“Part 2″ and “Part 3″ of The Three Brass Tacks will each be emailed to you within the next 10 days, along with the 2GreenEnergy Alert eNewsletter – all for free.
Be sure to leave your comments below about the THREE BRASS TACKS OF RENEWABLE ENERGY: Driving Profits Now.
I just read the first mail you sent on Brass Tacs. Thanks for your sincerity.
You bet. “Sincerity.” Thanks; I’m flattered.
[...] about cold fusion? As I’ve wrote in my Three Brass Tacks reports, I think there is credible evidence both that cold fusion exists, and that it has a [...]
[...] this winter, I’ll be interviewing my colleague and friend Wally Rippel. Readers of “The Three Brass Tacks” will remember Wally’s comments on cold fusion. In the book, I think it’s important that [...]
Really enjoyed the first edition of “Three Brass Tacks!”
Hi there, i enjoyed reading your brass tacks and am a little cross to say the least, not at your good self, but at the governments and CEO’s etc who knowingly put down these new technologies. Are they insane? Do they not realise that our future depends on the development of these things and they are in a perfect position to develop them? It must be that they eventually lead to “cheaper” energy and big companies cannot have consumers gradually paying less for things. It is saddening that money really does seem to make the world go round and greed shall surely destroy it….
[...] received for the Hydro-powered Electrical Generation (HyPEG) that I wrote about in one of the Three Brass Tacks articles, of course, is rooted in the fact that HyPEGs’ eventual ubiquity will mean the end [...]
Craig,
I live in California. I read the first two of your posts and was not sure how to comment. However, on number 3 you hit the jackpot. On number 1, I am already a convert and am attempting to put together an electric MGB. Motor and controller I have, but batteries are proving to be a bit of a challenge.
On hydrokinetics, I would agree, there is not much excitement in the energy and political circles. I would assume that this is because the idea of more dams across rivers over the world is not a good idea any more. I watched the building of the Kariba dam across the Zambesi river and the installation of the power systems on the south bank there. However, the north bank installation for Zambia actually broke one of the largest civil engineering companies in the world, and the systems were never installed. Building this way for hydro-electric has always been too expensive in money and lives.
You may be interested to note that a tidal system was put into place between two of the Channel Islands off the French coast where tides run to 42 feet (spring tides) some decades ago. I do not know if it is still running.
I love your idea of the horizontal (vertical axis) system to be placed across rivers. I think it would be a great boon to the third world. We would have great places to put a number of them in Inyanga (Zimbabwe). They could be made the same size and dropped in all over the place. Placing such units in areas such as the Columbia river (western USA) would present a challenge as the river has to be kept dredged to allow ships to reach Portland. However, they could be placed in the non-dredged areas. Being a sailor, I have some ideas on your system. We need to talk.
Peter
Hi Craig
Thank you for the great read in the three Brass tacks. I found BT 1 a great encouragment for me to continue my dream of converting cars to electric at a reasonable cost.
I started to build my electric car about 1 year ago. It was a big challenge. It made me realise how closed a lot of people are to new ideas. Trying to source parts that are not off the shelf and asking questions that were not the standard often resulted in looks or comments suggesting i was some how deranged.
Fortunately I am fairly persistent and have completed my car and have now traveled around 3000 klms. It was and still is an exiting and challenging time. I am very exited about the future and hope to start on my 2nd EV very soon and with a bit of luck and persistence I hope to make a wage out if it some time in the future.
Thanks again for BT
regards David
people
David: Thanks for the note. I certainly know the feeling of people looking at me “as if I were deranged.” Don’t sweat it; it comes with the territory of doing something different and challenging established viewpoints. Best of luck to you. Please feel free to post more details of the EV you built; that’s exciting.
Hi Craig,
Thanks for your Brass Tack3. I think after my harsh reviews of 1 and 2, your 3 is a winner. You give a good intro that appeals to common sense backed by some good technologies and examples. I would add the following to your article:
Your installed cost chart is great but it would be wonderful if in addition you can add an operational cost chart. As you stated in the article a land based 4 MW generator set is less costly on an installed basis than that for a coal fired one, but that begs the question why don’t we have more diesel / steam 4 MW generators then? Answer – operational costs.
Does the HyPEG operational cost outperform that of a utility scale generator? Does is outperform that of an equivalent 4 MW steam/diesel generator? This would be great selling and educational points to investors. Do this and you will have hit a solid triple score if not a home-run on this round.
Great article and a real improvement over the previous two when wearing my investor’s hat. It is also written in a style that works well as an op-ed or marketing piece.
Your favorite critic,
- Serafino Carri
Thanks for Tack #3, Hydrokinetics. You provided the current coal-fired generation capacity and derived the number of 8 MW devices which would replace them, but I don’t have a clear idea of how much river bottom it would take to replace a typical power plant, nor of the total potential harvestable energy available (in the US, for instance). Can you provide that information?
Also, you mentioned the DoE’s interest a couple of times (at least once in the cover email and once in the paper itself) but if you developed that aspect, I must have missed it (and it seems important).
Thanks again for three thought-provoking articles.
After reading “Three Brass Tacks” part one, it would seem that you are “Preaching to the Choir.” We are the market for EV’s. We are the people that are beginning to care about “Sustainability” and the survival of our species. The fact that the American consumers might be a bit slow to embrace a new technology is pure economics. Make a car that looks good, drives good and gets you from point A to point B more efficiently, it will sell. Keep it simple. As far as our perception of who we are, it can be changed with education. Of course it will take time, but have you noticed how many “Smart” cars are on the road now? Death traps on wheels, but they are still out there. The reason that the furs became a thing of the past was the public outcry with demonstrations. Are we will to demostrate against oil? Probably not. This new paradigm has to come naturally with good technology, good media, good education and simple economics. They need to make sense to replace something that has worked for over 100 years. Forget what good environmentally it is. That will be a great byproduct of success not to mention the quiet streets! I can’t wait!
Another comment on replacing oil with electricity. Not much improvement here. 50% of New England’s electricity comes from coal. so we are actually replacing oil with coal. Unless we can get more people to generate their own power as I do, than one nonrenewable resource for another is not much progess.
We do need government support for the shift. Tax breaks are a help. The problem right now is that most companies are in “Survival mode”. “Green” takes a backseat to economics. One thing that is on our side is the fact that the price oil and electricity is going to keep going up as time goes on. Alternative energies are on the war path. Wind is now displacing some of the coal usage. We are number one in the world for wind generation. We just got started. That’s awesome! With solar also moving forward, we will need a new infrastructure to support it. New 750 volt DC power lines will begin replacing the old systems. This will make the system better able to utilize these intermittent renewable energy sources. It is going to happen one way or another. The companies that refuse to understand this will just cease to exist! GM saw this coming and dismantled their EV programs. Kind of nuts, huh? Almost sunk them.
Free Markets will help make this happen. If Chrysler’s 200EV or the Chevy Volt doesn’t come out within the next couple of years, then I will consider going elsewhere to get my next car! It’s going to happen anyway, just wait and see.
Thanks for the article,
Tom
Hi Craig
Your brass tacks part 1 and 2 make interesting reading. I am not an expert on Electric vehicles and even more so cold fusion however must admit I tend to agree with Serafino Carri’s feedback. Speaking as a non technical consumer the current price/range/performance equation for EV’s verses ICE must change until it is within shouting distance of the ICE if you want mass adoption. Not all the elements of the equation need to be the same. Here in the UK for example perhaps range is less of an issue for most consumers than say in a continental size state like the US, as long as there is at least 100-150 miles range and ubiquitous and rapid recharging AND overall cost of ownership is broadly approximate to ICE vehicles then consumers may well be persuaded because the much lower running and fuel costs compensate for lower range or more frequent recharging. While individual elements of the equation may differ the overall equation must be competitive verses ICE.
Enjoyed your reports very much. I especially like the investment perspective. However, I don’t have big bucks to invest. Have you considered starting a mutual fund directed at alternative energy. This could attract more investment money, which would help the industry, and even make money for small investors. Everyone wins.
I see that the discussion is also about electric vehicles.
I have a proposal for a national network of electric-powered Magnetic-Levitation rails that can carry freight, and later passengers, at speeds competitive with air travel. For local off-network travel, these same vehicles would preferably be powered by batteries. See my slightly out-of-date website at http://www.LeviCar.com. I will be updating the web site this month.
This is not about generating green energy, but rather a more efficient way to use energy.
I hope that many of you will take some time to look at my website. My e-mail address is accessible through the website.
The first “Brass tack” was good,
The Second sounded like a dissertation from Roswell, NM, (Lots of talk sounding like an explanation of a technology in a Science Fiction Novel.) In a HOT FUSION setup four hydrogen atoms with an electron and a proton in each combine to make Helium with two protons, two electrons, and two neutrons. the neutrons seem to be made from a proton and an electron slammed together for each one, but the total weight of the proton and an electron is greater than the weight of a neutron ! And it is the annihilation of that mass which results in the surplus of energy.
We are really looking forward to some sound theoretical engineering in “Brass Tacks #3″.
Fantasy is not sound advice for Investment in an Enterprise.
Hi Craig,
Thanks for Brass Tack2. As an opinion editorial this does wonders but I would question the timing of the article. If this was released on the next price spike in oil and energy I think it would get a lot of attention, but right now it may get lost in the static of health care, the economy and unemployment.
As a casual reader and op-ed piece the conspiratorial aspect of it has me hooked, but as an informative piece to investors it leaves me lacking. Wearing an investor’s hat I would have the following outcomes from your article: Don’t hold my breath when it comes to cold fusion investment opportunities; current private enterprise does not support it; I should look elsewhere when it comes to renewable energy like solar thermal and hydrokinetics.
As with my comments in Brass Tack1 I want to know more about the areas where opportunity exists. You left me hanging there and spent a lot of time around a possible conspiracy theory. I want to know success stories regarding solar thermal and hydrokinetics and how you can demonstrate to me that you can show me the way. Purely from an investor’s viewpoint there is nothing in part 1 or 2 that has elevated me or informed me in a way that gives me a tangible insight on why I need to put my money in what you mention.
In terms of the $76 price for the three pieces, this is not significant because most investor information sources are far pricier. That said however investors buy news subscriptions that point out tangible statistics that support the underlying qualitative opinions of its author. Anything that falls short will prove of little value to the investment community.
Count as far as a pure investor’s information source: Brass Tack1 – strike 1; Brass Tack2 – strike 2. If this were an op-ed I’d give you a double for Tack1 and a triple for Tack2.
Hi Craig,
Here is my feed back page by page on your Part 1. I support EVs but they still have a way to go in the space of consumer markets:
Page 2
Regarding your premise about the experts being wrong about purchasing patterns – I’m not sure I agree but I do understand the power of branding. However, that said, branding works far better for products that don’t have to measure up in their performance and capacity to an established long lived product like an ICE automobile. Put another way if, infrastructure debates aside, toe to toe an electric car does not measure up to the total functional capacity of an ICE. It has less range, less top speed and you pay more for what you get. We can talk about values all you want, and there is always a market segment that can be reached through this, but folks at large measure their purchase power purely on what they can manage to pay up front or reasonably handle through a finance basis. I’ve been to many EV venues where the most popular questions are; how fast, how far, and how much? Most everyone quietly walks away when they hear the answers.
