Electric Vehicle Adoption: Ready Or Not - Here It Comes

I want to rant about something before I write this post... Why one earth did this person walk into the an essentially empty coffee shop and sit across the table facing me? Now whenever I let my mind wander and look away from my screen, I am forced to make awkward eye-contact with this creep.

Annoying... but I digress.

As if it a huge surprise, people seem to be talking more and more about electric vehicles these days. Lets recap if you are having trouble wrapping your brain around this phenomenon:

1. Gas prices are ridiculously high and continue to be relatively volatile.
2. The Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf have been rolled out to a highly demanded market.
3. Ford and Toyota have announced their upcoming plugin vehicles respectively.
4. President Obama is still aiming at the (relatively unachievable) goal of 1 million EV's on the road by 2015.
5. Steven Chu has been sexing it up with Coulomb Technologies in California after they reached their 500th charging station in North America.
6. Google announced the largest corporate charging infrastructure to date.
7. Almost every day there is announcement on technology promising to make charging faster.

It would seem that there is a definite trend towards EV adoption, but there are still people that are resistent to the adoption of this technology. Putting aside the tired commentary that these people are the same as the crowd that was "against automobile adoption when horses are just fine," these people do bring up some fine points that I am going to systematically attac...I mean address now.

EV's Are More Carbon Intensive To Produce

I am not going to argue against this point mainly because there are 500 different environmental studies of what is actually going into the production of these batteries...mainly because the companies that are producing these batteries guard their intellectual property as if their lives depended on it.

However, the carbon emissions from vehicles is well documented and the numbers don't lie. They are terrible. I seriously find it hard to believe that the one time environmental impact expenditure of producing a battery for a EV is more damaging than the repeated beating of extracting, producing, and burning gasoline.

Electricity Is Just As Dirty As Gasoline

Coal is filthy. No doubt about that. However, this argument is assuming that going forward we are going to continue building more coal-fired electricity plants as we continue to maintain our infrastructure.

This simply isn't the case because the world is moving towards more renewable energy production, the most recent case being Boulder, CO who is aiming to get 90% of their electricity from clean sources. It is unrealistic that all of America is going to get all of their electricity from clean sources in the near future, but eventually we are going to have a much high percentage which will make this argument of electricity not being any cleaner than gasoline pointless.

EV's Don't Have Adequate Charging Times Or Driving Distances

I don't have a great argument here because the fact is that both of these points is true. Until EV's can get longer driving distances, there is going to be a need to charge your vehicles more frequently which is disappointing if you just think about the charging times.

However, by ramping up charging infrastructure, you can mitigate these concerns of charging because people don't drive super long distances very often and parking and charging your car while you go shopping or while you are at work becomes less of a big deal.

With that said, Steven Chu has been motivated to have cheaper, longer ranged EV's for consumers in the near future, and I am not one to bet against that guy.

Thats all for now... and you guessed it - I really just wrote this post so I could post my favorite photoshop of Steven Chu.

Electric Vehicles: Coulomb Charging Station

I maintain that one of the most exciting changes that is going to develop in the next 10 years is the continued introduction of electric vehicles.

Whether these vehicles are PHEV (plugin hybrid electric vehicles) or straight EV (electric vehicles), the issue of charging infrastructure is going to be one of the most important (and potentially lucrative) issues that will need to be addressed.

Coulomb Technologies has been on a mission to address this issue, and recently their name has been popping up more and more in the news. Recently, Steven Chu congratulated Coulomb Technologies on their 500th charging station in the United States.

Coulomb already has an international presence with nearly 4,000 stations shipped worldwide, but it is still impressive to see that there have already been 500 installed in the United States (most of which are meant for public use).

I am personally excited about plugin vehicles because it opens the door for the following:

• New automotive innovations.
• American jobs (if the big producers get ahead of the curve and begin ramping up EV production).
• Clean energy production because people aren't going to want to expand the grid with traditionally dirty production to support this new clean transportation technology.
• More sustainable city living because these cars are currently perfect for short driving distances, and city residents typically never drive more than the ranges that these cars have to offer.

Either way, it was good to see Coulomb in the news with Steven Chu because this signals that the technology is catching on, and lets face it, I always love to have an excuse to post this picture of Steven Chu.

Obama's Renewed Focus On Clean Energy: Why Did We Stop Again?

A few days ago, President Obama rekindled his focus on domestically produced clean energy.

My reaction: Why did we stop hammering this point in the first place?

Clean energy provides solutions to our current political issues:

• Job Creation
• Market Volatility
• International Relations
• Sexiness

President Obama has wanted a large reduction by 2035 since he was first elected, but you wouldn't know it considering that there has been little to no actual legislation helping this become a reality. However, there is still hope that this issue will be revived again:

Obama will veer into domestic issues today, when he will announce new goals to reduce the nation's dependency on foreign oil while increasing homegrown energy supplies, including cleaner electricity. 

"Tomorrow's speech will mark a transition in our public communications," a senior White House official told reporters yesterday, referring to Obama's energy speech today and others. "You will see a concerted focus on energy." 

The White House's role in developing the electricity standard is reassuring to supporters, some of whom criticized the president's casual effort to pass climate legislation last summer. Key experts in the administration, including economist Nat Keohane, special assistant to the president, and Dan Utech, senior adviser to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, are working on the standard, according to sources.

Once this becomes a political issue, I believe that it will be hard for any politician to deny clean energy's need for growth. The NY Times makes a great point by saying "Republicans might suffer on Election Day if they're perceived as old-fashioned politicians supporting oil and gas companies while opposing alternative energies."

One can hope that things play out this way.

SunShot: Our Generation's Sputnik Moment?

Sometimes I read an article about Steven Chu and it makes me want to be best friends with him in a totally non-creepy way. All I'm saying is I wouldn't mind having him come meet some of my ex-girlfriends just so I can say that we are best pals now.

Nerdiest rap reference EVER.

The most recent example of badassery is him publicly coining the term "SunShot":

Just as President Kennedy pledged in 1961 that the United States would land an astronaut on the moon by the end of that decade — a moonshot — Dr. Chu said the United States should attempt a “sunshot” by aiming to cut the cost of solar power by about three-quarters by the end of this decade, to $1 a watt for utility-scale projects. That would translate to an end-user price of about 6 cents per kilowatt-hour, he said. “That would make solar energy cost competitive with other forms of energy without subsidies of any kind,’’ he said in a conference call with reporters on Friday.

By making solar cost competitive without subsidizing the technology, you are effectively changing the entire energy landscape of the United States along with the rest of the world. People want to have cleaner energy, but cost will always be a constraint to the adoption of cleaner technologies.

Admittedly this is not a terribly long article and the point is fairly straight forward, but it is important to recognize that this was not just some political statement that someone said in passing. Shortly after Chu dropped this statement, the Energy Department pledged $27 million towards solar initiatives - not something that the government would do lightly.

Now sit back, relax, and revel in how awesome my photoshopped picture of Steven Chu is.  I'll be here all week.