frflyer

Smart DOE Battery Manufacturing Grants and Dilution for Dummies

I finally picked up a small interest in AXPW today. Is the spread that I saw typical for this stock? It was bid $1.30 ask $1.48 when I placed the order.

Smart DOE Battery Manufacturing Grants and Dilution for Dummies

I wonder about the grants for electric drive component manufacturing. UQM, RZ and HYGS could be beneficiaries. Anyone have an idea who else to watch in this sector?

Alternative Energy Storage: Cheap Outperforms Cool

The hype or hope article about PHEVS that you cited, also included the following.

"EV advocates are quick to note the Prius wasn't designed to be a plug-in hybrid, and in fact makes a lousy one. The biggest problem is the electric motor is too small, so the car relies more heavily on the gasoline engine. Cars designed from the ground up to be plug-in hybrids, like the plug-in Prius that Toyota is working on or the Saturn Vue plug-in – will almost certainly offer far better fuel efficiency."

On reading the article, I was a little confused about how they were measuring the mpg of the converted Priuses in the study. The claims often heard for PHEVs don't say you will get 100 mpg on a trip. They say that with enough electric only range for people to commute back and forth to work, they will end up doing 60% of their driving on battery power, with a resulting overall annual mpg of 100.
And one has to consider that the 30 miles, or whatever is the electric only range, is fueled by about $1 worth of electricity.

I also noted the anecdotal story in the last paragraph about the man who got 75mpg with his Hymotion conversion kit. And this on what is not the ideal test car, assuming the quoted paragraph above is correct.

Who was driving the cars? Was it typical commuting and less often longer distance trips? No. Since these were city fleet vehicles, they wouldn't be very good examples of the averege driver's experience.
That makes it a flawed study to my mind.

The Plug In Vehicle Scam

John

The idea that the entire world of climate scientists, from something like 120 countries, has been corrupted because they want more research money, is patently absurd. Scientists laugh and cry at the same time on hearing this suggestion. Sure, what you are alleging may happen sometimes in science, but to generalize it to a whole discipline of science is not plausable.

"Scientists are competitive. It doesn't pay to jump on bandwagons.
Each individual scientist must compete for funding. The best way to advance your career within the scientific community is to prove everyone else wrong. It is their job to poke holes in each others arguments. The fact that nobody can come up with a legitimate theory that debunks the consensus on climate change speaks volumes about the strength of the evidence."

Learn about ten other flaws with this argument here:
www.logicalscience.com...


Looking for motive? One that isn't just supposition, but actually very well documented?

On the other hand we have the most powerful non government economic entity in the history of the world, with the most to lose from a transition to clean energy. Their tactics are nearly identical to that of the tobacco industry and they often use the same front groups, like the Heartland Institute. They took a page from the actions of big tobacco, which forestalled efforts to get people off cigarettes with similar questioning of science, and with lots of truthiness masquerading as science.

They and their PR people, and buddies in government, encourage the reptition of long disproven skeptic arguments about climate change, which the gullible repeat endlessly on the internet. This is not a search for scientific truth.
It has little that resembles how real science is done.

If you've read George F. Will's articles on climate change recently, know that they lacked any scientific credibility whatsoever. All three of his major talking points were completely false, even according to the sources he used.

And here's Republican leader Michael Steele chiming in on climate change.

“The supposed warming, and I am using my finger quotation marks here, is part of the cooling process…. It was once called Greenland for a reason"
Yeah sure
climateprogress.org/20.../


"Why Climate Denialists are Blind to Facts and Reason: The Role of Ideology"
by Johnny Rook

"Your adversary will deny the facts, cherry pick the scientific evidence for bits of data that, taken out of context, support his/her denialist view, or drag out long-debunked counter-arguments in the hope that they are unfamiliar to you and that you will not be able to refute them. If you succeed in countering all of his arguments he will most likely reword them and start all over again."

"The answer is simply that you are operating off of a mistaken premise. You think that the question of whether or not climate change is real and has an anthropogenic (human) cause is a question to be answered by application of an open mind, research, facts, and critical thinking. Isn't that how scientists approach these problems? They're skeptical and critique each others work, discarding ideas which fail to stand up to scrutiny by their colleagues and replacing them with ones that better describe the facts."

