is still being optimized for production and the engineers are continually reducing the part counts. As with many other aspects of the design, details were scarce.

Transonic has seven engine dynamometer cells at its Camarillo, CA facility and has purchased a number of engines from various automakers that have been modified with its fuel system. The engineers have been able to push the supercritical fuel system to a 25-30 percent improvement in fuel efficiency over the base gasoline engines. In order to validate its own internal test results, Transonic shipped several stock engines plus two modified engines from automakers to a third-party engineering test lab in Detroit earlier this year. The results from the un-named lab achieved a high degree of correlation with those from Transonic. In fact, Ahlborn says that the emissions results achieved both internally and at the outside lab were better than the initial predictions. Subsequent testing and analysis has allowed the engineers to better understand the properties of the supercritical fluid and why it achieved those results.

In addition to engineers and designers that are working on building and developing prototype hardware and control systems, Transonic has 10 PhDs working on mathematical models of supercritical fluids, the fuel preparation components and the injectors. These highly sophisticated models are needed for up-front analysis of component sizing, flows and calibration before prototype parts are produced. So far, Transonic has built and tested between 500 and 1,000 injectors from which they have collected data for the modeling process. Ultimately, using the simulation models should cut the lead time for new product applications from two or three years down to just six months.



While the bulk of the development work has occurred in its own labs and independent of customers, Transonic is working with three different automakers to test prototypes based on modern current-generation engines that have sufficient real-world data to provide a good baseline. Ahlborn explains that he is trying to keep his team focused on the the R&D required to get a viable, robust product to market as soon as possible. However, keeping some potential customers in the loop will also provide a sanity check on their work to make sure that what they create is commercially suitable from a cost, performance and packaging standpoint for different applications. There is always a risk when sharing too much information too early, but Ahlborn feels that the potential benefits in this case are worth it.

Ahlborn's self-proclaimed "big-hairy-audacious-goal" is to have Transonic go into business as a supplier of fuel systems to the auto industry by the 2014-15 time-frame. Given the three to five year lead times required to bring a product to market in this industry, that doesn't leave a lot of time for an automaker to commit to a program with Transonic. Ahlborn is well aware of the difficulty of meeting his target, but he believes the internal combustion engine, "is a long-term product for many decades still to come" and says, "we believe there is a quantum leap breakthrough in what we're doing" and that, "there will be a lot going on commercially next year (2011)."


Evidently Ahlborn is not alone in that belief. Transonic has been able to attract a substantial amount of venture funding from Vinod Khosla and, in May of this year, the company enticed retired General Motors executives Bob Lutz and Don Runkle to join its board of directors. Runkle's presence is particularly interesting since he also currently serves as the CEO of Ecomotors. There's been no public discussion of combining supercritical fluid injection with the Ecomotors OPOC architecture, but there doesn't seem to be any reason it couldn't be done.

Transonic Combustion still has a long road ahead of it to prove that it can beat the fuel efficiency of a diesel engine with cleaner emissions and a lower cost. Much more detail and public testing will be required to validate the company's claims, but this seems like one to watch.

 

[a_majoor]

Transporting natural gas as snow:

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/26181/?nlid=3466

A Cheaper, Safer Way to Move Natural Gas

A new transport method involving ice crystals could make it practical to get natural gas from remote areas, with no worries about explosions.
By Kevin Bullis

Storing and shipping natural gas by trapping it in ice--using technology being developed by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy--could cut shipping costs for the fuel, making it easier for countries to buy natural gas from many different sources, and eventually leading to more stable supplies worldwide.

The DOE researchers say the approach could also be safer than current methods of shipping natural gas, such as cooling it to produce liquefied natural gas (LNG), since there is no danger that iced natural gas will explode if the shipping container is damaged.

The technology traps natural gas in the form of methane hydrate, in which methane, the main component of natural gas, is confined within cage-like ice crystals. Conventional technologies for making methane hydrate take hours or days: they involve mixing water and the hydrocarbon in large pressurized vessels. The new approach forces water and methane through a specially designed nozzle that creates the methane hydrate "almost instantaneously," says Charles Taylor, the lead researcher on the project at the DOE's National Energy Technology Laboratory in Pittsburgh. As the mixture exits the nozzle, it quickly forms hydrate, which looks like snow.

