Electric Cars get Real in Israel (or, Shai Agassi Strikes Again !!!)

First, a statement of the obvious: Israel is not the United States. While gas here is high at $3 a gallon, it is well over $6 there. And another thing: the distances between its major cities can be measured in the dozens of miles, vs. our hundreds or thousands of miles.

So guess what? One way the two countries are very much alike is in their entrepreneurial spirit, and (depending on who's in charge) their support for bold new ideas and innovation. See today's NYT article about Israel's bold plan to move rapidly to electric cars and infrastructure. And for a little more detail on the young businessman/entrepreneur behind it all, see this recent Discovery Tech post on former SAP VP Shai Agassi.

You got to like it when our friends show us the way.

SO-LARge !!!

Cover of this month's Scientific American promotes a feature article on an all-solar solution to the majority of our indeed dire energy woes. Its primary thrusts are (1) using tolerably small parts of the southwest USA that receive 100 mega shiteloads of solar radiation every second, and (2) building out a DC based electricity distribution system to get the power from there to here ... and everyplace else it's needed. Objectives/benefits would be we'd free ourselves of depending on other countries to feed our energy appetite, we'd radically reduce global warming emissions, and we'd have millions of new jobs. There's a lot of detail here, and even more is referenced if you want to do a deep dive. The overall premise warmed my heart.

Power 2030

The American Institute of Architects intends carbon neutral buildings by 2030. Why not look at every building, the vast acreage and surface area this entails, as the opportunity to produce power (not just be "carbon neutral")? Every new building a Power Plant by 2030. Produce clean power in abundance at the point of consumption. Be carbon negative.

The goal of creating power is ambitious and captures the imagination, as compared to the more middling objective of neutralizing carbon emissions.

PowerSheet My Plug In

Gizmodo's report of the already-on-the-market, cost competitive, put-it-anywhere Nanosolar Powersheet pictured above conjures visions of hundreds of PowerSheet skinned cars soaking up a little sunshine during peak power so they can send some back to the building from their plugged in parking spots.

Pimp my building.
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The Oil for Wind Program

If the energy bill passed by the House (but not the Senate) would have drawn down $13.5B over ten years in oil industry subsidies, and assuming you could frictionlessly redeploy this money, what could you buy? Follow this simple, klunky math to gauge the magnitude of $13.5B:


Subsidies forgone by the oil industry in the failed energy bill: $13,500,000,000 over ten years

If it cost $1M to build a 1 MW wind turbine,

You could buy 13,500 wind turbines outright, or,

If you subsidized 25% of wind turbines' construction cost

Then 13,500 turbines x 4 (representing the 25% subsidy): 54,000 turbines

Since 1 GW = 1,000 MW

New wind power created: 54 GW

Current US Renewable Nameplate Capacity: 26.5 GW

So you could more than double US renewable energy capacity by 2018. Since wind competes on cost with other power sources on occasion now, a 25 percent subsidy ought to make wind consistently, broadly competitive.

Sure, these calcs might be simplistic and hurried, but they're intended to serve as a ten minute assessment of the opportunity to buy the future instead of simply continuing to dole out for what the future used to be. Transform the oil subsidy into the wind subsidy. The Oil for Wind Program.

Quote of the Day

“One of the top 10 pleasures in life is watching your electrical meter go backward."

-- Marc Schambers, California residential wind turbine owner/operator

Wind turbines for homes becoming increasingly affordable in many US states. From article today in the gardening section of the NYT.

Far Out Energy Storage

Storage of energy, like storage of data in the computer world, isn't the sexiest topic on the planet. Re: a recent PowrTalk article on using gajillions of plugged-in Car batteries to to smooth out capacity, this C|Net article raises the specter of some way out-of-box approaches. Think: super batteries, compressed air (titillating image to the right is one of these new compressors ... try to contain yourself !!!). But wait there's more: putting the compressed air in natural underground structures - aka caves. And mega flywheels. Energy created when wind is blowing and the sun is shining that's not used immediately, needs to be stored for use at night and when the winds die down. As solar, wind and wave tech gets better and better, and especially when they start to put coal and oil out of business, this is going to be an increasingly important function. In fact, a la chicken and the egg, the storage issue needs to be solved long before alt-e will be able to go mainstream.

Ford Plugs In

Highlights from Ford's delivery of 20 Escape Plug Ins to electric utility Southern California Edison:

• the Escape Plug In can get 120 mpg


• Ford and So Cal are looking at business models to exploit the Plug In's connection to the home and, in time, the electrical grid


• they're also looking at ways to make Plug Ins more affordable

Buffer Cars

Okay, to the Car+ Building posts below, add the thought that plug in hybrids (or electric cars), could act as a buffers to the electrical grid, giving it a place to store surplus power, and then to draw that power to respond to surges or increases in demand. This buffering service could reduce our need for the most expensive, and dirtiest "peaker" power plants, and make the intermittency of wind and solar less of an issue. What's more, vehicle owners might be paid for the buffering service (in addition to the deep discount on their motoring energy costs). See this NewScientistTech article or some thoughts on V2G (vehicle to grid) from the Rocky Mountain Institute.

A little dowry for the building/car marriage.