Pandora's Promise--The Truth About Nuclear Energy

Cross-posted from Energy Trends Insider


I recently watched Pandora's Promise, (7) the pro-nuclear energy documentary directed by Robert Stone (8).

This is a professionally rendered, engaging piece of filmmaking. It is as honest and accurate as any documentary you are ever likely to see, providing a much needed counter-balance to the decades of misinformation from anti-nuclear groups.

My review will be in the form of a critique of Ed Lyman's review  "Put Pandora’s Promise Back in the Box" (9) on the Union of Concerned Scientists and Citizens blog called All Things Nuclear.

I'll start with the last line in his review:

Nuclear power will only be successful through the vision of realists  who acknowledge its problems and work hard to fix them—not fawning ideologues like filmmaker Robert Stone and the stars of “Pandora’s Promise.”

Apparently, reversing the decades of misinformation disseminated by anti-nuclear energy ideologues is not on Lyman's to do list. That's his prerogative but it needs to be done. Lyman, who I'm assuming is on the staff of the Union of Concerned Scientists and Citizens (4) (12) (13), is incensed that this 90 minute film meant to counter the decades of misinformation from anti-nuclear groups does not present the anti-nuclear perspective. Considering that his job appears to be to critique the nuclear energy industry, and judging from the level of vitriol in his review, this film must have elicited a fight or flight response (35). He did not make a single positive statement about the film. After reading his review I couldn't shake the feeling that the UCS may have an anti-nuclear activist hiding in plain sight.

Lyman uses the first two paragraphs of his review to describe what a good documentary should be in order to spend the remainder of his article demonstrating how this documentary didn't meet this ideal. While reading these first two paragraphs, I began to suspect sarcasm (it was that over-the-top), which can be hard to detect in the written word, and was warming up for a laugh ...until I realized that he was not trying to be sarcastic. He was  building a straw man to knock down.

All documentaries, out of necessity, must make their point in a short period of time and that requires triage. Giving weight to opposing viewpoints is not required or even desirable. A documentary about the theory of evolution that gave any credit at all to creationism isn't one I'd bother to watch. Accuracy is the best that can be hoped for and this documentary provides that. Common sense alone would suggest that because Stone was very aware of the firestorm he would provoke in the anti-nuclear subculture, accuracy would be all-important.

The founders of UCS back in 1968 were primarily physicists  and pro nuclear power (5). Officially, the organization is to this day, pro-nuclear power ah, not anti-nuclear power. They say that they only want to improve its safety because:

"Nothing would undermine public acceptance of a new generation of nuclear power plants as much as a serious accident..." (1)

Here's a direct quote to me from their press secretary:

"A lot of people think we're anti-nuclear power. We're not." (2)

These statements about not being anti-nuclear power, as opposed to being pro-nuclear power, is a smokescreen to avoid attacks from anti-nuclear organizations.

It is mind-numbingly predictable that any given Homo sapiens sapiens (a species I am sometimes ashamed to be a member of), whose job largely entails critique of the nuclear energy industry, would be incensed (i.e., would incur an outbreak of subconscious cognitive dissonance (14)) by a pro-nuclear energy documentary that does such a superb job of gently correcting as much anti-nuclear energy propaganda as 90 minutes will allow.

Where is the equivalent to Lyman's job for the airline industry, that guy being paid to harangue the FAA as opposed to the NRC (11))?  Airplane accidents have killed many tens of thousands of people since the 1950s, and were even used as the weapon in the worst act of terrorism in our history. A recent study from MIT estimated that airliner emissions alone may be killing about 8,000 people a year (6). Compare that to the nuclear energy industry tally of few hundred confirmed deaths, with statistical estimates for the potential of a few thousand more.

There is no airline industry equivalent to Lyman's position because there is no need for one. Nuclear energy and airline travel are both the safest at what they do per unit energy produced and per mile traveled respectively although they differ in that nuclear power generates gargantuan amounts of competitively priced zero carbon energy while airlines consume gargantuan amounts of high-carbon energy to produce gargantuan amounts of carbon emissions. The FAA and NRC unendingly strive to improve safety quite simply because it is what they are paid to do.

When you shine a bright light on Lyman's anti-nuclear arguments, they can look quite absurd. I'll start with some examples.

But there is no mention of the fact that the Chernobyl Forum only estimated the number of cancer deaths expected among the most highly exposed populations in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia and not the many thousands more predicted by published studies to occur in other parts of Europe that received high levels of fallout.

The report he links to doesn't use the term "many thousands more"(24). Primarily because we now live so long,  almost half of the people in developed nations like the United States and Great Britain will get cancer in their lifetime (32). Out of the millions upon millions of people with cancer in Europe, that study in his link "estimates," almost three decades after the fact, that a few thousand of those tens of millions with cancer might have gotten their cancer as a result of the worst (out of three) nuclear power plant accidents in half of a century. How is that an argument against nuclear energy? 3,000 Americans alone will die in car crashes this month, 40,000 this year.

Lynas then goes on to assert that the Fukushima accident will probably never kill anyone from radiation, also ignoring studies estimating cancer death tolls ranging from several hundred to several thousand.

 Because the word "probably" is meant to convey a measure of "probability," what the film said is perfectly accurate. Read the latest conclusions from just a month or so ago in this  Dot Earth article titled "Experts Foresee No Detectable Health Impact from Fukushima Radiation" (30).

The Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, which obtained a copy of a draft report by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), revealed that the report estimated a collective whole-body dose of 3.2 million person-rem to the population of Japan as a result of the accident: a dose that would cause in the range of 1,000-3,000 cancer deaths.

Lyman's evidence comes from a draft copy of a preliminary report. He appears to be trying to insinuate that the official final report has been censored by the evil nuclear energy conspiracy overlords. Note how he used the phrase "would cause" instead of the more honest and accurate "could cause."

The population of Japan is roughly 126 million. A thousand cancer deaths would be less than a thousandth of one percent of the population.  A thousand Americans are killed by cars every ten days. Again I ask, how rational is it to claim that percentages this small (the potential for less than a thousandth of a percent) make a case against nuclear energy?

