Veloteq

2008-9-4 – 9:20 am

Bike Toronto1 has noted an increase in the sale of e-bikes imported from China. The post prompted some competing claims. An anonymous commentator promoted the virtues of Veloteq.

Veloteq has been offering power-on-demand electric bicycles in Canada for five years.

They were evaluated for safety and compliance by the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) from the very beginning, as well as by Canada Customs and the CBSA.

Veloteq products were developed from the very beginning to satisfy the requirements of users in British Columbia, which encompasses wide variations in terrain, from Vancouver Island to the Okanagan Valley. Veloteq now has 30 dealers across Canada, and the number is increasing rapidly.

Veloteq ebike fleet
Why are people willing to pay more for a Veloteq? (Editor’s comment: “Uh-oh.”) The answer lies "under the hood" so to speak.

  • Batteries used on Veloteqs are very high quality colloid Voltage Regulated Sealed Lead Acid batteries. We will shortly introduce a new type of power supply which will obsolete all of those currently in use.
  • Specially desiged very high power controllers were developed to deal with the high current demand required on the hill of B.C. Veloteq has also done away with fuses that are prone to "popping" easily and has replaced them with more advanced power system protection devices. Heavy gauge electrical wiring is used throughout to eliminate "melt down" which can occur during periods of high power demand.
  • The traditional hub motor has been replaced by a new type of gear reduction motor, factory modified for North American use, that will enable all Veloteq models to climb virtually any incline intended for motor vehicle traffic. Look for these on the 2008 models.
  • Veloeq paint finishes are high quality automotive enamel, not the inexpensive lacquer finishes used on the less expensive ebikes, which are easily scratched. Look at the sticker price, but after doing so, we advise that interested users also look carefully "under the hood".

The anonymous commentator concludes: “Veloteq products are now sold throughout the US Gulf Coast and Veloteq is also rapidly expanding throughout California and all the adjecent states. You will be seeing a lot more from Veloteq.”

As this blog recently noted, e-bikes need a standard, low cost battery packs that are reliable, robust, and powerful. VRLA battery packs are relatively low in price.

On the other hand, Bike Toronto commentator Mountaineer Midnight Lover states that Veloteq bikes “have major electrical problems like lighting, and their bikes break down for no reason.” The commentator also repeats an often heard complaint that the range claimed in untrue. “Just stop a Veloteq rider and they will tell you that their bikes do not travel as far as they claim.” So much for reliable and robust, eh?

For more information about e-bikes, refer to the eBike Hub Forum.

  1. 1Two New Electric Bike Stores in Town
By jcwinnie | Posted in advertising, insurance, safety, shopping, transportation | Tagged , , , | Comments (2)

Manure to Biogas in the US

2008-9-4 – 8:26 am

Subtitle: And, here you were beginning to suspect that I was going to ignore the RNC (Republican National Convention) completely.

“Cow Power1” has environmental implications, in terms of the amount of current environmental pollution and how much GHG emissions could be reduced by a change in the way waste is processed. Such a sea (ice) change is relevant in all countries with cow farts a sizable livestock industry.

This blog previously noted such development underway in Japan. Biopact reminds us that biogas from manure could generate energy for millions of Americans while resulting in less GHG (Green House Gas) emissions.

Following an example set in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, researchers from the University of Texas at Austin have outlined “a procedure for quantifying the national amount of renewable energy that herds of cattle and other livestock can generate and the concomitant GHG emission reductions.

Livestock manure, left to decompose naturally, emits two particularly potent GHGs – nitrous oxide and methane. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, nitrous oxide warms the atmosphere 310 times more than carbon dioxide, methane does so 21 times more.

The journal paper creates two hypothetical scenarios and quantifies them to compare energy savings and GHG reducing benefits. The first is ‘business as usual’ with coal burnt for energy and with manure left to decompose naturally. The second is one wherein manure is anaerobically-digested to create biogas and then burnt to offset coal.

Biogas from Manure Could Supplant Coal
“Converting livestock manure into a domestic renewable fuel source could generate enough electricity to meet up to three per cent of North America’s entire consumption needs and lead to a significant reduction in GHG emissions.”

Through anaerobic digestion, similar to the process by which you create compost, manure can be turned into energy-rich biogas, which standard microturbines can use to produce electricity. The hundreds of millions of livestock inhabiting the US could produce approximately 100 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, enough to power millions of homes and offices.

And, as manure left to decompose naturally has a very damaging effect on the environment, this new waste management system has a net potential GHG emissions reduction of 99 million metric tonnes, wiping out approximately four per cent of the country’s GHG emissions from electricity production.

The burning of biogas would lead to the emission of some CO2 but the output from biogas-burning plants would be less than that from, for example, coal. Authors of the paper, Dr. Michael E. Webber and Amanda D Cuellar from the University of Texas at Austin, write, “In light of the criticism that has been levelled against [liquid] biofuels, biogas production from manure has the less-controversial benefit of reusing an existing waste source and has the potential to improve the environment.

Nonetheless, the logistics of widespread biogas production, including feedstock and digestates transportation, must be determined at the local level to produce the most environmentally advantageous, economical, and energy efficient system, the study finds.

Such logistics include collection and closed loop storage of feedstock, to include co-digestion, which includes the processing of human waste in addition to waste from animals kept, bred, and raised to generate an income or food. Waste from converting the livestock to food also could be feedstock for anaerobic digestions. There are more biological hazards with co-digestion, thus, more care is needed.

Furthermore, before a usable product can be added to the gas line, significant upgrading must occur. And, logistics is not the only approach that must be considered. Since manure to biogas could supplant coal fired electric power generation, it also becomes the subject of political intervention from Big Farm and Ole King Coal.

Biopact References

  1. 1The Energy and Emissions Benefits of Converting Manure to Biogas
By jcwinnie | Posted in agriculture, analysis, development, education, energy, environment, research, waste | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Hi, are You from the South of France?

2008-9-2 – 5:49 am

Sometimes, we forget to appreciate the big things in life.

Ned Hall gets it up

By jcwinnie | Posted in design, development, humor, manufacturing, sexuality | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Bosch is betting on lithium

2008-9-2 – 5:15 am

For a Daybreak Service Conveyance Emporium update, we turn to Green Car Congress1 for more news about a $300-400M investment over 5 years by Bosch and Samsung to develop lithium ion batteries for traction applications. More evidence of significant market decisions in Europe and Asia.

Bosch has been working on electrical drive technologies for the automobile for more than 30 years. The company has already built up a broad portfolio of components, including electric motors, power electronics, and DC/DC converters.

Bosch’s current main focus is the concept of the parallel hybrid, whose modular components can be customized to suit the requirements of individual OEMs and their models.

The company has already taken its first orders for both gasoline and diesel hybrids. Besides mild and strong hybrid concepts, Bosch also offers simpler methods for innovative start-stop technologies and the recovery of braking energy via the alternator. Bosch has pooled the expertise of roughly 370 of its employees from a wide range of divisions in a Hybrid project unit, whose purpose is to develop and market hybrid and electrical drives.

  1. 1Bosch Samsung Li-Ion JV Begins Operations
By jcwinnie | Posted in development, economics, energy, transportation | Tagged | Comments (0)

Yuv got to helps us, A123

2008-8-31 – 8:42 am

I visited a physicist* friend, who runs a growing business installing Hadron colliders solar photovoltaic panels and got to admire her recumbent. (And, the geeks go “Wink, Wink, Nudge, Nudge”.)

*e.g., she understands this stuff.

She expressed an interest in selling electric vehicles from her store front. Although solar energy is generally impractical for directly powering a vehicle, there is potential symbiosis. Photovolatic panels can offer low cost, solar trickle charging of those battery systems that are needed for traction applications. Furthermore, Professor Andy Frank (among others) advocates (and has successfully demonstrated) “Collecting the Sun Today to run Your Plug-in Hybrid Tomorrow“.

