November 17 2008 / by Garry Golden
Category: Transportation

Just a short post to clear up a common mistake made by the media on the future of electric cars:

We do not have to choose between ‘electric’ versus ‘hydrogen’ cars. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are electric vehicles. The only alternative to the combustion engine is an electric motor. The question is – what should power that electric motor? Batteries or fuel cells? Why not both?

Good News: Electric vehicles are coming!
The good news is that stories on electric vehicles are popping up all over the web. Bloggers and mainstream media outlets are covering announcements for production volumes of electric vehicles that are coming from every corner of the world. Sooner or later a leader will step up a confirm our plans to kill the combustion engine-’.

Bad news: People confuse electric motors for energy storage devices
The bad news is that while trying to describe ‘the future’ most bloggers and journalist fall back on merely describing a snapshot view of today. Then they extrapolate it forward assuming the past will dictate the future. They see battery powered electric cars and assume this is the future.

Why not?
Cars are not iPods, and batteries alone cannot carry the auto industry forward. While there is no doubt that the first generation of electric vehicles are going to be built around advanced lithium ion batteries, next generation electric vehicles (circa 2015-2025) are likely to integrate three different energy storage systems- batteries, hydrogen fuel cells and capacitors.

So while bloggers and journalists often describe uncertainty about the direction of the auto industry by asking: Is the future car powered by a battery or fuel cell? – the answer is both.

Hydrogen stored as a solid, then converted in a fuel cell produces electricity.
Hydrogen fuel cell cars are electric vehicles.
A ‘hydrogen economy’ is an economy driven by electricity. H2 is just the chemical storage system.

Related posts on The Energy Roadmap.com
Editor, Garry Golden 6 minute Interview PRI’s nationally syndicated The Takeaway

Related posts on the future of electric vehicles- including:

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November 17 2008 / by Garry Golden
Category: Energy

What happened?

A group of researchers from Boston College and MIT have created a new catalyst that could reduce the negative environmental impact of hydrocarbon or ‘petrochemical’ derived materials found in everyday products.

[Don’t run away! Big words, but simple concepts!]

The new catalyst is used in a very common and energy intensive process known as olefin metathesis. Just think of olefins as simple carbon and hydrogen packets (image of ethylene) that are used to make more complex chains that form the backbone of materials used in everything from cleaner fuels, soaps, bags, to pharmaceuticals. The process, ‘metathesis’, simply means transforming the order of AB + CD into AD +BC

How does a simple packet of hydrogen and carbon vary so much in different industry applications? In the most simple terms – the difference between a ‘good’ compound for people and the Earth, from a ‘bad’ compound is the use of additives (other elements) and the shape of the molecule chain (polymers). These variations make materials more or less reactive to things like light, water, and heat. It also makes it more or less soluble, biodegradable or toxic. The goal is to create compounds that break down into non-toxic elements that do not harm ecosystems. The more precise we are in building key polymer materials, the less harmful waste we produce.

Why is this important to the future? Another step towards ‘greener’ hydrocarbon materials
The BC/MIT catalyst will help to reduce the waste and hazardous by products of this massive industrial chemical reaction as we try to make chemistry more ‘green’ and environmentally friendly.

“In order for chemists to gain access to molecules that can enhance the quality of human life, we need reliable, highly efficient, selective and environmentally friendly chemical reactions,” said Amir Hoveyda, Professor and Chemistry Department chairman at BC. “Discovering catalysts that promote these transformations is one of the great challenges of modern chemistry.”

What to watch- Applied Engineering

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November 14 2008 / by amisampat
Category: Energy

By Ami Sampat

What Happened?
The International Energy Agency has released a report describing a challenging future ahead for the energy industry and planet. The IEA’s annual World Energy Outlook highlights an uncertain future shaped by tightening oil supply, higher energy prices, and rising emissions of greenhouse gases.

Why is this important to the future?

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November 14 2008 / by joelg
Category: Transportation

by Joel Greenberg

What Happened?
Dr. Lyle J. Dennis today asked readers of his GM-Volt.com enthusiast site to sign a petition asking the Bush Administration to bail out GM. As a public advocate of the electrification of the automobile, Dennis believes without a bailout, GM will die and so will the Volt, not to mention Project Driveway, GM’s fuel cell initiative.

GM has announced the Chevy Volt will ship in 2010 with a price somewhere in the $30,000 dollar range. The big question is whether or not GM will survive long enough to see 2010 and the release of the Volt.

Why This Is Important to the Future of Energy
The first successfully mass marketed electric vehicle will tip the market away from oil and to electricity.

Here at The Energy Roadmap we’ve been talking over Skype about the Volt’s future given the economy. Garry Golden told me, “At the end of the day, they’re likely to tank Chrysler before they tank General Motors if they see it as a much more functional and valuable company.’”

Says Golden, “GM is in the best position to make this leap to electric vehicles,” because of their R&D commitment to these vehicles.

If there’s time.

What to Watch For

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November 14 2008 / by amisampat
Category: Energy

By Ami Sampat

What Happened?
The efforts to reduce carbon emissions and increase the use of reliable power generation of renewable fuels will determine the future of the electric grid, as was reported by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. But solar and wind will have to overcome some fundamental challenges before they are accepted by large utilities.

“As we consider our energy future, it becomes increasingly clear that our success in reducing carbon emissions and realizing energy independence will hinge on our ability to provide reliable, clean, electricity where and when it is needed,” states Rick Sergal, President and CEO of the NERC.

Why is this important to the future?

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November 13 2008 / by Garry Golden
Category: Energy

Big Plans are susceptible to changes in the world around us, and even bold visionaries can have wrong assumptions about the future.

After blanketing the media landscape over the summer with The Pickens Plan, T Boone Pickens has announced that he is slowing down his plans to build a massive wind farm in West Texas. Pickens’ $2 billion order of GE wind turbines has not been affected, but scaling up of the project is likely to happen more slowly than originally hoped.

A changing world or wrong assumptions?
Pickens has certainly felt the pains of shifts in the market where money is now in short supply and the global economic slowdown has battered his energy intensive hedge fund. But there have always been flaws to his core assumptions that support the vision that have somehow escaped widespread critical thought or media scrutiny. Pickens deserves credit for his willingness to advance the energy conversation in the US, but it does not free his Plan from closer examination:

#1 Utilities won’t evolve without regulatory changes
#2 Wind needs storage to evolve
#3 Natural Gas is a globally integrated industry, no breaking ‘foreign’ dependency there!
#4 The Auto Industry’s problem is not oil, it’s the combustion engine.
#5 Building transmission lines in my backyard or ranch?! It’ll cost you!

#1 Utilities won’t evolve without regulatory changes

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November 13 2008 / by Garry Golden
Category: Technology

What happened?
Researchers at the California NanoSystems Institute have developed a process to mass produce atom thick sheets of carbon known as graphene.

[If you roll these sheets up, you form a ‘carbon nanotube’, or break them apart and bind with other compounds to form ‘nanoparticles’. These are the three basic shapes of nanoscale materials. Master these components and the next stage is creating functional mechanical nano-machines!]

Graphene sheets are arguably the strongest possible material in the universe based on bonding properties of all known elements. But what makes them very special is how carbon sheets interact (or don’t interact) with electrons, hydrogen atoms and photons. They have uses as electrodes for solar cells, ‘sandwiches’ for solid hydrogen storage, backpanels for sensors, and as the anode electrode material in lithium batteries and fuel cells.

Why is this important to the future?
Energy components designed at the nanoscale
Before we can apply graphene sheets to commercial applications we must find lower cost methods of mass production. This breakthrough is a significant milestone. According to researcher Matthew Allen “These graphene sheets are by far the largest produced, and the method allows great control over deposition. Chemically converted graphene can now be studied in depth through a variety of electronic tests and microscopic techniques not previously possible.”

What to watch

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November 13 2008 / by Garry Golden
Category: Transportation

This morning I was a guest on PRI’s The Takeaway program with Hosts John Hockenberry and Adaora Udoji to talk about the future of the US Auto Industry. [Podcast of conversation] Many thanks to The Takeaway!!!!

For visiting Takeaway listeners we’ve organized recent articles from The Energy Roadmap.com exploring the future of the transportation sector:

Electric vehicle industry goes global around energy storage systems
Video Interview with Shai Agassi on disruptive business models for electric cars
Is Detroit asleep at the wheel?
The Good news? China is investing in electric cars, The Bad news? China is investing in electric cars
Is GM expecting China to extend its grid for electric cars?
France to spend millions on electric vehicles
Warren Buffet buys equity in China’s BYD
New hydrogen storage device lighter than lithium batteries
McKinsey believes China could lead world in electric vehicles
GM pick Korean battery maker over US startup A123 Systems
Hyundai to build fuel cell electric vehicle for 2012
US algae startups could transform China coal industry
France’s GDF invests in electric car infrastructure
Hawaii’s HEKO utility take big regulatory step for 21st Century Grid
Electric vehicle networks startup moves into Australia
Detroit to World, Nobody has killed the electric car
India’s Tata Motors will produce electric vehicle in 2009 for Europe!
A Futurist’s Guide to Cars of 2020-

November 11 2008 / by Garry Golden
Category: Energy

What happened?
Another algae biofuels company has raised money to build a next generation biofuel plant that consumes carbon and creates usuable biofuels.

Colorado-based Solix Biofuels announced that it has raised $10.5 million in its first round of outside funding, and has reached an agreement with investors for an additional commitment of $5 million, to be used to build an algae biofuel facility near Durango, Colorado.

The biofuel plant will be located on a ten-acre site on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation in Southwest Colorado. It will be built in two phases, with the first to be completed in 12 to 18 months and consisting of four acres of photo-bioreactors for growing algae, and one acre for a lab facility. Upon completion of the first phase, Solix will build an additional five-acre expansion that will allow the pilot facility to produce at commercial scale.

Why is this important to the future of energy?
Tapping the power of biology to ‘eat’ carbon and produce commercial grade fuels could emerge as a game changing platform for carbon emissions and energy production in the next decade. But first, algae startups like Solix must demonstrate scalable bioreactor plants and work out the kinks associated with algae fuel production (e.g. lighting, nutrients, impurities, growth rates).

What to watch for?
There are a number of leading indicators to monitor: capital investments, performance claims of specific algae species, and further advances in the physical engineering systems related to high volume algae production.

Related posts on The Energyroadmap.com

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November 11 2008 / by Garry Golden
Category: Energy

Last week at the OReilly Web 2.0 Summit Tim O’Reilly interviewed Shai Agassi, CEO of electric car network startup Better Place.

This [30 minute] interview reflects a very different way of thinking about the future based on the potent combination of new technology platforms and disruptive business models.

The simplest translation of Shai Agassi’s disruptive vision ?
We should buy the car, but not the battery or fuel cell. Remove the cost and risk of owning energy storage systems out of the consumer equation. Instead consumers would subscribe to an energy infrastructure provider and ‘pay per mile’ (e.g. mobile phone minutes plan). They could refill at a local electric recharge station, or pull up to a station to ‘swap out’ an old battery (or depleted solid block of hydrogen) for a new container. Agassi believes this new business model could lower the barriers that prevent us from leaping beyond the era of the combustion engine.

How do we do it? Big bets, major infrastructure investments and new business models.

Why is this important to the future of energy?

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