"Denialists, however, have no interest in facts except as weapons in an ideological struggle. They don't even care if 'facts' are correct or not, since their intention is not to establish that something is true or false, but rather to win a battle in an ideological war."

"I'm not talking about people who are skeptical only because they are uninformed about the issue. Nor, am I talking about scientists who disagree with other scientists over the details of global warming."

"For conservative/libertarian ideologues who compose the overwhelming majority of denialists, Climaticide is just such a case. If a conservative/libertarian ideologue were to accept global warming as real then he/she would be forced to admit that the problem is so big and so complex that government action is required to deal with it. But for an conservative/libertarian ideologue that is impossible because he/she believes that government is the cause of ALL problems and that the solution to all problems is 'freedom'."

"Denialists frequently make this attitude explicit when they accuse the 'liberals' concerned about climate change of having invented it as an excuse to expand government. The latest version of this tactic that I've encountered is that none of the science in support of global warming need be taken seriously because it is the product of government-paid scientists who are only doing their bureaucratic masters' bidding, apparently forgetting that the current masters are themselves Climaticide denialists."

note: this was written during Bush's term.

"Government science is corrupt science because it's government science. 'Scientists' in the pay of the oil and gas industries on the other hand are free of this corruption because they are doing science for the capitalist heroes who defend our 'freedom'."

www.dailykos.com/story...



China has already set renewable energy goals for 2020, though I'd like to seem them higher. They recently added some more subsidies for solar, and announced their intent to have 100 GW wind energy by 2020. They had over 6 GW of wind power go online last year, just behind the 8.3 GW in the U.S. Their solar potential in the western deserts is tremendous, as is ours. Using China as an excuse not to take the lead is chicken doo doo.
It's like schoolyard talk.
But he ....
The U.S. under Bush was the worlds biggest obstruction to doing something about emissions. They used the same excuse. We now have a president who actually talks to people in order to solve problems, which is why Obama is meeting with people from the industrializing nations like China, India and Brazil to talk about this.

Scientists think we have a shot at keeping global temperature rise at 2 C in this century, which is still serious but not completely catastophic and civilization ending. The business as usual path is at least 3 C and more likely 4-5 C increase by 2100. Catastophic on an unbelievable scale.
Giving up is not an option.



marketquant

I think it can be done without nuclear and coal eventually, but it's probably not politically possible now. In other words I think we could eventually have 100% renewable energy grid. Existing aging nuclear plants will be de-commisioned over time so we will likely end up with the same 20% or so from nuclear, we have now.
Energy plans that call for agressive build out of renewables mostly include nuclear, as well. Google plan, for instance. Climate Progress's Core Climate Solutions includes nuclear and CCS, but they think a renewable only effort could work. My point has been that solar and wind are more ready to deploy on a large scale and will end up being cheaper than either of those two. I don't rule out either. The principal author at Climate Progress is Physicist Joseph Romm, who was Assistant Energy Secretary for Renewable Energy and Efficiency during Clinton's term, and acting
Assistant Energy Secretary, for a time. He's a very prolific writer, with knowledge of climate science, energy and government.


"The time to plan and construct a coal-fired power plant without CCS equipment is generally 5–8 yr. CCS technology would be added during this period. The development time is another 1–3 yr. Thus, the total planning-to-operation time for a standard coal plant with CCS is estimated to be 6–11 yr. If the coal-CCS plant is an IGCC plant, the time may be longer since none has been built to date."

"..... based on the most optimistic future projections of nuclear power construction times of 4–5 yr5 and those times based on historic data, we assume future construction times due to nuclear power plants as 4–9 yr. Thus, the overall time between planning and operation of a nuclear power plant ranges from 10–19 yr."

"The median construction time for reactors in the US built since 1970 is 9 yr."

"For CSP, the construction time is similar to that of a wind farm. For example, Nevada Solar One required about 1.5 yr for construction. Similarly, an ethanol refinery requires about 1.5 yr to construct. We assume a range in both cases of 1–2 yr. We also assume the development time is the same as that for a wind farm, 1–3 yr. Thus, the overall planning-to-operation time for a CSP plant or ethanol refinery is 2–5 yr. We assume the same time range for tidal, wave, and solar-PV power plants."


climateprogress.org/20.../

"This staggering price is far higher than the cost of a variety of carbon-free renewable power sources available today — and ten times the cost of energy efficiency"

from the study:
"Generation costs/kWh for new nuclear (including fuel & O&M but not distribution to customers) are likely to be from 25 - 30 cents/kWh."