Page 3
“We tend to buy branded products – . . . . . . – and aspire to be in the future.”
I agree BUT only when the market space is new. TV, computers, and virtual retailers (.coms), all had one thing in common: They had no real predecessors to measure themselves against and their product expectations and metrics could be self described by the product. The electric car unfortunately does not have this convenience. Think of it this way – if I told you that I just invented an analog based computer that used a fraction of the raw materials and power of a conventional computer, but would cost twice as much, run half your applications and run the internet for limited hours in a day before needing a “rest period”, would you be running to the store to buy it? Sure, I could brand it with movie star images and give it all the hype I could muster, but in the end I have a metric to equal or beat set forth by the digital world. Let’s use a real world case – Vectrix. We can attribute their demise to a number of factors, but in the end people won’t buy a product that costs 2x up front when gas is less than the painful threshold of affordability. End case. Vectrix even struggled in markets that had regulatory advantages on its side in the EU. You can argue operational costs all you want over the life of the vehicle, but people buy what they can afford today upfront (regardless if that is paid in full or financed).
Your last paragraph on page three is what I agree with. But isn’t that stating the obvious (we can debate the part about “sell like hot cakes”). Here you agree with my general assessment – cost is #1 closely followed by product performance metrics established by the existing history of competing products. Here I would argue that you’ve increased the opportunity for EVs with comparable prices, but the performance metrics must be reasonably in line, otherwise people will say ‘why pay the same for something that has less range and needs to sit around charging for a while before I can use it again’. Once you give people capacity it’s hard to take it away. Do suburban homes really need to sit on ½+ acre plots when building on just enough land space for a house and a driveway serve the function? The expectation has already been ingrained, and cost will be the driver to force acceptance.
The big truck/SUV market bottom fell apart due to painful gas prices between 07 and 08. This coupled with justified panic behavior by vehicle owners / leasers left people with negative value on vehicles due to supply over load to the wholesaler market. Ouch! That sting is enough to make anyone think twice about Hummers and big vehicles, social graces aside.
I agree that social engineering plays a role, but it alone is not enough to stem the tide or change a direction. It has to be coupled with larger forces. Economics and metrics are the two big motivators in the equation and cannot be overlooked. When all three forces conspire then you have a win and an irresistible force that creates sweeping change. Social engineering alone won’t cut it.
Page 4
Your conclusion at the top of the page is invalid (sorry to be so harsh, not intended that way, you write a compelling piece but I don’t think it hits reality). As I stated before all the examples you put forward, cell phone, I-Pod, etc. have one thing over the current state of EVs – they beat the old metrics! Why wouldn’t people pay more for a cell phone over a landline if they have the convenience of calling from anywhere at any time? Why wouldn’t I want a device that replaces the bulk of all my old media that conveniently transports and plugs right into my audio infrastructure? Superior metrics in these new products simply are compelling and address the immediate nature of consumer motivations. Today’s EV does not give enough in terms of metrics (we can talk about pollution and mpg equivalent all you want) and certainly not in cost. People are not directly paying for pollution (you know what I mean when I say this), so that is not a metric that is felt/dwelled upon by people. If there was a national pollution tax on cars measured by engine displacement and miles traveled every year then maybe we’d have more traction with EVs.
Your second paragraph astounds me – you as a marketing person know better here. What you are saying is “build it and they will come”. This is the reason why so many businesses fail. You’ll have to do much better than this to win me over here.
The rest of this page can be summed up with your three point listed:
1. Almost never need to buy gasoline – let’s not argue this point, you base this statement on statistics but reject the same kind of data when it comes to current state of marketing EVs. This statement works because it has a direct effect on the purchaser.
2. Have made a viable contribution to health etc. – I agree that folks are sympathetic to this as an altruistic cause, but because they are indirectly affected by this so it’s not in the forefront of their minds. It is under the covers and they don’t have the same response. This is human nature like it or not.
3. Freeing our country etc. – Ditto from comment number 2 above. As long as we can have a semblance of our current lifestyle it’s an indirect effect.
Page 5
The sections prior to the Bill Weaver essay essentially validate my points. Without pain points to make up for the lacking in today’s state of EVs, it’s a tough market. Altruism has a limited market when my wallet has a budget. If I can buy a pair of conventional socks for $2.50 and have a second choice for socks made from organic materials and responsibly manufactured (fair trade practices) for $5.00, then I have a niche market because in the grand scheme of things the doubling in price is still a very small percentage of my total earning power. Note, I said niche market because even here people will say “socks are socks” so why pay $5. That’s not to say that you can’t build a brand around the $5 socks, you can, but en masse the $2.50 product wins. That’s why cheap restaurants survive hard times and fancy ones tend to fold.
Bill Weaver’s Essay
I couldn’t have said it better. I would temper a few points but in the grand scheme he nailed it.
Page 9 to 10
OK – finally you hit the number! I agree with the idea of specialty markets that allow a startup to take hold because the product performance expectations align with the technology at hand. Honestly if we were logical creatures mass transit would be high on the public’s mind coupled with public light rail and perhaps public station cars (more like urban class medium speed vehicles) in place for us to get around in. At best we would own just one private vehicle for those off chance excursions. But we are not logical creatures at heart so market behavior is often deemed “not able to be predicted or to work as anticipated”. Logical arguments about product purchases based on altruism don’t win over a limited budget if the price of the product represents a significant portion of one’s income.
