/ News and Common Sense Solutions en-gb Hemp4Fuel.com is copyright 2002-2010 J.R. Irvin and http://www.GnosticMedia.com Hemp4Fuel - contact@nospam.com contact@nospam.com Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:51:24 -0700 Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:51:24 -0700 http://backend.userland.com/rss e107 (http://e107.org) 60 Search Hemp4Fuel.com query http://www.hemp4fuel.com/search.php http://www.hemp4fuel.com/news.php?item.203.8 May 18, 2009

A new type of air-fuelled battery could give up to ten times the energy storage of designs currently available.

This step-change in capacity could pave the way for a new generation of electric cars, mobile phones and laptops.

The research work, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), is being led by researchers at the University of St Andrews with partners at Strathclyde and Newcastle.

The new design has the potential to improve the performance of portable electronic products and give a major boost to the renewable energy industry. The batteries will enable a constant electrical output from sources such as wind or solar, which stop generating when the weather changes or night falls.

Improved capacity is thanks to the addition of a component that uses oxygen drawn from the air during discharge, replacing one chemical constituent used in rechargeable batteries today. Not having to carry the chemicals around in the battery offers more energy for the same size battery. Reducing the size and weight of batteries with the necessary charge capacity has been a long-running battle for developers of electric cars.

The STAIR (St Andrews Air) cell should be cheaper than today's rechargeables too. The new component is made of porous carbon, which is far less expensive than the lithium cobalt oxide it replaces.

This four-year research project, which reaches its halfway mark in July, builds on the discovery at the university that the carbon component's interaction with air can be repeated, creating a cycle of charge and discharge. Subsequent work has more than tripled the capacity to store charge in the STAIR cell.

Principal investigator on the project, Professor Peter Bruce of the Chemistry Department at the University of St Andrews, says: "Our target is to get a five to ten fold increase in storage capacity, which is beyond the horizon of current lithium batteries. Our results so far are very encouraging and have far exceeded our expectations."

"The key is to use oxygen in the air as a reagent, rather than carry the necessary chemicals around inside the battery," says Bruce.

The oxygen, which will be drawn in through a surface of the battery exposed to air, reacts within the pores of the carbon to discharge the battery. "Not only is this part of the process free, the carbon component is much cheaper than current technology," says Bruce. He estimates that it will be at least five years before the STAIR cell is commercially available.

The project is focused on understanding more about how the chemical reaction of the battery works and investigating how to improve it. The research team is also working towards making a STAIR cell prototype suited, in the first instance, for small applications, such as mobile phones or MP3 players.

[[b]Submitted by Hemp4Fuel[/b]]]]> Hemp4Fuel<contact@nospam.com> Mon, 18 May 2009 18:32:08 -0700 http://www.hemp4fuel.com/news.php?item.203.8 http://www.hemp4fuel.com/news.php?item.186.8 http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126990.500-from-ac-to-dc-going-green-with-supergrids.html?full=true

* 11 March 2009 by David Strahan
* Magazine issue 2699. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
* For similar stories, visit the Energy and Fuels and Climate Change Topic Guides

THOMAS EDISON might have relished the irony. Just as his most famous legacy, the incandescent light bulb, heads for extinction, his other great passion, direct electric current, is set to boom. The bulb that has dominated lighting for more than a century is now a pariah in the era of climate change and banned in many countries. Meanwhile, direct current - defeated by alternating current in the race to capture the electricity market in the 1890s - could help us hold back global warming.

As electricity demand soars, and utility companies rush to install renewable-energy generators, it has become obvious that existing electricity transmission systems can't cope. Engineers in Europe and the US know they need to improve their grids, and huge new investment has been announced. Yet simply adding extra capacity using the same old systems may not be the best solution. Instead, putting a new twist on an old technology could transform the way we get electricity.

Although DC lost out to AC in the early days of electrification, high-voltage direct current (HVDC) has long had a niche role - transmitting large amounts of power over long distances because it is more efficient than conventional AC lines. Now it is also set to become a key link for the growing number of renewable-energy generators, particularly offshore wind farms. This is leading many in the energy industry to take a fresh look at DC.

Some engineers are thinking big. Their calculations suggest that continent-wide HVDC "supergrids" could help smooth out the variable levels of power created by many far-flung renewable generators to make a fully dependable supply. Supporters say this will eventually mean that coal, gas and nuclear power could be ditched, with renewables replacing them within a couple of decades.

Elements of such a supergrid will soon begin to materialise in Europe, and a proposed €1.2 billion ($1.5 billion) subsidy could help develop these links across the region. Meanwhile, in the US, President Obama's $150 billion energy plan includes a target of 25 per cent renewable electricity by 2025, implying massive investment in high-voltage lines, many of which are likely to be HVDC. At the same time, tests on new superconducting HVDC cables suggest that a grid incorporating this technology could act as a mammoth energy store, helping buffer consumers and utilities against the vagaries of the weather (see "Supercooled grid"). "Whichever way you look at it, there is no doubt that HVDC's time has come," says Graeme Bathurst, technical director of the British-based grid consultancy TNEI.

Edison lost his "battle of the currents" with Nikola Tesla and Westinghouse Electric because at the time AC was a more practical proposition. Put simply, efficient long-distance transmission required high voltages while the public needed safer, lower voltages. That required transformers, which existed for AC networks, but not for DC.

Despite this victory, DC is far more efficient: at the same voltage, it suffers much lower transmission losses than AC. This is because in a DC line the direction of the current is constant, whereas in an AC line it reverses 100 or 120 times a second. This induces small currents in the transmission line insulation, and this energy is then lost as heat. Because of this, HVDC has long enjoyed a niche role transporting large amounts of power efficiently over unusually long distances. One of the earliest big projects was a 600-megawatt link built in 1965 in New Zealand to connect the North and South Islands, which was later upgraded to 1200 megawatts.

In the past decade, the length and capacity of new HVDC projects has risen fast. This is particularly true in China, where lines are being built to transmit hydroelectric power from the interior to consumers on the coast. The Swiss-based engineering firm ABB has been commissioned to build a 2000-kilometre link from the Xianjiaba dam to Shanghai that can carry 6.4 gigawatts - equivalent to the output of three big power stations.

When the current starts to flow in 2011, ABB says it will deliver major environmental benefits. Gunnar Asplund, research and development manager for HVDC at ABB, says that huge amounts of power can be transmitted along a single line of HVDC pylons, whereas an AC link would need three abreast. The alternative to transporting hydroelectricity long-distance would have been to build more coal-fired power stations near Shanghai, which Asplund estimates would have put an extra 40 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year.

Another major advantage of HVDC is that it can transmit electricity over much greater distances underground and underwater than AC. This is because AC produces powerful alternating electric fields that cause large additional energy losses if the line is buried or submerged. For DC this "capacitance" effect is negligible. That makes HVDC essential for subsea interconnectors like the 600-kilometre NorNed cable between Norway and the Netherlands that opened last year, as well as for connecting remote offshore wind farms.
Thinking big

Those long-distance links are nothing compared with the plans of Desertec, an organisation founded by the Club of Rome - a Swiss-based sustainability think tank - and the National Energy Research Center in Amman, Jordan. Since 2003, Desertec has been arguing for remote electricity generation based largely on concentrating solar power (CSP) in North Africa and the Middle East. CSP is relatively expensive, but has one big advantage: some of the heat captured during the day can be stored in molten salts and used to generate electricity overnight. Desertec says this technology alone could supply 17 per cent of Europe's power by 2050, imported via 20 to 40 long-distance HVDC lines. Other supporters of the concept, however, say that HVDC could deliver even more - a wholly renewable electricity supply.

The basis of that supply is probably the most ambitious plan for HVDC: the supergrid concept now gaining support in Europe and North America. The idea itself is not new - it was first proposed by the architect and designer Buckminster Fuller in the 1950s - but only now is it becoming a practical possibility because of advances in HVDC technology.

The problem with renewable electricity is that the wind doesn't always blow, nor the sun always shine, at the one spot where you build your renewable energy generator. Yet the wind is always blowing somewhere, just as the sun is always shining on half the globe. So with a large enough grid, variations in generation should even out, giving a reliable supply.

The huge potential of this has been demonstrated by Gregor Czisch, an energy system consultant who has made the first quantitative study of how to build an economically viable, wholly renewable electricity supply for Europe and its neighbours (see map). To do this, Czisch used a technique called linear optimisation, originally developed to solve complicated logistical problems in industry and commerce. It took Czisch years to gather the necessary information, including detailed weather and electricity consumption data for the whole area and investment costs for the main renewable technologies.

