11.1.2K7: Venture: Another alternative to car commuting

According to government statistics, about 77% of driving is carried out by one person, with no passengers. During urban commuting, that means a lot of multi-passenger cars with only one occupant on the road, wasting a lot of gas and polluting a lot of air while moving all that bulk.

The Carver, Dutch prototype for the Venture One. Venture is taking this gas-powered vehicle concept, and making it green with a hybrid or all-electric plant.

Venture Vehicles is another company that wants to do something about that. Their new vehicle, the Venture One, challenges the present conceptions of a commuting vehicle in an effective way. Venture One is smaller than a traditional auto, designed for 2 passengers (one behind the other). It controls like a car, but it handles like a motorcycle... that is, it leans into turns. But it has 3 wheels and a low center of gravity, making it almost impossible to fall over.

Best of all, the Venture One will come in an all-electric or gas-electric hybrid power train. The hybrid will provide 120 miles per gallon, and the electric will go 120 miles on a single charge... well within the distance of the average commute, or the amount of daily driving that the average driver is likely to do. It will do serious highway speeds, unlike many electric vehicles, glorified golf-carts and high-mileage scooters. And the cost is about $20,000usd (hybrid) to $25,000 (full electric), a third or less than that of many so-called "performance" electrics coming to market.

Like other vehicle start-ups, many of which are based in southern California, Venture believes their vehicle should become the shape of driving in the U.S. in the future, helping to ease the burdens on our nation's highways, fuel usage, air pollution and back pockets. California at large seems to agree, given how many of these vehicles are being bought by celebrities, and by the general public. Few of them have managed to escape the West Coast, however, which is unfortunate for the Northeast Corridor, a section of the nation that could really benefit from such technological innovation.

It also wouldn't hurt to get them here so that they could be driven past the White House and Capitol, and get the attention of a few congresspeople and other government officials. The sooner the nation's movers and shakers can physically see the future of driving, the sooner they are likely to support it, to encourage it, and to discourage some of the practices that have put us so far down the energy hole.

Prototype design of the Venture. Maybe next year...

One of the biggest hurdles to acceptance is the perception of safety. Its smaller size would probably frighten some, especially those accustomed to driving SUVs above the crowd (it's about as tall as a sports car). And as it's technically classified a motorcycle, drivers would have to obtain a motorcycle license, and in certain states wear a helmet, to be legal. But with the right government exposure, even this could change. And the more of them turn up on the road, the faster the public will get used to seeing and driving them.

As to who around here would drive it... well, if similar vehicles looking like the Venture above, or the prototype design at left, show up around the northeast corridor for $20-25,000, I think you'll see a lot of people lining up around the block for them. I know I'd be there!

In fact, as someone who has used a motorcycle for work commuting, and am always looking for similarly-effective rides, I look at vehicles like the Venture One, and I have the feeling I'm looking at the likely future of the motorcycle. Sure, there will always be two-wheeled vehicles with riders perched atop them, but the form of the motorcycle has already undergone some fundamental changes. This is most obviously represented today by the modern scooter, which is cleaner and much more energy-efficient, more comfortable, and includes more modern instrumentation and storage than the traditional motorcycle. Vehicles like the Venture One take these features even further, and add protection from the elements and better stability, making them far superior to the motorcycle or scooter for daily commuting and short trips.

Actually, although it is presently classified a bike, I'd expect that this unique type of vehicle will eventually earn its own designation by the DOT, as some sort of micro-car, with its own safety and use requirements. This is because it makes little sense to continue to classify this as a motorcycle, as that classification applies to an open-frame vehicle with 2 wheels, a geometry that creates its own unique exposure, safety and stability issues. A 3-wheeled enclosed-body vehicle does not have the same exposure, safety, or stability issues as a motorcycle... in fact, its issues are more akin to that of an automobile. Presently, autos and trucks have different classifications and requirements, though they are similar in basic vehicle configuration. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that micros could represent another unique classification of the automobile.

Of late I have been considering eventually replacing my motorcycle with a scooter, or just selling the bike and give up 2-wheeled riding. But after seeing the Venture One, I'd consider holding out a few more years, until my car is finally ready to be retired, and buying the Venture One to replace my car. I'd get a vehicle as useful as a small car, but more economical than my bike, and cleaner than both, and incidentally making our household a 1-car, 1-micro family.

11.2.2K7: Gizmag compares hydrogen vs. batteries

The October 30 article on Gizmag.com provides an excellent comparison of batteries vs. hydrogen as our fuel of the future (Is hydrogen the answer to our future transport needs?). Without getting technical, it compares the two technologies in abundance, efficiency, safety, refueling practicality, environmental factors, and economics.

