Beutelevision

by Thomas Beutel

Category: Energy

San Francisco: Much Sun, Little Rain

San Francisco is known for it’s fog, not it’s sunshine, but that’s mostly in the summer months, mid June to the end of August. Right now in January it should be raining, but we have gotten precious little rain this January. As evidence I present you with my solar panel production, which shows a remarkably […]

For-Profit Do-Gooders

Economist magazine has a great article on for-profit activism and mentions both 1BOG.org and Virgance. 1BOG helped me get a solar panel system last year and I’m am still delighted with how well the whole process went. Thank you again 1BOG and congrats to you and Virgance!

The One-Word Answer To Our Energy Problems: Electrification

Jeffrey Leonard writes about The Plug In Revolution in the Washington Monthly. He says: Electrification as a rallying cry for American energy policy isnâ??t perfect, but in my view itâ??s the best and perhaps only way to get us to a clean and secure energy future. I think he makes an elegant case for moving […]

Solar is on Common Ground Mag’s Radar

Common Ground Magazine talks about One Block Off The Grid (1BOG) in their latest “On Our Radar” column.

GM Volt could get $7,500 tax credit

The financial rescue bill (aka the bailout) contains substantial tax credits for plug-in hybrid vehicles sold after 2008. This could mean about $7,500 dollars for a GM Volt, based on the size of its battery. Here are some links: Green Car Congress on the senate bill Green Car Advisor at Edmunds If you have solar […]

Is BMW working on a PHEV Mini?

Looks like the Volt will be getting some interesting competition. The Register is reporting that an electric Mini test vehicle has been spotted driving around Munich, based on reports in Car Magazine. Car says: “…the miserly mini that will help BMW meet tough new American regulations requiring car makers selling vehicles in California also to […]

Solar roof update

We’ve signed off on getting a 3.85KWh solar photovoltaic system. Return on investment will be 10-12 years, probably less if we get a plugin-hybrid electric car in 3 or 4 years. The roofers will be here tomorrow to mark the joists, and sometime in the next week or two, the racks will go in. I’ll […]

New pics of the GM Volt

GM-volt.com has pictures of the production version of the Volt. I like it. Actually, I like it a lot better than the concept car. Meanwhile, it looks like GM and the EPA might argue about MPG. It all depends on the battery charge at the end of the trip.

Bob Lutz and the GM Volt

Here is a nice Charlie Rose interview with Bob Lutz, talking about the ideas and progress of the GM Volt. It’s about 56 minutes long. One of the things mentioned (at about 41 minutes in) is that the show car had a drag coefficient of about 0.43, which was too much – it reduced the […]

Alternative Energy From a Variety of Sources

Lot’s of interesting news in the alternative energy field: MIT creates a catalyst based on photosysthesis that produces hydrogen from water. LS9 uses synthetic biology to produce oil from algae. Energy Innovations gets the first UL listing for a solar concentrator.