By oversimplifying the issues, trivializing opposing viewpoints and mocking those who express them, and selectively presenting information in a misleading way, it serves more to obfuscate than to illuminate.

The words trivializing, mocking, misleading, selectivity, and obfuscation (and Lyman's review is certainly guilty of all of these things) are loosely defined, relative terms. This film is not guilty of any of these things. But as is also the case for Lyman, that's just my unsubstantiated opinion. Don't take my word for it or Lyman's advice to put it back in its box ...go see the film for yourself.

When the film ended I asked my 19 year-old daughter (full scholastic scholarship to an Honors Collegium who will spend the first half of next semester studying in the Galapagos) if she thought it had "mocked" anybody. She did not, although she did think it was a little aggressive when someone off-camera kept pressing Helen Caldicott (renowned anti-nuclear activist) at an anti-nuclear rally to explain why her claim that many millions of people have been killed by radiation from Chernobyl contradicts the World Health Organization study (among others) that found the number could reach a few thousand.  Her answer was something about a cover up.  When pressed to explain what would motivate the likes of the World Health Organization to do such a thing, Caldicott's response was an emphatic..."I don't know!"

“Pandora’s Promise,” taking a page from late-night infomercials, seeks to persuade via the testimonials of a number of self-proclaimed environmentalists who used to be opposed to nuclear power but have now changed their minds, including Stewart Brand, Michael Shellenberger, Gwyneth Cravens, Mark Lynas and Richard Rhodes.

By comparing this superb film to late-night infomercials, Lyman makes the transition from unsubstantiated opinion to diatribe. These environmentalists are hardly self-proclaimed.  Grab a beer, Edwin, kick back and read twenty or so pro-nuclear articles by yet another "self-proclaimed" environmentalist, George Monbiot, Guardian environmental journalist and the author of the book Heat at the following footnote (25).

The documentary tries to make its case primarily by impressing the audience with the significance of the personal journeys of these nuclear power converts, not by presenting the underlying arguments in a coherent way.

Raise your hand if you are also wondering what algorithm Lyman is using to measure primary impressibility. The film actually does primarily make its case by presenting the underlying arguments in a coherent way. Did Lyman really expect Stone to choose people nobody has ever heard of to make this case?

"This strategy puts great emphasis on the credibility of these spokespeople."

I'm with Ed, senior scientist at UCS, credibility is often highly overrated (27).

Yet some of them sabotage their own credibility. When Lynas says that in his previous life as an anti-nuclear environmentalist he didn’t know that there was such a thing as natural background radiation, or Michael Shellenberger admitted to once taking on faith the claim that Chernobyl caused a million casualties, the audience may reasonably wonder why it should accept what they believe now that they are pro-nuclear.

Considering that deep, willful ignorance, along with an almost total lack of critical thought, is the very backbone of the anti-nuclear movement, and has been for decades, I don't see how those honest acknowledgements of victims of that propaganda should now be seen as damaging to credibility just because it suits Lyman's purposes. But that's the beauty of cognitive dissonance, isn't it?
His "...hand got tired trying to jot down all the less-than-half truths put forth by the talking heads in the film..." So tired that he only listed one of them, which was summarily debunked in the comment field.

The half truth he details involved a remark about bananas and tritium by Gwyneth Cravens. Cravens appeared in the comment field demanding, and getting from an editor, a correction. Seems to me that it is highly unlikely that anything was going to stay in that film that was not fully vetted by a nuclear energy expert or physicist. Lo and behold this comment from Cravens:

In regard to Mr. Lyman’s mistaken quote of my remark in the film about the tritium leak, thanks for posting my correction.

In regard to Mr. Lyman’s second attempt, I stand by what I said in the film. This information was fact-checked by one Nobel-prizewinning particle physicist, a health physicist, and by four radiation-protection experts. Apart from my own wish only to say what I knew to be the case, Robert Stone wanted to make sure everything in the film was accurate.

To borrow Lyman's words, "These sloppy soundbites greatly diminish the film’s [his review's] credibility."

In the comment field Lyman does a nice job of back pedaling when he admits that Cravens was correct in that the release of tritium from Vermont Yankee was not a health threat (the only point that matters). He only brought it up because ...hold on a minute, I'm putting on my hip waders ...she was "technically incorrect." As an experienced blogger, I feel Ed's pain. Nothing more embarrassing than having an astute commenter call you on the carpet.

A more egregious example of dishonesty is in the discussion of the health effects of Chernobyl. One after another, the film’s interviewees talk about how shocked they were to read the 2005 report of the Chernobyl Forum [snip and see note (22)] ...and discover that “the health effects of Chernobyl were nothing like what was expected.”

"Egregious example of dishonesty" ..says the egregiously dishonest review.  The following footnote contains a short list of 335 works of nuclear holocaust fiction (18). The health effects really "were nothing like we expected." Instead of mutant armies we got Europe's largest wildlife preserve (19) , a power plant that continued to be staffed and produce electricity for 14 years after the disaster (20), and a number of deaths and cancers that were so unexpectedly low that to this day people like Lyman and Caldicott refuse to accept it.

Sometimes, what people don't say is more revealing than what they do say. Nowhere in his review does Lyman mention Helen Caldicott, even though she appeared in the film repeatedly. Apparently, Caldicott was once a "leading member" of the Union of Concerned Scientists (15) . Here is an article I wrote about an op-ed piece by her in the NYT: "Helen Caldicott--Nuclear Power Plants are Bomb Factories?" (16).

Lyman continues:

Nor is there mention of the actual health consequences from Chernobyl, including the more than 6,000 thyroid cancers that had occurred by 2005 in individuals who were children or adolescents at the time of the accident.

This was a 90 minute documentary. As with Lyman's review, there were many thousands of pro and con things that did not get mentioned. But I'm glad he brought this one up. Although a spike in thyroid cancers in children was expected, few expected that there would only be 6,000 cases of highly treatable thyroid cancers in the almost three decades since the accident (with a 94% survival rate) (21).  Well over 300 thousand people are diagnosed with cancer every year in the United Kingdom alone from other causes, primarily from genetic propensity and aging, but also from the over 400 carcinogens found in our environments (22).

And the film is silent on the results of more recent published studies that report evidence of excesses in other cancers, as well as cardiovascular diseases, are beginning to emerge.

"Diseases beginning to emerge?" I read the study at the end of his link (24). It says in relation to thyroid cancer:

"...no increases were observed among adults. Although cases were relatively few, the increases were very large compared to previous years [for children, as expected, before the accident]..

They were described as poorly differentiated, aggressive tumors that were invasive and metastatic, in spite of which survival has been excellent.

Continued follow-up, including the use of national cancer registries as a resource, will be needed to clarify whether the excess of papillary thyroid cancer in exposed children has plateaued or is beginning to decline ...

The results to date from studies of thyroid cancer risk to adult residents of contaminated regions do not allow for ready conclusions and the important questions remain unanswered: Is there an excess risk of thyroid cancer in exposed adults?

As for other Earth shattering revelations found in his link:

...increases in the incidence of other types of cancer, in particular breast cancer, have also been reported but have not been conclusively linked to radiation from the accident...

ECLIS found no evidence of a radiation-related increase in the incidence of leukaemia in Europe in the first five-years after the accident. National studies do not, in general, provide evidence for an increase in the incidence of childhood leukaemia

An association between leukaemia risk and radiation dose was found in Ukraine apparent (but not statistically significant) in Belarus, and not found in the Russian Federation.
Though the ERRs/Gy for CLL are not statistically significantly elevated, this finding merits further study.

Further careful follow-up of these populations, and the establishment and long-term support of life- span study cohorts, may continue to provide important information for the quantification of radiation risks and the protection of persons exposed to low doses of radiation.

As for the Liquidators,  those heroes who actually shoveled highly radioactive dirt from one place to another immediately after the accident:

For the more heavily exposed Chernobyl liquidators, the data are more suggestive but additional research will be needed to establish whether there is in fact a risk of thyroid cancer in this group and whether the risk is different for external and internal radiation.

To see those quotes in full context, simply depress the left button on your computer mouse (24).

Insult is then added to injury when Lynas then accuses the anti-nuclear movement of “cherry-picking of scientific data” to support their claims. Yet the film had just engaged in some pretty deceptive cherry-picking  of its own.

... says the pot to the kettle. In one scene, Caldicott is shaking a dog-eared copy of some report claiming that a million people were killed by the Chernobyl accident. I couldn't tell which report it was, but I can guess. Here is what she said in a NYT op-ed:

"The New York Academy of Sciences Report on Chernobyl is absolutely devastating."

And this from New York Academy of Sciences:

“In no sense did Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences or the New York Academy of Sciences commission this work; nor by its publication do we intend to independently validate the claims made..."

You can still buy a hardback copy on Amazon for a reduced price of $262.58 (you save $46.42)  (28) (29).

The film also puts forth the Integral Fast Reactor, a metal-fueled fast breeder reactor, as a visionary nuclear reactor design that could solve all of nuclear power’s problems by being meltdown-proof and consuming its own waste as fuel.

Now he's putting words into the director's mouth. Nobody said it would "solve all of nuclear power’s problems," which in any case turn out to be relatively diminutive in comparison to any other source of energy with its capability.

However, it glosses over the myriad safety and security problems associated with fast-breeder reactors.

Lyman feels that they should have carved some time out of their 90 minute film promoting the positive side of nuclear energy to explain what these technical hurdles are and how the engineers plan to resolve them. In reality, a main point of that segment was to show the public how politics shut down an extremely promising technology for reasons that in hindsight were misguided. Happens all the time in our polarized political system. This is also an example of why you can't seriously call nuclear power a mature technology. Also note that the future of nuclear energy does not depend on this new technology.

However, again engaging in cherry-picking, it did not discuss the fact that the tests only simulated some kinds of accidents, and that such reactors are inherently unstable under other conditions.

... says the cherry picker who couldn't be bothered to elaborate or even provide a link to support his claims.

It also does not bother to explain the very real proliferation concern that led the Clinton administration to terminate development of the reactor: the fact that spent fuel reprocessing, needed for the fast reactor fuel cycle, produces large quantities of nuclear weapon-usable materials in forms that are vulnerable to theft.

Actually, that proliferation concern, like just about every claim by the anti-nuclear groups, has been exaggerated to the point of nonsensical. Terms like "large quantities" and "vulnerable" are relative. Building a nuclear weapon takes far more than simply getting your hands on weapon-usable material. Why should this material be allowed to be any more vulnerable to theft than a finished war head? Even if you managed to steal weapon-usable material (instead of an assembled weapon), the technical ability to build a nuclear weapon is far beyond the abilities of most nations, let alone a terrorist organization. The theft of a bomb is the real concern and although Lyman glossed over it, the film points out that much of our nuclear generated power comes from dismantled Soviet bombs. Some countries that decided to make nuclear weapons don't even have nuclear power plants. You can build a small reactor specifically to make weapons grade material. How do you suppose we made the first bombs? There were no nuclear power plants.

Contrary to its portrayal in the film, reprocessing increases, rather than decreases, the volume of nuclear waste requiring disposal (31).

Another commenter pointed out the half truth Lyman is propagating with his above link:

It is missing their normalization information on the volume. I would suspect a fair unit would be m^3/GW… but this is just volume. I can compare the volume of water from the Mississippi feeding the Gulf to all the rivers of the world feeding the oceans and those number would greatly differ. It appears this report is considering the entire French reprocessing streams (forgetting that much of that “HWL” it is labeling are fissionable transuranics) to storage capacities in Yucca mountain (if you read their references). This is an invalid comparison. I would agree that low level waste levels would increase, but high-level WASTE streams are significantly lower PER UNIT ENERGY extracted and the HWL is typically short-lived as the significant fraction of transuranics are the long-live radioisotopes.

I also pointed out this half truth in an article a few years ago (2):

You never know with the French, but it seemed unlikely to me that they process their waste to "increase" their disposal problems. Which led me to wonder why fuel is reprocessed in the first place. I found the answer...(33)

The UCS downplayed the fact that by creating slightly more of the short-lived, less problematic stuff, reprocessing reduces the amount of the much more problematic long-lived stuff.

Lyman continues:

There are also scenes in the film that are downright offensive, such as showing impoverished, barefoot children wandering through slums with the clear implication that nuclear power is all that is needed to raise them out of poverty.

There is no such implication, clear or otherwise. You know what I find offensive? When it comes to the Japan quake, anti-nuclear activists ignore the roughly 20,000 dead and missing, focusing almost exclusively on Fukushima. Click here for a heart rending image of one of those 20,000 (34).

The biggest failing of the film, however, is the lack of any discussion of what the real obstacles to an expansion of nuclear energy are and what would need to be done to overcome them.

Actually, the film dealt at length with the real overarching obstacle to nuclear energy-- false information disseminated by anti-nuclear ideologues, although it never once called them that.  There are no major technological or safety obstacles. The safety of nuclear reactors improves with every new one built.

In fact, nuclear power’s worst enemy may not be the anti-nuclear movement, as the film suggests, but rather nuclear power advocates ...

I can't quite put my finger on why, but the concept that nuclear power advocates are nuclear power's worst enemy seems somewhat disingenuous*. Clearly, nuclear power's worst enemy is the anti-nuclear movement or worse yet, the "anti-nuclear activist" in "not anti-nuclear" clothing. * Sarcasm alert.

...whose rose-colored view of the technology helped create the attitude of complacency that made accidents like Fukushima possible.

Unlike Chernobyl, or the other accident, Three Mile Island, Fukushima wasn't an accident. It was damaged infrastructure. Google the term "images Japan quake" and click on the image link to see endless photos of the carnage that had nothing to do with the damaged reactors. The damaged power plant was one of thousands of infrastructure casualties from a quake that was literally 1000 times more powerful than the one that flattened Haiti except, unlike the natural gas plant that burned to the ground, the dam that failed, collapsed bridges, and on and on, it didn't kill anyone, which, sadly, really rubs the anti-nuclear crowd the wrong way.

Go see the film. It's really good.

Notes and references
1)       http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_and_global_warming/nuclearandclimate.html
2)       http://biodiversivist.blogspot.com/2010/03/ucs-union-of-concerned-scientists-is.html
3)       http://www.energytrendsinsider.com/2013/06/14/early-retirement-of-nuclear-plants-is-a-step-backward/#comment-932617396
4)       http://www.ucsusa.org/
5)       http://www.ucsusa.org/about/ucs-history-over-40-years.html
6)       http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/10/101005-planes-pollution-deaths-science-environment/
7)       http://pandoraspromise.com/
8)       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Stone_%28director%29
9)       http://allthingsnuclear.org/movie-review-put-pandoras-promise-back-in-the-box/
11)   http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc.html
12)   http://www.bbb.org/charity-reviews/national/environment/union-of-concerned-scientists-in-cambridge-ma-1123/governance-and-staff
13)   http://www.bbb.org/charity-reviews/national/environment/union-of-concerned-scientists-in-cambridge-ma-1123/financial
14)   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
15)   http://www.nationalcenter.org/dos7116.htm
16)   http://biodiversivist.blogspot.com/2012/01/hellen-caldicott.html
18)   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_holocaust_fiction
19)   http://biodiversivist.blogspot.com/2012/08/last-week-i-stumbled-upon-this-recent.html
20)   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Nuclear_Power_Plant
21)   http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130424132630.htm
22)   http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/generalinformationaboutcarcinogens/known-and-probable-human-carcinogens
24)   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3107017/Not used
25)   http://www.monbiot.com/category/nuclear/
27)   About the author: Dr. Lyman ... Areas of expertise: Nuclear terrorism, proliferation risks of nuclear power, nuclear weapons policy
28)   http://www.amazon.com/Chernobyl-Catastrophe-Consequences-Springer-Environmental/dp/3540238662/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300807038&sr=1-1-fkmr0#reader_3540238662
29)   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the_Catastrophe_for_People_and_the_Environment
30)   (32http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/31/experts-foresee-no-detectable-health-impact-from-fukushima-radiation/?_r=0
31)   http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_weapons_and_global_security/nuclear_terrorism/technical_issues/reprocessing-and-nuclear.html
32)   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22796220
33)   http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf69.html
34)   http://kimedia.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/ki-media-our-sincere-condolences-to-the-people-of-japan/
35)   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight-or-flight_response

The EV Range Anxiety Myth

Cross-posted from Energy Trends Insider

Bosch has just entered the electric car charging market with its simple 240 volt Power Max charging station for $499.00. Considering that dishwashers, clothes dryers, and hot water heaters can cost less than that, you can bet that the price for this small, relatively simple device will eventually be a lot lower. The Ecotality Blink charging station in my garage cost about $1,200. Neither is actually a charger. They are devices that interface with the charger carried inside the car. How fast you can charge with 240 volts is ultimately limited by the charger that came with the car. The difference is that the Blink station interfaces with the internet, allowing the DOE to study my charging habits, which is fine by me because they paid for it.

The Ecotality business model

Ecotality is also installing Level 2 (240 volt) charging stations in business parking lots. For now, charging is free but eventually you will be charged for your, ah, charge. I don't see this business model having a long-term future. An analogy might be a company that designed a hitching post tailored for Henry Ford's first car design (that looked a lot like a buggy) which might have seemed like a great idea by car and saloon owners until they realized you don't need a hitching post for a car.

A Level 2 charging station will provide about 6 miles of range for the 2011-2012 Leafs, and about 12 miles for the 2013 and newer models in the 30 minutes you're shopping, worth maybe 25-50 cents or so depending, while it is still free. But how many EV owners will bother to drive a few extra miles to a store with a charger, especially when it isn't even free?

