Confessions of An Economic Hitman - Interview with the Author

Many of you have no doubt heard of the book, "Confessions of An Economic Hitman" by John Perkins. Essentially, Mr. Perkins was recruited to work for the World Bank and organizations like USAID to convince certain developing nations to become indebted to the World Bank in order to develop infrastructure (roads, utilities and the like) that mostly benefited the wealthy of those countries and ultimately neutralized them politically while enabling extractive industries, mostly oil, to take all they wanted.

Over the years, Perkins had a change of heart as he saw the results of his work. He is a brave man to have written the book given the stakes involved. His detailing of the inner workings in this two-part interview is riveting.

What does this have to do with EVs and energy? Knowing how the world economy is manipulated by these truly evil people, and that much of their wealth stems from oil that you buy, will give you that much more of a reason to make the switch to domestic renewable energy when given the chance next year.

Part I:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTbdnNgqfs8&feature=player_embedded

Part II:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29GhXsx7-Rs&feature=player_embedded

Paul
******

The William Kamkwambe story

A few years ago, a 14 year old boy from Mastala, Malawi read a book about windmills. His village had no electricity with which to access radios or the internet, so he decided to build a windmill himself to improve his community's quality of life. Using the pictures in the book as a guide, he built a working windmill that now powers lights, radios and the internet.

His story is inspirational on many levels. When you see someone from the poorest of classes achieve something this useful on his own, it makes you realize how much of humanity is wasted on frivolous pursuits, or worse, harmful actions. How many more William Kamkwambes are there in the world who only need a little inspiration and access to education in order to help build a better world?

Renewable energy is more than merely a cost effective solution. It's a solution that can enable communities to become more self reliant without resorting to poisoning our environment and enriching evil men.

For the Jon Stewart fans among us, William is tonight's guest. See The Daily Show for more.

** I just saw the Daily Show segment with William. I strongly urge you to see it. Go to the site and watch it all the way to the end. The final comment about Google is pitch perfect.

Paul
*****

Storing wind energy

As most you reading this blog know, renewable energy is an integral part of the move to electric vehicles. Even though studies show that charging an EV from the existing grid is still much cleaner than driving a gas car, the goal is to run our cars on renewable electricity to the extent possible. One of the drawbacks to renewable energy is the intermittency of solar and wind. While this isn't much of a problem with solar since the peak demand for electricity closely follows solar production, it is a problem for wind. Wind is typically strongest at night when the grid has considerable excess capacity and prices are low.

Storing this low cost energy for the following day is therefore of great value to the utilities. Not only does it allow them to add to their portfolio of renewables, which they must do to meet ever more stringent environmental laws, but it can reduce the need to use expensive natural gas "peaker" plants.

Southern California Edison (SCE), the largest investor owned utility here in SoCal, has applied for a Department of Energy grant to utilize a massive battery storage unit supplied by MIT start up, A123 Systems, in an 8,000 sq ft building in the Tehachapi region of California. SCE intends to have as much as 4,500 megawatts of wind energy in this region by 2015. Plug-in vehicles will be charging mostly at night and will therefore constitute an ever growing market for this energy, but the numbers will be small for some time to come. It's necessary to store as much of this energy as possible so that we don't end up with the same problem they have in Texas and other states with their prodigious wind farms generating so many kiloWatt hours that the market can't absorb them and the price drops to zero. With daytime costs of kWh reaching into the 30-40 cent range, it make sense to store this clean energy for use during times of peak load.

See the whole story here: http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE57P4PJ20090826

On a related note, northern California's Pacific Gas and Electric, has applied for a grant to study the use of compressors to pump air into underground storage reservoirs with this excess night time wind energy, then using the stored compressed air to turn turbines the next day to generate kWh for peak demand. Same idea, different storage mechanism.

It remains to be seen how efficient these two techniques will be, but it's a good use of our federal tax dollars in my opinion.

Paul

Coda Review

On Saturday, Kevin Czinger, CEO of Coda, the new American car company that split off from Miles Automotive, brought the prototype of their new highway capable EV to our Electric Vehicle Assoc. meeting in Diamond Bar, CA. I have been following this car for over three years since hearing about it in the spring of 2006. Back then, I was told it would be available in a couple of years, but as these things go, it's still a year from delivery. Kevin assured us delivery would begin in August of 2010, putting this one ahead of both Nissan's Leaf and the Chevy Volt. He said they plan on selling about 2,000 units the first year thinking that will break into 40% fleet sales and 60% private. In year two, they will be prepared to make up to 20,000 cars.

The Coda's styling isn't going to turn heads on the highway, but since I often get asked why EVs have to look "so weird", I expect the vanilla styling will suit quite a few folks just fine. It's along the lines of a Toyota Corolla in size and looks. The fit and finish was better than I expected since it is coming off an assembly line in China. It appears the Chinese are improving quickly in this regard. Ultimately, they want to manufacture and assemble the Coda in California.

The range is a solid 100 miles based on the US06 driving cycle, a much more realistic test than the old EPA ratings used. The capacity of the 700 lb. Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePo) battery pack is 33.7 kWh which compares well to my RAV's 27 kWh. The batteries provide 333 volts and have been tested to over 1500 cycles which should be plenty for the 8 year, 100,000 mile warranty. One pertinent piece of info was his assertion that they are buying battery cells at "under $600 kWh". This is considerably less than most quotes I've seen and very close to the $500/kWh level at which I believe is the break even point with internal combustion at today's gas prices.

The weight is a bit on the high side at 3500 lbs. Kevin says they expect to drop that by several hundred pounds by the second generation. Porche engineering helped design part of the exterior and the interior, although the prototype didn't display all of the interior changes the final model will have.

After our meeting, Kevin graciously allowed 3-4 of us to pile in the car for a test ride over and over until about 30 of us had taken a turn. I didn't get to drive it myself, but he wasn't afraid to put the car through it paces for us. Even with four full sized adults, the car performed very well. Acceleration off the line was decent and at about 40 mph going up a hill, the car was still able to accelerate strongly. 0-60 is just under 10 seconds and top speed is 85 mph.

They do have a slight regenerative braking built in when you let off the pedal, but it's weak compared to the RAV and very weak compared to the Mini E or Tesla. I don't know if this is because they are using the UQM DC brushless motor/controller, or if there is another reason, but those who drive EVs love regen braking, so maybe they'll strengthen it later. All EVs should incorporate AC Propulsion's regen with a steering wheel control to allow freewheeling. The combination of the two will allow for the most efficient driving possible.

Charging will be at 6.6 kW, the same as our RAV and fast enough for most needs. High speed charging will be possible once the 50 kW chargers are deployed along the freeways.

Price? Good question. Earlier reports pegged it at $45,000, but Kevin hinted the car would sell for closer to $32,000 after tax credits, but when I tried to pin him down on an exact price, he hedged a bit. This is how all the car companies act when talking price. I understand and don't blame them since a year is a long time, and between component costs and competitive vehicles entering the market about the same time, I expect most will wait until about a month from actual delivery to lock down the price.

Paul
*****
The Coda is nice looking, if not exciting. What's exciting is that is uses no petroleum.

The interior was comfortable and the instrumentation was suitable for a mid range car.

Backyard mechanics will find little to recognize under the hood. The UQM motor/controller sits in the middle with the motor under the controller driving the front wheels.

Kevin demonstrating the charging connector.

Thanks to Stefano Paris for the pics!