Czisch then plugged this data into a program to devise the cheapest electricity supply system that could satisfy demand entirely from renewables. He allowed it to decide which forms of generation should be sited where, as well as plan the routes and capacity of the HVDC lines. The results were astonishing. Not only could the electricity demand of more than a billion people be supplied solely from renewables throughout the year, it wouldn't break the bank.

The numbers look daunting: the project would cost more than €1.5 trillion, of which €128 billion would go on the lines and equipment for the supergrid itself, and around €1.4 trillion on renewable-generating capacity. To put this in context, the International Energy Agency forecasts that the global power industry will have to invest $13.6 trillion on fossil-fuel-based power generation by 2030. Under Czisch's plan, investment in clean technologies would displace spending on dirty ones so costs would not escalate.

One of the advantages of the supergrid is that renewables can be sited where wind and sunlight are best for generating electricity, which will bring economic efficiencies as well as electrical ones. What's more, the supergrid itself represents only a small proportion of the total investment, so the extra cost of the grid makes little difference to the overall price of electricity. Czisch calculates the system could deliver electricity for less than 4.7 euro cents per kilowatt-hour - roughly the price of German wholesale electricity in 2005.
One of the advantages of the supergrid is that renewables can be sited where wind and sunlight are best for generating electricity

In Czisch's main study, the bulk of the energy would come from onshore wind, the cheapest form of renewable generation, with powerful summer winds in Morocco and Egypt complementing winter gales around the North Sea. Most of the rest would come from existing hydropower in the Nordic countries and the Alps, which would be turned on only when the other sources failed to match demand. In an alternative scenario, Czisch found that European demand could be satisfied entirely from renewables without imports from Africa, but at a slightly higher cost.

The supergrid would need tens of thousands of kilometres of new HVDC lines, which could provoke lengthy planning disputes in Europe. On the other hand, Czisch points out that this would be only a small addition to existing infrastructure: Germany, for instance, would need to add only 8000 kilometres of new HVDC to its existing grid of more than 100,000 kilometres. "For less than a 10 per cent increase we get a totally renewable electricity supply. This is not a problem; it's a bargain."

Yet public opposition could push up the costs. An HVDC link between the French and Spanish grids across the Pyrenees was only approved last year when the developers agreed to bury the cable. Predicted costs have now risen fourfold, to about €500 million.

The European HVDC supergrid may be an ambitious vision, but potential links are already on their way. Sweden, Germany and Denmark are considering a three-way interconnector at a site called Kriegers Flak in the Baltic Sea, where the three countries plan to build offshore wind farms. Since the wind farms will be close together, and each must be joined to its respective country, connecting them with a short HVDC link could be a cheap way to allow cross-border electricity trading. Meanwhile, the European Commission has appointed a coordinator to encourage countries in northern Europe to collaborate over offshore wind, and is mapping the winds of the North Sea to help plan HVDC links.
Subsea grid

British company Mainstream Renewable Power plans to create what it calls a "supernode" in the North Sea, consisting of two interconnected offshore wind farms - one British, one German - with a back-up connection to Norwegian hydro, which it hopes to complete in 2015. This would be a demonstration project that could expand and link to similar schemes in the Baltic Sea, Irish Sea, Bay of Biscay and Mediterranean Sea to form a marine supergrid encircling Europe.

Mainstream's co-founder Eddie O'Connor is convinced that the difficulties of putting new power lines on land combined with the large amount of electrical power that wind can generate at sea will result in most of the supergrid being built offshore. "We could more or less do the supergrid by sea," he says, "and the fish won't object." He reckons his scheme could replace coal and gas in European power generation within 30 years.
A marine supergrid could replace coal and gas in European power generation within 30 years

Whether offshore or on, the supergrid will depend on HVDC, but opinions differ about how quickly HVDC can deliver the full benefits of the grid. Almost all existing HVDC links are "point to point", consisting of a single line or cable with one AC converter station at each end. But the supergrid would need a more complicated arrangement of "multipoint" links, with several converter stations along each line, each able to feed in and draw out power. A sophisticated control system is also required. Czisch insists that his project could be built using only proven technology, citing an EU-sponsored study published in 2000 which concluded that a proposed multipoint network to connect Russia, Lithuania, Poland and Germany was "technically feasible". On this basis, and with the support of several retired HVDC experts, Czisch claims there are no meaningful obstacles left.