Most estimates are for more like 12-17 cents/kWh, but who knows? That's is still twice what solar will be in ten years. Wind is already in single digits.

Nuclear Energy: Skyrocketing costs; Fruitless Subsidies

solveclimate.com/blog/...

climateprogress.org/20.../


If you believe in the KISS motto, energy sources that need no fuel ever and are free at their source
have a lot going for them. Thomas Edison said he couldn't wait till we harnessed the energy of the sun. Actually, solar thermal could have been done in his day, it's so low tech. But of course we had seemingly endless cheap energy already.


At least half our coal plants are too old to convert to CCS. And CCS is not as easy as it sounds when you realize that we need global solutions, not just in the U.S. We would be pumping CO2 into the earth on a scale like we now pump oil out of the ground.
Some coal plants could be converted to biomass, which could be done in a sustainable way with proper planning, or co-firing coal with biomass, which some are already doing. This avoids actually shutting down coal plants.
We have to consider all the coal plants in China, which would be better with, than without CCS.

Where I mostly have a problem concerning nuclear is when it's promoted as the magic bullet solution to everything. But I also just don't feel comfortable with tens of thousands of nuclear plants covering the earth. Nor the fact that it leads to nuclear weapons. Imagine the possibility for situations like Iran and their nuclear energy program.
Not to mention the threat of dirty bombs from less lethal materials from waste. And it has other problems which I won't go into here.

I've heard talk about thorium, which sounds promising and safer, but I know next to nothing about it. First, a pilot plant would have to be built, so if it's feasable, build it. But how long will that take, through pilot stage to commercial plants online?
By contrast, solar thermal pilot plants have been running for 20 years, with and without heat storage. The heat storage was primitive compared with what new plants will have, but provided 3 hours of power for southern Cal, after the sun went down. They are now co-fired with NG, which also works well. They are 9 small plants totaling 355 MW peak power. About the size of individual commercial CSP plants.

The Plug In Vehicle Scam

Wisdom.vs.information

The facts are, that what you said is pure nonsense.
Go to the next AGU meeting and see how many agree with your "facts".
So according to you, all the climate scientists who have spent their careers studying the climate are just dopey, and you have the answers.
And we should all trust the fate of our civilization to your conclusions. Do I have that right?

And you repeat the complete nonsense that science in the 70s said we were in for global cooling.

That is a talking point of climate change denialists that like most, is based entirely on half truths.
Yes, there were 7 science papers in the 70s predicting cooling. And there were 44 papers predicting man made global warming.
You are just repeating baseless propaganda. There was never anything even close to scientific consensus on cooling. In fact, if there was any consensus, it was that the earth would warm due to CO2 emissions. 86% of the papers, to be exact.
Even the lead scientist of the cooling hypothesis recanted three years later, saying he miscalculated.
Some people never learn, as you said.

To be fair, some popular media outlets got hold of the cooling story and publicized it. And there was some concern at the time that our emissions of aerosols from combustion could cause cooling. Since we enacted laws in the 70s to cut down on these pollutants, (but not for those reasons) their role of masking the warming from CO2 has been largely diminished.


The "facts" are that global warming is natural? You must be kidding. More baseless unfounded propaganda and denialist talking points. Every major scientific organization in the world, the earth science faculty of every major university in the world, at least 97% of all climate scientists in the world ALL say you are wrong. Your assumptions are the ones based on emotions and political ideology. I'll continue to trust science.
The AGW theory is the most thoroughly peer reviewed theory in history. But you choose to believe the fossil fuel sponsored handful of deniers, with their completely debunked distortions of the science. It is crystal clear that your choice is based on political ideology, because it sure isn't based on science.

Explain to me what is natural about taking the accumulation of carbon that was removed from the short term carbon cycle over a period of 60 million years and deposited as coal, and putting it back into the short term carbon cycle in the geological blink of an eye of about 200 years. This is unprecedented in at least 50 million years and perhaps in the history of the planet.
The same is true for oil though the time scale is a little shorter, but still tens of millions of years.

