Reality is, the EPA is working overtime to increase your energy costs.

Posted on May 26, 2011 by George B.

Is it time to invest in Solar?

As we attempt to ‘read the tea leaves’ and anticipate the future, shouldn’t we take note of how our Government is morphing into something new?

Lisa Jackson of the EPA is an activist.. no doubt in my mind, and the power granted to her could turn your savings and security to dust! Maybe you better invest in more efficiency and conservation now?

It’s always been a smart thing to do, and if the dollar continues to lose value, it may become far more expensive to have this work done or buy the materials to do it yourself.

Have you been noticing the downsizing of products? Have you measured the length of a toilet paper roll lately, did you notice the new rolls are shorter than your old stock? Maybe you’ve noticed that some of your favorite packaged food weighs a few ounces less?  Inflation is on the move, but it seems a good portion of it is hidden from the inflation index.

I monitor CFACT, it’s a good counter article regardless of your views, here’s  an article you might consider reading. http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=87b74a936c723115dfa298cf3&id=c4c47b4433&e=d5e4ab1447

We Americans got this far into debt with cost effective energy, there is no way we’ll get out of debt with far more expensive energy, energy drives our economy.

Keep your eye on Lisa Jackson and what she does to make it far more expensive to do business here in the USA. Have you blamed corporations for movign off shore? Maybe Lisa deserves a little credit for encouraging them to leave?  No doubt in my mind, Lisa would love to see a KWH priced at 50 cents or more.  After you read the CFACT article, you might ask yourself…. what advantage does a nuke plant have over other clean power plants, and will this mercury thing cause companies that avoided an investment in nukes (for all the obvious reasons) to regret their decision?

Maybe it is time to invest in efficient lighting, to add insulation to your house, to consider a more efficient window glass?

How about those shingles on your roof? It’s a fact they’ll last longer if your attic space is properly ventilated, maybe you install an attic fan this year, or add some additional vents if your home is older and was not designed to ventilate the attic space as well as it should be? Have you priced a new roof lately?

Yes, your elected officials are working overtime to reduce the value of your saved dollars. No doubt you have reason to feel foolish for saving, but what you do now to reduce your expenses during retirement years could make all the difference as to whether you can afford to stay in your own home…. even if you did work a life time to pay it off.

George B.

 

 

Posted in Alternative Energy Sources, Fighting Propaganda, Survival Skills, Vehicle Design | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

A Diyer’s view of rapid change, a reason to be self sufficient.

Posted on May 26, 2011 by George B.

“May you live in interesting times.” Most of us know this to be an old Chinese curse, and for those with a little time under our belts we understand it very well.

I think about an Automotive mechanic of the 1920s. I wasn’t there, but I can imagine it was fairly easy for the inquisitive DIYer mind to keep up with the technological advances of the day. Innovations seemed to happen far more slowly, and even in the late 50s, there wasn’t much under the hood of the standard automobile that a 24 year old hot rod car enthusiast didn’t understand.

As time has progressed, specialists and experts need focus on a far smaller segment of nearly anything in order to have that expertise.

I’ll give you one example, as late as the 1970s, there were still technicians who were training on a type of telephone switch and expecting to retire working on the same technology, this is because the prior technology was installed and set up on 30 year depreciation schedule! By the early 1990s, I think I saw stuff bolted in a rack that didn’t stay there more than six months! A lot of people in the Telco Business struggled to learn that there were no guarentees they’d be needed next week, yet alone till retirement.

I think it is possible that Microsoft currently has some of the best voice communications software and hardware on the planet, it’s quite possible they’ll be selling their solutions to the remaining phone companies 🙂 This may allow the Telcos to junk the outdated class 5 offices they maintain at great expense to them.

But there are changes going on all around us that many if not most are totally unaware of.  I’ll even touch on the PMG Generator that I  put a lot of effort into. but first let me tell you about Google.  A good friend is among thousands who make their living off the WEB. Web hosting, sales referrals, writing  detailed information about a service or product in exchange for a small commission from vendors, and far more.  Recently Google decided to take a big step forward in monetizing their position as the leading portal for web searches. As you may have already guessed, or maybe even read.. the ordered results of a web search was changed to reflect the relationship of those parties and Google!

Some folks had worked hard to build good ranking with google based on the quality of their content and the search criteria of the time, in some cases this took years of hard  work, and constant tuning. When Google made these changes, some small business owners went from $10,000 or more of revenue a month to close to zero, some of these same entities might have $6000 or more of overhead in monthly charges for server space, programing  help, and more. The result of tweaking a piece of software at Google will likely mean bankruptcy for a lot of small entities and a boon for the larger business that can afford to buy the relationship with google ongoing.

The Utterpower PMG. Certainty we know we can build a good generator without using Permanent Magnets. But if you believe in the KISS model as I do, there is a small market nitch for such a product IF it could be built to a high quality standard, proven reliable, and of course meet a price point people are willing to pay. I did catch the fact that the price of magnets was on the rise, (now it’s out of site!).  It’s very easy to deceive yourself as many do, we don’t need help do we?  I may write a full account of what happened as a warning to others.. that may be my purpose in life?

The other day I was reading a facebook post, some young lassie wrote that all the floods, tornados, earthquakes and more was mother nature’s way of telling man that he needed to stop messing with the planet. I have been thinking about what she wrote for a few days. More informed people know we’ve had this stuff going on forever, and floods, dust bowls, hurricanes, tornadoes have been this bad and worse.. we only need read and study a little history.

Some people are so niave or arrogant that they think that their short life on this planet, and what they precieve as normal >is< the standard for normal.

Humans have been here for such a short while, it seems the planet was doing quite well without us.. in fact the planet seemed to do quite well with no mammals at all for millions of years.

The earth’s atmosphere has changed so much, and for millions of years it would support no life at all. What part of the process was abnormal? If a large asteroid strikes the earth and brings an end to all of our lives, will it be an abnormal event according to the cosmos? Our sun is composed of material from stars that died prior to it’s birth. In no way is it timeless, nor is this small rock we call earth, it will surely perish one day according to the interworkings of the cosmos. Our earth’s core is molten, it can’t stay that way forever, and when that core cools, what happens to our poles and the magnetic field that helps protect our atmosphere?

I think there’s two distinct groups of people on the planet. One group fully understands how insignificant they are as compared to the galaxy we live in, and another group so ignorant that they think they have the steering wheel of the entire universe in their hands.

At 63 years of age.. I was thinking maybe it’s time I relaxed a little.. and not let these nuts get me down. No one is getting out of here alive, and maybe it is all right if we stick our kids with the bill? After all, most of them seem to think printing all this money is a good idea 🙂

At the end of the day.. the more self sufficient you are.. the better you’ll sleep.

George B.

 

 

 

 

Posted in UtterPower Articles | Tagged | 2 Comments

Whacked Idea of the Month?

Posted on May 23, 2011 by George B.

Having just come back from 3 days spent at our off grid  Central Mountain Cabin, I can tell you there are good Alternative energy ideas, and a properly designed solar install in a decent location can deliver all the power you need.  However….how the owner cares for the batteries and equipment over time is part of the effort that will determine whether the owner >ever< receives a return on his investment, sun energy contrary to what a lot of gorebots would tell you is NOT free.

What amazes me is how many ideas go from an thought in someone’s head to reality without any research, without ever asking “why is it others have not created the machine I want to build?” What drives folks to fabricate machines like this without running  a pencil?

This was sent to me by Texas DIYer  Barry Smith..great example of a free lunch Barry!

http://houston.craigslist.org/bfs/2396918451.html

It’s all about studying the losses. As we compress air, we generate a significant amount of heat (losses).  As we attempt to draw the air from the tanks, we find we need to add a lot of heat to the air to get it to do real work (more losses). As we read this AD, we note the Author reports there’s 20,000 PSI of air storage potential. He suggests that seven scuba tanks holding approx 3000PSI equals 20,000 PSI.  Did this guy flunk eight grade science class, or is he trolling for somone who did? You be the judge.

GB

Here’s the ad below if you didn’t read this in time to follow the link.

Now a days the electric companies are charging more and more money to supply you electricity. If fuel costs go up so does your bill. If we have another hurricane, you will pay for the grid rebuilding. So put the screws to the electric utilities. Become self suffiecient and own your own generator and power generation system to power your home without consuming expensive gasoline. This ia a one of the kind compressed air powered generator system spinning up a 40k watt generator head. Depending on the size of the tanks, run time can become several days. Use a windmill to re supply your compressed air needs.
This unit comes with 6 scuba tanks that will hold 20,000 psi of total air supply. Also included is a Bauer 5 hp compressor that runs off the generator to resupply the tanks. It was said a change in the valve system and this would become perpetual motion letting the compressor out run the 40k generator by 32 minutes. Should become a museum piece for others to see. Actually runs and produces power. There is no other air engine in existance that can produce 40k watts of power. Can save you thousands of dollars a month in electricity. Call me at 979-885-9145 KAZ

  • Location: Hempstead
  • it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 2396918451

————————————————End of Ad…

“One of a kind” how special! And…. Hempstead? do they smoke a lot of hemp there??

GB

 

Posted in Buyer Beware, Strange Stuff, The New Green Movement | Tagged , | 8 Comments

Wind Power Math

Posted on May 17, 2011 by George B.

Doing the Math in Washington State

Hydro and Wind Compete for the sales

The circle represents a geographical area  in Washington State where we have cheap and abundant Green Hydro AND Wind Power.

Some of us will see both of these products as being green and little different than other commodities we might find on the grocery shelf.

During a good portion of our year, we are able to generate hydro power that will fill the grid tie to capacity. Since hydro is a use it or lose it proposition during a significant portion of our year, and it is far cheaper, does it make sense to spill water over the dam in order to make room for the far more expensive wind turbine power during the winter and spring months when we have an abundance of it?

When our Governor and proponents of Wind Energy sided with Wind Energy developers, did they back out these months of power production noting the obvious conflicts here, or did they sell the wind farm project based on some trumped up power production figure?

Wouldn’t this be a great study for an honest News organization? King 5, Komo 4, Kiro 7? Perhaps  they’re way too busy covering the Arts to make time for this?

So who is making money off wind energy and how? did any of the power companies invest in wind and why?

 

 

 

Posted in Buyer Beware, Generator Realities | Tagged , | 2 Comments

ST Gen Head Growls, Email of the week

Posted on May 16, 2011 by George B.
From: Chuck M.

Subject: ST Generator “Growling”
Message: Aloha George,
I have a belt driven ST 8 KW generator that changes from
a gentle hum to a distinct “growl” when the two 120V “legs”
get unbalanced. For example, both legs pulling about 1 KW each and my wife’s
iron kicks in, one leg goes to 2.43 KW and the growl starts. I have an AVR
sensing 240V (GAVR-15) and field current in the above case would increase from
about 2.5 amps to 3.1 amps. Growling also happened when I had a simple AVR (no
brand) sensing only one 120V leg. Have you observed this phenomenom or heard of
it before? Have any thoughts?
Answer:
Chuck.. on one of those special events when Bill Rogers and I were both in the field together, we were in an off grid generator room where an ST head was making a funny noise.  Having been around a lot of 6/1_ST5 Gensets, I told Bill something is just not right here… but do note our host and friedn was not complaining as all was workign well according to his experience of a good many hours of running.  The set was supplying 120 volt loads only.  Bill got his hands on the volt meter and started taking a few measurements. He found the head was set up ‘center tapped’, with half the loads on either side. Bill read across the outside (the two hot ends) and did NOT find the 240VAC we were looking for. The off gridder had one stator coil hooked up backwards, and when we turned it around, the growling stopped.  As I remember, since the customer had no 240 volt loads, we decided to wire both stator coils in parallel and make things simple, and assure good load balance across the stator windings. But do note.. properly wired for 120/240 VAC operation, it should not growl even with an unbalanced load from my experience.
Your problem could be different, but check for this problem first.. I’dlove to see your follow up post here…
GB
Posted in DIYer Generator | Tagged , , | 17 Comments

Critical Thinking, when it comes to energy it’s not that hard.

Posted on May 12, 2011 by George B.

Have you ever wondered who invests in Green Energy and why?

We DIYers can make effective use of several kinds of green energy, solar, wind, and hydro can be great personal investments.

When we look at things on a larger scale, who are the investors? Who profits?

The following Article about EVs is educational.  I think some of the posted comments are representative of a lot of people we all know..

If you are not versed in Calories , British Thermal Units, Kilo Watt Hours, and the measurement of energy, losses, energy storage etc. There is a good way to get in touch with the effort required to move an electric vehicle from point to point. What the Battery in the Electric Vehicle must accomplish is VERY similiar to what your body would need  to accomplish to get a job done.  Consider you’re on a job interview, you’re offered $25 a mile to push a cart around on dead flat ground with a 150 pound payload. The cart is yours to design, bearings , 2, 3, or 4 wheels, it’s your choice. And you find you can even install a crank and pedals as long as it’s your body providing the locomotion, it’s legal. Your boss gives you the list of deliveries, he pays you by the mile. At 63 years old, I figure I could make $75 an hour, and have an enjoyable and healthy job.

Now consider the same job in San Francisco, some of the streets are so steep, it’s hard to walk at that angle.. what kind of money would you need per hour to be tempted to accept the job if you were to be paid by the mile and you boss picks the deliveries.

When we have an energy storage device, there’s a few things we need understand:

  • The initial cost of the storage device and the amount of energy it will store
  • The efficiency of the device, (there’s always losses, what portion of what you put in will you get back out?
  • What are the typical tasks you need done, and will your storage device offer you a return on investment over a reasonable amount of time.

Electric Vehicles are at the center of Green Energy Conversations, but I find it difficult to find articles written by technical people.  Fact is, the last three articles I’ve read were written by free lance writers who had recently covered topics such as Fashion and travel.  I think it’s worth the effort to look for that little tab (about the Author).

So here’s your ‘Critical Thinking Lesson” for today.. before you visit the link.. take note of the following.  San Francisco is built on a series of hills so steep that many drivers who think they are good with manual gear boxes find themselves challenged to pull away from stop signs because the hills are so steep! Even skilled drivers find themselves making use of the parking brake in order to hold the hill as they let the clutch out! If you live in this town and you have a brain, you’ll have an automatic transmission in your car.

If you have any experience with EVs, you know that you can roll on for what seems forever on flat ground like you find in San Jose, and high tire pressures are key.  San Francisco offers some real challenges to the EV owner, high tire pressures makes it far more difficult to stop on the steep down hill terrain, and they’re down right dangerous, especially on wet streets and that’s normal weather here.

In San Jose, you might make it to work and back in your EV, but not make it to the top of a hill in San Francisco on the same charge. If you are looking for some fun, drop into you Chevy Dealer in San Francisco, and ask for a demo ride in the Chevy Volt, let us know if you can make it from the water front up telegraph hill on a full charge . You’ll soon know why it’s a hybrid, and why you’d never consider an EV if you lived here.

But now.. ask yourself.. why did the City Council vote to spend so much public money on such a dumb idea as follows?  Maybe you’ll post your answer here once you’ve studied the link and reviewed the comments?

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/transportation/san-francisco-will-charge-your-electric-car-for-free-until-2013/380?tag=nl.e660

No doubt Ami is a looker, who would take that from her?

If we go back to that Electrical Power Plant and see where we put the energy in, we can study all the losses going forward. No matter what type of power plant it is, there’s normally cooling towers or heat exchangers that dump billions of BTUs of energy in the form of heat.  But there’s other losses all along the way.. right up to and including that EV charger!

Then along comes some glue sniffer that compares the EV with an internal combustion powered car. He looks at overall losses in the standard auto, and accounts for a minuscule amount of the losses in the EV.  We have come to know this as Enron accounting, and the EV salesmen is the best Enron Dog in the show.  I doubt you’ll be reading about all the energy dumped back at the power plant that could have been used aboard the Auto, fact is, we often need to take more energy out of the battery to heat the interior than what it takes to run the drive motor. Had we poured the energy into the car instead, we could have made good use of this energy.

Also note.. modern autos are considered ‘zero emission’ autos.. just how much cleaner is the EV if we do a proper job of accounting?

So.. what percentage of the pure EV enthusiasts live in their parent’s basement?

Could the following be one of the better technical ideas that came out of San Francisco… The greatful Dead’s “Wall of sound”.. I think it might be..

http://www.caravanmagazine.in/Story/806/Acidhead-Deadhead-icon-Owsley-Stanley–RIP.html

 

 

GB

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Alternative Energy Sources, Buyer Beware, Fighting Propaganda, Insane Grants, Strange Stuff, The New Green Movement, Vehicle Design, Your Wasted Tax Dollars | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

A valuable lesson learned

Posted on May 7, 2011 by George B.

It was 1991 and I had a pocket full of cash. I wanted to buy a car for my wife, and having been married for a while I knew better than to tell her what car she wanted.

We looked through the adds in the paper and a local car dealer claimed to have a large inventory of Ford Explorers.  That was what the Wife wanted and as I researched the car I found a lot to like. The ergonomics were brilliant! The use of space made Chevy’s offer look pretty bad in comparison IMO.  Even the rear tire storage was well thought out, it was totally out of the way and made part of the energy absorbing system in the back of the car. It was also  easily lowered to the ground on an elevator! All that space inside of the vehicle was usable!

We walked into Korum Ford, the place was packed. Soon a Salesmen approached us and asked if he could help us. I told him his job was going to be easy, we wanted the Explorer four door, and we wanted to pay cash.

That’s where the trouble started.. First he attempted to educate me on investments, he said  I should buy the car on credit and put my cash in the stock market.  I told him I was pretty much set on paying cash, and all he needed to do was show us a decent color like blue, tell us the price and we’d do the sale.

You might not believe this, but I swear he produced a paper for us to sign that said we’d agree to buy from Korum IF they made the price right.  He explained there were just too many window shoppers and they needed to concentrate on serious buyers on their lot.

I told him we were pretty much old fashioned, we expected him to give us a price, and we’d decide if we’d buy or not.. after getting our names and phone number, I told him we were going to coffee to think things over.. we did that, and then drove a few miles north to Scarff Ford.

We told the Salesmen there, “we’re here to buy an Explorer, we have cash”… about an hour later, we had all the paper work done and my wife drove her Explorer home.

So what is the lesson?

For me.. there were all kinds of lessons, and it really has taken years for some of them  to sink in.  Not taking investment advice from a car salesman was too obvious, no need to learn that lesson..

But over the years this experience has passed through my mind dozens of times. It has become a fundamental foundation block for critical thinking, and I am embarrassed by how many times I’ve failed to apply what I learned from this shopping experience. You need to avoid the passion, you need let your brain make the decision.

For those of us who know something about sales, we know that Korum had bought into one of those ‘Sales Programs’ that come and go.. the Salesmen had a process to follow, and we just didn’t ‘fit’ the program.  They lost us as a sale, but I’m sure there were many people that had no problem signing that paper, I wouldn’t do it on principle, and who really knows,  I may have paid more money at the second dealer in order to do it my way.

The long term lesson is all about Critical Thinking.  What would I have lost by signing that paper? I could have played both dealers for the lowest price.

When it comes to sales, and if we are honest with ourselves.. we buy stuff from people we like when we need choose between two or more.

I was on a tool truck the other day, the vendor had a a set of pliers designed to remove snap rings. He showed me a knob you turn to set them to remove either an inside or an outside snap ring.  As I attempted to move the knob, he said “don’t force it.” then he showed me a button you depress.  I bristled, I wondered why I had grown so irritated by his comment?  I guess it was because he could have accomplished the same thing by simply saying.. “there’s a button you need depress before you turn the knob instead of suggesting I was about to ruin his pliers. I put the set back on the shelf, and changed the subject.

Sales is an art… if you are a Salesmen, you need choose your words carefully and understand what motivates people to buy from you.

This is all about human behavior…. if we are able to stay focused on the mission, it’s likely getting the quality we desire for a fair price.. but it’s very difficult to stay focused on the mission isn’t it?

I guess we are all salesmen since we must sell ourselves in order to get a job. But what I realize is just how much I’d need to keep to myself in order to be an effective Salesmen. A Salesmen I am not.. although I have studied what makes an effective salesmen my whole life.

Oh… I almost forgot to mention.. my Wife is still driving the 1991 Explorer.  she has looked at so many vehicles that might replace it some day, but nothing seems to be a better fit.

No payments for over 20 years, dirt cheap insurance, never an emissions problem and never a major repair of any kind. There may be other lessons to learn here.. one is you can buy an American name a get value.. God only knows how many countries were involved in making a 1991 explorer, but as it approaches 250,000 miles, I’ve got to admit.. it was one heck of a team effort.

George B.

Posted in Survival Skills, UtterPower Articles | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Electric Vehicle Heating, Air Conditioning, and other environmental loads.

Posted on May 5, 2011 by George B.
On the last post, I attempted to shed some light on the energy transfer rate from the common AC outlet into a storage device like a lithium Electric Vehicle Battery. We discovered that we can transfer the equivalent of one third of a gallon of diesel in electrical energy over a ten hour period.
No doubt, most of us can guess that this amount of energy won’t get us very far in a practical family car that is capable of carrying groceries home.  But as I mentioned in  the  last post, we have environmental concerns to address as well. Add to that, we have we have head lights tail lights, turn signals, brake lights, and of course head lights are significant loads all by themselves. Heating is a heavy load, and I doubt that heated seats is going to make it practical to drive when the outside temperatures are well below freezing. I would expect your breath to freeze on the inside of your windshield and side windows too, and soon you’d be looking through frosted glass.
Here’s one bit of trivia that may help adjust the horizion as it relates to the practical family Electric vehicle.
“The power necessary to operate a vehicle air-conditioning compressor is significant . It can be greater than the engine power required to move a mid-sized vehicle at a constant speed of 56 km/h (35 mph).”
So where did we get this figure? Answer: The Department of Energy “DOE”
Here’s the link Look in the introduction for the quote.
I once jokingly mentioned the wood stove accessory for the 20xx EVs, but that might be  a practical solution, just get up early, stock the fire box.. by the time you get a shower, eat breakfast, and finish the second cup of coffee, you might have enough heat to keep the glass clear even in Wisconsin.
I can hear the gears in your head… “we got this firebox, why not add some tubiing, heat a little water, and make some steam!” There was a man that lived not far from me that owned Howard Hugh’s Steam Car.. It made steam in about 90 seconds and would do over 100 MPH.. It was far cheaper than the Chevy Volt, and some would say it ran on free water.
For us realists… we know that 1930s dollars were worth a lot more.. we also realize that we got to heat that free water…. Reality sure sucks… doesn’t  it?
It seems there’s many among us who hate hydrocarbons, but the more you talk to these people, the more apparent it becomes that they don’t have a clue how far away we are from having a practical electrical storage device or a way to charge them IF a large percentage of us had them.
It should be readily apparent to anyone who lives in a city of steep hills, or a place where it gets hot or cold, or even a place where it rains a good portion of the time, that the pure electric vehicle is going to be challenged even if we are able to double the energy storage and cut in half the charge time.
For those who don’t understand the difference between steady state driving and stop and go traffic, the later is a huge battery drain. The reason it is so easy for the masses  to believe the Electric Vehicle is ready for American families is because they don’t have a clue how much energy is in a gallon of gasoline.
Posted in Buyer Beware, The New Green Movement, Vehicle Design | Leave a comment

Take-the-Quiz-Energy-Storage

Posted on May 2, 2011 by George B.

 

Zach Says, let’s keep the conversation simple… so even Elmo can understand it!

Keep it simple

 

 

 

 

Question: How much electrical energy can we move off the electrical grid and store in an Electric vehicle? For the sake of our conversation, we’ll use the standard electrical outlet normally found in your home as the source of electrical energy.

Before you answer, we will assume you have exactly 10 hours to make the energy transfer, and we’ll also assume you have zero electrical losses in any kind of transformer or rectifier necessary to condition the energy for storage.

Since units of energy can be converted, we’ll use BTUs, and we’ll compare our stored energy to a gallon of diesel fuel, and use a typical value OF 147,000 BTUs a gallon for our calculations.

So here’s the Quiz Question and multiple choice Answers.

Q: How much energy can we transfer from a >standard< 120VAC electrical outlet into a storage  device during a 10 hour window of time? Pick an answer closest to your calculation.

A. An amount equal to 10 gallons of diesel fuel.

B.  An amount equal to 3 gallons of diesel fuel.

C.  An amount equal to one third of a gallon of diesel fuel.

How about posting your answer? you need not use your real name.

Following are some musings about EVs and the road ahead..

How do we consider making  an informed decision as to when we’ll invest?

Among those giddy about pure electric vehicles of the future, I meet few who will make time to run their own pencil.

As I look over the glossy EV ads, I see marketing at it’s best. There she is, a well dressed Babe with her makeup perfect and high heels on.  She’s plugging in her Electric Vehicle into the standard household electrical outlet.

If we study the standard house of today, we note most all the outlets are now wired with 14 gauge wire. If we visit the household breaker box; we see our  120VAC outlets are fed by 15 amp  circuit breakers.  Before we design our EV charger, we best start with the power source. We know that 15 Amp breaker needs to be considered in our design or we could have a huge liability on our hands.   Opening the brochure that comes with a breaker, we see they are typically rated to carry 80% of the current on a continuous basis.

Here’s the math, check me out.. … 120VAC x 15Amps =1800VA, we apply our 20% derate and end up with 1440 VA max that we can safely transfer from the grid to our load (our EV) over this typical circuit.

We’ll be generous here, and assume  zero losses  between the outlet and the input of our energy storage device.  This allows us a maximum of 1440 watts of electrical power. Since a watt is a power figure, we can convert it to BTUs, Calories, or other common units of energy we are familiar with.  A constant 1440 watts provides us with 4913 BTUs an hour.  If we multiply by 10, We transfer 49,130 BTUs of energy into our EV in a 10 hour period, which might be a realistic overnight charge period of time.

If we compare this energy to kerosene or diesel, we see that we are able to transfer the equivalent of one third of a gallon of energy over our standard plug in over a period of 10 hours. This might give you some idea as to how much energy is in these fuels, and why the Russians use Kerosene in their booster rockets when they put  payloads into orbit. Energy density has a lot to do with how much you can take with you, and how much work can be done.

Now that we know what amount of energy we can transfer into our EV, we shouldn’t expect to use it all, we don’t get everything back we put in.. We have losses of several kinds between the energy storage unit and the rear wheels and we need consider that on many days we might use far more energy than our transfer rate allowed just to keep the inside of our car warm or cool, and the windows defogged enough to safely see out. Consider that day in heavy traffic, stop and go traffic demands a lot from a battery, but keeping the car warm or cool can take far more energy than our home electrical outlet can deliver.

Certainly, there is hope! All you need do is call in the electrician and buy the more advanced charger and enjoy a fuller state of charge over the 10 hour window. In some cases, there’s little need to call in the gang, as the breaker box might be close, and you could have your new charging station installed for less than $3000.00 dollars.

Recently, we saw Prince Charles’ Aston Martin DB6 put to work as part of the Royal Wedding Ceremony hauling William and Kate.  Some of the AE enthusiasts praised Prince Charles for having converted the car to run on clean ethanol made from excess wine. We skeptics might ask just how much excess wine there is in UK, and how might the effort ‘scale up’? Maybe we simply command more wine to be made?

Our homes have been designed to carry the electrical loads we normally carry, and of course our electrical grid is designed to carry what’s typical, we barely squeak by on peak load days in many areas.

When it comes to the Grid and rebuilding it to meet the new increased EV demand, those who are most optimistic will tell you the grid isn’t used much at night when the charging will be done. They have no concept of how energy is made or stored. In reality, the grid is far more dynamic than many understand.. there are energy reserves that are charged during  off peak hours, and these same reserves are used to cover peak loads.  The difference in cost between a peak KWH and an off KWH can be huge. In the wholesale market, a KWH might trade for five cents or well over a dollar during the hours or minutes of high peak loads brought on by a number of circumstances. An example of some of these energy reservoirs can be studied at hydro facilities and Power South’s ‘CAES’ compressed air energy storage system is a great example, and more of these solutions are under study to meet future demands.

This huge variability in price per KWH is seldom seen by the consumer, but if we decide to remove a good portion of our off peak production hours, we should expect the price per KWH to go up dramatically, fact is, what proponents of EVs call cheap electrical energy today might become far more expensive. If we were to convert half the cars on the road to EVs, we create a mind boggling need to increase capacity in electrical power generation and capacity to haul that energy to the point of use. How does that get paid for? Remember… A subsidy is paid out of your back pocket.

What did I get wrong?

GB

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Alternative Energy Sources, Fighting Propaganda, Vehicle Design | 20 Comments

A Micro Power Project worth our attention

Posted on April 28, 2011 by George B.

Some years back, I became interested in some of Prof Modi’s projects and through that interest I met Matt Basinger and later Francisco Sebastion Rodriguez-Sanchez. These two get the respect and support of our hands on community, they have many hours in the field with their hands all over the equipment.  Whether it be greasy gears or mosfets, these two have studied them with intensity.

But why is this project more worthy of our attention?

It may have been part of a mission statement that Seb had shared about a Mali Project He and Matt were working on at the time that left a mark on me. To paraphrase best I can…    They were measuring the value of the equipment, training, and processes they helped deploy according to the economic benefit it provided the ‘stakeholders’ (villagers).

A current project they are working on is a shared micro power facility, and they are using the cell phone that most customers already own for subscription and billing. Subscribers will be able to cancel their orders for expensive kerosene used for lighting, and they can stop purchasing the short lived automotive type batteries used to charge cell phones and more.

Just yesterday, there was another discussion about who killed the electric car. I look at some of the advertisements, and note that some chargers are designed to operate at 120VAC on a 15 amp circuit. I think of the energy transfer rate, about hot summer days, and cold winter nights too. I think about city traffic, fogged up windshields and more.  How much energy do we use just to keep the inside of the vehicle inhabitable and to be able to see out the windows safely?  We know we can roll on for what seems forever with tires at near bursting pressures and the table top like road surfaces of San Jose, CA.  But as we all know, a lot of people live at the top or the bottom of a hill, and we must be able to stop and navigate a corner with reasonable safety.

My vote is to give Dr. Matt and Dr. Seb a new Electric Vehicle to test.. I trust we’d know what’s underneath the green paint job, and what the value might be for the stakeholder.

Solar Project of Interest

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Posted in Inspirational People, Projects, Things I like | Tagged , , | Leave a comment