Conclusions:
Your first five pages are off focus and really out of sync with your final conclusions. You need to better unify your message. The first five pages are the proverbial preaching to the choir. Who are you trying to target with this (the average reader, B2B, investors, EV manufacturers, market analysts, etc.)? Align your message in the intro with the conclusion. The paper contradicts itself as it is currently structured.
Last two pages tell me something but I’m looking for some more meat. You are starting to hook me with the Miles story.
If your Part2 and 3 go into market analysis (again, I don’t know who this paper is for) then how will it compare to http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reportinfo.asp?report_id=992799&t=t&cat_id= and similar type market reports? Again, I don’t know the purpose or target of your paper.
Speaking personally, I believe that the real problem is as much cultural as it is technological. Resistance to change is systemic in (North American) society and institutionalized through numerous government agencies at all levels. Tens of thousands of people are employed to maintain and defend the status quo governing who drives, what they drive, where they drive, how fast they can or should drive and what multitude of standards they have to meet to drive at all.
In pactice, this is proving to be destructive, if not fatal, to innovation because, as you correctly point out, “consumers can only respond to those modes when they actually arrive”. In the case of LSVs, the enthusiastic and positive comments from those who actually own and use an LSV are diametrically opposite to the negative, sometimes sneering comments from those who have never driven one. The US could be reaping the benefits now of a thriving electric low speed segment using existing technology. But that would require a major change in public attitude, lifestyle and possibly American self-image because the LSV challenges society’s preconceptions about what it means to ‘drive’, and who is ‘entitled’ to road access.
In this environment, progress may very likely be stalled until an electric vehicle conforms exactly to the staus quo in design, function, performance and price. This is where we are today.
To motivate people to change, innovation needs to be demonstrated and implemented at the local level in willing towns and cities but this would require changes at NHTSA, DOE, state legislatures and municipal councils. This is very unlikely to occur quickly enough.
Dears Bill Moore and Craig Shields,
Thanks for your good will on the personalised service, well informed and great in courage.
EV World is the biggest challenge to everyone. It is almost dynamite over the minds, which is good.
I believe in global warming as well as in the conspiracy theory. This means that the main problem is not technical,
but political.
Thanks, Best Regards.
Manuel Gama
absolutely spot on! i live in new zealand and tried to get an electric car since 2002, unsuccessfully! i even got a personal refusal from the then minister of land transport safety to import a left hand driven renault twingo from switzerland. i travelled to london to try and get a citroen berlingo electric right hand drive, only to find out that citroen had stopped making them a month before in sept 2005. i tried to import a second hand electric car from japan but could not find one.
after all this i decided to convert a citroen dyane 1973 to electric. it took me about 9 months to get all the necessary parts and about 4 weeks actual time to convert it. i put solar cells on my shed roof and i am now driving for free with no pollution! 100 km per charge and the car cost NZ$ 25 000, solar unit NZ$ 18 000. i had a bit of help from a mechanic and an electrician.
if i can do it WHY CAN’T THE CAR COMPANIES DO IT? as you point out, because they do not want to!!
I have always been interested in electric vehicles. At age 13, I put together an electric trolley. A starter motor “geared down” via V belt and pulleys to one wheel. I used to get about half an hour out of the battery – great fun. Charger over night.
Has anyone got any closer to figuring out what Nikola Tesla did for powering his electric car in 1931?
An alternator originally developed and patented by Raymond Kromrey is well worth a look. This has REVERSE characteristics to conventional alternators, in that instead of having increasing back EMF drag the more power you withdraw from it, this instead REDUCES the mechanical work the drive motor has to do !!
Claims by John Bedini are that units he has made are typically 120% efficient!
I am in the process of putting one together now to test.
Thanks for “Brass Tacks” I am not supprised at your finding out that market surveys very often ask the wrong questions and so get the wrong answers the most recent inthe auto field was of course the Ford Edsel ,. I would like to throw a new spanner into the works, ALL EV popponents seem to have forgoten a section of the market, the rural vehicle owner here where I am to go shopping it is a 62 mile trip in and some running round and then return often a 180 mile total journey covering freeway trips , 20- 25% hills and then the stop start of the township. The paralell hybrid is a joke for us as 90% of the drive it would be on ICE with the fuel consumption varieing with road speed, series hybrid with an electric motor as the transmission and the ICE running at a constant RPM in its most fuel eficient mode and giving an output of about 40 to 60 % of the duty cycle into the batteries and a battery pack to give an EV range (uncharged) of about 120mile would go a long way toward answering the rural vehicle requirments and may well put a major dent into the socalled SUV markets by allowing a comparable multiuse vericle with an EV pedigree and the I can face anything the world can throw at me attitude of the SUV owner/driver
Mr Tesla back in 1939 understood the power contained in our surrounding atmosphere and he in the most simplest way developed a antenna that conducted electricity (tuned to the earths resonance frequency) out of the atmosphere, which was mounted to the trunk of his electric car which relayed the electric current to a dash mounted control circuit comprised of vacuum tubes which fed the AC motor under the hood of the car. He drove it for a week without recharging as it never needed any batteries to recharge. People of his day said that was the work of the devil (black magic). In disgust he abandoned any future work in that field. Westinghouse provided the funding for the car, but declined to further the project as he said ( quote) ” there is no money to be made with a car that drives for free” Tesla was born a hundred years before his time” If he was here now, big oil would not stand a chance. He predicted before his death of a time when we would be enveloped in a oil crisis and would have to go back to electric cars. Why cant anyone here in the USA tackle this simple project and resurrect Tesla’s electric car. Then make it work for your home! Free is the way it should be.