"use saudi arabia's cheap oil now and our expensive oil later is good policy"

You're just full of pearls of wisdom and disinformation.

By the way, the science is much stronger than it was, even two years ago, when the IPCC published the 4th assessment. In fact, that report has proven to be overly optimistic and conservative.

www.sciam.com/article....

getenergysmartnow.com/.../

Conflicting statements from an industry front group, with the inapt name Global Climate Coalition (it's standard practice for these front groups to adopt names that make it sound like their "astroturf" networks actually care about the environment.)

"Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate"
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
commenting on the Global Climate Coalition

'The role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood,'
"the coalition said in a scientific 'backgrounder' provided to lawmakers and journalists through the early 1990s, adding that 'scientists differ' on the issue."

"But a document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted."

'The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied,'
"the experts wrote in an internal report compiled for the coalition in 1995."

www.nytimes.com/2009/0...

So they knew in 1995!


The Bushies aided and abetted and were the principal cheerleaders for the anti science disinformation campaign to confuse the issue of global warming.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Administration Oversight, Environment, Politics and Science Committee Report:

White House Engaged in Systematic Effort to Manipulate Climate Change Science

"The evidence before the Committee leads to one inescapable conclusion: the Bush Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming."

oversight.house.gov/st...

Don't believe congress? Read the books "The Boiling Point" and "The Heat is On" by Rob Gelbspan, and the book "Censoring Science".
John Peterson used the word meddlesome to describe Obama recently. I guess it depends on whose stuff your meddling in. It's quite alright when the meddling benefits your pet corporate interests, over the interests of the rest of us.

I'll bet you cheered on Sen Boehner for his absurd remarks about climate change recently

House GOP leader Boehner on ABC:
“The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical.”

climateprogress.org/20.../

(hint - no scientist has ever made such a ridiculous claim about CO2)


and I bet you loved the idiotic statements made by Rep Shimpkus.
"Cutting CO2 emissions is 'Taking away plant food from the atmosphere'”

climateprogress.org/20.../

Yeah, well there was a time when the atmosphere had lots of CO2 and plants. Not much oxygon or breathing animals though. Lots of plant food.

Just abouty every one of these anti AGW spokesman is a complete fraud. And if they're a scientist, I can almost guarantee that they are funded by the fossil fuel industry, either directly or through their many fronts. They're good at "wiping the oil" off the money.

www.one-blue-marble.co...

www.desmogblog.com/sla...



engstudent

So you based your opinion about global warming on a graph your lecturer showed you? Has it ever occured to you that he may have had his own bias? And this one single case, or piece of data, undermines the entire 30 years or so of climate science by thousands of scientists, right? The climate models were often questioned 10 years ago, but they have gotten better and better.

Have you ever seen the butcher jobs that skeptics have produced in an effort to make their claims?

Here's are some good examples.

tamino.wordpress.com/2...

scienceblogs.com/delto...

tamino.wordpress.com/2.../

sourcewatch.org/index....



Paul Killinger

Using the Tesla roadster as a measure of the cost of electric vehicles for the average driver is misleading. The Tesla is a high performance luxury roadster, and it's price is in the ballpark with similar gasoline powered luxury performance roadsters like an equivalent Porche or Lotus.

And the Chevy Volt is the first of it's kind, by an American company.



WayneinOregon

"One assumption I would challenge is whether large numbers of Americans would buy PHEVs with such a limited range."

From what I understand, a PHEV has no limit on range, unless you are referring to the range on electric mode only. Or are you talking about the range before you have to fill up with fuel?


John

Methane from animals is a strong greenhouse gas, but stays in the atmosphere for a much shorter time than CO2 which stays in the atmosphere for a few centuries.

A Very Smart Plan for Federal Smart Grid Grants

A little off topic, but I wonder if anyone else noticed the news from China yesterday. They intend to have 100 GW of wind power by 2020.
All in all, it bodes well for the clean energy sector.
And it should mean more battery demand.

By virtue of sheer dumb luck, I happended to pick up some shares of APWR yesterday, which besides the China wind story, had some good news of it's own today, with a new $75 million contract for cogeneration. The stock was up 18% today.

China wind energy story
uk.reuters.com/article...

