Thursday, September 27, 2007

Reader Comments

at 9/27/2007 4:29:17 AM, ian said:
You silly man, the whole idea of alternative energy is to try and rid ourselves of a dependance on oil,gas and coal which is destroying the world. The hope is that today''s play-things will become tomorrow''s main-stream technology, much like Steve Job''s garage-made computer has become a sophisticated business and recreation tool. If you really want to do your bit to save the environment work from home or live at work, home school your kids and eat less.

at 9/27/2007 4:34:00 AM, Bobby L. said:
Let's forget electric and focus on water! Split those molecules baby! Certainly plenty of water out there!

at 9/27/2007 7:10:39 AM, Tim said:
Lame. A rather third grade attempt at Swift dontcha think?

at 9/27/2007 7:56:16 AM, paulbee said:
The man has a point. Perhaps we should focus more on increasing the efficiency of gas powered cars, maybe with gas powered electric fuel cells (so we use less gasoline), and then adding carbon sequestration to the cars to trap the CO2. If we could do this, then we would save the air (by sequestering carbon, and save the babies (by applying the money otherwise spent to feeding infants and to healthcare).

at 9/27/2007 8:06:08 AM, Tim said:
Paulbee - You just failed the Turing test dude. That made absolutely no sense at all.

at 9/27/2007 8:16:41 AM, wow said:
Ummmm, obviously from an all-around performance point of view gas beats batteries right now. But you are totally ignoring other issues like dependence on foreign oil from unsavory countries, the impending spike in oil demamd from China/India, the impending drop in oil supply due to the limited amount on Earth, and the possible environmental problems associated with oil. The gas spike prices are coming. They already have come to some countries. You ignore that our gas prices are kept artificially low by government subsidies to oil companies. You are also ignoring the fact that battery technology is increasing significantly as of a couple years ago and is showing more potential through use of nano materials. You are ignoring that these new batteries are not yet mass produced, which will drop their cost tremendously. You are ignoring the fact that plugins will mostly be charged at night using off-peak energy, making power companies operate more efficiently at night. You erroneously say the extra weight on the freeway makes hybrids unfeasible, when in reality airflow resistance is the dominant freeway energy consumer. Your 1-to-3 payload ratio is retarded, please cite the source. Also cite the source that says future BEV''s drivetrains will be any heavier. Also you don''t even go into maintenance cost differences at all

at 9/27/2007 8:17:58 AM, wow said:
You ignore fuel saving costs too (both now and in the future). Ummm, have you ever actually sat down and thought about this at all? You can't use the current state of oil and the current state of batteries and expect that to apply to the future. That would be dumb. You are looking at everything the wrong way. Even solar is showing potential to give larger economic returns with all of the projected efficiency increases in cells. It's not always going to be like it is today. In the end that is your problem, you are acting like the future doesn't exist and technology will never progress and all prices of all things will stay the same. If you were in charge we would be riding horses, so why don't you do a horse vs. gasoline ICE car comparison? You have no vision and are very narrow-minded in your arguement, you don't see the big picture, the future picture, and in general are the dead weight that slows down progress. Thank you for letting us all know that. Next time just post something like "I am an idiot".

at 9/27/2007 8:20:07 AM, wow said:
A fat idiot

at 9/27/2007 8:25:03 AM, Here2njoy said:
Keep up the good work Paul. Your comments only spurn on innovation. I love the first person's comments. We have an awfull lot of electricity that gets wasted because we need the peak demand during the day. Recharge batteries or store it as hydrogen but save the energy non the less and just like the pc and the microprocessor watch how nano-technology continues to revolutionize the world. "Long live the revolution of evolution!"

at 9/27/2007 8:47:18 AM, Keir said:
The comparisons made between petrol and electric cars are irrelevant to me. I want to move to a low carbon lifestyle. Even a short range electric car would be a great help. I can get the train if I need to go 30 miles or more, but local journies to the shops and work only need a low power electric vehicle. 40mph - fine. Cycling is obviously better, but not when you are collecting timber or logs, or if its raining. Electric cars are meant to change our lifestyle not replace petrol cars.

at 9/27/2007 8:54:59 AM, Tim said:
Here2njoy - Right on!! The nano-retroencabulator is the solution to the revolution!!!

at 9/27/2007 8:55:28 AM, Steve S said:
It took you a while, but you finally got around to stating the crux of the problem - "there are just too many highway miles in the drive cycle of American Consumers to justify hybrid cars". Many of our transportation related problems, be it air pollution, traffic congestion, dependence on foreign oil, whatever, are directly related to miles driven.

at 9/27/2007 8:59:28 AM, JTK said:
Finally -- an apples-to-apples economic comparison reveals both the hype marketing of the so-called Eco movement, as well as the lowered level of intellegence of the EDN readership. When I went car shopping recently, I quickly noticed that the vaunted Prius cost $8000 more than a comparably equipped car. No matter what the price, $8000 buys a heck of a lot of gasoline. Or, is that 4 struthers....

at 9/27/2007 8:59:49 AM, Keir said:
...also... It is not right to compare a full tank of fuel that you fill up once per week to a battery that you recharge every night. Multiply the calculations by 7 and you approach parity for the energy supplied by batteries over a week and for that supplied by a tank of diesel. All without the local pollution, noise and carbon footprint.

at 9/27/2007 9:08:32 AM, Tony Belding said:
The biggest fallacy here is the assumption that if someone didn't buy a Tesla Roadster, he would otherwise send his $100,000 to the starving children in Africa. That logic could apply to any kind of luxury item, but realistically people aren't going to stop buying all luxuries and start sending their money to starving children just because Sally Struther wants them to. If they were inclined to do that, they could have done it before now. So. . . This isn't about a Tesla Roadster versus the starving children. This is about a Tesla Roadster versus a Ferrari, or a Porsche, or a Lamborghini. As for the difficulty of getting an electric car to compete successfully against gasoline cars. . . Well, the Tesla Roadster appears to hold its own reasonably well against those Ferraris, Porsches and Lambos -- despite costing considerably less than most of them, and that's before you even get into the savings in fuel and maintenance. Duplicating that success in a BEV or PHEV family car will be a tougher challenge, admittedly. The ultimate impetus for electric cars will come when oil becomes expensive and scarce, when there are real shortages. When gasoline is $8 per gallon -- if you can find a station that has any, and if you have a ration card allowing you to buy some -- then people will want electric cars. Any limitations they have will be outweighed by the ability to charge at home and drive whenever you want to.

at 9/27/2007 9:20:52 AM, Dave said:
I fear you may be suffering from hardening of the categories. The Tesla car has a 250 mile range, which is quite acceptable for a purely electric car. So it serves as an existence proof. The problem with electric cars has always been the batteries, as you point out. Battery powered electric cars are now at least feasible. The best current design seems to be the pluggable gas/electric hybrid that allows you to optimize the gas/electric trade-off to get the best combination of range, fuel efficiency and fuel cost - including the "fuel" from charging overnight. In a pure electric car, it looks like you have compensating trade-offs: heavy gas engine with no batteries vs light electric motor vs heavy batteries. The Tesla can go from 0-60 faster than a Ferrari yet with a 250 mile range. To me, this means that the battery-electric power to weight ratio is competitive. You raise the point of "Why electric?" I can think of several simple (non-religious) reasons. 1) Assuming a hybrid with a tiny gas engine for long range, I can have a Really Fast hot rod. When you hit the accelerator on an electric car, there is NO delay. Bad reason? Tough. It will sell cars. Plus, you get to feel good/green about it. 2) Low maintenance. No oil to change, etc. An electric car makes a gas car look like a steam engine - full of belts, oil, moving parts and fix-ups for pollution control, etc. An electric car is to a gas car like a jet plane is to a piston powered plane. Simpler, more reliable, less hassle. Final notes: a) batteries will get better, but they are good enough now. b) Different topic: solar cells are dropping rapidly in $/watt installed. In the not too distant future, they will be directly competitive with conventional power plants. True, they only make power when the sun shines, but that is when you need the power for air conditioners. And to charge your pluggable hybrid at work.

