Monthly Archives: September 2013

August Electric Vehicle Sales

Posted on September 25, 2013 | Leave a comment

This might be the right time to begin separating monthly sales of plug-in hybrids vehicles from battery vehicles. So here goes.

Plug-in hybrids (PHV) August Sales.

The August PHV sales were up by 83% over July’s sales. Volt led this category with 3,351 vehicle sales and a 52% share of this market. Volt year-to-date sales were 14, 994. The Prius PHV sales were 1,791 and with year-to-date sales of 6,822. Others making a showing were Ford C-Max with sales of 621 and Ford Fusion Energi with 600.

(Click on chart for clarity)

The chart does show some reasonably good upward movement for PHEV sales. But not to get too excited just yet, Green Car Congress posts that: “With overall light-duty vehicles sales of 1,503,151 units in August (up 17% year-on-year), according to AutoData, plug-in hybrids had a 0.4% share of the August new vehicle market.”

Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) August Sales

The Nissan LEAF August sales were 2,420 with year-to-date sales at 14,123.

Tesla is the elephant in the room. The next report on sales will be at the end of the third quarter so it is a guess where they rank in the scheme of things. Green Car Congress reports sales of Leafs plus a number of other models with sales in the 200 or below would add to August BEV sales of 3,206. They estimate that upward of 1700 Teslas were probably sold in August increasing the total BEV August sales to about 4,900 units. BEV sales would be about 0.3% of the August new vehicle sales.

Still far from impressive.

cbdakota

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Posted in AGW, Batteries, Electric Vehicles, Energy Development, fossil fuels, Personal Automobiles, US Auto Manufacturers

How Credible Is The IPCC Climate Reporting?

Posted on September 24, 2013 | 2 comments

The Non-Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) has issued their 2013 report “Climate Change Reconsidered II-Physical Science”. This report, a Summary for Policy Makers (SMP), challenges the data within the IPCC’s SMP scheduled for release this month.

Let’s contrasts the two reports. The NIPCC science is empirical data based. The IPCC also includes empirical data but their methodology relies heavily on computer based ~~guesses~~ projections, the scientific conclusion are revised to satisfy political objectives and the IPCC is not home to scientists that want to submit studies that contradict the message that global warming is man-made. NIPCC says this about the IPCC: “The hypothesis implicit in all IPCC writings, though rarely explicitly stated, is that dangerous global warming is resulting, or will result, from human-related greenhouse gas emissions.” They start with a conclusion and look for studies that support the conclusion. That’s not the the scientific method.

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Posted in AGW, Climate Alarmism, Climate Models, CO2, Environment, Global Temperatures, Government Regulations, Ice Melt, IPCC, Sea Ice, Sea Level

It Is Better To Adapt Than Mitigate CO2 Emission-Mitigation Is 50X More Costly

Posted on September 19, 2013 | Leave a comment

Paraphrasing Hamlet, “Is it better to mitigate CO2 emissions from sources such as fossil fuels or adapt to global changes that might happen if emissions were not regulated? Ah that’s the question.”

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Posted in AGW, cap and trade, carbon tax, Climate Alarmism, Climate Models, CO2, fossil fuels, Global Temperatures, IPCC, Renewable Energy, Sea Ice

Political Class Does Not Care If Climate Science Is Wrong

Posted on September 17, 2013 | 2 comments

If you are a skeptic you may think that you are winning the science battle with the warmers. You probably have always thought that in the end you would win that battle and that would settle things. You were half right, you are winning the science battle but you have not yet deterred the politicians. The science has never mattered much to them. The warmer’s programs to combat “global warming” are really the only things that matter to them. Whether it is Cap & Trade, Carbon tax, or some other scheme, they are for it. They tell you they are doing this for your own good. But in fact most of them want greater control of your life and they can do it through taxes and regulations that are at the heart of these schemes.

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Posted in AGW, Alternative Energy, cap and trade, carbon tax, Climate Alarmism, Climate Models, CO2, EPA, Government Regulations, Government Revenues, IPCC, United Nations

IPCC Draft Of The “Summary For Policy Makers” Leaked

Posted on September 16, 2013 | 1 comment

The hype around the soon to be released UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) does make me a little ill. The last such report was issued in 2007 and it does not seem that the assemblers of the report have learned much in that time. It is not that they have completely ignored reality but just mostly ignored it.

