Peak usage appears to be in the morning when we are getting ready for the day.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I had Brother’s Electric out to the house to install our TED. It took some doing even for the professional but we got ‘er done. Our circuit breaker is quite complicated. The house is over 100 years old after all.

The Gateway unit is presently plugged in to a kitchen outlet. The data travels from the MTU down in the circuit breaker across electrical lines to the Gateway. It’s important that there are no other electrical devices nearby or the RF interference may cause problems.

Since the Gateway isn’t upstairs in my office, where my router is, I’m not able to send the data to Google PowerMeter. What I do instead is set my laptop and review the graphs and numbers. The Gateway has enough memory to record 13 months of data. So it’s logging our power usage and providing a good baseline. Very soon I will be replacing fixtures and bulbs with more efficient solutions.

I’ve already begun to power down all computers and entertainment electronics when they aren’t in use. All of those devices are connected to power strips. A simple flick of the switch does the trick. No vampires in my office.

Today FedEx brought me my new T.E.D.

Well, my birthday is just two days away. Guess I got my present early. I ordered this about 5 weeks ago. So popular they have been backlogged. That’s a good problem to have.

Now all I need is an electrician to install it for me. No way am I going to attempt it. I know enough to realize I would probably kill myself doing it.

I wonder how long it will take my family to start reducing our average daily kilowatt hour usage, currently at 25.4, to 15 kWh. Too ambitious? Perhaps. It’s good to have a goal to start with. I can adjust my expectations after it’s been in use for a couple of months.

I’m looking forward to showing my children our hourly electricity usage. This way I hope they will always be conscious of their energy usage.

Better Place founder, Shai Agassi

Shai Agassi has a pretty amazing solution that is very smart. He is the founder of Better Place. The company focuses on developing complete ev infrastructure solutions. One of their stated goals is to get off our addiction to oil. Mr. Agassi gave a talk at Technion, Israel’s MIT. For those of you who don’t speak or understand Hebrew, Ofri has generously translated some key moments of the video. I am posting them here so you all can see them for yourself.

• We started with a very interesting question: How do you run a whole country without oil?
• A few years ago it was a simple question when the costs were at 40$ a barrel but at 140$ a barrel it became critical. In the last few week I’ve discussed this question with many of the world’s greatest and they are very concerned about it. Why? Because 4T$ is going to move from the industrial world to a certain 12 countries.
  So where did the 100$ difference [for oil] go to? Its not like they were losing money before…
  What they do is they create funds that buy 10% of every huge company out there, in a few years they will own the world.
• When the American economy needs to pay 800B$ a year to import oil the American economy stops.
• 75% of the food prices going up is due to the world’s attempt to create Bio-fuel.
• How do we create an electric car that is going to be more comfortable than the normal car?
• The new line of lithum-ion-phosphate batteries can create around 140-150Kwh per 1kg
• So we know how to create a car that can run around 200km without giving up the good things that we love (ac, seats,speed and such). If we remove the rear seats we can get around 500km. Tesla can go 450km but then the car becomes VERY expensive. the batteries are very expensive.
• But what we can create now days is a very fast car, our prototype car can do 0-60mph in 7.5seconds. which is pretty fast,most people i drive with are scared when i start driving.But then we remain with 2 problems:

1. Distance, after 200km I’m going have to stop and charge the batteries and where would i do that? How long will that take? So out of that came the conclusion that we have an infrastructure problem. (a problem out of the car)
2. Price: batteries makes the car very expensive adding around $12k – $15k to a normal car…

• Then comes the idea to “Better Place”. What we did was separate the car [from the battery]. The car is the car and the battery is here to replace the oil.
• For comfort reason we need to place a charging socket at every parking spot.
• How many times a year did any of you drive longer than 150k in one trip? 10? 15? 20? around that…
• So how do we solve the long trips? Replace the batteries.
  Its gotta be quick. So you enter what looks like a car shed at every gas station. An automatic system replaces the battery in under a minute, total time. If, lets say, there are people in line… 3minutes. (if you’ve waited for 4 minutes a free sandwich is on us
• So now we have an interesting situation: since its not your battery – you dont pay for it and replacing the batteries happens less than the time your fueling your car.
• So what we end up is a more comfy, clean and fast car. The only thing that remains is the price issue. 20k for the car and another 15k for the battery.
• The idea was to buy the car and the battery and to promise the idea of switching batteries.
  I told that idea to Bill Clinton and after 5minutes he reply ” You’re solving the right problem at a wrong time” until this moment every leader in the world gave me the same reply “its good that the young people are solving the world’s problems.”
• Until your gonna prove this idea in Israel and some will buy it and some wont because it cost the same. 15 years have passed. Then you’re going to have to convince the people in America to pay double the price of a normal car. (in Israel we have high taxes on normal cars and none of zero emission cars, so what happens is that the battery’s cost is covered by the lack of tax). Another 15 years have passed. In 30 years we wont have a plant.
• So I asked Mr. Clinton “what do you suggest?” he told me “You need to get the guy who cant afford a new car. “The average Joe”. The ones that drive that old 97′ ford feista, Shes bad, eats alot of gas and so on… but the good thing about it is that its value is close to zero. the only cost you see is the gas cost each week and the and repair cost every two months.
• So now the question is how do you place “The averege Joe” in that brand new car at the same price it costs him to throw it away which means for free? I asked him “how do you give some one a free car?” he replied “I dont know you’re a smart guy.” he turn around and walked away.
• From here came the thought of the business idea: the cellphone. You get a free phone and you pay for the calls.
  How much do you pay for gas each week? 100$? Well I think that if you’re willing to pay 100$ each week you deserve a new car and unlimited distance.
• Gas this year around the world: 3-4T $
  New cars: 2T $
  Used cars 3T $
  Car parts: 1.5T $
  Insurance 1T $
• Add it all together and the entire industry rolls in around 10T $ worldwide each year.
• A change like this has never happened in the world’s economy. EVER. And its gonna happen within a snap. Why? Because today you can’t buy a car without a loan from the bank.
• The change isn’t going to come from the bank. The bank wont give some one a loan because they wont be sure if you’d be able to resell this type of a car. (gas car)
• The cost of the entire [Electric Vehicle] infrastructure is amazing:
• on average, 2 charging spots per car on the market 100$. [Look at it another way,] on average 500$ per car. [For the charger,] 80% is installed in the ground. you can import the installation from China.
• 2 million cars on the market in israel bring to a total of 1B $ out of which 800M goes to labor. This creates new work places.
• So a very unique situation was created: with the sum of 1B$ (which is btw the amount of money we pay for 2 months of gas) we wash ourselves clean of oil.
• In order to create the electricity for all of the cars in the country in a clean manner, without a single atom of co2, we can create a solar park at the size of 2GW at the cost of 5B$. in fact out of that 5B$ 80% is labor another 4B stays in the country.
• so a total of 6B$ to rid ourselves of oil, which is one year’s cost of oil.

He is talking specifically about ending Israel’s dependence on foreign oil imports. The numbers for the U.S. would be much higher.

For the price of one year’s supply of oil, he proposes to:

1. Give the “Average Joe” a free car, based on the cell phone business model. Each car has the latest battery on the market and a decent 200km range.
2. Establish charging stations at every parking space.
3. Construct battery swap-out stations for long trips.

I’ll be watching Israel’s progress on this plan with interest.

Spikes in the winter. Almost nothing in the summer.

The daily, average kilowatt-hour usage for my home in 2008 and 2009 was 25.4. That usage generates 12,500 lbs. of CO2 per year. As soon as I get my TED 5000 (they are on back order 3-6wks) I hope to get that number down by at least 25%. Can I cut it down 50%? We shall see. The savings should pay for the TED unit in a year and a half. Then the savings will cover the increase from the Windsource option.

If anyone wants to look at the specifics of my home’s energy usage for the past two years, they can find it here: http://bit.ly/EVOkWh01

42 min. in Carlos Strauss points out - People care about MPG not kWh

My friend Ofri sent me a link to a video wherein an expert panel discusses the future of electric cars. During the question and answer period, about 42 minutes in, Carlos Strauss made a very important point: People don’t care about “electric” or “kWh”. They want to drive a car that gets 200 mpg.

John Barton over at Montana EV Conversion recently posted a 2006 white paper published by Tesla Motors where they spell out the “Well to Wheel” energy usage for every type of personal automobile. It is informative but very technical.

What I have heard from EV enthusiasts so far reminds me of early computer animation. Only high level programmers could make a computer generated ball bounce across the screen back in the 80s. Yawn. Then along comes Luxo Jr. in 1986. Suddenly lamps and a ball had a personalities. The computer part of the animation receded into the background. People suspended disbelief and became emotionally invested in the story.

It’s the MPGs stupid. Not many cared about the lines of code it took to bring a lamp to life. Not many people gave a second thought to Carlos Strauss’s “Electric” sticker on his car. Lots of people showed interest in his “100 mpg” sticker though. When does the U.S. become emotionally invested an electric car? It begins when they hear a compelling story in a language they understand.

200 mpg | 3¢ per mile | 100% U.S. fuel

Americans see this and know the car is efficient, inexpensive to run and good for the country.

Now that I have your attention, let’s do the math:

1. Tesla Roadster gets 2.53 km/MJ (kilometers per megajoule)
2. 87 octane gasoline has 32.0 MJ/l (megajoules per liter)
3. 2.53 km/MJ * 32.0 MJ/l = 80.96 km/l
4. 80.96 km/l = 190.4 mpg

Keep in mind that the Tesla Roadster has a range of 200 miles. The Tesla Motors white paper postulates if the EV1 had used Lithium Ion batteries instead of the heavy and inefficient lead acid batteries it would have a range of 250 miles. What would be the mpg rating for a Lithium Ion – EV1? I’m not sure but I’d bet it would be over 200 mpg.