The challenge, Taylor says, was designing the nozzle to create precisely the right conditions for forming the methane hydrate immediately after the mixture of water and methane exits the nozzle. If the hydrate forms too soon, it clogs the nozzle. Although the approach has only been demonstrated at a small scale, it could prove cheaper than existing transportation methods, he says.

The difficulty and costs of transporting natural gas--it is either sent through pipelines or converted to LNG-- means many natural gas resources, particularly remote ones, are too expensive to access. Taylor says the new technology could help rescue some of these "stranded" resources--increasing worldwide supplies and allowing more countries to become producers.

The results of a methane hydrate demonstration project in Japan by Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding, a large maker of ships for transporting oil and natural gas, suggested that the total cost of transporting methane hydrate--including the infrastructure required to make it and release the gas at its destination--could be "much lower than that of LNG," according to the company. That demonstration used conventional methods for making methane hydrates, Taylor says. His new technology would make the approach even cheaper, he says, although the researchers haven't yet determined by how much.

Making methane hydrate involves mimicking the high pressure and low temperatures at which it forms in nature, typically deep under the ocean. (Huge reserves of methane hydrate exist in places such as the Alaskan North Slope, both threatening to become another source of greenhouse gases and potentially offering a huge source of natural gas.) Once the ice crystals form, they keep the methane confined even if the surrounding pressure is lowered, so the methane hydrate can be shipped at atmospheric pressure as long as it's kept frozen.

The snow-like hydrate can be packed into cubes and loaded into the refrigerated ships, boxcars, and trucks now used to ship frozen food at -10 °C. That temperature is far easier and cheaper to manage than the -162 °C required for LNG. Also, if LNG shipping containers are damaged, the methane can quickly vaporize and explode. Taylor says that while the methane hydrate can burn, the methane is released slowly enough that it's not explosive. (If a shipping container were damaged and the hydrates melted, the methane would escape slowly and dissipate before it reached explosive levels. There would be a danger of explosion if the methane were allowed to accumulate in a confined space.) When the hydrate reaches its destination, the methane can be released by letting it warm to room temperature.

"Conceptually, the approach is very interesting," says Anthony Meggs, a visiting engineer at MIT and former vice president for technology at BP. But he says that "it's hard to tell how practical it will be until you translate it into a cost per ton or cubic foot to transport natural gas." Doing that will require a larger-scale demonstration. He says that if the approach works, it could still take decades to make an impact on worldwide energy markets, because companies will want to recoup their investment for current transportation infrastructure, such as specialized LNG ships and terminals, before investing in new technology.

 

[a_majoor]

Practical electric vehicles from Israel. Some important reasons to support this initiative near the end:

: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/has-israel-just-figured-out-how-to-make-the-electric-car-worthwhile/?singlepage=true

Has Israel Just Figured Out How to Make the Electric Car Worthwhile?
A design allowing for battery swapping rather than long recharges gets a trial run this month.
September 11, 2010 - by Ryan Mauro

Energy independence has been talked about so much for decades that many doubt it’ll happen in our lifetimes. But the world may soon see a dramatic change over the next few years — and that change is coming from Israel.

During my recent 10-day trip there, thanks to the Once in a Lifetime project by 24 Hebrew University students, I went to a facility run by Better Place — a company that seems to have worked all the kinks out of making electric cars free of gasoline a reality. The cars look like any other car, and drive smoothly and silently (you can see video of me test-driving one here). Once charged, either at your home or at a station, the car can drive 100 miles without needing another charge.

The new twist? Rather than wait for a recharge, you can go to a battery switching station that will install a new battery in less than two minutes. They charge up your old battery for another customer.

This recycling of the battery will significantly drop the price of the vehicle down to $20,000 or less, the company claims. Better Place is confident that they can make the electric car very affordable. Customers obviously won’t have to pay for gasoline, and maintenance will be cheaper. Plus, the vehicles employ a braking regeneration technology that will prolong the life of brakes.

The Israeli government has reduced the tax rate on electric cars down to ten percent — from 79 percent — to help get them on the road.

The system is ready. The staff answered every skeptical question posed to them by the audience, and they even had a pricing plan prepared. Customers will pay a monthly subscription to use the infrastructure based on how many miles they drive.

And this is coming very soon.

