Transportation

Transportation

I do not expect energy to ever again become cheap. The main problem is population. Liberals think it is unfair for anyone to have anything someone else does not have, without regard to circumstances. The U.S. has been criticised for having only 5% of world population while using 20% of world energy. Really nothing wrong with that and it is a result of technology and a high standard of living. Instead of worrying about fairness, they should have been thankful it was only 5% of the world's population living like that. The problem came when China and India started moving up. China has fully 1/3 of the world population and when you add India, that makes about half, or 10 times the U.S. population. With 10 times the population they can and probably will have a devastating impact on world resources. To reach the same point as the U.S. they would need 200% of the world's energy. They are a good bit short of that, but clearly are the elephants in the room. They don't have to do much to drive up demand. Only some disaster could ever drive it down and that would be on the order of a bloody war, world wide plague, economic collapse, something like that. Something that could cut the population by a large chunk without tearing up energy supplies. There is now talk of $150 to $200 a barrel oil by the end of the summer, and $7 a gallon gas. The annual climb and drop in gas prices may be over, replaced with a steep climb alternating with a slow climb. This is going to affect just about everything as it always comes down to energy. I want to discus the impact on transportation.

A lot of people seem unable to grasp the problem of population growth. It means you have to keep increasing the supply. Them democrats keep saying "We can't drill our way out of the problem". Well actually, we can. Increase the supply. Some idiot of a democrat said something like "The only solution is to cut demand". That might work if it was a static situation. As it is, we are in the position of being out in front of a buffalo stampede, we don't dare stop long. We have to keep moving. If you could cut waste and conserve and maybe reduce demand by a whole 10%, then in just 5 years it is all gone. You probably can't do it again, and you better get the supply increasing before you get run over.

I really don't know what we can do in the long run, but oil will keep us going awhile and oil shale will keep us going for quite awhile, assuming we can ever talk the politicians into allowing it to be developed. Maybe hot dry rock will work out and keep us going a real long time. We need those pilot plants to see how well it actually works. We have to do something because China and India are going to be eating our lunch if we don't.

First a couple of news items of interest relative to energy. First, the number of scientists signing for dissent, that is saying there is no scientific evidence for human caused global warming, has now topped 31,000, and is going up daily. I don't know how many have signed the "consensus" that humans cause global warming, but it is much less, perhaps a few dozen. Unfortunately, politicians and many others now just accept it as fact. The cap and trade bill was defeated, but it will be back. Second, there is a recent report I have not been able to follow up on, of evidence for recent underwater vulcanic activity in the Arctic Ocean. Seems this could explain some of the loss of arctic ice prior to this year. Of course, last winter, the ice increased (unusually cold winter). The media seems to have not noticed as someone recently was talking about an even chance the ice will all melt this summer "for the first time" (ignoring previous inter-glacials). Actually, the ice is thicker now than it was at this time last year, but of course they do not want to hear that.

I don't really know nor am able to predict just what is going to happen with transportation, but here are some thoughts.

First, airlines are profoundly and permenantly changing. They use too much fuel and that is never again going to be abundant enough for all these jets and for it to be our only long distance public transportation.

Prior to World War II our long range and a lot of short range transportation was railroad. There was also bus, private car, and even a bit of airline. Since then we have gone to little other than private car and airline. Airline being the only public transportation was a bit awkward, but worked as long as energy was cheap. That is over. I have seen figures showing that even on long non-stop "bread and butter run" from New York to Los Angeles, they were using 75% of fare collection just for fuel. Short hops are even worse for fuel usage and are being dropped by most airlines, with the planes being parked and pilots being laid off.

This is going to be bad for Boeing, as they will sell few new planes, but the biggest problem is it leaves us with just about no public transportation. Soon only the wealthy will be able to afford airlines and the rest of us will just have to drive. I want to discus alternatives, but being who I am, I'll expand a few ideas a bit.

Landings and takeoffs are costly to a large plane. More wear on all sorts of things such as flaps, slats, spoilers, and landing gear. Rubber abraded off the tires on touch down. A jolt, then a lot of jiggling taxiing in. More on the way out, then the engines run full power for awhile getting off and back up to altitude, requiring extra maintenance. Lots of fuel burned during the climb. Short hops will have to go. For long hops, airlines will probably still make sense, but the fares will be much higher. They have to cover fuel costs and still have some left to pay for everything else. The rich and those going a long way will probably continue to fly, especially across the ocean. I do not see a return of passenger liners as a 3 or 4 day trip across the Atlantic does not appeal to todays hurry, hurry crowd. But ships use much less fuel per ton/mile and fares could be so much cheaper with 3rd class accommodations, who knows?

What will we do for domestic public transportation? Well, I think trains are the clear favorites, but first I'd like to present an idea and dispose of buses.

One idea I would like to suggest is to change scheduling to favor minimum time inroute, rather than being on time. A route should start at the same time each time, but then run as quickly as possible and arrive when you get there. Then get back to rolling as soon as possible.
I realize that would foul up the schedual, but with modern communications, I don't think that would be a problem. Earliest times would be posted and be advertised. You would know you would not have to get there earlier. Actual predicted times could be also posted, updated according to what is hapening, so passengers would know when to expect it on any given run. This could be done with computers, requiring no manual effort. A variation in arrival and departure times of maybe a quarter hour on any given day should not be a problem as long as they are available. If there are enough trains, it would not much matter. If you miss one, just catch the next, much like they do for subways.

It would be nice to avoid needless delay. Most public transportation (train or bus) tries to keep to a defined schedual. Often, wait time is built into every stop, just to stay on schedual. It pulls in about on time. A variable amount of time is used to discharge and load passengers. Then it just sits until departure time, leaving right on schedual. I have sat on a stopped city bus for about a quarter of an hour because that was built into the schedual. If no one is getting on or off at a stop, the stop is made anyway, just to stay on schedual. I would prefer to skip needless stops and to leave as quickly as possible.

Bus service could get back on the road for parts of the country where there are no rails. How, I don't know, but if so, I think it should use variable scheduling. In addition, take care of a big problem. If you have ever ridden a bus very far you know it takes about twice as long as driving by car, mainly because every town it comes to, it leaves the highway and makes its way downtown through local traffic, with stop signs and lights. Then has to get back out to the highway. I think the bus stops should always be right on the highway. For interstate highway, make a decelleration ramp and an accelleration ramp, much like a rest area. All that would be there would be the bus parking lot with the bus station next to it, and on the other side of the station, a city street. A city bus stop if the city has them, else just a parking lot. The bus could pull off, exchange passengers, and be back on the interstate in just a few minutes. It could almost keep up with a car.

There are a number of problems with buses and one is they need too much energy to use a battery, so will probably remain diesel. With cars switching to electric with maybe a 5 to one savings on fuel costs, it will actually be rather hard for a bus to compete with a car for cost of making a trip. Buses have always been more about not having a car than about saving fuel. It might be nice to have bus service all over again, but it probably will not happen.

Trains get very complicated very quickly, but I'll try to keep it simple. They will either be powered by electricity or by diesel. Electric has long been used in the U.S., for a number of reasons, mainly to get away from the smoke of coal fired steam engines. Otherwise, electric did not make much sense as the diesel was cheaper and could use cheaper track. It costs just about as much to electrify track as it does to build the track. Then you have maintenance and higher taxes. Diesel is actually preferable for freight, while electric is preferable for passenger. Diesel fuel was cheap and plentiful. With a low density population and airlines on the way up, passenger service dried up and we gravitated to freight.

In Europe there was a different situation. High population density made passenger service profitable, and short distances made airline not so attractive. Fuel shortages from the war favored electric track, which could draw off the grid from other sources. As a result, much of the track in Europe is electric and suitable for higher speeds than the freight battered track in the U.S.

Passenger service in the U.S. is basically in the Northeast Corridor. It has been undergoing a resurgance in about the last decade with the introduction of Acela trains and completion of electrification of a track from Boston to Washington D.C. This is often refered to as "High Speed Rail", but that is rather laughable as the average speed is only about 70 - 80 mph. Never the less, this is indicative of how low speed rail can re-surface in this country and serve all cities that have rail.

Without going into too much detail, the trains have a "power car" on each end, each with a rounded end for streamlining. Between is a first class car and however many lower class cars that are needed. These make a run about every hour in some cases and basically travel as fast as they can depending upon curves and crossings. In spite of a bunch of mistakes, they have been reasonably successful and for 2007, ridership was up about 9% over 2006.

This line could be extended and others added. Electrification is costly and takes time, but should be done if for no other reason than drawing from the grid, rather than using feul. Regenerative braking can also be used, and electric drive is not as hard on track as deisel, which has a lot of vibration. . This could just keep growing until it covers the country. However, the cost of electrification means it is probably only justified where there will be a lot of people to ride. Probably, what is needed is diesel power cars for trains in the rest of the country. That could get the service accross the country quickly, then electrification could proceed as justified. The speed could increase as the condition of the track is improved.

In a lot of places it would be hard to run frequent trains until the ridership builds up, and unfortunately, that wont happen until the service is there. We had Amtrak across Missouri, originally once a day in each direction. They didn't get enough riders and now are down to about twice a week. That makes it useless as transportation. If I want to get to St Louis I am not going to wait 3 days for a train.

The lack of airline service can help encourgae trains, but I think for service out in the boondocs, something that would probably help a whole lot is keeping it simple. Those Acela trains may work rather well now in the heavy corridor, but where there are fewer riders, all that is needed is something more like a bus. Just a self propelled car with a crew of one: the driver. Keep it low and sleek to keep down wind resistance, and provide a sort of small bin on the back of each seat to hold luggage for the seat behind. Passengers can handle their own luggage as this service will be mainly for short distances anyway and they will usually have little if any. Someone wanting to go a long way may have more and will just have to handle it while riding to a city that has a high speed train station.