Others are more cautious. "There is a difference between what is technically possible and equipment being commercially available," says Bathurst. "The R&D lead times are measured in years."

Asplund says that to get the full benefit of the supergrid, it will need to be a "meshed" network that could cope with the failure of a line by diverting power automatically to its destination via other lines. That would require further technological developments, such as better DC circuit breakers, but he expects those breakthroughs to come soon.

Time is short, however, warns Peter Menke, from the transmission division at German-based electronics and electrical engineering company Siemens. It can take years to secure planning permission for new lines, he says. "The need to increase grid capacity in Europe is so great that we should start to build the HVDC backbone right now."

With so much riding on HVDC, remaining technical problems will be cracked soon, Bathurst believes. "The real issue now is not can we do it - yes we can - but do we want to?"

Taking the British national grid as an example, there is reason to think the supergrid could be with us surprisingly quickly: starting in 1925, it took only a decade to build the British grid, cutting electricity costs by a quarter. If the politics can be squared, it looks like Edison may soon be enjoying posthumous revenge.
Supercooled grid

In theory, superconducting cables have huge advantages over conventional copper conductors when it comes to electricity transmission. Once cooled to very low temperatures, they have virtually no electrical resistance, waste much less of the power sent down them and can bear much higher power densities. After decades of development, such cables are at last being connected to working grids: several short sections are operating in Korea, China and around New YorkMovie Camera. So far, though, all the cables are designed to carry AC.

However, engineers at Chubu University in Kasugai, Japan, have been testing a 20-metre length of HVDC superconducting cable and they believe it could eventually revolutionise electricity distribution. The team, led by engineer Satarou Yamaguchi, have come up with a new cable design that can be cooled more effectively and store up to 4 megajoules of magnetic energy per kilometre. Use thousands of kilometres of this cable as an HVDC line and it would act as a giant battery, Yamaguchi suggests, helping to smooth the output from solar or wind. Superconducting HVDC cables have been proposed for linking grids on the east and west coasts of the US, as well as to transport electricity generated in the oil-tar fields of Alberta in Canada to southern California.

David Strahan is the author of The Last Oil Shock: A survival guide to the imminent extinction of petroleum man (http://www.lastoilshock.com).
[[b]Submitted by Hemp4Fuel[/b]]]]> Hemp4Fuel<contact@nospam.com> Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:27:08 -0700 http://www.hemp4fuel.com/news.php?item.186.8 http://www.hemp4fuel.com/news.php?item.178.8
by Martin LaMonica Cnet News


Alternative energy company Ecotality said on Friday that it will supply charging stations in Arizona as part of the planned roll-out of plug-in electric cars from Nissan next year.

Nissan North America has committed to making its electric vehicles available to municipal or private organizations in the Tucson, Ariz., area, Ecotality said. Nissan's all-electric sedan is scheduled to be available in certain areas of the U.S. next year.

Ecotality said it will plan the installation of charging stations in the area and work with local politicians to establish policies to promote plug-in electric cars.

There are a number of electric sedans planned for market introduction in the next two years. But automakers say that establishing a charging infrastructure in public places is critical for their acceptance with consumers.

Auto companies like General Motors and Nissan are working with different municipalities to find ways to pay for public charging stations and to educate consumers on the plug-in electric technology.

Ecotality now supplies charging stations designed to rapidly replenish batteries for fleet vehicles like forklifts and ground-support vehicles at airports.


[[b]Submitted by hempistry[/b]]]]> hempistry<ajingrao@nospam.com> Fri, 06 Mar 2009 08:37:57 -0700 http://www.hemp4fuel.com/news.php?item.178.8 http://www.hemp4fuel.com/news.php?item.160.8
Lotus, the iconic British automaker that helped Tesla Motors and Chrysler develop their electric cars, is building a high-performance battery-powered sports car of its own and says we could see a prototype in March.

The company says the as-yet-unnamed car will be a range-extended EV that, like the Chevrolet Volt and Fisker Karma, uses an internal combustion engine to recharge the battery as it approaches depletion. Such a car would be squarely aimed at at the Tesla Roadster and Dodge EV, two cars that draw much of their automotive DNA from the Lotus bloodline.

