The oil industry has known for many years that oil can be extracted from shale rock by heating it.  But in the past, when oil was cheap, this process was too expensive, oil would have to be around $50/barrel to make it profitable.

Well, we hit that and more.  Recent crude pricing has been hanging out at $75 a barrel.  So it’s not surprising that shale oil has been developing in the background.  Shell Oil had fully operational pilot plants, spent the money, applied for the permits.  Shell also announced that the industry would create 10,000 jobs nationwide and capacity to directly reduce a fraction of our oil imports from foreign sources.

The Canadians were sitting on similar resources.  I guess the geology of the Rocky Mountains is the same from Colorado to Canada.  And the Canadians spent the money on pilot plants, applied for the permits and started building plants.

This is pretty big stuff.  Getting tons of rocks crushed, transported, cooked until they release their oil, distilling the oil into a usable form.  Big machinery, lots of equipment.  Lots of work.

The only difference with these two stories is that the Canada has completed its first two plants and is planning on a pipeline to the US where they are going to sell the crude to US refiners.  In the US Interior Secretary Salazar denied the permits to Shell Oil saying that the land use was not consistent with our national goals for the use of the land.

As a former resident of Colorado, I have to say, the land in question is some of the most remote and unusable land anywhere to be found.

So what’s the deal?

Before an election its all about the jobs coming back to the auto workers.  After the election its jobs that are never coming back to automotive sector.

State governments have fallen victim to a similar myth in the green economy.  Alternative energy is reportedly going to bring tens of thousands of new jobs to the economy.  And government officials at the state level are trying to parlay renewable energy projects into increased employment in their states.  And that’s fair.  They should be looking for all the help they can.

But many renewable energy jobs are temporary.   A wind farm project may only employ a few hundred people and after the project is done they have to find a new project.  A new wind turbine manufacturing facility in a state is not like an automotive plant.  The plants are usually manufacturing a sub assembly or part for the wind turbine.  The actual number of people required to build a certain part may be 80-100.  Much of wind turbine machinery content is offshore.

The other “new math” of the job conversation is jobs that are “created or saved” by government intervention.  Well, that’s a tough one to prove.  I surveyed several industries using the Department of Commerce industrial output data.  For many industries the relationship is $220,000-300,000 of sales per employee.  Obviously this number can vary quite a bit.  But to “save or create” 30,000 new jobs takes sales of $7.8 Bil of new products or services.

Somebody has to spend a lot of money.  Which means that somebody also has to earn a lot of money. Government cannot spend to offset a recession.  They can only dig the hole deeper.  New products come from entrepreneurs.  And people who are working buy new products.

We need government to help create new jobs, not destroy them.

One aspect of artificial intelligence gave rise to expert systems.  Complex systems like diesel locomotives are very difficult to repair because of the large number of parts operating together.  Human experience accumulated after years of working with diesel locomotives needed to be captured in order to prevent each generation from having to apprentice workers over long periods of time in order to learn how to troubleshoot these systems. So programmers in the early days of AI were employed to learn and program the diagnostic procedures developed by skilled workmen over many years.

These programs were very successful.  But in no way do they replace human intelligence and insight.  This is simply an example of subtlety in programming a specific area of human experience.  Speech recognition continues to be a challenge after decades of effort, limited to transcription applications and simple material handling instructions.

Another area that came up was large scale logistical mapping, another Expert System.  What is the most economical way to use airplanes to transport people around the US?  When you think of a large air carrier and the number of airplanes, flights, destinations and how they might be mapped together to get the best use out of the airplanes, it is a problem that is too large and complex for a single human to work with.  Enter the expert system programmer.

But in none of these cases can a computer program exceed the boundaries of it’s programming.  Can the autonomous Jeep get from it’s starting point to it’s destination?  Yes.  With many man-years of programming and a vast array of computing power, proper deployment of sensors and actuators, and a lot of stored energy.

Can the autonomous Jeep perform any other task?  No.  Regardless of the sophistication, the machine cannot exceed the boundaries of it’s programming.

Can we teach machines to learn?  So far, only in the most crude and rudimentary way.  But the course of the learning is again bounded by the programming.

And again, I will defer discussion of true intelligence or consciousness.

But what robotics can do to expand it’s usefulness is to mimic simple human tasking where it is cost effective and where the robot can “outproduce” or exceed the precision of a human.  Robotic welding, for example, has reached the point where a basic robot welding cell is less than $50,000.  So the cost of entry, the learning curve and complexity of implementing a welding robot cell in a small production facility is very reasonable.