True high speed trains will have to be built from the ground up. New right of way and electrified track. New because the track must have only gentle curves and grades and absolutely no grade crossings. They must all be separated grades. The first fatal accident for Acela was when a car drove over the tracks and got hit by a train going only 70. The high speed trains will go at 180 - 200 mph. Yes it can be done, France is running trains at 300 km/hr (187 mph). How they keep them on the track I don't know, but these are new tracks, do not carry freight, and the trains are light, which allows for track in good condition. The track must also be protected with good fences. You cannot have anybody wandering onto the tracks as at 200 mph the time between a train being noticable and it arriving will be small. These will also be much quieter than diesels, so they can kinda sneak up on you.

Now it does not make much sense to speed up to 200 only to hit the brakes to stop at the next station. These should be widely spaced as this service is for long distance, high speed. Maybe something like Indianapolis, St Louis, Denver... Intermediate points can be served by the low speed trains on the old track.

It also makes little sense traveling at 200 for an hour, then sitting for a half hour at a station. They need to work on quick change techniques. For example, have an aisle down the center of the baggage car with shelves or bins on each side. Use baggage carts like at airports that steer from both ends so a string of them will follow the same path. Have a string of them in the aisle ready to go as soon as the train stops. A door opens at both ends of the baggage car. A tug backs in at the front, hooks up the string and pulls it out. Another tug pulls the string with new luggage in the back door, then drops them and goes out the front door. Both doors close and the car is ready to roll. Enroute to the next station, baggage handlers unload the carts and reload them with the luggage to get off at the next stop.

Passanger cars should have a door at each end and as soon as they stop the passengers getting off get up, walk down the aisle and out the front door while the passengers boarding enter from the rear, and as soon as they are aboard the doors close. As soon as they take their seats, the driver, seeing that with closed circuit TV, gets underway. The whole process of slowing down exchanging passengers, and getting back up to speed may only cost 5 minutes. At 200 mph you could go coast to coast in about 15 hours, maybe 16 with stops. Up to about 1000 - 1500 miles you would beat airplanes because you would not waste so much time on each end.

American railroads have a unique problem, from the very first they were taken over by the unions, which, with the co-operation of the government, have managed them ever since. Management has generally been helpless to do anything about it or to be efficient. For example, in the 1950's diesel - electric locomotives took over from steam locomotives and there was no longer anything for firemen to do. The unions did not allow them to be dropped. For the next half century, every locomotive carried a fireman who rode along doing nothing other than draw pay. As far as I know, they still do. In the days of steam a locomotive could go about 100 miles before it needed more water, and the unions demanded and got a full day's pay for traveling the 100 miles. That actually got codefied into law. Management tried for years and finally got it changed: to 108 miles. Brakemen were part of the crew long after air brakes made them unneeded, and crews had to be changed each time a train crossed into another block.

The new rail transportation must be a new world with new, reasonable rules or it is not going to work. A 50 passenger self propelled car that carries a crew of 5 will be hard to justify the operating expenses. A 200 ton locomotive pulling a 50 ton passenger car, like Amtrak, is ridiculous. American rail cars are a lot heavier than common practice in Europe, not because of dense management, but because of rules for crash safety. The cars need to be light, probably using higher tech materials than steel. They need to be aerodynamic, energy efficient. Steel wheel on steel rail and slight grades make them use a lot less per ton/mile than airplanes, but with high energy costs, they need to get as much as they can.

I don't know just what will happen, when and if we will get rail, but it makes a lot of sense in this new world. Anyway, there are some ideas.

Again Energy

Again Energy

Interesting that I had hardly sent an essay stating no sign of the government changing anything about drilling, than Bush announced a 4 point plan basically for doing that. Of course the dems will oppose it as they have the several times previously that he has called upon them to allow drilling. This is an election year and he may not be expecting anything, just doing it for politics. There is something different this time though, public opinion polls (for what they are worth) show 2/3 of the public now favor drilling, up sharply from less than half, just a few months ago. Maybe something is finally beginning to seep into some brains out there, or maybe $4 a gallon for gas is the tipping point. At any rate, we may actually get something done this time. I am not urging you to contact politicians either way, what you want to do is up to you. I am not interested in politics, just energy. Unfortunately, the current main problem with energy is political, and energy needs are getting critical.

Also, I am appaled that this once proud nation has been reduced to begging the Saudis to increase their production, rather than increasing our own.

I intend to give you facts, along with some opinions. The facts you need, the opinions, well, take them or leave them. The first thing to consider is the large population in this country, on the order of 304 million. The only way such a population can be supported on this amount of land is with a fairly high technology. That requires energy. Now we don't really need SUVs, we don't need to heat to 75 in winter and cool to 65 in summer. We don't need to live 50 miles from work and expect to drive there. However, I think it reasonable to stay somewhat comfortable, have adequate food, and a job that can be reached reasonably easily without living next to it. Without adequate energy at a reasonable cost, we are headed back to the stone age. An estimated 1 million indians lived here, that was all the land could support with stone age technology. Do you really want around 303 million people to die or have to move, just to avoid adequate energy supplies?

The point is that this many people need a good bit of technology and that technology absolutely requires a lot of energy, Energy needs are not optional.

The facts are these: currently our energy comes from petroleum, natural gas, and coal. It will continue to do so for some time. Currently our supplemental energy comes from nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, and bio. Wishing differently will not make it happen, steps have to be taken. Alternative energy is oil shale. Period. You can consider nuclear as it can be developed a great deal more, if we can get people to get over their fear of it. You can also add deep hot dry rock likely and methane hydrates, possibly . That is it. Ironic that the politicians are talking about taxing big oil to pay for alternative energy, when they prohibit the development of the only form of alternative energy currently possible. But that is politicians.

Wind and solar can be developed some more, but they are SUPPLEMENTAL sources, not ALTERNATIVE sources. The wind does not blow all the time. What are you going to do when it is not blowing? How are you going to move the energy around? Much the same goes for solar, which is not available half the time (predictably, day only), and often not even then (cloudy day). Solar also tends to cover up the land, which can not then be used to grow anything. These should be used wherever they make economic sense, but nowhere else, and you better not try to count on them for more than about 10, maybe 20% of the total. Wave is just another variations of wind. Tide is only supplemental.

Bio is even worse. By the government's own admission there is only enough land for about 25-30% of our fuel needs. There are other things land is needed for, not the least of which, we have to eat. Remember the law of conservation of energy, you can't create energy, only move it around. In effect, bio is merely collection of solar, using plants. The plants, or parts of them, are then turned into fuel. You can't get more bio than the land can raise.

Incidently, you may have heard something sounding like insect droppings can be converted into fuel. That isn't quite it. The "bugs" are micro-organisms, specifically yeast. Now yeast has long been used to produce ethanol from starch, by the well known fermentation process, long used to produce alcoholic beverages. Yeast digests the starch, producing ethanol, CO2, and water. These could be considered waste from the "bugs", but product of digestion is probably better. Ethanol is not a good fuel for several reasons and fermentation involves lots of water. Removal of water takes a lot of energy, making the overall efficiency even poorer. Someone has come up with a genetically engineered yeast that digests cellulose and produces a reasonable facsimile of crude oil. It can be refined just like petroleum crude, so is versitile, and without all that water and a more energetic fuel like gasoline, it is much more efficient. This is a good and importatnt development, but remember, it depends upon bio input, so can never be more than supplemental. It is a good way to clean up waste material.

It makes sense to convert waste material, lawn clipping, used cooking oil, etc. into fuel as you have to dispose of it anyway, but to grow crops for fuel does not make much sense. Switch grass on marginal land not used for anything else makes some sense as it protects and builds the land and you can have it collect a good bit of solar, but growing corn for ethanol is insane. Anyone who passes on blather about we could shift to alternative sources such as bio, has not done their homework, checked the facts, done the math. With one tenth the present population, bio would be feasable, with the present population it can only be supplemental.

And the population is growing. China gets a lot of flak for their one child per family policy, but it makes a lot more sense than everyone having a whole bunch of kids and not taking into account the population growth. At 2% a year, our energy needs must not just be met, growth has to be accounted for. We can't sit still. Most people seem to understand we have to build a lot more houses and apartments for all those additional people. What is so hard to understand that we also need to build lots of power plants and some refineries? As long as the population grows, energy supply must grow. I am all for conservation, but with a growing population it only buys you a little time. You still need an ever larger supply of energy.

Nuclear makes a good deal of sense. There is the waste to get rid of, but it can be sequestered and really is not that much of a problem. It takes a long time to build a nuclear plant and they are expensive, but they produce much more power than typical plants, do it for less, and produce no pollution at all, except heat. Very clean, very good sources, we need a lot more of them. We are unlikely to get them because people are afraid of them.

The deep hot dry rock will probably get here on its own, but it might be well if the government would speed it up a bit by taking a few hundred million of the 10 billion annual ethanol subsidy and finance a few pilot plants to prove the concept and get things rolling. Absolutely no ongoing subsidy. Pay as you go or don't go.

Speaking of alternative, plug in cars are sort of alternative uses of energy, not sources. They allow grid energy to be used instead of fuel. Incidently, California is requiring 10% of cars sold in the state to be zero emmission, yet they don't even allow an adequate power system for their current needs. Makes a lot of sense.

In a way, our oil can be considered alternative energy, since we now import 2/3 of our oil. Wouldn't more of our own be a nice alternative? Now oil will not last forever and we need to have something else on line by the time it drops off, but that is not going to be as soon as many expected or still expect. There is a lot more oil than thought just a few years ago. New seismic techniques allow spotting oil that could not be seen just a few years ago, and it can be located to within 100 feet. Drilling can now be controlled amazingly, so is able to hit those tiny reservoirs, often several with one hole, kinda like stringing beads. They can turn a 90 degree corner in as little as 100 feet and drill horizontally about 4 miles, as well as going down 6. They can find and reach lots of oil that was not seen or was out of reach just a few years ago. The amount of known untapped oil has actually increased. For all its faults, oil has a lot of advantages and needs to be used at least until replacements are on line. The activists are looney for wanting to block it in favor of other, "alternative energy", before such is on line. Especially since many of their suggestions for alterative energy simply can't provide enough energy to meet current needs, let alone, future.

Note: that for ANWR, there is no real concern for the polar bears and other critters, as a mere 8 acre drilling site can drain about 50 square miles of oil. You would only need one every 6 or 8 miles across the frozen wasteland. The bears and caribou would hardly notice them, nor would the wolves, mosquitos or flies, and that is about the roster of critters in ANWR.

Note also that just as there is no such thing as a free lunch, there is no such thing as a business tax. Any business, in order to stay in business, has to pass on the tax to the consumers. They end up paying for it. Put more tax on big oil (Exxon Mobile reported $32 billion last year), and it will mean higher gas prices as they are a publicly held corporation and obliged to make money for their shareholders, which probably includes you if you have any sort of retirement plan. They would want to maintain their current profit margin, which is the same as it was clear back in the 70's. Their record profits result from record sales, both from increasing demand and the steep drop in the value of the dollar, which means the numbers are higher even if the value is the same. Look it up, they are all publicly held and have to report this stuff.

The idea that the government should tax their "windfall profits" and use it for "alternative energy" is a blatant money grab and is a misuse of terms. It is not a windfall, just the result of sales going up while the profit margin stays unchanged. How much of it do you think would actually go for energy of any kind, and how much into general funds or other projects? Maybe now is a good time to point out that if people are sloppy about the meaning of words it is easy to put things over on them. Maybe you don't care that a chimpanzee is not a monkey and should not be called one, but be careful about windfall profit. Also consensus of scientists. When a commitee of some scientific organization reports a consensus without even asking their members, that is a misuse of the term. Words mean things and a consensus is not a minority opinion. There are far more scientists who have signed statements of opposition to positions than the "consensus" signers of such things as man made CO2 causing global warming. Pay attention to words and their meaning and don't go along with misuse. Supplemental energy sources are not good alternative energy sources. They are different things.

Incidently, California pulled a big one a few years ago when they "deregulated" their power industry. Power companies were forced to sell generating capacity to wholsellers, then buy their power from them at whatever they charged, then sell to the consumers at fixed price. Predictably they ran out of money, with some declaring bankruptcy and others being bailed out by the government, which pretty well took over. All this regulation is not deregulation, but it sure gave deregulation a bad name. Now the government can do much as they please and people are glad to be protected from "deregulation". Words mean things.

Politiicians like to call things something else than what they are. For example, calling an amnesty bill "Immigration Reform". Later they can brag about their record showing they are for immigration reform when in fact they are no such thing. Watch words and what they mean. Don't be duped by assuming they are properly applied.

Keep in mind that renewable energy is currently only capable of supplemental energy needs. Except for nuclear (which is way behind) and hot dry rock (which isn't even much in development yet), all we have is carbon based fossil fuels. We have to use them, we have to produce lots of CO2. This makes the uproar over CO2 very important, critical even. More and more I am getting disgusted with it. I know I have probably bored people with info about other effects and I am going to add to that, but I think it is important for people to be informed that there are other explainations, more plausable explainations, and more going on here than you would think from the media coverage.

Always keep in mind the Goebbels Principle: Any lie told often enough will be believed. Global warming caused by man's use of fossil fuel usage is all pervasive, so much that a lot of people simply accept it now without a doubt. It is even in children's books and stated as simple fact. Any doubter is ridiculed, and "evidence" is presented with little thought and with no alternate explanation. Also keep in mind that science is what is reliable, scientists are not. They are simply people and have opinions and agendas too. Science insists on being open and claims being defended. That is what makes it work.

Little by little, it is being realized the sun is not such a steady star as often thought. Sunspot activity can vary its radiant output by almost a percent. Now that is not enough to notice as you stand in the sunlight on a bright day, but over time, it can add up, for example, The Little Ice Age. Someone checked on the possible effect of radiant increase over the last two centuries to show it could not account for the observed warming, but they left out an important secondary effect. When the sun is active, it sends out a lot of material, the solar wind. This cuts down on the cosmic rays reaching deep into the earth's atmosphere. Cosmic rays cause a shower of ions when they hit something, and those act as nuclei causing water to condense into clouds. These low clouds reflect sunlight and have a cooling effect. Active sun, fewer deep cosmic rays, fewer low clouds, less cooling, more heating. There is only good data available for the last century, so this cannot be ran back to cover all fossil fuel usage, but for the last century alone, it can account for 85% of the heating claimed for CO2 from ALL fossil fuel burning.

This is just one more of the larger effects known, such as the Malankovitch Cycles. I have mentioned some, by all means not all, and need not list them again. The point is that CO2 warming, if it occurs, is much less than a lot of known effects. In among all them, CO2 warming may not even be noticable, yet it is getting credit for all, and the other effects are being ignored. CO2 is a gnat. They are getting all carried away about a gnat buzzing around their nose while eagles are tearing off their scalp.

There is an old saying in Missouri: "If you don't like the weather in Missouri, just wait awhile". Weather changes. Often. Global warming can change weather patterns, so now it is popular to blame any change on global warming, not just changable weather. Unusually hot, global warming. Unusually cold, global warming. Too much rain, global warming. Drought, global warming. Wind, global warming. And of course fossil fuel burning causing the warming. Just because it could be does not make it so. You have to consider other possibilities. One of the common fallacies of formal logic is "Post hoc, ergo propter hoc". After this, therfore because of this. It can be extended to: if two events occur together, they are related. If you drive for hours on the interstate, at some point a car may run alongside for a ways. It it related to your trip? Do either of you have anything to do with each other?

If CO2 levels increase and the temperature rises, did it cause it? Perhaps the other way around? Perhaps each caused by a third factor? Perhaps neither has anything to do with the other? You cant just jump to conclusions, but a lot of people have. This whole thing has the bit in its teeth and is headed for a cliff. One thing you must consider is that there is a lot of power and money involved. Large amounts, huge amounts, even immense amounts. There may be many well meaning people involved, but there will no doubt be others in it for the money and power. Any time the UN is involved, watch out!

Real scientists who are not signatory to the bogus consensus, will tell you that human activity has probably had an effect on climate, but that they cannot yet even tell you whether the net effect is warming or cooling, let alone how much. Clearing land for agriculture has occured for about 5000 years whereas fossil fuels have only been burned for about 150 years and to any extent, for only about 100. I understand Algor's movie makes a big deal about glaciers that have shortened markedly since about 1850. Happen to remember what happened about then? The end of The Little Ice Age. So the melting was well under way before burning of fossil fuels to any extent. Doesn't that kinda indicate something else was more important?

I probably should wrap this up with some observations. If you think these are just opinions, look up the facts and come to you own conclusions.

There is firm evidence CO2 concentration has gone up from about 250 ppm to 380 ppm during the time of burning of fossil fuels, and firm evidence most of it was caused by the burning of the fossil fuels. There is shaky evidence for a slight temperature rise during that time. There is no consensus among scientists that significant warming has occured, and absolutely no consensus that it was caused by CO2. Anyway, if you consider what consensus actually means. There are other greenhouse gases, most notably water vapor, which is much more effective than CO2 and is responsible for the earth being warm enough to live on. There is no clear evidence yet what effect human activity has had, even whether it is warming or cooling. There are many and far stonger effects on the earth's climate than CO2, such as water vapor and clouds, not to mention solar activity and cycles.

Both candidates are in favor of cap and trade. Hang onto your wallet!

Energy Report

Energy Report

Most of this you probably already know, but this may bring you up to date if you don't.
First off, there is no sign that congress will reverse the law they passed making most of our oil off limits. So, as gas prices continue spiraling upward, no relief is in sight and we can look forward to $5, $6, ... gas.

Now oil will not last forever and we need to have something else on line by the time it drops off, but that is not going to be as soon as many expect. There is a lot more oil than thought just a few years ago. New seismic techniques allow spotting oil that could not be seen just a few years ago, and it can be located to within 100 feet. Drilling can now be controlled amazingly, so able to hit those tiny reservoirs, often several with one hole, kinda like stringing beads. They can turn a 90 degree corner in as little as 100 feet and drill horizontally about 4 miles, as well as going down 6. They can find and reach lots of oil that was not seen or out of reach just a few years ago. The amount of known untapped oil has actually increased. For all its faults, oil has a lot of advantages and needs to be used at least until replacements are on line. The activists are looney for wanting to block it in favor of other, "alternative energy", before such is on line.

Note: that there is no real concern for the polar bears and other critters, as a mere 8 acre drilling site can drain about 50 square miles of oil. You would only need one every 6 or 8 miles across the frozen wasteland. The bears and caribou would hardly notice them.

Now some of this new oil can be hard to get. The Bakken requires horizontal drilling, the North Slope has miserable weather, the huge new field off the coast of Brazil is several miles down, but the oil can be gotten.

In addition to ANWR, there are other sites off limits, such as the west coast of Florida and the rest of the gulf. While we have to keep hands off, other nations are drilling as close as 60 miles off our coast. The oil will be pumped. We lose energy, what do we gain by not pumping? Then there are other sources. Most people seem surprised to know Canada is our leading source of oil and Mexico second. Maybe this has something to do with the illegal alien problem. For decades, administrations of both parties have refused to do anything productive about illegal aliens flooding our country. Could it be they want to eliminate the borders so all that oil will be "domestic"? Sounds farfetched, but there has to be a logical explaination. I won't buy that garbage about they can't be found and identified. All that info relative to social security that is required for employment can be easily checked to determine citizenship, and it can be done on line and in real time while the applicant is standing there. Then a stiff fine for hiring an illegal, and without jobs, they will have to head home. Simple, so all that nonesense is a smoke screen.
Actually, it might not be a bad idea. China is moving in, buying up Canadian oil companies, contracting for all the oil they can get. Every barrel they get is one less for us.

Canada is now ramping up production to 4 million barrels a day from the tar sands. The Athabasca Tar Sands is an extensive deposit in Alberta, and is the only one in the world that is large and at or near the surface so it can be surface mined. Brazil has about as much in the Oronoco Tar Sands, but they are too deep to mine. Canada has been messing with them for decades, but at about $60 a barrel for synthetic crude from them, have had to shut down several times as crude prices dropped. This time that is not likely.

The tar sand is broken up, mixed with hot water to separate the sand and other junk, then the water is removed. There is also an in situ process, circulating steam to sort of melt the bitumen so it flows and can be pumped out like very heavy crude. That can be used for the Oronoco, and both methods are applicable to our oil shale, which is about as extensive, but we can't touch it any more than we can touch the oil in the gulf or North Slope. The oil shale is different, but rather equivalent to the tar sands. It is porous rock containing kerogen, a waxy hydrocarbon that simply hasn't cooked long enough to turn into oil or coal. We have enough to last decades, centuries even, and currently it too can be produced for about $60 a barrel of synthetic crude.
Then there is still the methane hydrates, which no one seems to be interested in. It can be tricky to get, and unfortunately, is found in the off limits areas, off the coasts and in the permafrost up north. Chances of getting it anytime soon seem remote. Methane is essentially natural gas (or more accurately, the other way around). At any rate, it is a rather clean, easily used fuel, and a good feed stock for all sorts of things, including hydrogen for vehicles (more about that later), so it would be very desireable to start getting it. There are centuries worth of it, but of course it would mean carbon dioxide, and the politicians wont even consider it.

Now when it comes to coal, there is nothing much to report. Coal is still being used, coal fired power plants are very much frowned upon in this country, even though China is putting a new one on line a time or two every week. Lots of CO2 is being put into the air anyway, but we can't be allowed to do it for such a crass purpose as keeping our industry and lights going, not to mention air conditioning. The coal will be burned. We lose energy, what do we gain by not burning coal? This (not enought power plants) is going to be an unpleasant problem within about the next two years.

Deep geothermal is moving along, but our government seems blissfully unaware of it. The medium depth plant in Australia has completed their first and third wells, the second one encountered problems and was abandoned. An illustration of why large profits are necessary. Lots of money can be lost fast. Risk needs reward, i.e. profits. They are currently hooking up equipment to see what energy they can get. They have been delayed by late arrival of equipment from overseas. As is typical these days, stuff is shipped all over for about anything. A big heat exchanger came from Ohio, for example. The one near the France - Germany border is producing power and undergoing testing, but is not on line yet. Note that both of these are just medium depth, 3 miles or so, so need a big hot mass of rock to be located, but I see no difference between a medium and a deep plant, other than the depth of the well that has to be drilled. The wells can be drilled to 6 miles, so if everything can be worked out at 3, there is no reason 6 won't work the same.

I am really interested in the geothermal as that with rechargable electric cars can greatly reduce the need for oil. I am surprised that no government,especially ours, seems to show any interest in hot dry rock geothermal. Too few votes, I guess, not like the corn to ethanol.

For better mileage, a lot of tinkering is being done. Such as variable valve timing. At low engine speed, you want to open and close the valves at about the end of the piston stroke. At high speed they need to open sooner and close later. A typical car engine has a cam shaft with lobes that open and close near the ends of the stroke. As a result it runs smoothly at idle, but loses power at high speed. Those for a race car have longer lobes, keeping the valves open longer. As a result, they can turn faster, but are rough at idle and must idle much faster to keep running. The variable valve timing engine usually has a cam shaft with pairs of lobes, one for low speed and one for high. At some point the entire shaft is moved sideways to position the other lobe under the lifters to give better efficientcy at both the high and low end. That is a lot of extra complexity and expense for a little improvement in efficientcy.

Another scheme is to shift the transmission to nuetral or even stop the engine when the car stops. That can save gas especially at a stop light, but may mean a pause before you can get back into motion. Restarting the engine can take a bit of time and could even be difficult if hot or cold or various other things, but the computer probably takes care of most of that. It still seems like a lot of complexity for a few percent gain. Switching to electric can give several fold increase and cut the complexity and expense while doing so.

Speaking of electric cars, interest seems to be picking up. I am not in favor of high oil and gasoline prices, especially the rapid run up. This is going to be devestating to our economy and way of life in many ways. You haven't seen anything yet. For example, our only long range public transportation is airline, and that is rapidly becoming a limited means that only the wealthy can afford. Other means can be provided, but it will take time and lots of money. Since most everything depends upon energy, expect a lot of inflation. On the other hand, high fuel cost might come in handy to get the electric cars accepted more quickly. Ten, even five years ago, the typical guy looking at an electric with a bit limited range, would probably have said, "Naw, I want a BelchFire 8. I like the rumble and roar, and might want to hit the interstate". Now at $4 a gallon, he might say "That will get me to work and back, a lot cheaper. And it is nice and quiet. And.." The only problem is they will just about arrive along with the brownouts and rolling blackouts from too few power plants, and might fall on their faces as a result.

For right now, Lutz says the Chevrolet Volt is coming right along. They figure they have the battery solved and are satified they can consistently get 40 miles range. Now they are playing with the computer programming to work out when to start and stop the ICE, and how to best get the battery up to operating temperature in extremely cold weather. He says November 2010 still looks good, less than 2 1/2 years away.

Before the Volt, Toyota expects to hit the fleet market in the U.S. and Japan with a plug in car. I have no details, but looks like they will be using the same NiMH battery they use in the Prius. It is proven, they have it in production, and by putting several (a battery of baterries) in each car can get enough energy for whatever the range is. Now getting out there first is important, but the Volt Li ion battery is a better way to go.

Speaking of the Prius, I understand they have just hit 1 million production. I am surprised it is not far more as I see a lot around Columbia, but this is a liberal town with a lot of people wanting to show they care. Toyota has also announced they will have a hybrid version of their entire product line by 2030.

Nissan has announced they are readying a "zero emmision" car for the U.S. market. No details, but apparently a plug in.

The surprising thing is hydrogen. When the administration announced the energy bill and there was a mention of hydrogen, I figured that was just politics. Turns out a lot of people are taking that seriously. In the U.S. over a billion has been spent on hydrogen development, and several foreign manufacturers are working on hydrogen cars. I can't believe it, but I bet it has to do with avoiding CO2. They are willing to play with an impractical vehicle just to have it zero emmision. One of them, I believe Japanese but I have forgotten, has one they claim will do over 500 miles on a fill up. To get that they have made the fuel cell more efficient (that is good) and have greatly increased the fuel supply (very questionable).

In the first place, I think 500+ miles is a bit much. Who can sit for 8-10 hours? 100 miles is a bit short, but 200-300 is probably a reasonable range. They are using a 40 gallon tank, and are charging it to 10,000 psi!. Man, if that thing lets go I don't want to be anywhere around it. Forget hydrogen is flamable and explosive, the rupture alone will leave nothing recognizable of the car. If the hydrogen mixes with air and explodes, well, you will have a nice pond.

And there is still the problem of supply. Where do you get hydrogen? Industrially, it can be arranged and some warehouses use hydrogen equipment to keep the air breathable. Seems to me rechargable electric would be simpler, but I know hydrogen is sometimes used. For a car, there are only a handfull of stations in the whole country, and most of them in California. Of those, a few are solar powered, which appeals to conservationists and will work in California, but hardly in Seattle. The rest reform natural gas and of course emit CO2, but the cars are zero emission. Methane hydrates would be a good source for the hydrogen reformers, if they ever become common, but you are stuck with the chicken and egg problem. There are too few hydrogen cars to justify a lot of stations: there are too few stations to justify a lot of cars. Again, I think electric would be easier. Just run a medium power line to a truck stop and set up a recharge unit. It could be done quickly and cheaply anywhere that electric rechargables show up or are expected to show up. Limited to commuting ranges until the recharging stations show up nearby, the electric cars are still usable and make sense. The numbers could build up until someone took advantage of it by putting in a recharging unit. I see no corresponding way to do it with hydrogen, unless you want to invest in your own home refueling unit. Reforming needs methane (natural gas), which without tapping the methane hydrates, is in limited supply and expensive.

Well, that is about the way things currently look to me.

Oil and Warming

Oil andWarming

There is a development in oil supply you should know about: the Bakken formation. It is in the Williston Basin, well known for oil and coal. This particular formation is a sandwitch of dolomite between shale, all three oil bearing, and has been known since about 1953. It has not been very important up to now because it is fairly thin, maximum thickness only about 140 feet, and the rock is not very porous, making it hard to extract oil from it. With oil at $10 per barrel back then, it could not be produced from it. The important thing is the great extent, basically most of North and South Dakota and eastern Montana, as well as extending into Canada. As a result, the total amount of oil in it is huge, amounting to several times the total of all other oil reserves in the U.S. combined, even based upon the lowest estimate.

They now have techniques to tap it, primarily horizontal drilling, which puts thousands of feet of hole in the formation so oil can seep into it fast enough for economical pumping. A recent well has been quite productive, so oil "companies" are moving in and drilling, and if the enviromentalist do not get it declared off limits, or the CO2 alarmists don't block it on the basis of "carbon footprint", we could soon have a large supply coming on line at about $20-40 per barrel. That could push gas prices back down to about $1 per gallon, to the woe of the CO2 crowd, but to the delight of the rest of us, and there is enough to remove our dependance upon foreign oil for some time to come. Then there is still the gulf and ANWR, the oil shales, and methane hydrates, which might get us through until something else can be developed. A much better scheme than the typical government mandate such as California's mandate that by some date (2012 ?) 10 % of cars sold in the state must be zero emmision, or by 2015 hydrogen must be in use as a fuel.
It should be noted that the same technique, horizontal drilling, can allow the oil under ANWR to be removed with wells in only a tiny patch, the rest of ANWR left alone. Even the little patch used for drilling probably won't disturb such wildlife as lives up there in the frozen north by very much. A great deal of concern was expressed for caribou herds beings disrupted by the Alaska pipeline. Turns out they not only were not bothered by it, they actually appreciate it, gathering around it in cold weather to take advantage of the heat it gives off.

What we need is for nothing to block the development of the oil, and also permits to build some badly needed refineries, preferably near centers of demand to reduce the distribution costs of refined product. And of course we need to end the ethanol insanity which is driving food prices up and is accomplishing nothing more than buying votes. Latest estimate I have found of the ethanol subsidy is $10 billion a year. Can't they find cheaper votes?

My big concern right now is this CO2 and global warming nonsense. I'll grant there might be something to it, to the extent it should be looked into, but it is way too early to take draconian measures, and lately I have been finding disturbing things about it and I don't mean the usual "we are all going to die". Granted the atmosperic level has gone up from about 250 ppm to about 380 ppm. This is reproducable fact, the kind I like to deal with. Just go out and measure it. The record from Mauna Kea shows an annual variation with a slow rise for as long as they have be keeping it. Isotopic ratios show rather clearly that most of the increase comes from fossil fuel (having spent so much time locked up under ground, radioactive decay has changed it a bit from that in living plants). Again pretty dependable fact. And CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Granted.
But the global temperature is rising as a result of it and we will all drown or burn up if nothing is done? Come on now!

I know people are interested in catastrophies and the media like to report them and dwell upon them as it sells. Politicians can get votes and gain power by jumping upon the bandwagon. Global warming, or at least climate change is mentioned so often it is now the first explanation suggested for anything unusual. Migratory birds show up a few days earlier; global warming. A draught; climate change. Severe winter; climate change. Few bats; global warming (never mind the population growth in the tropics with a lot of clearing of trees and planting of crops). And so on. But is there real data there? Now I will accept questioning the meaning of data, but outright falsification? Huh uh!

First, has the world temperature actually increased? What is mean by the world temperature? The temperature at Columbia right now is definite, and can be easily measured, and everyone will probably agree upon it. What was the temperature at Columbia yesterday? What do you mean by it? Even if you say average temperature, what do you mean by that? Probably hourly average, that is, take the temperature every hour, add them and divide by the number of hours. Does that really mean much? You could have two days with the same "average" temperature and very different conditions. The high and low and how long it stayed at a temperature, the temperature profile, are also importatnt. Remember, you can easily drown trying to wade a stream where its average depth is only 2 feet.

How do you determine the "world average"? You cant take the temperature everywhere for all times. You have to take what is available and there might be a lot of reporting stations, but they are not everywhere. Some of them may not report very often and thus miss some important swings. Some important locations may not be reported. Are they even reporting all day or just giving the high and low or maybe the noon time temperature? Lot of variables we are not told about. This might be well and good if they are honest, unbiased scientists, but if there is a political motive, these things we are not told may be a bit important.

Consider the typical recording instrument. You don't want the sun shining directly on it, so it is typically placed in a box with louvered sides to let the air flow through. The box is usually painted white, WHEN IT IS INSTALLED. In the U.S., it will probably be repainted from time to time. In other countries, it may never be repainted. Year by year, it gets darker. Is it any wonder the temperature reported keeps rising? Are we told about this?

As if that is not bad enough, someone has reported even more disturbing info. Now I can't verify this, it is just hearsay and anyone can say anything. The main reason it is not accepted in court. Take it for what it is worth. They challenged someone who has been beating the drum for global warming and they went out to look at some of the reporting stations. The very first one had a light bulb (incadescent) on inside "Oh, someone forgot to turn off the light". The next one had a barrel beside it. The barrel was used for burning trash! The next one was at a airport. as they were looking at it, a jet throttled up and they were surrounded by exhaust! Easy to get rising temperatures, but is the globe warming?

They also don't bother to mention that last year dropped the "average" temperature by the total amount seen in the previous decades. Then there is rising sea levels. Again I was not at a lecture I heard about, so it is only hearsay, but a graph of tide records was shown, with fossil fuel usage superimposed on it. I don't know how to draw with this software, so I'll have to describe it. It ran for about the last 70 years. It showed a wiggly line (tide levels) with a straight one (trend) superimposed on it. It ran from 0 up to about 8 inches or centimeters, I've forgotten which. Down below was a curve for each of coal, oil, and gas. They each rose rather rapidly. That clearly showed a relationship between use of fossil fuels and rising sea levels. Gave a good introduction to dire warnings of coastal cities being swamped by the ocean in the near future.

Scared a lot of people. Trouble was, it was only part of the graph. I have seen the whole thing. Before 150 years ago, the data are not reliable and could mainly be disregarded. Starting about 150 years ago, the wiggly line runs up to the present, staying close to the straight line trend for the whole time, not just the last 70 years. And the coal line runs nearly level, very close to the bottom, with the oil and gas lines not starting until shortly before where it was cut off for the lecture. In other words, it shows just the opposite: for 150 years there has been a steady rise in sea level, starting before the use of much fossil fuels and remaining unchanged as usage increased greatly. There is no connection shown! Implying there is, and cutting off the rest of the graph, is dishonest at best. Downright fraud.

Probably the worst example I have run across is the rapid loss of snow and ice in Antarctica. Oh calamity!. The Larsen B ice shelf has melted. All the ice will soon be gone and it will not only kill off the penguins, but will flood coastal cities. Oh woe is us! Well, the ice shelf did break off. They do that occasionally and this was the biggest one ever observed. In the Arctic, ice sheets break off into the sea as they get about to the shore line. Spectacular sight, those big hunks of ice slumping into the sea and throwing up a shower of water. This has been going on for a long long time, but is shown in Algor's movie as evidence of the melting of glaciers. In the Antarctic, the ice is a lot ticker, so slides into the sea until it is finally floating. the line where water reaches under it is called the grounding line. The ice floats out to sea as an ice shelf, and eventually, cracks develop and a big piece separates and floats away. No spectacular spash as they are already floating.

Now the loss of ice and snow. Yes, it is happening, but only on the tip of the peninsula that points toward South America. On the whole of the rest of the contenient, the snow and ice are increasing. Yet this meets the mind set of global warming so has been widely reported. Most of it now is just repeating nonesense. About like the Devil's Triangle books. If you look through a few of them you find they are quoting each other rather than looking at facts. So I can understand people passing it on, but the first ones to warn of the ice and snow melting in Antarctica and spreading pictures of bare rock, were cherry picking their data. They were knowingly being dishonest.

I will allow there might be something to the global warming concerns, but I wont accept there is enough clearly known to do much more than study it now. I am convinced there is a lot of dishonesty involved. Scam comes to mind. Any time someone has to resort to trickery, has to cheat to make a point, I reject them. Heck with global warming. Bring on the fossil fuel. hurray for oil and coal

F.Y.I. Hot Air

The ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicle is clearly highly successful. It uses an engine to extract chemical energy from a fuel, usually liquid, and the widespread availablilty of this liquid fuel and the ease and quickness with which the vehicle can be refueled (recharged) are highly important for that success. However, since much of vehicle operation is in cities, and much of that for commuting, the ICE vehicle has at least two serious problems. 1) Air pollution. The combustion of a carbon containing fuel will of course produce carbon dioxide. Since the temperature and pressure in the combustion chamber are high, and the time short, all manner of other compounds are formed, such as nitrogen oxides and many combustion products, as well as unburnt hydrocarbons. In a city, with lots of people and lots of vehicles, this can be a real problem. 2) Poor operation. Although an ICE can be quite efficient cruising, it is unsuitable to stop and go city use. Lots of energy is wasted during frequent braking, and lots of fuel is wasted with the engines running while waiting for a light change or for traffic to clear. The ICE is unsuited for this mode of operation, yet much of the total use of ICE vehicles is under these unfavorable conditions.

The battery - electric is a much better choice for commuting as it can use regenerative braking and does not use any energy while sitting idle. In addition, electric motors have only one moving part, the rotor and shaft, and only two wearing parts, the bearings. Clean them up and replace the bearings and they are as good as new, can be recycled, and essentially last for ever and are fairly cheap. They do not even need lubricant as the ICE does (using sealed bearings). Such vehicle's total weight and complexity can be kept low, which can lead to low cost, even with batteries, and overnight recharging is quite practical for a range on the order of 100 - 150 miles, quite adequate for most commuting. They are not non polluting as the electricty has to be generated somewhere, but it can be done at a large power plant where pollution can be much more easily dealt with, and for one thing, be away from the downtown area where the real problem lies.

However, battery electrics have at least two serious problems of their own. Perhaps the worst is limited battery life; generally several hundred recharge cycles or maybe 2 or 3 years, after which, the expensive batteries must be replaced, adding significantly to operating cost. They are still cheaper for commuting use than an ICE vehicle. The other problem is lengthy recharge times, on the order of hours. This is acceptable for the typical commuter use as the batteries can be recharged overnight and always be ready, but for use in something like a taxi, and there are lots in a big city, or a bus, the lengthy recharge time means it will often be out of service. This problem is unlikely to be solved as the electric power needed at a recharge station would be prohibitively great and the spiking would not do.

This has led to interest in compressed air vehicles, using a pressure flask and some form of air motor. The flask can be refilled from a large tank in minutes instead of the hours needed by electric. The tank can be kept filled with compressed air by running compressors as needed, even around the clock. Air vehicles have long been used in mines where ICE is unsuited because of limited air, and electric is not too desireable because of the possibility of a spark igniting methane or coal dust. On the face of it, air vehicles would seem to be as likely as electric vehicles, but there are two problems to consider. The first is the tremendous drop in pressure during normal operation. In an electric, the voltage remains quite constant, as a matter of fact, it is a bit hard to measure the differenece between fully charged and almost discharged to indicate how much charge is left. This results in very efficient transfer of energy, and is quite desireable. For air, there is a tremendous drop in pressure as you start to refill a flask. This means loss of energy and efficiency. It can be reduced by maybe using three tanks, one at a low pressure, one at medium, and the other at high. You would fill the flask from the low first, then switch to the medium, and finally the high. It would probably be too cumbersome to use more than three. For the motor, to get the same power as the pressure in the flask falls, you can keep opening the throttle, using air faster and faster. You would also probably want to use a multistage expansion motor, or perhaps three in series, a small high pressure engine with its exhaust going to a larger medium pressure one, and then to a lage low pressure one. As the flask pressure falls, you could bypass first the high pressure motor, then it and the medium.

An even graeater problem is adiabatic. That is a thermodynamic term that simply means without transfer of heat. Anyone who has studied thermodynamics would thik of it at once, but those who have not, are likely to overlook it, and not surprizingly, it is hardly ever mentioned. Overly simplified, thermodynamics says for a gas, the volumn, pressure, and temperature are interrelated and proportional.

Consider a diesel engine with a compression ratio of 20. Reducing the volumn by a factor of 20, raises the pressure by a factor of 20. That is 20 bars (times standard pressure), about 300 psi. Since there is no time for heat to leave the air, the compression is adiabatic and the temperature goes up by a factor of 20. That is hot. Hot enough to ignite the diesel fuel when it is spayed in, and diesel fuel is not real easy to ignite.

For the air engines, they are talking about 200 bars, 3000 psi. Ideally you would compress it adiabatically, retain that heat to have it avaialable for adiabatic expansion in the motor to recover all your energy (heat is energy) for high efficiency. In practice, you could never store air at that temperature, it is hot, hot, hot, and would vapourize most materials, and you sure would not want to handle it to fill your flask. In practice, you have to do something about all that heat. In winter, you could heat buidings, but what would you do in summer? You probably would need cogeneration, which means next to your compressor plant you would have to build a power plant to use the heat to generate some electricity to help with the compression. Expense and complexity.

Adiabatic expansion of normal temperature air drops the temperature dramatically. I mean COLD. You can pick up heat out of the air to offset some of this, using a radiator for a heating system much like a vehicle's cooling system, or perhaps heating fins like the cooling fins on an air cooled engine like a motorcycle, but you are going to have trouble with frost build up, and rain water spashed on it could result in a thick coat of ice, either of which, will reduce the transfer of heat, reducing the efficiency.

As a sidelight, you could have all the air conditioning you could ever want, simply by running the exhaust into the passenger compartment. For heating, you would probably have to provide another air motor direct coupled to a compressor for a heat pump, which is just a reversed air conditioner, with the evaporator outside and the condensor inside. An electric will have much the same problem the other way, heat could be obtained from the motors for heating (at least until it gets bitterly cold), but you would need another electric motor driving the compressor for a heat pump to provide cooling. In either case, a substantial amount of your stored energy might have to be used for heating or cooling as these vehicles will be using little energy for movement, so you might have to cut your range by half to be comfortable. Your commuter might be good for 150 miles in mild weather, but only 75 on a really hot or cold day.

It could be that electric will be used in the north and air only in the south. India has recently announced the intention of building air motor taxis to cut down on air pollution in some of their cities. Quick recharge for taxis and their hot climate make air the choice over electric. For the US midwest, electric is probably much the better choice.

In fact, although quick recharge may not be practical, battery exchange could be. For general use, it would not be practical to swap your battery for one that may or may not be good, but for fleet operators it would be quite practical and computers could keep track of everything, even predicting when a particular battery needs replacing. A vehicle, say a taxi, with battery running low, would pull in to the recharge facility, probably with a front wheel guide to position it predictably. Automatic machinery could then quickly pull the discharged battery and insert a charged one and the taxi would be on its way, while the machinery moved the discharged battery to a recharge bay, and in about 6 hours it would be ready to put into a taxi needing it. All things considered, I still think electric is the way to go, maybe with a small ICE, generator, and fuel tank on board if needed to extend the range, turning a limited use vehicle into a full use one. At least get you home if you over extended.

More Electric Car

More Electric Car
Summer 2007

The electric car is coming, now that the advanced lithium ion battery has provided the means of storing a useful amount of energy in a battery. When and how remain to be seen. I would like to add a few thoughts on the how.

First, a bit of review. I think there will be a market for three kinds of cars: all electric, plug in commuter, over the road.

The all electric will be of limited use, but I think useful enough to be there. It is especially attractive for retirement communities. These already sometimes use golf carts, which with their heavy lead acid batteries and open structure, are of very limited use. A small 2 or 3 place enclosed car, capable of a speed of about 30-45 mph, would be much better, and could be used in the quiet part of most any city, and practically all small towns. It could give old folks mobility without the trouble and expense of a regular car, and without the danger to others of some old codger driving a full fledged car with impaired sight and reflexes. A restricted license and restriction to quiet streets would be in order. They could probably reach most anywhere they needed to go, such as a grocery store, church, and the senior center, and they would never have to go to a filling station. Such cars should be simple, cheap, and dependable.

There should also be a market for certain other vehicles, such as an all electric riding lawn mower.

The plug in commuter will be very important because most driving is less than 50 miles and this could reduce our need for fuel to a small fraction of what it otherwise will be. Producing fuel is a bigger problem than putting energy on the grid. Grid energy can come from such renewable and non polluting sources as wind, geothermal, and solar. Whether or not you think there is an environmental problem, keep in mind the politicians act like they think so, so it is well to consider it. Such sources can also be cheaper in the long run and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
There may be no need for an over the road type, as the plug in commuter can do what it can. However, there will be people not having access to an outlet, who really do not want to pay extra for things they will not use, so would want a car with a smaller battery and no charger.
The earliest electric cars will be ICE (internal combustion engine) hybrids, as the ICE is available and well developed. The serial hybrid is probably the best choice as it lends itself to the plug in design, and is simpler. In effect, you have an ICE - motor generator electric plant on board to keep it going beyond the charge in the battery. The motor part is to start the ICE, otherwise it is just an ICE driving a generator as needed.

The ICE will always be expensive and is limited in efficiency, although there is research into such things as a camless engine with variable valve timing that looks interesting. Nevertheless, expense, complexity (with lowered reliability), and pollution, provides pressure to get rid of the ICE. The obvious choice is a fuel cell, which would replace the ICE and the motor generator. Since they can be stamped out and have essentially no moving parts, they should become cheap. They should be reliable and just about never wear out. With higher efficiency and lower pollution, they are an obvious choice when available.

But what about fuel for the fuel cell? A little review is also in order here.

There are a number of fuel cells available, but the only one for cars is the proton exchange fuel cell. All the others use unpleasant temperatures and/or chemicals, and are best suited for large installations where a trained person is available to run it. The proton exchange fuel cell, by contrast, can be made in a range of sizes down to quite small, and being simple, can easily be operated on its own.

All it takes is a PEM (proton exchange membrane), which is a thin layer of plastic that allows protons (hydrogen ions (or nuclei)) to pass through, but block electrons, making them go around in the external circuit. There is a porous elctrode on each side of the membrane. Hydrogen makes its way through one electrode, giving up its electron to the elctrode, with the proton then passing through the membrane. At the other elecrode, oxygen from air flowing past, picks up electrons from the electrode and combines with the protons (hydrogen ions) coming through the membrane. The oxidation of hydrogen provides the energy, and since the electrons have to go around, they provide the electric current that is the desired end product.

That is about all there is to it, except that a catalyst must be added to get the reaction to go fast enough to get a usable current from a reasonable sized cell. That is a bit of a problem as it is usually platinum, which is rare and expensive, but it can be recycled as it currently is from catalytic converters on present day cars. Note there would be no catalytic converter, so the platinum now used would be available for the fuel cell, so it should be a wash. Also, recently, other catalysts using iron, cobalt, and nickel are showing promise, and they would be much less expensive.

The catch is that this only works with hydrogen. It works very well with hydrogen, but hydrogen is unique and nothing else can be used to replace it for a proton exchange fuel cell. You have to have hydrogen.

Hydrogen as a fuel is bad news. As a gas, even at high pressure, very little energy can be crammed into pressure bottles, giving a vehicle an unacceptably short range. This with the difficulty and downright danger of messing with high pressure when refueling makes gaseous hydrogen very unlikely to be an acceptable fuel. Liquid hydrogen would probably work for big trucks, which refuel only at a few places and use up their fuel so quickly there would be no venting problem, but for cars, it just wouldn't work to fool with a cryogenic liquid when refueling, then have most of it vent off as it evaporates upon warming up in even the best insulated tanks.
Not much point developing an infrastructure for trucks only and another for cars. Whatever cars use, trucks could use. I do not think we will ever see hydrogen distributed as a fuel for vehicles. Not within our lifetimes, if ever.

So what do we do about fuel? Current fuels can go through a "reformer", which is essentially a portable, on board, automatic chemical plant. It breaks down the fuel into hydrogen, which is sent to the fuel cell, and everything else, which goes out the exhaust pipe. The problem is that it is a complicated piece of machinery, just asking for a chance to cause trouble. Some of the reactions require careful control of conditions, such as temperature and pressure. Water is needed and can be a problem on start up on a cold day as ice just won't work. All of this stuff is much better left to a big chemical plant ran by trained people and with the means of closely controlling conditions. Besides, a reformer is likely to be just as polluting, or more so, than an ICE, and probably no more efficient.

Much, much better to prepare a simple fuel at a chemical plant or refinery, then distribute it to be used in vehicles, with as little as possible further chemistry.

I think the hands down choice for fuel will be methanol. Not ethanol, defintely not gasoline.
First consider gasoline. It has served us well and is an energetic fuel. By volumn, ethanol only has about 70% the energy of gasoline, and methanol only about 60%. This energy is readily available by oxidizing, burning it, but not so in a fuel cell. Most of the energy in gasoline is from the carbon, and that is useless in a proton exchange fuel cell. If you run gasoline through a reformer, you do not get much hydrogen, and you waste a lot of energy getting rid of all that carbon. A much better process would be to run it through a refinery where hydrogen could be added and it converted to methanol. Of course you could just convert the crude oil to methanol in the first place.