As you read this, Better Place is working to set up five to ten battery switching stations and thousands of charging stations around Israel for a test run this month. CEO Shai Agassi says that six months later, the cars will begin being sold, and they believe 100 switching stations will be set up and 1,000 electric cars will be added to the road per month. At least 92 Israeli companies have already agreed to convert some of their cars, and 17 local councils and municipalities have given the thumbs up to setting up charging stations. There are already 1,000 charging stations in Israel (and 100 in Copenhagen). Deals have been struck to build the switching stations in Australia, Canada, Japan, and Hawaii.

The significance of this cannot be overstated. According to War Footing, a book by Frank Gaffney and a team of national security experts, half of the cars in the U.S. are driven 20 miles per day or less. A “plug-in with a twenty-mile range battery would reduce gasoline consumption by, on average, 85 percent,” they write. But we’re not talking about a twenty-mile range. We’re talking about a range of about 100 miles with the ability to switch batteries if you need to drive longer.

One of the questions raised has been about the stress this would put on the electrical grid. Better Place says they are going to make use of alternative energy sources like wind power. The company is setting up its own energy infrastructure to take care of this obstacle and says electric cars are three times more energy efficient. Even here, Israel is making breakthroughs. Another company called Innowattech has developed the technology to generate electricity from generators in roads. The company says that it will not require extensive infrastructure construction and that the installation of generators on one traffic lane for one kilometer produces 220 kilowatts of electricity per hour.

However, not everyone believes the hype about Better Place. David Booth opines that the transformation in Israel isn’t transferable to the U.S. because of the size difference. He says that the limited range of a single charge means there’d have to be about as many battery switching stations as there are gas stations at the moment.

He also argues that car manufacturers won’t submit to one battery design, undermining Better Place’s plan to use the same batteries for each customer.

Booth’s first point puzzles me. If Better Place is successful in one part of the U.S., it will expand its operations just like any other business would. An immediate nationwide overhaul is not required. If customers are happy, the necessary revenue and demand will exist. As for the range, Booth doesn’t seem to take into account that customers won’t have to rely only upon battery switching stations. The charging stations that are much less expensive will be built in parking lots and you can count on the technology to improve and make each charge last longer as time goes on.

A valid point exists about car manufacturers wanting to design their own batteries, but we have to remember that they are businesses, first and foremost. Unless they want to build their own battery switching stations, they’ll have to make them compatible with Better Place’s facilities. Customers simply won’t buy their cars if it’s too difficult to exchange their battery. No matter how the capitalist competition ultimately unfolds, the point is that electric cars will have become a reality and businesses will be competing to make them as cheap and efficient as they can for consumers.

This is one of the few issues that all Americans can support wholeheartedly. It is great for the environment and will stimulate the economy as less money flows outside of the country to hostile governments. There may be nothing else that will as significantly shift the balance of power in the West’s direction.

Virtually every country hostile to the West relies upon our oil dependency, and a steep drop in this dependency will set off a chain reaction in our favor. Chavez will find himself struggling to fund the Colombian FARC. Ninety percent of the Iranian government’s export revenue is from oil sales and they can’t afford to lose a penny of it, especially as domestic consumption rises. Hezbollah, Hamas, and Syria will find themselves without the Iranian sponsorship they require. Radical Islamic groups around the world will see their wallets get thin as they can’t raise as much money from the Gulf. The mosques, Islamic centers, and Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organizations springing up all over the place with Wahhabi financing will find their construction halted.

Israel may be about to deliver its most painful blow yet to its enemies since its creation in 1948 — without firing a single shot.

Ryan Mauro is the founder of WorldThreats.com, national security advisor to the Christian Action Network, and an intelligence analyst with the Asymmetrical Warfare and Intelligence Center (AWIC). He can be contacted at TDCAnalyst@aol.com.

 

[a_majoor]

A simple retrofit for office and barracks:

http://www.onr.navy.mil/en/Media-Center/Press-Releases/2010/Magnetic-Energy-Recovery-MERS.aspx

Magnetic Power Offers Energy-Saving Alternative
Office of Naval Research
Corporate Communications Office
Phone: (703) 696-5031
Fax: (703) 696-5940
E-mail: onrcsc@onr.navy.mil
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Sept. 23, 2010

By Rob Anastasio
ONR Corporate Strategic Communications

ARLINGTON, Va. -- The Office of Naval Research Global (ONR Global) continues to pursue aggressive energy goals established by Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, with the design of a system that controls electrical flow for lighting, a highly efficient platform that may spark a new era of power savings.