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Posted in AGW, Climate Alarmism, Climate Models, CO2, Environment, Global Temperatures, Government Regulations, Government Revenues, Green Jobs, Interglacial periods, IPCC, United Nations

Understanding Colorado Flooding

Posted on September 15, 2013 | Leave a comment

This is a reblog.

Can not improve on this one. Once again the “extreme” weather brigade are ill-informed or purposely deceptive. Your guess.
cbdakota

Real Science

The Poudre River in Fort Collins drains more than 500 square miles of mountains and empties through a narrow canyon.

The Big Thompson River in Loveland drains more than 500 square miles of mountains and empties through a narrow canyon.

The St. Vrain River, Lefthand Creek and Boulder Creek drain more than 500 square miles of mountains and empty through narrow canyons.

Upslope winds force humid air from the plains up into the mountains. The air expands, cools and drops below its dew point. Rain falls and floods occur.

In 1976, the Big Thompson drainage received 14 inches of rain in four hours and produced one of America’s most deadly floods. This week’s rains have been nowhere near that intense.

In 1997, Spring Creek in Fort Collins received 10 inches of rain in four hours, and produced a flood with killed five people. Again, that rainfall was much more intense than this…

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Posted in AGW, Climate Alarmism, Climate Models, Storms/hurricanes, Tornados

Forecasting Solar Cycle 25 Using The Solar Polar Field Strength

Posted on September 13, 2013 | 4 comments

Forecasting the strength of Solar Cycle 25 will not be easy. The expert’s track record for their Cycle 24 predictions show how hard it is. For example, Doctor David Hathaway is quoted in December 2006 that cycle 24 would “be one of the most intense since record keeping began 400 years ago.” He forecast 160+/- 25 as the peak Smoothed International Sunspot Number (SISN). His prediction as charted in 2006 below:

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Posted in AGW, CO2, Global Temperatures, IPCC, Solar Cycle 24, Solar Cycle 25, Sun, sun and climate, Sunspots

Solar Cycle 24— August 2013 Update

Posted on September 12, 2013 | Leave a comment

Solar Cycle 24’s Sunspot number bounced up a little as did the F10.7cm radio flux. However, Cycle 24 is still on track to be the least active Cycle since the first part of the last century. The Sun’s North pole appears to have firmly switched its polarity but the South Pole may be months away from switching its polarity. A cycle’s “maximum” is usually called when both poles have done the swap.

The August Sunspot and the F10.7cm radio flux are shown below (Click on Charts to enhance view):

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Posted in AGW, Global Temperatures, Solar Activity, Solar Cycle 24, Solar Flux, Sun, Sunspots

Fuel Cell Vehicles–Hydrogen Too Costly

Posted on September 9, 2013 | Leave a comment

A previous posting, “Fuel Cell Vehicles”, reviewed the basics of the fuel cell and the fuel cell vehicles. At the end of that posting, it was said that: “There are a lot of things going for H2 powered fuel cell vehicles except the economics.”

What does that mean? There are two factors that make H2 non-competitive versus other alternatives. Factor one is that hydrogen (H2) is very costly to produce, and distribute. The second are the physical characteristics of H2 that increase the cost of distribution and use.

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Posted in AGW, Alternative Energy, Domestic Energy, Electric Vehicles, fuel cells, Personal Automobiles, US Auto Manufacturers, US Manufacturing Companies

Fuel Cell Vehicles

Posted on September 4, 2013 | 2 comments

Like the tide, going in and out and so does the Fuel Cell Vehicle favorability. Right now favorability is pretty well in the tank, but not completely. The city of London is installing hydrogen (H2) fueling stations with the objective of encouraging their use. California has a similar program, as does Germany.

Some of you may not be familiar with fuel cell cars because they have been out of the spotlight recently. The following is an overview of the fuel cell and the fuel cell car. The cartoon below pictures most of the hardware needed.