at 9/27/2007 9:34:31 AM, gumiela said:
Basically correct; but comparing developing technology costs to starving baby costs is fuzzy at best (misdirection 101). As for electric vehicles being green and reducing oil dependency, good luck… pollution and waste, from coal, gas and nuclear plants, used to recharge the batteries is not a very good trade off. PYP (Pick Your Poison)

at 9/27/2007 9:59:55 AM, Doug S. said:
A question being missed here is: how are you planning to generate all the electricity needed for these "clean" electric vehicles? Might I suggest nuclear power? You can forget wind, bio-mass, and solar; the real-estate and overall support costs will sink you. Also, the overall efficiency of electric power generation is not all that good, except perhaps for wind. Also remenber that more refined batteries and generator technology will not change basic physics; specifically the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.

at 9/27/2007 10:08:57 AM, Greg said:
Ok, I don't have 10 years (or any years) as an automotive engineer. Nevertheless, it seems that the case you make is flawed by your presenting this as an either/or alternative: either gas or electric. If I'm not mistaken, the GM presentation regarding the Volt has suggested a 40 mile capacity on the initial electric charge, after which the gas enegine kicks in to recharge the battery. If, for comparison purposes, we assume that a totally gas powered Volt would average 30mpg of gas, 17.6 MJ of energy would be expended in a typical 60 mile trip. The A123 battery capacities would suggest that about 47 Kg of A123 batteries would provide that much energy, or about 59Kg if you factor in your 20% efficiency loss for the implementation system. That’s about 130 pounds of batteries, not 570. I dunno, maybe 130 or so pounds of weight savings can be achieved in this electric with gas backup type system.

at 9/27/2007 10:09:48 AM, Rick said:
Paul, you are a dinosaur. This is the kind of short term, in the box thinking that put GM and Ford on the track to extinction. Progressive companies like Miles, Phoenix, Lotus and Tesla will be delivering what you say is not practical or can''t be done. Batteries from Firefly, and Altairnano are throwing your math out the window. Do you really think there will be breakthrough developments in the ICE? Even so, serial hybrid electric technologies have proven to be more efficient for decades. What was your processor speed to dollar ratio of your first computer? Some factions within the auto industry, the oil industry and extending into the government (by way of lobbyist''s and PAC''s), would just as soon not have us upset apple cart.As for the hungry children in Africa, how many could have saved by buying a cheap Timex over a Rolex? Besides, crop failures from global warming will put us all on the Sally Struthers show. Your argument is immaterial.

at 9/27/2007 10:19:07 AM, EV'er in ABQ said:
I also built my own EV and have driven it for the past ten years. After all that time I can clearly state EV's make great second cars, and they will cost you more to operate than an equivalent gas car. EV's aren't terribly different than their gasoline counterparts when it comes to total cost of ownership. Insurance/registration, tires, rock chips in the windshield, etc, plus the inevitable chassis repair or battery pack replacment over a nominal time period all swamp out the cost savings of the actual source of energy (kWh's vs gallons). It all comes down to what value you assign energy independance. You also have to factor in that personal transportation isn't the sole consumer of fossil fuels. Even if 100% of the population had zero-oil, economically practical automobiles, you still need petroleum for industry and other forms of transportation (synthetic products made of oil, JP4 for aircraft, heating oil, etc). Solar power can't fuel an airliner, tidal power can't heat homes in the winter, you can't make plastic out of wind energy. So all you do by reducing the use of oil for personal transportation is slow down the ever increasing overall demand for oil by some incremental amount. Can technology solve this problem? Perhaps, but the answer isn't electric or hydrogen cars. All these do is delay the inevitable. Oil is still the logical choice as long as it costs less than any alternative. Once that threshold is crossed you may see it become supplanted by alternatives, but not until then, and oil will never be totally eliminated as a resource. You can artificially force that threshold to be crossed sooner by legislation, but at what economic cost? Who gets to decide when, and by how much? Do you trade an economic calamity for an environmental one? Who says either one is a certainty? Bottom line is that it's a self solving problem. On a planetary scale we're either going to burn up all of the easily recoverable oil or kill each other off trying. Can't see how an electric car would change any of that.

at 9/27/2007 10:55:58 AM, Bob H. said:
I have commuted in electric cars for the past 7 years - first the GM EV1 and now the Toyota Rav4EV. They have both been wonderful cars and I have had zero maintenance for motor or batteries. Nearly everyone I know who has driven electric loves these cars and would much rather spend a few seconds plugging in at night instead of the weekly trips to the gas station. My cars have used NiMH batteries with around half the energy density of Lithium Ion, but range of 120 miles or so is perfectly fine for all but the occasional long trip when we take the other car. Mr. Rako might try reading the "Innovator''s Dilemma." New technologies take a while to surpass old ones in all dimensions. His arguments sound like someone arguing that mainframes will never be replaced by PCs.

at 9/27/2007 11:39:45 AM, Joe said:
God there were a lot of techincal mistakes in this article. Do you even have a college degree? A two year old with a rattle could have shaken his way through a better analysis. Don't listen to the corn-fed hick people.

at 9/27/2007 12:13:06 PM, David said:
Wow, so I just wasted 3 minutes of my life reading this article and I cannot imagine how many brain cells died in the process.

at 9/27/2007 12:25:50 PM, Al said:
"Electric cars and solar power kills babies" "Kill" not "kills" Back to third grade for you!

at 9/27/2007 12:53:00 PM, RobertD said:
Actually, comparing saving babies to spending money on E-cars does make sense. The vast majority of folks who buy electrics or hybrids are folks who think they are saving the planet for the kids. I personally think the entire green thing is a hoax and the marketing folks selling cars have jumped on it, as well they should given the market perception. I will just stick to my small engine pickup and my bicycle.

at 9/27/2007 1:17:54 PM, Tom W said:
Don't forget that dollar units = pollution units. Not only are we not investing in Struther units, we are consuming precious materials and creating pollution. Electric vehicles make little sense. Solar Panels are net polluters. There are other options; keep searching grasshopper. And don't get me started on the corn to gas debacle.

at 9/27/2007 2:12:53 PM, Urgelt said:
I will, with effort, refrain from characterizing the article as "silly," but it certainly is obtuse. Early adopters in other technological areas also "wasted" money. Computers come to mind. I was an early adopter. There was no conceivable financial justification for having spent $2500 on an Apple II+ in 1979. But early adopters are enablers of scale, motivators for industrial innovation. They prove markets exist and provide a profit margin for cutting edge technologies. What is exciting about batteries is not, at present, that they are more efficient than gasoline, erg for erg. It's that the energy value of a gallon of gasoline is fixed - and we have no clue where the theoretical limits are for energy storage systems. But they are most certainly far higher than gasoline's. The author seems not to realize that early adopters, by proving markets for electric automobiles exist, are generating a spurt of innovation in battery technologies. A year ago the best you could hope for from an electric vehicle was about a 100 mile range, with 40-60 mile ranges more common. This year vehicles with 235-mile range will be sold to the public. Because of early adopters and the excitement they bring to new markets, Moore's Law has come to battery technology. In the US alone, at least a dozen small companies and some not so small ones are feverishly concocting new battery technologies and commercializing them. What this means is that practical electric vehicles, sacrificing nothing in utility or quality, with ranges far exceeding any fossil fuel vehicle, are coming in just a few years. Hell, a few aviation engineers are even starting to think about battery powered aircraft. It's easy to understand how an automotive expert has missed this trend. For the past 30 years, battery innovations have been beneath the automotive industry's radar, and for good reason. Energy storage densities sucked. But battery technologies developed for small consumer devices have brought batteries within striking distance of satisfying automotive needs, and now that they have, innovation is proceeding at a furious pace. We've reached a tipping point. And that's a good thing. Electricity can be generated more cheaply and with far less impact on climate - even if coal is the source energy. There's almost no waste heat. Energy extraction occurs at optimum temperatures. Applying pollution controls is easier. But coal is *not* the only energy source for electricity; a lot of it comes from hydroelectric, nuclear, and wind sources. If you're concerned about babies in developing countries, becoming an early adopter of electric cars is not such a bad idea. You'll be enabling the establishment of a non-CO2-emitting energy infrastructure. If we have any hope of halting climate change before it gets too far out of hand, that's exactly what those babies will need. Not the only thing, obviously. But it's on the list. As for those worn-out batteries, don't throw them out. Electric utilities will gladly buy them - or you can use them in your own home, in conjunction with wind and/or solar. And yes, those technologies are expensive, too - but again, early adopters are paving the way for that to change, and for the better.

at 9/27/2007 2:41:04 PM, Gregory Fung said:
It appears to me you are using a overall weight to payload ratio (say 1000lb payload capacity in a 3000lb gross vehicle) to evaulate marginal impact. The whole argument pivots on this point, and it is incorrect isn't it? Are you telling me that a 1 ton truck (2000lb payload) must weight 3 tons? You know that's not true. This is one illustration that the ratio is much less than 3:1 at the margin. I would challenge that in the weights where conventional materials apply, this ratio is less than 1:1.

at 9/27/2007 3:01:31 PM, cjackson said:
No wonder you are no longer working in the automobile industry. I predict you won't be working long in the news industry either.

at 9/27/2007 3:02:27 PM, Hello, What? said:
Little known fact... the amount of energy it takes to bring a gallon of gasoline from the well to the pump would give you the equivalent energy to drive an electric car 40miles. Hmm...

at 9/27/2007 3:22:10 PM, Justin said:
Your math on Solar is so sad its not even worth trying to argue about. What a complete moron. You have a twisted negative view of the world. Sorry, but electric vehicles are going to be part of the future. Sure they arent for everyone, thats where bio fuels and air cars and who knows what else will come in. Sure some of the branches we are following towards a greener future are dead ends, but some of them, including small EV's and solar, are going to prevail. And people like you who don't even understand something as basic as how to account for potential increases in electrical costs, when calculating financial payback of solar, will catch up with the rest of us eventually.

at 9/27/2007 3:32:50 PM, Meredith Poor said:
Over the last few hundred years, 'starving babies' have been the result of deliberate government policies or indifference, not a lack of food per se. The problems with getting food into crisis areas are either corruption, lack of roads, or insurgencies, any of which make delivery impractical. This disconnects the 'starving babies' issue from the behavior of first world consumers, for the most part. The 'Doha' round of WTO is stalling due to agricultural subsidies, which in turn stimulate overproduction, which in turn depress prices. Were we able to get surplus food to those starving babies, we would help out farmers that are getting that money anyway.

at 9/27/2007 3:57:34 PM, DGDanforth said:
Issues not covered: (1)Distributed and redundant energy generation from solar is more secure than localized energy generating facilities. Nature uses redundancy for a good reason, survival. (2)Noise and pollution are reduced with electric cars. (3) "Fewer parts" is better than piston rings, valve lifters, carburetors, transmissions, differentials, ... .

at 9/27/2007 4:02:34 PM, DS said:
Your blog on supercapacitors and killing babies shows how much an engineer can do with some data, a calculator and paper, and a little thought. I hope this inspires some engineers to start asking some interesting questions. In my experience, questioning our assumptions something leads us from barking up the wrong tree to barking up the right tree.

at 9/27/2007 4:03:53 PM, john in Seguin said:
Somewhere between 38 and 50 years from now, there will be unmistakable sound similar to a kid with a milkshake when the milk shake runs dry. SHHHHHHLLLLLLKK that is the sound of oil wells going dry. OK, now you crunch up coal and turn it to oil. Choke a bit. I thought this magazine was EDN, which is Electronics in nature, not the Petroleum news. My mistake.

at 9/27/2007 4:18:56 PM, IMA Oil Company Executive said:
I like your thinking, Paul. Let's kill all the heathen towelheads so we can take their oil. Godfearing Christians deserve it. It's our DESTINY. Kudos to Mr. Rako. We need more editors like him.

at 9/27/2007 4:21:36 PM, JR said:
Paul, your calculus about megajoules is all wrong. You can only burn that can of gas once, but you can recharge the battery thousands of times. Instead of the battery being a decade worse than the gas, it's actually several decades better. However, Karl Rove would love your pretzel logic.

at 9/27/2007 4:24:58 PM, joe biker said:
Batteries (and hydrogen,etc) are is not energy sources. They are only energy storage. You have to get the energy to charge the batteries (split the molecules) from some energy source. Here in the South a lot of the energy used to generate electricity comes from oil, and there is energy lost at every conversion. Batteries (and hydrogen) do not by themselves reduce our dependency on oil. If not used intelligently, they actually increase it.

at 9/27/2007 4:25:52 PM, John said:
Basic observations of the article are true. Take exception to comparing these technical / economic issues with killing babies. Cheap shot... However, agree the real issues of oil independence/ energy / etc... are not going to be solved with present electric car technology or anything close to it. A given level of technology just allows more people to exist on this planet at a given level of life style. Until the Non-technical issues are addressed (social/economic/spiritual).. new technology doesn''''t solve much. It just changes the number of people available to die each day.... (yea, cheap shot back at babies dying) How many people can the earth support at given level of technology? 10, 30, 100 billion? at what cost to life style? Would this life style be worth living? Free energy? zero carbon footprint? ... if here now, would only increase the number of people dying each day for many other reasons.

at 9/27/2007 4:34:04 PM, Michael Santarini said:
Finally, someone took exception to the "killing babies" part???

at 9/27/2007 4:38:18 PM, Meredith Poor said:
If one looks at improvements in battery technology in isolation, progress appears to be glacial. If one looks at a basket of emerging technologies the picture changes radically.<p> 'Wireless power transmission' might not be something you want to install in your living room. If one implements an urban equivalent of an automated baggage handling system, one can power AGVs by transmitting electricity to vehicles running in underground conduits. These would have batteries to get them through the dead spots. The value of AGVs in general is to keep people from having to run errands that could be done by driverless vehicles. See DARPA Grand Challenge, etc.<p> Wireless broadband makes some telepresence easier to implement. Rather than having people working in open pit mines one simply automates the shovels and trucks. If someone needs to drive them, they can do that from the comfort of their home, even if that home is on the other side of the planet. There is plenty such work that either doesn't require much precision (like mining) or doesn't modify anything (watching via a webcam) where 'driving to work' is now avoidable. Innovations in these directions would cut fossil fuel consumption, vehicle wear and tear, and congestion.

at 9/27/2007 4:53:41 PM, Paul R said:
Another question I might add is: Where is all the copper to make all these electric car motors, get the electricity to the charging stations, etc., going to come from? Has anybody on this forum looked at the cost of copper these days???

at 9/27/2007 5:12:51 PM, JR said:
So just because it's cheaper to burn all the oil in the world in the short term this is good and morally superior?

at 9/27/2007 5:14:35 PM, JR said:
And what about the millions of people we're slaughtering to get that oil? How many Prius' Struthers'-worth are equivalent to the million Iraqis we've just murdered?

at 9/27/2007 5:29:05 PM, Paul Rako said:
Thank you everyone for your comments, especially the guy that called me a fat idiot-- that will get me back in the gym for sure. The one person that did hurt my feelings is the guy that implied I was a shill for the oil industry. I put Big Oil right up there with Microsoft, the Phone Company, Realplayer, Vonage and X10 as true dirtbags. Yes, there is a valid social component to depriving these scumbags of revenue- but the electric utilities are no angels. I did not address this-- because I had to limit the analysis to strictly economic. Many many of you bring very valid points. Bob H. was right on bringing up the Innovator's Dilemma. I too fear I may be scoffing at disruptive technology just like the steam shovel people scoffed at the hydraulic backhoe people. But the backhoes made economic sense for a different market and I don't see that happening with electric cars. That factor of twenty is really really tough to beat. Yes, gas engines are getting more efficient and diesel is much better yet. And another very valid point, also brought up by Margery Conner is that the batteries can be used over and over, while the gas just gets burned. True, but it is capital expense and operating cost that are the fundamental basis for any analysis. The electricity is cheap, but when you have to buy a new battery pack every 5 years, well that has to be added to the costs. I also don't want to get into the "oil subsidies" thing. Sure, if you count the war in Iraq as a petroleum cost, then we should factor that in. On the other hand the highway bill is the biggest pork project in the government. Other than the geopolitical horror of oil envy, I suspect the price of oil is distorted but close to true market value. Same with electricity. So that is why I feel we should just stick to a engineering and economic analysis. And no, making us all buy electric to force the price down may be appealing to some, but central planners almost alway bet on the wrong technologies, so if electric cars and solar can not make economic sense without tax benefits or religious adherence, then we are better off putting our money elsewhere. You may feel good driving an electric commuter vehicle to work and back and charging it every single night, but it will have to be a second vehicle and the cost of that vehicle will far outweigh any gas savings, as one poster pointed out. I also will not address carbon dioxide, if you think going from 0.03% to 0.04% CO2 will plunge the earth into a catastrophe then there is nothing I can do to dissuade you. I also dispute whole peak oil calamity. The oil won't disappear like an empty milkshake. The price will gradually go up until we can synthesize something from plants or squeeze it out of oil shale or turkey fat and use that in our cars. There is just so darn much energy in the chemical bonds of hydrocarbons it is impossible to supplant that with an energy storage system, now or soon. I do agree with the one poster that nanotech may make the energy densities go higher but it will still be a long time, if ever, that electric cars or hybrids supplant internal combustions. If you want a low horsepower vehicle that can go fast now and then just put a nitrous kit on your car. But realise that no company can sell an underpowered car because when the nitrous is out or the batteries are dead, the company will be liable when you get creamed on an on-ramp. No, several of the posters are right-- we have to conserve. I drive old Sportsters. Bob Pease drives a 1968 bug. That is leaving a pretty small footprint compared to a brand new escalade that burns a ton but also needed 60 grand of economics to build. Oh, and good catch on the kill vs kills grammer, right again-- my copy editor will kills me.