Although the two technologies come close to even in most categories, the areas where they differed mostly were in efficiency—batteries are about 3 times more efficient than hydrogen in terms of energy output per energy input—and economics—the practicality and cost of bolstering our electric grid for the extra load of car charging would be a drop in the bucket compared to the practicality and cost of a brand-spanking-new hydrogen storage, delivery and pumping infrastructure.

On the other hand, the article suggests that as a hydrogen distribution system would be the most similar to our current gasoline distribution system, it is therefore favored by the U.S. automotive industry. That the automotive industry supports hydrogen over batteries is frankly puzzling: Battery tech would allow the auto industry to give the public more efficient cars right now, creating an upswell of public support and interest that they haven't seen in decades (if the public's response to the Prius is any indication). The public is also jonesing for plug-in hybrids, which is not that difficult to provide, and even more efficient than gas-electric hybrids—buckling under and giving the public what it wants would again increase public support. Granted, maintaining the current system means they maintain the extensive and lucrative support industries, but without sales from an appreciative public, the system is presently failing, and will just drag the automakers down with it. It would seem that giving the perception that they are on the public's side would be the best thing the auto industry could do for itself.

That's why I'm sure it isn't Big Auto, but Big Oil, that is pushing the hydrogen system: Most hydrogen production systems still require expenditures of oil-based products in the process of freeing the hydrogen, or even conceivably in transporting and storing it; they would need to retool their infrastructure, but they would still be the major players in the game; whereas electric technology would hand auto fuel distribution to the electric industry, removing Big Oil's hold on the consumer. This also goes a long way to explain the current administration's support of hydrogen, since everyone knows its largest supporters are among the oil industries.

So, despite the fact that we have better options available, Big Oil's holding the government and the auto industries hostage under its iron hand, and it's the public who has to pay the ransom, over and over, with no assurance that it will ever end. How will we end this hostage crisis? Someone needs to disarm and disable Big Oil, before it's too late.

11.2.2K7: Time's Invention of the Year

This year, Time magazine waded through a huge list of inventions, to find the one they would label as Invention of the Year. Among their many worthy choices were: An eco-friendly brick that captures mercury fly ash waste from coal-fired power plants; a new building system that uses thick wooden walls and natural convection to heat and cool more efficiently; a new processor manufacturing method that could fit 2 million of its transistors on the period at the end of this sentence; a $150 computer for poor and third-world countries; a foot-ankle prosthesis that creates a more natural gait; a machine that can change A, B, and AB-negative blood to universal O; an impact-measuring footbal helmet; automated cars to reduce traffic; an LED desk lamp that saves power; and a host of computers, electronics gear and toys.

So what wonderful invention did Time choose as Invention of the Year?

The Apple iPhone.

Yes, Time passed up inventions that would save us energy, make us more energy, make us safer, make our commutes easier, protect us from cancer and other diseases, reduce our impact on our finite resources, and bring knowledge to the third world... to give us a cool new cellphone.

But then, Why am I surprised? This is the same Time that elected "You" as person of the year.

Something tells me this is one gimmick that has fully run its course, and is overdue for retirement. In fact, if this is Time's idea of content, maybe the magazine is overdue for retirement...

11.6.2K7: Out with batteries... in with ultracapacitors

With all the effort being put into finding, creating and extending our supplies of energy, many people don't think too much about the need to improve our storage of energy... when in fact, if we can improve our ability to store energy, we can cut down on our need for energy in the first place.

Foremost of the methods of energy storage is the venerable chemical battery. Used in everything from watches to space shuttles, the battery is the go-to technology when it comes to storing power. But the chemical battery has effective limits: It tends to be heavy, or made of rare or toxic materials, it generally cannot recharge quickly, it is most efficient when discharging slowly, and it has a limited lifetime before it is used up. Over the years, new chemical mixtures and combinations have improved the battery, but we need to do much better for energy storage.

Fortunately, a technology that is arguably older than even the battery may be the solution. The capacitor stores energy in an electric field between two electrodes. It has the potential for holding as much or more energy than a chemical battery, it can discharge itself at any rate efficiently, it can be recharged almost instantly, and it can be charged and discharged many more times than a chemical battery. However, materials technology has so far kept the capacitor from reaching a power storage level equal to that of the battery.

But now, the new science of nanotechnology may provide that needed improvement. Scientists and engineers, knowing that the effective storage capacity of a capacitor is equal to its storage material's surface area, made great strides by using activated carbon, which has a surface area not unlike a sponge, creating a much larger surface area to store power. These new capacitors, called Ultracapacitors, are already in use in devices that need quick bursts of power.

And on the horizon is a new process that builds carbon nanotubes (aka Buckminster Fullerenes, or just Fullerenes) on an electrode, creating what looks like a carpet of threads the diameter of a human hair. This carpet has an even greater surface area than what is made possible with activated carbon, making even greater storage capacity possible.

Engineers envision these ultracapacitors (and their cousin, the Supercapacitor) storing power for quick burst release, alongside more conventional slow-release batteries. Electric vehicles could use this quick-burst power to run accessories like door locks, windows and other electric controls, leaving the conventional battery to the slow-release discharge duties required to keep the car moving. This would keep the battery from discharging less efficiently, prolonging its charge, and its lifetime. Ultracapacitors can also gain an almost full charge from regenerative braking, and discharge it again upon acceleration, making it a sort of electric flywheel for any vehicle that does a lot of stopping and starting (and incidentally saving weight over a mechanical flywheel, further extending vehicle range).

Perhaps, as we get better at creating and manipulating carbon nanotubes, we will find it easier to manufacture ultracapacitors and supercapacitors and press them into use alongside, or even replacing, chemical batteries. Any energy storage improvements we manage to accomplish will only help our bottom line in cutting our energy costs.

11.17.2K7: Alternative Energy is smokin' hot... isn't it?

These days, you can't blink without seeing another article about a new energy-efficient automotive design, a sustainable product, a "green" building, or a company installing solar, wind or geothermal power systems. Everyone is talking about being energy-efficient, improving the planet. Television networks are running special versions of their shows, spotlighting people who are making the effort to conserve or apply alternative energy sources, and coercing their stars to do 10-second "We can all pitch in!" -type promos.

The United States has finally bought into the idea of being energy efficient, and cutting pollution. We will all start living better, conserving energy, and making our world cleaner.

Right?

Look again. As fast as gas prices are rising in America, the number of cars on our highways isn't going down. Consumers are still buying SUVs (for that matter, the government is still letting them). They are not demanding 1- or 2-seater efficient commuting vehicles. Gas taxes are not going up, and money is not being redirected to upgrade and expand on mass transit systems. Telecommuting is being promoted in theory, but the government is providing no actual encouragement to do it, or a set of guidelines on how to accomplish it.

The recent democratic debate was sponsored by the coal industry. American automakers are buying foreign-made hybrids, not making their own, and charging premium prices for them, as opposed to their lower-priced conventional vehicles. New automakers are encountering resistance for new ideas, and lack of government encouragement or subsidies, while subsidies for ethanol (which pollutes just like oil) are climbing.

Americans are still driving to McDonalds and buying Big Macs. They are not replacing all of their light bulbs with compact fluorescents. They are buying high-energy-wasting plasma TVs. They are not taking "navy" showers. They are still driving one mile to the store, and bagging their goods in plastic. They are still buying disposable products, and quickly disposing of them.

So, who's really conserving? Is this all smoke and mirrors, to convince ourselves that we're doing our part? Can it all be chalked up to an election year, with everyone competing to see how "green" they can appear to voters and consumers, until the elections are over and they can go back to their SUVs and plasma TVs? Are we making any progress towards conservation? Apparently not, according to a recent government report to the United Nations, stating that the U.S. projects "almost 20 percent more greenhouse gases in 2020 than it had in 2000". That's more greenhouse gasses... not less.

Who's conserving? We're not. America is, as usual, just spinning its wheels... talking the talk, but not walking the walk. Woe be upon us when the rest of the world figures it out...

11.27.2K7: Amazon's Kindle takes off

If you've visited Amazon.com lately, you must have noticed the latest thing the seller is pushing: It's e-book reader, the Kindle, has been sitting on the front page of the site all week. If you haven't, maybe you noticed the Newsweek cover story, or the product announcement launch on News.com.

The Kindle is, without a doubt, the most widely-hyped e-book in history, bar none. And as it touts the ability to download books wirelessly, from Amazon's collection of over 90,000 books and growing, plus newspapers and blogs, it sounds like a device finally worth having. And apparently many people agree, for Amazon has already sold out of the device and is taking backorders. (I say this, not knowing if Amazon had 5,000 or 50 readers to sell.) Not bad for a slightly ugly, high-priced device, designed to read electronic books in a still-using-paper era, from a company that's never made electronic devices before. In fact, electronics giant Sony's much prettier device (just out in its second iteration) has been all but forgotten in e-book discussion circles of late, plowed under by the Kindle promotion juggernaut.

Is Kindle better than the Sony reader? Both use the new e-ink screen technology, so the reading experience is essentially the same. Where the Kindle shines is in its ability to access the Amazon catalog, from anywhere where EVDO cell service is available, to buy a book and start reading in about a minute. Ease of use—the same thing that propelled the combination of iPod and iTunes to the top of the digital music industry—promises to make Kindle famous, and turn every other device and service to also-rans.

And Amazon has also made it easy to publish your own content. Their system allows a document owner to upload the document to Amazon's servers, set your price, and provide document, contact and bank information... then sit back and watch the money roll in (cue floor-rolling laughter). This is much easier than Sony's Connect bookstore, which you must contact and ask to make your books available on their site, and hope they return your calls. (To date, they've never returned any of mine.)

In reality, though publishing is simple, getting past the castle that is the traditional publishing industry is much more daunting. Big Pub has already paid extra for promotion, so they come up first in display pages, in banner ads, in search results, etc, etc, ad nauseam... before you. You have the option of being inventive with your search tags, but that's about the only tool you have. Essentially, you're still a peon on the outside of the castle, wading through the dung, and Big Pub is still on the inside making the real money.

But assuming you can somehow make a name for yourself, you now have the option of getting sales of your book on Amazon.com, the world's most prestigious bookseller, and seeing your book on thousands (or at least 50) Kindle screens everywhere. I know a few novelists who would be so proud just to say their book was available through Amazon, that they would not be concerned whether they make a single sale.

I've already published 2 of my novels there, and plan to publish the rest as soon as time allows. Of course, if you can't wait, you can always buy the Mobipocket versions of any of my e-books, which can be uploaded to your Kindle via USB or SD card, from this site. But hey, buying them wirelessly, having them download themselves, and reading right away... how cool is that?

Well, it might just be cool enough to finally propel e-books into the mainstream market that it has been aspiring to for the past decade-plus. E-books have never enjoyed a serious marketing or promoting effort, and traditional publishers have avoided the nascent market for fear of losing their shirts to piracy and untested sales models. But with Amazon behind a new product, hawked on their own front pages and in front-line web and print articles, and their incredible catalog of books to buy, even the largely-indifferent public has taken notice. Soon the white rectangle might have the same effect on passersby as those now-ubiquitous white iPod earphones, catching everyone's attention, turning heads and opening wallets everywhere.

11.28.2K7: CO2 to baking soda, to save the world

In 1973, Joe David Jones underlined a passage in a textbook he was studying from while at the University of Texas. Years later, while watching a program about Mars missions, and the need to scrub carbon dioxide from the air, Jones remembered he'd heard of a better way. Researching his spotty memory on Google reintroduced him to the textbook he still had on his shelf. The underlined passage was about combining CO2 and sodium hydroxide to get sodium bicarbonate... baking soda.

And the proverbial light bulb went off.

Today Jones' company, Skyonic, is spreading the word about their process, which can be retrofitted to CO2-producing smokestacks to capture 90 percent of CO2, and 97% of heavy metals, producing a baking soda "cleaner than food grade," easy to store and transport, and even usable and sellable. Baking soda is presently mined, so producing baking soda would also save on mining costs (and the resultant pollution involved). And reducing heavy metal output saves $400 million spent on air scrubbers.

CO2, one of the worst of the greenhouse gasses, is being produced in overabundance by oil-burning vehicles and coal- or oil-based power plants. Coal-fired plants produce the most CO2 per pound, and as the US is still dependent on its large supply of coal, and China is rapidly ramping up a coal-based fuel economy right behind us, the likelihood is that CO2 output will only climb through the next few decades, at least. A number of methods to store or bury CO2 have been proposed, but many of them actually use more energy to capture and sequester the CO2 than it takes to produce it, and other methods are unreliable or dangerous.

Skyonic's process, called Skymine, will be markedly safer, and provide a material that can be safely handled, stored, or used in other applications. The energy needed to power the process can be obtained from waste heat from the coal-burning factory. And the process produces other byproducts, hydrogen and chlorine, both of which can also be resold and reused by industries.

This is the second time recently that baking soda has been suggested as a global warming weapon: Other groups have suggested extracting the hydrogen in sodium hydroxide for power generation, leaving easy-to-handle baking soda once it's extracted. Possibly these two functions could be combined, using sodium hydroxide to capture the CO2, and using the process-extracting hydrogen to power other systems. Use the chlorine for water purification, I guess...