Doing Volt Math at the Cracker Barrel

November 04, 2009

Project Get Ready emailed me a summary of their latest efforts to get cities ready to put electric vehicle charging infrastructure in place. One thing they've done is put together "Plugging In: A Stakeholder Investment Guide for Public Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure" to help organizations figure out the costs, the pros, and the cons of deploying charging stations for electric vehicles.

A scenario that has always intrigued me is places like Cracker Barrel providing free charging stations (like the free wi-fi you get at a coffee shop). It's cold and rainy and you're hungry, so you stop at a Cracker Barrel to get a warm meal by their fireplace. You plug your car into their electric hitching post, in front of the rocking chairs there on the porch. Part of the draw to choose Cracker Barrel is that they're going to provide you with a free fill up.

Car Batteries, Dreamers and a Voice of Reason

October 17, 2009

The dreamers are dreaming up the Holy Trinity, a vision where electric vehicles, smart buildings and the smart grid come together in a synergistic marriage that transforms the way we use energy; that lets us ditch the oil-powered car. It is an intoxicating view that offers to solve multiple problems, and create whole new worlds of human enterprise and purpose. But the dream is hampered by at least this issue: finding a cost effective, production scale energy storage solution to help power those electric vehicles. Current thinking focuses on the lithium ion battery.

John Peterson, an energy sector lawyer focused on "guiding small growth-oriented companies through the corporate finance process" offers a sensible, constructive critique that the electric vehicle actually derails our quest to end our oil dependency. 

Battery Swap, Time Me

September 13, 2009

Better Place has a deal with Japan's government and the country's largest taxi operator to work out the details of doing a battery swap on an electric vehicle. 

Two things worth noting:

• Government support creates a welcome landing spot for Better Place, that could foster opportunities for the hosting country to produce and enjoy the technology Better Place deploys.

• Using a taxi company makes sense because it subjects the battery swap testing to the rigors, to the discipline, of an operational business enterprise. There's an implicit litimus test of being at least as quick as a gas station fill-up, and a taxi operation will demand that the swap meet this test.

Photo: Better Place on flickr

Ford CEO Paints the Future Electric

August 17, 2009

NPR's interview with Ford CEO Alan Mulally this morning painted a titillating vision where captains of industry coalesce around an electric car future. The wrap up to this morning's session with an American automaker was unfathomable even less than a year ago. Alan said this:

[go to the "Continue reading >" link below the ratings section]

Smart Garage

May 17, 2009

Consider these rather large silos of development:

• the electrification of cars
• renewable energy 
• smart, interactive buildings that use less energy (and sometimes even produce energy--the trend towards net zero and net plus)
• a smart, interactive electrical grid

Forward Looking Infrastructure

December 23, 2008

   

We're getting ready to do lots of infrastructure. But exactly what "infrastructure" is has become a loosely defined, elastic territory at the critical juncture of being made firm. And while the shovel ready stuff is needed to create jobs quickly, more important for long term success is the transformative undertakings listed below. Some don't create lots of jobs right away, but they don't require as much capital either, and it makes sense to get them (and their big, long lead times) rolling now.

Here are some good bets for infrastructure that could unleash untold (and as of yet unimagined) waves of innovation and progress by creating abundant energy and transport (as computing and the internet created easy, abundant information):

• Smart Grid
• Urban renewables (to include enhanced geothermal)
• More transmission from the sunny, windy and watery places that can produce industrial scale solar and wind power
• Infrastructure needed to implement the Mileage Fee
  • at Gas Stations
  • the standard inclusion of GPS in vehicles
• the Electric Recharge Grid
• Batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles, at production scale
• Electric Rail

Photo: Steve Kelley on flickr

Dawn of the New Energy Order

October 26, 2008

How will America change the way it uses energy? Last month we offered a draft speech that would let the new US President to tell us how. Here's the speech updated with the most excellent insights of our readers.

8:00 p.m. EST January 21, 2009, Dawn of the New Energy Order

September 21, 2008

Here's a little speech we worked up for the next President to deliver at 8 p.m. eastern standard time on his first day in office. Say something good and we'll tuck it into the final draft which publishes before the election. We're told this speech could go viral, and with a few tweaks, be delivered by the next President. So, if you want to touch history, if you want a piece of the first democratically crafted presidential speech ever, jump in. (Like the democratically crafted movie "Snakes," only without the flop part). This speech could well be the marker for the dawn of the New Energy Order.

Click here to read the speech.

Wright Brothers Cleantech Redux - the ElectraFlyer

August 07, 2008

First lift off at Kitty Hawk was 1903 and within a few years the Wright Flyer could take to the air, and remain in flight with less drama. One hundred years later, a very lightweight plane from the Electric Aircraft Corporation called the ElectroFlyer-C is making some remarkable achievements of its own. Most notably, featuring an 80 pound, 5.6 kWh lithium polymer battery, this all electric plane:

• Cruises at 70 miles per hour
• Has a top speed of 90 mph
• Goes 90 to 120 minutes on a charge
• Recharges in 6 hours from a 110V outlet and in 2 hours with a 220V source

It may seem like an infinitely long path before passenger and transport planes can go electric, but remember what the original Wright Flyer looked like, and how fast we progressed to the planes of WWI, WWII, jets, etc. The electric planes of 2008 are light years ahead of where the Wrights were with gas power in 1908, so I wouldn't count electric planes out just because the first prototypes can't go head-to-head with the F-35 ... or 787.

Also:  be on the lookout for an all electric planes from another Wisconsin company: Sonex
Aircraft LLC and others. One thing we can say with confidence, however. For the next few years, no fat pilots need apply!

Photo courtesy of the Electric Aircraft Corporation