News from California 11

[zdas04]

California passes new auto emission rules

This article is AMAZING. The regulators in California have mandated that 1.4 million electric cars be on the roads of the state by 2025. I tried to count the number of times electric cars were called "zero emissions" in the article and got to 8 before I lost count. One of the comments after the the article hit the nail on the head by saying "Electricity comes from coal and natural gas, why don't they call these cars 'coal fired vehicles'?".

Why do regulators insist on pretending that they can ignore the laws of nature?

David

 

[zdas04]

I was 10 years old. I know it was pink. I know my mom was angry about having to pay to put in seat belts and have the emissions tested.

David

 

[GregLocock]

meanwhile, for people who are putting their own money where their mouths are, here is an investor's viewpoint. I don't necessarily agree with it, but he raises some interesting points.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/323...dge-of-transportation-technology?source=yahoo

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[zdas04]

Greg,
That is not a bad assessment. I especially like the quote

Saving a $100 barrel of oil with an electric vehicle that costs $200 is a deal that can only appeal to the philosophically committed and mathematically challenged.

and

Nobody wants to suffer for the sake of saving the planet and the most fervent EVangelicals are those who think that buying a high-performance EV from Tesla is a capital idea. These are not useful products for adults, they're high-end toys for the self-absorbed who care nothing for the economy, the environment or common sense as long as they can spend somebody else's money on eco-extravagance. They don't understand the difference between buying a $200 Optimus Prime toy from Hasbro and buying a $70,000 Sub-optimus Prime toy from Tesla.

and finally

Will Rogers once observed, "There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves." If Will were alive today, he'd have a field day with electric drive.

I did a materials analysis on electric cars as my senior project in college in 1980. The assumption back then was that electric vehicles would have a bank of lead-acid batteries (we were not allowed to assume breakthrough technology which LiIon batteries would have been back then). We looked at techniques to maximize battery life and decided that two battery packs per vehicle was the only alternative that provided adequate battery life (the analysis showed that charge rate had a significant impact on battery life so if you could take 24 hours for a normal charge the batteries would last 4-5 times more charges so the pair of batteries would last 10 years instead of a single pack lasting one year). We were told to list, but ignore, minor issues like where the heck someone would set the second battery pack while charging and how we were going to prevent houses from burning down due to hydrogen off gassing. We looked at the number of new batteries that were needed and the components of the batteries. We found that there were two trace elements (antimony and another that I can't remember) that were vital, but that were only available from places with very unstable governments. Our findings were that lead-acid batteries were untenable power supply for an 1 million + EV Fleet.

David

 

[CastMetal]

Interesting breakdown of the Li quantities required and efficiencies involved in production and operation of Li-Ion batteries, for those interested.

http://www.meridian-int-res.com/Projects/How_Much_Lithium_Per_Battery.pdf

Comprehension is not understanding. Understanding is not wisdom. And it is wisdom that gives us the ability to apply what we know, to our real world situations

 

[moltenmetal]

OK, I take it all back!

I agree with David: California IS the land of fruits and nuts...Well intentioned initiatives taken to such a ridiculous extreme that it is now a parody of itself.

Take a look at this warning I found on a piece of plywood I received as a piece of packaging material. Californial Prop 65 requires this labelling. This is so mind-numbingly stupid I can't get over it!

 

[zdas04]

What I find funniest about it is blaming the product for "generating" the wood dust, I thought the saw or sandpaper did that.

I was born in California. I lived there three different times as an adult. I visit frequently. I like the place. There is a lot of crazy in the laws. There is a lot of crazy in the choices the electorate makes.

The state did give us Ronald Regan. The family that I still have there is just about as conservative as I am. The public face of California is pretty wacky, but the majority seems to be just folks.

David

 

[owg]

Re. the wood dust warning. If the cancer don't get you the unconfined vapour cloud explosion will.

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[owg]

Electric cars will have many unintended consequences. Quote from Two and Half Men: "I was doing OK until her husband pulled into the driveway in his freakin Prius".

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[Xera]

Reagan was from Tampico, Illinois. He moved to California.

 

[beej67]

I read that "10 Reasons Why Electric Drive is Stranded.." article, and I disagree with many of his points. In particular this one:

It makes no difference whether the energy comes from a gallon of gasoline or a lump of coal.

In terms of air quality, it makes quite a bit of difference. Coal is cleaner per unit of energy than gasoline is, and coal effluent goes up a smokestack and gets spread very thinly, while gasoline goes out a tailpipe and into my face.

It also makes quite a bit of difference where the energy originates, for future scenarios where the dollar may tank. If the dollar tanks, all oil (even domestic oil) is going to be stupendously expensive, because it's all sold on a global market. But the cost of electricity generated here will scale with our ability to buy it, since it's made here and can't be exported.

His points about rare metals may have some merit - I'm not particularly knowledgeable about those things. Then again, he's a Swiss lawyer, so I'm not sure how much he knows about them either.

His points about the ROI are correct and obvious, until the price of oil changes. Electric cars are a hedge bet against oil staying this cheap.



Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

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[cranky108]

A minor point, but coal is being exported from the US to China.

But you also made a good point about coal being cleaner than gasoline.

If the dollar tanks, there are other alternitives that an auto cycle engine can consume. While not popular, or desirable, they are available (coal is one of them. Remember town gas).

The shame is all the money they spend on mass transit and they still can't get people out of there cars. There is some issue that is not being addressed, which we seem to be over looking.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Note that the California 'Prop 65' warning has become so ubiquitous, being that they are posted at the door of virtually every business in the state, that most people couldn't even tell you if they saw the sign or not. But the business owner covered his butt...

But in retrospect, it might have been nice if something like this had been posted back when asbestos could be found most anywhere simply flaking from the ceilings of schools, shopping malls, factories or even in your own home, particularly if you had hot water or steam heat. Or like when I was working in Michigan back in the 70's when my boss's son got a job working in the shop one summer while in college and he was handed a can of solvent and a wire brush was told to crawl inside a large casting and clean out all the rust and other crude before they moved it to the paint shop. When they broke for lunch someone started to look for him since he always joined them, they found him dead, overcome by the fumes from the unmarked can of solvent.

And while you might laugh at some of the laws and rules enacted here first (or at least get blamed for being first) sometimes things work out OK. I think 'Right-Turn on Red' was first legal in the 'Land of Fruits & Nuts', as was the first seatbeat laws, car pool lanes, handicap access rules, smoke free workplaces including bars and restaurants (after all, they're also 'workplaces'), etc.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

UG/NX Museum:

http://www.plmworld.org/p/cm/ld/fid=209

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[SnTMan]

Well, you know what the car guys say about electrics, "It's the car of the future, and it has been for a hundred years."

Regards,

Mike

 

[KENAT]

I thought that for a while electric cars were the car of the past. If memory serves in the very early days electric cars offered some 'ease of use' and 'lower maintenance' advantages over their IC powered brethren.

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[SnTMan]

Well, you didn't break an arm staring them...

 

[jmw]

Just to remind you of this thread on new LiIon batteries.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[SnTMan]

...or STARTING them either..

 

[moltenmetal]

JohnRBaker: too much of a good thing is actually quite a bad thing.

Putting warnings on pieces of wood is much, much worse than merely ineffective: it trivializes the real hazards that are there. Too many false alarms and warnings and you start to ignore them all. People will likely die needlessly as a result.

I'm confident that this piece of plywood would be harmful if taken internally too, but I'd like to test it to be sure. We can't test on animals any more- that would be cruel. I suggest that we test this on the jackasses that trivialized the entire notion of protective health and safety by applying this kind of warning to a piece of wood, rather than to the pieces of machinery which actually generate respirable wood dust in large quantity!

The "respirable crystalline silica" warnings weren't enough, obviously. The largest source of that particular hazard in our facility, by several orders of magnitude, is sweeping our concrete floor, but you can't battle the perception these warnings generate in people's heads with mere reason.

 

[cranky108]

Isen't a sign on a piece of wood an offence to people who believe in darwin awards?

 

[zdas04]

One of the funniest things about the sign is that if you wanted to use the section of plywood with the stencil on it for a finished product, you would have to sand the stencil out, actually increasing the amount of dust generated--I see is as a safety warning that not only trivializes the concept but actually increases the risk.

David