EV Facts (or maybe they are prayers…?)

January 27, 2012 by jsalimando · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Scene + Herd 

A factsheet posted 1/26/12 on EVs, from the Electric Drive Transportation Association:

Advancing Vehicle and Charging Deployment

10.6% new vehicle sales that will be electric drive vehicles by 2015 (Deutsche Bank, Sept. 2011).

More than 20 electric drive vehicles that will be available to consumers on the mass market by the end of 2012 (GoElectricDrive.com).

Nearly 1.5 million estimated U.S. charging stations by 2017 (Pike Research).

 

Battery Technology

50% decrease in lithium-ion battery costs expected over the next 10 years (Deutsche Bank, Sept. 2011).

70-80% charging capacity of lithium-ion batteries after their life in vehicles, providing a useful second life for energy storage (National Renewable Energy Laboratory).

 

Expanding the Job Market

2.7 million U.S. workers employed in clean energy jobs, including electric vehicle manufacturing (Brookings Institution).

Nearly 54,000 jobs in the electric vehicle industry as of Aug. 2011, including electric vehicle battery technologies and infrastructure. (Natural Resources Defense Council, United Auto Workers & National Wildlife Federation, 2011).

Nearly 300 Number of hybrid and electric vehicle facilities in the U.S. (Natural Resources Defense Council, United Auto Workers & National Wildlife Federation, 2011).

Decreasing Oil Dependence

Nearly 50% Amount of oil the U.S. imports each year (Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration).

$75 billion How much every $10 increase in the price of a barrel of oil costs the U.S. economy (The Wall Street Journal).

$1,400 Annual savings for the average American driving less than 40 miles a day when switching to an electric vehicle (www.fueleconomy.gov).

 

Creating a Cleaner Environment

Zero tailpipe emission from all-electric vehicles (hybridcars.com).

1/3 reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. transportation sector if 60 percent of U.S. vehicles were powered with electricity (Natural Resources Defense Council).

36% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from a plug-in hybrid versus a conventional-powered vehicle (Argonne National Laboratory).

AFCI Installs – Troubleshooting

January 27, 2012 by jsalimando · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Scene + Herd 

Tips from NEMA’s newsletter.

New IL Trend: Power Buying In Bulk

January 27, 2012 by jsalimando · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Recent Reading 

A Chicago Tribune article (posted here) noted that some electricity buyers are now “sidestepping” the local power co. (ComEd). A piece of it:

Thanks to a new Illinois law that allows communities to act as brokers on behalf of residents, the first electricity bills are 20 percent cheaper than when ComEd was supplying the power . . .

Fulton is the first of what by year’s end are expected to be about two dozen communities benefiting from local governments negotiating bulk purchases of electricity from ComEd’s competitors.

Oak Brook, Lincolnwood, Grayslake and, recently, Oak Park passed referendums endorsing the concept, called “community choice aggregation.” Up to 50 cities are expected to be on board within a year.

Is China A Dog?

January 27, 2012 by jsalimando · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Economic Thoughts 

A couple of bullets from a short recent item I stumbled over:

  • China has consumed just 65% of the cement it has produced in the last six years
  • There are 200m tons of excess steel capacity, more than the EU and Japan’s total production this year.
  • Excess floor space exceeds 3.3 billion square meters and there are still 200m being built this year

Time To Declare WAR On CFLs

January 27, 2012 by jsalimando · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Lighting 

Here are bullets from a piece posted to Energy.AOL.com — Health Probelms Ignored in the Incandescent Bulb Ban:

  • . . . a study from Natural Resources Canada revealed that fluorescent lights could intensify light sensitivity, a trigger of migraines for some individuals.
  • A study by the UK Migraine Action Association (2007) found that fluorescent lights cause nausea, dizziness, and even physical pain for those suffering with lupus.
  • Here in the United States, concern about the affects fluorescent lighting prompted the state of California to make accommodations available for students with light sensitivity, allowing them to take tests in rooms that do not have fluorescent lights.
  • And a posting on Headachemag.com may have summed it all up: “I wear a visor and wrap around sunglasses in church, malls and in friends homes. The new light bulbs are killing me.”

Something New We’re All Learning

January 27, 2012 by jsalimando · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Scene + Herd 

John Wooden, the UCLA basketball coach of much fame + honor, is rumored to have said (Yogi-like):

“It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts”

Well, we’re all learning something new about energy, alternative energy, natural gas, and such, as reflected in this GreentechMedia.com item and the graphic below.

Electrical Risk Management Website

January 27, 2012 by jsalimando · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Company Docs + Comments 

. . . launched by Faith Technologies of WI.

Too Much Rosendin?

January 27, 2012 by jsalimando · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Company Docs + Comments 

One problem with news sources (and blogs) is that we eat what we’re fed. Example: Companies like Rosendin Electric (and EMCOR Group, and Cupertino Electric) issue a lot of press releases.

So you read an awful lot more about Rosendin, for example, than about Power Concepts of Forestville MD.

In truth, the Eleblog tries to work against that “knee-jerk” reflex. You’ll see an awful lot of posts here about companies all over the country — more, I think, than you’ll find in most other places.

However, Rosendin is the largest privately owned EC in the U.S. Much of what it does makes news. We’re gonna skip today over the most recent “newsy” releases and go to this one –

Tom Sorley, the company CEO, got the Good Scout Award from the Bay Area Boy Scout Council.

EleBlog: Should We Change The Name To ‘The Econo/Ele Blog’ ???

January 27, 2012 by jsalimando · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Economic Thoughts 

Yes, the EleBlog was right — again — on economic matters.

On 12/29/11, an item posted here: Prediction: January Blahs Coming

Go back and read it. In sharp contrast to the optimism rampant — even among bearish economists — this blog predicted crummy news was a-comin’.

And come it did. Where a lot of pundits said Q4/2011 GDP would come in at 3% or better, today’s first estimate (of 3) came in at 2.8%.

And — as I heard a BloombergTV reporter observe — a heavy dollop (1.9 percentage points) of the Q4 growth was “inventory build.” Real final sales grew by 0.9% in the quarter.

REMEMBER: This is the first report. There are 2 more on Q4/2011 GDP growth –

. . . and in the recent past, the 2nd and 3rd report on each quarter has featured a downward revision.

 

The EleBlog Takes On The Grecians

January 25, 2012 by jsalimando · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Economic Thoughts, Numbers You Need To Know, Off The Pathen Beat 

Read an article, Greece’s Extortion Racket Maxed Out, which provided these figures for “registrations of new and used vehicles” in that nation:

2010 — down 37%

2011 — down another 30%, to 107,737 (lowest level in 20+ years)

This makes one wonder: How does one write a piece with a number (107,737) without providing context?

We clicked over to the CIA World Factbook, where the population of Greece was given as 10.76 million as of July 2011. Further: Roughly 1.5M of those people are kids age 14 or under. To simplify: Call the driving-age population 9.25M.

Out of that, almost 108K cars were bought and registered (new cars or existing cars changing hands). Ballpark-estimate-wise, that means roughly 1.1% of the maybe-qualified Greek citizenry went out and bought a car in 2011.

How about the U.S.? I don’t have an apples-to-apples comparison. However, we do know that new car production is said to be jumping up to 13,600,000 in 2012. And the government labor’s report gives the “civilian noninstitutionalized population as around 239 million.

That’s 5.6%.

- – - – -

WHERE THIS TAKES YOU:

(a) We criticize the Greeks when they act irresponsibly.

(b) We criticize the Greeks when they pull back and stop buying cars.

(c) Are you sure that the U.S. percentage is “Normal?” After all, this is a lot bigger country than Greece. Our citizenry is a lot more prosperous than the Greeks (and was before the European brouhaha began). We have a lot of suburbs and exurbs.

(d) On the other hand, according to Wikipedia, “the urban area of Athens” has a population of more than 3M — or close to 29% of the population of the entire country. I’m not savvy on Greek bus service, and I don’t think you can walk everywhere — but perhaps some significant % of those 3M people don’t think they need a car.

- – - – -

ADDITIONAL NON-RELEVANT NOTION

In all the mass media/business media analysis of the European situation, the Greeks regularly get the blame.

Yet from that nation’s history (it’s been in default on its debt for something approaching one-half of the past 200 years) — and from some basic math on debt-to-GDP ratios, tax evasion realities, and more — anyone loaning money to Greece in the past two decades has got to be declared an IDIOT.

[From Investopedia: "Greece has defaulted on its external sovereign debt obligations at least five previous times in the modern era (1826, 1843, 1860, 1894 and 1932)."]

So who is pulling your leg? The European bankers? The European politicians? Or the Greeks? Any realistic analysis of the sitch – in the EleBlog’s opinion – is:

(a) The job of bankers, in lending money, is to assess the likelihood of getting the money back. Was this done in the case of loans made to Greece since about 1990?

(b) If you’re a deadbeat, and someone is STILL willing to loan you money — and you’ve got a personal history of running out on debts, declaring bankruptcy, changing your name, etc. — and THE LENDERS KNOW IT . . . is it your fault the lenders gave you more money? Or is it . . . their fault?

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