E-Bike
There are e-bike markets in Asia and Europe. With rising gas prices, is there a potential market in North America?

In a related email correspondence, another friend asked, “What are the markets and customers?” My reply was that one might assume that the market arises from an increased interest coincident with an increase in gas prices. Such observations have been made in regard to electric scooters. Recently, engineer and Gristmill contributor, Russ Finley, a.k.a., biodiversitist1 came across a Time magazine article with the pithy title “Electric Bikes Sell as Gas Climbs.”

… sales [of electric bikes in general] are up about 50 percent so far this year over last. Amazon.com Inc. says sales of electric bikes surged more than 6,000 percent in July from a year earlier, in part because of its expanded offerings.

A few hundred dollars gets you an IZIP mountain bike from Amazon with a heavy lead-acid battery. For $1,400, you can buy a 250-watt folding bike powered by a more-powerful, longer-lasting nickel-metal hydride battery like those in a camera or a Toyota Prius. At the high end, $2,525 buys an extra-light 350-watt model sporting a lightweight lithium-ion battery similar to a laptop’s

A2B e-bike
“89,000 electric bikes were sold in the Netherlands last year, while 60,000 power-assisted bikes were sold in Germany … in China, … they are selling at the rate of 2.6 million electric bikes a year.”

In the article Finley has the following observation:

The world really needs a standard battery pack as reliable, robust, and powerful as the 36-volt Dewalt power tool line, complete with a battery management system designed for electric bikes that can be charged in under and hour and be chained together as is done with 12-volt lead-acid batteries to obtain different voltages and amp-hour ratings.

You bet your diandong zixingche, boopsie! First we need batteries, then we can add the solar panels or other charging stations that use renewable energy.

Hm, let’s see, if a Peabody death train leaves a Philadelphia Speech at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Democrat Time, then what percent of 2.6 million ebikes will need thin film solar cells by 2010?

nanosolar
TFPV (Thin Film Photo Voltaic) development is ramping up, led by a company called Nanosolar.

Did you remember to carry the Nanosolar?

  1. 1Upright primates on wheels
By jcwinnie | Posted in design, development, economics, shopping, transportation | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (4)

Fostering Better Rail Transit Kinetic Energy Recovery

2008-8-29 – 7:22 pm

As previously noted, kinetic energy reclamation would seem a needed enhancement in the transport of freight by rail and road. This blog has gone so far as to suggest gathering and reusing kinetic energy from rail transit could occur not only by electricity generated when electric motors become generators while being used for braking, but also from application of Bose Suspension on railroad cars.

Now Green Car Congress1 relays an announcement from the US Federal Transportation Administration. The FTA is soliciting proposals for the demonstration in rail transit of 1) regenerative braking and 2) energy storage technologies (on-board or/and wayside). Total funding available for the project is $300,000.

There are a total of 11,110 heavy rail vehicles and 1,645 light rail vehicles in revenue service across the US, according to 2007 APTA Public Transit Factbook. Respectively, they consumed an estimated 3,768,605 MWh and 570,718 MWh of electricity annually. A substantial percentage of the life cycle energy use is for the operation of the rail vehicles, particularly the propulsion system.

Rail systems have the potential for recovering substantial amounts of lost kinetic energy through regenerative braking of rail cars. Recovered energy can be directed to the third rail or catenary to be used by nearby trains, or stored in on-board or wayside energy storage devices.

Regenerative braking combined with energy storage technologies could increase the efficiency of rail propulsion systems by substantially reducing energy losses.

The selected proposal will need to include a transit agency operating an existing rail system. The project partners shall work with the transit agency, or vice versa, to identify and select the technologies to be retrofitted to the existing rail transit system, make any adjustments to operating procedures, safety standards and guidelines, install the system, conduct training, and perform and evaluate the system demonstration.

Proposals must be submitted electronically by 3 October 2008.

As just one recent example of a regenerative braking approach, UK train operators Southern and Southeastern earlier this year became the first train operators in that country to introduce regenerative braking on the third rail DC network. The first Class 375, 377 and 376 Electrostar trains return electricity back into the rail system when braking. Any other train in close proximity will benefit from the electricity transferred back to the third rail.

Southern and Southeastern worked with Booz Allen Hamilton, Bombardier (the train manufacturer), Network Rail and the various safety approval bodies to develop a design solution that would not impact the safe and reliable operation of the railway. The principal technical challenge was to ensure that significant levels of energy were regenerated without impacting the ability of Network Rail’s power supply system to work reliably and to detect faults.

This was resolved through the joint design of train protection settings, detailed modelling of the behavior of electrical sections on the Southern network, and the completion of a comprehensive infrastructure testing program.

GCC commentator HarveyD asks, “What’s new here? Subway cars have been equipped with similar systems for many years.” And, I added that it would seem somewhat short-sighted to restrict innovation only to recovery of lost kinetic energy through regenerative braking. The real challenge is efficient storage and transfer of the energy when transfer must be delayed.

  1. 1FTA Solicits Proposals for Regenerative Braking and Energy Storage Systems for Rail Transit
By jcwinnie | Posted in development, energy, finance, policy, rail | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

New Process for Carbon Coating Nanoparticles

2008-8-29 – 1:04 pm

Green Car Congress1 relays a report from the Institute of Energy Technology, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology that their researchers have developed a new process to produce an optimized LiFePO4/carbon composite cathode material that offers high capacity and long cycling life. This announcement comes on the heels of an announcement from the University of Texas at Austin on improved process for the synthesis of olivine LiFePO4 nanorods.

A Li-ion battery is currently the smallest and lightest way to store as much rechargeable electrical energy as possible. However, formulations less susceptible to thermal override and thus safer demonstrate a comparatively sluggish performance. The current strategy is to shorten the existing route within the electrode material.

New process for carbon coating nanoparticles improves conductivity
The material contains a highly crystalline LiFePO4 core with a size of about 20-40 nm and a semi-graphitic carbon shell with a thickness of about 1-2 nm. The method devised to produce the material can be extended to the preparation of other electrode materials for lithium-ion batteries, such as Li4Ti5O12/carbon and Mn3O4/carbon composites.

As previously noted, lithium iron phosphate is an attractive cathode material because of its low raw material cost and stability. Such chemistry has a downside, however. It has a lower energy density and less electronic conductivity.

Capacity deterioration in olivine LiFePO4 is caused by the slow diffusion of Li-ion in active materials and low electron conductivity, according to the AIST researchers. High-temperature treatment to coat the LiFePO4 material with carbon to improve conductivity could result in overly large carbon particles, defeating the efforts to keep the coating to a nanometer order. Furthermore, aggregation could leave parts of the surface uncoated.

The group in Japan focused on carbon-coating the nanometer sized particles to address the conductivity problem. Using a new in-situ polymerization restriction process, they were able to produce lithium iron phosphate nanoparticles capable of 112 mAh/g and 90 mAh/g under high-rate charge / discharge of 30C and 60C, respectively. “Capacity after 100% depth of discharge over 1,100 cycles is 165 mAh/g.”

GCC Recommended Resource

  • Yonggang Wang, Yarong Wang, Eiji Hosono, Kaixue Wang, Haoshen Zhou (2008) The Design of a LiFePO4/Carbon Nanocomposite With a Core-Shell Structure and Its Synthesis by an In Situ Polymerization Restriction Method, Angewandte Chemie International Edition doi: 10.1002/anie.200802539

  1. 1AIST Researchers develop LiFePO4 Cathode Material with High Capacity and Long Cycle Life
By jcwinnie | Posted in chemistry, design, development, energy, factor, research | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Graphene

2008-8-27 – 8:44 pm

Via Electrifying Times, we read with interest the following article by Bill Sanderson that appeared in the NY Post, August 25, 2008.

It’s not the pen that’s mightier than the sword - the lead in the humble pencil contains the strongest substance on Earth.

That finding, just published by Columbia University researchers in the journal Science, could lead to ultralight, paper-thin aircraft parts, super-tough bulletproof vests and even a 23,000-mile elevator to space long dreamed of by scientists.

Xiaoding Wei and Chenggu Lee
MICRO MANAGERS: Columbia University researchers Xiaoding Wei and Chenggu Lee take a closer look at the microscopic composition of graphene - the super-tough atomic makeup of pencil lead - which they say is a stronger substance than even steel or diamond.

Pencil lead - commonly known as graphite - is made up of one-atom-thick graphene sheets squeezed together. To learn about graphene’s strength, postdoctoral researcher Changgu Lee had to figure out how to peel graphene sheets from graphite.

His low-tech solution: “We used what is called the Scotch tape method.”

Lee stuck some Scotch tape to a piece of graphite, and peeled it off. Then, he stuck the tape to a tiny piece of silicon about an inch square, and peeled it off again.

That transferred thousands of tiny flakes of graphite to the silicon, which itself had thousands of tiny holes.

At that point, Lee went high-tech. He put the silicon slice under an electron microscope and for days scanned it in hope of finding suitable one-atom thick graphene sheets over suitable holes in the silicon.

Once Lee found some defect-free graphene flakes - each 1/100th the width of a human hair - researchers tested their strength by trying to pierce them with atom-sized metal and diamond probes.

Professor Jeffrey Kysar, a mechanical engineer, explained graphene’s strength this way: Lay a graphene sheet as thick as Saran Wrap over a muffin cup, and try to pierce it with a pencil.

“The force required to push that pencil through the graphene would be equal to the weight of an elephant or a small car,” Kysar said.

“This is probably about 100 times stronger than the best steel you can buy.”

Boeing 787 Assembly
“From almost no composites in aerospace structures in 1960s, we have now reached the stage that 50% weight of the new Boeing 787 will be composite materials.”

Graphite is easy to find - it’s mined all over the world. But it’ll likely be years before scientists and engineers figure out how to turn graphite into big enough quantities of graphene to make useful materials.

The researchers say they’ve proved that a 23,000-mile-long graphene ribbon could be used to build an elevator extending into space to a satellite in orbit.

Using the elevator would likely be cheaper than rockets. NASA is offering $4 million in prizes to scientists who come up with practical ideas for the project.

By jcwinnie | Posted in chemistry, design, development, factor, space exploration, transportation | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Dems dat do

2008-8-26 – 8:41 am

Writing for the Gristmill, an environmental news blog, David Roberts shares some 3am convention thoughts:

A t-shirt, being sold by a very, very large black man (I’m serious — he was like 6′7″), that had Obama’s picture on the front, and on the back: “A black man’s running — and it ain’t from the police!” It’s funny, but there’s a serious sentiment behind it, something I sensed as I watched the crowd as Michelle Obama spoke tonight. Are we really going to do this? Elect a black man president? A black woman first lady? A black family to move into the White House? It’s at once thrilling, scary, inspiring, and, in a strange way, not quite real. Everyone is holding their breath.

Maybe, somebody, along the way, will put together a multi-media Black American timeline from the American Revolution to the moment of Obama’s formal acceptance of the Democratic nomination for Presidential candidate. Hopefully, to include the Jim Hendrix Experience doing “Machine Gun”.

By jcwinnie | Posted in advertising, analysis, culture, politics | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Who Knew?

2008-8-25 – 8:17 am

Galaxy NCG 1275
Galactic spaghetti monster powered by magnetic fields

For more of the breaking story, check with the Slashdot cosmologists.

By jcwinnie | Posted in cosmology | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

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