at 9/27/2007 5:59:04 PM, Paul Rako said:
Oh, one more thing, one poster questioned my 1 pound of payload adds 3 pounds in structure rule. Well actually what I remembered from the auto business was a rule of 5-- one pound of payload (or extraneous weight) adds 5 pounds in the structure of the car. I could not find that or any other number on-line. I did have several friends tell me that aeronautical engineers use 10 pounds to one pound of added payload. So I wrote my buddy Bruce, who works at Nissan and asked if they would give me a verifiable number. Bruce's engineering department has not replied yet but I feel secure in the three pound number. I will keep searching for a peer-reviewed number, but you will admit there is some additive effect beyond the 400 pound penalty.

at 9/27/2007 6:52:20 PM, Meredith Poor said:
One thing electric cars do easily would be the automotive equivalent of the 'third rail'. In short, it's hard to refuel a gas car while it's driving, but an electric could conduct large parts of it's trip on rails, or some other controlled (and energized) path. In such a situation, range and energy density issues diminish substantially.

at 9/27/2007 7:09:44 PM, Meredith Poor said:
The environmental effects of hydrogen sit at one extreme, that of 'zero pollution'. H2 combustion produces only water. The simplest hydrocarbon is methane (CH4) which is the hydrocarbon with the greatest ratio of hydrogen and burns the cleanest. Methane and Ethanol (C2H5OH) are hydrogen rich and energy density poor. With gasoline (hexane, heptane, octane, etc.) energy density is better but pollution is more likely because combustion involves more complex chemistry. Diesel (cetane, 16 carbon) is even messier. <p> Propane(C3) seems to make a nice automotive fuel because it burns cleanly and is dense enough to give vehicles real range, although it requires an oversized tank in the back. It is another fuel with a fair amount of infrastructure already in place. It also requires little in the way of current automobile reengineering. Propane, like all the other alkanes, can be generated using FT synthesis. <P> '2,5-Dimethylfuran' (2,5 DMF) is a six carbon oxygenated hydrocarbon that can be synthesized out of sugar. Plant matter is made up of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Cellulose and hemicellulose are polymers of starches. Starches are polymers of sugars. In short, break the cellulose into starch and the starch into sugar, then make the 2,5-DMF from that sugar, and you have a renewable automotive fuel that does not take food out of babies mouths.

at 9/27/2007 8:17:31 PM, Curt H said:
I finally see the light! We need to ignore alternative every sources and stay with what we know. We need to continue using finite petroleum products at an ever increasing rate in order to save money! The war in Iraq is only costing about 200 billion a year or more, who cares, and after we have conquered it and occupy it we will have plenty of petrol for another few years. After that runs out we can attack, conquer and occupy Iran for their oil, were surely going to need it, the way we and China keep increasing our usage of oil. These screw-ball greenies with their silly ideas of switching to another energy source just because the ice caps are melting and the price of oil is sky-rocketing because it is running out, they should get their heads examined!!!

at 9/27/2007 8:39:48 PM, liveoilfree said:
LOL! You are either the dumbest or the most sarcastic dude! But maybe you should first correct spelling errors before publishing? BTW, being a Ford or GM engineer means you don't know anything about EVs, batteries or motors. GM got rid of all its good engineers.

at 9/28/2007 6:17:09 AM, Larry S. said:
Hmmm. Perhaps I am missing something, or everyone else is so far, but the weight thing seemed one of the main keys to the initial argument. How does one jump from all the previous weight specs to calculating off of a 400lb "power train hit" which was supposed to be a reduction in weight? 259kg of batteries replacing 30.7kg of gas = 228.3kg = 502lb extra weight from batteries as the energy source. 502lb - 400lb savings in power train weight = 102lb total weight increase before the w/p ratio is applied, not 400lb.

at 9/28/2007 6:21:44 AM, keir said:
they also are moe or less comfortable on lnger drives; we each choose different cars and use them differently already. A plug in hybrid like the GM volt may be the best solution. I''d hardly ever have to put fuel in it!

at 9/28/2007 6:38:27 AM, Les Stupid said:
Since you are a master in "double speak" I assume that you wrote this piece (of $H!T) as a resume and have sent it to the head Dummy in charge, bush, in an attempt to replace the current "minister of disinformation" Snow-job. Good luck with that. The world need more OIL lovers. Les Stupid

at 9/28/2007 6:41:13 AM, kEIR said:
damn this comment box! sorry for that last (truncated) post! I'm not retyping it now...

at 9/28/2007 7:31:07 AM, Pat said:
good point Paul, but oil kills babies, adults, wildlife, trees, oceans and will put an end to mankind. I would rather drive less, slower and use elecrtic cars so we don't have to deal with these idiots who think cutting heads off is cool. Give me electric cars and nuke power stations and rum powered engines.....

at 9/28/2007 7:54:06 AM, Meredith Poor said:
"Give me electric cars and nuke power stations and rum powered engines....." When I was reading this I mistakenly read ...rum powered engineers. Saturday night journalism, where the news is, um, made.

at 9/28/2007 7:59:54 AM, Rick said:
I now feel totally superior for driving a Corolla. Bow down to me you sicko prius drivers

at 9/28/2007 8:38:28 AM, Peter said:
Your logic is the classic ''old school'' Detriot auto industry logic. You seem to be incapable of looking at the whole picture. "Advanced battery chemistries don''t exist"... I suppose the battery in your laptop PC doesn''t exist either, eh? As for Electric cars vs. sending money to charity... oh please. You could say the same thing about Corvettes/Ferraris/Lamborghinis VS. sending money to charity. Things you are not considering that buyers of electric or semi-electric vehicles HAVE considered... 1. Dependence on foreign oil 2. The satisfaction of ''sticking it'' to big oil and/or anti-western interests 3. The cost of military action to secure oil supplies. What is the war in Iraq costing the US again in terms of money and lost lives? Throw that into your calculations and suddenly Electric cars look like a real bargain in terms of money AND "struthers".

at 9/28/2007 10:19:25 AM, greg collins said:
Detroit must be the baby-killer of all time considering all the high-priced luxury and sport cars they have shamelessly cranked out!

at 9/28/2007 12:22:07 PM, JTK said:
You guys are completely missing his point. Until the total economic cost of driving an electric car is less than the total economic cost of driving a conventional gasoline-powered car, electric vehicles will remain a marketing gimmick. Today (Sept 2007), it makes much more economic sense to drive the gas-powered car and directly invest the savings difference in the cause of one''s choice than to buy an electric vehicle and claim to be saving the planet. The technology is just not there yet....

at 9/28/2007 1:02:14 PM, Peter said:
Yeah... Electic cars are a gimmick... a gimmick that reduces the demand for oil-based products. Even if it doesn't make the best economic sense *right now* (depending on what you INCLUDE in economic calculations), so what? Hummers generally don't make the best economic sense either. But there are people who *want* a vehicle that's big, brash, takes up lots of space and resources and intimidates others. And there is a segment of people that wants to stick it to big oil and its supporters... electric cars are for those people. And with each dead soldier, and with each 'smog day', it's a market segment that will continue to grow. The point is... Paul Rako DOESN'T HAVE A VALID POINT. Every "economic sense" argument he makes could also be applied to Hummers, Ferraris, Cadilacs and just about any other premium vehicle. Actually, if you were to be REALLY strict with the "driving a given car kills", then NOBODY should drive any car... we should all be ride bicycles... just for obesity and cost reasons alone. Nothing is cheaper than riding a bike. And obesity is becoming a more and more expensive problem. Excercise is one of the best ways to solve both problems. Can't go grocery shopping with a bicycle? Not true. You can get trailers for bicycles that will give you all the storage you need. Now get up off your pasty out-of-shape butt, get on your bicycle, sell your car and give the proceeds of the car sale to Sally Struthers.... that is if you truly believe what Paul Rako has any validity.

at 9/28/2007 1:27:39 PM, Engineer for Austin said:
My son went to a high school debate competition where one student argued that cars should be powered by "Happy Thoughts". I think some people's ideas of bettering the gasoline or diesel engine border on the same kind of possiblities. My daddy once said "Son , just be thankful that dreams and wishes don't cost a thing!"

at 9/28/2007 6:39:35 PM, jx said:
What Larry S. said about that 400 pound deal. Other than that, good article. A tad cynical, but accurate.

at 9/28/2007 8:00:39 PM, Dreamer said:
Some of you people are too much!! Engineer for Austin...Texas? I thought things were bigger in Texas...but you and your family think small - old school. Dreams and wishes don''t cost anything ?? You don''t get it. The oil is finite....it''s running out !! And you don''t want to tinker with the old gasoline jellopy because it works good ??? If you are not part of the solution then you are part of the problem. The big problem here is staying the course. We need to end our dependence on oil as quikley as possible. Or your son''s and daughter''s may be drafted to secure the last of the dwindeling oil fields...probably in our lifetime !! (I''m 46). Your son''s and daughter''s will see the world econony come crashing down on their heads. We need to keep wishing and dreaming for better electric, hydrogen, solar, hybrid or biodiesel mousetraps if we want to get out of this mess. It''s not just about oil.....it''s about your children''s and grandchildren''s very existence. You just don''t get it. We don''t need a nuclear holocost to devistate the world.....just start tapping the bottom of those oil wells and God help us....we will all end up on bikes....and buy big chains for them. Buy a big gun and plenty of ammo while youre at it. Then your grandson can pick up where your son left off on that debate about powering cars on happy thoughts.

at 9/28/2007 9:37:12 PM, InAustin said:
My son went to a high school debate. One of the students argued that we should power all future automobiles from "Happy Thoughts". I see nothing that will replace the gasoline or diesel engine before the world comes to an end.(It is not far off) You guys who think something is out there are dreaming. Note that we are not only hitting peak oil but we are depleting most important metals also. In 1955 the world had 2 billion; do you really think that in 2050 we can support about 16 billion the way we are burning up resources? As for a replacement of the gasoline or diesel auto; to crudely use a Mark Twain quote: There is a helluva difference between Lightning (the gas or diesel car) and lightning bugs (electric).

at 9/28/2007 9:56:14 PM, inAustin said:
Dreamer: I think you and I are on the same page. My point was that there is nothing on the horizon that can replace gas or diesel as a transportation fuel. WE should be changing the way we live by choice. As it is, change will come by a crude awakening (how do you like that pun?) Most Americans all drive too far to our jobs, using up precious resources (and the politicians promote ethanol..no future in corn ethanol) I think there will come drastic changes in our way of life as there is not a practical replacement for gas and diesel as transport fuels. Yes, there are efforts, but I think it is too little and even less is being done to really preserve precious oil and gas to give us more time. I believe oil will become such a desired resource that I predict that China will invade the mideast to get control of the oil. Remember history: Japan attacked the USA at Pearl Harbor because of "oil".

at 9/29/2007 4:48:02 AM, inAmsterdam said:
The author of this article is an editor for this website - puts into question the accuracy of all articles he has edited! What poor logic and false / unproven assumptions and conclusions!

at 9/29/2007 8:32:40 AM, WLinHonolulu said:
Nobody caught that mistake about the $2000 annual savings in electricity. $2000 a year @ 7% for 10 years comes out to over $29,500. The rest of your twisted logic almost got me tho. Better luck next time. -EVwannabe

at 9/29/2007 11:20:59 AM, BobbyG said:
You are way off base. First of all the proposed plug-in hybrids only travel 40 miles on a charge which fulfills over 90% of the driving done in the US. After that, they convert over to conventional gasoline or diesel. This gives a factor of ten back over gasoline right away. Your analysis also ignores the hidden cost to secure the world's petroleum supply which was estimated by Milton Copulos in March 2006 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to be an additional $3 a gallon for all gas pumped in the US. You also conveniently ignore the latest IEA report which indicates that, if we are lucky, we will make it through the next 5 years without permanent gas shortages. After that the combination of falling production in existing fields, lack of new descoveries and growing worldwide demand will produce a permanent and widening world wide oil shortage. What will the desirability of an electric car be when everyone else is lined up at the pump for gas? Or looking farther out, how much is it worth to avoid WWIII over oil?

at 9/29/2007 2:27:59 PM, Tut said:
Your best article yet, regardless if you agree or disagree. This could be the subject for discussion over Thanksgiving turkey this year. You are going to make it this year? Oh, one more thing, about that Fat Idiot remark. Your not an Idiot.

at 9/29/2007 5:20:14 PM, Dreamer said:
Austin, I don't know much about Mark Twain but here's a quote for ya, "I'll be back". Arnold is back and he's been building the hydrogen super highway while you've been busy waxing that old gasoline jalopy. He has 25 active and 12 planned hydrogen stations under his belt. There are 179 hydrogen vehicles on the road in California today. That's just California.....I read somewhere that that North or South Dakota opened a solar powered hydrogen station a few months ago....North or South Dakota !!! They just need a few years to work the bugs out and hopefully get these hydrogen cars to market under $30,000. I've also seen a company online that is working on a hydrogen refueling station that you can install in your garage. It will cost approximatly $500 and provide enough hydrogen to take you about 100 miles in an overnight refuel. Plugin hybrid and electric cars will be out in a few years too. Exciting times we live in !!! All we need now is to keep our heads when oil comes to that crucial moment. Remember WWII when they stopped production of cars and retooled the assembly lines for tanks and planes? We need to use that same mentality when the time comes...and boy is in coming !!! We need the government to take all the money they planned on spending to secure those oil fields and retool the car plants for the new electric, hydrogen, biodiesel (ect.) cars. !!! Do a round the clock emergency broadcast on the major tv stations telling people to car pool or ride their bikes until we can get the new cars in their hands. Recycle all the old gasoline jalopys so we don't need to make new steel. Within a few months I be we can make the transition if we had to. Yes Austin....we can replace the gasoline engine. As a matter of fact, we already did it (pending production models)!!!!

at 9/29/2007 6:22:20 PM, TJ said:
it drives economies of today. The faster we use it, the faster we find an alternative energy source. How about dilithium crystals? :) ;

at 9/30/2007 7:47:15 AM, Dreamer said:
Dilithium crystals - no....biodiesel from algae - yes. They estimate 100,000 gallons of biodiesel can be harvested from algae on 1 acre per year. That puts ethanol to shame. Looks like several companies are getting close to full scale production...fascinating !!!

at 9/30/2007 9:37:37 PM, Engineers Rule the World said:
Paul Rako is setting new lows in schlok blogs demonstrating his keen ability to juxtapose totally irrelevant points in the argument for the electric car. Stick your head up your exhaust pipe Paul!

at 10/1/2007 12:10:40 AM, TJ said:
Wow, what complete nonsense. There are so many, many issues with this drivel. We are currently spending 10 million dollars an hour to kill people in Iraq - just to get control of their oil. Using your own completely faulty math, that''s 5000 dead babies an hour, 120,000 dead babies a day, 43.8 milliom dead babies per year, 219 million dead babies since the war began 5 years ago. I''m canceling my subscription to EDN.

at 10/1/2007 8:54:01 AM, sean said:
Echoing the above comment from TJ - EVEN if your sums were right & justified, why pick on this form of consumerism. Buy cheap, buy twice seems to fuel our cheap Chinese / Asian consumption in every aspect of the western marketplace - why pick on this obscure minority segment of the economy?

at 10/1/2007 9:29:47 AM, Soupie said:
This year, we will spend well over $300 billion on oil imports - over 40% of our total trade deficit. In the coming years it may very well end up costing us over $500 billion a year in oil imports to fill up our cars. The housing bust caused a less than $200 billion fall in the demand for new residential housing and some economists are already talking about the inevitability of a recession. Well, here we have $300-350 billion being taken out of our economy every year, and we wonder why it's so much harder for the economy to stay afloat today, despite impressive productivity growth, compared to the late 90's (when the oil imports cost us only $50 billion a year). That is why switching to plug-in hybrids would be of a huge benefit to the economy in the future. Even if it's going to be more expensive, nearly all of the value added of this extra cost will come from within the United States, driving domestic demand and domestic investment. Given the fact that the vast majority of the oil that we use is imported, Lou Dobbs will remain for me a clown for as long as he does not make a six-dollar gallon of gas the central part of his public stance. Not only is oil a far larger part of our trade deficit than Chinese trinkets, it is a far more serious threat to our national security. The extra $3 in federal taxes for each gallon of gas sold will allow us to slash corporate taxes (which are uncompetitively high) and thoroughly restructure our tax system to encourage a much, much higher savings rate in the country (which is currently negative - American households have spent more than they earned for the last 8 or 9 years). We need to stop taxing savings, pure and simple.

at 10/1/2007 9:51:07 AM, Paul Rako said:
Well, my comment that the electric car crowd has its share of religious fanatics is proved by many of these responses. How an engineering analysis is supposed to connote allegiance to a politician is beyond me. As has been observed by others, ideas are not so much based in logic as in allegiance to a group. So the caring make-the-world better-group, which I heartily endorse thinks I am attacking them. On the contrary, I applaud you all for giving a crap about the planet. My point is that embracing bad technology is worse that doing nothing at all. Hydrogen is pretty impractical, did you know that disassociating it from water needs a ton of energy and if you don't use platinum electrodes much of it will re-associate back to water? A recent editorial in Wards Auto World says: "One study from the University of Minnesota claims rising food prices caused by the demand for ethanol and other bio-fuels could cause as many as 600 million more people to go hungry worldwide by 2025." (wardsautoworld.com/ar/auto_article_18/)It also points out that hydrogen has been tried and dismissed as dangerous and impractical but the same issue says electric vehicles are inevitable. I wonder. He goes on to say: "All these critics do is confirm the obvious: There is no perfect substitute for gasoline. It has been our fuel for the past 100 years because it is the cheapest, most energy-dense choice available." Now, the people that talk like we are going to wake up one day and all the oil will be gone are practicing a common religious belief-- that we are all evil and that we have original sin and that there will be an apocalypse where only they will survive. Sorry, I agree fossil fuels will run out, but liquid fuel never will. It is too good a way to store energy for mobile uses. You pay less for it than you do for your bottled water (bottled water-- talk about struthers!) We will just synthesize it as is discussed in another article in this month's Wards Auto World: wardsautoworld.com/ar/auto_ic_engine_plugged/ Now the real crux of the biscuit is that we need to conserve. That is why I drive a motorcycle as opposed to a car. That is why my "rain car" is a 1992 model, so that the planet is not melting steel and molding rubber so I can feel good about keeping up with the Joneses. Read Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions. He talks about the huge blind alleys that science travels down. I think electric cars are one of these alleys. So is hydrogen. So is ethanol. I am an engineer, so I will constantly reevaluate this position. Next week I will work up the number for the cost that a battery, any battery, has to achieve to be competitive with liquid fuel. Another thing that just flabbergasted me is the resentment people have for foreign oil. Is it that the people who sell it to us are brown? Or is it because they speak a language you have not learned, despite many of them learning English? Is it because their churches have a point on top instead of a cross? How about we trade worthless American paper money for all the foreign oil we can get? After all, if it is going to run out we should get this precious resource before Russia and China and India does. I will be the first to use electric cars if it will save me money. But spending $100k on a Tesla is not going to do that, and spending $4k more on a hybrid is not going to do that and spendings more to just promote something is just stupid. We all could use a personal jet. Should we all go and buy and Eclipse just to help them out and get the cost down? Ohh-- and big thanks to Larry S. He is a real engineer. He understood the intent of the post, analysed it and found a serious flaw in my argument. When the lithium batteries came up 570 pound penalty I knocked off 170 pounds since an electric motor is lighter than a gas engine. But I forgot to include the weight of the gasoline itself. Kudo's Larry, you are the best. I am not sure where he gets his numbers but I knocked off 170 pounds for the engine and transmission so lets take the 11 gallons of gas at 68 pounds, round it up to 100 pounds so there is a 300 pound penalty in the battery car instead of 400. My mistake, sorry. As to the fellow that is going to cancel is EDN subscription over my blog post I wish you would reconsider. If you are an engineer, and that is who we are trying to reach, I cannot conceive of how an engineering thought experiment would get you so agitated that you would deprive yourself of access to the best EE trade. You know, you don't have to read my stuff, and there are plenty of other opinions here.

at 10/1/2007 1:57:53 PM, Larry S. said:
Umm, Gee, Paul, thanks for the compliment, but you ask where I got my numbers from, and that would be you. If you read my previous post, I came up with only a 102lb total additional weight for the hypothetical electric car, not 300lb, using your numbers and assumptions. (You seemed to indicate a 400lb engine and transmission weight reduction going from gas to electric.) Also, if one thinks about the idea of a photovoltiac roof (& trunk, hood?) for secondary source charging, the fossil fuel and carbon load savings over time would doubtless be appreciable, and appreciated. Whether or not an electric car can fully compete with gasoline, it has a useful place in society, and can provide clear long-term benefits.

at 10/1/2007 5:11:16 PM, Earl said:
Forget Paul Rako's hand-waving and just look at real world comparison of two instances of late-1990s technology (2007 technology is much more favorable to the EV, but an apples to apples comparison is easier to see). Let's look at a real world example of one vehicle with both a gasoline and an electric power-train, the 2002 RAV4 and the 2002 RAV4-EV. It is as apples to apples as you can get in the real world. The U.S. government, at www.fueleconomy.gov will tell you the "MPG" of these two vehicles: 23 and 112. The RAV4-EV is 4.8 times more efficient than the RAV4. Thus one needs energy storage 4.8 times smaller in the EV than the gasoline vehicle to go the same range. This is despite the supposed MJ/kg handicap of the RAV4-EV's battery pack. But does one need to go the same range? No, the next thing you need to know about gasoline vs. electric cars is that an EV pulls out of your garage with a full "tank" (i.e. battery pack) every morning. The tank on a gasoline vehicle is sized so one only needs to go to the filling station once a week because it is a real annoyance. But when you refill in your garage at night (when electricity is cheap and plentiful), there is no annoyance. That reduces the need substantially. Let's not call it a full factor of 7, because one does occasionally need to go further before returning to one's garage. Here's where 2007 battery technology is a big improvement over the late 1990s technology in the 2002 RAV4-EV. One can now get twice the range from batteries that are lighter and longer lasting than the ones that gave the 2002 RAV4-EV a range of up to 120 miles. This argument could be made at the MJ/kg level too (Paul Rako conveniently forgot to add in the kg of many gasoline components), but what would be the point when real-world data using old EV technology is so favorable? Next, for those where the range limitations of the battery electric car would be a problem, the solution is a plug-in hybrid. One that goes, say, 20 miles on electric power from your garage wall plug, and then the gasoline engine turns on for unlimited range. Why would you want one? Well, the fuel cost for the first 20 miles of your day would be like buying gasoline for less than a dollar a gallon. With crude oil prices going up all the time, this is getting more and more attractive. If you want to look for what will really kill babies, consider it is probably the people mislead by Paul Rako who go out and drive gasoline vehicles that flood the world's coastlines (a half a billion people are in danger). Mr. Rako would be advised to read up on climate science a bit before pooh-poohing one of pieces of the solution.

at 10/1/2007 5:30:36 PM, Meredith Poor said:
Quoting Dreamer: "They estimate 100,000 gallons of biodiesel can be harvested from algae on 1 acre per year. That puts ethanol to shame. Looks like several companies are getting close to full scale production...fascinating !!!" <P> On a clear day in the summer, solar exposure is about 1000 watts per square meter. On average, a square meter flat plate receives 5Kwh per day. An acre is about 45,000 square feet or 4,100 square meters. The total solar exposure of an acre is, therefore, about 20,500,000 watt-hours per day or 7.5 billion watt-hours per year. <p> NREL documents hint that algae converts sunlight at about 6% efficiency, although this may require a supply of CO2 being bubbled into the pond. The captured chemical energy potential at 6% is about 450 megawatt-hours per year. <p> Most of the algae that are optimized for trigliceride production yeild about 1/3 vegetable oils, 1/3 protein, and 1/3 cellulose. This requires significant management. A pond left to simply grow whatever floats in is more likely to produce bulk cellulose and relatively little trigliceride. <P> From the opposite end of the equation, a car getting 20 miles to the gallon might drive 40 miles per day, using 2 gallons of gas per day. An electric car making a similar trip might need 12Kwh. Therefore, roughly speaking, a gallon of gas translates into 6Kwh when used for comparison. (If anyone knows this is off, don't hesitate to chime in). <p> Dividing the above 450 megawatt hours by 6Kwh yields about 75,000 'gallons'. However, by the time this ends up as a motor fuel, at least half and probably two/thirds have been consumed in various transformations. Therefore an acre is probably more likely to produce 25,000 gallons of usable fuel. <P> Anyone interested in the biomass to liquids question should do a keyword search on '2,5-dimethylfuran', otherwise known as 2,5-DMF or simply DMF. This is a liquid fuel with energy content and combustion properties very similar to gasoline. It can be made from glucose or fructose with well over 80% conservation of energy potential. As mentioned in earlier posts, cellulose breaks down into starch, starch breaks down into sugar. Having prolific cellulose production in algae is not a barrier to effective fuel conversion. <p> Algae loves CO2 and hates O2. The problem then, is concetrating CO2 out of the atmosphere. Co2 comprises .3%, or 3000 PPM of the atmosphere. Finding a way of concentrating atmospheric Co2 to a level useful for algae cultivation is still a big research objective. <p> Algae is likely to be a big part of any solution to renewable transportation motor fuels. It might incidentally solve some other issues in the process.

at 10/1/2007 6:51:29 PM, Earl said:
Paul Rako's original article said "Carrying around the extra weight on the freeway hurts you more than you gain from the regenerative braking." That's a simple assertion without data or citation. Consider some data: fueleconomy.gov says the 2007 Honda Civic (2769 pounds curb weight) gets 29 MPG (25 city, 36 hwy) and emits 6.3 tons of greenhouse gases (GHG) each year, and the 2007 Honda Civic hybrid (2875 pounds curb weight) gets 42 MPG (40 city, 45 hwy) and emits 4.4 tons of GHG per year. It seems that the real-world disagrees with Paul Rako's assumptions. That extra weight (a whole 106 pounds) of the hybrid over a 10 year lifetime would therefore save 5 tons of gasoline and 19 tons of GHG. Seems the scales tip the other way Paul.

at 10/1/2007 9:45:01 PM, Earl said:
Paul Rako wrote "because I had to limit the analysis to strictly economic", but I see nothing economic about his analysis. Most of the attempt at analysis was about weight, and he seems to have gotten it wrong, based on the real-world examples. In addition to the ones already cited, consider again the 2002 RAV4 (curb weight 2940 pounds) vs. the 2002 RAV4-EV (curb weight 3500 pounds). The difference is not the 1200 pounds he predicts. And the RAV4-EV uses heavy 1990s NiMH batteries (Panasonic EV-95s at 63 Wh/kg) instead of the lighter LiFePO4 (lithium iron phosphate) batteries of A123 (about twice the Wh/kg). A123 batteries also have much longer lifetimes than what is implied by Paul''s statement "When the battery pack dies after 5 years...", though that statement may be intended for Tesla''s battery pack (which is not LiFePO4). Paul makes a big deal of the Tesla''s price tag, but fails to put it in context: the 2007 Lamborghini Gallardo goes for $180,000, 1.8 times as much as the Tesla. (Both do 0-60 in 4s). Why does Paul not skewer the even more expensive Gallardo? Not only does it cost much more, but it only gets 13 MPG. And since Paul likes to talk about weight, consider the Gallardo weighs in at 3153 pounds, vs. the Tesla''s 2690. Where is Paul''s 1200 extra pounds? Finally, note that Paul extrapolates from the Tesla to condemn all electric vehicle technology, a case that he never makes with real facts. This is truly shoddy analysis.

at 10/2/2007 12:27:31 AM, adamsweden said:
narrowmindedness and selective research at the level only a lobbist could excell at..you will unfortunately go a long way..

at 10/2/2007 11:25:14 AM, Earl said:
Paul Rako said "but it is capital expense and operating cost that are the fundamental basis for any analysis. ... I suspect the price of oil is distorted but close to true market value. Same with electricity." I disagree with these statements. In chapter 1 of almost any Economics textbook you will find a discussion about how the market price of things fails to include some true costs. Such "externalities" are brought up and then for the most part forgotten. But forgotten or not, they are still there. Paul Rako's cost calculations are what I call "tunnel-vision economics", i.e. without externalities. Gasoline and coal electricity are perfect examples. If the cost of destroying the atmosphere is added in, suddenly neither of these energy sources would be cost competitive with renewable energy such as desert solar thermal and wind power. Paul doesn't "want to get into the 'oil subsidies' thing", but it is important to note that for much less than what we spend in Iraq, the U.S. could build renewable energy plants that generate more than enough electricity to drive the 2.7 trillion vehicle miles traveled each year in the U.S. Paul says "central planners almost alway bet on the wrong technologies." We don't have central planners in the U.S., but we do have a government that is making bets on all sorts of technology, but espeically fossil energy technologies. As he indicates, the government is often wrong in its technology bets, e.g. its fossil energy bets. Another darling for the last few years has unfortunately been hydrogen fuel cells, which is also the wrong choice. What government should do is help eliminate the externalities in our energy choices, so that energy sources reflect their true costs, and then let the market decide. I believe electric vehicles would be the market winner in such a scenario, and I will be happy to debate the facts and figures with Paul Rako on that. But right now we live in a fantasy land where fossil fuels are not priced in way that reflect their true costs, and that leads to the current very bad situation.

at 10/2/2007 11:39:14 AM, Earl said:
Paul Rako says "I also will not address carbon dioxide, if you think going from 0.03% to 0.04% CO2 will plunge the earth into a catastrophe then there is nothing I can do to dissuade you." This is typical for his style of argumentation: no data, no citations, just a bald take-or-leave-it assertion. When James Hansen suggests that things get pretty ugly when CO2 passes 450ppm, he presents lots of data from diverse sources to support his position. It is a highly credible position. Paul has no data, and very possibly doesn't want to hear or see any (since it might disturb his preconceived notions). It is not a credible position. On top of it, he even gets his numbers wrong. Perhaps he doesn't realize that we've already gone from 0.03% (280ppm) to 0.04% (383ppm) in the last 200 years (mostly in the last 50). The question is what happens if we go past 450ppm (0.045%). That is only 67ppm away, and we're currently going at 2ppm per year and accelerating, so we would expect to get there in 30 years or less. That's why we have to start changing now. Already developed technology will get us there; we don't need to wait for research breakthroughs. It is only a question of political will (something we are very short on unfortunately).

at 10/3/2007 6:12:04 AM, Geezus said:
What a moron.

at 10/3/2007 12:48:00 PM, Earl said:
Paul Rako said, "my comment that the electric car crowd has its share of religious fanatics is proved by many of these responses." I won't dispute that, but internal combustion cars have plenty of fanatics too. The existence of fanatics on either side of a debate means nothing. Paul claims his point is "embracing bad technology is worse that doing nothing at all." First, he never addressed the downsides of "doing nothing at all", so the seriously negative side of gasoline is simply ignored. Second, his analysis of what he calls "bad technology" is flawed. I have already shown apples to apples real-world examples of old EV technology vs. ICE technology, and they are quite favorable (as opposed to Paul's simplistic and faulty calculations). Compared to the serious downside of "doing nothing at all", EVs are real winners. Paul has never made the point he claims he wants to make. He also says "I agree fossil fuels will run out, but liquid fuel never will." Paul doesn't say what liquid fuel he means except that it is not ethanol, or what that liquid fuel might cost. The only liquid fuel that has the potential to yield sufficient quantities to power the U.S. vehicle fleet is biodiesel from algae. (The yield per acre of algae biodiesel is about 30 times the yield of biodiesel from conventional oilseed crops like soy.) And yet algae is at best 7.5% efficient at using sunlight, whereas solar thermal is 4 times better at 30% efficient. That factor of four, plus another factor of 2-4 (2 for hybrids, 4 for ICEs) in usage efficiency means there is a factor of 8-16 efficiency advantage in using electricity stored in batteries over algae biodiesel. Paul says, "I think electric cars are one of these [blind] alleys." But this is based upon a simplistic mass analysis where he left out the enormous mass savings potentials of EVs, and also assumed that EVs would only be charged as often as ICEs have their tank refilled (and thus require the same range). He counts only the batteries as an EV mass gain, credits a 100 pounds for the engine difference, and ignores the other deletions from an ICE. In is reply to Larry S he subtracts another 100 pounds for the mass of the gasoline, but what about the transmission? What about the catalytic converter? What about the radiator? What about the alternator? What about the fuel tank itself? What about the axles and differentials (hub motors are replacing those)? What about the oil and its filters, and the air filters? (And notice that the deleted parts are the ones that require so much maintenance?)

at 10/4/2007 7:24:22 AM, Larry L. said:
Can't agree with you. But I like that you've made me think. I'm looking for the smallest footprint overall and I don't find much good analysis on that issue, just a lot of argument. I worry about how the batteries are made, not the difference in cost between a Prius and a small Ford. (Besides the Prius probably is a much better overall investment.) The bottom line is that the world is beginning to look ahead, we're way behind Europe, and the American car manufacturers need to lose their lobby and get with the program.

at 10/4/2007 8:03:53 AM, stevejust said:
This website is terrible. The inaccuracies in the blogs on this site everywhere are amazing (i.e., surprise at an LED bike light battery pack being shaped like a water bottle, reporting the deposit on a Tesla as $5,000 when they range from $30,000-$100,000... etc.,.) But in the event anyone ever reads this comment, I read an article...more of a white paper, written by an author out of Cambridge University published within the last 7 years or so that absolutely, positively, decimates every fundamental preconception in this article. I''ve actually looked for it a few times since reading it (it''s probably been 2 years since I read it). If someone out there in internet land knows the one I''m referring to, please let me know. The upshot is that internal combustion cannot, ever, be as efficient as using electricity from a basic physics perspective, and why the expense due to the battery issue needs to be overcome. And it was coming out of Europe, where diesel is king. And it''s got a comparative analysis of petrol, diesel and electricity. It was fairly technical, and would serve as a direct, irrefutable, undeniable counterpoint to this crap.

at 10/4/2007 9:31:44 AM, Earl said:
To stevejust: I don't know the report you're thinking of, but you might find this one useful. Team Fate at UC Davis entered the Future Truck competition every year, and they produced some really interesting plug-in hybrids with detailed analysis to accompany their work. For example, consider reading their 2001 Tech Report: www.team-fate.net/technical/UCD2001TechReport.pdf We have two battery electric vehicles (BEVs) at our house (fueled with sunshine), but I tend to think the path to BEVs is through plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) since PHEVs solve the chicken/egg problem of battery cost (cost doesn't come down until volume goes up, but volume is limited by cost at the start of the S-curve of adoption). Of course a plug-in has the worst of all worlds in terms of weight (it still has a muffler, catalytic converter, transmission, ICE, radiator, etc. etc.), but note that Team Fate reports only a 3.4% weight increase because the ICE can be downsized when you have electric drive assist, and despite the weight increase, MPG goes from the 12/17 of the Chevrolet Suburban they started with to 29/31 while at the same time reducing greenhouse gases by 53% and providing better acceleration (0-60 time goes from 12.1 to 9.5 seconds). Better mileage, lower emissions, faster acceleration: all done by grad students modifying one of Detroit's bad boy SUVs. It was a stunning result. One wonders why Detroit didn't take the UC Davis design and build it.

at 10/9/2007 4:29:07 PM, djpb said:
Ok, so let''s suppose you can afford something as expensive as a Tesla roadster. Could you not afford a second battery pack that could be charged by a solar panel array on the roof of your house during the day? Just as you charge your extra battery for your cordless drill while you are using it elsewhere, this type of a system could make the best use of a "free" resource -- i.e. the sun. A whole industry could develop just for the home charger/crane (to lift the battery in and out of the car).

at 10/12/2007 3:38:17 PM, Paul Rako said:
Sorry to be confusing Larry S, my thinking was that a lithium ion battery pack would weigh 570 pounds so I took off 170 for the lighter drive-train weight, and after you found my mistake in not accounting for the fuel, I took another 100 pounds off despite the fuel only weighing 70 pounds. So the electric car is still 300 pounds heavier and that weight needs bigger brakes and such so I am sure it is a 500 to 900 pound penalty based on my experience as an auto engineer. I do appreciate the intelligent comments made by Earl, obviously another engineer or analytical thinker. He is right to be wary of opinions or rhetoric in favor of real-world examples like the RAV4 EV. I always said that an ounce of trial is worth a pound of opinion. But there are several aspects of the RAV4 EV that prove my point. The greenie sites say that Toyota could not make enough of them but Toyota says they did not sell well. [www.toyota.com/html/shop/vehicles/ravev/rav4ev_0_home/index.html] The RAV4 EV cost $42,000 dollars new, a significant premium over a regular RAV4. There was one that sold on eBay for 67 grand and the greenies claim this proves people want them, which is ridiculous since it is a collector's item now and who knows what the market will really bear? Most interesting is that the battery pack died after 3 years and that it was replaced under warranty and the value of that was 26 grand. [www.greencarcongress.com/2006/05/used_toyota_rav.html] Now is anyone with any honesty claiming that Toyota should subject themselves to this kind of punishment and still be in business? The range of the RAV4-EV was 126 miles and the payload was 827 pounds, well under a gasoline RAV4. [www.seattleeva.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV] At some point it starts being an extra vehicle play-thing and not a practical car. As I said, if you have to buy a second car then all the green benefits go down the drain, you are wasting money and capitol utilization to feel good, but you are really harming the planet since we have to use all kinds of energy to make that second car for you. OK, as the the person that said I did not say what type of fuel will replace gasoline please follow the link I provided right after I made the statement in my previous comment. I also think that many of the comments that provided scintillating opinions like "Paul is a moron" only prove my point. Please, if electric cars or solar begin to pencil out economically then I will be the first to advocate them. There is a common misconception that the auto industry guys love the oil guys. This is exactly backward, I assure you that all the auto engineers and executives despise the oil industry even more than the greenies making comments here. I do appreciate the criticisms and I have done some more thinking about this. If every person drives 10,000 miles a year gets 25 mpg, then we all average 400 gallons of gas a year. At 3 bucks a gallon that is 1200 dollars. A gallon of gas has about 132 Mega-Joules of energy. But we know the engine is only 20% efficient. So then the you get 26.4 Mega-Joules of useful work per gallon. So that 400 gallons a year you use requires the equivalent of 10,560 MJ. A Joule is a watt-second. Your house uses kilo-Watt-hours. So divide the 10,560 MJ by 60 and 60 again and then by 1000 for the kilo. You get 2933 kW-hr. Now at 13 cents per kw-hr like California charges that is only 381 dollars of electricity. Pretty impressive. Only there are two problems, the electric motor is not 100% efficient and the charger is not 100% efficient. I would say you get about 80% on the car and 90% on the charger. So take the 381 and divine by 0.9 and 0.8 and you are up to 530 dollars, still way better than 1200 bucks for gas. Now wait, you have to pay for the roads and the government pork that the gas taxes pay for, the politicians are going to make sure this is all revenue neutral. So the average tax on gas is 0.42 per gallon. That means your 400 gallons is paying 168 in taxes so add that to the 530 and you get $698. So this means using electric cars saves you 500 dollars a year in fuel cost. This is a big deal. Engineers love it for the cost benefit and greenies love it since it sticks it to the scumbags in the oil industry, an opinion I happen to share. So car loan paper is 7 to 10% paper and yes, you have to do the payoff in one year so that would seem to indicate that you could add 7 grand to the price of the car and be a wash on cost since the 500 bucks savings will pay for the interest on the extra 7,000 dollars. The only fly in this ointment, and it is a big fly, is the replacement cost of the battery pack. I guarantee you a pack wont last ten years. Your drills don't and they have much lighter and better service than a car. So if the pack costs 5 grand, and needs replacement every five years then you are screwed because your 500 dollar savings just become a 500 dollar expense. Just to be a wash with the 500 dollars you save in gasolin