Will robots be used in “human service” applications?  Sure.  ”Robot, vacuum my living room”  No sweat.  We can already do that with a Roomba only it doesn’t have voice recognition yet.  We have robots that can mow the grass in the front yard and avoid shrubs and trees.  Very cool.

Will we have robot servants like C3PO in Star Wars?  Hopefully more intelligent, C3PO was kind of dumb.  Simple tasks like serving a drink at a bar? Yes, that’s been done too, although it doesn’t have philosophical conversations with customers.

Will robots be able to provide basic care in hospitals and for the elderly?  Anything is possible. It will come down to how far we can push the envelope of programming, safety and return on cost.  Certainly we get robots to get a cold beer from the fridge.  But if the fridge is empty can it run out to the store and get us a six pack?

Not anytime soon.

Part of the problem may have to do with our use of the word “intelligence”.  We talk about the increasing “intelligence” of processors and particularly about the cost of “intelligent” control dropping to the point where it is suddenly economical to put a microcontroller together with a motor in order to achieve new levels of performance in either energy management or some other critical parameter.  Which opens new performance capability in robot design.

Increasingly, industrial robotics involve the use of vision systems to acquire information about the location and orientation of parts so that the robot system can interface smoothly to the “real world”.  If any of you have been to an industrial trade show and witnessed the Delta Robots making cookies, it is a very impressive sight to behold.  Incredible throughput and accuracy.  And that’s what it’s all about in industry. Higher productivity, improved product quality.

But where is the line between remote control and automatic control?  A remote manipulator for working in the nuclear industry, which was the big application that drove early robots, is a remote servo loop operating a series of servo motors and controls and powering mechanical systems, in order to do work that is dangerous to humans from a safe distance.  The DaVinci medical robot is a phenomenally improved version of the same thing.  A remote controlled robot, guided by direct haptic inputs from a surgeon, and with very sophistical tactile feedbacks, whose end effectors operate a variety of surgical instruments and actually increase the precision and speed with which doctors may perform certain procedures.

Is this a robot? Sure!

When we watch welding and painting robots making cars, we are watching decades of technology development in action.  There has been significant effort to improve the actuator hardware, and probably many man-years of software development to improve our description of the task and its safety and performance constraints in order to create not only reliable, but increasingly efficient machines to do the tasks that humans cannot compete with for productivity.  These are very sophisticated automatic applications, but certainly not autonomous.  The boundaries of the application and the programming for it are very finite.  Again, its about repetition, speed and accuracy.

And, yes, we call these robots, too.

But increasingly, there is discussion about the next frontier of robotics.  Where are the next big apps coming from?  Most of the big robotic companies in Japan and Europe are talking about personal service robots.  You can let your imagination run wild here.  Anything is possible. Certainly the service robot for NASA is interesting because it, again, follows the concept of doing tasks where it is difficult for humans to operate.

Is a Jeep that can be programmed to find a path and drive from one place to another autonomously a robot?  Yes, but we may be pushing the boundaries here just a bit.  These applications fall into the realm of Artificial Intelligence.  The programming and software languages for which were just being described for the first time about 30 years ago.  And at this point we are forced into the debate about what is intelligence.  In addition, are these systems which are capable of “learning” and what is learning exactly?  And more importantly, as all good science fiction movie watchers will ask, can a machine exceed it’s programming?  (See?  I didn’t even start on consciousness yet)

These are all serious considerations for the Future of Robotics which I will pick up further next week.

The multilingual and mixed-signal simulator SMASH “All-in-One” is well suited for hierarchical SoC Integration with patented features for DfY and an extensive VHDL-AMS language compliance. It serves as the cornerstone for the Virtual Fab Process enabling ViC and SoC Right-on-First-Pass Silicon.

Designing mechatronic systems requires understanding the significant interactions between the electromechanical components and the analog or digital electronics. The VHDL-AMS models are functionally equivalent to the original MagNet or MotorSolve models, but they can be evaluated quickly in a transient circuit simulation. The files can be integrated into a circuit description in SMASH to perform a simulation taking into account the interactions between the machine and control circuitry.

MagNet v7 and MotorSolve v2, with their VHDL-AMS export capabilities, are available for PC’s running Microsoft Windows XP, Vista and 7. SMASH is available identically under Windows and Linux.

www.dolphin.fr

www.infolytica.com

Previously, we covered mechanical considerations for electrical engineers. Now, we give the other side a chance to speak. Here are five targeted pieces of advice for mechanical engineers responsible for electromechanical systems, from the perspective of an electrical engineer.

Mechatronics systems intelligently integrate mechanical and electrical elements to perform increasingly complex and demanding functions. When designing electromechanical systems, mechanical engineers and electrical engineers may tend to emphasize the technologies, components, and design principles from their single area of expertise—which can lead to systems with higher operating costs, increased maintenance demands, and less than optimal performance. As an electrical engineer involved in helping OEMs and manufacturers design and build mechatronic systems, I’ve seen how inefficiencies and unnecessary complexity can be unintentionally designed into machines.

A clean design balances mass and motion: sturdy, durable framing withstands years of vibration and shock, combined with lighter-weight components helps to reduce mass and enable the use of smaller motor/drive components.

Better mechatronic systems can be created when mechanical engineers consider five crucial concepts while designing manufacturing systems, to derive the greatest value and efficiency electronics systems can offer to the manufacturing process.

1: Create a clean design
Good mechatronics design starts with good mechanical design – the best electronics and electrical systems cannot compensate for poor mechanical design. The most successful designs are “clean.” They feature a strong, rigid frame, using materials and structural principles to ensure that, whatever motion the machine undergoes, its long-term stability is “engineered” in.

Make sure that rigid bearings and support are used where motors are mounted on machines; this helps prevent shafts from being sheared off due to microfractures that occur because the motor shaft is mounted out of alignment with a pillow block bearing or gearbox input planetary gear. Place motors on the machine in the best location so that operators aren’t accidentally stepping on cables and connectors and causing damage; and design machine guarding with easy access points to get to motors mounted under the wing base of the machine while still protecting them against harsh environments.

Most importantly, a clean design balances mass and motion: sturdy, durable framing that withstands years of vibration and shock, combined with lighter-weight components for the moving parts of the machine. This combination helps reduce mass, delivers more energy-efficient motion, and makes it easier to size-up smaller motor/drive components for the machine. We’ve seen a lot of very innovative mechanical machine designs over the years, and a clean design makes the largest contribution to a machine’s longevity, robustness, and lowest overall cost of ownership.

2: Directly couple the motor to the load
Effective mechatronics starts with a “clean slate” design. In the past, machines were often built around a single ac motor powering a machine line shaft, to which were attached gearboxes, pulleys, sprockets, chain drives and other mechanical devices for moving individual areas of the machine in synchronization – an approach to powering manufacturing that literally can be traced back to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

A clean design makes the largest contribution to a machine’s longevity, robustness and lowest overall cost of ownership.

Consider replacing this architecture with individual servomotors coupled directly to the load you are moving. There are multiple design, machine cost, and operational advantages to this idea (which a surprising number of machine designs do not use). First, consider cost: every time you add a gearbox, you add multiple costs: it’s an additional point of failure, it has to be lubricated, and it needs spare parts. Plus, you add mechanical backlash that must be compensated for during machine commissioning every time you have a product changeover – motion and axes synchronization complexity that today’s intelligent drives and servomotors eliminate.

When you strategically locate servomotors as close as possible to the area of motion they are serving, the incremental cost of electric drive components is almost completely offset by eliminating the cost of mechanical components and labor that must be purchased, machined, assembled and configured. In particular, not having to stock multiple sets of sprockets, gears and cams, as well as the time involved in changeovers with mechanical drives, can really drive down the total cost of ownership for the machine.

Ultimately, this design approach greatly reduces windup and backlash, as well as improves machine commissioning time; and current state-of-the-art direct drives, direct motors, and linear motors let you run higher gains and improve the machine’s performance.

Consideration #3: Use electronic gearing and camming
Today’s electronic drives and motion control platforms give mechanical engineers, a powerful, flexible tool to improve the accuracy and performance of the machines you design. This technology lets you create a virtual “electronic line shaft” that can electronically synchronize all the drives and motors on the machine, eliminating the mechanical line shaft. In the process, you can dramatically improve axes synchronization and accuracy – from 1/16th or 1/32nd of an inch typical with mechanical line shafts, down to motion precision closer to hundredths or even thousandths of an inch with electronic line shafting.

And this synchronization can be accomplished with zero mechanical backlash – and fewer product jams. It also eliminates a host of mechanical adjustments to bring the machine online, as well as the operator adjustments each time the machine is stopped and restarted.

Electronic gearing and camming makes machine changeover completely programmable: For example, the use of FlexProfile technology lets operators load machine recipes with the touch of a button on the HMI screen, and the changes are made in the control and servo system to run the next product.

The FlexProfile camming technology makes it possible to build multisegmented cam profiles based on position, velocity, or time-based motion profiles. When you change a section of the electronic cam with a recipe change through the HMI, the control platform will automatically optimize the rest of the cam profile across all of the machine’s motion elements. This enables the machine to run a shorter cycle time, or provide smoother dynamics for the machine, even though a change has occurred such as a different bag seal time or flap tucking cam position on a cartoning machine.

Consideration #4: Incorporate energy-efficient technology
One of the fastest growing costs for any manufacturing operation is energy – and good mechatronic design can help control these costs through the application of electric drive and motor systems designed to save energy.

In machines that use servomotors directly coupled to critical axes of motion, and that also use electronic synchronization and camming, the proper sizing of the servo system can create a highly energy efficient machine.

Proper sizing requires an accurate assessment of several motion factors (motor by motor): How fast the axis needs to accelerate, the size of the mass you’re trying to move, and how precise the acceleration and deceleration needs to be. Undersizing will lead to strains on the drives and motors; oversizing will draw too much power to do too little work.

Some of today’s most cutting edge systems, such as the Rexroth IndraDrive Mi integrated drive/motor systems, include a highly energy efficient feature: bus sharing. Multiple drives are daisy-chained together and share power from the same bus; in many multi-axis machines, as some motors are accelerating up to speed (drawing power), others are decelerating (regeneration power). With bus sharing, rather than having to deliver maximum power to the accelerating motors and bleed off the decelerating motors into heat across a bleeder resister, power is shared, so the machine’s power consumption is significantly reduced.

A further energy-efficient technology is called regenerative power supplies. In many machines, multiple servomotors will decelerate at the same time, boosting the voltage to excess levels on the power bus. Older generation electrical drives would bleed that excess electrical energy as heat – wasting the power, and adding to the factory floor’s heat production, requiring additional cabinet cooling. With regenerative power supplies coupled to a shared bus system, what was once wasted power can now be fed back through the shared bus and sold back to the electric company.

The use of direct drive, direct motors and linear motors versus mechanical couplings lets you design a system to run higher gains.

Consideration #5: Use HMI’s for better troubleshooting
User-friendly intelligence is now available through today’s touchscreen HMIs. Machine layout drawings and schematics can be incorporated into control menus and diagnostic tools, to better manage the machine’s day-to-day operation and troubleshooting. Drawings and interactive instructional tools can not only show the precise point where a problem is – they can also step the operator through the tasks to restart production.

Advanced graphics like this can be combined with the distributed intelligence inherent in servomotor-driven machines, to prevent machine failures or faults before they happen. With such predictive maintenance, this capability lets you or machine designers set fault tolerance bands in drives and then monitor drive performance. Electric drives and motors allow a broad range of conditions to be monitored – conditions that are directly associated with mechanical performance; variations in load, temperature, vibration, torque, belt tightness, gear meshing are all mechanical events that generate changes in the torque profile of an electric drive and motor moving those machine elements. Mechanical engineers can set tolerance bands for these components, and if they exceed them, then predictive maintenance alerts can be clearly and intelligently displayed through the HMI to operators, along with specific advice about next steps to take to correct the issue before it becomes a serious production problem or something that can damage the machine.

With Rexroth’s IndraDrive Mi integrated motor/drive system, multiple drives are daisy-chained together and share power from the same bus, significantly reducing energy consumption.

Blending technologies for optimal value
Every electromechanical system should perform its designed function with the minimal use of energy, motion and components required to get the job done – that’s the fundamental goal of any engineer. Electrical drive and servomotor systems now offer a wealth of reliable, energy-efficient, digitally intelligent platforms to power the integrated vision of mechatronics to greater value and more innovative manufacturing and automation solutions.

Hopefully, the five considerations described here demonstrate the advantages that today’s electric drives and controls offer, helping you simplify certain mechanical design and engineering challenges and provide new resources for driving innovation and creativity in machine design.

www.boschrexroth-us.com

Obviously, this type of metric will vary wildly depending on how highly automated a particular industry is.  The beverage industry is highly automated and doesn’t have a large employee staff to generate finished products.  But interestingly, the companies that build machinery for the beverage industry have fairly high employment because it takes a combination of technically trained skilled workers to make the machinery that makes the beverage products.

The agricultural economy has grown dramatically with the introduction of machinery to assist in the process. Complex machines have been developed for many applications to increase productivity.  The latest round of enhancements are tilling and planting equipment that uses Global Positioning Satellite information to keep the tractors in a straight line and computer plots of the land to maximize the planting area per acre.  Pretty amazing stuff.

In the automotive area, there are some interesting statistics.  In the ten year period from 1998 to 2008 the industry increased its gross output per employee by 33%.  This is a huge statistic and represents the long term impact of automation on the manufacture of vehicles.  The other interesting statistic is that the average internal price of a car today is the same as that ten years ago.  Given that the US industry has pushed it’s quality to compete with the Japanese cars that were perceived as superior to US in quality, this is an amazing feat.

Of greater interest is the comparison of total vehicle shipments.  The most cars and light trucks ever shipped by the US Auto makers was in the year 2000 when we shipped 17.8 million units according to Ward’s Auto which reports on the car industry.  This feat was almost duplicated in 2005 when 17.4 mil units were shipped.

A relatively stable manufacturing base over the years, the US auto industry hit a disastrous slide in 2008 shipping an anemic 13.49 mil units followed by an even worse 2009 when we shipped 10.6 mil cars and trucks.  This was the year in which the Chinese automakers topped the US manufacturing rate for the first time ever.  A point that the Chinese press made with great vigor in spite of the fact that the majority of Chinese automakers are actually joint ventures with foreign companies, the single original Chinese auto maker being in great difficulties due to poor product quality.

The 2009 US auto showing is particularly dismal when you consider the “cash for clunkers” incentive which spent $1.4 billion taxpayer dollars to generate 200,000 additional unit sales.  A small showing in the scheme of things even if the market was 10 million units.

Will the US auto market pick back up? Certainly, but not to the former highs of 2000 and 2005.  2009 shipments were off by 40% from the 2005 high, and that is too much of a gap to be easily recovered.  Especially when unemployment continues to be running in the 10% range and higher.

Is there hope?  Yes.  Serious electric hybrids and battery manufacturing for the US automakers will create tens of thousands of jobs in the next couple of years.  Demand for foreign hybrids has been running at over 400,000 units per year, and will likely increase once there are quality US made products available.

States that pay attention to the needs of the industries they provide locations for are States that will thrive with low unemployment and low deficits.

Which is saying a lot.

Some of that economic activity is the obvious stuff.  Jobs.  Making things that are important to the industry.  Like all the silicon ingot, water treatment, chip encapsulation compounds, chemical solvents, and gases that are needed.  And all of those feedstocks require people in their respective industries.

There is also the capital equipment market.  Companies that make machines that make chips.  Machines that grow silicon ingots, machines that slice silicon into thin wafers.  Polishing machines that make the surface smooth enough to create the nanometer sized features that become semiconductors.  Wafer probing machines that do functional testing, dicing machines that slice the wafer into the single chips, wire bonding the bare die into lead frames to we can attach the circuits.  Encapsulation, labeling, testing and packaging the final products.

The Semiconductor Industry Machinery business is estimated to be an $11B activity separate from the sale of chips.  The semiconductor equipment market is still the largest target market for motion control products and mechatronics of any market I know of.  At a close second place would be the electronic assembly machinery market  with it’s pick and place, adhesive dispensers and inspection machinery.

Interestingly, the semiconductor industry also provides trickle down technology.  Hard disk drive spindle motors require the exact same 3 phase brushless drive and control as industrial servo motors.  The difference is that the spindle motor is manufactured in quantities of tens of millions of units.  This allows disk drive manufacturers to explore the ultimate boundaries of cost reducing the technology and introducing new techniques to improve performance.  Much of this technology has migrated to the motion control industry in the way of integrated motor control chips.

The semiconductor industry is now made up of two major markets.  Chips and Solar Cells. The solar cell market is counted separately and does not overlap with traditional semiconductor business.  Many of the companies that make semiconductor machinery have extended their capabilities to the solar industry as a way of diversifying into new markets and making up the lost ground that was experienced in the machinery business.