I just read part 1 – “driving profits now”. I think Craig makes some valid points, particularly that the existing big auto makers are not willing to risk capital to start something new, particularly when people are barely buying their products and they are cash strapped. Ditto for reduced profits from maintenance, etc.
However, I’m more optimistic that the big ones can do something, hopefully along with smaller companies too. Particularly, I see GM’s Volt as a well timed product – presuming it performs as expected and doesn’t cost too much. The reasons are simple: range and charging. Let me briefly address each of these:
Range – even if most people’s daily usage is well under 40 miles, how many people want to go out and rent a vehicle each time they need to travel further? Even if you have two cars, both could be subject to the same predicament. For example, I have a minivan I use for hauling the family and work materials. Almost always 40 miles.
Charging – mostly this is pretty obvious. But, let me add that given some quantity of plug-in EVs (volt style) on the road will, I think, give time for charging infrastructure to develop. Once developed, pure EVs will be practical for long range and hopefully palatable to the mass consumer. The Volt-category of vehicle will make this transition much easier.
I hope we can see a plethora of vechicles like this, with a reasonable price, perhaps subsidized initially by government incentives. Big auto can benefit from this much easier than jumping to pure EVs. Of course, I would much prefer to have a pure EV!
Everyone talks about the batteries, and yet the First successful automobiles in the USA were Electrics. such as the Baker and the Melburn Light Electrics. No need then for Lithium , just Lead-acid and Edison (Nickle Iron) cells. My point is the WAIT WAIT WAIT for better batteries is just a delaying tactic. The nickle cell chemistry patents held in hostage by Chevron need to be improved with research and place that chemistry into production!
The second bug impediment to EV s is Repair and Service. Currently If you take an all electric vehicle to any dealers service center or stand alone service center, they will fix window glass, body dents and painting, tire sales and flat repair, brake service,light bulb replacement, or chassis lubrication. But they have no one trained to work on the Electric Drive System! Chevy has said they will have one electric drive tech / mech for each cluster of four dealerships. Toyota still has NONE! That makes it unlikely anyone will buy their electric cars doesn’t it!
Investors need to fill that nich. Start EV Service Centers, or the Vocational schools to train the Tech / Mechs to work in them. We have been seeking investors see our website at http://home.RR.com/evtrainingcenter for an inspiration.
Electric Vehicles need Service Centers (Would you buy a car you had to repair yourself without even a parts supplier within 100 miles?) Servicers can be a van setup that comes to you, or a small shop with a trailer to carry your EV to the shop, or part of a Sales Operation (Dealership) for EV s which with a service department can sell used vehicles too.
D.Miles, Director, EV Training Institute Inc., Central Florida
Why use a car service organization when there our a big bunch of forklift service enterprises that are specialized in electric drive and battery teqnology. Toyota have one of the largest forklift service organization in the world. I think the argument of a non brand service organization will prevent one from buying an electric car. The forklift service personnel most often have a history of repairing cars also.
I have been dying to see an economical EV. With the completion of the Cash for Clunkers program and the associated 750,000 dead cars, there might be a way to make that happen. Of the 750,000 or so cars turned in, there must be 50K to 100K vehicles that still have a body and rolling chassis in good shape. The scrap value, now that the engine has been killed and any salvagable parts are no longer available, for each car is about a hundred to five-hundred bucks. I might be wrong, but I heard that the cost of conversion from ICE to EV for every day, short driving (under 40 miles) use was about nine grand.
If someone could put that all together, add a few bucks for profit and sell it, I would buy it. What a statement! A 1984 Pontiac GLE convertable, powered by electricity, cruising around sothern California, all for under eleven five.
Sign me up!
Steve, The cash for Clunkers prohibited sales of the entire vehicle even without the engine to prevent installation of an engine from the salvage yard and a clunker body being reused as a complete vehicle ever again, so they are all being crushed or ground up into small pieces in a chipper. Also the infusion of so many body parts would reduce the value of the scrap yard’s current inventory. They therefore are just not available.
To get an economical Glider for conversion to BEV contact the “Pick-it-up” abandoned or unwanted vehicles on private property (if you have the title, for up to $300) who advertise in the newspaper or “Craig’s List” , Most of them will give you choice of vehicles they pick up with clean title for about $500 and drop it at your house. Most areas have several, call them and ask about it. Of course you get what you pay for but a blown head gasket is usually not worth the cost to repair.
Fascinating threads and I am sure this will be a great place to come for intelligent hope. However, I often wonder if we Eloi are too few and the Morlocks too many. Knowing full well that there is the chance for anyone to come join the future, break out of their blindness to the fact that what is good for the planet is good for them, now and individually. Besides making the Brass Tacks mandatory reading in school, or spamming this list to everyone, do others have ideas or stories on how they are affecting the needed revolution?
I have to agree with Edwin Bowermans comment, we missed the boat on the first few go arounds with renewable energy, let’s not miss it again! Forget about the Black Gold and Texas Tea give me Swimming Pools and Movie Stars!
It is obvious that the purpose of these articals is to develope interest in investing. I have, since childhood, marveled at the
power of the ocean, and wondered as to ways that it might be harnesed to work, like dams do, to produce power. Just to even think of the shear, unstopable, unlimited, free power of the ocean, is to stager the imagination. Why no one in the money and power, back when electricity was catching on and growing in the 20th century, didn’t monopolize this resource is hard to understand. Had this resource been harnesed back then however crudely, and given the relative technological advancements which have occured in all other industries over the years, why, to compare our power beining produced by the ocean, to coal and oil, woul be to compare a horse to a modern car. So, lets hear about the investment. Thanks, Ed
It seems to me that some years back I saw an interesting devise that was tested that produced electricity by the use of ocean waves. The device looked like a cylinder, that when the wave came in it pushed the cylinder in and when the wave went out it pulled the cylinder out resulting in electricity. I was fascinated with the same idea that you were in looking at all that natural energy and no one taking advantage of it. I believe a company did produce these units and you probably can find some information if you search Island living and the production of electricity.
