Posts Tagged by electric transportation
Oil Carries a Few Externalities, Like Death and Dismemberment
| January 25, 2012 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
I received the normal pushback on my recent piece praising electric transportation. In response, I make two broad points:
1) We are most definitely headed in the direction of clean energy, electric transportation (including small, urban commuter vehicles, e-bikes, mass transit, car-sharing, etc.), smart-grid, energy storage, and so forth. For a great number of reasons, we will not be burning coal and driving Hummers in 2050. One of these reasons is cost: the cost of renewables is falling, and will continue to do so.
My point is that each of these arenas will improve in something close to lockstep: cheaper and cleaner energy/storage and transportation. There are, of course, important questions about exactly how and when this will occur, and who’s going to make a buck in the process.
2) I call your attention to the variety of externalities of oil, which include war. I recently became aware that there are very scholarly, actuarial-style analyses of the value of a human life; see the discussion below if you think I’m kidding.
I’m not sure how you do this type of thinking without laughing. I just can’t imagine what Socrates, Jesus, or Buddha would say — but I can tell you very specifically what I say: our sending our children to fight and die over oil is an abomination. Read More
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The Auto Industry Embraces Electric Vehicles – Kicking and Screaming
| January 24, 2012 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
If you’re looking for evidence that the auto companies are resisting the migration to EVs, here’s news from sunny California. It appears that Honda, Hyundai, and Toyota have successfully lobbied the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and members of the California State Legislature to open a gaping loophole in the new zero-emission vehicle mandate. Now, automakers that ‘overcomply’ with the new Federal greenhouse gas (GHG) standards can get away with producing fewer EVs. This sweetheart deal allows an automaker to cut the number of pure electric-drive vehicles by as much as 50% over the 2018 to 2021 timeframe in exchange for just 2 grams per mile GHG overcompliance during that time.
Jay Friedland of Plug-In America, whom I interviewed for my first book (Renewable Energy – Facts and Fantasies) sums it up: This is a bad deal for California and for the United States.
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Electric Transportation Offers Advantages, But No Free Lunch
| January 24, 2012 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
A reader writes in:
Craig, I’m reading your book and really like the point made about gas being double dirty and double inefficient because of the refining process. I just think that the conversation then should also look at the double / extra cost and pollution that the batteries represent. Thoughts?
Here’s the way I would look at that:
1) Batteries are more closely analogous to the gas tank than they are to the gas itself. I.e, they’re the place in which the energy is stored, and they are only minutely consumed as the electro-chemical energy is converted to kinetic energy to power the vehicle, and then recharged from an external source. Read More
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Small and Affordable Battery Electric Vehicles
| December 30, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
Lots of folks are wondering what the future of transportation looks like. While none of us knows for sure, we can have some level of certainty as to what it does not look like: a 4000 pound hunk of steel, transporting one 150 pound person, and using 20 times more energy than necessary in the process.
Certainly, re-inventing the way we live and move about will be important to our survival as a species. Great ideas include mixed-use development, greater reliance on mass transit, and car-sharing. But to the degree to which we stay within the passenger vehicle paradigm, it’s hard not to be intrigued with concepts for extremely light, small, affordable, battery electric vehicles, like the EMCycle that I’ve been promoting.
Here’s a related concept from San Francisco-based “LIT Motors” that my friend and colleague Bill Moore of EV World came across.
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Inductive Charging Offers Advantages in Electric Transportation
| December 28, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
I’ve been lucky enough to derive so much pleasure from business travel – and to conduct so much business during personal trips — that I long ago ceased to try to separate the two.
Case in point: this trip back East for Christmas, where I carved out an hour and a half to meet with the CEO of Momentum Dynamics, less than an hour’s drive from my family’s home in the suburbs of Philadelphia.
Momentum Dynamics offers breakthrough technology in inductive (versus conductive) charging. For those scratching their heads here, we find this concept implemented in today’s electric toothbrushes, which are charged miraculously by merely replacing the brush – sans metal contacts — back into its base unit. Unbeknownst to the user, it sits there next to a modulating magnetic field that induces an electric current to flow into a conductive circuit within the toothbrush, recharging the battery. Read More
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EVWorld’s Holiday Message of Warmth and Humanity
| December 22, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Sustainability |
My good friend Bill Moore is not only a terrific writer, but a man of great compassion for humanity. I thought I’d post his holiday message for those who may not have seen it. As I wrote back, “That is absolutely lovely, Bill. On behalf of all seven billion of us, thanks for being a voice of reason and compassion in a world some believe to be headed the other way.”
Dear Friend and Colleague,
Judy and I extend to you and your loved ones our warmest regards as 2011 comes to an end and a new year begins, one that is filled with as much promise as uncertainty. The year now fading saw the first tentative sales of three pioneering electric-drive cars from GM, Nissan and Mitsubishi, as well as the emergence of the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street movements. These events would seem to suggest the beginning of a shift — albeit an unsteady one — not only in how we power our vehicles, but more significantly, how many of us are starting to see the world and our place in it: that we aren’t alone in our desire for a safer, cleaner, more equitable global society, and that we can do something about it when we work together.
Curiously, if you research the origins of many of the customs of Christmas, you’ll find Read More
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Corporate Fleets Switching to Electric Transportation
| December 8, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
The adoption curve for electric vehicles is largely based on consumer attitude for the subject, which itself is for the most part formed by word of mouth: what people hear from others, and what they see around them. It is for that reason that I take great delight when I see news of large corporate fleets switching to electric transportation. Frito-Lay is the 7th largest fleet in the U.S., and will soon be deploying 176 electric delivery trucks in Orlando, FL. Good stuff.
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Electric Vehicles: Confronting the Tough Realities
| November 30, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
Glenn Doty is an extremely senior scientist who studies the macro-world of energy, and doesn’t like what he sees regarding electric transportation. He writes:
While I have tremendous respect for you and the work that you are doing, I have very little respect for the people who compiled that study that you referenced.
The simple truth is that you cannot claim “grid mix” for a new marginal increase in grid demand. If you plug in a new toy (EV), they can’t do a rain dance to get additional energy from the hydropower dam… nor will they amp up the local nuclear reactor to provide more power… The only possible source for the energy going into NEW demand will be what is currently SPARE capacity – that’s natural gas and coal. Read More
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The Electric Vehicle Adoption Curve – Two Opposing Views
| November 29, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
In response to my recent piece on electric vehicles, a few readers sent me John Peterson’s position on the subject. Thanks, but I’m already quite familiar with it. John’s a brilliant, honest, and levelheaded guy; in fact, I plan to visit him in Switzerland when I’m in Europe next spring. Having said this, I disagree with him here.
For starters, the concept that EVs are overhyped and destined to failure because “Cheap Beats Cool” does not ring true of the auto market generally. Since the dawn of the automobile, and certainly since World War II, cars may be about sex, or about the wish to appear affluent, but they certainly aren’t about getting around as inexpensively as possible; “cheap” really isn’t the motivating force here. Read More
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November’s Webinar: Top Business Plans
| November 28, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Business |
In the webinar, I chose a smattering of these plans and presented them to a live audience. Many of those listening wrote in questions, which I fielded as they came across.
Represented here are investment opportunities in electric transportation, wind, biomass, solar thermal, synthetic fuels, hydrokinetics, and concepts in energy storage, both batteries and compressed air.
I hope you enjoy.
