ART005

Toyota Tests and Rejects Lithium-Ion Batteries for the Prius

Kirk, I think your post can lead to misunderstanding by people that think technology can solve everything and eventually everything is destined to $9.99 at the strip mall discount center.

"My point is cost and reliability can and probably will come down with time as long as there is not a limitation due to physics and/or chemistry."

Clearly your background is such to differentiate what technology easily discounts and what it is likely not to discount but it could be misinterpreted by those used to thinking everything is destined to $9.99. An easier restriction to understand is lbs vs. physics/chemistry. When a cell phone starts out at $200 weighing 1 lb and then someday costs $9.99 weighing just under 1 lb, what technology has done is reduce the manufacturing cost but the $5/lb of materials is still limiting.

The widespread dream that relatively heavy things like batteries are destined to $9.99 is very misleading and a bit naive for typically younger people that have seen that curve happen to almost all their personal use items.

So technology can help increase charge density and thus reduce weight and reduce manufacturing cost per lb but if the vast majority of current battery costs are in $$/lb then unfortunately the basement cost is supported quite high.

Your reference to <0.1 lbs diodes is a poor analogy for 100s lbs batteries. Think about the price curve of flooded lead acid batteries over the last 20 years, relatively flat.

I'm glad there is input like yours in SA, I just wanted to address a misunderstanding I've heard from the "don't worry eventually everything gets much cheaper crowd."

Toyota Tests and Rejects Lithium-Ion Batteries for the Prius

John, nice short reality check. There has been so much critical noise on SA lately about people not adequately believing in the "Dream" whatever the Dream of the Day is. People that haven't empowered themselves to be on the front of today's energy developments need to take advantage of the opportunity to listen and learn from resources from which they normally wouldn't even have access.

Thanks for not letting up.....

Why Is Congress Agnostic About Natural Gas?

Wisdom vs.: You are referring to step changes in demand that won't occur vs. supply curve and price stability. Your insults really don't apply. Energy sources that are under utilized based on price and availability vs. their value to use that become a bigger part of the energy supply pie help reduce pressure on the rest of the pie. While supply to the pie gets more manageable, time allows new solutions to the supply pie while time also works on the demand pie. Technology and conservation help reduce pressure on the demand curve, global increasing standards of living add pressure back to the demand curve. Arbitrarily undermining supply pie components due to some personal agenda of a long off utopia destroys the time value benefit of those components which undermines the likely success of getting to the utopia.

The path to the energy Utopia the Greens dream of requires time and less green sources of energy to maintain productivity so the accomplishments leading to the utopia can be realized.

Why Is Congress Agnostic About Natural Gas?

mpherson: my comment got chopped off. I also mentioned that you're right about the lack of gasoline taxes being a big one but the gov could go after that via much higher registration fees for CNG vehicles. I suspect lack of gasoline taxes was part of the EPA putting the squash on aftermarket CNG conversions.

Why Is Congress Agnostic About Natural Gas?

mpherson: It's much simpler than you think. The at home Phil station comes in different models that operate at different speeds. I have the pleasure of living in communities where neighbors would be willing to share a Phil amoung 1 or 2 households and simply pay the operator as needed, the machine and vehicle have meters on them. Multi car families know which vehicle range accomodates which travel patterns. The EPA has just about wiped out conversions in the U.S. so the Italian experience will not be common.

Energy Secretary Chu Wimps Out Again

m_chaddon: See LoveShorting above "Excellent and important article. Reminds me again of this tough question: How can a guy who was awarded a Nobel prize be so damn stupid? (Answer: Politics.... so the new question: Who is PAYING him (Union of Concerned Citizens)?)"

"Although natural gas is a fossil fuel". Natural gas (methane) is not a fossil fuel unless my A$$ is prehistoric!

Look closely at what you referenced: Accumulation (not burning) of methane is 58 times more effective at trapping heat in atmos than CO2 (combustion product). Water vapor is 1000 times more active per lb radiating trapped heat than CO2. Is there too much water vapor, what about the drought concerns? Just a bunch of potentially scarry numbers when spun properly, don't really present any obvious policy for use of natural gas.

In general, watch out for names like World or Global society of such and such......

Check into this item mentioned above: "So fighting pollution has nothing to do with CO2 - leave anthropogenic to Al Gore and the Spelling Bee and google the 566,000 hits for "IPPC mistakes". This is where I mostly disagree with Secretary Chu."

How Natural Gas Can Save the U.S. Economy

Elliot, you are completely missing the point. The Volt can be rated at 2,300 mpg (no typo) and gasoline free for the lifetime of the car and it has the performance of a 25 mpg car at best. It is virtually useless. It's technically useless compared to vehicles having an on board generator and compared to other E.V. without on board generators it horribly underperforms. It is the worst of both worlds, hybrid and E.V.

You are repeating the baseless headlines. The Volt is only 230 mpg if you assume infinite life of the battery and all other costs of the car similar to conventional cars. In the real world the Volt will struggle to achieve over 25 mpg equivalent. You and the headlines assume the battery is a magic free box in which you charge electrons and when you need energy you just discharge what you need. Then you can say use of the charged electrons in the E.V. is more efficient than use of the fuel to charge those electrons if you use the fuel directly in a vehicle as thermal energy to drive a non E.V. Halleluiah, the world will be saved by EV, NOT!!