Designed by the Tokyo Institute of Technology and fine-tuned by researchers at MERSTech in partnership with the ONR Global’s office in Tokyo, the Magnetic Energy Recovery Switch (MERS) harnesses and recycles residual magnetic power that is produced by electrical current. By using a device that controls the flow of electricity, light bulbs can now maximize their potential. The proposal for the expanded experiment is scheduled for completion in October.

Dr. Chandra Curtis, program officer in ONR Global’s Tokyo office, said she is excited about the potential for mass consumption savings.

“We initially started by helping [MERSTech and the Tokyo Institute of Technology] optimize the development and assess the potential of the technology” Curtis said. “Now, we are looking for ways to demonstrate our commitment of energy savings to the Japanese government.”

This technology directly aligns with Mabus’ goals for the Department of the Navy, which were set at the 2009 Naval Energy Forum. Aside from utilizing renewable power sources for at least half of the shore-based energy on Navy bases, Mabus iterated a goal to ensure that at least 40 percent of the Navy's total energy consumption comes from alternative sources by 2020.

From April to June 2010, ONR Global funded a series of experiments at Tokyo’s Hardy Barracks Installation to analyze and evaluate the energy saving capability of the MERS lighting controller. After working with several overhead fluorescent lights that require 24-hour power, scientists proved that the MERS technology significantly reduced lighting energy consumption.

“After the testing was complete, we learned that with the new device installed there was a peak power saving of 39 percent,” Curtis said. “The device not only conserves electricity, but produces far less heat and produces less electromagnetic interference than conventional technologies.”

A proposal to apply the experiment to the entire Hardy Barracks Installation will be completed by the end of October 2010, carrying the project into 2011 if approved. Proposed testing areas include a break room, printing press room, laundry room, gymnasium and several offices.

“In trying to align with the Joint Statement of the U.S.-Japan Security Consultative Committee, scientists are trying to help reduce the impact on local communities by reducing the energy footprint of existing U.S. installations, becoming more responsible stewards of the environment,” Curtis said.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that in 2008 about 517 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity were used for lighting by the residential and commercial sectors. Lighting accounts for nearly 20 percent of the average home’s electricity use, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
About the Office of Naval Research

The Office of Naval Research provides the science and technology necessary to maintain the Navy and Marine Corps' technological advantage. Through its affiliates, ONR is a leader in science and technology with engagement in 50 states, 70 countries, 1,035 institutions of higher learning and 914 industry partners. ONR employs approximately 1,400 people, comprising uniformed, civilian and contract personnel with additional employees at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.
Image - Magnetic Recovery Switch

Office of Naval Research
Corporate Communications Office
Phone: (703) 696-5031
Fax: (703) 696-5940
E-mail: onrcsc@onr.navy.mil

 

[a_majoor]

I would be interested if this really was a 2013 model:

http://www.hybridcarblog.com/2009_09_01_archive.html

100+ mpg, cheap, 2-seat hybrids: Would you?

Inevitably, if America is to end its foreign oil dependence anytime before 2040, it's going to take some serious out-of-the box thinking. And two-seat vehicles could be one bright breakthrough.

While Aptera has some cool thoughts on two-seat vehicles, the reengineered VW One-Liter L1 concept - potentially available by 2013 - might be the most compelling idea thus far.

Thanks to its 838 ponds and a slim 0.195 drag coefficient, the L1 diesel hybrid achieves a whopping 170 mpg.

Certainly, two-seats won't work for many, but for plenty of other commuters, couldn't such a vehicle be a hit if priced right?

 

[zipperhead_cop]

I would be interested if this really was a 2013 model:

http://www.hybridcarblog.com/2009_09_01_archive.html

IMO, it will also hinge on top end speed and range.  It also better have a mighty impressive crash resistance.  I wouldn't want to be in one of those when it gets broadsided by an F-350. 

 

[a_majoor]

A "real" car would be heavier and less efficient, but dropping from 170 MPG to "only" 100 MPG by adding crash and safety features is a trade most people would make. A more realistic proposal might resemble the SAAB 92 concept: