Come and learn about new energy (and money saving) techniques including the following topics and more:

Where :	RCCC North Campus, Bld 400, Room 4213 Rowan-Cabarrus Community College 1333 Jake Alexander Blvd. Salisbury, NC 28144  RCCC Course Information Page with map
When :	Saturday, March 24, 2012 from 9-11 AM
Cost :	$20.00
Class Code :	46031 Bright Ideas for Going Green
Download Form:	Registration Form or Call: 704-216-3512 PDF Course Flyer

I picked up our second 2012 Nissan Leaf on Saturday, January 28.  It was definitely worth waiting for.  Kevin Murphy of Ben Mynatt Nissan on the right sold both Leafs. The first Cayenne Red 2012 went to my wife, Kat, and the Ocean Blue 2012 SL shown is my new baby.   It is absolutely the best car that I have ever driven!  My first charge at home using the GE Wattstation was a sunny Sunday afternoon.  The entire first charge came from 100 percent solar energy!  I drove to work Monday on sunshine for free

Nissan would say: “What is the value of zero?…” see the video: http://www.nissanusa.com/leaf-electric-car/index#/leaf-electric-car/video/all/LEAF_advertising/value_of_zero

Nissan is reported to be working on a home adapter to allow a Leaf EV to provide power to a home, according to (click to read stories referenced) [Bloomberg and PC World via Consumer Reports]

So perhaps sometime this year our Leafs could stand in as a generator!

It occurred to me a while back that with a portable or plug-connected Level-2 charger, such as the Leviton Evr-Green 160, any RV Park could be a charging station for an electric vehicle.  This really increases the coverage for someone with a portable station.

Apparently, someone else has thought of this too. Read the story at: http://www.autointhenews.com/rv-parks-double-as-ev-charging-stations/

Has anyone compared the amount of CO2 released by making the
electricity to run an electric car to the CO2 released by a
conventional gas engine vehicle?   He said:  “I bet they
are almost equivalent…”

Well he was really wrong… read on.

My initial reply to him was that our EVs are powered mostly with solar generated electricity, so I knew where my wife and I stood, but I wanted to know more.  

Lets not even discuss how much energy might be used to support several wars to protect middle-east supplies.

I should have remembered one of the boards at the Nissan Leaf event at Concord Mills last year:

From the Concord Mills Nissan Leaf Event

So, NOT even considering CO2 released by burning the gasoline, just the energy to make (refine) one gallon of gas can run a Leaf for 30 miles.  All this is BACKED UP by the following research, and yes I did check the references…

I look forward to some attempts at rebuttal of the following information.

Here is what I found out for those running a Leaf powered with coal-generated electricity:

First, an email reprinted with permission from the United States Department of Energy:

(note: the following does not count CO2 released by the transportation of  gasoline from the refinery to the filling stations… Hence the need to add 1.5 kWh to the 6 calculated below)

Subject: Energy to refine gasoline

Thank you for your  electronic mail requesting a reputable source to calculate the energy required to refine a gallon of gasoline. The energy required to refine a gallon of gasoline can be estimated based on the energy content of crude oil and the refinery efficiency of the facility performing the energy conversion; I can provide you a reputable source for both values.

In a 2008 report, Argonne National Lab estimated that the efficiency for producing gasoline of an “average” U.S. petroleum refinery is between 84% and 88% (Wang, 2008), and Oak Ridge National Lab reports that the net energy content of oil is approximately 132,000 Btu per gallon (Davis, 2009). It is commonly known that a barrel of crude oil generate approximately 45 gallons of refined product (refer to NAS, 2009, Table 3-4 for a publication stating so). Thus, using an 85% refinery efficiency and the aforementioned conversion factors, it can be estimated that about 21,000 Btu “the equivalent of 6 kWh” of energy are lost per gallon of gasoline refined:

The documents referenced herein are publicly available, as follows:

Wang, M. (2008), “Estimation of Energy Efficiencies of U.S. Petroleum Refineries,” Center for Transportation Research, Argonne National Laboratory, http://www.transportation.anl.gov/modeling_simulation/GREET/pdfs/energy_eff_petroleum_refineries-03-08.pdf

Davis, S., Susan W. Diegel, and Robert G. Boundy (2009), Transportation Energy Data Book, edition 28, National Transportation Research Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, http://cta.ornl.gov/data/

NAS (2009), Hidden Costs of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production and Use, The National Academies Press, http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12794&page=1

It is worth noting that refining one barrel of oil yields gasoline in addition to other products, so only a portion of the refining energy used to refine a barrel of crude is truly attributable to gasoline. Even so, in terms of energy equivalencies, the preceding estimation is valid.

If I may be of further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me. Your interest in energy efficiency at the Department of Energy is appreciated.

Sincerely,

Jake

Jacob Ward
Program Analyst/PMF
Vehicle Technologies Program
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
U.S. Department of Energy

Second, Solar Charged Driving ran a really good editorial on this subject as well.

Norby, P. (2011),  “Surprise: Gas cars use more electricity than EVs,” Retrieved on 22 January, 2012 from Solar Charged Driving Web site http://www.solarchargeddriving.com/news/scd-editorials/831-surprise-gas-cars-use-more-electricity-than-evs.html

Third, The National Electric Research Laboratory did an extensive report comparing Plugin Hybrid Electric
Vehicles to Gas Powered Vehicles.

Remember that a hybrid still uses gas, but a pure electric vehicle like the Nissan Leaf does not.  Results? A Leaf even running from OLD coal emits less than 20 percent of the CO2 released by running a gas powered vehicle, derived by backing CO2 attributed to gasoline from the graph on page 8 (Electric Power Research Institute, 2007)

Electric Power Research Institute (2007), “Environmental Assessment of Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles,” Palo Alto, CA Retrieved 22, January, 2012 from: http://mydocs.epri.com/docs/CorporateDocuments/SectorPages/Portfolio/PDM/PHEV-ExecSum-vol1.pdf

If you are a student, you will be most interested in the “teaching” category content. Please feel free to explore the “About” and “Resume” links at the left.  We have Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) available to satisfy the NC Solar Set-Aside requirements in North Carolina.  If you are interested in RECs please see the renewable energy certificates link.  You may also be interested in the Salisbury Post newspaper article on our solar facilities that ran on February 8, 2011.

We are excited about renewable energy! This site is run on solar generated electricity.  We have solar PV and solar thermal renewable energy facilities approved by the State of North Carolina at our home.    See the renewable energy link for more information. If you are interested in biomass, CO2 neutral home heating or global warming, please read the Salisbury Post newspaper article published on February 11, 2007 for more information.  My presentation made to several groups on biomass is also available.

Thanks, and I look forward to working with you during the Spring 2012 semester!

WattStation Online

The WattStation is a level 2 charger.  It charged our first Leaf in about 3 hours.  I looked at a lot of charging stations before settling on the General Electric EVWSBC-CP01.  Leviton, Schneider Electric and GE all have charging stations available at retail locations now.  I purchased mine from Lowes using their Web ordering.  I ordered it on a Thursday after 5 PM and it was delivered by FED-EX on Saturday of the same week!   For some reason searching Lowes Web site with “WattStation” did not return any results — I had to type in the Lowes item number: 107343 to get any results.  They appear to have the search fixed now.   Home Depot sells the Schneider charging stations online too.

Close Up of the WattStation Running

So, why did I go with the WattStation?   Well, I talked to my wife, who has been charging her Nissan Leaf everyday.  Initially, I was leaning towards the Schneider unit because it has the segments that light up showing how many hours the vehicle has been charging.   When I showed all the units to Kat, she liked the Wattstation because it had an illuminated socket for the charging plug and a really neat wrap around storage method for the charging cable.  She simply had no interest in seeing the segments showing the hours charged, because the Nissan APP for the iPhone gives you all that and more.  The segments on the Schneider were redundant.  Are you going to walk out to the car to see something that you can get immediately on the iPhone?

On the other hand, the cord storage, the nice socket in the middle that is lighted so that you can see it at night are really important things.  Remember, with an EV a charging station is something that you will use EVERY DAY.

Aside from the items mentioned above, some other things that were important to me were:

1) A high security lock to secure the charging station to the mount.  It can’t be removed without a key, similar to those found on soft drink machines.

2) A cord and a plug to connect the charger — instead of requiring a hard wire connection.  The plug connects to a standard 50 AMP Leviton 5374 receptacle, available at most home improvement stores.

3) Built-in GFI protection

4) Rain-proof NEMA 3R enclosure

We have two Renewable Energy Facilities registered in the NC-RETS Renewable Energy Portfolio Tracking System.  Both facilities are located inside North Carolina and produce power from certified and calibrated metered systems.  I will consider selling solar PV and metered solar thermal RECS to North Carolina Power Companies who are also registered in the NC-RETS system.

Follow this link ( https://portal1.ncrets.org/myModule/rpt/myrpt.asp?r=204 ) to view our available RECS.

Currently, I anticipate producing about 10-12 solar electric PV RECs per year and 2-3 metered solar thermal RECs.

Please call (704) 239-9351 or use the “contact me” form for offers or questions.

The real cost was $19 to run the Nissan Leaf for the month.  Dividing $19.00 by 1,000 provides the cost per mile: 1.9 cents per mile.

What does this mean in real terms?  Well in October 2011 my wife and I spent $248 on gasoline.  In November, we only purchased gas for my Prius.  Our November spending for gasoline was $48.    So, we saved roughly $180 the first month with one electric car!

I hope the REAL numbers help someone!