There’s good news and bad news. Good news first?

For Owners or Prospective Electric Car Owners
“AeroVironment announced that it performed a fast charge demonstration of a lithium chemistry electric vehicle battery pack. The 35kWh (kilowatt-hour) battery pack, designed to allow the truck to travel more than 100 miles on a single charge, showed the capability of being fully charged in less than ten minutes.”

How do you like them apples? I swiped that paragraph from Tom Whipple. I found it on www.energybulletin.net.

I asked google to find me the firm. No problem. The key to the whole thing seemed to be the high-tech battery charging units, which they claim have qualities you’ve never even heard of.

For Bike Lovers
In the same article Tom noted that the Chinese sold between sixteen and eighteen million electric bikes last year. Verrry interesting. An old guy like me might want to look into something like that. Two problems around here: what to do with it when I’m at home (don’t have adequate garage space) and how to get across the river. In this town, there are five bridges for bikes/pedestrians, and four for motor vehicles (one of them being I-5) Can’t use a motoriized vehicle on the bike bridges and I’d be scared to death trying to compete with the SUVs on the other bridges.

I’ve never seen an electric bike but my son has. He’s very much a two wheel buff. Said you just twist the handle and silently glide away. Neat. I asked the local bike dealer about them. He gave me a brochure from an English firm called “EGO”. Or perhaps “E-GO” Further information on the internet at www.egovehicles.com The dealer was knowledgeable. He described to me a number of three wheelers that had been outfitted with batteries and electric motors. Also verrrry interesting.

The Price of Gas
In the sorta pretty good news the 6/12 Register Guard business pages carried a story on gasoline consumption in the Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Seems on a per-capita basis we’ve decreased miles driven by about ten percent over the past few years. But there’s a lot more of those capitas nowadays.

In the same article they noted a family of five in Bellingham that, faced with a substantial repair bill on their ten year old Ford Explorer, wondered if maybe they couldn’t get along without it. He’s taken to biking to work, she walks whenever possible and rides a bus otherwise. The kids, six to ten, take the school bus. They think they can get along without the Ford. I have to wonder how they manage to bring home the heavy stuff. A week’s groceries for the gang meets that criteria. When I was a kid – Great Depression – grocers delivered. One thing’s certain – the family has thousands of dollars annually to use for something else.

In the Not-So-Good News
Ethanol
Ethanol producers are taking 52 percent more of the corn crop this year than last. The shortage of animal feed is leading to substantial increases in dairy products. What’s behind this crazy scene? I read someplace, and carelessly failed to note the exact number or where it came from, but it said that a subsidy of, if I remember correctly, $1.69 or 1.79 is awarded for each gallon of ethanol produced. Small wonder producers are glad to supply the stuff. Doesn’t matter whether you use it in your gas tank, or operate a vehicle at all. As a taxpayer it’s your tab. Governor Schwarzenegger in California has just signed a bill requiring all gasoline sold in that state to contain 10 percent ethanol.

Meanwhile, the internet is full of anti-ethanol material. Most recently a blast that says E85 can’t be shipped — the components have to travel separately because of the attraction between ethanol and water. And reports of serious equipment problems due to the corrosive effects of ethanol on engine parts.

Science Magazine, IPCC and Al Gore
When I noticed the June 9 magazine cover, I wondered if they were already on top of what the Global Carbon Project said only very recently and were reacting. Nope, that’s not what it was about. It was based in large part on minority voices like Dr. James Hansen, Administrator of the Goddard Space Institute, who have been saying all along that the sometimes reassuring voices promising that we have plenty of time in which to change our habits are dead wrong. “Dead wrong,” is precisely the right term, according to Doctor Jim.

Not Good At All News
PG&E
Portland Gas & Electric announced the startup of a 400 mw natural gas fired generator. Oh, dear Lots of carbon dioxide.

Excerpted from Business Week, June 14, 2007
“The U.S. is completely unprepared for peak oil, as it’s called, and the wrenching adjustments it would entail could easily accelerate global warming as nations turn to coal (see www.BusinessWeek.com, 4/19/07, “Rx for Earth: Sooner Not Later”). Moreover, regardless of the implications for climate change, peak oil represents a mortal threat to the U.S. economy.”

In one way, at least, that could be sorta good news. If the business sector thinks maybe we should think about this maybe we will. If only they would do something about that “regardless” on climate change. It better not be thought of as something to be disregarded.

The Price of War
Total U.S. petroleum consumption is around 20 million barrels a day (840 million gallons/day). The U.S. effort in Iraq is consuming 3.5 million barrels a day. Add that to the thousands of American dead, the tens of thousands of Americans maimed in body or mind, add the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead, the millions maimed and the many millions fled, the nearly trillion dollars spent so far, and that’s a hefty price tag. For what? To kill Saddam? If it’s an oil grab, the numbers aren’t adding up. There is potential in Iraq but I think the monkey with a grip on the cookie in the jar can’t get his hand out and isn’t going to get the cookie ever. The possibility of American exploitation of Iraqi oil is rapidly slipping away, leaving the nation with only the dead and the bills.

In the Maybe Good News Department
A second solar cell silicon wafer maker, so far this year, is moving into Portland. There seems to be an enthusiastic response to the promise of solar conversion. Why the lack of total enthusiasm? The manufacture of silicon wafers utilizes some pretty awful toxic substances. A close and tight oversight scrutiny of these facilities can make it a safe procedure. The folks up in that end of the state might want to look to their safety at the ballot box by finding leaders who will hold regulator’s feet to the fire if they don’t do their job effectively.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 18th, 2007 at 6:52 am and is filed under Energy Future, Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.