US Dept. of Energy exploring Methane Hydrate resources in Gulf of Mexico, Alaska and elsewhere

The U.S. Government is supporting research into developing Methane Hydrate "resources".  A month ago I reported on a joint project between the Dept. of Energy and the State of Alaska to develop methane hydrate resources in Alaska's North Slope, as well as tar sands deposits in that area.  Today there is a press release from the Dept. of Energy about an exploratory trip in the Gulf of Mexico also focusing on Methane Hydrate deposits.

The trip is described as:  A joint-federal-agency 15-day research expedition in the northern Gulf of Mexico yielded innovative high-resolution seismic data and imagery that will help refine characterizations of large methane hydrate resources in the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf.

The expedition was planned by DOE, the U.S Geological Survey (USGS) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and conducted by the USGS.

This survey was a follow-up to one conducted 4 years ago which confirmed "that gas hydrate can and does occur at high saturations within reservoir-quality sands in the Gulf of Mexico" and that "highly saturated hydrate-bearing sands discovered in at least in two of three sites drilled."  The results from that expedition support the potential of gas hydrate as an energy resource.  This potential forms the foundation of the Office of Fossil Energy's Methane Hydrate R&D Program, which is focused on expanding future energy options by developing the information and technology required for eventual production of natural gas from hydrate. During the expedition, gas hydrate was found at saturations ranging from 50 percent to more than 90 percent in high-quality sands. The deposits were also found in close accordance with the project's pre-drill predictions, providing increased confidence in our gas hydrate exploration and appraisal technologies.

“Understanding the nature and setting of deepwater gas hydrates is central to the National Methane Hydrates R&D Program, which is led by DOE and managed by FE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory,” said Christopher Smith, Acting Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy. “Over the past 8 years, research carried out under this program has resulted in significant advances in our understanding of methane hydrates, their role in nature, and their potential as a future energy resource. This success is largely due to an unprecedented level of cooperation among federal agencies, industry, national laboratories, and academic institutions.”

“This expedition represents a significant milestone,” said USGS Energy Resources Program Coordinator Brenda Pierce. “The data and imagery provide insight into the entire petroleum system at each location, including the source of gas, the migration pathways for the gas, the distribution of hydrate-bearing sediments, and traps that hold the hydrate and free gas in place. The USGS has a globally recognized research effort studying gas hydrates in settings around world, and this project combines our unique expertise with that of other agencies to advance research on this potential future energy resource.”

My take is - this is a big step backwards, in that it will keep our society wedded to fossil fuels. 

The excitement is just oozing from these press releases that the U.S. is on the verge of developing more fossil fuel resources.  These reservoirs apparently have a significant quantity of natural gas (methane) available, which can be processed into liquid fuels or used directly as natural gas.

The pattern here is the problem.  Fossil fuel resources are part of the death spiral pattern, because it is an energy resource that is non-self-replenishing.  Every ounce of fossil fuel used depletes the resource.  Dependence on fossil fuels means an eventual death by depleting the resource to the point it is unfeasible to continue extracting fuel.

That they're exploring methane hydrates at all is a demonstration of that factoid.  We, collectively speaking, have tapped out the easy-to-extract fossil oil resources to the point where it's growingly expensive to extract the oil.  That's causing we, collectively, to start exploring other resources that are themselves more expensive but not as fully tapped out.



Additionally, every ounce of fossil fuel consumption represents carbon being desequestered.  The planet sequestered zillions of pounds of carbon in previous era's.  Given that we're concerned about carbon being added to the environment, we have to be concerned about any effort that will expand the desequesterising of carbon. 

You can learn more about the Dept of Energy's Methane Hydrate Research here:- http://energy.gov/fe/science-innovation/oil-gas-research/methane-hydrate

The specific reservoir studied in the Gulf of Mexico is thought to have almost 7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas equivalent:  http://www.boem.gov/uploadedFiles/BOEM/Oil_and_Gas_Energy_Program/Resource_Evaluation/Gas_Hydrates/MMS2008-004.pdf

Renault/Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn see's no further purpose to dealing with Better Place?

It seems my earlier prediction that Renault may be backing away from Better Place is confirmed (see Is Renault backing away from commitments to Better Place, causing a crisis for Better Place).  I just wrote it up on examiner.com, but Renault/Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn just told a Danish news site "When you look at the overall trends, we must conclude that the replaceable batteries no longer the main track for electric vehicles. The main trail is flat batteries in cars with charging. We believe that people want flexibility in the technology, and we can see that demand is rechargeable standard batteries."

Not only does he no longer see a point to fast battery swapping, Renault and Nissan both are pushing quick charging instead. What we should expect is to see further work on fast charging, and for Better Place to keep struggling until the patience of the Israel Corp wears out.

Ghosn did say that Renault would continue supplying Fluence ZE's to Better Place.  But the statement clearly says those days are numbered.

See: http://energiwatch.dk/Energinyt/Cleantech/article5393397.ece

GM is not killing the Chevy Volt, but creating the Volt 2.0 and Cadillac ELR

Should GM kill the Chevy Volt?  I thought we were past that phase, but maybe not, or maybe an article with that title on the Motley Fool is just a piece of link-bait.  In any case, GM is clearly playing the game of developing Volt 2.0 rather than killing the Volt.  And that is what I suggested GM do with an article over a year ago, Should GM kill the Chevy Volt, stand pat, or create the Volt2?

At the time I wrote that Volt2 article, the anti-Volt frenzy was high partly because of the Presidential elections, and the way the Volt was being politically manipulated, and partly because of the politically motivated hype over the supposed fire risk of the Chevy Volt.  Interestingly, that article was also written as a reaction to a Motley Fool article, leading me to think there's a Volt and electric car basher at the Motley Fool.

Fact is that in 2012, GM came nowhere near the 45,000 Volt sales they'd projected, and in 2013 Volt sales are not only not improving but are on a declining trend-line.  GM does need to do something to change this trend.  And they need to do more than just reference the 3+ years of lackluster sales it took before the Toyota Prius took off to become the megahit it is today.  The success of the Prius was not automatic, because Toyota had to have the stick-to-it-iveness to see it through to success. 

One measure of success is whether a particular car is making a profit for the automaker.  One of the memes is that GM is losing their shirt on the Volt and some even use bogus math to back up that idea by trying to show it cost $250,000 or whatever per Volt to develop the car.  The implied idea is that since GM is losing money on each Volt, that GM should just cut their losses and go fishing where the fish are biting.

GM's CEO Dan Akerson didn't help the case for the Volt2 when he said this at a recent conference  (wrote up more details of it here .. original transcript is on tech.fortune.cnn.com): 

So, this will take out ‑‑ there have been 150 million miles driven on electricity now in the U.S.  We've sold about 26-1/2 thousand of them.  There's nobody else who has done as many plug-in electric miles as we have.  And the car is safe.  It's a five-star rated safety car.  It's shown durability and we're losing money on every one of them.  But, this is the first generation.  So, the first year it outsold when Toyota came out with that ‑‑ what's the name of that funny car they have?

While he did not help the overall cause any by saying this, the bigger point Akerson was making is the process of investing for a long-term payoff.  GM isn't following a game of trying something and run away if it fails coming out of the starting gate.   Instead, the game is to plonk down some investment, learn from the initial product, and improve for the second version.

In other words, stick-to-it-iveness.  BTW, Microsoft Windows didn't take off until version 3.1, meaning there was a version 1, version 2 and even a version 3.0 before the one which took off.

My Volt2 piece went over three paths

• Dump the Volt - it's losing money
• Stand pat with the existing Volt
• Create the Volt2

GM seemed at the time, and even more so now, to be working hard on the Volt2 path.  The problem I wrote about at the time is also even more true now - the Volt is more expensive than other plug-in hybrids, meaning that Volt is being undercut by the other automakers.  Most importantly is the Ford C-MAX Energi and Fusion Energi, both of which are fine cars, are plug-in hybrids, and have a lower price than the Volt.

Even more interesting are two things from Nissan and Tesla Motors.  First, the 2013 Nissan Leaf has a much lower price.  The starting price of the Leaf, $28,800, is a full $10,000 cheaper than the Volt.  Second, the Tesla Model S appears to be outselling not only the Volt but also the Leaf.  That's rather surprising, because of the price level for the Model S (starts at $70k).

What is GM doing?

GM: Next Generation Volt Will Be $10,000 Cheaper to Build - This was at the aforementioned conference, late April 2013, and Akerson talked a fair bit about what the Volt2 would be.  In 2015-16, by the way.  It'll cost $7-10,000 less than today, it will weigh less, and it will have the ability to charge the battery pack while driving. 

Further, the Volt is sharing a lot of technology with the Cadillac ELR.  Further, GM plans to have sold a half million electrified vehicles by 2017.


GM's Reuss promises Volt 2.0 will be thousands of dollars cheaper - in Jan 2013, at the Automotive News World Congress, defended the Volt and talked about its future.  Cheaper, better.  He also talked about how Electric cars are not dead but are inevitable.  Reuss said "We’re talking about a transformation here. And transformation takes time. It takes a long time to change an industry, to change habits, and to change a way of life." And that "I believe, and we at GM believe that the public will accept and embrace electric vehicles; some people already have."  He pointed to technology advances that are coming which will "offer comparable performance at comparable prices," such as "an affordable electric car that offers 300 miles of range with all the comfort and utility of a conventional vehicle"

GM accelerating electric vehicle technology development, in China - In Nov. 2012, Jon Lauckner, GM Chief Technology Officer, vice president of Global Research & Development, and president of GM Ventures, talked at the FISITA 2012 World Automotive Congress in Beijing about GM's research and development into advanced electric vehicle development.  The context was in China, and GM's role in China, but it also shows where GM is going globally - towards electrified vehicles.

 “Greater adoption of electrified vehicles requires a greater breadth of offerings; cost reductions in technology for more competitive pricing compared to conventional vehicles; and, of course, more infrastructure for convenient charging,” Lauckner said.

“We will apply innovative technologies to cell design and fabrication, test and validate advanced cell materials provided by suppliers, and ultimately integrate battery cells into future battery systems for our vehicles,” said Lauckner. “We believe the further development of lithium-ion battery technology is possible through improvements in cell chemistry, cell and pack design, and optimization of thermal management.” In other words, GM's engineers are hard at work solving the technological hurdles to electric vehicle adoption.

For a run-down on GM's R&D work in China, see my earlier posting ...

GM's Akerson promises 200 mile range electric car in a few years - Several times over the last year, GM's executives have talked about the impending 200 mile range electric car.  They haven't given a precise time-frame, nor what technology would be behind it.  I read Lauckner's speech as also supporting this idea. 

Envia Systems battery breakthrough for affordable 300 mile range electric cars - It isn't openly acknowledged, but it is believed that GM is working with Envia Systems to design an improved lithium-ion technology.  What Envia has announced is battery technology with over twice the energy density and 1/4th the cost of current lithium-ion batteries. 

The result is a battery that stores 400 watt-hours of electricity per kilogram, compared to the 100-200 watt-hours/kilogram for todays lithium-ion batteries. Envia says its battery cell costs could be as low as $125 per kilowatt-hour. It's difficult to get accurate prices automakers pay for batteries, but it's thought to be in the neighborhood of $5-600 per kilowatt-hour. Together this means Envia has achieved a breakthrough of over twice the energy density of todays batteries, at 1/4 or less the cost.

Why is Envia important?  It's because GM Ventures has invested in Envia Systems, and Envia has licensed technology that has also been licensed by LG Chem (GM's battery supplier for the Volt).

Solar Impulse electric airplane sets off on impossible flight to change the worlds energy consumption

This morning I witnessed one of those rare events where a smart man announces to the worlds press that the impossible is possible, and then sets off on an adventure to prove it.  Unfortunately I think the significance is going to be lost on most people.  What I'm talking about is Bertrand Picard's Solar Impulse aircraft, a solar powered electric airplane which the Solar Impulse team plans to pilot around the world in a couple years.  The aircraft set off this morning on the first leg of a flight across the U.S., leaving the San Francisco Bay Area and arriving in New York City in about 2 months.

I've written a pair of news articles about the flight and the Solar Impulse:

• Solar Impulse Airplane Prepares for Cross-Country Sun-Powered Flight 
• Solar Impulse starts historic cross-country solar powered airplane flight

If the name Bertrand Picard tweaks your memory, it's because he flew a balloon around the world in 1999.  If you're the right kind of nerd, he's not that Picard.  (you know who you are)  After the balloon flight he developed an idea about flying with renewable energy, specifically solar energy, and set about creating a team to build an airplane.  However the plan was met by skepticism and airplane manufacturers telling him the idea was impossible.

Before takeoff, Picard described the technology as a win-win which could create jobs, sustain growth, while cleaning up the transportation environment. "If we want to have a good future, we need this clean technology. We hope that the political world will also globally understand that if we want to have a good future, we need this clean technology. It needs to get out of the labs, the start-ups, the Universities, or experimental airplanes, to really be used everywhere, in our world, for cars, for houses, heating and cooling systems, lighting systems. With the technologies we have on board, we can divide by two the energy consumption of our world, and produce half of the rest with renewable resources. This is the type of message that people really have to understand, because that's the way forward. That's the innovation and the adventure of the 21st Century."

Essentially he said to the world press :-  See that airplane behind me?  The technology on that airplane would, if put into wide use, slash fossil fuel usage to a quarter of what it is today.  It doesn't matter how many experts told us this was impossible, let me show you how the world could be re-imagined.

But, how many people are going to listen or understand?

What he means by this big statement is explained in part by another thing he said about the Solar Impulse aircraft.  This is an aircraft where you can start flying with an empty battery pack in the morning, and during the day the solar panels will collect enough energy to fly all day AND end the day with a full battery pack.  That full battery pack is enough for the airplane to fly all night, at which it repeats the cycle of collecting energy and flying all day.

This is an airplane which can theoretically fly indefinitely, if it weren't for the limitations of the human pilot.  Make it a robotic airplane and it really could fly indefinitely.

But this isn't just about airplanes that can fly indefinitely.  It's about technology that could completely reshape the environmental impact we make on the earth, and the energy/resource footprint of our society. 

Electricity -- as a fuel -- is extremely efficient.  Electric vehicles have the potential to completely and totally reshape the impact of the transportation sector, and drastically reduce the use of fossil fuels.

The Solar Impulse airplane ties an electric drive train with advanced lithium-ion batteries and the most efficient lightweight solar panels they could find from any manufacturer.  This is a potent combination that today can enable an airplane to fly around the world, but there are looming breakthroughs that will make all these technologies even more capable.  Solar panels with greater efficiency (performance), and battery packs with greater energy density are being worked on.

Other technology on-board includes carbon fiber, carbon fiber composites, navigation technology, insulation technology and more.  This is an extremely light airplane, thanks to the extensive use of carbon fiber and composites.  Reducing the weight of cars and trucks would save a lot of fuel all by itself.

As a technology demonstration the Solar Impulse is amazing and inspiring.  But, as Bertrand Picard said, why keep this technology relegated to experimental airplanes or far off research labs?  Why not start deploying it in a major way? 

Instead of that we have stonewalling from vested business interests and their paid-off politicians.

Is GM greenwashing itself with Climate Declaration and other sustainability measures?

When a big company signs an agreement to be a good environmental steward, we tend to think of greenwashing, that the company is just looking to paint themselves green and there's no real depth to the commitment.  Today, GM became the first automaker to sign on with the Climate Declaration campaign, which is organized by sustainable business advocacy group Ceres and its Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy, or BICEP, coalition.  Okay, the very business that automakers conduct is inherently nonsustainable, so how can GM credibly do this and not appear to be greenwashing?  Well, they do seem to have a significantly large effort underway to reduce the negative impact of their operations, and this goes much deeper than just making a few electrified cars.

Yesterday, GM's CEO Dan Akerson gave a wide ranging interview at the Fortune Brainstorm Green conference, in which he talked about a big list of things GM is doing to reduce the impact of their business.  My own reporting on it (PluginCars.com and TorqueNews.com) is focusing on the next generation Chevy Volt, but he talked about so much more than that.

Why do I say automaking is inherently unsustainable?  For me "sustainable" means activities that support long term sustenance of Society, for many many generations into the future.  The act of making a car is highly consumptive, and to a large extent is an example of "use once and throw away" depending on how much of the material used to make the car gets recycled when the car is scrapped.  Also the fuel that drives the typical car, gasoline, is highly corrosive and toxic every step of its life-cycle from extraction to refining to use.  There is very little in what automakers do that properly sustains Society over the long term.

That said, GM has a number of nice projects that it is doing, nice achievements.  For example, the majority of their facilities do not send excess material to the landfill, but instead recycle everything that doesn't make it into a car.  That is more than waycool.  Add to that the massive use of solar power and other kinds of renewable energy, to power factories, and we have a company that has made a big commitment.

At the same time, in his comments Akerson made a strong pitch for expanding the extraction of shale gas.  To do so means expansion of the practice of hydraulic fracturing, and continuing the death spiral that is the consumption of fossil fuels.  Fossil fuel consumption is extremely non-Sustainable in so many ways.

Here's a few quotes and commentary

We have to look at alternate propulsion, not only in electrification but compressed natural gas, biofuels, diesel, hydrogen fuel cells, we're looking at all that and pursuing it aggressively. And, at the same time, we're trying to use advanced technologies to lighten the car, make it more efficient.

For example, the new Corvette ‑‑ it's comprised of carbon fiber nanotechnology, and fiberglass. ... we not only lightened it, we dropped the center of gravity. We put in all the new technology in stability and control and brakes that only Ferraris have. And so we have a better car that makes mileage that when it's cruising, it's making 26 miles a gallon .. you look at the basic thermodynamics and physics that underpins the gas combustion engine, and you look at everything from cylinder deactivation, direct injection, variable valve timing and turbos

you can't solve this by fiat, by policy from a political scientist. You have to get down and really reengineer from the ground up.

Chevy Cruze Diesel coming soon ..

it's clean diesel, 46 miles per gallon, and that's if you drive it not like you should. It will be the best mileage per gallon for a diesel. We're the only ones doing it, and down into the compact area of the market just to get us there. We've actually seen in our tests even higher than 46 miles per gallon. ... VW sells 80,000 down in the Jetta and Golf. So, why don't we sell and give the American consumer some choice. ... So they can buy American.

we hope by 2017 that we'll have a half-million cars with one form of electrification or another

there have been 150 million miles driven on electricity now in the U.S. We've sold about 26-1/2 thousand of them. There's nobody else who has done as many plug-in electric miles as we have. ... this is the first generation.  We sell a couple of thousand a month in the U.S.

Talking about the Next Generation Volt

we've got a lightweight this car, which is important, that the battery in it alone is 400 pounds. we've got to lightweight it in other ways. in this next generation we think we can decrease the price on the order of $7,000 to $10,000, without decontenting.

the second generation be much more, hopefully, profitable. I think it will be profitable.

we just introduced the Spark, which will be available in this market, California and Oregon, this summer. And it gets 82 miles on a charge, but then it's out.

Then he started talking about oil supplies and the need to develop oil shale resources so we can access the natural gas reserves and all drive natural gas powered cars.

in the late '70s we had an oil embargo. It was a signal that we all missed. A very flawed president at the time named Richard Nixon said we needed an energy policy. Of course, we didn't get it. President Carter had another oil crisis and he told us all to drive 55 miles an hour and put a sweater on. That's not an energy policy. And subsequently no president, no political leadership in this country has articulated a national energy policy, and ladies and gentlemen, our competition is.

we've been given a gift called shale. And there have to be safeguards in my opinion, to make sure that the shale can be extracted without polluting our ground water, et cetera, et cetera. I'm not a petroleum engineer, or a gas engineer, but hopefully that can be done. If it can, we sit on more BTUs of energy than Saudi Arabia does. ... our energy industry is built around oil. ... It's going to have to transform and there has to be an integrated, national policy where there's political leadership

we have this moment. It has to be grasped. And the engines are built today. We have natural gas engines that exist today. And we've committed to them into a three-quarter ton truck into our panel trucks, because you have to go to a central fueling station location.

you know that there is ubiquity of natural gas all through residential and industrial areas. Why not have one out of four, one out of three gas stations that has a natural gas fueling station, because today we actually produce a car that will take either liquid gasoline, gas as we call it, petrol, and it will also burn natural gas.

Sustainability is woven into our global strategies. It is what will sustain this company over the longer term.

We recycle, reuse to the tune where 105 of 125 plants produce no landfill, none, not a drop of paint, not an ounce of steel. It's reused, recycled, and it makes good business for us.

We generate a billion dollars in revenue a year out of about $150-60 billion globally comes from reuse of material. And we cut about $90 million a year just in the U.S. in how we save. So we're getting revenue on one hand, and we're saving about $90 million just in the United States from our plants. Three of our plants in the U.S. produce anywhere from 17 to 25 percent of their total energy needs from landfill methane gas that we pump in and use it. And two out of the five largest solar arrays in the world are General Motors'. Those solar arrays, and when you look at it you're very proud of it.

Tesla Model S's in limousine services, and the possibility of electric taxi service

Can electric cars be successful as a Taxi?  Taxi's seem to drive lots of miles a day, which would be many more than the 70-100ish mile range of typical electric cars.  Where New York City has launched use of Nissan Leaf as taxi's ahead of deploying the electric e-NV200 minivan, news has come out that limousine companies are looking to use Tesla Model S with at least one limo company doing so.

The company, Strack Transportation, is not a taxi company but instead offers specialized transportation services (limousines, private jets) to the ultra-rich (a.k.a. the 1%). That means their service isn't directly comparable to regular taxi service.

However, let's compare the Model S and the Leaf as taxi's. 

Quick charging is essential for a taxi, because it needs to stay on the road all day long.  Both the Leaf and the Model S support quick charging.  However, it's known that the Leaf doesn't respond well to frequent quick charged and that battery pack capacity diminishes rapidly when it's frequently quick charged.  We don't know whether the Model S battery pack responds well to quick charging.

Another model for electric taxi's is fast battery pack exchange, such as the Better Place taxi pilot projects in Amsterdam and elsewhere.  However, deployment of Better Place's infrastructure is pretty limited and is expensive to build out.

A long total driving range will mitigate the need for quick charging.  The Model S is the winner here because of its 265 mile electric driving range.

Cost is essential for typical taxi service, because a taxi company has to be able to pay for the car (and make a profit) while charging fares that are probably regulated by the city.  Here, the Leaf wins because of its lower price.

In February news coverage of the Nissan Leaf based taxi service in Osaka Japan put it in a poor light.  After a couple years the remaining driving range of these taxi's has diminished rapidly, presumably because of multiple quick charges a day.  The taxi owners are feeling frustrated by the cars because they can't drive far enough to be useful.  They like them because of the quiet smooth ride, but with a drastically shortened driving range have a harder time making it a business.

North Carolina considering Fair Share Contribution for Elect. Vehicles.

The North Carolina Legislature is considering SB710, Fair Share Contribution for Elect. Vehicles., which would enact a $100 per year annual registration fee for electric vehicles.

It's a fairly straight-forward law:

SECTION 1.  G.S. 20‑52 is amended by adding a new subsection to read:

"(c)       At the time of an initial registration, the owner of a plug‑in electric vehicle that does not rely on a nonelectric source of power shall pay a fee in the amount of one hundred dollars ($100.00) in addition to any other required registration fees."

SECTION 2.  G.S. 20‑66 is amended by adding a new subsection to read:

"(l)        Fee for Certain Plug‑In Electric Vehicles. – At the time of an annual registration renewal, the owner of a plug‑in electric vehicle that does not rely on a nonelectric source of power shall pay a fee in the amount of one hundred dollars ($100.00) in addition to any other required registration fees."

SECTION 3.  This act becomes effective January 1, 2014, and applies to initial or renewal motor vehicle registrations on or after that date.

As it stands, the bill passed in the NC Senate on April 2.  There doesn't seem to be a companion version in the NC House.