Time for America to Fire First Shot in the EV Revolution 56 comments
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Last Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported that former Intel (INTC) CEO Andrew Grove was pushing the company toward a new venture; becoming a manufacturer of advanced batteries for plug in electric vehicles [EVs]. This week I came across a more detailed article in The McKinsey Quarterly that was co-authored by Mr. Grove and Robert Burgelman and based on a project Mr. Grove undertook with the help of several graduate students from the Stanford School of Business. The McKinsey article added significant color to a number of issues I’ve been talking about for months. It also strengthened my belief that it’s time for America to fire the first shot in the EV revolution.
After discussing the well-known policy issues that favor the use of electricity as a replacement for gasoline, Messrs. Grove and Burgelman argued that encouraging companies to manufacture new EVs would be far less efficient in the short term than an aggressive pilot program to convert 1 million gas guzzling pickups, SUVs and vans to EVs over the next three years.
While Messrs. Grove and Burgelman estimated the cost of such a pilot project at around $10 billion because it would involve battery costs of roughly $10,000 per vehicle, they argued that much of the cost could and should be covered by tax incentives to the owners of the retrofitted vehicles.
The McKinsey article did not discuss the amount of attention that Mr. Grove’s students devoted to an evaluation of the various battery chemistry alternatives that could play an important role in such an EV conversion initiative, but I think there’s a pretty fair chance that the students focused on Li-ion technology without seriously considering the alternatives because of Li-ion’s centerfold hype and star status as the presumptive winner in the quest for a new EV beauty queen.
After briefly discussing some of the engineering and organizational issues that a national gas-guzzler conversion initiative would entail, Messrs. Grove and Burgelman identified four critical issues:
- The conversion initiative should focus on providing single charge ranges of roughly 40 miles, which is the distance that most Americans drive on a daily basis.
- Making Li-ion batteries for 1 million gas-guzzler retrofits would require massive capital expenditures to build new plants and double global Li-ion manufacturing capacity because the bulk of existing capacity is already devoted to laptop computers and portable electronics.
- The new manufacturing capacity should be concentrated in the U.S. instead of overseas to avoid a situation where we are merely trading an imported oil dependency for an imported battery dependency.
- There should be a concerted national drive to improve battery performance through additional R&D that would bring Moore’s Law performance advances to the energy storage sector instead of the 6% annual improvements the industry has traditionally achieved.
The similarities between the Grove and Burgelman proposal and a detailed plan documented by Edward R. Buiel, Ph.D., Vice President and Chief Technical Officer of Axion Power International, Inc. (AXPW.OB), in testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in July of this year are striking. In fact the only major difference between the two is the choice of the entry-level battery chemistry. Dr. Buiel believes that advanced lead acid batteries are a slightly less-ambitious but far more cost effective first step for two reasons:
- Advanced lead-acid batteries are far less expensive than comparable Li-ion batteries and using lead-acid as the entry-level battery chemistry would reduce the pilot project costs without reducing the benefits to the owners of retrofitted vehicles and the nation.
- America’s lead-acid battery manufacturing infrastructure is already well established and expansion of that capacity would be far easier, faster and cheaper than building new plants based on imported manufacturing technology that currently has a purchasing cycle lead time of 12 to 18 month.
I’ve consistently advocated the wisdom of starting work immediately using the tools that are presently available. I continue to believe that advanced lead acid batteries are the logical first step in a journey of a thousand miles. I don’t believe advanced lead-acid is a holy-grail technology for the next 50 years, but it is technology that can be implemented immediately at a reasonable cost.
Several fine public companies including Exide (XIDE), Enersys (ENS), C&D Technologies (CHP) and Johnson Controls (JCI), along with a host of privately owned lead-acid battery manufacturers like GS Batteries, Crown Batteries, Trojan Battery and East Penn Manufacturing have the domestic manufacturing capacity to begin working on the problem today. Additionally, new advances like Firefly’s composite foam electrode and Axion’s PbC hybrid battery/supercapacitor promise life-cycle and power improvements that will give emerging battery technologies like Li-ion enough time to mature naturally, become cost effective and develop a domestic manufacturing base.
A pilot program to convert 1 million gas guzzling pickups, SUVs and vans to electricity would only require a modest revision of the existing tax credit regime to include retrofit conversions of existing gas-guzzlers. The short-term benefits in terms of increased domestic employment; sustained industrial development; and the psychological impact of taking a critical first step on the road to energy independence would be tremendous. A loud and clear first shot in the electric vehicle revolution would also serve as a shining example to the rest of the world that in America we get up in the morning, we go to work and we solve our problems.
Disclosure: Author holds a large long position in Axion Power International, recently bought small long positions in Exide (XIDE) and Enersys (ENS) and may make additional storage sector investments in the future.
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I love Interlaken and the Eiger, Wengen, etc. And on the way to the Matterhorn is where our bus climbed upon a railcar for most of the trip, instead of using the hiway.
Should you examine a chart of Power Density v/s Energy Density for all electrochemical systems (batteries [standard types, air, molten, etc.] thru fuel cells) and also the ICE's, and then superimpose upon the same chart various vehicle ranges and/or duty cycles, it becomes so obvious that a hybrid fits the bill more closely as "one size fits all", so to speak. Then it's a matter of which fuel (size determines range) and stored energy device (determine power/acceleration). Essentially, starting with a clean sheet, diesel is the fuel of choice, and I would go ultimately for BIODIESEL. As for the stored energy device: the smallest, lightest, cheapest, longest life, least maintenance, safest, most efficient, and available possible. Some things change somewhat.
And that is why I want my hybrids stored energy propulsion system to be a simple burner with no moving parts and the direct conversion of waste heat to electric driven motors, and the GRASS TANK to be the on board storage device with unlimited range via refueling stations. A small cheap PB-acid battery, not unlike for motorcycles, would be necessary for heating the glow plugs and/or the ignitor. That's it. A 90% efficient BIODIESEL HYBRID. And not far away. With your stated love for a diesel hybrid, you should know what I'm talking about.
PS: too bad Edison (Exide) didn't have the nickel et.al. foam metal which became available in the 60's for making his early 1900's Ni-Fe batteries. If so, his energy/power densities would almost still be the best for long cycle life cells.
They have been in business a real long time selling Hydrogen generators.
Wind Farms in the sky, interesting concept. Blimps, kites whatever can hang 1000 feet up or higher,where the wind is constant at a fraction of the cost of a regular Tower with Turbine. Sky Windpower #35 on Time Magazine's best of 2008 awards wants to tap the jetstream with 100 megawat floating structures.
I guess screwing with the Jetstream is next on the agenda.
So we've just seen another reason that the US needs to build its own infrastructure now!
In the meantime, you made me curious to see how lead acid batteries will evolve going into the future. I still think a hybrid battery system makes so much sense. I recently drove AFS Trinity's "150 miles per gallon" hybrid and was greatly impressed both on papers and actually driving it. Mixing ultracapacitators with newer versions of acid-based batteries would make sense. AFS estimates the use of ultracapacitators stretches the life of its lithium pack to 180,000. Sometimes innovation comes from coupling different technologies and not necessarily inventing new ones.
One thing is for sure, we need a choice to rekindle the economy. People are too emotional. You have to look at what makes sense to your driving habit.
autobloggreen.com/.../
It's all dollars and cents with me. Show me a solution that pays for itself at the gas pump and I'm all over it. Show me something that takes 10 years to break even at $7 gas and I'm a cynic.
www.autobloggreen.com/.../
Mark Goldes - - -
Two comments (questions actually):
1. Capturing electrical energy from an electromagnetic field customarily requires moving a conductor (usually a coil) through a magnetic field. Can you explain how the various concepts you have cited capture electrical energy? Does the earth's magnetic field move with respect to a stationary position on the earth's surface? Is motion along the earth's surface required of the wire (coil). Or are we looking at revolutionary applications?
2. I have to look into the absolute zero reference you make. Absolute zero is a concept derived from the physical observation that volume vs temperature measurements for a dilute gas (ideal gas) extrapolates to zero volume at some low temperature. The zero volume temperature is called absolute zero. The zero volume can not be actually reached because it requires the gas that has ideal behavior at higher temperatures to retain ideal behavior as it becomes very dense at low temperatures. The actual size of the gas atoms (or molecules) force deviation from the extrapolation. When they get very close together the ideal gas characteristic of individual atom volume being negligible with respect to the total volume no longer holds. The volume can go no smaller than the volume of all the atoms (or one atom if you invoke nuclear fusion).
Thus the zero volume of absolute zero can never be reached.
It is also a fact that absolute zero is impossible to reach on the temperature scale, as well. It is shown in Thermodynamics that temperture as we know it is actually on a logarithmic scale. The log of zero is minus infinity, an undefined (and therefore unreachable) quantity.
So Mark, I have to spend some time looking into the energy of matter at absolute ideas you attribute to de Broglie, Bohm and Vigler that you mention.
I remember the furor for years over the possibility of cold fusion, including several reported demonstrations. None of the demonstrations were reproducible.
Let me paraphrase a statement that has been applied to predicting economic events, like recessions: "Reported revolutionary discoveries have preceded 100 of the past 2 technology revolutions."
Oshkosh has been making a large diesel electric hybrid truck for the Military for a few years, www.4x4offroads.com/os... . It only used an ultracapacitor and using the diesel electric techniques gets up 40% better MPG. If Boone Pickens was credible he would know that you can modify diesel engines to run on a mixture of diesel and Natural Gas. Most of the fuel used is NG the diesel is used to ignite the mixture, www.greencarcongress.c... .
Batteries do not make much sense for long haul trucking or trains. Commuting back and forth to work in a car like the Volt, with a battery, does. The amusing thing is that in the USA our stupidGRID for electric distribution wastes huge amounts of energy 24/7. A smartGRID could end most of the waste. Unfortunately the smartGRID 1.0 is still only thinking of off-peak hours rates. We need to rapidly develop the smartGRID 2.0 to minimize waste 24/7.
The USA already generates enough electric power to charge all the PHEVs to replace all the old ICE only vehicles. What we need is better management of the power we generate to stop wasting it. The answer is to SCHEDULE power usage using inexpensive computing power. In this case KNOWLEDGE really equates to better POWER UTILIZATION. Currently the electric utility companies are only THINKING ABOUT using their smartGRID 1.0 to interface with smartMETERS to reduce billing and maintenance expenses. SmartTHERMOSTATS are on their agenda, but charginging PHEVs 24/7 is not.
All the Politicians, Lawyers, and Accountants in the USA are blind to the potential of 21st century technology. Those that believe that Al Gore invented the internet are not Physicists or Computer Scientists.
I've never disagreed with Pickens or suggested that there isn't enough electricity to charge an EV fleet. But I've frequently wondered how EVs and PHEVs could make a meaningful contribution to grid stability during peak hours when they will presumably be off grid and driving around town.
In the final analysis, it all comes down to batteries and while the job is technically possible, the economics don't work because batteries are expensive and there is a direct relationship between required range and required battery power. So something that is technically possible is not economically possible.
BTW John - unless I've missed it, why don't publish an article about how well electric vehicles satisfy commuters, commerical van and truck delivery, in-plant work and transportation, and small vehicle transportaion throughout Europe? As they have done for, what, 60-70 years? Using OLD TECHNOLOGY. And then, you can update it w.r.t. current technologies and place a bet on the future applications.
After all, it is just a matter of cost (of energy; well, and some practicality; and less pride, not to mention in some cases necessity!S). Everything else works. Proof is in it's use.
Should you examine a chart of Power Density v/s Energy Density for all electrochemical systems (batteries [standard types, air, molten, etc.] thru fuel cells) and also the ICE's, and then superimpose upon the same chart various vehicle ranges and/or duty cycles, it becomes so obvious that a hybrid fits the bill more closely as "one size fits all", so to speak. Then it's a matter of which fuel (size determines range) and stored energy device (determine power/acceleration). Essentially, starting with a clean sheet, diesel is the fuel of choice, and I would go ultimately for BIODIESEL.
As for the stored energy device: the smallest, lightest, cheapest, longest life, least maintenance, safest, most efficient, and available possible. Some things change somewhat
I'm a huge fan of biodiesel but that comes from owning a big chunk of a company that was once the biggest producer in Texas. It's also the experience that taught me "green" counts for nothing if it costs a penny a gallon more than petroleum.
I was aware that the ultracapacitor was not used for storage. I can read and have degrees in Physics and Computer Science. The US Army uses them because they get much better MPG and can be used to generate electricity for camps, airfields, etc.
The US Postal Service and others could obviously us electric vehicles especially rural carriers.
Electric tow motors etc are fairly commonly used in warehousing.
What part of charging your vehicle in the parking lot at work is beyond your understanding? Most automobiles spend most of their lives sitting someplace where they could be charged on the electric grid. Long haul trucks and trains are often driven 24/7 not 1 or 2 hours a day. The fact is that charging batteries with grid electricity is much cheaper than using a diesel generator. An ICE generator, of any variety, runs at a constant speed and pure electric vehicles or Extended Range EVs, like the Volt, do not need a transmission to weigh them down.
Biodiesel made from soy oil or canola is fairly foolish compared to using mustard or algae. Salicornia oil from desert areas grown using salt water makes more sense than growing soy beans for fuel. Using corn for ethanol or butanol fermentation makes no sense when sweet sorghum will grow on poor soil in areas where corn grows. It requires less water and no chemical additives and can produce nearly as much sugar per acre, or various kinds, as sugar cane.
By the way butanol, unlike ethanol, can be blended with diesel fuel to high concentrations and improves the oil combustion in the diesel engine.
How close are you to the LHC and CERN? Have you ever met any of my red headed German/French relatives from Alsace?
When it comes to other EVs, there is no obvious; only a rigorous cost benefit analysis. But I do want to thank you for the comment because it gave me a good idea for the next article in this series.
There is a tremendous amount of research going on in the biofuels business and I am guardedly optimistic that something will work better than the virgin agricultural feedstocks that most people currently rely on. Until they do, however, we'll continue making biodiesel for power generation from chicken fat, byproduct streams and anything else that doesn't gum up the system.
We're about 150 km from Geneva, but I try to avoid France whenever possible because while the French may not speak English when an American tourist asks a question, the reaction is far different when they hear my horrid Swiss/American accent spoil the natural beauty of their native tongue.
The Oshkosh diesel electric large military truck is replacing the old technology for many reasons including battlefield maintenance. Jet engines have replaced piston engine propeller planes because of the Maintenance cost issue.
If you are going to write about fermentation of biofuel, ethanol is obviously not the best alcohol fuel. The MICRO-ORGANISMS metabolize VARIOUS KINDS of SUGARS to produce various alcohols. E-coli bacteria is being genetically modified to produce different advanced alcohol fuels. 1 million gallons of molasses was produced from SWEET Sorghum in Kentucky in 1899. It can produce much more sugar per acre than corn. You do not need CELLULOSE TO SUGAR technology but that could eventually double the fuel production from sugar cane and sweet sorghum. The Indians are smart enough to understand the potential of SS. In the US our leaders never heard of it. The have heard of Hemp but do not encourage the cultivation of INDUSTRIAL HEMP, which does not contain THC. IH has huge amounts of cellulose for cloths, fuel, paper, etc.
Detroit needs to seriously reevaluate its EV programs. Diesel is not necessarily the best engine technology for EXTENDED RANGE EVs. There are no torque issues running at a constant speed. Do some research. The advanced lead acid battery seems to have a big advantage over lithium in the maintenance area. Electric motors may have the same maintenance advantage as jet engines.
Algae, s
An HEV with a diesel motor and great recuperative braking could make a huge difference at a very reasonable cost. But I still have economic issues with big battery capacity unless they're real cheap batteries.
Since you live in the EU and are a diesel expert you probably are a big fan of Choren and their biomass to liquid Fischer-tropsch diesel fuel,
www.greencarcongress.c...
www.angtl.com/pdfs/Web... .
Diesel cars are great, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...) . However using soy beans or Rapeseed oil is foolish in my opinion. There are much better biomass crops for biodiesel. Here are a few links that I have collected over the last few years.
**********************...
www.technologyreview.c...
www.marketwire.com/mw/...
PetroSun 2.56 billion gallon SW US and Mexico project:
www.biodieselnow.com/f...
UNH Biodiesel Group:
www.unh.edu/p2/biodies...
Solix Biofuels and Greenfuel Technologies Corp.:
claytonbodiecornell.gr.../
www.popularmechanics.c...
Algae Gasoline:
Sapphire Energy algae-to-gasoline process 5/29/8:
biofuelsdigest.com/blo.../
Furfural biodiesel:
www.thecesite.com/Pure...