While Solar is still an emerging industry to some extent, it will continue to drive large segments of the economy. Solar photovoltaics and solar hot water drive a lot of jobs in manufacturing and installation of systems.

What we need in the public policy sector is better understanding of the business needs that these industries require.  Generating enough electricity for these industries to thrive is one requirement.  And most states in the US have failed to bring any new capacity on line over the last 30 years. States that recognize these needs and are willing to meet them are going to be the States that prosper with low unemployment and thriving economies.  And that’s where we all want to be.

The contrast between InterSolar 2010 and 2008 was very noticeable.  This year’s trade show reflected the growth and sophistication.  Tremendous effort is being put into every aspect of the photovoltaic technology, tandem junction semiconductors that produce the photovoltaic effect at 2 different light frequencies, enhanced surface texturing of the surface glass to improve transmission of light and reduce the problem of incident angle of light, new chemistries like Copper-Indium based photovoltaics which are now “printable” as ink coatings, and ongoing development of thin film silicon, concentrated light focusing on silicon, recycling of the silicon itself, and a host of improvements all targeted at reducing the cost of producing electricity from sunlight.  As you might expect, incredible support from semiconductor equipment makers to provide new equipment to make the technology scalable in production and cost effective in the marketplace.  Solar is the new growth engine in semiconductor equipment.

Solar Panels, like other types of semiconductors, are subject to decreasing cost with increasing volume.  In typical Semiconductor Industry fashion, a lot of capacity has been ramping up since early 2000 which led to a 40% correction (read “drop”) in the price of solar panels during 2009 which played havoc with project bids and created serious difficulties for distributors with inventories or contracts for solar panels at the higher prices of early 2009.  However, now that prices are lower, more demand is expected, and hopefully, companies that had a tough time during 2008-2009 will find business conditions in 2010 and 2011 more favorable.

There is continued optimism that the US solar market will continue to grow at 30%+ per year for the next couple of years, some forecasts are 50% per year and one forecast from Europe suggests 100% growth in the US market next year.  Huge growth forecasts combined with caution on the manufacturing side has created shortages and long lead times for new deliveries.

But we should note, with caution, that this market is largely subsidized by State Renewable Energy Portfolios mandating the alternative energy systems, Utility Company Rebates and Federal Tax Incentives.  Solar energy technology is generally sold on the basis of avoiding future increases in energy costs, not on the basis of eliminating energy costs.

So there is still a big gap in bringing electricity costs down using solar power.  Modern coal plants produce electricity that the utility company can sell at a profit for 6 cents per kilowatt/hour.  By comparison, a 300 watt solar panel will cost at least $1500 installed and functioning.  It can only produce about 756 kilowatt hours per year, and even at 12 cents per kilowatt/hour, won’t break even for about 16 years without government incentives.  So you’re not eliminating your electric bill, you’re prepaying it with a bank loan for a bunch of equipment that doesn’t burn coal.

That’s OK if you can afford it, just don’t make the mistake of thinking you are getting rid of your electric bill.   But be on the lookout for the next breakthroughs in solar.  They are coming.

One model sports optional 2 wheel or 4 wheel in-hub mounted drive motors.  With a large battery pack and a curb weight of 3300 pounds, it’s a bit ponderous.  But it has a 50 mile drive radius and rarely requires any maintenance.  What year will this vehicle be ready?  1899. It’s the Lohner-Porsche.

Recognizing that the weight the battery pack was a major obstacle, Ferdinand Porsche, still working for the Lohner Coachworks, came up with a hybrid model.  The vehicle used a small gasoline engine to power a generator and a single motor mounted on the rear axle of the vehicle. Porsche raced the car himself in the Semmerling competition near Vienna, and with top speeds of 75 miles per hour, won against a very competitive field which included Benz gasoline powered cars.  The 75 mile per hour top speed was unprecedented, especially from an electric hybrid.  The year? 1900!

So all things old are made new again.  If the 2200 pound weight of the Lohner Porsche battery pack could be reduced by 4:1 by using Lithium batteries, then a curb weight around 1500 pounds should be feasible.  The reduced weight of the vehicle leads to significantly greater driving range.  The Smart Car electric model is expected to have a range of 120 miles per charge.  Which, actually, is enough for a lot of vehicle applications.

In wheel drive motors are not my favorite solution, but if the weight can be reduced, then problems relating to suspension dynamics can be managed.  And that’s exactly what the folks at Protean Electric are doing.  They have produced a number of conversion vehicles as demonstrations of their electric motor technology.  And if the motors perform as expected, they will carve out a niche in the plug-in and hybrid electric vehicle world.

