Beutelevision » Energy

San Francisco: Much Sun, Little Rain

Thomas Beutel — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 00:00:45 +0000

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 sunny month:

As you can see, many sunny days, but we need the rain.

For-Profit Do-Gooders

Thomas Beutel — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 18:07:36 +0000

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

Thomas Beutel — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:48:33 +0000

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 away from oil and toward electricity.

Solar is on Common Ground Mag’s Radar

Thomas Beutel — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 17:33:42 +0000

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

Thomas Beutel — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:54:34 +0000

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 panels on your roof, any plugin hybrid vehicle has the potential of making your investment in solar pay off even sooner.

Update: Here is GM-Volt.com’s announcement of the tax credit

Is BMW working on a PHEV Mini?

Thomas Beutel — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:03:03 +0000

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 offer zero-emission vehicles by 2012.”

Hmm, 4 years away. And I wonder what the price will be.

Solar roof update

Thomas Beutel — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 21:19:05 +0000

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 be commenting more a bit later about our installer, Real Goods Solar, but so far they have been FABULOUS!

New pics of the GM Volt

Thomas Beutel — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 01:52:42 +0000

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

Thomas Beutel — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:43:31 +0000

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 range to 35 miles instead of 40. The new design has a drag coefficient of about 0.28.

Alternative Energy From a Variety of Sources

Thomas Beutel — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:50:28 +0000

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.