Volt’s Battery Capacity Could Double
GM has tipped its hand about the type of battery materials it aims to use in the next generation of the Chevrolet Volt and other battery-powered cars. It has licensed battery-electrode materials developed at Argonne National Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy Lab. These materials, called mixed-metal oxides, could improve the safety and durability of car batteries and help double their energy-storage capacity, potentially leading to substantial costs savings by allowing GM to use a smaller battery pack.
Cost is the biggest problem with the wave of battery-powered vehicles that started to arrive on the market last month. GM’s Volt, an electric vehicle that goes 35 miles per charge and has a gasoline generator for longer trips, costs more than twice as much as a similar-sized conventional car, in large part because of the battery. Increasing the amount of energy that a battery stores allows an automaker to use a smaller battery pack, thereby reducing costs.
The whole concept of improving energy density is the prize when it comes to these kinds of vehicles,” says Jon Lauckner, president of GM Ventures, GM’s venture-capital arm. He says it’s not clear yet how much money the new technology will save, but “suffice it to say, it is significant; it is not a single-digit percentage.”
The current model of the Volt uses lithium-ion batteries made with lithium-manganese spinel cathodes (“spinel” refers to the three-dimensional arrangement of atoms in the material). The Argonne patents that GM has licensed cover a cathode material that consists of lithium, nickel, manganese, and cobalt. The material has both active components, through which lithium ions move when the battery is charged or discharged, and inactive ones that help stabilize the active material and extend battery life. Longevity is essential for electric-car batteries, which are designed to last for a decade and have to survive harsh conditions on the road. The new material has such high energy density because it can operate at a higher voltage than current electrode materials and also store more lithium ions.
LEDs Are Getting Ready for the Spotlight
Nearly half a century after their invention, light-emitting diodes are moving into the spotlight for businesses looking to save energy.
In October, the Chili’s restaurant chain announced plans to outfit 827 restaurants with 125,000 LED lamps””an installation that the company claims will save up to $3.7 million per year and mark the largest LED rollout in the United States to date. Best Buy, meanwhile, has pledged to install 35,000 LED lamps in place of halogen bulbs for digital-camera displays and high-end audio and video showrooms. Walmart, which devotes one-third of all energy in most of its U.S. stores to lighting, now uses LEDs to light freezer cases, jewelry displays, exterior signage, and hundreds of parking lots and recently began introducing the technology for general lighting on the sales floor in a pilot market. “Everything at some point will switch over,” Charles Zimmerman, vice president of international design and construction for Walmart, predicted in an interview.
LEDs, which last orders of magnitude longer than incandescent bulbs, typically slash the energy required for lighting by as much as 80 percent. They have been used in some display and signaling applications since the 1970s, but because they come with high pricetags, they have yet to garner a significant portion of the general illumination market. So large installations by companies like these mark important progress for LEDs.
LED light fixtures that are designed to replace screw-in incandescent bulbs still cost $40 or more for the equivalent of a 60-watt bulb and $20 for a 40-watt equivalent. LED tubes often cost as much as $50 to $100, versus as little as $2 to $10 for fluorescent counterparts. But LEDs save money over their life span because they use less electricity and last longer. A four-foot LED tube will typically require only about 15 to 25 watts of power, compared with 30 watts or more for a fluorescent tube that will last half as long.
Firms in Japan, Korea Oppose Start of Carbon Trading
Japanese and South Korean companies, adopting arguments that helped block carbon trading in the U.S., are opposing government plans to set up emission markets worth a potential $212 billion by 2020.
The Federation of Korean Industries said Jan. 11 that starting emissions trading in 2013 would add to the cost of doing business and put the country at a disadvantage unless Japan and China do the same. Keidanren, Japan’s largest business lobby, said 61 of 64 companies that responded to a survey in September opposed introducing carbon trading.
Japan and South Korea, Asia’s third- and-fourth-biggest polluters, would be critical to the United Nations plan to make carbon trading a “pillar” of the global effort to slow climate change. Concerns about costs and competition derailed national carbon markets in the U.S. and Australia and raised doubts about so-called cap and trade catching on outside Europe.
“The U.S. reluctance to embrace emissions trading might easily spread to Asia,” said Georgina Edwards, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance in London. “They’re almost like dominos at this stage.”
The U.S. and China, the world’s largest emitters, balked at legally binding emission targets at last month’s climate summit in Cancun, Mexico. The U.S. won’t commit unless China, India and Brazil are willing to do the same, U.S. negotiator Todd Stern said last month.
O’Malley to seek bill boosting offshore wind power
Hoping to spur development of wind energy projects off Maryland’s coast, Gov. Martin O’Malley is planning to introduce legislation that would require power companies in the state to buy electricity from turbines placed in the Atlantic Ocean, a spokesman said Wednesday.
Details of the governor’s bill are being worked out, spokesman Shaun Adamec said, but the O’Malley administration expects to propose legislation that would require utilities to sign contracts to buy significant amounts of power from offshore wind projects. The aim, he said, is “to essentially make the projects more attractive to investors and to give the industry the shot in the arm it needs.”
Word of the governor’s support heartened environmental activists, for whom boosting offshore wind is one of the top legislative priorities this year.
“I think the political, economic and environmental stars are aligning in 2011 to pass a bill,” said Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. At least two other states “” Delaware and New Jersey “” have provided similar incentives for offshore wind development, Tidwell said.
The legislation also is drawing support from labor leaders, who estimate that a large-scale wind project could support up to 4,000 temporary jobs and 800 permanent jobs.
The Lost Years for Alternative Energy?
Oil and gasoline prices, low since 2008, are projected to rise again, rapidly returning our oil addiction to the national spotlight. Analysts say that oil prices are heading toward $100 a barrel, and former Shell Oil chief Carl Larry warns that we could see $5 a gallon gas by 2012. Inevitably, the price increases will inspire calls to reduce our dependence on oil, and Congress will consider some legislation to do just that. But as we try to make progress on oil alternatives, we need to bear in mind the lessons of low gas prices. Otherwise, we are doomed to repeat the same debilitating cycle of energy politics we’ve been trapped in for years.
Here’s how that cycle goes: High oil prices make energy alternatives a top political priority, as they did before the 2008 price drop, but the urgency is suddenly forgotten when these prices collapse. That’s not just short-sighted — it’s bad policy. Unless we can finally extend our national attention span beyond the latest price rise, the inevitable 2011 push for alternative energy isn’t going to be any more fruitful than the last few times we tried.
Anyone who was buying gas in the early 1980s will recall when surging oil prices (reaching, in April 1980, a high of $103/barrel in today’s dollars) prompted a variety of reforms, including President Carter’s establishment of the Synthetic Fuels Corporation. But oil prices tumbled in the mid-1980s, national attention on energy issues dissipated, and President Reagan canceled the synthetic fuels program. In the early and mid 2000s, sustained price increases, hitting $145 a barrel in 2008, revitalized interest in how to promote alternatives to oil. But when the U.S. financial crisis pushed down oil prices in 2008, alleviating our oil dependence once again became a lower priority.
“Energy policy traditionally tends to be, particularly when it comes to liquid fuels, something we do when prices are high,” Roger Ballentine, the president of the consulting firm Green Strategies, Inc., told me. “When prices are high, that provides an immediate political feedback that provides political cover for taking steps to address the issue.”
On Our Radar: A Climate-Change Fingerprint in Australia?
Climate change may be partly responsible for the intensity of the floods inundating the eastern Australian city of Brisbane, scientists say. [Reuters]
Some recommendations from the presidential oil spill commission, like raising the cost of regulating risky oil leases, could take effect though an executive order, an option that President Obama has shown interest in, a panel member says. [Politico]
The United Nations calls on Nigeria to clean up villages polluted by illegal gold mining operations, which have contaminated water supplies and caused the deaths of hundreds of children from mass acute lead poisoning last year. [United Nations]
Six rare frogs not seen for nearly 15 years are spotted in the dwindling cloud forests of Haiti. The frogs were found in the Massif de la Hotte, one of the country’s last intact stands of tropical forest. [CBC]
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
For ESOP, I think it was, who mentioned the mild temps & heavy rain in the UK this past two days:
My photos of the floods here – nothing exceptional but still quite a sight –
http://www.ukweatherworld.co.uk/forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=41168
Some interesting discussion of the airmass that caused it and links to soundings, by my friend Nigel Bolton – who works at the UK met Office, but posts on there when he’s just interested in stuff:
http://www.ukweatherworld.co.uk/forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=41170
UK Weatherworld is primarily a weather-forum – one where we can develop our knowledge of met, not climate. There is a bit of climate ding-dong on there on occasion, but we try to keep it nice… Feel free to join!
Cheers – John
Don’t forget:
Evergreen Announces (during the snowstorm) that it will be closing it’s 2-year old Solar Plant at Ft. Devins
800-people blindsided with their impending job loss. After just 2-years. I guess once Republicans took the house, the company decided to move a bunch of its stuff back to China.
It seems even more appropriate, considering yesterday’s news on how China is ‘out-gunning’ the US in different aspects of green energy. $58 million in subsidies…gone.
Australia floods recede to reveal extent of damage
‘What I’m seeing looks more like a war zone in some places,’ official says
“Queensland is reeling this morning from the worst natural disaster in our history and possibly in the history of our nation,” a visibly shaken state Premier Anna Bligh told reporters. “We’ve seen three-quarters of our state having experienced the devastation of raging floodwaters and we now face a reconstruction task of postwar proportions.”
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Aerial views of Brisbane showed a sea of brown water with rooftops poking through the surface. “What I’m seeing looks more like a war zone in some places,” Bligh said.
“All I could see was their rooftops … underneath every single one of those rooftops is a horror story,” she told reporters after surveying the disaster from the air.
The flooding across Queensland has submerged dozens of towns — some three times — and left an area the size of Germany and France combined under water. Highways and rail lines have been washed away in the disaster, which is shaping up to be Australia’s costliest. Damage estimates were already at $5 billion before the floodwaters swamped Brisbane.
Officials warned of the risk of further severe flooding in the coming weeks, with two months of the wet season ahead and already overflowing dams requiring seven days to empty to normal levels to cope with more heavy rains.
The Bureau of Meteorology forecast that a storm in the Coral Sea off Queensland’s north coast would become a cyclone in 24 to 48 hours
Brisbane Mayor Campbell Newman said 11,900 homes and 2,500 businesses had been completely inundated in the city of 2 million, with another 14,700 houses and 2,500 businesses at least partially covered in water.
With 35 suburbs flooded, many parts of Brisbane looked more like Venice as residents used boats to move about flooded streets, where traffic signs peeped above the stagnant water.
Queensland’s coal industry has virtually shut down, costing millions in deferred exports and sending global prices higher. Vegetables, fruit and sugarcane crops in the rich agricultural region have been wiped out, and prices are due to skyrocket as a result. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41053471/ns/world_news-asiapacific/
Flood-besieged Brisbane residents forced to watch the monster river consume their homes and livelihoods will today confront the devastating destruction and putrid, tar-like sludge left by the receding waters. http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/brisbane-flood-victims-to-confront-the-destruction-20110113-19q04.html
The sludge left overs from floods, is btw yet another positive feedback, because it lowers albedo. And all the water accelerates decomposition, everywhere the water encountered organic materials, specially wood, mold will likely occur and poses a long term health hazard.
Now look at the size globally and this seems as a kind of big factor – contribution to the acceleration of climate change. Plus there is a lot of contaminated sludge and drinking water resources. Ofc ther eis more …
In light of the news article above, has anyone noticed the irony that the Japanese and the South Koreans cannot migrate north to escape the effects of global warming?
Here’s another news release from NASA on global temperature rankings:
Despite Subtle Differences, Global Temperature Records in Close Agreement
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20110113/
Why the Wild Winter Weather?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-r-epstein-md-mph/why-the-wild-winter-weath_b_808624.html
368 Die in Brazil Slides http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZsvYY4psJA&feature=player_embedded
Brazil floods: Rescuers hunt for survivors
Rescuers are trying to find survivors in cut-off areas of south-eastern Brazil hit by deadly floods that have left more than 400 people dead.
Heavy rain has brought massive mudslides down on the towns of Nova Friburgo, Teresopolis and Petropolis. Thousands have been made homeless.
President Dilma Rousseff visited and expressed solidarity with communities.
‘It’s all gone’
Darkness has fallen in the mountainous Serrana region, north of Rio de Janeiro, bringing a pause in the work of more than 800 rescue workers.
Many have spent Thursday scrabbling with their bare hands through debris.
In the Campo Grande area of Teresopolis, which was earlier cut off, rescuers found family members pulling bodies from the mud.
One Campo Grande resident, Carols Eurico, told the Associated Press: “I have friends still lost in all of this mud. It’s all gone. It’s all over now. We’re putting ourselves in the hands of God.”
Rio de Janeiro Governor Sergio Cabral blamed local governments for allowing poor building and illegal occupations.
“Unfortunately, what we saw in Petropolis, Teresopolis and Nova Friburgo, since the 1980s, was a problem similar to what happened in the city of Rio – letting the poorer people occupy risk areas.”
He said some rich mansions had been damaged but most of the victims were “humble people”.
Mr Cabral ended the press conference by asking people in risk areas to leave their houses and seek public shelter or in other families’ homes.
“The weather forecast is not reassuring, and new mudslides could occur,” he said. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12187985
It’s just buildings in risky areas.
Fishermen, Businesses Beg for BP Spill Money
Shrimper Elmer Rogers broke down on Tuesday, dropped to his knees in front of BP’s oil spill claims fund administrator and pleaded for money to help him pay his bills, to feed his daughter and keep his house. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oeftb-uHSaY&feature=channel
ATTN Gulf Fishermen: Kneeling and begging for help only creates more paperwork for your claim file. http://twitter.com/BPGLOBALPR
(Reuters) – The Chinese government is said to be looking to prepare at least 10 million car parking spots for electric vehicles by 2020 in a new comprehensive policy due to be announced soon, a top executive at a local automaker said on Thursday.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70C5S820110113
These numbers seem large but it seems that emissions reductions will not be nearly enough to avert disaster.
I was surprised how efficient the battery is. It gets 40 miles for 16 kwh. According to the EPA, 33.7 kwh is equal to 1 gallon. So that’s the equivalent of 85 miles per gallon. Way more efficient than even the Prius.
I also see a phenomena called the chicken effect. Since pollutocrats killed climate legislation in the US, all the other countries are reluctant to do climate measures since that would make them less competitive with the US. In turn each country does not want to do climate bills since they are competing with all the other countries thinking the exact same thing. So unless something changes their minds, we will have business as usual for another 10 to 20 years.
China prepares to export reactors
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-China_prepares_to_export_reactors-2511101.html
Standard construction time is 52 months, and the unit cost for Chinese units so far has been under CNY 10,000 ($1500) per kilowatt.
Ziyu@11. I’ve been trying to tell people that electric is more efficient than ICE by a large factor. But people are taken in by the rated efficiency of ICE engines, the Prius engine is alleged to be 34% efficient. But most of the time for passenger cars the ICE engine is working at maybe 10% of capacity, but still generates a lot of internal friction. We use engine braking going down hill, but people don’t seem to get you get that braking effect whenever the ICE engine is running. I suspect a Prius in pure electric mode gets an energy equivalent of 85mpg, but the majority of its miles is racked up in ICE mode.
We could probably get much more efficient ICE powered vehicles, if we sized the engines for cruising conditions, and accepted 0:60 times of a minute or two (like 18wheelers).
I sent the following note to Brian Williams at NBC Nightly News today:
“I noted on the Nightly News tonight that Brian Williams covered both flooding stories in Australia and in Brazil. Forgive me if I missed the item but I don’t believe that the Nightly News has reported the recent information that 2010 has tied with 2005 as the hottest year in the instrumental record. This has been confirmed and reported by NASA and NOAA this week. This record heating has occurred despite the fact that we are currently in the strongest La Nina pattern of the last 50 years, a pattern which typically cools the earth’s atmosphere while our sun is just now emerging from the deepest solar minimum in 100 years which should be also cooling the climate. The wild weather extremes in 2010 including the aforementioned flooding fits the pattern of climate disruption that has been predicted by climate scientists including Dr James Hansen at NASA.
I would like to see more reporting on a regular basis on climate change on the NBC Nightly News. I suggest a good place to start is an updated interview with Dr Hansen to get his take on what’s going on. The American people are terribly misinformed on this subject. That is partly because of special interest money spreading lies and misinformation in the broadcast media and on radio..such as – the earth is cooling, CO2 is good for you, etc, etc, and news reporting at the big broadcasters and in the print media failing to treat this issue with the seriousness that it requires.
We do a great disservice to people by ignoring this subject and ceding the landscape to the deniers and special interests who are financed by big oil and the Koch Brothers. Scientists are starting to link an ice free Canadian arctic to cold winters in the mid latitudes in places such as Florida. The climate change problem is not going away, is in fact worsening and is at risk of tipping into a new equilibrium with consequences that could be beyond our ability to control outcomes with devastating impact on humanity’s ability to grow enough food for 6 billion people. By ignoring this problem we are delaying the debate in the USA about the biggest threat to Mankind in the 21st century. The USA is crucial because it is the largest per person polluter. If the battle is lost in the USA, humanity may well be doomed. For the sake of our children please give this some serious thought.”
EPA Revokes Permit for WV Coal Mining Plan
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/science/earth/14coal.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hpw
Globally, December 2010 is the 10th warmest December in the NASA data set:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
December 2010 global temperature map:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2010&month_last=12&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=12&year1=2010&year2=2010&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
Note the extreme colder than average areas over the eastern U.S. and Eurasia especially the U.K. Also the extreme warmth over Greenland and Northern Canada. The extreme negative AO combined with the strong La Nina brought the global temperature down sharply after the November record high. Yet still ranked among the ten warmest Decembers on record.
The disaster in Brazil is far greater in human terms than Queensland. And Sri Lanka another catastrophe. And Tasmania, the southernmost part of the country, swamped by deluges streaming down from the tropics. A year’s rainfall in a single night. Actually, talking to people, they realise something is amiss, but mention ‘global warming’ and the relentless brainwashing kicks in, like a Pavlovian reaction. Thought flies out the window and the defensive reflex is all. I think a lot of people are stupid and ignorant, of course, but also apprehensive, even frightened. Like a prisoner locked in the dark, the first sight of light is excruciating. These floods may just wake enough people up. The denialists on the blogs are increasingly hysterical and agitated, and the censorship that ensures that they swamp those forums, more blatant than ever. I think a point of great social and intellectual dislocation is at hand, which may be very good, or another step towards oblivion.
Sea-level rise and its possible impacts given a ‘beyond 4°C world’ in the twenty-first century
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1934/161.full
Rain hampers resuce effort in Brazil slides
TERESOPOLIS, Brazil (AP) — Rain began falling again Friday in this mountain town, hampering rescue efforts in the wake of deadly mudslides and flooding that has killed hundreds of people and left vast swaths of cities buried under layers of earth.
Flooding and mudslides are common in Brazil when the summer rains come, but this week’s slides were among the worst in recent memory. The disasters punish the poor, who often live in rickety shacks perched perilously on steep hillsides with little or no foundations. But even the rich did not escape the damage in Teresopolis, where large homes were washed away.
“We were like zombies, covered in mud, in the dark, digging and digging,” Carvalho said.
Nearly all the homes in their neighborhood were swept to the bottom of a hill.
Just a few rescuers managed to hike to Caleme on Thursday and they had only shovels and machetes — not the heavier equipment needed to hunt for survivors. Residents said they had no food, water or medication, and many made the long walk for help to the center of Teresopolis.
Morgues in the cities were full and bodies covered in blankets were laid in streets.
Officials said the area hit by slides had seen 10 inches (26 centimeters) of rain in less than 24 hours. More rain is forecast through the weekend.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hlHTEqNQEmoVqu4QOKoWMLC77KEQ?docId=2c94c69dea2c4da4aa1aba50853791cb
INSIDE HOUSE AFTER BRISBANE FLOOD http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImliefbS8UM
Multiple chemicals, including some banned since the 1970s and others used in items such as nonstick cookware, furniture, processed foods and beauty products, were found in the blood and urine of pregnant U.S. women, according to a UCSF study being released today.
The study, published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, marks the first time that the number of chemicals to which pregnant women are exposed has been counted, the authors said.
Of the 163 chemicals studied, 43 of them were found in virtually all 268 pregnant women in the study. They included polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs, a prohibited chemical linked to cancer and other health problems; organochlorine pesticides; polybrominated diphenyl ethers, banned compounds used as flame retardants; and phthalates, which are shown to cause hormone disruption.
Some of these chemicals were banned before many of the women were even born.
The presence of the chemicals in the women, who ranged in age from 15 to 44, shows the ability of these substances to endure in the environment and in human bodies as well, said lead author Tracey Woodruff, director of the UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment.
A call for action
Woodruff said people have the ability to reduce but, as the findings show, not eliminate their exposure to chemicals. “We want to show people this is an issue we want the government to pay attention to and address,” she said. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/14/MNN41GL1NQ.DTL&tsp=1
What carbon is for gaia’s atmosphere, these chemicals poison humans.
Hoping to spur development of wind energy projects off Maryland’s coast, Governor O’Malley is planning to introduce legislation that would require power companies buy electricity from turbines. If you can get a job with the renewable energy construction project you’re all set. If not, your out Of luck. I am behind anything that leads to Construction projects in Maryland and potential work for myself and my friends. With this economy, I could definitely use a boost. Luckily a friend turned me on to Dodge Projects. They have given me a lot of detailed leads that are perfect for me. They actually have them sorted by your choice of state or type, which makes it really easy. I definitely suggest it to anyone else looking for work.