[...] Mr. Shields is providing this series of reports for no cost, available at the following link: http://2GreenEnergy.com/Three-Brass-Tacks [...]
Your three articles were extremely insightful and well written. [We need you to be our Secretary of Energy.] The Hydrokinetics article really tells me that our government officials need a wake-up call.
THANKING YOU IN ADVANCE !!! THIS IS SOMETHING THAT AMERICA , WALLSTREET & THE WORLD NEEDS , OR WILL
SURELY NEED IN THE NEAR FUTURE ! I HAVE BEEN WORKING ON A VERY SIMPLE DEVICE TO MULTIPLY THE MILAGE OF
ELECTRICALLY CHARGED VEHICLES WHEREIN WE WOULD SELDOM EVER HAVE TO REVERT TO GASOLINE POWER .
I BEGUN THIS PROJECT WHEN GASOLINE REACHED FOR $ 4.50 PER GALLON !!! I DO BELIEVE IT COULD BE USED TO A
GREAT ADVANTAGE TO EXTEND THE RANGE OF SUCH VEHICLES AS THE CHEVY VOLT ( HAVING WORKED WITH GASOLINE FUELED VEHICLES , CARS , TRUCKS , TRACTORS , AIRCRAFT SINCE WORLD WAR TWO I SEE NO REASON IT WILL NOT PREFORM ! MY PROBLEM IS I HAVE TO FIND SOME ONE WHO IS ABLE TO GET OT INTO THE MARKET PLACE AS I AM UNABLE TO TRAVEL AT THIS TIME !!!
THANKS AGAIN ” BILL B. “
The cold fusion and water hydro editions were both interesting and informative. It would appear that both are going to require time and political support to be realized as solutions to our peak oil problem. I would be interested in opportunities that are closer to implementation and are possible for the “common” man to implement. While large scale new sources of energy are needed, we also need to get the bulk of the population involved in both conservation and energy generation where possible.
Please keep the information coming. I had written off cold fusion as a sham until I saw this information and spent time learning more about it on the web. You have provided valuable insights and information to balance the “spin” which many of the large companies involved with energy want the world to believe.
Many thanks for wonderful information about renewables, especially about energy from streaming water, and the resistence from the establishment.
HyPEG is HUUUUUGE. In Sweden we are lucky having many big rivers. Four of them are untouched for environmental reasons. HyPEGs are opening up new possibilities.
I am convinced we need one more solution than fossilfree electricity – an industrial carbon cycle parallell to Nature’s photosynthesis. George Olah’s concept of recycling CO2 from flue gases – eventually from the air itself – converting it chemically or electrochemically with water and fossilfree energy to methanol/DME and their derivates synthetic hydrocarbons and their products. The world will need still more electricity than today. Without fossils – what an enormous challenge!
i MUST pay $76 for your info – but how? Please let me know, and please keep me informed continually. Best wishes!
Jan-Gerhard: Thanks for the most interesting comments. See blog entry with today’s date.
No, the $76 figure was an earlier idea of one of my people; the reports are free.
Graig,
Thanks for compiling your studies and thoughts.
It is clear that your research has convinced you of the benefits of renewable energy, and thats great.
I too am optimistic and a little impatient about our transition to renewable energy, but I also understand the challenges.
I think that the challenges of renewable energies are real, and not driven by large corp, government, or conspiracies.
I think that renewables make complete sense in the long term, but the population thinks short term.
The problem is that coal and oil are such good sources of energy. Coal and oil are effectively solar energy condensed over millions of years. The energy is densely stored in all the carbon double bonds of those molecules. Solar (voltaics or thermal), as well as hydro electric are effectively using energy from the sun at the same rate that the suns power is incident on the earth. Coal and oil have the advantage of being thousands of years of solar energy stored in the molecules which we use in an instant. Its just really hard to beat the nearly free and highly condensed energy that fossil fuels provide.
People seem to want short term advantages with out worrying about long term issues. I think that the problem is with the people (us) not large entities. Every time we choose what to buy, we effectively vote, with our money, where we want the world to go.
I think renewable energy will become a better investment as the population starts to see the world differently.
Report#1-EV development: Another way to state your belief in how EV technology will develop can be described by Malcom Gladwell’s book “Tipping point”. You are suggesting that the market will “tip” in a way that market research cannot predict. Time will tell if that will be the case. I believe EV technology is driven by consumer demand, and we as consumers look for short term returns. EV has a long term return. Public education may help on this issue.
Report#2-Cold fusion: This was a constant lunch discussion when I worked at LLNL. Our current nuclear reactors are fission. The sun does fusion, which is better because of the reduction of nuclear waste. I believe there are lots of scientists passionately working on fusion, either hot (engineering effort to deal with temp and pressure) or cold. They understand its benefits for all of us. I think that the problem is very hard, and not hindered by conspirators. I have see the major funding that has gone into this in an attempt to make it happen. Government, pysiscits, and the general public all want it. I believe the problem is technical in nature, not political or economic.
http://www.lbl.gov/abc/Basic.html is a nice place to get a general background.
Report#3-Hydroelectric: I think that many groups understand the value of hydro. Water, being denser than air stores a lot of energy, either kinetic as with currents, or potential as with hydroelectric plants at dams. It is challenging to make robust systems to harness that energy though. These challenges are probably much easier though than that of fusion which would make them a lower risk investment. With hydro, its all about the maintenance cost. Solar is lower density, but easier to maintain.
So, my feeling is that renewable energy is ultimately a must for our future.
As we start to feel the depletion of oil (Hubbert’s peak http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubbert_peak ) then the investment opportunities become more pronounced. Until then your passion for renewable energy will help educate others to their long term advantages.
-Mark
Thanks for your three documents.
It is good to see that for the third one, hydrokinetics, you only cite “political” restrictions, not a single technical one.
So that might be the way forward…
Thanks, Martin. In truth, I’m not sure there are technical considerations. The calcs associated with the HyPEGs I mention in the report suggest that it won’t be hard to build these at a truly competitive cost. Of course, time will tell. I was amused by a remark I heard in a recent meeting with a potential investor, a large architecture/construction company, whose engineer said, “We have a saying around here: ‘It’s ALWAYS cheap until you build it.’”
Hallo, Craig Shields,
Thanks for the “PART THREE” and also for the detais sent. “Hydrokinetics” is a nice word.
Forty five years ago, I learned that the Hydraulic dam systems are the cheapest way of generate clean electric power.
A Hydraulic dam system may have three main funtions:
1. To generate clean low cost electric power. 2. To store fresh water for public distribuition. 3. To buffer the effects of strong rain, avoiding the floods, land slides and soil corrosion.
If you really leave in a free country without a bureaucratic monopoly or corruption, you have some chance.
Best Regards.
Manuel Gama
Craig,
Very enlightening information. In fact I have often thought that the very same idea of a wind anemometer device would work as a large water turbine and wondered why it had not been used. It is sad to think that other vested interests have prevented such ideas from coming to fruition. It is believeable though when one stops to think about Electric Cars and where they were a decade ago and even now with so many entries on the horizon, that we are still going to have to wait another ten years before there are enough of them to make a difference in our “oil addiction”. We need more Warren Buffets, Bill Gates, Ted Turners, Elon Musks and T. Boone Pickens to go against the tide. Projects like hydrokinetics require large investments even if relatively smaller by comparison to conventional geneation. This is something the small investor really can’t accomplish by himself moreover while the environmentaland and long term investment costs benefits are obvious there is no doubt about the clout that coal and nuclear companies weald.
I believe that you should consider focusing on “distributed generation” using many electric storage sites (like electric cars) to offset high demand spikes and benefiting renewables as a viable investor choice. That is something that not only the smaller investor can get involved with but one that benefits the entire energy picture. Of course the big hold up there is having a “smart grid” which puts things back into the same situation of big resource suppliers do not benefit from “distributed generation” so they do not lend any supoort in fact probably spend for lobbying against it.
Once again I must comment on the value of these three tacks as perhaps dubious in terms of what someone is willing to pay for information. I am not sure who your audience is but the ideas that you have presented while very interesting are quite numerous on the web. One example I get free from Popular Science weekly covers many similar ideas from inventors I have seen for many years from PS, tha ever seem to get any more coverage. I also have to comment on even fairly large projects like the wind farms of Texas and Cape Cod seem to loose their momentum for various reasons no doubt influenced by “big coal”. So how will hydrokinetics be able to counter the same presures? For what its worth. Thank you for the fastinating information.
Bouty
3rd brass tack.
I don’t feel you 3 reports have been very good. The chart of the cost as you noted on number 3 is very out of date. You also don’t account to the water use with coal, nuclear and NG not to mention hydro. I feel it will not compell someone to change as it should if you presented up to date info with all the issues.
I teach solar clases at 2 community colleges and NABCEP. I layout all the facts as they are today. It’s very convincing.
Note – your article said =The cost on the graph are alredy out of date.
Regarding cold fusion, I am skeptical. However, rather than simply dismissing it as ridiculous, it should be carefully studied and objectively evaluated by people who will not let prejudice get in their way.
When it was first determined that many diseases are caused by germs, there were skeptics who ridiculed the idea. Of course, we now know that germs do cause disease. There are other examples of cases in which new discoveries were ridiculed until they were proven true. The same may possibly be true of cold fusion.
Thanks for your feedback, Frank. Trust me, I was DEEPLY skeptical of this whole subject until I spoke with Wally. Of course, the whole subject is quite controversial, and, I expect, will remain so for some time. At the very least, we are a very long way from any real practical utility here.
Not necessarily far from it, Craig. When we don’t know what the technology is, how can we say it isn’t simple and easy to implement?
With all of the discussions, I keep thinking back to 1994 when I told the VP of engineering of the company I worked for at the time that it didn’t matter if cold fusion, fuel cells, or magic bunnies became the power source of choice: we would still need electric chassis research and wheel motors and power electronics and regenerative braking systems and energy storage.
Unless we get anti-gravity, then new bets come into play.
Great piece on cold fusion and insightful analysis, but I think it is very naive to think that anything wil be significantly different under Obama. I just don’t see it happening any differently.
Government is government.
I found Wallys input very interesting on cold fusion,perhaps you have a more contact information. We are Alternate Energy based in San Diego, and have been working on portable fuel cells for many years. Our approach has been to build a fuel cell out of ceramics including the PEM,the first prototype was a 1/4 size of a lithium laptop battery but we managed 14.6volt for under 10 hours.We have to rely on angel funding to keep moving forward. Craig, how do you tap into the grant/stimulas money that is supposed to be available for green technolgy
You can reach Wally through his workplace, AC Propulsion – http://www.acpropulsion.com. As for the stimulus $, sorry, I know very little about that.
During our brief conversation last week I mentioned a meeting, Charting a Course for Electric Transportation held in RTP, NC and sponsored by the Research Triangle Energy Consortium. You might be interested in viewing a tape of that meeting. Go to http://online.ncsu.edu/Mediasite/Viewer/?peid=16e8b94ab81d460facc35845738e8cdf . Since the RTP area has been identified as a Project Get Ready site by the Rocky Mountain Institute, a lot of folks are thinking about these issues and some of their ideas are presented here.
I have no expertise on the subject of cold fusion but Hyperion is reportedly manufacturing a self contained nuclear reactor that’s about a five foot cube, costs $25M and will power 20,000 homes for five years. I think it gets “returned to sender” for recycling, refurbishing and will then be returned to a user, obviously for some more money. It’s like a high powered longer term use copy of Shai Agassi’s battery swap program, but for homes instead of BEV’s.
I’ll look forward to making final comments after reading the third tack. Take care.
Morning Craig!
Congratulations for the work and brilliant initiative!
We know (and feel) that the traditional automotive industry has no interest in the dissemination of new technologies that could restart the game in this valuable market. Here in Brazil we are developing a project for three years, of a compact urban electric vehicle for two people, the Tricycle Pompeo, designed to run at least 200km, time of recharging for up to four hours, and selling price of around U.S. $ 15 k. We intend to launch, also a version with low-power ICE, which can use gasoline or ethanol (brazilian flex-fuel technology), at a price of $ 10k.
Best Regards
Carlos Motta
I HAVE NOT RECEIVED ITEM #1 OR #2. I AM NOT ABLE TO ACCESS THEM. cAN YOU HELP? THANK YOU, ED.
Hello Edwin,
I just emailed you the first two reports, of my “Three Brass Tacks” series. However, if you did not receive the first two reports at the time that they were originally sent to you, it is possible you will not receive the ones I just emailed you. Oftentimes when such email attachments do not arrive, there is something stopping them from reaching you, which is usually some type of security system that your computer or email service has in operation.
Sincerely,
Craig
While car makers keep promising Ev’s in the near future, the oil industry keeps the oil prices at an artificially high level in order to squeeze the consumers until the actual oil supplies really begin to dwindle. Then and only then will a serious commitment of investment be made into EV’s by the automobile industry and followed up by demand by the consumers of the whole world. Unfortunately, it always takes a serious situation or a threatening situation to change peoples thinking. The global warning signs have been posted for a long time, but it too will take a serious loss of life or a very steep loss of the food chain before governments and people around the world actually effect the environment for the better. Maybe it is human nature or greed that forces the world to act the way it does. At any rate, things will change when the choices left leave this world with no other alternative. By the way, the ESSTOR company in Texas is on the right track for an alternate battery supply for EV’s. Hopefully they can revolutionize the EV future for America and the world.
Craig,
Brass two is very interesting and informative. It is always good to have the opportunity to examine different perspectives on controversial subjects such as cold fusion. While I lean toward the possibility that cold fusion has merit and deserves more support, I also agree that “Big Oil/ Big money ” are huge antagonists protecting their interests with their large and powerful disinformation machines not the least of which is Fox news, however the comlexity of the subject matter and vast unknown territory that it encompasses will no doubt be recieved by the general public with indifference, just like Einstien and Copernicas wild theories need to have tangible proof to be accepted and until then are percieved as heresy.
As far as viewing this piece, it is interesting and somewhat helpful. I would not appreciate spending money fo it since in today’s age there are literally thousands similar commentaries available on the web that one can view for nothing. I think that I was expecting something in depth and more explicit on specific investments. Just for what it is worth, based on your replies it looks just like other blogs that any thread can generate.
Bouty
Hello, Craig Shields,
Thanks for the part two about Cold Fusion and also for the big amount of information sent.
You are in the right course for the worldwide massification of renewable energy sources, as part of the solution
for the problems in this planet.
Thanks. Best Regards.
Manuel Gama
I am active here in Mexico in – Hybrid, electric vehicle design, as well as PV and solar concentrator technologies, wind and geothermal are not feasible here because of our location, but I am working with NGO´s to promote ecologically sound , sustainable systems. I also work with Aprovecho Research center in Oregon with respect to making better stoves available to the indigenous peoples in the surrounding mountains.
Thanks for the Cold Fusion interview. I didn’t read all of the comments yet, so I hope I don’t step on any toes.
I have been following the CF (suppression)issue since day 1, and frankly, it stinks. Dr. Eugene Mallove started a magazine to cover this and other anomalous energy topics many years ago, and if anyone wants to know the whole story, I suggest they visit http://www.infinite-energy.com.
As for the science: the problem falls squarely on top of entrenched empires of academia. Having an energy source is not a threat to much of anything, really. The average person isn’t going to build it unless something drastic changes. The real threat is to physics and science as authority figures. When Pons and Fleischman announced their discovery, the engines of discredit immediately went into operation around the world. Most simply put, it opens up venues of discovery which had been closed by relativity and quantum scientists many years ago. It especially points directly toward having to re-open the idea of ether physics in new ways, and that throws out decades of mathematical ‘prizes’ and ‘proofs’ that said there was no such thing. It reopens some of the biological ideas of guys like Wilhelm Reich and others who discovered transmutation of elements inside living cells. It even affects the issue of research into UFO’s and crop circles because it forces science to acknowledge that it doesn’t know anywhere near the real truth about how the universe works (including the textbook companies who lie for them).
Cold fusion isn’t just a threat to Exxon. It’s a threat to all that we thought we were as human beings.
Most people simply do stuff. They make up reasons for doing stuff. In that order. Why encourage them to do with with free, unlimited energy?
We need to learn the lessons yet to come about depleting resources, secret governments, and overconsumption: if we survive, that is. We can’t learn those lessons the easy way.