The smart grid may eventually be ushered in by the necessity of utilities to monitor things like electric car charging and solar panel output. Considering that many utilities already have smart meters outside of the home that transmit data back to the utility, there is no need for your car charging station to also do so. Internet connected stations may have a niche market for people who want to view charging stats from their computer, but I'm guessing that simple, cheap charging stations like the Power Max will become the norm. Both the Ecotality charge station design and business model may fade in tandem with the government subsidies that now support them. We've seen this pattern before with several biofuel start-ups.

An alternative business model

Fast public chargers (Level 3) capable of completely charging a nearly discharged battery in minutes are an entirely different story. Imagine every 7-Eleven having a few of these chargers sitting next to the tire inflation machine that accepts quarters. One problem with this idea is that a Level 3 charger needs a third power line from the utility. Residences and small businesses typically have two power lines. Large buildings that need the extra power for things like elevators and HVAC will have a third line. For homes and small businesses it would be prohibitively expensive to have a utility string a third line from wherever the closest third line connection may be.

One answer to this conundrum may be a battery-backed charger similar to the ones being tested in Portlandia. Although this particular design still requires a third power line, it is possible to design one that doesn't. The battery DC current could, in theory, be converted to AC to act as the third power line.

This "Level 3 charger at every 7-Eleven" concept is not a perfect analogy for a gas station because most EV owners will do most of their charging at home. They may occasionally use the 7-Eleven as an emergency stop, or for an occasional long trip. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who live in apartments or homes without garages that would like to own an EV but don't have a place to charge them. This idea could be just the ticket although it could also lead to more ...

Range Anxiety

We've all read about electric car range anxiety which may have a negative impact on EV sales, but is it real? From Wikipedia:

"Conventional wisdom is the body of ideas or explanations generally accepted as true by the public or by experts in a field. Such ideas or explanations, though widely held, are unexamined. Unqualified societal discourse preserves the status quo."

Which is all fine and good except conventional wisdom is not necessarily true, and where does conventional wisdom come from? Again, from Wikipedia, if enough people read and believe something (in this case, hundreds of lay press articles that accept electric car range anxiety as a fact simply because each is parroting another article that accepted it as a fact), then it may very well become accepted as conventional wisdom.

The idea is that a car with less range will necessarily lead to more instances of range anxiety. But, as I have discovered, that isn't how it always works. As a Leaf owner I've found that I experience range anxiety less often than I did when I drove a conventional car. I procrastinated when it came to gassing up. To minimize gas station visits I usually let my tank get pretty low, which occasionally resulted in range anxiety. In short, frequency of range anxiety is a function of how often you let the needle on your gas gauge (or battery pack) get close to zero, which is not necessarily a function of gas tank (or battery) capacity. Simply put, people who rarely let their tank (or battery) get close to empty, rarely experience range anxiety regardless of car range.

I no longer procrastinate because I don't have to go out of my way to find a gas station, get in a line, stand around while the car is filling up, fiddle with a credit card and smelly pump handle, then watch in dismay as the dial passes $50. My garage is my gas station. It takes a few seconds to plug in and a few more to unplug the next morning. Because my battery rarely gets close to empty, I rarely experience range anxiety anymore.

Hawaii's Renewable Potential

 Cross-posted from Energy Trends Insider

 

Wind 

Click here to see a YouTube video of these turbines in action. The sound you hear is the wind blowing.
Any visitor to the dry side of Maui (where I am presently vacationing) can’t help but notice the wind turbines. Like all energy sources, wind has its downsides. There's now a scar gouged out of the mountainside to create an access road to them, and at night the mountain has a series of blinking lights up one side. Wind farms are notorious for messing up natural vistas.

At first glance, it didn’t seem likely to me that they will kill many birds, and I’m sure they studied the topic well, but just seconds before I hit the record button to video the turbines at close range, a large flock of seabirds flew through my view finder with the turbines in the background. What a shot that would have made. The public doesn’t have access to the base of those turbines to see if there are any dead birds lying around. Hawaii already has a very large number of endangered bird species.

While whale watching from a boat just downwind from those turbines on a day when the wind speeds were exceeding 50 mph I spent most of my time staring at the turbines instead of the whitecaps. I noticed that several were not spinning. They were probably shut down because the wind speed was too high. The next morning, several more were shut down because the wind speeds were too low.

Couple that level of intermittency with the fact that they don’t last as long as hoped for (20 or so years compared to up to 60 for nuclear), along with the new power lines that had to be installed and you can get a feel for the upfront costs associated with wind.

 Solar

Rooftop solar installations, both photovoltaic and hot water, are very common here in Maui. By some estimates, Hawaii is number two in the nation for solar installations per capita, which sounds reasonable considering that Hawaii is by far and away, number one in the nation when it comes to electricity costs. On the other hand, not all areas of Hawaii have as much sunshine as the dry side of the Maui volcano. The average Maui resident would pay about $30K to meet their power needs with solar (sans government subsidy). Compare that to a place like Seattle, which has electricity rates that are three times lower and solar installation costs are twice that of Maui.
Click here and here to see a few examples.

The solar hot water systems look older, suggesting that they’ve been popular here longer, and not being prone to freeze damage like in many other states, probably have longer life spans. Hot water solar can be up to forty percent efficient whereas photovoltaic hovers around 8-10 percent.

Our dinner host last night (who recently put solar on his home) paid about $15K (before subsidies) to replace half of his power. He later decided to replace all of his power but chose not to do so when he was told he would have to pay many thousands of dollars for a study to see if the grid could handle his extra solar and there would be no guarantee that they would allow him to have them after paying for the study. From the Maui News:

The issue appears to stem from a recent surge in photovoltaic systems, adding more renewable energy to the island's electrical grid than Maui Electric Co. can handle. MECO officials said the interconnection studies - which can cost homeowners as much as $15,000 to $20,000 - are needed to ensure their system can be integrated into the grid without causing outages or interrupting a steady energy supply.
The Public Utilities Commission has required MECO to conduct its own review to determine whether a customer can safely connect to the grid, before requiring homeowners to pay for their own costly study.
Solar installers estimate that around 20 percent of the island's circuits, or neighborhood electrical systems, are no longer being allowed to add any more photovoltaic systems because they have hit the maximum capacity of solar energy allowed by MECO

Wind and solar cannot do the job alone.

My wife was wondering why people pay so much to put solar on their rooftops instead of voting to pay a surcharge to have utilities install larger installations like the one shown above at a Maui community center parking lot (which would capture the economy of scale and could potentially be switched on and off by the utility to help stabilize the grid).

She made a good point. My guess is that tax payers would balk at the rate increases, which would be similar to the ones ushered in by the new Maui wind turbines, but maybe not. Citizens investing their own capital are doing their fellow citizens a favor. Considering that the average household has $16K in credit card debt, solar panels are probably not a good investment for the average American. What are some of the risks?

1. You are likely to move and not be able to recoup your investment in selling price.
2. Government policies may change, reducing or even eliminating subsidies.
3. Significant grid usage fees may develop as more wind and solar go on line.
4. You might need a new roof.
5. System maintenance costs like cleaning and inverter replacement may be higher than expected.
6. Your capital may have earned a higher return if invested elsewhere.
7. Rates may drop (a cheaper way to generate electricity than liquid fueled generators may arrive), making your solar panels less likely to pay themselves off.

I like the concept of rooftop solar. It is a better investment than paying $30K for a car. You could pay $15K for a car and replace half of your power with the other $15K (in Maui, not Seattle). Solar is unique as status symbols go in that it at least has the potential to turn a profit and reduce carbon emissions. My advice would be, if you can pay cash, solar is worth investing in if you live in a sunny area and have a roof sloping the right direction because there is relatively little to lose (or gain), and when it comes to bragging rights, they are hard to beat, especially if you are powering a Nissan Leaf, which I’ve noticed are also common here on Maui.

 Biofuels

Maui has one of the last remaining sugar mills in Hawaii. Ironically, before the word biofuel was even coined, the burning of bagasse at sugar refineries once produced a significant amount of Hawaii’s electricity.

I dropped in to the sugar museum and also took a walk around the outside of the sugar refinery. There are fields of sugarcane everywhere you look. Brazil makes its ethanol from sugarcane, switching from ethanol production to sugar (food) production depending on price spreads. The Maui mill produces only sugar and molasses. The sugar industry in Hawaii hangs by a thread and is largely dependent on sugar tariffs to remain financially viable. Congress recently extended the sugar program until the end of September.

I was surprised to see a large pile of coal along with about a dozen large fuel tanks containing # 2 fuel oil at the sugar mill. I was told that they use these fuels when they run out of bagasse to burn, but that sure seemed like a lot of fuel to me.

I bring this topic up because you might think that Hawaii could make some of its own liquid fuel, considering the high cost of gasoline here and considering that by some estimates, cane ethanol has an energy return on energy invested that is roughly three times better than corn ethanol, which by government fiat, displaces roughly ten percent of our gasoline supply, including the gasoline used in Maui.

I’m not a big fan of biofuels in general because of the added pressure they put on food prices and natural ecosystems. The sugar cane fields are burned before being harvested every two years.

Hawaii makes the majority of its electricity from liquid fuel, which is inefficient considering that liquid fuels are so valuable for transport, and correspondingly more expensive than fuels like coal and natural gas typically used to make electricity. Imagine the cost of trying to displace coal or natural gas with corn ethanol.

Hawaii is also home to “the world’s first commercial utility combustion turbine power plant powered entirely with biofuel…” According to the Hawaii Electric Company, they are using biodiesel to reduce oil imports. Ironically, or maybe nonsensically, they’re using imported biodiesel to do that.

 Nuclear

Nuclear? In Hawaii? I bring this topic up because a dinner party guest had suggested that nuclear energy would never be accepted in Hawaii. Considering that there already are dozens of nuclear power plants in Pearl Harbor, I’m not so sure about that.

Conclusion

One might think that if wind and solar have a chance of reaching their maximum potential and of being cost effective without government subsidies, it is in a place like Hawaii where rates are already high, there’s plenty of wind and sun, and most power already comes from petroleum fueled generators that can quickly come on line when the wind stops or the sun quits shining.

The Unintended Consequences of Government Mandated Biofuel Consumption

Cross-posted from Consumer Energy Report

 Food Deficit

A recent article by George Monbiot explains one of the potential ramifications of diverting grains into fuel. Thanks to extreme weather around the globe:

 ”…this is also a year of food deficit, in which we will consume (31 million tons) more grain than farmers produced. If 2013′s harvest does not establish a new world record, the poor are in serious trouble.”

His main point is that thanks to a growing demand for food driven by an increasing population and improving standards of living, along with the conversion of grains into fuel, the world has to break harvest records every year to keep up. Thanks to grain reserves, humanity can weather years that don’t break records, but failing to break records for two or three years in a row means hunger for hundreds of millions because the price of food will spike as speculators capitalize on the fact that low supply relative to demand equates to higher prices. If weather extremes become more and more common, the odds of running out of reserves becomes more and more likely. (See more: Midwestern Drought, Ethanol, & Renewable Fuel Standard)

It is the prediction of things like mass starvation that help prevent things like mass starvation. This self-nullifying tendency is why a lot of predictions fail to materialize. Ignoring the prediction of massive traffic jams due to road construction could mean that you are the only one on the road because everyone else heeded the prediction, or it could mean that you are stuck in gridlock because you were not alone in ignoring it.

European Union Response

Finally acknowledging the fact that converting food into fuel exacerbates this potential, the European Union has begun the process of scaling back how much biofuel can be made from food. 

From Nature:

French President Francois Hollande last week called an emergency meeting of G20 agriculture ministers. They are due to meet in Rome on Tuesday (16 October) to consider a coordinated response to the sharp spike in food prices that has followed the worst US drought in decades. France is to put global biofuels production at the heart of the discussion.
Last week, a government spokesman told reporters after a French cabinet meeting that Paris “will push for a pause in the development of biofuels competing with food”.

Understandably, European farmers are not happy with this development because the conversion of food into fuel translates into higher grain prices, i.e., biofuel mandates create a chronic shortage.

United States Response

Here in the U.S., corn farmers who got enough rain are breaking out the champagne. Producers of corn ethanol and soy biodiesel are reducing production because with the price of feedstock so high, the more they produce, the more money they stand to lose. Not to worry. Consumption of their product is mandatory. They just have to hold on until blenders run out of credits (by blending more than legally necessary in some years, blenders earn credits that allow them to blend less at other times) and will be forced to pay what ethanol producers need to make a profit again. In the end consumers will pay for everything.

Today’s low natural gas prices (most energy in a gallon of corn ethanol is derived from natural gas as is the methanol used to make biodiesel) are not enough to offset the very high grain prices. (See more: Methanol versus Ethanol: Technical Merits and Political Favoritism)

Impact On Other Businesses

Because these record high grain prices are also hurting other industries that use corn and soy, the governors of eight states containing a lot of those industries are being lobbied to pressure the EPA to waive the mandate to blend ethanol, which in turn, concerns those who gamble for a living betting on the price of food commodities. A waiver of the mandate would release a lot of grain onto the market which would cause them to lose their shirts.

This of course, has all been said before. There are two differences this time around. One is the growing body of evidence of more frequent severe weather and its impact on agriculture. The other is the move by the European Union to reduce the use of food stock for biofuels.

Nissan Leaf Range Issues

Cross-posted from Consumer Energy Report

A group of Nissan Leaf owners recently conducted a test in Arizona to see if high ambient summer temperatures in Arizona have  permanently reduced the capacity of their batteries to hold a charge.

 Does the Leaf go as far as advertised?

From Tony Williams, organizer of the group that tested the twelve Leafs:

“If you need the car to go that mythical 100 miles that Nissan advertises, first know that it never really went 100 miles for the typical US consumer.”

That conclusion, of course, depends entirely on your definition of myth and  “typical US consumer” (a term not used by Nissan on its U.S. website). Click here and then click on one of the colored boxes to see how far a Leaf will go for a variety of driving conditions.

The first question any Leaf owner gets is “How far will it go?” My standard answer is, “Around 100 miles if you’re tooling around town, and roughly 70-75 miles on the highway.” As that chart attests, the car is quite capable of going further than 100 miles especially if you minimize interstate highway speeds. The electric-only range estimates of the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid are just as dependent on speed but because it automatically starts sucking gas when the charge is used up, the fact that it may not go as far as hoped on a charge is largely a moot point.

Jump on the nearest bicycle and try to make it go 40 miles an hour. The only thing stopping you (gearing permitting) is wind resistance, which increases exponentially with velocity. You would have no problem riding a bicycle 40 miles an hour on the moon where there is no wind resistance.
Interestingly enough, most conventional cars using internal combustion engines actually get better mileage on the freeway. It’s complicated, but in a nutshell, that’s because conventional cars are so inefficient in city driving scenarios (braking and engine acceleration losses) that those inefficiencies actually exceed wind resistance losses below a given speed.

 Analysis of the test results

I was putting together an analysis of their test data when I found a blog post by Mark Larson that beat me to the punch.

Click here to read his report AZ Leaf Capacity Kerfuffle: Much Ado About Nothing?

The above graph, published by Larson, summarizes the test results.

The table above, also created by Larson, summarizes the data in a different format.

This test would never pass muster in the world of science, where a hypothesis is proposed and tested using methods to minimize researcher bias. These guys were out to prove that the capacity of their batteries had been reduced by exposure to extreme heat beyond what the published specifications would predict. When any researcher sets out to prove he’s right, he will invariably manage to do so, at least until his research is peer reviewed or attempts are made to duplicate results. That is why the scientific method was invented.

There is a simple, relatively crude gauge, in the Leaf dashboard to warn owners when their battery won’t hold as much charge as it did when new. Nissan has suggested that some of these gauges may be out of calibration (possibly because of the extreme heat) and may be providing overly conservative estimates of battery life. Lo and behold, one of the cars in the test with a gauge indication of just 10 bars out of 12 went further than any other car.

The fact that more than one of the twelve cars tested by the Leaf owners had gauges that were not accurately indicating battery capacity suggests that a significant number of  Leafs may have gauges that exaggerate battery capacity loss.
In short, this paper failed its peer review. The test actually proved that:

1.  Out-of-calibration gauges really are contributing to misperceptions.
2.  All but two of the twelve cars thought to be damaged were actually performing within or just a few percentage points outside of the range band stated in a published Nissan technical bulletin (76 to 84 mile range when consuming energy at a rate of 4 miles/kWh at 70 degrees F ambient air temperature).

Again, from Williams, organizer of the group that tested the twelve Leafs:

“It was sheer stupidity to tell this group of owners that the batteries are ok…”

That conclusion, of course, depends entirely on your definition of OK, and stupidity. Larson’s analysis of the test results (which I concur with) didn’t jive with some Leaf owner’s misperceptions:

 “What I cannot see anywhere in these data is evidence that a Leaf is only achieving half its original range after one year, nor that another Leaf has lost 30% of its capacity in the same amount of time, nor that yet another is losing its capacity at 3 times the rate as anybody else, nor that a relatively new Leaf has lost 9% of its range in only one month.”

 Temperature impact on battery life and performance

Rightly or wrongly, Nissan never claimed that the batteries would perform per that specification no matter what and has warned from day one (in the owner’s manual and in a waiver signed at purchase) that exposing batteries to high ambient temperatures will likely permanently reduce their energy storage capacity faster than what would be expected for batteries not exposed to such temperatures.

Following is an excerpt from that disclaimer from the Williams analysis:

Nissan was anticipating that some cars would be driven in places like, say, Death Valley, or maybe Phoenix during record heat waves. It is likely that these car batteries were affected by heat.

 Click on the pink box in this link to get a feel for how much low temperatures can impact range.
The Leaf owner’s manual makes it clear that the rate of battery degradation will depend on how it is treated over its life.  From my owner’s manual:

The capacity of the Li-ion battery in your vehicle to hold a charge will, like all such batteries, decrease with time and usage. As the battery ages and capacity decreases, this will result in a decrease from the vehicle’s initial mileage range. This is normal, expected,and not indicative of any defect in your Li-ion battery. NISSAN estimates that battery capacity will be approximately 80% of original capacity after five years, although this is only an estimate, and this percentage may vary (and could be significantly lower) depending on individual vehicle and Li-ion battery usage.
Use of quick charge should be minimized in order to help prolong Li-ion battery life.

NISSAN recommends charging the Li-ion battery using the long life mode to help maximize the Li-ion battery useful life.
To prevent damage to the Li-ion battery do not expose a vehicle to ambient temperatures above 120 degrees F for over 24 hours.
If the outside temperature is −13 degrees F or less, the Li-ion battery may freeze and it cannot be charged or provide power to run the vehicle. Move the vehicle to a warm location.

 Passive battery cooling an engineering faux pas?

 Some pundits are questioning the wisdom of Nissan’s decision not to use an active battery cooling system.

Heat is an anticipated potential issue for a few dozen cars in very hot places. Certainly for 99% of the Leafs in the world, the passive system is perfectly adequate. Because there is no such thing as a free lunch, is it a good idea to saddle all cars with the weight, complexity, cost, and energy consumption penalties that come with an active cooling system (pumps, fans, tubes, hoses, radiators, coolant) just for a handful of cars (one or two percent of all Leafs sold in the world) in very hot places even when the owners signed a waiver?

It might be cheaper to buy back a few cars than stick all Leaf owners with that engineering trade off. The plug-in hybrid Volt recalled 8,000 vehicles for safety reasons. Recalls, retrofits and buybacks are common even with conventional cars.

 Nissan’s response

 At the time of my writing this article, Nissan had bought back two Leafs in the Arizona. They also took seven Leafs from owners complaining of reduced range back to their test facility for evaluation.
Nissan’s test results:

• Nissan identified seven LEAF owners in the Phoenix area who had reported concerns with their vehicles. Nissan brought the cars to its Arizona test facility, removed the batteries for evaluation, measured capacity, and conducted voltage testing on individual battery cells.
• The Nissan LEAFs inspected in Arizona are operating to specification and their battery capacity loss over time is consistent with their usage and operating environment. No battery defects were found.
• A small number of Nissan LEAF owners in Arizona are experiencing a greater than average battery capacity loss due to their unique usage cycle, which includes operating mileages that are higher than average in a high-temperature environment over a short period of time.
• In Arizona, we have approximately 450 LEAFs on the road. Based on actual vehicle data, we project the average vehicle in that market to have battery capacity of 76 percent after five years—or a few percentage points lower than the global estimate. Some vehicles in Arizona will be above this average, and some below. Factors that may account for this differential include extreme heat, high speed, high annual mileage and charging method and frequency of the Nissan LEAFs in the Phoenix market.

They may eventually have to offer consumers a hot climate cooling package for a few thousand extra, similar to the quick charge package I paid for (but have never used …that is now standard). Seattle residents would not need a cooling package.

Expectations and a Class Action Lawsuit

Williams, author of the independent Leaf owner study tells us:

I planned, and completed a promotional trip from Mexico to Canada, “BC2BC”, in June 2012 with my Nissan LEAF. However, my first car could not complete the trip as planned, due to its reduced range capability, so I leased my current LEAF, built in April 2012 and took delivery at the end of May. Now, with 7000 miles (11000 km), and only 3 months of actual use, this car could not complete the trip that it did in June. During the BC2BC trip, several times I arrived with 4%-5% capacity remaining, which means today, just a few months later, I would come up 4%-5% short. This car has never been exposed to the heat of Phoenix, although it was 104F (40C) in San Jose, California the one day that I was there.

He’s convinced that his new Leaf is also deficient even though it has never been exposed to “the heat of Phoenix.” What are the odds?

I strongly suspect that there’s nothing wrong with his car. I see the problem largely as a matter of expectations. Anyone who keeps careful track of car mileage (like my wife in her Prius) knows that it varies all over the place, usually for reasons unknown. Electric cars are no different in that respect. But, as common sense might suggest, because an electric car only has an 80 mile gas tank instead of a 300 mile one, and because you can’t quickly refill it, you should avoid the edges of its range envelope.

It just isn’t wise to ever purposely drive this generation of electric car to within 5% of its potential range estimate. In the sixteen months I’ve owned my Leaf I have done that exactly twice, and not on purpose (got lost). There are dozens of variables that you can’t control that impact range and with today’s slow rates of charge, you can’t count on filling up in a timely manner if you fall short.

Rule of thumb; if you can’t meet 95% of your annual driving needs within 75% of your car’s estimated range, don’t buy an electric car.

The entire concept of 120 and 240 volt public chargers (levels I and II respectively) seems like one of those “The Emperor has no clothes on” situations. It takes several hours to put a significant charge in a battery with these.  Why would anyone risk finding someone else already using that charger you were counting on (or finding that the charger is on the blink as is often the case), in order to get back home again?

I recently pulled in next to a Volt at a public charger at my local grocery store. I never bother to plug in because it isn’t worth a few cents of free electricity. I certainly don’t need that charge to get home. I asked the Volt owner why he bothered to plug in, which resulted in one of those awkward blank stares. The idea that maybe there was no good reason to plug in had not crossed his mind.

If I were offered more battery capacity for a fee, I’d decline. Because 99 percent of my driving missions are less than 50 miles, I already have more battery capacity than I need. I swap cars with a family member if I need to drive anywhere near the limit of my Leaf’s range. I have my car’s timer set to charge after 1:00 AM to 80% capacity to maximize battery life. I will on occasion charge it all the way up when I have a lot of driving to do the next day. If my daily commute took me to the edge of the Leaf’s range, I wouldn’t have bought it. Leaf owners who bought a Leaf needing to drive it to the edge of its range, quite simply, should have known better.

There are many people who bought Leafs who probably shouldn’t have and some of them are regretting it, as this recently filed class action lawsuit attests.

Having said all that, it will be interesting to see how Nissan now deals with what they already knew was coming–the fact that some owners would have faster than normal battery life degradation. Nissan may have underestimated how many people would experience early degradation because of where and how they are used, and just as importantly, how an American consumer would react to it.