tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-327966162024-02-28T13:31:47.747-08:00Well-to-WheelWell-to-Wheel analysis attempts to account for the efficiencies along the entire production and consumption lifecycle for a given fuel. Considerations of the environmental "big picture" for your perusal.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32796616.post-69738588374461411812009-05-08T13:05:00.000-07:002009-05-09T01:40:42.931-07:00A Better Place's Possible Pitfalls: Open or Closed Grid? For profit or environmental benefit?Lots of EV enthusiasts, <a href="http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/better-place/">including David Pogue</a>, have provisionally chosen to give up just a bit of their liberty and endorse Shai Agassi's "<a href="http://www.betterplace.com/">A Better Place (ABP)</a>". In Mr. Agassi's world, you'll be billed based on the miles you drive similar to by-the-minute mobile fees.<br /><br />Great! or not so great? Pitfalls may lurk in the shadows stemming from A Better Place's organization as a for profit company. Like all for-profit enterprises, they're in it for the money and environmental benefits, while great for marketing, take second place to profits.<br /><br />Each large scale grid infrastructure represents a natural monopoly and governments must step in to regulate these monopolies. Open access to the electrical grid and the telephony network (including the Internet) have provided great benefits to consumers. Closed networks like those run by the cell phone companies and cable companies have provided fewer benefits and greater pain. Which way will ABP steer their Electric Recharge Grid? Will they operate it as an open, competitive arena or as a closed, profit-maximization tool? Only time will tell, but if history is precedent, the ABP electric recharge grid will be, unfortunately, closed.<br /><br />First, their promise to only purchase and sell clean electricity will disappear either if they max out clean energy supplies (that would be great, by the way) or if a competitor, say Wal*Mart for argument's sake, offers a cheaper mileage plan using dirty electricity. Sadly, economics trump moral positions for a majority of consumers and the low cost leader will prevail.<br /><br />ABP may then attempt to lock-in their customers either via proprietary chargers/battery packs or via contractual limits that prevent you from using another "network". The proprietary route seems less likely because open standards have already been promised; they're not yet published nor released, but let's give them them benefit of the doubt. That leaves the contractual route. Subsidy locked phones only work on one network. Remember when cell service providers held your phone number hostage within their network? Only government intervention allowed number portability. ABP, as a for profit enterprise, will be drawn to do the same things with battery packs. They might say "feel free to use your car on another network, but you can't take an ABP battery with you" and could effectively lock you into the ABP network.<br /><br />The devil is in the details. Will ABP allow power from another vendor to flow through their charging stations? How about through your home charging unit? If not, do you have to buy and wire in yet another home charger to switch vendors? Will towns have to have multiple smart charger networks? Will you be charged a "battery handling fee" to swap to another vendor? How about early termination fees? The same problems that folks complain about in their mobile plan, magnified by greater costs, will now apply to their car plan. They are surmountable, but will ABP remove those problems or use them to improve profits?<br /><br />Finally, a for profit company wants to maximize monetary gain, but in ABP's case, monetary gain and environmental benefits conflict in the end-game. Initially, moving the world's car fleet from oil to electricity will benefit the environment; however, ABP profits even more as those cars drive more. The environment, conversely, benefits less as the cars drive more. An environmentally sensitive pricing plan would make each additional driving increment cost more to encourage energy conservation. Will ABP do that? Unlikely. They already tout an "Unlimited Mileage" plan that is precisely what the environment does not need. Hopefully it's only an environmental loss leader to attract customers and will be withdrawn once enough electric cars hit the road.<br /><br />As a for profit enterprise, A Better Place will eventually be driven away from its goal of environmental stewardship and toward maximizing profit. To limit the pitfalls and maximize the benefit, the Electric Recharge Grid Operator portion of ABPs business must be a non-profit, open access provider allowing anyone to deliver and receive electricity over their network. Plenty of profits lie in the periphery, but the core grid operator must be non-profit, open to all competitors, and working toward the ultimate benefit of environmental protection. Rushing toward environmentally responsible technology benefits us all, however, let's not lock ourselves into a single vendor's cage along the way.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32796616.post-82788539517529894702009-04-15T11:12:00.000-07:002009-11-07T16:57:17.858-08:00How Did California Determine CRT TV Energy Use ?The <a href="http://www.energy.ca.gov/appliances/tv_faqs.html">California Energy Commission's TV energy use FAQ</a> on their proposed regulations says:<blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">How much wattage do different types (CRT - cathode ray tube, liquid crystal display - LCD, plasma) of televisions use?</span><br />It's hard to compare CRTs to LCDs and plasmas. On average, CRTs use 0.23-watts per square inch of the screen, LCDs use 0.27-watts per square inch, and plasmas use 0.36-watts per square inch. Below are comparisons of the "average size" of each type of television and the wattage they use, and a comparison of wattage used by a 42-inch LCD versus a 42-inch plasma.<br />There are few direct-view CRTs that are as large as the big LCDs and plasma TVs. A 40-inch (diagonal), direct-view HDTV is the industry's largest direct-view cathode ray tube. It uses 280 watts while in operation and only one watt in stand-by mode.</blockquote><br />So how did the CA Energy Commission arrive at 0.23 watts per square inch for CRT televisions? I'm still looking. According to the <a href="http://www.energy.ca.gov/2008publications/CEC-400-2008-028/CEC-400-2008-028-SD.PDF">staff report</a>, that power usage information came from the Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) study "<a href="http://www.energy.ca.gov/appliances/2008rulemaking/documents/2008-07-16_workshop/proposals/PGE_Revised_Television_Proposal.pdf">Analysis of Standards Options for Televisions: Revised Proposal</a>" which was put together to help the California Energy Commission. Reading the PG&E report, however, shows ... zilch on CRT TV energy use! Separately, I did find one private "<a href="http://probonostats.wordpress.com/">Pro Bono Statistics</a>" blog, based tests they describe as less than rigorous, of two Sony WEGA CRT TVs that shows 0.23 <sup>W</sup>/<sub>in²</sub> and 0.29 <sup>W</sup>/<sub>in²</sub>; and notes that CRT televisions are far more efficient that CRT monitors! <a href="http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/prod_development/revisions/downloads/tv_vcr/Ecos_Presentation.pdf">NRDC's presentation</a> has some data too, but again uses less than rigorous methods.<br /><br /><a href="http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6475_7-6400401-3.html?tag=lnav">CNET has tested more than 100 television models</a>, using their own lab method, but they have no CRT data because they have only tested non-CRT televisions televisions :( In their chart, rear-projection was the energy efficiency winner at around 0.13 <sup>W</sup>/<sub>in²</sub> (sort by "Per sq in.") and rear-projection is not even listed in the CA FAQ.<br /><br />In Nov 2008, Energy Star v3.0 added TV ratings in a technology agnostic fashion:<br />http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/product_specs/eligibility/tv_vcr_elig.pdf<br /><br />CRT TVs have such a small market share now that the California Energy Commission probably feels it's not worth digging into, however, if CRTs really are so energy efficient, perhaps we should look at them again!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32796616.post-77939563261601430702009-01-07T16:52:00.000-08:002009-04-22T17:19:07.332-07:00General Motors Trying Hard...Normally, General Motors gets pilloried for their environmental record. Apparently the public notices them primarily as owners of the environmentally anathema Hummer, Escalade and Yukon monikers. GM's marketing department also used to lead with these brands, so why should we give them kudos for trying hard environmentally?<br /><br />Well, all companies have to be profitable to stay in business. The existing US regulatory scheme, customer demand, and artificially low gasoline prices all force auto manufacturers toward bigger and bigger vehicles. All companies try to sell more of their most profitable products; GM does that too and the big SUVs bring in the highest profits.