"A great example of the diversity of potential applications is a new partnership that Envision Solar and Bright Automotive announced today at a capitol hill press conference. They're planning a nationwide network of solar powered charging stations for PHEVs that will use Axion's batteries for the storage function."

There was also some news about coming up with a common plug design for EVs and PHEVs to connect to 440 volt quick charging stations.

I was just reading an article on Enersys at Zacks. The ENS spokesman said they were interested in aquisitions. Are you at all afraid that an Enersys would try to buy out Axion? Or have they set up lots of barriers to that?

Lithium Batteries: Nothing But Illusion

Dusty

Water vapor is indeed a powerful greenhouse gas, and as every climate scientist in the world knows, it is a feedback mechanism, NOT a cause of global warming. In fact, it amplifies the effects from CO2. The warmer it gets, the more water evaporates.

Your comments about global warming, which I'm sure you think are brilliant, are those of someone who doesn't even have a Cliff Notes Lite passing knowledge of the issue.

What man is doing to the short term carbon cycle is unprecedented, probably in the history of the planet and certainly in the past 50 million years or more. It is far from being any kind of natural cycle. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I would suggest a little reading. "The Carbon Age" by Eric Roston is a fascinating book about carbon and it's unique properties that make it fundamental to life, among other subjects.

It took 60 million years for coal to develop in the earth, by precipitating out of the short term carbon cycle, and being locked away in coal deposits and into the long term carbon cycle. Now we are releasing this 60 million year accumulation of carbon back into the atmosphere and thus, back into the short term carbon cycle, in 150-200 years, or a geological nanosecond.
That is not a natural cycle. In fact, as far as we know, it has never happened before.

From the book:

"Humans have sped up the global carbon cycle at least one hundred times faster than usual, transforming the world into one that we eventually might not recognize as our own.
Manmade global warming is a geological aberration, nearly meteoric in speed. Human speed has crunched the geologic timescale in to half a century. Events that typically unfold over many thousands or millions of years have begun to occur within a human life span."

"Life has always been driven by geology. The flow of carbon through living things entwines evolution with the inanimate forces of nature. But there is no evidence before now to suggest that biology has ever accelerated the long term carbon cycle onto a short term path. Nothing other than meteorites have changed geology as quickly as humanity. Industry is a powerful new path of interaction between life and geology."

You might want to brush up on your arguments at these links.

environment.newscienti...

scholarsandrogues.word.../

gristmill.grist.org/sk...

scienceblogs.com/illco...

Lithium Batteries: Nothing But Illusion

David Marsh

I believe you have a few errors in your comment.
Your idea of three way nuclear plants is interesting but don't repeat the falacy that it is CO2 free. It is far from that, when you look at everything leading up to actually placing the fuel rods in the reactor.
Also, the idea that only base load coal or nuclear can charge batteries at night is wrong for at least three reasons.
1. Wind energy does well at night.
2. Solar thermal with storage can provide dispatchable power that actually will be more useful in balancing the grid than base load power from coal or nuclear. Not to mention that it can be built 3 times faster than nuclear.
3. Many gas plants are idle at night while demand is low.
And nuclear is not the only power source that can be used to create hydrogen or desalinize water.

Relevant articles

www.altenergystocks.co...

www.salon.com/news/fea...

climateprogress.org/20.../

www.energyscience.org....

climateprogress.org/20.../

Beanbag

Lithium isn't the only thing we import. How about 90% of our uranium.


chistletoe

The 400 year supply of coal is now estimated at 60-80 years. And if we burn it all without carbon capture, we won't have to worry about any of these other issues. Add carbon capture (once it's proven to actually work) and it will be more expensive than renewable energy.
And it would still be the dirtiest form of electric power generation, because of all the other toxins in coal. I'm not including oil because it is only 1.6% of grid power in the U.S.

Axion and Exide: I Love It When a Plan Comes Together

Great news. I wish I could say I got in Axion stock before now, though I imagine there will be much more upside. Exide should do nicely as well.
Maybe this will spark more interest in other advanced PbC battery companies as well.

"somebody pointed out last week that I shouldn't be disclosing positions in companies I don't discuss because of the risk that irrelevant articles show up as recent blogs"

I have to agree with that, as anyone who has clicked on the frequent meaningless articles at the Motley Fool knows. You think there is something relevent to a stock you follow, only to find out it's nothing more than an advertisement for the site.
Actually, the Motley Fool was a good site back when it was completely free, maybe 8 years ago.

Energy Storage: Chrysler - A123 Alliance Likely to Spark Interest in Sector

John

You're right., Regarding the SUV that Raser is supplying the drivetrain for. They are talking about 40 mile a day commuting on the battery. The 100 mpg is a clever way of stating that it gets 40 miles in electric mode.
My previous comment attempted to explain this,
but should have been worded differently.

"Note: the 100 mpg is for local driving, with overall higway mileage in the high 20s"

At least those who buy a large SUV, and then mosly use it for commuting and shopping, will be doing so in electric mode.

Energy Storage: Chrysler - A123 Alliance Likely to Spark Interest in Sector

Did anyone notice the news from Raser Technology this morning?

"Raser Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:RZ - News) announced today it will unveil a 100+ mpg SUV at the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) World Congress in Detroit, Michigan April 20-23, 2009. The Vehicle is powered by Raser’s E-REV powertrain and was developed in conjunction with Raser’s integration partner, FEV and a global automaker. "

finance.yahoo.com/news...

I only recently put Raser on my list of alt energy stocks to pay attention to, based on their geothermal business, but hadn't done any research on.
Surprise; they also develop electric drive trains and high efficiency electric motors.
Note: the 100 mpg is for local driving, with overall higway mileage in the high 20s. Interestingly, the overall range is more than for standard ICE model.
One thing I noticed, is that the SUV is heavier than a conventional one, which is not surprising with 30 Kw of batteries on board. Seems like weight reduction is something that needs more attention in overall vehicle design.

Lithium-ion Batteries: 9 Years of Price Stagnation

MichaelH
You say the government did everything in it's power to kill hybrids. I think you are referring to the Bush administration, which had a different agenda than the current one.

Li-ion Batteries and How Cheap Beat Cool in the Chevy Volt

billp37

Having read your post again, I realize I over-reacted in my first comment. I now realize you were remarking not so much on what renewable energy can do, as on how the demand for energy will increase.

The issue, I believe, has to do with the expectation that the whole world will live like Americans do now. This is where the false expectation lies. It is impossible.
We may well find endless sources of energy like nuclear fusion that solve the energy problem, but that won't solve the problem of other resources being depleted.
Fresh water supplies are a huge issue, for one.

As I said before, we are extremely wasteful. We are also too materialistic, IMHO. We have gotten too addicted to consumerism on steroids. We can have a good standard of living without the mania or more and more and bigger and bigger. We don't all have to own three of every product ever conceived of.

There have been several books recently on the topic of limits to growth. The idea is not new. Barry Commoner, who once ran for President, wrote a book 3 decades ago, called "The End of Affluence" that made the same points, that resources are finite and there are limits. Some forward thinkers even recognized this a few hundred years ago. I think this is something we need to think long and hard about. It's instructive to look at the history of America, and how the idea that material wealth can be endlessly expanded has been instilled in the American mind set. It's a complicated topic, that includes a religous belief in a new Eden, to be established on what was seen as basically an empty virgin continent (native Americans would not agree) where there was no limit to growth and progress. We were the chosen people, with a mandate from God for Manifest Destiny. This idea was so powerful that we didn't even stop at the shores of the Pacific, but went on to expand the empire into Asia (the Phillipines for example), the Carribean
and into Mexico, where we only held back from taking the whole country because it would overextend the military reach at the time. Even Canada was seen by some as a rightful God given extension of our expansion.
It's time to question that mind set. We have also exported the idea of endless material growth to the rest of the world.

A couple of books that I've read recently touch on this topic of the American mythos of endless growth.

"The Great Delusion" by Steven Stoll

"What is America?: A Short History of the New World Order" by Ronald Wright

We can reduce our population growth. Thailand did it with education and distribution of contraceptives. The Pope isn't helping with this issue. We may have to rethink the practice of rewarding Americans for having large families through tax breaks etc. Maybe we should be rewarding those who have less children instead. ( Not that America is the center of the population problem, it's more the developing world.)
Draconian measures like China has taken are not the only means of achieving slower population growth.