Every energy aspect of the battery has to be accounted for when evaluating the efficiency of the Volt. It's energy to manufacture, it's lifecycle, it's cost. The yachting industry is very intense in it's true evaluation of deep cell batteries whether they are charged by wind turbine, water turbine, solar PV, shore (grid) or diesel generator. The yachting industry currently factors about $1/kWhr battery cost not including the cost to generate the power going into the battery. Compare that to the real cost to use grid power ~$0.11/kWhr. The battery increases the cost of electricity around 10X. You and the headlines (230 mpg) can ignore it until you buy a Volt and then you'll have to pay for it!! Look at the Volt and CNG Camary discussion above. Counting added engine life, a CNG vehicle is about 90 mpg equivalent, the Volt is under 25 mpg equivalent.

How Natural Gas Can Save the U.S. Economy

Elliot, you are not taking into account the cost of the battery for a full service elec. car with on board generator. You are refering to a misleading definition of efficiency based only on electrons. If you include storage efficiency costs the picture changes dramatically!! See the Camry analyses above (was that your negative vote?)

Elec. vehicles are great for specific dedicated use where an on board generator is not necessary and overall weight of the vehicle can be very small compared to the load. Such as elec. scooters, fork trucks and such. These type of vehicles can easily be charged during their down time and make it through their daily use cycle without having to be recharged during use. Battery powered 4 passenger vehicles with 75+ mph, 300+ mile range are a poor application of E.V. The best answer today for that vehicle is CNG and for city drivers add the Hybrid technology. Actually 300 mile range is a stretch for CNG but quick fill options address most of the shortcoming.

How Natural Gas Can Save the U.S. Economy

Another natural gas vehicle fact not getting much press is how much longer the engine is likely to last burning CNG rather than gasoline. I think the CNG engine lasts twice as long as gasoline engine. Say 400,000 miles vs. 200,000 miles. If a 30 mpg Camry costs $20,000 and uses 6,700 gallons of gasoline (200,000 miles at 30 mpg) @ $2.50/gal = $17,00 lifetime fuel or about the same cost as the car. So if the CNG Camry engine lasts twice as long, that savings discountes the $$/gal(equiv.) another 25%.

How Natural Gas Can Save the U.S. Economy

Good job Fitzman! From the department of the media using headlines to distract population with worthless reporting:

Yesterday Chevy announced 230 mpg Volt with no specifics except $40,000 car available late 2010, the battery should last 10 years, they are making 10 per month or week or something like that....

I would love to get help confirming this but I think the replacement Volt battery costs $15,000. 10 years at 15,000 miles/yr = $0.10/mile battery costs. AT $2.50/gal gasoline the volt is a 25 mpg(equivalent) vehilce if all of its future fuel (gasoline + elec.) were free!! Yeah Chevy technology, the world is saved, NOT, morons!!!

I'm just here to help with the reporting.......

Four Reasons to Buy Qwest, Besides the High Dividend

My experience as a prior Quest customer is I've never heard a paying customer say anything good about them. Are any of the contributors Quest customers?

Quest acts like it's their destiny to be a useless old fashioned phone company and revenues will come from people with no choice but to deal with their B.S.

Quest will not last. The only question is if the sale price is good or bad for the stock....who cares.

Cap-and-Trade Datapoint of the Day

Salmon, you need to do a lot more homework!! $175/person!!??

I suggest you get yourself invited to some power generation facilities around the country and talk to them about less than 10% increase in costs due to gov. scam to raise revenue to provide services to buy votes to empower incompetants such as community activists!

LDK Rides Solar Wave Up

My point is that rates above $0.12/kWhr are fabricated by taxes and political agenda that creates higher elec. rates. Certainly remote places like HI and AK are special cases. It is not reality that power is around $0.11/kWhr in MT, WY, NV and over $0.25/kWhr in CA. In fact a lot of power generated in those states is supplied to CA. The higher fabricated rates are then used to justify the productivity of $0.30/kWhr residential PV. You sound convinced, but it's a scam!

On Jun 13 02:03 PM rooferguy wrote:

> Although you are right that average electricity costs are $0.12/kwh,
> you ignore that fact that solar is quite cost effective where rates
> are ABOVE this average.

Fuel Systems Solutions Conceptualizes a Better Energy Policy

Deweyp, here is some HPEV battery info right here on seekingalpha:
seekingalpha.com/autho...

On Jun 12 07:32 PM Deweyp wrote:

> You are right, I'm just a hard working grunt in the auto industry
> who heats his house with fuel oil, but I have an electric plug in
> my garage.

Fuel Systems Solutions Conceptualizes a Better Energy Policy

Hello 396040,
The benefit is in redistributing the energy portfolio at a net benefit to the nation and probably the world. Illustrating more of what you question:
1. The limited market that can use a 30 mile/day PHEV will see their operating cost go way down compared to gasoline. Nuclear and Coal likely main source. Remember PHEV applies as much to bicycles and scooters as it does to cars.
2. Where nat gas market is strong those drivers will see their $/mile costs drop by almost 50%. For instance OK, TX, WY, MT, CA, others? Their less gasoline use benefits the other gasoline users just as with PHEV.
3. Geothermal Heat Pump HVAC can help offset some increased Nat Gas use with real savings.
4. Solar Hot Water at even the residential level is at least break even with Nat Gas, and much better than propane and elec.
5. Commercial scale energy alternatives usually can't match coal and nuclear but they help maintain a ceiling on the other energy prices to help keep their use more affordable. Wind, Solar Heat Elec., Geothermal Heat Elec. all provide elec. at under $0.10/kWhr.
6. Throw in more conservation education and it can be substantial. All we need is perception that oil prices won't always go up to run the speculators off. Right now the message is $100/bbl and then $200/bbl are guaranteed in the future. When that is believed it becomes selffullfilling (sp?) due to speculation.

On Jun 12 02:14 PM user396040 wrote: