Energywise

Anaheim, California--Thanks to everyone who's written in over the last couple of days. Below are two answers to reader questions I felt had broad interest. Keep 'em coming!

Q: I was wondering what the buzz was about around the show: Batteries, Capacitors, or Fuel Cells? Which ones are being touted as the long-term winner? Do any battery companies stand out? Are they showing any new products? -- Michael Short

A: As I noted this morning, much of the buzz is about plug-in hybrids, though several speakers warned that their promise is already over-hyped. Remember, less than 100 working plug-in hybrids now exist anywhere on the globe. Some attendees are surprised at the glossy displays of the "real" automakers exhibiting (Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Honda and Toyota).

No one's handicapping the many battery options, including several distinct chemistries for lithium-ion. (For a discussion of A123's iron nano-phosphate cells, see "Lithium Batteries Take to the Road".) But others marvel at the broad array of electric vehicles now offered for sale, from three- and four-wheeled low-speed vehicles to medium-duty urban delivery trucks. They're not garage conversions; they're real-world products from large companies sold at authorized dealers. And, said Efrain Ornelas of Pacific Gas & Electric in a well-attended lecture, in the near term, those medium- and heavy-duty commercial vehicles may offer the most convincing case for the benefits of plug-in hybrids.

Q: Is there any discussion or actual technology for vehicle-to-grid (V2G) interconnection being discussed or shown? I'm all for plug-in hybrids, but I'm hoping the automakers don't lock in too much on a "charge-only" standard (like there's any danger they'll lock in on a standard soon). -- Glenn Skutt

A: Oh yes. The concept of V2G permeates the conference, though few people agree on exactly what it means. Some go directly to the concept that utilities could use smart grid technology and intelligent meters to draw a small amount of energy from each of millions of grid-connected electric drive vehicles. Those vehicles could be recharged at night, when excess capacity is readily available, and owners could agree to make a small portion of their battery energy available at times of peak demand to let utilities meet the peak of their demand curve.

Others caution that such a vision is a couple of decades away. First, smart meters must be in place. Second, automakers and utilities must meet, learn to speak each others' languages, and agree on communications protocols for the information to be exchanged--and where and how metering and battery control actually happen. Cyriacus Beijs, of the French utility EDF, presented a paper on a simple, inexpensive, and universal communication protocol for identifying a charging vehicle to the utility--and asked the automakers in the crowd to help him make it a reality.

I'll be posting once or twice more from EVS-23. If anyone has specific issues they'd like me to explore, please contact me: J V [dot] spectrum [at] ieee [dot] org.

Anaheim, California--What a difference a year makes!

Yesterday, a Congressman spoke up from the floor at EVS--for the first time ever, said a startled moderator. It brought home just how much has changed in the world of electric vehicles. And how fast that has occurred.

This year's Electric Vehicle Symposium (EVS-23) saw more than 450 people spend all of Sunday at a workshop on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in the usual windowless hall. Automakers, electric utilities, regulators, and even lawmakers debated the complex issues involved in designing, building and selling vehicles with electric drive.

Oh, the Congressman? That was US Representative Jay Insley (D--Washington), who detailed a bill in the House to eliminate oil-industry tax benefits as one way to encourage development of electric vehicles. (He was also touting his new book, Apollo's Fire: Igniting America's Clean Energy Economy.)

To understand how far things have come, consider: A year ago, the Chevrolet Volt was unknown. It would have been breathtaking to learn that General Motors intended to build and sell a four-seat vehicle with a 40-mile electric range. A month later, at January's Detroit Auto Show, that very thing happened.

And consider: The demand for plug-in hybrids has exploded, far beyond the supply. Small conversion shops share information online, and charge a handful of customers $10,000 or more to enable them to plug in their Priuses to accept charge off the grid--extending its all-electric range from a mile to perhaps 10--was still far out on the radar.

Now, grumbled the City of Vancouver's Brian Beck, "I'm ready to change the building code to require electric plugs throughout parking garages, but automakers tell me I can't get their plug-in prototypes--so I have to look toward private conversion companies just so we can test plug-ins in our fleet."

And how many plug-in hybrids exist today, in the world? Less than 100.

The challenges of making electric-drive vehicles a reality are enormous. There have always been true believers, but when five major automakers come in with large, expensive displays on the exhibit floor--Ford, General Motors, Honda, Mercedes-Benz and Toyota--something real may be happening.

I'll be posting every day from EVS-23 from now through Wednesday. If anyone has specific issues they'd like me to explore, please contact me: J V [dot] spectrum [at] ieee [dot] org.

With representatives of virtually all the world's countries about to convene in Bali to discuss what should be done next to deal with climate change, two recent events are sure to affect the political chemistry. On 24 Nov., Australia elected a new government that has pledged to promptly ratify the Kyoto Protocol--the 1997 addendum to a 1992 treaty, which commits the advanced industries countries to collectively cut their emissions by about 5 percent by 2012, compared to 1990 levels. But just the day after the Australian election, Canada' prime minister told a Commonwealth meeting that Kyoto was a mistake that the world must never repeat.

Australia's ratification will leave the United States diplomatically isolated, as the only industrial country not to have ratified the Kyoto Protocol. But at least its negotiators will have some support from Canada's conservative leader, Stephen Harper. Speaking at the end of a Commonwealth meeting in Kampala, Uganda, he denounced the protocol for subjecting several dozen industrial countries to binding emissions targets, without holding countries with the fastest growing emissions--notably China and India--to similar targets. Harper promised that Canada will enter the Bali negotiations with a simple position: all major polluters must be included, or there will be no follow-on deal.

Canada, unlike its giant neighbor to the south, has ratified Kyoto. But the reasons for its recent change of heart are not hard to discern. Since 1990, despite its Kyoto commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 6 percent, its emissions have actually climbed by 25.3 percent. Those of the supposedly delinquent United States increased by 16.3, a very poor performance by global standards but considerably better than Canada's. This is an acutely embarrassing position for a country that likes to adopt an international attitude almost as high-minded as Sweden's.

Rather than apologize at Bali, Harper obviously decided to go on the offensive and say what he really believes. In the past Harper has described Kyoto as a "money sucking socialist scheme," according to Canadian press reports.

Australia's situation is quirkier. Before last week's election, the previous government was planning to go to Bali arguing that it was actually meeting its Kyoto target, despite its refusal to ratify the protocol. Because Australia's economy is so dependent on fossil energy, the country persuaded Kyoto negotiators to give it a 2012 target 8 percent higher than 1990 (making it just one of three countries to obtain such a dispensation). Then, according to two professors at Australian National University writing recently in the Canberra Times, Australia's negotiators also got the Kyoto conclave to take emissions changes resulting from modified land use into account. As it happened, for reasons entirely coincidental, Australia had just registered from 1990 to 1996 a 50 percent decrease in emissions associated with land clearing. This meant that Australia immediately inherited, upon finalization of the protocol, a net 6 percent decrease in emissions, relative to 1990.

Today, taking land use changes into account, Australia's emissions are just 6.3 percent higher than in 1990; without accounting for land, which is the more usual way of citing such numbers, the increase is 25.6 percent. Practically speaking, in terms of how Australia sees its record and what it can immediately accomplish, there's probably not much difference between the positions of the old and new governments. Symbolically and diplomatically, however, the significance of Australia's Kyoto switch will be immense. U.S. negotiators will arrive at Bali on the defensive--but taking some consolation, at least, that the sometimes self-righteous neighbor to the north is having second thoughts about the Kyoto scheme.

Greenpeace has updated its Guide to Greener Electronics just in time for a holiday shopping season in which more and more consumers are trying to shop green, that is, for environmentally friendly products. And Nintendo received the dubious distinction of being the first company ever to receive a perfect zero, putting it at the bottom of the rankings.

The organization looked at the top 18 manufacturers of personal computers, mobile phones, TVs, and games consoles and rated them in terms of their chemical policies and practice, including their efforts to phase out PVCs and brominated flame retardants; and their policies and practices on taking back and recycling their products. A perfect score is 10, calculated from a 30-point scale.

Top of the heap was Sony Ericsson, with a 7.7, up from second place thanks to its improved reporting of old mobile phones recycled. The company's products are due to be free of brominated flame retardants by January 1, and Sony Ericsson is clearing phthalates out of its product line as well. Samsung moved from eighth place to second,

also with a 7.7. Samsung has eliminated PVC from its LCD panels and is doing better on recycling.

Taking an embarrassing tumble from first to ninth is Nokia, with a 6.7. Greenpeace slapped Nokia with a penalty for corporate misbehavior on its recycling practices. Motorola also fell dramatically, from ninth place to fourteenth, also getting that misbehavior penalty. The company also has yet to announce a schedule for phasing out brominated flame retardants and PVCs from its entire product line. Apple edged up from eleventh to tenth after announcing that all new iMacs and many iPods are being sold with casings free of brominated flame retardants and that internal cables are PVC-free. And then there's Nintendo. Nintendo scored zero on every criteria. Greenpeace notes that this allows "infinite room for future improvement."

Top to bottom, the lineup looks like this: Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Sony, Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, LGE, Fujitsu-Siemens, Nokia, HP, Apple, Acer, Panasonic, Motorola, Sharp, Microsoft, Philips, and Nintendo. The detailed score charts and analyses are here.

The Sierra Club, Project 3650.org, and Pecos Pictures just got an Emmy for Public Service for the animated short, "Big Fun with Global Warming." (No, you didn't miss the ceremony on TV, the Academy hands out public service awards at a nice lunch, not at a televised extravaganza.) This is only the second time the Emmy organization gave out an award in the category of National Public Service Announcement/Broadband, that is, the cartoon never played on traditional television, but found its viewers over the Internet, cell phone, or other portable devices.

The video features "Stinky," a "nasty little office man" who thinks global warming is "a bunch of hooey." Check it out here.

Phthalates, a group of chemicals mixed into plastics to increase flexibility, are regulated in California. They are hormone disrupters, a particularly nasty thing for children or women planning to have children. Products containing phthlates have to post this:

WARNING: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.

And this month the California Governor signed a law that will completely ban phthalates from products intended for children. That law goes into effect in 2009. Such products are already illegal in San Francisco.

Enter the iPhone. Earlier this month Greenpeace published an analysis of the iPhone's internal and external components, and found all sorts of nasty things, including phthalates (check out this video).

Based on that report, the Center for Environmental Health gave Apple the required 60-day notice that it will be filing a lawsuit against the company; it's hoping to pressure Apple into a negotiated settlement that will reduce the use of the chemicals. Apple hasn't yet responded the Center, however, Apple reiterated its promise to clean up its products by the end of 2008 by removing brominated flame retardants and polyvinyl chloride, the plastic that contains the phthalates. (Nokia products are already PVC free, Motorola and Sony Ericsson have removed brominated flame retardants from their products.)

For now, don't let your kids get their hands on an iPhone.

The University of Delft's solar car raced across the finish line in Adelaide, having just driven 3000 kilometers across the Australian outback. The car was doing top speeds during the last two hours, maintaining a solid 110 kilometers per hour as they raced to beat the sunset. Traffic grew denser as the team entered the outskirts of Adelaide after five days in the desert, and the little race car routinely overtook regular traffic as it approached the end of what has been a long, dusty, and grueling journey.

It was a spectacular end to a very long day of driving. The team covered about 750 kilometers on Thursday, and lucky for them only one flat tire pulled them off the road for two minutes.

The previous day, a strong and continuous crosswind put extra stress on the left side of the car and damaged the suspension. That day, the team replaced four flat tires in the span of three hours, causing great concern among the car's young support crew, but a few hours of repair that evening seemed to have fixed the problems.

A team from Belgium, Umicore, and Aurora, an Australian team, are staggered about 30 to 40 minutes apart behind the Dutch car, Nuna, and are expected to arrive in Adelaide soon. A surprise finish is expected from the University of Michigan, whose solar car was damaged in a crash in Darwin mere minutes into the race. Rumor has it that the Michigan team is back in the top 6 cars, which would be a very impressive finish for a vehicle that was delayed one entire day from leaving Australia's Top End, as they stayed behind in Darwin to fix the panels and car body. It may even turn out that Michigan's car was the fastest on the road. But speed is just one component in solar car racing: strategy and luck are just as important.

In the middle of the desert, in the middle of Australia, in the middle of a race--a pause. This year, the organizers of the World Solar Challenge--in which solar cars from around the world gather at the top end of the continent to race 3000 kilometers to Australia's southern coast--ordered all the solar cars to park for a day in the small desert city of Alice Springs. With nerves running high and the solar-powered vehicles beginning to show the wear of 2 tough days of driving, the teams are forced to pause and patiently field a day's worth of media attention. After rugged days driving and camping in the outback, it's a bit unsettling to not be moving southward.

The race has been packed with drama, beginning at literally the starting line.

A Dutch team from the University of Delft, named Nuon after its main sponsor, has won the race ever since 2001 with its car Nuna, and the team is being closely watched to see if they can dominate once again under a news set of rules and vehicle requirements. But mere seconds before they were about to leave the starting line, Nuna's motor controller failed. As other cars pulled off the line and raced away, the young engineers from the University of Delft were dashing to and from their support vehicles, unpacking a spare motor controller and replacing parts at lightning speeds.

Half an hour later they were on the road.

Lucky for them, the race start is staggered to accommodate the 30+ vehicles that were heading down the road to Adelaide. Because the breakdown happened before their start time had officially come up, Nuna was simply pushed to the back of the line and they made up the lost time after 5 p.m., when all the other teams were expected to stop for the day. Instead of a total loss of time, it meant lots of tricky maneuvering to pass all the teams in front.

But the University of Michigan's vehicle, Continuum, had an even more traumatic start. Their solar car, which was touted as potentially the best design of the year, crashed into the car in front of it a few minutes past the starting line, crushing the front two rows of solar cells. The team was forced to pull out for the day to reshape the body and reconfigure the solar array to not use the damaged rows, and Michigan rejoined the race a day later, a 1000 kilometers behind the rest of the cars.

By the end of the first day, Nuon was trailing about 7 minutes behind Umicore, a Belgian team. In the second day, Nuon overtook Umicore as the Belgians dealt with a failing steering system:

It was a long haul on a bumpy road, with crosswinds strong enough to throw a normal vehicle off its course, potentially causing real trouble for the ultra-light, 200-kilogram solar cars. Nuon had to pull onto the shoulder of the highway twice, once to replace a tire that was completely worn down, and once to replace a broken shock damper. Here's a crew member sending Nuna back on the road:

The road itself is harsh enough, but there's more to this race than distance. First off, there's the road kill: One of Nuon's support cars drives up to an hour ahead to assess upcoming weather and road conditions, with a designated shoveler who does the dirty work of removing downed kangaroos from Nuna's path.

And road trains: The very long trucks, often pulling three trailers, can be wider than their lanes and generate a strong gust of wind as they pass, enough to blow the hatch open off the top of a solar car, as happened to one of Nuna's drivers.

And the dust devils: These upwellings of air, similar to small tornadoes, stir up dust and debris and can slam into passing vehicles with surprising force.

So after a day of showers and battery-charging in Alice Springs, the teams will put their solar cars back on the road Wednesday morning and, if all goes well, reach Adelaide in two days.

The Bush administration and advocates of its policy of not making the United States subject to binding restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions have been having some fun lately with the most recent data on European and U.S. emissions. Statistics released by the International Energy Agency, Paris, and the Bonn secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), which administers the Kyoto Protocol, indicate that since the year 2000 U.S. emissions have gone up less than Europe's. This would seem to show, argue the Bush administration's supporters, that it doesn't actually make any positive difference whether one ratifies Kyoto or doesn't.

