EVcast #237: Fun with Jim, Chelsea, and Sebastian

i am interested in what is going on with zap? is the alias still comming out soon? whats going on with their sales of zap zebras? do they have lots of exports? more than US sales? can you do an interview with the CEO at zap? no one ever hears what is going on with them.

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Bo and Ryan,

Great show.  Your guests were very leading edge.  I never get tired of hearing about this stuff. 

As far as the size of the car it is really mute point in the fact there are usually going to be large trucks on the road so no matter what you drive you are smaller.  Even in a Hummer.

And Bo wasn't it Pamila Anderson that you wanted the picture taken with?  I think you were just patronizing Chelsea but hey she's just a girl. heh

Rick-O-Pedia LOL

Anyways good show,

Robert Agee

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Following Rick's logic then nothing is carbon neutral, not solar panels, not wind turbines, not EVs, not lithium batteries, almost nothing- the main problem with nuclear energy is that even with an ok to build today you are going to wait 5-10 years to get a plant on-line- to hold us over we should be building low temperture geothermal plants - they take 6 months to a year to get on-line, your friends at Raser are at the forefront of this technology- the importance of nuclear and geothermal is that they are low carbon emission producers of base power, meaning they produce power 24/7,  and base power is needed in a mix of more sporadic power producers like solar and wind power. 

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and what country are they going to mass produce these Tesla/Daimler cars in.and if i remember correctly Daimler own Chrysler and thy are failure

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William,

Your points are noted but was not relevant to my reply. My response was in reaction to Daryl Siry's, and many other people's misconception, that nuclear power is carbon free. Nuclear power is not carbon free. I attempted, through my response, to show the carbon cost. It is also important to note that you have to keep enriching new uranium to get that commercial grade 5% u235 concentration in the fuel rods to replace the spent fuel rods.

No one reputable to my knowledge has suggested that the construction of the wind turbines and the Concentrated Solar Thermal (CSP) plant components are carbon free either. With respect to renewables it depends on where the turbines and panels are built. If you build them in California (where there is a considerably lower CO2 emission level per capita due to the use of natural gas and geothermal, wind and solar to a lesser extent), or in the Texas wind corridor, you are certainly going to have a lower carbon foot print then if you are enriching uranium in a part of the country that sources 80% of its electricity from coal fired electrical generating plants. It is also important to note that once the CSP plants and wind turbine farms are built the carbon costs dramatically drop. With nuclear power you still have to keep sourcing a steady supply of u235 fuel rods so the carbon costs keep steadily mounting.

Rick, from the oil capitol of the world, Houston, TX.

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Guest,

Daimler announced on May 14, 2007 it was selling 80% of Chrysler to a private hedge fund group called Cerberus. On October 31st, 2008 Daimler announced that its share in Chrysler had a book value of zero after writeoffs and charges. Fiat announced on January 20th, 2009 that it was going to have a 35% stake in Chrysler giving it access to North American markets. In April they announced they were up to 20% ownership. On April 30th, 2009 Chrysler filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and is working out a restructuring deal through the courts that will involve a strong alliance with Fiat.

Rick, from the oil capitol of the world, Houston, TX.

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Rick - let me put it this way- in France where around 80% of electrical generation comes from nuclear, and the rest from Hydroelectric, renewables and around 5% from fossil fuel generation- the two new nuclear plants they are building will have a very low carbon emission from actual power production- the highest amount of carbon output will be from the concrete they use and the workers using ICE engines to get there- you are nit-picking, there are lots of reasons to be concerned with nuclear energy (waste, as a target for terrorist, use of water, accidents) but carbon emission is not one of them.

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According to Wikipedia, "GEM has produced more than 35,000 vehicles..."

And the link to the Think, er, Wheego Whip;-)  http://wheego.net/more/

As for the Sodium battery, two issues are the very high operating tempurature and a propensity to explode, but these are issues that can be addressed for stationary applications like wind/solar energy storage, as you pointed out Bo.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-sulfur_battery

Tuned into Letterman to hear Bob Lutz - overall, a good plug for the Volt in particular, and for EV's in general, but I wish he had been able to spend more time on EV technology rather than automotive history- although, as I mull over it some more, perhaps that was not a bad way to lead up to the Volt, providing a segue for those who are not as enthusiastic yet for EV's.  Also, somewhat surprisingly, there were no fireworks between Bob and Dave- both almost seemed subdued, like neither wanted to take a misstep.

And I must agree with Jim- you are an extremely articulate and engaging advocate for the EV space, Chelsea, selflessly putting up with the Microphone Malfunctions of our sometimes goof-ballish EVCast hosts just to promote the advent of Electric Vehicles even more;-)

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William,

First you have to stop putting words into my argument. I accounted for the carbon costs of the fuel rods not the workers who process the fuel rods.

Now there are a few reasons why France generates 80% electricity from nuclear power. First, France is a smaller country than the United States with a smaller population. Second, the utilities in France are state owned enterprises. Try that here in the US and see how successful you are. In the late 1990s the United States deregulated and/or privatized utilities. Only the federal government has the resources and the laws of eminent domain to spend the enormous amount of money, currently 10 billion dollars, to site and build 1 reactor and the costs go up once building begins and they typically take 10 years to complete.  Third the United States has double the number of nuclear plants that France has providing 20% of the electricity we use and this is not likely to change. Fourth, the French don't regard an air conditioner as a birth right so they use far less electricity and in general they are not as wasteful with electricity the way we are. If you examine your utility bill it will account for 75% of your electricity bill in the summer if you live in southern or southwestern state (and often in the northeastern states now) as I do. So if you want to say that France has a smaller carbon footprint for enriching uranium to 5% commercial grade then yes I'll grant you that. BTW, I am often amused how we, as Americans, hate everything the French stand for but on nuclear power, somehow, (I shrug) they got it right.

Now recall the premise for my response was a comment Daryl Siry made stating that nuclear power is carbon free. Again I say, IT IS NOT. You have to process the uranium ore to make commercially usable fuel rods for the reactor core. The enrichment process uses gaseous diffusion. Gaseous diffusion is a process by which the raw uranium is fused with hexaflouride to create uranium hexaflouride (UF6). Gaseous diffusion is also energy intensive. UF6 is solid at room temperature but is easily heated to convert it to a gas. UF6 becomes a gas at around 135º F. Gaseous diffusion exploits the difference in velocity of 0.7% between the fissable u235 and the useless (for fuel rods) uranium 238 to make the separation. Because this only yields a small increase in the amount of uranium 235 the process has to be repeated hundreds of thousands of times until a yield of 5.5% uranium 235 is achieved to make the uranium commercial grade for the fuel rods. Nuclear reactors require a steady supply of uranium 235 fuel just like your car requires a steady supply of gasoline. In the United States we have only one enrichment facility and it is located in Paducah, Kentucky and it sources 80% of its electricity from coal. That's the reality.

Rick, from the oil capitol of the world, Houston, Texas.

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Rick

I'm sorry you feel I'm putting words into your argument- if this isn't the argument tell me - fuel rods take a lot of energy to produce and if the energy comes from fossil fuels then it isn't carbon neutral, thus Siry and others are misinformed about nuclear energy being carbon neutral- boy I think that is condensending- just as condensending as the "EVs aren't carbon neutral because they might use electricity generated by coal power plants" folks-My answer is yeah we got to replace those Coal plants pretty soon and stop making stupid arguments- How about if a nuclear plant was producing the energy to make the rods that would be used in a nuclear power plant, then it would be pretty darn carbon neutral- the future is going to include nuclear and geothermal along with wind and solar. Oil, gas, and coal will still be useful just not to burn.

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William,

This is the last word I'm going to say on this. This subject obviously upsets you. Daryl Siry made a blanket statement that nuclear power is carbon neutral when it isn't. And yes EV's aren't carbon neutral either. Sherry Boschert, author of "Plug-in Hybrids, the Cars That Will Charge America," doesn't make the claim that EVs and plug-in hybrids are carbon neutral either given the current mix of power sources on our electrical grid. She says they have lower carbon emissions compared to ICE cars and that they are carbon neutral only if they are charged from solar panels, wind turbines or other non carbon sources. She makes that plain in this document on page 3 http://www.sherryboschert.com/Downloads/Emissions.pdf. Now is Sherry Boschert also condescending? There's only a small group that can say their EVs are carbon neutral. Saying that Siry is uninformed is not condescending. He just didn't have all the facts. I would have argued on other points about nuclear power if Daryl Siry had made the point that nuclear power was too cheap to meter or that we could build hundreds of new plants in a handful of years or that it is safe and their have never been any accidents but he argued it was carbon free and I argued against it on that basis.

I also made the point that while nuclear power had a substantial carbon foot print it was lower then coal's carbon foot print which is easy to establish.

As for eventually powering the enrichment facility from nuclear power it will never happen. You can take that to the bank. Nuclear power is the most expensive way to generate electricity and coal plants are cheap because the grandfathered coal plants that produce the electricity have sunk costs in facilities and equipment which can only be cheap while there is no cost attached to carbon dioxide emissions. That will change when a comprehensive carbon cap and trade bill is signed into law. Building new nuclear plants are cost prohibitive because a new nuclear plant costs 10 billion dollars in current dollars to build. Once the construction starts those costs escalate and they will exceed $10 billion dollars. Wall Street won't fund them and the public is in no mood right now for the government to fund more boondoggles.

Rick, from the oil capitol of the world, Houston, TX.

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Boys!  Play nicely!

In case anyone missed it, here is a Youtube link to the 2nd half of the Bob Lutz appearance on the Letterman Show:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc2rfdnWau8

It's too bad the first half of the Interview was not yet posted.

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Since the posts are coming slowly this summer here...a couple of interesting items this week- the first is ZENN's committing to investing more in EESTOR- how much contingent on other investors- there is a short interview with Ian Clifford on BNN:  http://watch.bnn.ca/the-close/may-2009/the-close-may-21-2009/#clip175062

The other item that caught my attention is the DOE upping the money alloted for research into Power Electronics and Electric Machines- not a huge amount of money, and not something that will run on the front page, but nonetheless a hopeful harbinger of research dollars going into all the other aspects of making EV's more viable, more affordable, more reliable:  http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/05/doe-apeem-20090522.html#more

That said, it still comes down to the battery...

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A follow-up to the sodium-sulphur battery- an article at Technology Review about SION Power and BASF collaborating on a Lithium-Sulphur battery- sounds like they are still a long ways off from something practical, but an interesting read:  http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/22689/

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For global warming, instead of cap and trade they should put a carbon tax on gasoline, coal, and natural gas. With 10% of the monies delivered they should put rebates for electric cars. Maybe $40,000 a vehicle. They could put 25,000 electric cars on the road every year for $1 billion. That is nothing. Those 25K cars would develop the lithium battery. You don't need R&D you need to put electric cars on the road. After you get about 25K EVs on the road you will start to see battery replacements on ebay. Then the battery companies would have the money and reason expand. These cheap battery replacements would also help the conversions as they would have access to cheap batteries. Then they could increase the carbon tax every year. Thus you either clean up or go broke. The government would be collecting a lot of monies and they could cut income taxes. Total carbon emissions would drop. Billberggren

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As a 20 year veteran of working in distribution centers, I have used electric forklifts for years. In this enviroment we do mechanized battery swaps all the time. The idea of battery swap should be a non-issue.

PS does anyone have an opinion of Leo Motors(the Korean EV company).

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