Hawaii Endorses Plan for Electric Cars

• Author unknown

  Auto Industry Solution - Electric Recharge Infrastructure

  http://www.mendocinoconnection.com/blog/?p=193
  18 days ago in Mendocino Blog · No authority yet

  There is in fact a solution to the current financial disaster in the automobile industry. This seems to be the most pressing problem to confront the incoming Obama administration and how they handle it may very well decide their effectiveness on other issues. The problem, of course, is that to just let the auto companies go under would cause economic havoc in the current environment, yet to continually bail out the industry places the government in the business of making cars, which is not the proper role of government. The solution is for the administration on day one to pass a law requiring all gas stations by 2012 to carry “STANDARDIZED replaceable charged battery racks”. These racks would be designed so that they could be easily removed from a car when the batteries run down and replaced with a rack of freshly charged batteries at any gas station. The government could then form a joint venture with the car manufacturers to produce the electric cars that use these replaceable battery racks. This would be more in line with the proper role of government, to help society with mandated changes that benefit the larger group. The automobile companies would still be free to produce trucks and SUV’s, but without the help of the government. Thus, the government would stay out of the business of determining what sells or is popular. Of course, as with any good idea, I’m not the first to think of this. Here are 3 links below concerning Better Place’s plan to do just that. What is needed is the government requiring this transition, to make it a reality. Hawaii Endorses Plan for Electric Cars While Detroit Slept By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Better Place L.L.C. If the Obama administration can make it past this first step without stumbling, they could build off this with many more projects. What comes to my mind immediately are: 1) modernizing our electric power grid infrastructure to transport the needed electricity; 2) deregulating the power grid to allow private energy producers access to transport their electricity to customers; 3) and tax breaks for wind farms and solar power plants to jump start the industry. But we will leave that for another day. For now, let’s just pass the “Electric Car Battery Rack” law.

  • Author unknown

    Electric Cars vs. Oil in Hawaii

    http://energyoutlook.blogspot.com/2008/12/electric-cars-vs-o...
    31 days ago in Energy Outlook · Authority: 49

    Ever since last week's announcement of a deal to roll out Project Better Place's model for recharging electric cars in Hawaii, I've been curious about how it would work out, if the supplies of new renewable electricity needed to wean the Islands' million or so cars and light trucks off of oil were not forthcoming, or at least didn't materialize as quickly as the company and state hope. If I've done my sums right this morning, it appears that electrifying Hawaii's passenger cars would still save large quantities of oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly, even if every kilowatt-hour (kWh) to run them was generated from the state's oil-fired power plants. Since the late 1990s, I've been convinced that in the long run, the majority of cars would be some form of electric vehicle (EV), whether in the form of hybrids, with power generated onboard from engines or fuel cells, or battery EVs tapping external sources of power. The rate at which this transformation takes place, however, remains highly uncertain, with conventional, Prius-type hybrids still accounting for less than 3% of the US car market, and battery EVs other than golf carts as rare as hen's teeth. I've followed the plans of Better Place with great interest, since their mobility-based business model could provide a key ingredient for accelerating the electrification of personal transportation, even while the high cost of batteries makes EVs more expensive to purchase than their gasoline-based competitors. As Better Place founder Shai Agassi noted in an interview published in Sunday's Washington Post , Hawaii looks ideally suited to be an early adopter of this technology. With no indigenous production, all of Hawaii's oil, including that from which its gasoline needs are refined, must be imported. In that context, the benefits of the Better Place plan look obvious, until you realize that powering a million cars on renewable electricity would require on the order of 3 billion kWh of electricity per year, the equivalent output of more than 400 wind turbines of 2.5 MW each. Ignoring issues of transmission and intermittency, that's about 16 times the state's currently-installed wind power base. Year-to-date through August, 75% of the state's electric power was generated from oil, and less than 7% from various renewables. So at least for now, if this model is going to work in Hawaii, it has to make sense assuming that most of the incremental power for electric cars would be generated from oil. That sounds counter-intuitive, until you consider the relative efficiencies of centralized power generation versus the gasoline engine under the hood of your car, combined with the inherent efficiencies of electric drive. Comparing the fuel consumed by Hawaii's oil-fired power plants to the power they generated , I found that each gallon of fuel oil yielded roughly 15 kWh of electricity. If the typical electric cars that will be sold in Hawaii travel 3-4 miles per kWh, that equates to an average effective fuel consumption of around 47 miles per gallon, after allowing for 10% transmission losses. That's 43% lower than the 26.8 mpg of the 2008 model year average for the US new-car fleet, and it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by roughly the same proportion. Although that's no better than the fuel economy of a Toyota Prius, that comparison would improve, as renewable power gradually displaced oil-fired power. So at least from an oil-consumption and importation perspective, this idea appears to make sense in Hawaii. I can't speak to its economics, or to how practical it is today for regions such as California's Bay Area , where in recent years increasing numbers of workers have been driving in from communities such as Modesto, Tracy and Stockton--commutes that would have seemed unthinkable 25 years ago--in order to beat the high cost of housing near the coast. I wish Better Place well, and I would certainly appreciate having the choice of an attractive, economical electric car, when it comes time to replace my current sedan in a few years.