"Since 2000, emissions of carbon dioxide have been growing more rapidly in Europe, with all its capping and yapping, than in the U.S., where there has been minimal government intervention so far," wrote Kyle Wingfield, an editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal Europe, in a typical anti-Kyoto column. "As of 2005, we're talking about a 3.8 percent rise in the Europe-15 versus a 2.5 percent increased in the U.S. according to statistics from the United Nations."

Wingfield's numbers are about right, as far as they go, but they also are incomplete and misleading, unless treated with considerable care. The most recent UNFCCC numbers posted on its website are for 2004, and they show that E-15 emissions rose 2.3 percent from 2000 to 2004, while U.S. emissions rose 1.3 percent in the same period. The same data set also shows, however--and this is a big however--that the E-15 emissions in 2004 were 0.8 percent lower than in 1990, the Kyoto baseyear, while U.S. 2004 emissions were 15.8 percent higher. Thus, looked at in the broader timeframe, the European countries can be seen as making real progress toward achieving their required 8 percent reduction in emissions by 2012, while the United States has been moving in the opposite direction from what Kyoto would have required of it, had it ratified the protocol--a 7 percent reduction.

What is more, the numbers for the European countries that have been doing the most yapping and capping, to borrow the Wall Street Journal's language, look positive even in the recent narrow time-frame, from their point of view. The United Kingdom's emissions decreased 1 percent from 2000 to 2004, and Germany's by 0.8 percent. France, which is a very low-carbon country to begin with because of its many nuclear reactors and its sky-high gasoline taxes, saw its greenhouse gas emissions go up just 0.2 percent in the first four years of this century. That's less than a sixth as much as the United States, whose per capita carbon emissions are about twice as high.

There are only 18 hours left before the World Solar Challenge begins in Darwin, Australia. The teams participating in this epic engineering competition will set out at 8 a.m. tomorrow for the city of Adelaide 3000 kilometers away, and the drivers are about to be subjected to some brutal heat inside their solar cars.

It can get as hot as 40 degrees Celsius inside the cars, so the drivers will face a formidable challenge just staying hydrated and comfortable. To deal with the centimeters of accumulated sweat contributed by its drivers, for example, Nuna's designers (from the University of Delft, in The Netherlands) added a special sweat channel to drain out as it accumulates. A thoughtful touch, indeed, but perhaps a sign that these vehicles aren't ready for mass production.

As this correspondent left the race track this morning, it appeared likely that the Aurora Vehicle Association, from Melbourne, had snagged pole position, with a qualifying lap time one second faster than Nuna's. The University of Michigan team came in twenty seconds behind the two, but there's a consensus that the Midwesterners are the ones to watch this year. Check out the nifty concentrator system embedded in the lid of their car. This might be the first time that a mirror concentrator design has been built into a solar car, and we're excited to see how it fares.

Aurora's team leaders don't expect they'll win--they've had a singularly rough year--but chances are good that they'll finish in the top 10. This storied team has been participating in the race since the very beginning. They last won the competition in 1999 and came in second two years ago, the last time the race was held. But some 15 months ago the solar car went up in flames while it was on tour in Spain, and it was so completely demolished that the team never determined the cause of the fire.

That's quite a blow for any team, and Aurora hasn't been blessed with as much sponsorship as some other teams have. So with the loss of the car, the engineers had no components they could recycle in a new entry. Despite cutting a few corners to build a cheaper car--such as choosing silicon solar cells, rather than top-of-the-line gallium arsenide ones--they've put together what's turned out to be a pretty sharp vehicle.

Here are some more photos from the track, which sort of resembled a UFO convention. It's been an exhausting journey for everyone here.

This is the German vehicle--a unique form that the designers expect to be extremely aerodynamic. Instead of a lid that fully detaches, as most cars here have, this one opens and closes on hinges. Here it is with the lid closed, looking rather fish-like.

And some more cars...

The next reports will all come from straight from the Australian outback!