"Don't be surprised to see an electric Lotus shortly," Lotus boss Michael Kimberly tells the Financial Times. "We are working on the technologies that will go behind it."

Most of the major automakers are developing battery-electric vehicles, but they tend to be runabouts like the Mitsubishi iMiEV or compacts like the Mini-E. Lotus, which is renowned for building cars with superlative handling, joins Tesla, Fisker Automotive and the German tuning-house Ruf in developing an electric car built solely for speed. The project further cements its reputation as a green-tech leader.

Kimberly didn't offer any details on the range-extended electric drivetrain beyond saying it will deliver 300 to 400 miles on a tank of gas. It's a safe bet the car will use a lithium-ion battery pack like the Volt and Karma, which promise an all-electric range of 40 and 50 miles, respectively. Kimberly says the electric Lotus "will become one of the showcases for the world of what you can do with electric vehicle technology."

Lotus is working with "a major automotive manufacturer" to line up a range extender — i.e., an engine — and other components, Kimberly says. Motor Trend thinks Lotus is looking to General Motors for help, arguing that the company has a similar drivetrain for the Volt and is providing engines for the Fisker Karma. But Toyota is a more-likely partner, given that it already provides Lotus with engines for the Elise and forthcoming Evora (pictured). Toyota also is developing a battery-electric concept vehicle that will debut at the Detroit auto show, and you can argue that no one has a better understanding of hybrid technology.

A bigger question is what the car will look like. Given that the Tesla Roadster is based on the Elise, and that Chrysler basically stuck a battery and a motor in a Europa and called it the Dodge EV, using those two models as the basis of an e-Lotus almost certainly are out. Lotus could convert an Evora with relative ease: It's a 2+2 with a mid-engine design, so there is plenty of room for a battery pack if Lotus yanks out the back seat like BMW did with the Mini-E. It's also a sleek, sexy car that would make EVs appealing to the sports-car set.

But Lotus also could develop an entirely new car. Although that's an expensive proposition that can take years — GM reportedly will spend around $1 billion and three years getting the Volt done — Lotus can easily cut corners. The Versatile Vehicle Architecture underpinning the Evora can be adjusted nine ways from Sunday with relative ease to suit a wide range of vehicles. Lotus says VVA will allow it to develop new cars in less time and at lower cost.

Whatever the case, an EV is a natural for Lotus. Beyond providing the platforms on which the Tesla and Dodge electric vehicles were built, Lotus builds the Roadster at its plant in Hethel, England, and provided technical help to Ecotricity, the British green-power company that is building an EV called the Wind Car.

Lotus, which builds about 3,000 cars a year and turned a profit of $2.9 million last year, is investing nearly $90 million in lower-emissions technology. Much of the R&D is done through the company's engineering arm, Lotus Engineering, which is working on everything from a fuel-cell taxi and hybrid limo to a two-stroke engine that burns just about anything.

Kimberly says the electric Lotus may debut at the Geneva auto show in March.

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2009/01/lotus-targets-t.html

Source Wired Blog Network
[[b]Submitted by hempistry[/b]]]]> hempistry<ajingrao@nospam.com> Mon, 05 Jan 2009 08:36:32 -0700 http://www.hemp4fuel.com/news.php?item.160.8 http://www.hemp4fuel.com/news.php?item.151.8
A consortium of 14 U.S. technology companies is seeking $1 billion in federal aid to build a factory to manufacture advanced electric car batteries, according to a report Wednesday night by The Wall Street Journal.

Aiming to catch up to Asian battery producers that already dominate the market, the National Alliance for Advanced Transportation Battery Cell Manufacture is described as the most ambitious effort to date to meet automakers' increasing demand for lithium-ion batteries. The report noted that U.S. automakers such as GM and Ford plan to roll out plug-in electric cars by 2010, but that the U.S. lacks sufficient facilities to produce the lithium-ion batteries those cars require.

Batteries are the most expensive component in plug-in electric vehicles, a market being pursued by a few U.S. companies. But battery makers and analysts say that U.S. manufacturers lack the financial means to meet the anticipated demand of electric cars.

Last week, former Intel CEO Andy Grove joined other Silicon Valley elites in advocating for an industry shift into energy technology. Grove told the Journal that he is urging Intel to invest in battery manufacturing as a way to diversify from its core chip business.

