Comments on: Battery Powered Growth

By: mitakeet

mitakeet — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 23:53:57 +0000

I have studied alternatives extensively over the years (for my take on why alternatives are generally poor investments see http://sol-system.com/koxenrider/bok/energy_bogey.html). I include batteries amongst alternatives because if we had good ones we could very quickly move to grid sourced transportation energy and it is vastly easier to upgrade a relative few grid sources than it is to upgrade the millions of cars and trucks on the road. Better batteries will almost certainly need to come from pure research, something that is increasingly being foregone in the US. Contrary to popular thought, it is actually very difficult, even for well established researchers with PhDs, labs and past successful results, to get funding even for rather staid and predictable work. For wild, improbable research, particularly by ‘mavericks’ who lack the above credentials, the chance of getting funding is mathematically indistinguishable from zero. Sadly, the chance that a breakthrough will happen in the US shrinks by the second; look to China and, to a lesser extent, India, for such breakthroughs.

As a bit of not-self promotion, for those of you interested in quantitative reasons on why alternatives are not promising, see the blog Do The Math (http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/) where a physicist (who expected to prove alternative were viable) explains why we are all in deep doo doo with respect to alternatives picking up the slack.

By: Jill SH

Jill SH — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 14:09:29 +0000

Well, yeah, he does complain, but that is generally about all taxes. Mostly I think they all want government for free.

By: Jim Takchess

Jim Takchess — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 11:00:10 +0000

In 2008, Bob Lutz said it was a mistake for GM not to embrace Hybrid earlier. They had the technology but decided not to pursue it. It was a mistake from a Publicity Standpoint.

Over time Batteries will be cheaper, be able to travel farther and charge quicker. See all the ARPA-e research.

If you don’t do it now, your competitors will have a lasting edge like the Toyota Prius.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=4485292&page=1#.UIHiRG_BH3o

By: Jared Bernstein

Jared Bernstein — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 10:23:06 +0000

Sure–good question–I’ll post this wkend. Meantime, tell him lots of income undergoes more than one round of taxation–earnings face payroll tax, income tax, sales tax, and often state taxes (though latter can be deducted for fed, if you owe fed taxes). I don’t hear him complaining about that.

By: Jill SH

Jill SH — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 09:03:35 +0000

(Totally off topic.)

Help. Need another counter argument for my brother-in-law.

I keep hearing that line about how corporate profits/shareholder earnings are taxed twice.

The best lame argument I can come up with is: A corporation is a “person” who should pay taxes, then the shareholder is a separate person who should pay taxes on personal income. This seems at best incomplete.

Can you provide a better explanation?

Thanks.

By: Fred Donaldson

Fred Donaldson — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 06:39:55 +0000

Government (taxpayer) investment in new technology to benefit the public makes sense only if that technology is used by U.S. manufacturers operating in the U.S.

The past teaches that technology and licenses can end up overseas, where we may benefit from lower production costs, but we lose the jobs and the industries here that the research and investment originally enabled. Most countries realize that there is an obligation on the part of companies who receive help from the taxpayer to be good taxpayers themselves.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 05:54:53 +0000

You mean like this?

http://www.npr.org/2012/08/21/159355676/dont-charge-that-electric-car-battery-just-change-it

By: JohnR

JohnR — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 05:48:23 +0000

As you certainly know, “picking winners” in this case means “picking somebody besides oil, gas, ethanol and coal as winners”. The people getting the cash always cry foul when somebody else gets some. It’s not ideological except insofar as “I deserve it all because I’m special!” is ideological.

By: Erick Cobb

Erick Cobb — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 04:35:11 +0000

In my mind there are two open issues with electric cars that will prevent their adoption.
1. Capacity <- this is the easy one, better technology, better materials.
2. Charging <- this is the hard one. The auto industry is now overly relying on home chargers which mitigate charging times by charging overnight. That solution ignores long trips, and people in apartments. However, there is no easy answer to charging. In order to get the same type of speed as with gasoline, you would need to have a 3MW charging station (that's a small powerplant, and all that power would have to go into a single vehicle, batteries don't normally work that way). The only really viable solution in my mind would be a type of battery quick chage, which would require batteries to be standardized. You would go to a service station, and a robotic arm would pull the battery and replace it wit a new one, similar to how automatic car washes work. The business would the be free to charge the reclaimed battery themselves. Alternaetly, outfit all parking meters with electrical outlets, but that does nothing for small towns.