**********************...
However, there are better solutions for EXTENDED RANGE EVs, www.greencarcongress.c... . There are better alternatives out there unfortunately the Politicians, lawyers, and Accountants running the show usually fail to understand ADVANCED MATH.
I'm with you on using virgin oils for biodiesel. The commodity price swings on both the feedstock and finished fuel sides of the equation are far to violent for my taste. In fact, the biodiesel company I work with uses junk fats and byproducts to make fuel to run a turbine generator. It's far more stable than trying to compete with wholesale diesel prices in the transportation fuel market. Moreover, we don't care if the product would gel at ambient temperature because there's plenty of waste heat from exhaust gasses to keep it liquid. I don't know whether the company will succeed over the long term because of expansion requirements and the risk of new business models, but it's a lot of fun and another chance to learn something new.
According to the article the is 12 mio Tonns available on the plant as far as currently known. How far will this go, if we want to replace a battery for every of the 800 mio cars within the next 50-80 years?
Would be apprx. 15 kg by car, not having dealt with notebooks or other usage of LI.
I think we always tend to hope that something will help us in future, instead of acting now. Everybody is talking about price/cost ..., while spending billions for other things. How about just investing 100 bio USD of military costs for different kinds of alternate energy, even if it is not profitable, its better than dropping a bomb, and also employs the people.
I don't want to be so foolish to believe that this will be done, but just from the point of view in the discussion about the whole topic.
This topic is not not about absolte return, btu investment in the future.
www.mii.org/Minerals/p...
I agree. We give $49 billion a year in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry in the U.S. every year . $39 bilion of that is for oil.
Nuclear has received at least $100 billion in subsidies.
And then people whine about spending $17 billion on all the renewable energy technologies put together.
Not one oil subsidy from 1918 to the present has ever been phased out, but Republicans voted 8 times this year against renewing the tax credits for renewables. And they blocked any attempt to touch the oil industry subsidies.
Did I mention last year's $700 billion trade deficit, which oil boosted from $300 billion?
The thinking goes... "sure we'll save ourselves from environmental collapse, as long as it doesn't cost too much.
It's costing us plenty to do nothing!
Oil is killing our economy, and with coal, our environment.
Coal is said to cause 24,000 deaths in the U.S. every year from repiratory diseases alone.
The mercury is making fish inedible. and the ocean is becoming acidified from CO2 dissolving, which destroys coral reefs and shellfish. There is a sea of plastic in the pacific ocean as big as the lower 48 states, where near the surface, plastic outweighs zooplankton 6-1. Microscopic bits of plastic are being inadvertently ingested by the creatures at the bottom of the food chain. PCBs , DDT and other toxins cling to these little bits of plastic. About 75% of most fish stocks are gone, 90% of many.
That's just the ocean, and probably not near the whole story.
But that's ok, just don't raise the cost of fueling my SUV.
Nah, man can't bring about ecological collapse. Those scientists must be wrong. Rush Limbaugh even says so.
Most studies have shown that converting to clean energy will have little if any economic loss and in fact maybe a gain over the next 20 years or so. One study said that it would mean reaching $23 trillion GDP in April of some year in the 2020s instead of in January of that year.
The Google plan sees a net economic gain of $80 billion by 2030.
The Solar Grand Plan proposal, that Scientific American published, would create a 69% solar grid by 2050 using less in subsidies over about 40 years than we give the oil industry every 10 years.
But you know, us reasonable people don't believe all that hippie renewable energy stuff. It's way too expensive.
You are right, as John says, we need to use the tools we have now, while continuing to improve technology, and bring down the costs.
What's wrong with Pickens' Plan:
climateprogress.org/20.../
John Adams I agree about hemp. The law against growing it is like the old blue laws. It's absurd. We should be making paper from hemp and saving millions of trees every year. There are many other practical uses of hemp, including very nutritious seeds.
In regard to biofuels, I think we need to consider whether there are better uses for some of the land than just biofuel. For instance, bioplastics would go a long way toward solving the plastics pollution problem. Plastic production uses at least 5% of our oil.
Metabolix's Mirel bioplastics are completely compostable and can replace at least half the oil based plastics we presently use.
The other use of land that might compete with biofuels is hemp.
Actually they probably don't have to be mutually exclusive.
Metabolix says they can produce biofuel feed stock as a byproduct of making bioplastics.
.