Grove said Intel's "strategic objective is tackling big problems and turning them into big businesses." He said Intel, with its cash resources, can invest in battery technology and manufacturing to bring down the cost of car batteries, which would drive adoption of plug-in electric cars.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10126047-54.html?tag=mncol;title
Source C-Net News

[[b]Submitted by hempistry[/b]]]]> hempistry<ajingrao@nospam.com> Wed, 17 Dec 2008 07:39:44 -0700 http://www.hemp4fuel.com/news.php?item.151.8 http://www.hemp4fuel.com/news.php?item.153.8
It turns out that weaning the auto industry off gasoline isn't as simple as turning out electric cars from a factory.

Auto industry executives say they will couple their first mass-market electric cars with a big dose of community outreach, with the hope of making the new generation of vehicles more desirable and convenient to consumers.

Car companies intend to target places where governments are willing to provide incentives to purchase plug-in electric cars and install charging stations. Utilities, too, need to be involved so that the grid doesn't become stressed by a rush of cars.

General Motors is already coordinating with industry partners, community leaders, and utilities to ensure that the apparent strong demand for the Chevy Volt--due in November 2010--will have the infrastructure to back it up, said Tony Posawatz, vehicle line director of the Chevy Volt.

"We are looking at communities that exist that are willing to put all the pieces together," Posawatz said at the Electric Drive Transportation Association's Conference & Exposition earlier this month. "To me, the Volt is a remarkable product. But, if the other stuff--the communities, etc.--isn't there, then we run the risk of failing."

Private-public partnerships
The financial industry bailout bill (separate from the auto industry aid package that failed to pass Congress) helps clear the cost hurdle for plug-in electric cars. Depending on the size of the battery, consumers and businesses can get up to a $7,500 tax credit starting next year.

But that financial incentive isn't quite enough to rapidly spur mass adoption, say auto companies.

Municipalities or states could create incentives to install charging "pedestals" in urban neighborhoods or other public spaces. Similarly, businesses or parking lot owners could install charging ports.

With a good charging infrastructure in place, auto makers hope that mainstream consumers--rather than only adventurous bleeding-edge buyers--will have a positive experience with plug-in electric cars.

Nissan, for example, is readying what it considers a mainstream sedan, with the usual amenities of modern cars like on-board navigation and heated seats. That's a break from electric cars that are already available, such as the pricey, $109,000 Tesla Roadster or existing neighborhood electric cars that can't go highway speed.

Because it is a mainstream product, Nissan will stage the car's initial introduction in the fall of 2010 in region's that have the right infrastructure in place, said Mark Perry, director of product planning for Nissan Americas. That will help it prepare for "mass market" availability in 2012, he said.

It is establishing "public-private partnerships" with governments and utilities in an effort to ensure things like favorable permitting and available inspectors for charging stations, Perry said. So far, it has agreements with Tennessee, Oregon, and Sonoma County, Calif., to set up a network of charging stations in public places.

"As we think about the individual consumer, you don't want it to be an open question--Ok, I want an electric vehicle, what do I do? We want to have those answers," said Perry. "It's not a technical hurdle. It's more a coordination and logistics hurdle."

Nissan is considering a battery swapping program, something that start-up Better Place plans to set up in a number of countries, Hawaii, and the San Francisco Bay Area. The idea is to avoid the problem of a car's limited battery range by having a network of spots--they would resemble car washes--where drivers can swap fresh batteries in for depleted ones.

Other auto makers are taking a similar region-by-region approach. Mitshubishi's electric subcompact, the iMiev, has been testing a fast charging infrastructure with seven Japanese utilities capable of replenishing battery charge to 80 percent in 30 minutes, said David Patterson, senior manager for research and development at Mitsubishi Motors in North America.

The cars will be available commercially in Japan next summer. Mitsubishi also plans to run tests as fleet vehicles with California utilities Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison.

Smart charging
Utilities, meanwhile, need to be involved in electric car roll-outs to hammer out technical standards and ensure that the grid won't be over-taxed by the added load of electric vehicles.

The Electric Power Research Institute said in a study that the the U.S. power grid could accommodate many electric cars, all while improving air quality and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. A spike to 60 percent market share in 2050 of plug-in electric vehicles would use between seven and eight percent of grid-supplied electricity, it found.