<br /><br />Wait?! I hear a heckler shouting that "Toyota and Honda don't sell large trucks; that means they're green!". Not quite; Toyota and Honda would <span style="font-style: italic;">love</span> to sell more into the highly profitable large vehicle segment and <a href="http://www.autoobserver.com/2007/02/truck-wars-toyota-challenges-detroit-loyalty.html">Toyota has consistently increased the size of it's trucks</a> over the years to move into that market. Honda introduced the <a href="http://searchchicago.suntimes.com/autos/news/991864,srch-auto-JT050608.article">Ridgeline "truck-like"</a> vehicle to compete here as well. They're not succeeding, however, because Ford, GM and Chrysler out compete them. No marketer would say "Our big trucks are losers. Come check out our tiny cars." - instead they simply say "Come check out our <span style="font-style: italic;">environmentally friendly</span> cars!" (and secretly hope you'll buy their "big" trucks).<br /><br />If folks <span style="font-style: italic;">really </span>want an environmentally friendly auto fleet they can easily make that happen: a) vote with your pocketbook and buy high mileage vehicles to replace SUVs (we're starting to do just that) and b) work to elect politicians that will fix today's broken regulatory system so that the most environmentally friendly cars become the most profitable cars.<br /><br />Among all of the car makers, GM has the best track record at introducing economically sensible environmental solutions; unfortunately, customers didn't notice those offerings in their stampede to the SUV aisle. For example, in 1989 GM started marketing the <a href="http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/calculatorCompareSideBySidePopUp.jsp?column=1&id=7607">GEO Metro (45/50 mpg!)</a> with room for four and fuel economy on par with the Prius <span style="font-style: italic;">without</span> the high tech, high cost hybrid system. GM's EV1 then became the undisputed environmental champion until lobbyists (including GM's) killed the CARB ZEV mandate. Even then, GM kept introducing environmentally sensible vehicles. The 2005 <a href="http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Drives/FirstDrives/articleId=104820">GMC Sierra/Chevy Silverado Hybrid</a> included idle engine shutoff and regenerative braking. They went on to pursue this very economically astute "mild hybrid" (or perhaps "smart hybrid") approach in the <a href="http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/autoshows/detroit/2006/2007saturnvuegreenlinehybrid.html">2006 Saturn VUE Green Line</a> and then added it to the Saturn Aura Green Line and Chevy Malibu. Fickle customers, however, choose <span style="font-style: italic;">less</span> viable, higher cost hybrids and so GM added a "full hybrid" option to the <a href="http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Drives/FirstDrives/articleId=120687">2008 Chevy Tahoe/GMC Yukon</a> and changed the <a href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/01/06/detroit-2008-saturn-vue-2-mode-hybrid/">VUE to a 2-mode "full hybrid"</a> for 2008. Big trucks have a lot to gain from a hybrid drive-train, arguably much more than small cars do, and so once again GM technology is moving ahead of the competition.<br /><br />On the other end of the market where small, unprofitable cars live, the big three have far less incentive (aka profit) to compete. When profit margins get squeezed, smaller costs become magnified and the increased benefits that GM, Ford and Chrysler provide their union workers mean more in low-end cars than they do in the high profit, large vehicles. Interestingly, if the government provides universal healthcare, it will help level the playing field between union and non-union shops.<br /><br />GM has been trying to get customers to look their way by offering excellent technical choices, but the customers are more interested in buying giant CO2 generating SUVs instead.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32796616.post-80142901115887545082008-08-04T15:05:00.000-07:002014-04-01T11:05:02.715-07:00Busted!? 3M Polyurethane Protective Tape 8674 used for Zagg invisibleSHIELD, BodyGuardz, Best Skins Ever...After a bit of internet searching, <a href="http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/Aerospace/Aircraft/Prod_Info/Prod_Catalog/?PC_7_RJH9U5230GE3E02LECIE20SOG5_nid=GS4QB72YP5gs90657JDCX3glRQQ3NHH9T6bl">3M's Polyurethane Protective Tape 8674</a> looks like the "military" material behind the products being sold as <a href="http://www.zagg.com/">Zagg's invisibleSHIELD</a>, <a href="http://www.bodyguardz.com/">BodyGuardz</a> and <a href="http://www.bestskinsever.com/">Best Skins Ever</a>. 3M's <a href="http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/pdf/3MPPTTapeInstallationGuide.pdf">wet installation instructions</a> match those vendors' installation instructions and the 3M instructions also include a drawing that looks very much like the vendors' <a href="http://www.bestskinsever.com/servlet/the-template/faq/Page">marketing</a> <a href="http://www.zagg.com/images/other/pentest.gif">photographs</a>. For the cost of one shield from these companies, you can <a href="http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/cspages/8674_7.php">buy an entire roll of the tape</a> and then cut shields for your whole tribe. That's the downside - you'll have to cut your own shapes. Fortunately, blue-ember.com posted a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090219143141/http://web.mac.com/steffan/Blue_Ember/EmberBlog/Entries/2008/5/19_DIY_iPhone_Stealth_Skin_files/iphone-skin.pdf">pdf template for an iPhone skin</a>. Several <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20081112122830/http://www.bestskinsever.com/catalog/iPhone-3G-2pc-Diagram.gif">other</a> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20081112122841/http://www.bestskinsever.com/catalog/iPhone-3G-Diagram.gif">shapes</a> are shown on the vendors' sites, however, those might be copyrighted images.<br /><br />Good luck with your skins and shields.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32796616.post-60736050931551275562008-06-04T10:25:00.000-07:002010-04-07T00:58:56.055-07:00California: Batteries Included?!I was recently asked "Suppose that California does build a whole bunch of clean solar electrical generating capacity; even then, we still need a solution for nighttime electrical usage. How big would a ``battery'' need to be to keep the power on overnight?". The spreadsheet below has details on various options. With existing technology, molten salt is clearly the leading battery! You can also view this in <a href="http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=poDgN8KIZ_7pd7OcZVrzlFg&output=html">a web page by itself</a> or as <a href="http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=poDgN8KIZ_7pd7OcZVrzlFg&output=xls">an xls file</a>.<br /><br />Update: <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100325-presidio-texas-battery/">Presidio, TX will have a sodium sulfur battery</a> (named BOB) to store power for their town.<br /><br /><iframe width='500' height='500' frameborder='0' src='http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=poDgN8KIZ_7pd7OcZVrzlFg&output=html&widget=true'></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32796616.post-78142080769345146772008-01-31T11:52:00.000-08:002008-06-15T22:23:53.170-07:00Free! Upgrade to a Toyota PriusGet the environmental benefit of a Prius for free, save money on groceries and improve your health! Too good to be true? Not this time - reducing beef consumption by 20% will reduce CO<sub>2</sub> emissions the same amount as having everyone switch to driving a Prius (chicken, a non-<a href="http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=ruminant">ruminant</a>, has a far lower <a href="http://epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/downloads06/07Agriculture.pdf">CO<sub>2</sub>e per pound</a>).<br /><br />The N.Y. Times article "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27bittman.html">The World : Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler</a>" explains:<br /><br /><div style="font-family: times new roman;">"To put the energy-using demand of meat production into easy-to-understand terms, Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at the Bard Center, and Pamela A. Martin, an assistant professor of geophysics at the <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_chicago/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about the University of Chicago.">University of Chicago</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;">, calculated that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius."</span></div><br />Reducing beef consumption also reduces methane emissions a lot! Methane is <a href="http://www.epa.gov/methane/">twenty times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas</a> and represented <a href="http://www.epa.gov/methane/sources.html">28% of US methane emissisions</a>. Methane production occurs in the rumen as bacteria break down roughage. This methane is then <a href="http://agriculture.kzntl.gov.za/portal/AgricPublications/ProductionGuidelines/DairyinginKwaZuluNatal/RuminantDigestion/tabid/247/Default.aspx">eructated by belching</a>.<br /><br />Now I just need to make this into a clever bumper sticker!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32796616.post-56049861149693316442007-07-31T15:29:00.000-07:002007-07-31T15:46:40.895-07:00Blocking ads in Safari for Windows...I'm enjoying using <a href="http://www.apple.com/safari/">Safari for Windows</a>, unfortunately, none of my favorite ad blockers support Safari for Windows yet. <a href="http://www.adblockplus.org/">Adblock Plus</a> uses Gecko specific CSS and IDL. <a href="http://fsbsoftware.com/">SafariBlock</a> and <a href="http://www.culater.net/software/PithHelmet/PithHelmet.php">PithHelmet</a> only work under Mac OS X. Alas, I'm back to using one of the pre-plugin ad blocking methods: proxy server, custom autoproxy, <a href="http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/">hostname blocks</a> or CSS. <div><br /></div><div>Fortunately, <a href="http://www.floppymoose.com/">floppymoose.com</a> already created a ready-to-use userContent.css that blocks a lot of ads using nice CSS3 selectors. Bye bye ads! </div><div><br /></div><div>It doesn't block the download of the ads nor does it handle Flash ads (yet), but things are starting to look better. Now if I can just figure out how to emulate the click-to-play Flash blocking Safari might completely replace Firefox.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32796616.post-1158637986584666582006-09-18T20:51:00.000-07:002006-09-18T20:55:29.996-07:00Raindrop are Round(-ish)What shape are falling raindrops? They might not be shaped like you think - check out <a href="http://www.ems.psu.edu/%7Efraser/Bad/BadRain.html">Bad Rain</a>!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32796616.post-1155678447629168442006-09-18T19:44:00.000-07:002008-06-15T22:39:34.623-07:00Alternative Transportation Fuels<a href="http://www.teslamotors.com/">Tesla Motors'</a> recent press blitz about their roadster renewed my interest in alternative transportation fuels. Their <a href="http://me222.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/twentyfirstcenturycar.pdf">white paper about well-to-wheel efficiency</a> was particularly interesting, however, my inner skeptic wanted more! It turns out that diesel cars are not far behind.<br /><p>Using Tesla Motors' formulae, the production four passenger <a href="http://www.audi.com/audi/com/en1/company/company_perspective/environmental_protection/product_related/three-litre_car.html">Audi A2 1.2 TDi</a> with a fuel efficiency of 2.99 <sup>liters</sup>/<sub>km</sub> (or 79mpg) has a well-to-wheel efficiency of 0.84 <sup>km</sup>/<sub>MJ</sub>! That closely approaches the Tesla Roadster's 0.89 <sup>km</sup>/<sub>MJ</sub> when it's fueled from the USA's dino-powered electric grid. Diesel fuel's excellent well-to-station efficiency (91%) makes it stiff competition for electricity generated from fossil fuels (41%).<br /></p> <p>Tesla Motors, however, can easily crank up their efficiency with improved aerodynamics. If they snugged their power plant into a sleeker body, it's efficiency would increase a lot!</p><p>Why? Here are some numbers. Lacking specifics from Tesla Motors on drag (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_coefficient">C<sub>d</sub></a>) and C<sub>d</sub> * frontal area (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_coefficient#CdA">C<sub>d</sub>A</a>), I’ll just assume they're close to the <span style="font-style: italic;">very </span>similarly shaped Lotus Elise S2: <a href="http://www.elises.co.uk/components/s2/bodywork/index.html">C<sub>d</sub>=0.408, C<sub>d</sub>A(m<sup>2</sup>) = 0.653</a> or C<sub>d</sub>A(ft<sup>2</sup>) =7.00. This means the Roadster has aerodynamic drag somewhere between a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_coefficient">Chevy Lumina and a BMW 325i</a>. </p> <p>For comparison, the best production cars today have a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_coefficient#Typical_values_and_examples">C<sub>d</sub> ~ 0.25 (Prius, Audi A2 1.2 TDi, Lexus LS430 etc..)</a>. The GM EV1 had a C<sub>d</sub> = 0.195 and C<sub>d</sub>A(m<sup>2</sup>)=0.366 or C<sub>d</sub>A(ft<sup>2</sup>)=3.95. </p><p>Update June 2008: Tesla Motors has issued additional information and they <span style="font-style: italic;">have </span>improved on the Elise's Cd; the Tesla Roadster is reported to have a <a href="http://www.teslamotors.com/blog4/?p=57">C<sub>d</sub> = 0.3 and a C<sub>d</sub>A(m<sup>2</sup>) = 0.49</a><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0