Ethanol is all the rage now. The president went to Brazil, among other things, to arrange for imports of ethanol to make up the additional we will need to meet the government's mandate to add 10% ethanol to all gasoline. Amazing, we are going to reduce our dependance upon foreign oil by increasing our dependance upon foreign ethanol! And at the same time, will have to put up with soaring food prices. I am amazed at how easy it is to sell snake oil when you have the national media and a bunch of environmentalists behind you.

Ethanol is not a bad fuel. It just needs to be produced from such things as switch grass or old newspapers, not corn. Corn prices have now doubled and are expected to go up another 50% this year. Soybean prices are up, as are cotton futures as land is switched to corn. Ethanol can be used in a number of ways as a fuel, but I think the best thing to do with it is to convert it to methanol. C2H5OH + H20 -> 2 CH3OH. I don't know exactly how to do this, but any competent chemical engineer can probably do it with reasonable ease. Note that it would remove the energy loss distilling the ethanol and the final processing to remove water. You would only have to get it to a certain concentration, then use the water already with it, and produce anhydrous (neat) methanol. No further removal of water needed.

Why go to methanol? Well, ethanol can be used directly in a fuel cell, but with the carbon-carbon bond and a larger molecule, the reaction is a lot trickier and harder to control. If you don't watch out you will get all sorts of things instead of hydrogen, and to get anything, you need a temperature above the boiling point of water. That is tricky when you are using a water solution of alcohol. In short, although it is possible to use ethanol in a fuel cell, I don't think you are going to want all the trouble it will take. Anything heavier than ethanol is out of the question.
Now methanol. Not as simple as hydrogen, but doable. Not only doable, quite practical. You will need a bit higher temperature than pure hydrogen, but only about that of an ICE. In other words, probably too hot to sit on it, but no problem. With methanol, you can use a cell that is little different than the basic proton exchange cell. About all that is needed to be different is to handle a liquid fuel instead of a gas, and probably to recirculate it. You also may need some controlling and measuring devices.

How it works is rather simple. In the presence of the same catalysts, one molecule of methanol and one of water, will react, forming cabon dioxide and hydrogen, right there at the membrane. The hydrogen passes on through as usual, and the carbon dioxide has to be removed. CH3OH + H2O -> CO2 + 3H2. There is no need for a reformer as, in effect, the reforming is done at the membrane. A similar reaction can occure with ethanol, but it takes three times as much water, a much higher temperature, and you are likely to get all sorts of things instead of hydrogen. With methanol, this one desired reaction is about all that can occur, so there is no problem controlling it, and the lower temperature is managable.

The CO2 is rather harmless, as long as the concentration does not get high, and can be vented without bothering with an exhaust pipe, and the rest you could breath, it just being slightly humid air, a bit short on oxygen like at a bit higher altitude.

There is a catch. Water is needed. Equal amounts (by mole, meaning same number of molecules). If only the carbon dioxide is allowed to leave, then you must have exactly the right amount of each, or eventually, the one present in the greater amount will accumulate in the cell and block the flow of fuel, requiring the excess to be bled off to get the cell going again. What would probably work better would be to recirculate a bit of fuel. As it comes out of the cell, the CO2 could be allowed to bubble out, then the concentration could be measured and adjusted before it goes back in. The exact proportion would not be important. This would also allow neat fuel (no water) in the tank, with fuel and water being added to the recirculating portion as needed to keep its concentration approximately what it needs to be.

Water in the fuel would be no problem, it would just take up space in the tank and you would not want to pay methanol price for water. Methanol does absorb water (as does ethanol) and the fuel system has to be able to handle water without corroding. In addition, methanol is death on aluminum as it reacts with the oxide that normally protects aluminum.

So where do you get the water! A separate tank for it would add weight, expense, and bother, and bear in mind it needs to be pure water, not tap water with calcium carbonate, chlorine, and who knows what else. It would probably be better to recover it from the air side of the cell. Bear in mind that the oxidation of hydrogen produces water, three times as much as needed with the methanol. One third of this could be recovered and added as needed to the recirculating portion. Note that there would not be a freezing problem in cold weather as the recirculating portion would be enough to get it up and running and the temperature up before more water needed to be recovered, and it would not freeze because of the methanol. Remember methanol was used as antifreeze for cars before ethylene glycol.

I am not sure what it would take to recover this water. Obviously, a chilled surface could do it. You can see water dripping out of tail pipes in cold weather before it gets warmed up. A thermocouple cooler should work fine and could even be reversed for cold weather start up to prevent frosting before the temperature gets up. Ample electricty for it would be available, and the total energy needed by it should not be too great. They are cheap and reliable with no moving parts. Perhaps simply bubling the exhaust through the recirculating solution would add water fast enough. This would be something for the engineers to tend to.

Methanol is currently produced in rather large amounts. The environmentalists do not like it because it is mainly produced from petroleum (the methane in natural gas) and therefore is nonrenewable and adds to CO2 in the atmosphere. However, it can be produced in large and even larger quantities and without disrupting our food supply. Since it can be produced from biomass, production could be switched over as it becomes available, but in the meantime, we could get what we need. If the methane hydrates ever are tapped, it would be a natural to convert that gas to a liquid fuel for distribution.

Methanol can also be produced from coal, by the familiar reaction of coke and water to form synthesis gas, which with some more hydrogen can react to form methanol. We have lots of coal, and modern plants can use it with little pollution. The sulfur now is usually utilized to form fertilizer, rather than being released to the atmosphere. Currently, it can be produced for about a half dollar a gallon.

This clearly beats gasoline, which ethanol cannot do without the subsidy paid out of our taxes. Note that with the lower energy content and allowing for taxes and a bit for retailing, it is probably close to $2 a gallon equivalent, but that still beats gasoline on the average. Electricity from the grid can be used to produce hydrogen from water and that can then be reacted with CO2 to form methanol, which not only produces a usuable fuel, it gets rid of some of the CO2 that some people worry so much about.

Lots of it is used to make other chemicals, but a good deal is used as fuel already, being burned. It is the main ingredient in the fuel for glow plug engines for model airplanes and is often used as a racing fuel, as is also ethanol, though ethanol is being reduced. It has the desired property of being a single compound so every tank is the same, while gasoline, being a blend, can and does vary quite a bit. It also burns without smoke, unlike gasoline, which often produces a lot a smoke. In case of a fire on the race track, there is not nearly so much smoke obscuring the view of drivers. Water does not mix with gasoline, and if applied to a fire will just push the flaming gasoline around. Water disolves readily in methanol and will put out the fire as the energy to boil the water cools it below the igniton temperature. These advantages would also be appreciated on the public roads.

I conclude: I think the electric cars will start out with an ICE - motor generator, then switch to a direct methanol fuel cell. Methanol will replace gasoline as transportation fuel.

The Electric Car

The Electric Car
Fall 2006

The recent announcement by General Motors of their latest electric car, the Volt, to be sold under the Chevrolet brand name, is of great interest. It is just about what I have been waiting to see, and I believe is a far better way to go than the Toyota Prius that has caused a bit of a stir.
To understand electric cars, whether one of several forms of hybrid, or a pure electric, you need to consider present battery technology.

Batteries

Lead Acid
These were the first practical rechargable batteries and are the familiar ones in present day standard cars as they have been for the better part of century. They allow the use of an electric starter, still their most important use, and that allows the use of large engines, impractical to crank by hand. This has allowed most anyone to start up a car, leading to the great popularity of them.

The lead acid battery has one set of plates made of spongy lead and another set of spongy lead sulphide. They use sulphuric acid for an electrolyte. Right off, you can see they are not the nicest things to have around. Lead is of course poisonous, and the mining, refining, and even the recycling of lead is a real problem. I have seen a recycling plant that was shut down because some lead was getting loose and contaminating the surrounding area. Sulphuric acid is unpleasant stuff to get on you or your clothes, or even on metal in the engine compartment. You used to have to add distilled water to the cells at fairly frequent intervals to make up for evaporation, but sealed batteries have pretty well taken care of that.

Lead is of course heavy. You might even say it is heavy as lead. The battery does not store much energy, and although it can deliver and recharge rapidly enough to make it useable, it is not outstanding. It also can only go through so many recharge cycles before the plates harden and it no longer can take a charge, requiring replacement. The lead can be recycled, but that is expensive and can cause pollution.

This is a mature technology (should be after nearly a century), the price is fairly reasonable, and the batteries are adequate for the needs of starting an engine and providing for electrical accessories until the engine is started. They will probably be around for a time, perhaps a long time.

NiCad
Nickel cadmium was the next step. These were sealed batteries and stored about twice the energy of lead acid. They were lighter. Unfortunately, they had a serious "memory" problem: if not fully discharged before recharging, they would not discharge past that point next time. NiCad batteries quickly went bad. Also, both cadmium and nickel are toxic.

NiMH
Nickel - Metal Hydride was the next step. They just about doubled the NiCad, or about 4 times the lead acid. They have a bit of the memory problem, but by charging for a long time, they can be pushed back to a full charge. They are still widely used in such things as cell phones. Their biggest problem is the nickel. Not only is nickel toxic, it is not plentiful and is needed for such things as stainless steel. It will remain limited and expensive, and NiMH batteries will always remain expensive and available only in limited sizes and amounts.

Lion
Lithium ion was the next step. They just about doubled the NiMH, or about 8 times the lead acid. Only a small amount of lithium is needed for the ions, the electrodes are made of various things. Lithium is non-toxic, and is even a trace substance apparently needed by humans. It is widely available and adds very little cost to the batteries, the electrode material and fabrication are the cost. Lithium is extremely light, but that is of no importance since so little is used, however the lithium ion batteries tend to be light. They have no "memory" problem and can often be recharged remarkably rapidly. They can be recharged many times before going bad and needing replacing.

As you can see, lithium ion has the makings of the ideal battery. However, there are a few catches. Mainly they can overheat if abused, sometimes even starting a fire or exploding. Part of this is a result of all that energy they are storing. If ever let loose suddenly, something bad will happen. Like a tightly wound spring let loose, or a tank of gasoline set on fire, all that energy suddenly released could be unpleasant.

They also can be ruined by discharging too far. They have to have logic circuitry either in the battery itself, or in the equipment using them, to control charge and discharge.

Advanced Lion
Something that can be called advanced lithium ion is being activly developed by a number of businesses. They are about doubling the Lion, or about 15 times the lead acid. They are fixing some of the problems with the origional Lion, and these are probably the batteries of the future, especially for electric cars. They can be fabricated in all sorts of sizes and shapes, which can be a real advantage to the design of the devices to use them as a large "battery compartment" does not have to be provided to fit whatever the battery is like. Instead, a battery can be designed to fit into whatever shaped space is available. The batteries do not need a strong case to confine the electrodes under pressure, saving weight and volumn.

History
Everyone knows that dumb old hide bound GM ignored hybrids and let inovative Toyota eat their lunch with the Prius hybrid. Some remembered that GM brought out an electric car, the EV1 back about 10 years ago, but then killed it to show it couldn't be done, so they could go back to the gas guzzlers. There is even a documentary movie out on it. Of course all this appeals to the people who are convinced that someone invented a carburator that would give a car 100 mpg, but a big oil company bought him out and quietly disposed of it.

They don't seem to remember what went on a mere 10 years ago.

California, long on dreamers and short on realists, passed a requirement that 2% of cars sold in California had to have zero emissions. An all electric car is the only way to get clear down to zero. General Motors spent a half billion of their own money (and another half billion of government (i.e. your) money) developing and producing a workable zero emission electric car. They were the ONLY manufacturor to do so. It was a bit expensive and not really practical yet, but was workable and met the requirement.

The others got California to change the rules, to the benefit of the gas/electric hybrids they had about ready, catching GM flat footed. With no advantage to the zero emission car, and it being a bit too expensive for the numbers, GM dropped it. A good part of the reason for calling them all back in (all 800 were leased) and scrapping them was the liability the government would hit GM with if anything went wrong with them. There was also the high per unit expense of supplying parts and service for so few vehicles, but the liability was the big killer.

Do you realize Piper has to raise prices on new aircraft to finance liability on the Piper Cubs built back in the 30's, long before applicable standards were laid down? GM did the right thing getting rid of 800 cars.

For all the hype about these great cars being taken away from people who really liked them, the cars were not all that good. They used lead acid batteries and only had a 50-75 mile range, and with no on board recharging plant (they were pure battery electric), they had what I consider to be a fatal flaw, of what amounts to a break down if you exceed the battery capacitiy. If you decided to swing by a super market, or if you got home late and didn't get a full charge, you could run out on the road. Then what could you do? You could not go get a can of gas. It might take an awfully long extention cord to reach a plug in. Likely you would have to be towed. That is expensive. An on board recharging plant makes all the difference.

People liked how quiet they were. They were so clean aerodynamically that there was not even any wind noise at speed. You just heard a bit of tire hum. They were nice cars and a good first effort, but they were not practical.

Although GM killed the EV1, they did not pitch the reasearch and technology developed, and they did not get rid of the people. All this was simply switched to a new effort. They were passed by the parallel hybrids, which Toyota is pushing and I don't like, but they may be about to push ahead with a design I think beats the Prius hands down.

It is all up to the batteries. The car and the other technology is there and GM has designated two suppliers to produce the batteries. If they can come through, there will soon be a car available that I think will be long remembered.

General Motors has not been sitting around with their heads in the sand, they have been working on hydrogen and hydrogen fuel cells. These fuel cells are especially interesting since if they can pull off a practical design, this will have far reaching effects. The biggest managment mistakes I think GM has made has been to give in too easily to union demands, especially for retirement pensions. The system was quite workable with few retirees and a lot of workers, and while GM had lots of money, it was easier than fighting the union and putting up with strikes. Now they are saddled with way too many retirees and too few workers and money is harder to come by. It is costing about $1500 per vehicle today just to cover the pensions. The Japanese do not have these costs and it is a big advantage.

The Competition
The Toyota Prius is so sucessful that it cannot be kept in showrooms. There are people waiting weeks for it. And what do they get? It is a parallel gasoline/electric hybrid. That means it has an ICE (internal combustion engine) and an electric motor operated together to provide the power to drive the car. The output of each goes to a "power splitter", actually a power merger, that then drives the transmission through the differential to the wheels. You basically have a standard car in which the engine has been replaced by an engine - motor pair whose power is combined to act much like a conventional engine would.

In addition to the electric motor, there is a generator on the engine, and a sizeable NiMH battery. The battery is used only as a sort of accumulator, to hold a bit of excess energy until it is needed. The generator replenishes it whenever the engine is producing more than needed. In practice, the engine is running just about all the time, the electrical part simply buffering the output to meet changing demand. This allows a smaller engine running at a more efficient speed.
Really what you have is a gasoline internal combustion vehicle with electric buffering. It does get about 40 mile to the gallon on the highway, and fairly good in city. What it costs is a great deal of extra complexity including more machined parts which mean irreducable expense, wear, and reduced reliability. You have the usual transmission, differential, and ICE. In addition you have a power splitter, which is much like another differential. You also have a large generator, a large motor, and a moderate battery. Note that the NiMH battery cannot have its price reduced much, and its storage is only about 1/4 the advanced lithium ion batteries, but I suppose Toyota could eventually upgrade.

The operation is complicated. There are many indicators on the instrument panel, and you pretty well have to keep the manual in reach to figure out what you are supposed to do. I suppose it can be as much fun as operating an airplane, if you are in the mood for a challenge, but if you just want to drive from here to there, it is not my idea of proper trqansportation.

The Car
Details are still a bit sketchy at present, but this is what I have turned up. The Volt will be under the Chevrolet brand. It is a 4 place plug in serial ICE/electric hybrid. What all this means is that it is basically a pure electric with an on board ICE recharging plant. As such it is simple and straight forward. It has a large advanced lithium ion battery that will hold enough charge for about 40 miles, and can be recharged from a standard 110 volt outlet in about 6.5 hours. As a result, for anyone living within 20 miles of work (78%) and who have access to an outlet (such as a garage), it can be operated indefinitely as a pure electric and not use a drop of fuel.

If there is a need to run some errand or it was not fully charged, no problem. As soon as the battery gets low enough, a 3 cylinder 1.0 liter ICE will start and work on recharging the battery. It has sufficient output to meet the average requiremnents of highway driving, so the car can be driven non-stop until the tank is empty. With a 12 gallon tank and 50 mpg under those conditions, that is 600 miles beyond the 40, a total of 640 miles. If you want to go farther, just stop for gas now and then as you do with a standard car.

Note that the 50 mpg is for highway travel. For a hybrid this is the low one. They are higher in cities because of lower speeds and none of the losses starting and stoping and waiting on lights that cause standard cars to get lower in the city. The Volt may get 60 or more in city driving; it has not been announced.

For diesel, a different engine would be needed because the compression ratio needs to be a good deal higher. For hydrogen, a change to the fuel system and carburation would be needed, but the basic engine would be the same. For ethanol or gasoline, the engine computer could handle any mix with the standard engine.

For someone who has no garage, recharging from an outlet might be a problem, but with 50 mpg in a simple dependable vehicle, people would probably buy it and run it only on fuel. The plug in ability could cut energy costs to maybe 1/4 depending upon gasoline prices, so it would be desireable. Maybe metered plug ins could be provided. Assigned parking at work could allow charging by day instead of by night. An extention cord with one end inside where it could be unplugged, could be ran out to the curb beside your walk, to an all weather outlet.

The car seems to have a single motor, probably a motor/generator as I can't imagine them not using regenerative braking. That would imply a differential and probably CV joints. I would prefer the motor/generators in the drive wheels, but I realize there are engineering problems and it is simpler to go with what you have. A pair of motors, one for each wheel, would remove the need for a differential, and would give positive traction. Maybe some day. In the meantime you are at least getting rid of the transmission. The battery weighs 400 pounds and seems to be mainly in a ridge down the middle of the floor where the exhaust pipe usually runs these days. The ICE is up front, probably with the motor, leaving the trunk available for luggage.

Note that the car is no more complicated than a standard one. You gain two motor/generators and a battery, but get rid of a transmission. Operation would be simpler than a standard. Just turn on the key, select direction, release parking, and drive.

Top speed is 120 mph, which is excessive. I would prefer 80 with a range of 50. There seems to be a need to convince everyone that an electric car is really high performance. I suppose it is a left over perception that they are sluggish. The origional ones were, but that was a century ago. Current electric cars, using better motors and far better batteries, have whatever performance you want to pay for, much as for an ICE.

One of the exciting things about this is getting energy from the grid, which is easy since we have a lot of coal, instead of from fuel, which basically means oil, with all the problems there. Another is the efficiency, and the lower energy costs. Perhaps the most exciting is the possiibilities opened up by hydrogen. GM apparently is very interested in hydrogen. Simply replace the gas tank with something suitable for hydrogen, and probably the fuel line and carburation, and you can run this thing on hydrogen, burning it for fuel. Or, and this would really be great, throw away the recharging plant, both the ICE and motor/generator, and replace it with a hydrogen fuel cell. Now you have an even simpler and probably cheaper car, and it is essentially zero emission, as a hydrogen fuel cell only puts out water and electricity. The hydrogen fuel cell is the easiest of the fuel cells to work, and GM is known to be working on them.

It is all up to the batteries. Many outfits are working on them so I think they are coming, and when they do, this car is going to be a real winner. The cost of the battery will be sky high at first, but should come down soon. Look what is already happening with the big HD TV screens. The first box of floppy disks I bought cost $5 per diskette. The price was down to about 0.25 on the last ones I bought. The car is expected to be introduced at about $20-30,000.