However, an analysis from the Oak Ridge National Laboratories found that rapid penetration of plug-in vehicles could require construction of dozens of more power plants if utilities can't control when vehicles are charged. If millions of consumers recharge their cars during peak times, such as early evening, utilities might not be able to meet demand with existing power plants.

The technical solution to this problem is so-called smart charging software which will allow utilities to remotely control when vehicles are charged and at what pace.

During the Electric Drive Transportation Association's Conference & Exposition, General Motors and smart grid start-up GridPoint remotely dialed into GM's Warren, Mich., testing labs and altered the charge rate on a Volt. GridPoint earlier this year bought V2Green, which developed software specifically for utilities to deal with electric cars.

"The last thing you want to do is charge on peak," said GridPoint chief strategy officer Karl Lewis, who warned that on-peak charging could lead to higher electricity prices. "We envision a compact between the utility and the consumer to incentivize consumers to do off-peak charging."

A utility could, for example, offer what's called time-of-day pricing, where consumers would get cheaper rates to charge a vehicle after midnight when demand is low.

On a technical level, the protocols and standards for charging electric cars en masse still aren't settled. For example, auto makers are waiting for guidelines from the Society of Automotive Engineers International on fast-charging methods, which can make a significant difference in charge time.

Using a car charging device at 240 volts will fill the Chevy Volt's batteries in three hours, versus eight hours if out of a standard 120-volt U.S. household socket.

Building a "geek squad" to install 240-volt charging boxes at people's homes is one example of the services that will smooth the way for electric cars, said GM's Posawatz. "There are a lot of opportunities and possibilities for different people in the value chain," he said.

Source C-Net News
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10122072-54.html?tag=mostDis;dis
[[b]Submitted by hempistry[/b]]]]> hempistry<ajingrao@nospam.com> Tue, 16 Dec 2008 07:50:02 -0700 http://www.hemp4fuel.com/news.php?item.153.8 http://www.hemp4fuel.com/news.php?item.152.8
Think Global, which makes the Think City electric car, is having difficulty securing money to continue operating and is seeking state aid from the Norwegian government, according to a report.

Reuters reported on Monday that Think CEO Richard Canny held a news conference where he said that the company needs up to $29 million in loan guarantees.

It plans to reduce staff by at least 50 percent and stop production with an eye toward restarting in the first quarter of next year, the report said.

The company said the global financial crisis has made it difficult to get working capital and parts suppliers are demanding more difficult financial terms.

In a statement, the company said it had "limited possibilities for funding working capital through bank credits without extra guarantees in today's financial markets."

Representatives from the Norwegian government told Reuters on Tuesday said that it would not directly intervene to prop up the company.

Think, which used to be owned by Ford, is one of the more high-profile electric-car makers.

It is already manufacturing the Think City for sale in Europe. It had planned on rolling out a new version in Scandinavia early next year that would have a top speed of 65 miles per hour and a range of about 100 miles. Battery makers Ener1 and A123 Systems had been contracted to supply lithium-ion batteries for the city cars.

Think has run into financial problems before, having gone bankrupt twice. But it secured new investors in 2006.


Source C-Net News
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10124529-54.html?tag=mncol;title
[[b]Submitted by hempistry[/b]]]]> hempistry<ajingrao@nospam.com> Tue, 16 Dec 2008 07:43:25 -0700 http://www.hemp4fuel.com/news.php?item.152.8 http://www.hemp4fuel.com/news.php?item.149.8 Dean Kamen’s ‘LED Nation’
By Eric A. Taub
Dean Kamen’s home with LED lighting. (Photos: John Brandon Miller)

See the Slide Show
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/08/dean-kamens-led-nation/?pagemode=print

Dean Kamen always seems to be one or two steps ahead of the rest of us. He invented a wheelchair that climbs stairs, the Segway scooter, and a robotic prosthetic arm that moves based on thought, among other things.

Mr. Kamen also owns North Dumpling Island, a three-acre island off the Connecticut coast that he jokingly refers to as an independent nation. But now, it’s more than that — he calls it “the world’s first LED nation.”

Mr. Kamen wanted to take the entire place off the grid, producing his own power through wind and solar. But to do that, he had to reduce energy consumption. So he turned to LEDs, or light-emitting diodes.

With LED lighting typically using about one-fifth the power consumed by standard incandescent fixtures (and I have some LED bulbs in my home that use just one-tenth the wattage of an incandescent bulb), Mr. Kamen figured he could get the power usage down to an amount that would work.

Mr. Kamen tapped his long-time friend, Fritz Morgan, chief technology officer of Philips Color Kinetics for help. The two collaborated on removing all incandescent fixtures from Mr. Kamen’s home, the caretaker’s house and a guest house, replacing them with Color Kinetics products.

They included LED downlights (the kind that go in ceilings and shine down), undercabinet kitchen lights and exterior units to wash the outside walls in changing color patterns.

Mr. Morgan also installed a prototype of a reflector bulb (called a PAR38) that the company expects to bring to market sometime next year. As with a regular reflector bulb sold today, it is dimmable and has the same warm color temperature as an incandescent.

The result was, they cut the energy consumption used in the house by 70 percent. And of course, the bulbs won’t have to be changed for years. When you add in the power used for the exterior lights (the house was not previously lit outside), total energy consumption was reduced by 50 percent, enough to take the island off the grid.

Total average power used is 2,500 watts. If everything is ablaze inside and out, consumption peaks at 5,000 watts.

“We wanted to convince ourselves that the technology is ready to do this,” Mr. Morgan said. “This installation lets us see what works and what doesn’t.”

While this is great for Dean Kamen, he wants others to see it as well. This spring, the setup will be shown during a fund-raiser for FIRST, an organization started by Mr. Kamen to encourage young people to become involved in science and technology. Invitations have gone out to various luminaries.

While the look Philips created is fascinating, you will probably want to try this at home only if you’ve got an open-ended line of credit.

Although LED prices are dropping fast, right now, the technology is too expensive for residential use. The ColorBlast units used to illuminate the exterior pillars cost around $600 each (including a power supply), and Mr. Morgan used two per pillar. That is a dramatic reduction from 2001, when the unit cost $1,300 without a power supply, but still enough to stop most people in their tracks.

Recently, I accompanied a local lighting designer in Los Angeles as he created an imaginative exterior lighting project for an Architectural Digest home. To do the job right cost $60,000. The clients passed.

[[b]Submitted by Hemp4Fuel[/b]]]]> Hemp4Fuel<contact@nospam.com> Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:42:21 -0700 http://www.hemp4fuel.com/news.php?item.149.8 http://www.hemp4fuel.com/news.php?item.145.8
Coulomb Technologies has inked deals with service stations throughout California to provide smart equipment for charging electric vehicles in the first quarter of 2009.

Solar panels will power some of Coulomb's networked equipment, which can provide electric cars about a 10-mile driving range after an hour of charging.

The dozens of planned locations include gas stations along Interstates 101, 5, and 99, which snake north to south through much of California's length. A few of the stations will be closer to cities, and some already offer a mix of cleaner fuels, such as hydrogen, biodiesel, and ethanol.

"It's very similar to a gas pump business, where we provide the equipment that allows station to run a business," said Coulomb CEO Richard Lowenthal.

Coulomb sells its technology to service stations, which set the consumer pricing. Although some may offer car charging as a free perk, Lowenthal said he thinks the price per charge should be about half of the equivalent in gasoline.

The Campbell, Calif., company aims to establish hundreds of charging stations by the end of 2009.

It has been readying its technology for a December launch of public stations in San Jose. In tests around Silicon Valley, the company has been working to prevent interference to its wireless communications from sources including UPS delivery trucks pulling up near the car-charging stations, Lowenthal said.

Although financing has dried up with the economic downturn, interest from potential customers is strong thanks to the anticipated releases of the GM Chevy Volt and a plug-in Toyota Prius in the next two years, he added.

Coulomb faces plenty of competition from Better Place and other start-ups building the infrastructure to charge electric cars. Nissan announced a joint effort Thursday to test charging systems with the state of Oregon. Lowenthal said he envisions multiple companies succeeding in the coming years.

"We assume it will be something like cell phones where there are multiple providers and roaming agreements," he said.

Source: Cnet News

[[b]Submitted by hempistry[/b]]]]> hempistry<ajingrao@nospam.com> Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:27:14 -0700 http://www.hemp4fuel.com/news.php?item.145.8