but electric vehicles are not expected to face the same financial impact as internal combustion engine vehicles. according to one new york consulting firm, ev markets in europe and china are doing surprisingly well, with ev sales in europe up 25% just within the first business quarter of 2020. 

although american ev figures are not as reassuring, experts believe that if the u.s. begins implementing similar measures as found throughout europe and asia, american ev markets are expected to rebound and increase over the next several years. but this requires u.s. policy to stimulate both ev supply and demand.

why european and chinese ev markets are doing fine 

according to colin mckerracher, the head author of bloombergnef’s 2020 ev outlook, ev markets in europe have largely have stabilized because of pre-pandemic ev policies and the development of more efficient and inexpensive technology. 

“while the internal combustion engine vehicle market is on a downward trajectory, despite covid, evs are on an upward trajectory,” mckerracher said. 

he added the most prominent mechanisms that have cushioned the ev markets are shifting national and sub-national policies that now focus on influencing the supply of evs. in addition to already existing tax incentives for new ev owners, european countries have pushed for strict fuel economy standards. 

“the policies are really saying ‘we don’t care how you do it, but you really need to bring down your emissions,’” mckerracher said. “the most compelling ways for a lot of automakers to do that is by selling a lot of plug-in vehicles.”

unsurprisingly, european automakers have generally expressed economic optimism. volvo ceo hakan samuelsson said at a conference earlier this year that he predicts the pandemic will accelerate future demand for evs, echoing volvo’s commitment to sell an all-electric and hybrid fleet by 2025. and unlike american automakers, volvo’s stock price was higher than it was at pre-pandemic levels.

likewise, as battery technology improves, evs have become more affordable in europe and china, making them fierce competitors with traditional vehicles. chinese automakers have introduced updated lithium iron phosphate batteries, which are cheaper to produce because they do not require metals like cobalt or nickel, according to one analyst from roskill, a london-based global metal trade consulting firm.  

supply localization efforts also have helped avoid tariffs and trade costs that accumulate on ev price tags. according to mckerracher, there is no significant difference between battery production costs among geographic locations, which also means that the overall carbon footprint made as a result of ev production has actually improved.

but more importantly, localization efforts have also helped drive the economies of europe and china. according to marine gorner, an energy and transport analyst at the international energy agency, localizing battery production and the deployment of ev infrastructure has a higher employment multiplier for every dollar invested compared to conventional vehicle manufacturing. 

“i think this particular point will be a key piece of information for governments to have in mind when they think of this shift,” gorner said. “this shift comes with more economic growth prospects.” 

what the u.s. is doing wrong

the same narrative cannot be told in the u.s., largely because the pandemic continues hammering the americas while europe and asia already have flattened the curve. 

even so, a lack of ev implementation and recovery efforts have reduced national ev sales by 33%. according to genevieve cullen, the president of the electric drive transportation association, this figure may only increase if federal and state governments leave automakers uncertain about what standards their fleet must meet. 

“what global governments do and what the u.s. does as part of their pandemic responses, i think it’ll have a major impact on what that means going forward,” she said.

besides tesla, which has a higher stock price than one year ago, american automakers are more concerned about cash flow and have cut back on ev research and development. when demand for automobiles returns to pre-pandemic levels, many american consumers will not find as many competitive evs in the market. 

recent federal guidelines also have stunted the development of america’s ev market. in march, the trump administration revised fuel economy standard goals by reducing 2026’s goal of 54 mpg to 40 mpg, further disincentivizing automakers to develop ev technology. 

cullen said that the electric drive transportation association has modeled a multi-prong recommendation plan that would reinforce manufacturing, strengthen retail incentives, and construct more ev charging infrastructure to help boost the ev market in the united states, but local governments largely have ignored these suggestions. 

“with these things together, we could essentially grow the entire ev ecosystem,” she said. “providing both that market signal for manufacturers and that accessibility for consumers is key, but we’re not seeing that in the u.s.”

not all that bad

although not as many americans are switching over to evs as fast as in europe and china, the future of the american ev industry remains optimistic. 

if predicted ev adoption rates are not drastically altered by federal litigation, american ev sales are expected to rise and continue rising starting in 2021, according to the bloombergnef outlook.  

moreover, mckerracher said replacing an ev in the united states has more of an ecological impact because current internal combustion vehicles in the american market have lower fuel economy standards than those in europe and china. bloombergnef forecasts that u.s. carbon dioxide emission levels are expected to decrease by more than 25% in the next two decades. 

however, the approach to these figures may decelerate if the federal government continues pushing automakers away from ev production. 

“if trump wins the 2020 election, the u.s. will almost certainly fall behind in ev purchases,” mckerracher said. “if democrats win, that gap will close.”

others also believe that federal and state governments must increase ev demand by enacting innovative policies that entice consumers to purchase new evs. sean mitchell, the president of denver’s tesla owner club, said state governments should enact policies like a carbon tax that make fossil-fueled vehicles less economically viable for the average american.

“i think in a free market it’s important to let products and industries survive on their own,” mitchell said, “but, when you’re talking about a market that is directly related to pollution and emissions, there’s got to be another factor that’s considered there.”

mitchell added that state governments should remove policies that complicate ev sales. for example, texas prohibits customers from purchasing vehicles directly from the manufacturers. removing this policy would increase ev demand because customers would not be forced to shop online for such a large product, mitchell said.

“making it easy for people to purchase electric vehicles is key,” he said. 

but experts also point out that like buying in bulk, the price of ev batteries are expected to decrease as more americans trade in their cars for evs, according to marine gorner of the iea. 

“what’s really important is to get more vehicles on the road so that production and sale volumes are higher,” she said. “this is how we will get an ev’s cost parity — it’s up-front cost — comparable to a conventional vehicle.” 

he’s the most well known guy on the block, but he’s totally invisible.

picture your average neighbor… with a few quirks. the house with over a dozen solar panels, three solar-powered pink flamingos, and a hydrogen fuel cell? it’s totally off the grid. what was once a typical “1920s sears kit home” has become a modern, sustainable energy hub.

aside from the energy savings, scott sklar lives like any other resident of arlington, virginia… right down to the hybrid car in his driveway. his blend of technologies and innovations are constantly spreading – half his block has now invested in solar panels too!

“most people make decisions about technology not on cost, but when they see other people doing it,” sklar said.

sklar tells his employees at the stella group, and his students at the george washington university, that even if they can’t afford a tesla or solar panels for their dorms, they can still make a difference every day by making smarter energy choices. as simple as buying an led light bulb.

some have called his house weird, innovative, and maybe even a little crazy… but don’t take their word for it, see for yourself!

in 1901, 115 years ago this week, andrew riker’s electric powered race car broke records as the fastest electric car of its time. reaching speeds of 57 miles per hour, the “torpedo racer” wasn’t the first riker machine to win a race. in 1896, a riker car also won the first official u.s. automobile race. 

in the early 1900s, electric cars made up a third of all the non-horse-driven transportation. as more people gained access to electricity, their popularity was on the upswing — that is, until ford’s model t was introduced in 1908.

before the release of the model t, cars varied widely between steam, gas and electric power. however, the model t was much cheaper to make than the standard electric car — $650 vs. $1750 in 1912, according to energy.gov. this, as well as improved road systems and cheap fuel, resulted in gasoline powered automobiles dominating the market for the better part of the century. the late 1960s to early 1970s brought us a gas shortage, prompting congress to pass the electric and hybrid vehicle research, development, and demonstration act of 1976. but it wasn’t until the clean air act of 1990 and the energy policy act of 1992 that interest in electric vehicles truly was revived.

despite the renewed demand for electric cars in the decades following the environmentally conscious acts of the early ’90s, the auto industry struggled to create electric cars on par with the current gas-powered models. unfortunately, the costs outweighed the expected profits and many attempts were scrapped, inspiring the 2006 documentary “who killed the electric car.”

despite the problems with electric cars, including a lack of infrastructure for long trips, the demand for cleaner vehicles only grew stronger. because of this, the first widely sold electric vehicle was actually the toyota prius, a hybrid car. released in 1997, the prius was the first mass produced hybrid electric automobile, running on both conventional gas and an electrically charged battery. the prius has since sold so well that the market for hybrid and electric cars has only grown since it’s release.

it’s certainly evident in the current pricing of cars. despite the difference in price between the average electric car and the model t back in 1908, the gap has narrowed since the release of the prius. the price for an electric vehicle can range from $23,000 to $35,000, while the average gas-powered vehicle falls within the high side of that bracket at $33,500. further, the u.s. government offers a rebate (though there is a cap on the number of rebates offered per model) to those who buy electric cars purchased in or after 2010, driving the price even lower.

though the sustainability and efficiency of electric cars was neglected for more than 60 years, the market has returned full force. as auto companies sell more electric cars, they will build more to meet demand and the market will only keep growing. a cleaner future with fewer gas-based engines on the road is certainly on the horizon.

(image at top: facebook has an area in the parking lot at their menlo park, calif., headquarters with electric vehicle charging stations. photo by jimmy baikovicius / creative commons)

“the use of waste heat for power production would allow additional electricity generation without any added consumption of fossil fuels,” said bruce e. logan, evan pugh professor and kappe professor of environmental engineering. “thermally regenerative batteries are a carbon-neutral way to store and convert waste heat into electricity with potentially lower cost than solid-state devices.”

low-grade waste heat is an artifact of many energy-generating methods. in automobiles, waste heat generated in winter is diverted to run the vehicle heating system, but in the summer, that same waste heat must be dissipated to the environment. coal, nuclear and other power plants require high heat to produce electricity, but after producing electricity the excess waste heat is routed to cooling towers to dissipate. many industrial sites, geothermal sources or solar generating plants also create low-grade heat that is wasted.

the researchers want to take this waste heat and capture it to produce more power. other researchers have tried a variety of methods, but most produce too little power to be workable, or they cannot provide a continuous resource. logan and his team are using a thermally regenerated ammonia-based battery that consists of copper electrodes with ammonia added only to the anolyte — the electrolyte surrounding the anode.

“the battery will run until the reaction uses up the ammonia needed for complex formation in the electrolyte near the anode or depletes the copper ions in the electrolyte near the cathode,” said fang zhang, postdoctoral fellow in environmental engineering. “then the reaction stops.”

this type of battery would be useless as a constant source of electricity if the reaction were not regenerative. using low-grade waste heat from an outside source, the researchers distill ammonia from the effluent left in the battery anolyte and then recharge it into the original cathode chamber of the battery.

the chamber with the ammonia now becomes the anode chamber and copper is re-deposited on the electrode in the other chamber, now the cathode, but formerly the anode. the researchers switch ammonia back and forth between the two chambers, maintaining the amount of copper on the electrodes.

“here we present a highly efficient, inexpensive and scalable ammonia-based thermally regenerative battery where electrical current is produced from the formation of copper ammonia complex,” the researchers report in the current issue of energy and environmental science. they note that the ammonia liquid stream can convert the thermal energy to electrical energy in the battery. “when needed, the battery can be discharged so that the stored chemical energy is effectively converted to electrical power.”

one of the problems with previous methods was that the amount of energy produced in, for example, a system using salty and less salty water to generate electricity, was too small relative to the amount of water used.  the thermally regenerative ammonia battery system can convert about 29 percent of the chemical energy in the battery to electricity and can be greatly improved with future optimization.

the researchers produced a power density of about 60 watts per square meter over multiple cycles, which is six to 10 times higher than the power density produced by other liquid-based thermal-electric energy conversion systems. the researchers note that the current thermally regenerative ammonia battery is not optimized, so that tinkering with the battery could both produce more power and reduce the cost of operating the batteries.

the researchers were able to increase power density by increasing the number of batteries, so that this method is scalable to something that might be commercially attractive.

other researchers on this project were jia liu, postdoctoral fellow and wulin yang, graduate student, both in environmental engineering. the researchers have filed a preliminary patent on this work.

the king abdullah university of science and technology supported this work.

“we have tried to break this paradigm of tradeoffs in materials (by improving) both the stability and the conductivity of this membrane at the same time, and that is what we were able to do with this unique polymeric materials design,” said michael hickner, associate professor of materials science and engineering.

in solid-state alkaline fuel cells, anion exchange membranes conduct negative charges between the device’s cathode and anode — the negative and positive connections of the cell — to create useable electric power. most fuel cells currently use membranes that require platinum-based catalysts that are effective but expensive.

hickner’s new polymer is a unique anion exchange membrane — a new type of fuel cell and battery membrane — that allows the use of much more cost-efficient non-precious metal catalysts and does not compromise either durability or efficiency like previous anion exchange membranes.

“what we’re really doing here is providing alternatives, possible choices, new technology so that people who want to commercialize fuel cells can now choose between the old paradigm and new possibilities with anion exchange membranes,” hickner said.

creating this alternative took some intuition and good fortune. in work spearheaded by nanwen li, a postdoctoral researcher in materials science and engineering, hickner’s team created several variations of the membrane, each with slightly different chemical compositions. they then ran each variation under simulated conditions to predict which would be optimal in an actual fuel cell. the researchers report their findings in a recent issue of the journal of the american chemical society.

based on these initial tests, the group predicted that the membranes with long 16-carbon structures in their chemical makeup would provide the best efficiency and durability, as measured respectively by conductivity and long-term stability.

chao-yang wang, william e. diefenderfer chair of mechanical engineering, and his team then tested each possibility in an operating fuel cell device. yongjun leng, a research associate in mechanical and nuclear engineering, measured the fuel cell’s output and lifetime for each material variation.

despite predictions, the membranes containing shorter 6-carbon structures proved to be much more durable and efficient after 60 hours of continuous operation.

“we were somewhat surprised…that what we thought was the best material in our lab testing wasn’t necessarily the best material in the cell when it was evaluated over time,” said hickner, who added that researchers are still trying to understand why the 6-carbon variation has better long-term durability than the 16-carbon sample in the fuel cell by studying the operating conditions of the cell in detail.

because the successful membrane was so much more effective than the initial lab studies predicted, researchers are now interested in accounting for the interactions that the membranes experienced while inside the cell.

“we have the fuel cell output — so we have the fuel cell efficiency, the fuel cell life time — but we don’t have the molecular scale information in the fuel cell,” hickner said. “that’s the next step, trying to figure out how these polymers are working in the fuel cell on a detailed level.”

the advanced research projects agency-energy at the u.s. department of energy, funded this project in collaboration with proton onsite, a leading membrane electrolyzer company based in connecticut.

_{learn more about white’s six-year-long journey to help change
the economics of rural villages through off-grid refrigeration in
his tedx talk from july, then check out our bloomberg west
segment on promethean power.}

editor’s pick: what if you had to boil your milk every time you wanted a bowl of cereal?

while american farmers have the luxury of reliable, 24-hour refrigeration systems, farmers in india find it virtually impossible to get milk to the market without dangerous levels of bacteria due to the country’s unreliable power source. as a result, families are forced to boil their milk before drinking it, which diminishes its nutritional value. sam white and sorin grama, founders of promethean power, are focused on developing a diesel-free solution to help farmers in off-grid areas chill their milk. 

_{originally submitted june 18, 2012}

promethean has developed a thermal energy storage platform that eliminates diesel generators for cold-storage applications in rural india. thermal energy is stored using proprietary phase-change materials encapsulated in a modular container, essentially a new type of battery that stores cold liquid rather than electrical energy. this thermal battery pack stores and releases large amounts of energy quickly to cool agricultural products immediately, thereby preserving freshness. we have a repeat customer with india’s largest private dairy.

today’s flow batteries pump two different liquids through an interaction chamber where dissolved molecules undergo chemical reactions that store or give up energy. the chamber contains a membrane that only allows ions not involved in reactions to pass between the liquids while keeping the active ions physically separated. this battery design has two major drawbacks: the high cost of liquids containing rare materials such as vanadium – especially in the huge quantities needed for grid storage – and the membrane, which is also very expensive and requires frequent maintenance.

the new stanford/slac battery design uses only one stream of molecules and does not need a membrane at all. its molecules mostly consist of the relatively inexpensive elements lithium and sulfur, which interact with a piece of lithium metal coated with a barrier that permits electrons to pass without degrading the metal. when discharging, the molecules, called lithium polysulfides, absorb lithium ions; when charging, they lose them back into the liquid. the entire molecular stream is dissolved in an organic solvent, which doesn’t have the corrosion issues of water-based flow batteries.

it’s not the only solution for transportation carbon footprint, but the technology has arrived, and needs to be part of the policy conversation.

•  panasonic aiming for battery-powered homes by 2011
•  battery breakthrough technology could power homes for pennies per kilowatt hour

we talk about battery-powered cars. why not battery-powered homes? these super batteries could even be fuel cells. it’s time to take innovation from the car to the home. it’s time. but, utility companies and government seem to conspire on discouraging homes to be off the grid.

but, as the u.s. power grid is already challenged, why not encourage houses to have the option to go off the grid during certain times of overload, when the house can subsist off the batter or fuel cell instead?

and as appliances get smarter, use less power, this surely seems possible today or in the next few years. the fuel cell or super battery that powers the home could get charged from the grid initially and/or through a combination of solar, wind, water, geothermal, natural gas and/or more.

the time is now, as millions every year go through more and more power outages due to severe weather. and, power outages can be quite harsh and even deadly in extreme heat or cold. as we become a wireless communication society with fewer and fewer landlines, why not evolve homes to have wireless electricity?

i used to operate a real-time x-ray machine to examine jet-engine parts but do not have that job any longer. all i would need to do is to x-ray a solar cell (or a stack of them) hooked up to a voltmeter to see if it will work. if this does work or even is remotely feasible, all of those fuel rods wasting away could be used to power many different things and in this configuration should not need a cooling system. since there would only be one rod per “battery,” the “battery” housing could be lead, tungsten, or some other material since the radiation from the rod is not too high.

photo credit to paul stevenson.