July | 2014 | Asymcar

Chris Mohajer:

As someone who works in the cleantech industry, I thought I would share a few things that relate to Asymcar 15 & 16.

The California Energy Commission recently held a workshop where Ford, GM, BMW, Nissan, and Honda all gave presentations discussing how they plan to integrate EVs into the grid. LINK

At a JVSV event in the Bay Area, Tesla’s CTO JB Straubel gave an interesting talk where he discussed how they see themselves as an energy innovation company rather than a car company. LINK

Solar over generation is a real problem in California. They even named a graph for it: The Duck Curve. LINK

Flow batteries from companies like EnerVault can provide long term energy storage with the need for lithium. The beauty of a flow battery is that you decouple the scaling of power and energy. They have already built a 1MWH system. 10 MWH systems have even better economies of scale. LINK

Lawrence Berkeley National Lab is working with the Department of Defense at the LA Air Force Base on vehicle to grid (reverse charging) applications. It is currently focused on non-tactical vehicles that have scheduled uses. LINK

Companies like Stem can provide battery systems to business for zero upfront cost. There is lots of room for financial engineering. LINK

Steve Crandall joins us to discuss hydrogen fuel cells vs. lithium batteries. The two alternatives to post-internal-combustion motoring are far harder to assess than it might seem. Both require systems analysis and the systems themselves need to be weighed against the incumbent infrastructure and jobs to be done.

We begin with Toyota’s fuel cell sedan announcement and recall Honda’s Clarity. The conversation leads to the observation that technical merit is not always sufficient or even necessary to market adoption success. We note that Toyota supported the Prius through years of low volume. Steve compares this to AT&T’s abandonment of a cell service in the 1990’s.

Steve compares the energy performance of hydrogen and gasoline and shares a look at the economic conditions necessary for a successful hydrogen fuel cell launch.

28mb mp3 about 58 minutes.

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Notes:

Steve Crandall: