SoCal LEAF & EV Gathering, Y7 - Finished - 19 Aug 2017

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Yes, another sad loss in our EV family. She was a feisty, lovely lady. We will miss her presence at our breakfasts. Sending heartfelt condolences to her family.
 
Celebration of Life

Carol Sue Kluck
September, 1933 - May, 2017

Saturday, May 20, 2017
3:00-9:00 p.m.
Rancho Palos Verdes
RSVP to [email protected] (Linda's email)

Thanks, everyone, for all your kind words and support after Mom's passing. We'll be having a celebration of her life this Saturday, May 20th, 3:00-9:00, at my brother's house in Rancho Palos Verdes, the place she called "heaven." She enjoyed her new EV family and always looked forward to joining everyone for breakfast. Everyone is welcome to attend the celebration. Feel free to come and go, or stay the entire time. We are planning on having a short slide show that we will repeat several times throughout the 3:00-9:00 time frame, and after dark, we will do a floating-candles-on-the-water celebration. If you would like to join us, please send me an email at [email protected] so I can get a rough head count and send you the house address.

Here's her "bio" that I posted on Facebook after she passed away:

Mom started her next great adventure at 1:07 this afternoon. Her body was calm and peaceful, but I just know she was sprinting toward the white light, eager to see what lies beyond.

She lived life with an adventurous spirit. At age 16, she saw the movie “Twelve O’Clock High” and fell in love with flying. That prompted her to attend Stephens College in Missouri, the first college in the country to introduce an aviation program for women. She earned her aviation degree and her pilot’s license there and loved soaring in the beautiful Missouri sky. Always the thrill-seeker, she couldn’t believe her good fortune when she and my dad were in Hawaii a number of years ago and decided to go on a helicopter ride. She couldn’t wait to tell everyone that she and Dad didn’t have any ordinary helicopter pilot; they got a bush pilot who took them for a wild stunt ride! Even as she got older, Mom never stopped loving a good roller coaster ride. Her favorite ride at Knott’s Berry Farm was Xcelerator, a ride that pulls 4 G’s, sending riders down a nearly vertical track while accelerating from 0-82 mph in just 2.3 seconds. She was something of a celebrity exiting the ride at 80 years of age and having hordes of people snapping pictures of the grinning elderly lady who had just ridden Xcelerator. She had an enthusiasm for all things fun and loved sharing that enthusiasm.

Mom had an insatiable sense of curiosity, always eager to learn something new, and always eager to pass that knowledge on to others. She spent her life learning and teaching. When my brothers and I were young, Mom decided there must be a better way to teach reading and spelling than what was being taught in the schools. She spent countless hours researching various methods and found one that stood out above all the rest, the Carden method. She took classes on how to teach it and then taught it to my brothers and me after school. Word spread quickly about what she was doing, and in no time, she was tutoring so many children in our home that she barely had time for all of them. She even taught one little girl who was developmentally disabled with no hope of learning to read. Mom had her reading and spelling in no time. One day when Mom was introduced to another parent at our elementary school, that parent exclaimed, “Oh! Carol Sue Kluck! You’re the one who taught (insert name) to read!” That was one of Mom’s more rewarding moments, when she realized that she had been able to do something to change that little girl’s life. Later, Mom developed an interest in Touch for Health, a method of healing that involves acupressure (acupuncture without needles). She was soon teaching it in our home and was invited to lecture on it at several local high schools. She helped people feel better with some simple touch techniques. Most of her life, Mom was on a quest for spiritual knowledge, ultimately leading her to her favorite book, A Course in Miracles. She loved its messages of love and forgiveness. Although she never formally taught it, she would often use what she had learned to help people on their spiritual paths.

Family was everything to Mom. She met Dad while she was at Stephens College, and he was attending the neighboring University of Missouri. He satisfied her criterion of a man who would be a good father. Her main goal in life was to be a mother, and she couldn’t have been a better one. She was the ultimate grandmother, too, giving selflessly to her grandson and loving him unconditionally. She’s been my best friend and my “shadow,” tagging along with me most places I go.

Many friends visited Mom in the hospital this past week. There were two comments that my brothers and I heard repeatedly from various people: she was one-of-a-kind, and she had been a major influence that changed their lives for the better. She made a difference in the world. Hers was a life well-lived.
 
Hi gang.

I just learned of a new EV rebate program that is being offered by SCE, and also one that SDG&E offers.

I've known for some months that PG&E offers a rebate of $500 to EV owners in their service region. I just heard this evening that SCE has a new program called Clean Fuel Rewards program. This program offers $450 for each EV that you own or lease.
SDG&E also offers a rebate program, which I think offers $50 per year to EV owners.

I applied this evening to SCE for rebates for our two EVs.

Here are the links to the programs at the two So Cal public utilities.


https://www.scecleanfuel.com/

https://www.sdge.com/clean-energy/electric-vehicle-climate-credit
 
Thanks for those links to the rebate programs, Phil. I just submitted my request, and I'll soon be $450 richer!

Linda
 
I applied for the Tesla at SDG&E for $50 ... which they say is paid in 6 months or so.

The 2010 Prius hybrid does not qualify because it does not plug in to charge,
but it still gets over 50 mpg on the freeway. Thanks to Toyota for breaking out
of the US car industry's gas guzzler "it cannot be done" mold.

Thanks to Nissan for getting worldwide EV mass production going with the LEAF,
and to Tesla for taking the leap into "the future". I love my Model S, with its nosecone.

Thanks to my wife for suggesting and encouraging it ... I would not have made the $$$
leap forward without her "well, could we just go look at the colors ...".

That was a great deal like what happened about 15.4 years ago ...
when she said "let's just go look at puppies" ... and we bought one, but then, at the
very last moment, I remembered my life of being alone, and I was wise enough to
buy a second puppy so that they could be life-long companions. I think it worked.
Heidi and Boris gave us love their entire lives. Heidi is still with us, but does not
like her "dad" to be gone. She cannot hear much, or see much, so I think dad needs
to get her a cataract removal, lens replacement operation.

Thanks a bunch, to my dear sweetheart, my wife, (and to Phil), for making me better.
 
Event announcement:

I'm planning to attend an interesting day-long conference at UC Irvine on Sustainable Transportation on Tuesday June 27. This is the 4th annual such event organized by Sustain OC at UCI.

Anyone interested in joining me? Early Bird tickets now $35 (includes lunch, I think).

It should be a fun day that'll stimulate some good discussion and opinion sharing. Speakers are all from businesses, industry and government involved in the energy and sustainable transport space.

Here's the Event link to register and for info:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/driving-mobility-4-tickets-32536886704?aff=es2
 
For EV drivers in San Diego Gas and Electric country, good news on the Electric Vehicle Climate Credit that hopefully you applied for in May. Cross-posting from Michael Iimura from the Facebook RAV4 EV group:

SDG&E just released the final details of their 2017 Electric Vehicle Climate Credit. They will be issuing bill credits of $200 for each vehicle registered with the program on or before May 31, 2017. It was initially estimated at $50/vehicle/year. Each year they will see what their LCFS credits are worth and how many vehicles are registered with the program for that year to determine the amount. This will continue to 2020. If you have small bills due to Net Metering, or any other reason, you can request a check for your credit balance after the Climate Credit is applied.
 
I just bought a $35 ticket for the EV Event at UCI on June 27, 2017,
and I plan to join boomer for FCOC (fewer cars on campus).

I missed updating the thread title for our last Gathering at the Golden Corral.
Somebody told me that they counted 16 people there, but now I can only
remember 14 ... perhaps I have a Brain Cloud.

In any case, we had a good time, but I had to leave at 11:30 to
get boomer home by 12:30 for a family trip.

The next Gathering is June 24, 2017 in SA at HTB.
Cheers all.
 
Our History, and a Welcome:

I started a group of those people interested in reserving, ordering, buying, driving, using, investigating, ... EVs and the associated technologies. In 2010 it was just those ordering the Nissan LEAF, or of similar interest, but we have evolved into owners of several other vehicle types, BMW i3, Tesla S and X, Bolt, various hybrids, etc. No joining or dues, just bring a good spirit to share. Significant others, friends, and children are welcome.

Arrive hungry, leave as full as you want, but usually do not plan to eat lunch elsewhere. HTB even makes custom omelets during the breakfast hours.

Over 6.5 years, we have become like an extended family, with many topics of casual discussion, solar PV systems, driving and charging experience, service issues, and each other's health often overheard. Generally, it is a group of bright, caring, good people who enjoy each other's company.

Our next "SoCal EV Gathering" is a week from today, Saturday the 24th of June, at ... (tell your Tesla S ... "Navigate to Hometown Buffet in Santa Ana"), which opens for breakfast at 8am. We are usually still there at 11:30, or later. Typically, we have 12 to 16 people show up. I am usually there in the parking lot a few minutes before 8, but some others drift in when they can.

I-5 to 17th street, 2 blocks East, HTB is on the right, just before the train tracks. Two weeks later, we meet at the Golden Corral in the City of Industry, adjacent to the south side of freeway 60, about 4 miles West of the 57 freeway.

If you have questions, or just want to chat, you may request my phone numbers.
Cheers, Gary
 
As part of my internet upgrade project, which includes a new pfSense firewall/router and my own DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem, replacing the one rented from TimeWarner/Spectrum, I am replacing and re-arranging my existing ethernet cables in my home with Cat 6.

On the 24th I will be bringing an assortment of my ethernet cables being swapped out that need a new home.

Speeds quoted below are burst speeds for packet transmission port-to-port. Average speeds are quite a bit slower.
Modern 1000BaseT ports will default back to the slower speeds if they sense too much crosstalk on the cables.
Most new computers, routers, access points, etc have 1000BaseT ports.

1. An assortment of Cat 5.
Cat 5 is supposedly rated up to 100BaseT speed, 100Mbits/sec, but I don't trust it, especially for long lengths. Free, if you don't want them, they are going to e-waste.

2. An assortment of Cat 5e.
Cat 5e is supposedly rated up to 1000BaseT speed, 1000Mbits/sec., but it should be fine for 100BaseT systems. Very nominal price.

3. A 250' spool of new Cat 6, solid conductor, Riser-Rated, from Monoprice. I will be using this for long runs in my attic, but I don't need all 250'. I am happy to share some with others at my cost.
I also have Cat 6 plugs and boots for above.
 
Today, Tuesday, Gary and I joined Boomer at "Driving Mobility 4" the 4th annual advanced transportation symposium held at UCI. Biggest disappointment: Almost no questions taken from audience. What I found interesting/important:

Fast Charging: EVgo spokeswoman reported their net cost of electricity for some 400 evGo fast chargers stations has been $2/kWh, due to demand charges and low usage at many of these stations. However, recent inceases in usage (more kWh) has reduced this to $1/kWh. Bills have been introduced in CA state legislature to create special demand-free tariffs for public fast chargers.

There was no acknowledgement of the leadership Tesla has shown in this area. Of course their demand chargers are high, but their utilization is much higher, so the demand charge per kWh is much less. They have the efficiency of sharing 2 hoses per charger, with a slow charging car near full balanced with a fast charging car near empty, and large groups of chargers, now as high as 18 stalls in one location. In rural areas with low utilization, they have installed batteries to smooth out the demand.

RNG: Renewable natural gas, basically bio-gas. By capturing methane from manure, etc, that would otherwise be vented to the atmosphere, and cleaning it up to pipeline standards, this fuel can claim a negative carbon footprint. A company in Hemet, that has large contracts for collecting household garbage is building a big digester facility to produce RNG. A company backed by T Boone Pickens has built many truck fueling stations across the country to facilitate the conversion of the truck fleet from diesel to methane, which can be either natural gas or RNG.

Fuel Cells/Hydrogen: Honda reported on their Clarity, which now has 3 versions: all-electric, natural gas, or hydrogen fuel cells. The electric version, just introduced this Spring, has a range of only 80 miles.
First Element Fuel, a company building hydrogen fueling stations, reported that they are abandoning high pressure gaseous H2 in favor of liquid H2. The development of affordable, light-weight 5000 psi tanks made GH2 practical, but it has problems: the dispensing station must have refrigeration to mitigate the heat buildup as the high-pressure tank in your car fills, and there is lots of residual gas left in the dispensing tank. They didn't mention the safety issue of the very high pressure. The cost is high, $30/kg.

Boomer asked me: doesn't the physics say that more energy is required to liquify H2 than just compress it? Yes, of course, but there are inefficiencies. The boiling point of liquid hydrogen at one atmosphere is -297 C, 24 K. From DOE, sparing lots of interesting details:

DOE Technology Validation Project data for compression from on-site H2 production is 1.7 to 6.4 kWh/kgH2. The minimum theoretical energy to liquefy hydrogen from ambient (300 K, 1.01 bar) conditions is 3.3 kWh/kg LH2 or 3.9 kWh/kg LH2 with conversion to para-LH2 (which is standard practice).
Actual liquefaction energy requirements are substantially higher, typically 10-13 kWh/kg LH2, depending on the size of the liquefaction operation [5,6]. Novel liquefaction methods such as an active magnetic regenerative liquefier may require as little as 7 kWh/kg LH2

LH2 production benefits from the existing large volumes necessary to support the space program, with costs of $3/kg. Similar dramatic improvements in very well insulated LH2 tank technology now make LH2 practical for cars, It is easy to pump the liquid without high pressure. Counter-intuitive, but no refrigeration needed at the dispensary station. One downside they did not mention: eventually the pricey LH2 you filled your tank with is going to boil off if you let it sit in your garage. A refrigerator that operates at these temperatures would be very expensive. Most low-temperature physics labs that work with liquid helium just buy it as it boils off because it is too difficult to refrigerate.

The session on Autonomous Vehicles was disappointing, because the speakers were only doing Connected Vehicles. They talked about smart signals that would talk to cars and buses, and perhaps getting cities to invest in this gradually, a few corridors at a time, but I heard no cost estimates. SPAT is buzzword, transportation's.org, Transformational Mobility System is UCI buzzword. Obviously big infrastructure opportunity here, if anyone in Washington cares, but the speakers were expecting local and state support.

Fianally, two very young looking dudes (UCI students) talked about their entry in the HyperLoop competition. They got points for doing air levitation like Musk proposed, vs others using magnetic levitation which has eddy field losses. UCI is building their own test track so their entry in the competition coming up will have been tested.
 
Boiling off hydrogen, ... seems like a huge fire and explosion danger, in almost any space.

So, the on-board tank must not be vented, thus its pressure would generally become huge,
making it impossible to refill the tank by simply pumping very cold LH2.

Please, what am I missing?
 
At Long Beach we had a venting problem with a bunch of LNG trash trucks. Due to the venting they had to be worked on outdoors. Our installers stored one over night indoors and its alarm on its dash was going off in the morning loudly. We had some vents but not nearly enough. Our parts guy was the first to arrive and I think he thought the building was going to blow!
 
Did First Element say they were looking at switching to LH2 delivery and storage rather than gaseous, or were they talking about LH2 on the cars as well? Boil off wouldn't be an issue for that, assuming reasonable use rates, and the tanks all have vents direct to atmosphere with nothing above them for emergencies - any boiled off gas is going to rise and quickly dissipate. Presumably the major benefit of LH2 would be in reduced delivery costs, as you can pack a lot more H2 into a single trailer. Less than liquid ammonia, though, which seems to be the coming thing as far as H2 delivery and short-term storage (with on-site extraction of the H2), and it also has energy efficiency benefits.

I recently talked to the Air Products driver delivering H2 to my local station, and he mentioned that his truck had multiple tanks which were essentially cascaded, switching between them as the pressure in each dropped below the on-site storage tank. He had a chart where he recorded each tank's pressure as it started and shut off. Said the max. pressure in his tanks was about 7k PSI, and a booster pump was used to get the on-site service tank up to service pressure (700+ bar/10k+ PSI) - the on site mass storage tank is apparently at more like 350 bar/5k PSI). He also mentioned that this was the second time that day they had to fill this station, making the run from Santa Clara to Hayward, so apparently usage is increasing. Air Products supplies all six of First Element's stations in the Bay Area from Santa Clara. currently with two trucks that alternate dispensing and fueling up.

Note, this is all my understanding of what he was saying while we were standing outdoors in the station with the machinery going and a busy street (and freeway) nearby, and my lousy hearing means that I might well have misunderstood some/all of it. The surprising thing to me was that I was expecting a tube trailer, but it was actually a flat bed with a couple of maybe 10-foot long containers on it with the doors facing each other, each of which contained banks of tanks plus monitoring and pumping equipment.
 
GRA, thanks for your direct report from the Air Products H2 driver. His cascading tanks make sense, but they also illustrate the problem of dispensing gaseous H2. Your question:
Did First Element say they were looking at switching to LH2 delivery and storage rather than gaseous, or were they talking about LH2 on the cars as well?
He talked about how easy it was to pump LH2 into the car, so I believe he was talking about the car storing it as liquid. Some years ago at a Caltech event BMW displayed a prototype with LH2 storage. The presenter invited me to hold my hand on the tank storing the LH2. I could not feel any sense of cold, but he said it was full. He said the tank insulation was equivalent in R-value to 10s of feet of styrofoam. Apparently since then the cost of this quality of LH2 storage has declined.

Gary, yes the tank has to be ventilated to maintain atmospheric pressure and avoid buildup of pressure, but the boil-off rate is inversely proportional to the insulation R value of the tank. A boil-off rate of perhaps 1 % per day might be doable and tolerable, and at that rate the gaseous H2 boiling off would be very low and dissipate immediately as GRA suggests, with no risk if vented to the atmosphere. It would also disperse rapidly from the leaks around any normal garage door. Storing the car in a sealed garage, however, could be a problem.
 
tbleakne said:
GRA, thanks for your direct report from the Air Products H2 driver. His cascading tanks make sense, but they also illustrate the problem of dispensing gaseous H2. Your question:
Did First Element say they were looking at switching to LH2 delivery and storage rather than gaseous, or were they talking about LH2 on the cars as well?
He talked about how easy it was to pump LH2 into the car, so I believe he was talking about the car storing it as liquid. Some years ago at a Caltech event BMW displayed a prototype with LH2 storage. The presenter invited me to hold my hand on the tank storing the LH2. I could not feel any sense of cold, but he said it was full. He said the tank insulation was equivalent in R-value to 10s of feet of styrofoam. Apparently since then the cost of this quality of LH2 storage has declined.
The biggest problem I see with LH2 is if consumers are supposed to be dispensing it. I'd think they'd need really serious interlocks on the connector to eliminate any possibility of a customer coming in contact with LH2, and the connector itself would be very cold, requiring lots of insulation and making the whole thing very clumsy to use. I can foresee all sorts of safety issues, so while I think LH2 makes sense for some commercial uses, I'd have my doubts about letting the typical untrained car owner anywhere near it. I'd think the stuff's normally dispensed while wearing full protective gear. Anyway, here's some slides showing Linde's take on gaseous versus liquid H2: https://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/07/f17/fcto_2014_h2_trans_dist_wkshp_tamhankar.pdf
 
For NG or H2, no matter liquid or gas, the production and distribution chain still appears to be energy use intensive, and likely releases a lot of greenhouse gas to the atmosphere. Solar panels to generate electricity ... seems like a better process to me, and distribution is often already in place. In my Garage, I think H2 and the gas water heater would be a ... bad mix. Even at only 1% per day boil off, it seems like too big of a risk in many garages, underground parking, and in typical service facilities.
 
garygid said:
For NG or H2, no matter liquid or gas, the production and distribution chain still appears to be energy use intensive, and likely releases a lot of greenhouse gas to the atmosphere. Solar panels to generate electricity ... seems like a better process to me, and distribution is often already in place. In my Garage, I think H2 and the gas water heater would be a ... bad mix. Even at only 1% per day boil off, it seems like too big of a risk in many garages, underground parking, and in typical service facilities.
Somewhere over in the H2 thread, I provided a link to a study of whether or not H2 could build up to a flammable concentration (4%) in a typical garage given a leak. Even sealing it to a much greater extent than would be the case with a real-world garage (or house FTM), achieving such a concentration was a practical impossibility. Service facilities are even more open. Underground garages may be another matter, but I imagine it all depends on how they're ventilated. Remember, gaseous H2, being such a tiny molecule and lighter than air, will rise and diffuse through just about everything (which is why pure H2 pipelines are so expensive, and they prefer to mix it in low concentrations in NG pipelines). It's not going to pool on the floor.
 
GRA said:
Somewhere over in the H2 thread
Gary, found it (or a couple of similar ones), so you can judge for yourself:
HYDROGEN RELATED RISKS WITHIN A PRIVATE GARAGE:
CONCENTRATION MEASUREMENTS IN A REALISTIC FULL
SCALE EXPERIMENTAL FACILITY
https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/safety_biblio/ichs2007/1.1.51.pdf

HYDROGEN RELEASE AND
COMBUSTION MEASUREMENTS IN A
FULL SCALE GARAGE
http://ws680.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=905528
 
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