Hybrid Living

MetaEfficient is on vacation. This week, I’ve managed to travel around town and to the beach by bike. I’ve also been reading A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander — this 1200-page tome is good to read in a hammock. I would like to optimize this house and this town, based on their principles.

© Justin Thomas [...]

Battery manufacturer Ener1 just announced that they’re foreseeing an 50% drop in the price of lithium ion batteries as production increases. Where exactly this price drop will be coming from, we’re not sure.

A couple of statements indicate that a lot of it will come simply from scaling up manufacturing, and that it won’t happen until their dealing in hundreds of thousands of units. But they’re also indicating that demand isn’t likely to do anything but increase exponentially. Of course, that’s what they hope, and it’s my personal opinion as well. But it’s certainly not guaranteed.

Ener1 has also stated that they are expecting two new development deals this year. They already provide the lithium ion batteries for Think‘s City Car in Europe. But the CEO is promising that these deals will be with much larger car companies. And though GM and Toyota already have their Li-ion suppliers lined up (Toyota will probably be building it’s own,) there are an awful lot of car companies that still aren’t sure how they’re going to break into the lithium ion powered future.

Lastly, according to their calculations, this 50% reduction in li-ion battery cost will translate to a significant reduction in the cost of hybrid vehicles. They’re expecting, in fact, that the time it takes for hybrids to pay for themselves will drop from 7 to around 2 years. 

It’s pretty likely that every new car on the road will have a lithium ion battery pack in it in a mere ten years. So I expect that their vision for increased demand isn’t unwarranted. Whether there are some unseen bumps in the road, however, is an entirely different matter. But if these prices do drop the way Ener1 says they will, then the world is going to be a cleaner and more electrified place pretty soon.

Via The Guardian

Geothermal power is getting a closer look from several directions. These new studies are based on "hot rocks" at temperatures of around 150 degrees C (about 300 degrees F) that can be reached by drilling a couple of miles into the earth’s crust. This is a much more involved approach than dealing with surface or near-surface geothermal activity, as is used for much of Iceland’s power generation.

Google, which has an interest in affordable power to run its growing numbers of server farms, is heavily investing (through Google.org) in research into the development of geothermal power. In the US, Google is the largest funding source for geothermal research.

At the same time, the Australian government is investing nearly four times as much as Google to develop geothermal power for Australia. "An Australian Geothermal Energy Association report this week forecast it could potentially produce 2,200 megawatts of baseload power by 2020, adding that represented up to 40 percent of Australia’s 2020 renewable energy target."

MIT scientists estimate that the US could develop 100 gigawatts of generating capacity from geothermal over the next 40 years at a cost of US$1 billion. The Australians’ timetable is much more aggressive, and comes with a higher price tag. "The association estimated A$12 billion would need to be invested to develop the 2,200 megawatts of power, but added the cost of generating electricity would fall to acceptable levels by the time commercial projects were up and running."

The amount of energy that could be generated from geothermal power is potentially huge. The Australian group estimates that just 1 percent of the country’s geothermal capacity could provide 26,000 years worth of clean electricity.

Links: Scientific American, Planet Ark

We have been talking much about solar. Let us now try to shift from that and go with this story from Pennsylvania. See, in Vandergrift, that is where you would find the river Kiskiminetas. And from this river, officials of the area are looking at using this as a good source of electricity. How will [...]

OK, I’m officially sick of it. Let’s stop talking about changing our world by changing your light bulbs. There are a few reasons why people tell you that switching from incandescents to CFLs should be done, and they’re all crap reasons. I’m tired of it.

First, they’ll tell you that 22% of America’s energy is eaten up by light bulbs. And that, absolutely, is true. But the majority of that 22% has nothing to do with household lighting. It’s streetlights, supermarkets and other businesses that gulp down the majority of lighting energy.

But mostly, that’s not what bothers me about these "campaigns". More than anything, I’m sick of pretending like we can solve the energy crisis by asking people to make decisions that are counter to their interest.

We will never significantly reduce our energy use in this country by asking nicely. If you tell someone "Save the planet, change your light bulb" you’ll be lucky to get a 20% action rate. But if you say "save $200 per year, change your light bulbs" you’re suddenly on the right side of every argument.

That’s why I believe in EcoGeek’s mission. Because I can see throughout history technology leading positive change. Whether it’s the freedom of expression heralded first by the printing press and then by the internet, or the bicycle bringing freedom and mobility to oppressed women, or digital downloading completely revolutionizing and negating copyright law.

It’s not about asking people to choose, it’s giving them a better choice. If you build a light bulb that’s cheaper to buy, cheaper to run, has better light quality, and works exactly the same, people won’t be choosing a better technology, they’ll be choosing the only technology left.

That’s what EcoGeek is here for, to talk about those technologies as they arise, whether it’s a new light bulb that actually will make a difference (because it’s for large-scale business application) or a new car that you’ll only need to fill up a couple of times per year. We don’t talk about why you should adopt a new technology, we talk about why you’ll want to.

Oklahoma Gas and Electric is getting on board with the inevitable – smart grids. They’ve paired up with Greenbox Technology and Silver Spring Networks to provide an interactive energy management platform for users.

The program uses a web-based interface to help users manage their energy consumption, and cut their bills down through tracking habits and conservation. While not that different from the many programs we’ve seen lately, Greenbox is pretty cool in that it sends users email reports and alerts about what’s going on in their home, educating them about pricing, historical trends, and making the whole concept very user friendly. They interface with Silver Spring Networks, which supports all the applications Greenbox utilizes.

The hand-holding of Greenbox, Silver Sling Networks and OG&E underscores all the happy connections different agencies have to make to get something like a smart grid up and running – a really, really tough thing to do. The program is a bit of a trial run, and will be the guinea pig for larger scale deployment of smart grid programs. Hopefully, it works smoothy, and we can see some set-ups happening on a national scale.

Via Greenbox

OK, well, now we know the two folks who will be vying for the vice presidency. So it’s time to do a little bit of analysis on who is a stronger environmental technology candidate.

Joe Biden: Strong supporter of "energy independence" with a focus on biofuels. And, if Obama’s speech last night was any indication that will be "second generation" biofuels. I.E. not food based.

In general Joe has a good voting record with the League of Conservation Voters (who keeps tabs on these things) with an over all score of 83 out of 100.

Sarah Palin: Doesn’t have a record at all with the LCV, since she’s been in politics for only a few years. But despite being a hunter and angler (the only reasons to be a conservationist in Alaska) she’s pro mining, pro drilling, pro pipeline and pro big oil.

OK, so this actually wasn’t a very interesting article, but I figured we’d write it anyway. If there’s any real clear picture here, it’s that Obama wanted a foreign policy guy, and McCain wanted a young "agent of change." Though what that change precisely is, I’m quite frightened to consider.

Good news for New Mexico. Raser Technologies is beginning construction of the state’s first geothermal power project.

Phase one will put out 10 MW starting in early 2009, with phase two expanding that output to 20-25 MW – a fair amount of electricity for a new technology. It will be one of the first in the US to use low temperature geothermal power generation. Because of this technology, the site being used is actually a well drilled more than 20 years ago, but wasn’t hot enough for the capabilities of the time. So previously unusable sites are now able to produce useable energy at a competitive price.

Geothermal is gaining a lot of visibility as an energy resource, from smaller uses like the Colorado Fossil Fuel-Free Community to Google plunking down a cool $10M last week. While the projects so far definitely lean to the smaller scale, it’s possible that improved technology, as illustrated by Raser, could make it a much more interesting renewable energy resource soon.

Via Rasertech