    • Author unknown

      Hawaii Electric Cars

      http://davi.poetry.org/blog/?p=3251
      31 days ago in flyingpenguin · Authority: 2

      The island state has signed up to a Plan for Electric Cars: The State of Hawaii and the Hawaiian Electric Company on Tuesday endorsed an effort to build an alternative transportation system based on electric vehicles with swappable batteries and an “intelligent” battery recharging network. [...] “We always knew Hawaii would be the perfect model,” [Shai Agassi] said in a telephone interview. “The typical driving plan is low and leisurely, and people are smiling.” Cute. San Francisco and other Bay Area cities already have endorsed the same electric car network, perhaps with even more smiles. I spoke with a representative from an electric company recently, as I was working on NERC Cyber Security, and he bemoaned the fact that electric cars are starting to burnout the electric grid. A Tesla roadster, for example, pulls at 240V and a few in a neighborhood could be a major problem for the infrastructure. This reminded me of a house I owned in 1996 where we tried to install a T1 and were told by the phone company that they would have to pull a new line from four states away to provide the bandwidth.

      • Author unknown

        Hawaii Endorses Plan for Electric Cars

        http://barryng2663.blogspot.com/2008/12/hawaii-endorses-plan...
        31 days ago in EarthMan - Global Citizenship · Authority: 1

        clipped from www.nytimes.comThe entrepreneur Shai Agassi, right, met with Anders Eldrup, center, a Danish energy executive, in Copenhagen last March.SAN FRANCISCO — The State of Hawaii and the Hawaiian Electric Company on Tuesday endorsed an effort to build an alternative transportation system based on electric vehicles with swappable batteries and an “intelligent” battery recharging network.The plan, the brainchild of the former Silicon Valley software executive Shai Agassi, is an effort to overcome the major hurdles to electric cars — slow battery recharging and limited availability. Mr. Agassi has raised $200 million in private financing for his idea. In October, he obtained a commitment from the Macquarie Capital Group to raise an additional $1 billion for an Australian project.

        • Author unknown

          Monday Links: December 8th, 2008

          http://tropophilia.com/2008/12/08/monday-links-december-8th-...
          32 days ago in Tropophilia · Authority: 6