There are a couple of important points that need to made here.

#1) based on the “Absolute Value of Technology”, the only thing that matters is the vehicle costs per transportation mile.  That is made up to two components, the purchase price and the expected cost per mile driven.  Admittedly, if you can run an electric vehicle at $.04/mile, it is cost effective to own, even if the car costs more up front, because over the life of the vehicle, the low operating cost will overtake the purchase price.

The IRS deduction for vehicle operation is $.50/mile.  Electric hybrids and especially plug-in electrics are not expected to have any major maintenance costs.  Even if you add insurance, the cost per operating mile will be significantly lower.

But the higher price of the vehicle will be an obstacle from a pure economics standpoint.  For this reason, some manufacturers have considered the option of the local power utility company supplying the battery pack and maintaining it.  Since this is the single largest expense, leasing it to the vehicle owner in the monthly power bill is a good deal.

The second major point to be considered is plug in electrics, even with limited drive range, are the biggest contributor to American energy independence.  These vehicles will directly reduce oil imports every day they are operated.  Because almost none of the electricity in the United States is generated using fuel.  It’s either coal, natural gas or nuclear.

So if we really want to get after the issue of energy independence and stop funding governments that support terrorist activity, the electric car is the path forward.  As are 40+ mpg gasoline cars, and drilling and refining of oil in the US.

Let’s get after it!

With all the discussion about offshore drilling, it should certainly be mentioned that oil well drilling is one of the toughest mechatronic challenges ever.  Constructing and powering drill bits that can cut through rock at depths of up to 30,000 feet has to be on the top ten list.

The first known offshore drilling for oil occurred in Galveston Bay when the early Sharp-Hughes two cone rock bit was first demonstrated in 1909.  Howard Hughes Sr. founded the Hughes Tool Company after buying out Sharp and Howard Hughes Jr. became the wealthiest man in America during the 1950’s.  It is said that every drop of oil produced in America from 1934 to 1951 was produced using a Hughes drill bit.

The drilling industry has produced every possible variation of down hole tool from data gathering equipment to nuclear magnetic resonance detectors which look for defects in the pipe throughout the well casings.

Add to this the complications of drilling under water.  Offshore oil rigs are mammoth machines that sit on “jacks”, like giant adjustable stilts, that are electric motor powered to raise and lower the entire works of the platform.

The oil well is under thousands of feet of water which makes matters even more complicated.  At 5,000 feet of depth, the water pressure represents more than 2,000 pounds per square inch of pressure.

And drilling offshore roughly doubles the cost of producing the oil.

So you have to ask the question; how did we get here?  Why are we drilling further and further offshore and increasing the risk of a disaster?  And I will mention again, that the industry rate of spills has been declining consistently.

The answers are perplexing.  We don’t drill on land because our Congress cannot agree to issue permits.  Democrats in Congress blocked drilling in Alaska on a very small parcel of land that had been surveyed and all the environmental studies had been done.  Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior refused to permit Shell Oil to do shale oil production in the remote parts of Colorado after Shell had done all it’s due diligence and spent millions of dollars getting prepared.

Offshore drilling is being pushed further offshore so that the drilling equipment cannot be seen from the shore, and presumably, there would be less environmental impact on local fish and wildlife.  Guess somebody in Congress got that one wrong.

And what about John Hofmeister’s, Shell Oil’s former CEO now turned activitist citizen, who recently commented that the US has oil reserves in Nebraska, Alaska, Texas and off it’s coasts to provide cheap oil and gas for the next 1000 years.  Guess Congress missed that one too.

I am not a fan of gasoline powered transportation.  But I recognize that it is the most economical form of transportation.  The fact of it’s low cost is what has made gasoline powered vehicles popular to the point that consumption has tripled since 1950.

So the real challenge is coming up with something that is lower cost and cleaner.  And there are lots of options to be explored.  If we can get the political issues out of the way.

The Governor of Louisiana has stated that suspending offshore drilling will eliminate thousands of jobs.  The oil spill has ruined fishing in the Gulf Coast for an undetermined period of time.  Denying the permits for shale oil in Colorado cost the country 10,000 jobs.

When do we stop listening to people in Washington, and return to doing what is right locally.   We can fix things on our own.  That’s what Americans do.