Li-ion Batteries and How Cheap Beat Cool in the Chevy Volt

conceptwizard

"Very soon if people have not figured out already that when these cars are being plugged they USE ELECTRICITY! these USA currently uses 49% of power from COAL, which emits 10 times what a car does."

By the time EVs or PHEVs have substantial market penetration, the grid will be much cleaner.
And as you say, coal is now about half our energy supply, not all of it. So the overall grid is cleaner than burning gasoline in cars.
The ramp up to new vehicles should proceed apace with the ramp up to clean energy.

Hydrogen sounds good to me too, but supply of hydrogen that is cost effective and environmentally sound is the issue. That problem may be solved someday.

billp37

The article, you quote from, misses one important, and maybe the biggest factor, in the energy equation. --- improved efficiency.
An enormous amount of energy is wasted in our current (no pun intended) electrical generating and transmission system.

If the U.S. adopted California's energy policies, energy consumption could be cut by 40% nationwide. And we can probably do better than that. For instance California's example doesn't include much of the following.

Turning power plants into combined heat and power, capturing the wasted heat from smoke stacks for instance, can vastly improve efficiency. More mass transit, more long haul rail freight instead of the far less efficient trucks, high speed rail to reduce driving and airline trips, co-generation, more efficient lighting like LEDs, etc, are all things that can save energy. Parasail assist (look up Skysail) for freight ships, that can save 10-30% of fuel, and they're cheap. Eating more locally grown foods saves money and energy that are used to ship food around the world. Better urban planning to reduce urban sprawl can also help.
More efficient buildings is a cost effective solution. Overall, Efficiency is the biggest bang for the buck.

Conservation is another avenue for cutting consumption. Just plain smarter living.
It's time to wake up to the fact that throw away consumerism is destructive of resources, energy supplies and our pocket books. And it is entirely unsustainable.
By the way, some European countries have standards of living comparable to in the U.S., while using far less energy per capita.
And they produce far less waste per capita.

I repeat what many others have said. Using 1% of the Sahara Desert for solar thermal power, could power the entire world. Using 1% of the U.S southwest desert land could power the entire United States, or at least the lower 48.
These are facts, that are supported by numerous studies.

I think your calculations are missing something.
But then, you never miss a chance to downplay renewable energy. What is your motive?
Is this a clue?
Whenever someone mentions Al Gore in the same conversation with energy or climate change, you can usually be sure their opinions are mostly politically motivated.

You can have your energy density of fossil fuels. I'll opt for a planet to live on for the next 50 generations.

There is a good reason for the energy density of fossil fuels and unfortunately it is also the cause of our undoing. When you burn biomass, you are putting CO2 that was absorbed by plants recently, like in the past year or so, back into the atmosphere. The net difference in the short term carbon cycle is zero. When you burn coal, you are releasing carbon that accumulated for 60 million years, and was locked in the long term carbon cycle and thus out of the short term carbon cycle, back into the short term carbon cycle. Common sense is all it takes to see the problem with this.

I do agree that we need to reduce population growth however. Some countries have shown that it is do-able.

Lead Carbon Batteries: A Game Changer for Alt Energy Storage - Part II

A little off topic, but I'm a sailor like Joeboat, who mentioned deep cycle batteries for boats. I just thought I'd fill in for other readers why boats have battery issues. The problems arise more so in sailboats, which typically don't run their engines that much. They usually have two batteries or two banks of batteries, one for starting the engine and one for the accessories in the boat. The problem is that a bilge pump that may start and stop often, as water level in the bilge activates it, can kill your battery. Same for house lights, navigation electrtonics, autopilot etc. or other small drains on the battery. In a car, you start it everyday, thus keeping it charged. If the battery is too low to turn over the engine, there is usually still an awful lot of power in the battery. You get a jump or charge it and your on your way. It never really gets drained, unless you leave your lights on for a long time or have a short. But in a boat, it'll get drained down to it's last amp, one amp at a time maybe, depending on the draw. That's the reason for saving one battery bank for starting the engine. There's nothing worse than finding out at the end of an all day sale with friends, that someone ran down both battery banks running accesories and you can't start the motor when the sun's going down and there's no wind.

The 3 stage plug in smart chargers that are available today have been a godsend for managing the batteries at the dock, while not cooking your batteries.