Category Archives: Energy

Monitoring for structural failure

The sails on the new gargantuan $100 million luxury sailboat look awkward and inefficient to me, like wagon wheels on a modern sports car:

The Maltese sets sail

Built for venture capitalist Tom Perkins, the 87.5-meter yacht sports three 57-meter tall masts and each mast has 6 yards from which the sails hang. This design gives it a slight resemblance to a clipper ship.

A clipper ship? No. On second glance, I can see the wing-like properties of the sails perhaps equivalent to two modern sails laid opposite one another and connected together at the mast. Wonder what these hanging sails are made from and how long they are designed to last. Does each one furl into the boom above? This ship might be the largest, but I can’t believe it is the fastest, unless the term “personal yacht” somehow excludes the big trimarans and catamarans…or maybe just the word “yacht” excludes all the performance vessels. If you can’t beat ’em, build a new category?

Anyway, the masts have no stays and so I thought News.com‘s note about monitoring for failures is interesting:

The company inserted sensors into the composite mast to give the crew information on the forces on the mast and prevent the structures from being pushed to the breaking point.

This reminds me of the prediction that sailboats will lose their rigging just like the wires of airplanes gave way to the clean lines of modern wings. Composites are a critical part of this development. Everything large that tries to be efficient now depends so much on carbon fiber that information about its use must be one of the most important resources for the future.

Wait, I know why those sails look antiquated to me. Isn’t that a modern version of Admiral Zheng’s giant fleet in the 1400s? I bet the bazillionare owner read a book about Zheng and said “Oooh, I want one”:

Zheng

Ming dynasty records show that each treasure ship was 400 feet (122 metres) long and 160 feet (50 metres) wide. Bigger, in other words, than a football pitch.

Ok, the living space is obviously different, but that’s still a lot of monitoring for structural failure for over 500 years ago on many boats all significantly larger than this luxury yacht.

Bush and Putin go for a zero-emission spin

I found these images amusing. Usually you see state leaders in mile-long motorcades of gas-guzzling armored limos, but Bush and Putin were caught again by a Reuters photographer driving themselves in an electric car (Rice and Ivanov in the back) to the G8 Summit in St. Petersburg. If I’m not mistaken, that’s a vehicle produced by GM:

Putin around
Putin around…
Bush and Putin in Electric Car at G8
Does this car make me look concerned?

The funny background to these “Pathway” vehicles is that GM was strategically placing them in states (California) that threatened to enforce zero-emission standards. It’s a fair point that these things would replace the nasty small or even two-stroke utility carts found on limited-access low-speed pathways (like college campuses), but calling them part of a “fleet” of passenger vehicles was a calculated stretch to avoid the cost/benefit of real innovation in their vehicles.

I say they were actually part of a plan of attack by GM to undermine the intent of the zero-emissions mandate:

  • Use a loop-hole in the definition of a vehicle “fleet” to claim that go-carts could be included in their numbers (even though they are actually made by Club Car — it looks like a golf cart because…it is)
  • Give away the go-carts to universities and businesses on a free-lease deal to rapidly increase the numbers of go-carts “on the road”
  • Petition the NHTSA to restrict the use of these go-carts so no-one would actually be able to use them in regular traffic on regular roads (thus reducing use, or at least the risk from use). These go-carts were at some point called Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEV) and GM managed to get the government to require labels to warn of risks from riding in “mixed traffic” (Docket # NHTSA 98-3949). Apparently GM believed consumers need government intervention in some cases to help them make good decisions…
  • And last, but not least, lobby the federal government to fight an infamous court battle against zero-emissions mandates to win an injunction so that state zero-emission standards can not be forced upon manufacturers

See the irony in the photo yet? Bush helped kill-off the progress towards zero-emissions vehicles in the US, as some remember:

In 2001, GM, Daimler-Chrysler and the Justice Department filed an injunction against CARB arguing the ZEV Mandate violated the federal government’s right to control fuel economy. A district court in San Francisco agreed and GM cancelled the EV1 program.

I think the deadline might have been aggressive, but the real bottom line was that giant American car manufacturers wanted their base of consumers to want giant vehicles with high margins made to be more efficient, rather than smaller, more-efficient vehicles with low margins. Regulations to protect the manufacturers from liability, but no regulations that protect consumers from externalities. Short-term guaranteed profits over long-term risk.

Anyway, I guess it’s easy to want to kill a project that your supporters never believed in from the start, but then to parade around the G8 summit in the project that you killed, that’s just odd.

Something tells me that the lack of progress (as opposed to change) in Detroit has everything to do with an overly-conservative approach to the world that is at odds with the G8. The changes ahead are not only inevitable, but the longer they take to adjust to the new paradigms the more its going to rattle their cages. Europeans, South Americans and Asians are designing small, light and nimble electric vehicles while GM is…in denial.

Here’s a wonderfully insightful admission from GM Communications about the movie called “Who killed the Electric Car?“:

Although I have not seen the movie or received an advanced DVD as others have from the film’s producers, I can tell you that based on what I have heard there may be some information that the movie did not tell its viewers.

Haven’t seen it, don’t want to see it, don’t care what consumers say. I wonder if they’ve seen “Thank you for smoking“? These guys are first-rate spin-doctors. No need to see a movie to send out a response about what it does or doesn’t say in the movie. Classic. Here’s my favorite part:

GM is co-developing with DaimlerChrysler and BMW Group a new two-mode hybrid system for passenger vehicles. This new two-mode hybrid technology will debut next year in a Chevrolet Tahoe full-size SUV, which will offer a 25 percent improvement in combined city and highway fuel economy when joined with other GM fuel-saving technologies.

Really? We’re supposed to be wowed by a full-size SUV with 25% improvement in mileage? Let’s see, that factors to a change from 14-18mpg to 18-22mpg, and it depends entirely on “other GM fuel-saving technologies”. Stop the presses. Hold the line. Wait, I forgot to mention that they also boast of a “Saturn VUE Green Line hybrid this summer, which will offer the best highway fuel economy of any SUV (EPA estimated 32 mpg)”. It’s like 1975 all-over-again. I’m getting 38+mpg with my biodiesel engine today in a full-size wagon, and they’re calling 32mpg the future? Where are all those supposed billions in research dollars really going?

Seems to me that mileage for American vehicles went down over the past twenty years, which has the nasty result of fooling us into thinking a slight increase back to prior levels is some kind of improvement. Did you know that the Ford Model T engine ran 25-30mpg in the early 1900s? For what it’s worth it also only took 93 minutes to assemble and had a max speed of about 50mph. Not bad for an affordable neighborhood vehicle, eh? The recent announcement that after significant investments in technology a brand new Corvette can only achieve 28mpg (on the highway, downhill, with a strong tailwind and the clutch depressed, foot off the gas pedal) is truly a sad sign of the times. A hybrid-car has been proven to totally annihilate the Corvette on the line and still manage to keep superior efficiency. Change can be good, but GM seems both unwilling and unable to make the sort of real changes that will get us to a better vehicle today.

I’m not terribly optimistic either that GM has announced an alliance with DaimlerChrysler (and BMW group) to finally figure out how to make hybrids. After all this is the group of companies that killed the California zero-emissions mandate, right? Are they really trying to figure out hybrids to achieve low-emissions?

And finally, I have to say I’ve heard enough about fuel-cell vapor-ware already. Just another five years? If you think electric cars have hurdles ahead, fuel-cell is just getting started. Which means they are not much more impressive than the E85 engine. The fact is that mileage on ethanol is significantly lower than gas, so corn-based fuel makes a nice story to rattle around (especially in corn-market states) but in reality a Tahoe on E85 only gets 10-14mpg. No thanks. Diesel makes far more sense since you can take ethanol and mix it with used vegetable or animal oils to make biodiesel for a diesel-hybrid that gets 100+ mpg. And that’s not to mention “soybean-derived biodiesel gives more bang for the buck, yielding a 93% return on the energy investment used in its production, compared with a 25% return for ethanol” and “Biodiesel…could reduce emissions by 41% compared with regular diesel fuel. Ethanol replacement of gasoline could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 12%”, according to a report in the LA Times. Since biodiesel can be made from just about any kind of oil (including waste oil from restaurants) the input model is far more sensible than a single-source like corn. It’s a technology available right now and the country is more than ready to convert to this low-emission high-power domestic fuel. In fact, I just filled up at a regular gas station down the street with B99 tonight.

b99

GM, where’s your passenger hybrid-diesel engine and why isn’t it at the G8?

Audi diesel racecar wins Le Mans

This is awesome news:

As the world’s first automobile manufacturer the inventor of “TDI” won with a diesel engine at the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans. The new Audi R10 TDI is powered by a completely new 5.5-litre, twelve-cylinder bi-turbo TDI engine which is extremely economical and quiet.

The Le Mans Prototype, with over 650 hp and more than 1100 Newton metres of torque, significantly exceeds the power produced by the majority of previous Audi racing cars; including that of its victorious R8 predecessor.

1100 Newton metres? Wow. Apparently the unprecedented power of a diesel race engine meant the transmission and gears had to be completely redesigned. Wonder what it’s fuel efficiency was relative to the gas engines?

Vroom vroom

CarList provides this insight:

One of the diesel engine’s biggest advantages is the low fuel consumption, especially at part-throttle and overrun. However, when compared to more classic circuits which demand a higher ratio of part throttle, the lower specific consumption will hardly be noticeable at Le Mans because the quota of full-throttle is almost 75 percent.

Well, that means effeciency is lower because of the style of driving, but when comparing apples-to-apples (the diesel racecar versus other racecars at 75 percent full-throttle) AS boss Dr Wolfgang Ullrich said the R10 will get several extra laps from a tank.

Audi revolutionized the modern engines in 1989 when it introduced the TDI design for diesel, as the TDI race site explains, and innovation has continued since then, spurred by government regulations:

Audi has constantly set new technical standards during the development of the TDI engines over the last 16-years. The current highlight is the Audi V8 4.2 TDI quattro with 326 hp and 650 Newton metres torque “one of the most powerful compression ignition engines found in a production limousine” and all this whilst complying with the EU 4 emission limits and with an average fuel consumption of 9.4 litres per 100 kilometres.

Can you find a US manufacturer with a similar success story? I can. They’re called Caterpillar and they too are innovating in response to government regulations:

As of the end of April, a total of 26 machine models are available! Each of these machines use Caterpillar engines with ACERT –Technology, the result of more than $500 million in research and development and more than 250 patents. The engines are compliant with the United States EPA Tier 3 emissions regulations governing off-road machines, which took effect January 1, 2005 for engines of 300 to 750 horsepower. Regulations for machines in the 175 to 300 horsepower range will take effect January 1, 2006.

If you think of regulations as a form of leadership based on moral conviction, then innovation is an obvious consequence, like landing a man on the moon.

Caterpillar engineers worked with approximately 125 variables to find the optimum balance. There are more than 10 million possible combustion combinations. Those engineers were challenged by the highly intertwined relationship of (1) reduced emissions, (2) engine performance, (3) fuel efficiency and (4) engine durability. Those are not necessarily complimentary objectives. Improving emissions, for example, can have an adverse effect on fuel efficiency. Their overriding goal is no different than the goal Caterpillar has had since its inception—to provide customers with the lowest owning and operating costs, and the lowest cost per unit of material moved.

Innovation is what Diesel always wanted for his engines, but Cat obscures the fact that reduced emissions is a direct result of government regulation that was spurred by scientific research and progressive groups who measured the external consquences of engine output.

Well, if I can’t convince Audi to ship me a new TDI, then maybe I’ll be driving a Cat soon. Or maybe I should wait for the Honda and Lexus diesel technology to arrive. What’s the matter with Detroit, or should I say Washington? Where are the American (bio)diesel passenger cars?

Edited to add: a Le Mans insider let me know that the TDI racecar engine is so quiet that you can barely hear it. While this offends some (traditionalists like the “roar”) I see it as another good sign. Why be noisy? Have you ever been in a major urban area without the noise of the automobile? Try it sometime (like early in the morning) and you’ll feel like you’re in a completely different (cleaner, healthier) city.

VW will not ship 2007 TDI to US?

Someone just pointed out to me that there is a rumor spreading that VW will not ship their 2007 TDIs to the US. I don’t have an official source yet, but it seems probable that the 2006 units will be shipped to the end of this year and the 2008 models might ship in late 2007. Skipping a year could be a bad sign (apparently VW has some management and financial issues) or a result of the gap between technology release schedules and regulations, or both. The automobile industry needs regulation to spur innovation at this point, though, so I would rather see some minor delays than seriously flawed and vulnerable (low mpg, high CO2 emission) technology continue to be released to the public. The sense I get is that the VW TDI crowd would be ready to jump to the Honda or Audi diesels at a moments notice. They are loyal to the function of their cars as much as the fashion, and it’s pretty clear who is winning the technology race right now…add to that the fact that hybrids still don’t make real economic sense and you get a new market emerging for someone to jump into with cheap (to manufacture and own) yet highly-efficient/clean vehicles. Ghosin probably knows this better than anyone, but I don’t see him making any diesel noises yet.

Edited to add (21 Nov 2006): It turns out the decision is related to a leap in technology to new TDI-CRD. The 2008 VW models are already being reported at car shows.