          Super sized links this week to make up for my absence last week.  Please be patient with us as we continue to tweak the new layout.  And by “we” I mean Jarred. Better Place is a California company based on the idea that switching to electric cars need not wait on as-of-yet undeveloped next generation batteries (often cited as what’s holding electric cars back), but rather can be accomplished by leasing batteries to electric car owners and offering a large number of swap stations for freshly charged batteries.  For those of you who have propane grills, you’ve probably done this with your propane tank for years: you drop off the empty tank and pick up a full tank.  Shai Agassi, the founder of Better Place, was profiled in Wired a few months back.  Well it turns out Better Place will be able to test their system in Hawaii: The State of Hawaii and the Hawaiian Electric Company on Tuesday endorsed an effort to build an alternative transportation system based on electric vehicles with swappable batteries and an “intelligent” battery recharging network. [...] By using existing electric car technologies, coupled with an Internet-connected web of tens of thousands of recharging stations [...] Better Place L.L.C. of Palo Alto, Calif., will make all-electric vehicles feasible. Here’s a good piece from the Guardian (UK): 10 big energy myths.  The only myth on the list that I find objectionable is this one: Myth 7: climate change means we need more organic agriculture The uncomfortable reality is that we already struggle to feed six billion people. Population numbers will rise to more than nine billion by 2050. Although food production is increasing slowly, the growth rate in agricultural productivity is likely to decline below population increases within a few years [...] So we need to ensure that as much food as possible is produced on the limited resources of good farmland. Most studies show that yields under organic cultivation are little more than half what can be achieved elsewhere. This response from Treehugger is well taken: [W]e need to both tackle rising meat consumption and improve the yields of organic agriculture and decrease the impacts of conventional farming if we are to achieve sustainability – fortunately there are plenty of ideas to help us on our way without reaching for the pesticides just yet, from vegetarian and low meat diets to urban aquaponics to wireless soil sensors. And of course agrichar, which Goodall is a big supporter of, offers great opportunities to increase yields while producing energy and also sequestering carbon in our soils. Austin is the latest city to explore Smart Grid technology: In technical-speak, the project addresses the software challenges of “distributed generation” – the idea that people will start generating power from their homes, reducing dependence on centralized power plants. Scoble vents about the many ways in which direct messages on Twitter are completely useless.  I agree wholeheartedly; while I don’t get the volume of Twitter DMs that Robert does, I can vouch that there are well over 100 Facebook messages sitting unread in that inbox waiting for the day when Facebook gives me a “Delete All” button.  I read the Facebook message when it’s emailed to me.  Why make me delete it twice? I expect to write about the potential for Obama’s network soon, but in the meantime I thought this post was spot on (emphasis in the original): Look, the administration’s efforts are admirable. [...] I think it’s great that the Obama people are committed to trying, and to involving people with the process by some means other than providing their credit card numbers [...] But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The magic value of social media tools is that they let people communicate among themselves, not that they let them communicate with a big institution. Social media lets you listen in when people talk among themselves. The social web helps people self-organize into groups and movements. It helps them share collective intelligence. If used by government itself, these tools can open up government process to public inspection. It’s socially transformative technology that enables a constant, real-time, global conversation. It will change the world in ways we don’t yet appreciate. But it’s intellectually dishonest to lay these tools out there and pretend to listen attentively to the incoherent rumble of a billion fingers pounding keyboards all across the land. Mashable takes a look back at 20 key events on the web in 2008. This video of a frozen pizza assembly line is ridiculous.  [Hat Tip: Kottke]. Similar Posts:The Future of Power Attention Invesment Sustainable Diets [Guest Post] Cleaner Energy Ideas Transparent and Responsive Governance

          • Author unknown

            Quick Hits: The War Against Cow Belching Edition

            http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/environmentandenergy/archive/...
            32 days ago in The New Republic · Authority: 19

            For anyone idly clicking around over the weekend, here are a few links of interest found while trawling the Internet on a lazy Sunday afternoon: * One of the points raised in the ongoing climate talks at Poznan, Poland, this week: how to deal with emissions from farm animals, who generate 18 percent of the world's greenhouse gases, when you include the resulting deforestation in places like Brazil. Solutions range from taxes on meat to new feed that causes cows to belch less methane. Some experts argue that the livestock industry can never be sustainable, and we should all try to make do by eating less meat—even just switching from, say, beef to chicken has a huge impact. (Though, as Ben Adler reports in The American Prospect this month, that's a message many mainstream green groups refuse to touch.) * James Temple of the San Francisco Chronicle has a good piece on California's bold new land-use law, which will attempt to promote denser urban development and slow the fast centrifugal spread of suburbia. Notably, the law will require local communities to submit long-term land-use plans and then re-zone accordingly—which makes it harder for area residents to block, say, new transit-oriented development. Since that weakens local control over land use, not everyone's pleased. * George Tombs does an in-depth survey of the challenges facing the Great Lakes states and provinces, who recently signed a compact aiming to protect an ecosystem that's increasingly battered by invasive species, pollution, and declining water levels. * Hawaii just struck a deal with Better Place to set up a statewide infrastructure for electric vehicles, joining the Bay Area and Israel. It helps that most Hawaiian drivers rarely travel more than 100 miles per trip, which is how far early car models will be able go before needing to recharge, though there will also be battery-swapping stations for drivers who can't wait that long. (Here's an old post describing Better Place's rather dramatic vision.) Investors seem to love the idea because the market for batteries could offer the sort of dependable revenue streams mortgages once did. Maybe an electric-car bubble is just 'round the corner… --Bradford Plumer

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