Grand Meadow Wind Farm in Mower County, MN

This morning I signed up for Windsource at Xcel Energy. As soon as they throw the switch we will be getting our electricity from The Grand Meadow Wind Farm(pdf). Before making the switch I wanted to figure out how much we now pay. I also wanted to see how many Kilowatt Hours(KWH) we use per month.

Being an environmentally conscious person, some time ago I signed up for paperless billing. XcelEnergy uses the third-party service provider, MyCheckFree.com. Thing is there’s no way to view energy consumption on this site, just the date of payment and the amount of the bill. I now use USBank’s online bill payment service. It keeps all of my bill payment history in one place.

For my energy consumption history, I needed to call Xcel directly and ask that they email it to me. I still haven’t received it yet. May have to call them back.

I’m considering installing the TED5000 to accurately track my home’s energy usage. Ed Kohler over at theDeets.com has had one installed for a few months now and he tells me that he is currently saving $15 per month. If I see similar results, the device will pay for itself and then pay for the extra in WindSource fee.

My families carbon footprint just got a little smaller.

Serious Soldering System!

With this new soldering iron I can make a robot! Heck, I can make an entire robot army. I feel like a kid that just got a new pair of Chuck Taylors.

No time to work on the circuit tonight. I upgraded to Snow Leopard instead.

The quilt I wanted to create with these scraps of time is a Comprehensive Energy Usage – Cost Benefit Analysis. No easy task.

Every rock I uncover in my journey reveals a mess of issues and challenges. Starting an EV conversion takes mechanical and electrical know-how and 100 – 200 work hours. OK, so I’ll start with an ev conversion of a 2 stroke motor scooter. Smaller scope but the same know-how and perhaps 50 work hours. Instead, I’ll begin with a treadmill motor windmill. I don’t have a treadmill or a treadmill motor and who knows how many hours?

Back to the Comprehensive Energy Usage CBA. Lots of people with bigger brains than me have attempted to tackle this issue. And while an “apples to apples” comparison of gasoline vs. ethanol vs. natural gas vs. hydrogen vs. electric is important, I am dealing with limited resources. For the sake of practicality I want an Occam’s Razor argument in favor of electric vehicles. I’m not going to remember GigaJoules expended for baloney production and neither is the average Joe.

Limits. Everyone, everything has limits. Crude oil will run out eventually. Natural gas will too. Even that giant miasma of incandescent plasma that is our sun will burn out. Heck, it could explode this very instant. Who knows? Barring any unforeseen cataclysmic event, del sol wins the race of finite things. When I walk or run or ride my bike, the energy I’m using comes from plants who got it from the sun. All of the energy we have on earth came from/comes from the sun.

All hail the sun!

I’m going to hitch my wagon to that star.

You may say, “But Scott, are photovoltaics a realistic option for Minnesota?” No. I’m rather far up north and with cloud cover and shortened days during the winter, it all adds up to my house is a poor candidate for PVs. I’ve run the numbers and after spending $15,000 out-of-pocket after government rebates, it will take something like 20 years to recoup that investment. I know for certain we will not live in the same home for that amount of time.

A lot of air molecules moving into the neighborhood that has fewer air molecules makes wind. Heat from the sun makes air expand. Lack of heat makes air contract. Wind comes from the sun.

North Dakota is the Saudi Arabia of wind energy. They’re right next door to Minnesota don’chaknow. We’re nothing to sneeze at for wind energy production either. Tomorrow I’ll be signing my dwelling up for Xcel Energy’s Windsource option.

The light goes on. Let's see if it charges a battery.

I had 3 solid hours to work on my circuit today and I failed 4 times. I became frustrated and irritable. “At least you learned something.” said my wife.

“I learned that making circuits are really difficult. I learned that if I can’t even do something this simple it will take me 10 years before I can convert an ICE car to an electric.”

I had never soldered before. I had never used a bread board or a multimeter. I didn’t have the exact components listed in the directions for the mini-mill. There were so many variables I had no idea what to fix.

Round and Round is no good

After an hour break I dove back in. I got some basic information on how a bread board works. The left to right, red and blue strips on the outside edges are for power. The holes in the center are connected running top to bottom. I didn’t need to stuff three wires into one hole.

The little I knew about soldering was to heat up the wire and have the solder flow on it. But man if that isn’t about the hardest thing to do. I need an extra set of hands. I know what I will be picking up at my next trip to AxMan Surplus.

Now this is more like it.

I rechecked the electrical diagram and noticed I had my diodes going in a complete circle and not a left to right arc on the top and a left to right arc on the bottom. There’s actually something reassuring about a circuit in that it either works or it doesn’t . There is no in between.

All told, that simple little circuit took me 6 hours to create. Many more steps for me to walk before I can drive a wind powered car.