A coda for another electric car maker

After selling just 100 units of its product, electric car manufacturer Coda Holdings has filed for Chapter 11 in a Delaware bankruptcy court.

Coda Automotive's only vehicle was its Coda Car, an all-electric sedan with four doors and a battery pack. The company has its headquarters in Los Angeles. Coda Cars have an EPA-rated battery range of about 88 miles to a charge — less than electric vehicles made by competitor Tesla Motors.

The future for Coda could take a different shape, however, provided a successful restructuring. According to a Reuters report, the company may elect to exit the automobile industry entirely and instead license its battery technology to the electric utility industry, which has a need for battery energy storage.

As potentially interesting as this might be to the power generation and delivery sector, it's hard to explain consumer's reluctance to embrace electric vehicles — even as the price at the pump could leap just as high or higher than it has in the past.

Economic analysts have blamed the overall economy as well as "range anxiety" — a prospective drivers' worry of running out of charge far away from a charging station.

Personally, I'd like for my next car to be a plug-in, but range is a concern. If I were to buy such a car, I would like it to have a range of at least 115 miles per charge — the distance I would drive from Tulsa to visit relatives in Oklahoma City.

There are other problems too. If I had a plug-in, I'd like to have a charging station in my own garage. I know there are stores that sell conversion kits so you can install one, but truth be told I'm not sure how the install would work, how much it would cost, and how heavily the charging would affect my electric bill. Questions like these, I'm sure, are pretty common.

Maybe it's unanswered consumer questions that are sinking companies like Fisker Automotive, which could, like Coda, soon go before a bankruptcy court. Fisker had to return $21 million worth of Department of Energy loan support after failing to make a payment on the loan. Things started to go south for Fisker when the company's battery maker, A123 Systems (itself a DOE loan recipient that later had part of its loan revoked), declared bankruptcy.

It's a bit of a catch-22 for electric car makers. Customers have legitimate questions about what it's like to own an electric vehicle. They want to know if they are reliable, easy to charge, fun to drive and cheap to own. Questions like these could be answered if they had a friend, neighbor or family member that owned one. But nobody seems to know one because the cars aren't selling.

There is a bright spot, perhaps. At least, to the extent that the stock market can be an indicator. Shares in Tesla Motors have surged to a new high as of this writing, and the company has sold about 7,000 of its Model S, a premium electric sedan that sells for about $95,400. The stock market can turn on a dime, though, so it's impossible to say whether the good times will last for the Fremont, California-based company.

I realize I have not mentioned the established automakers, like Ford and Nissan for example, which are marketing their own electric vehicles. Their advantage, obviously, is that they are able to dip a toe into the market without having to go "all in" and start a company from the ground up, as many others have. Still, sales have been disappointing so far, and fans of electric vehicles are left to hope that the larger manufacturers are taking the long view and remain willing to take a risk on electric vehicle technology as consumers grow more comfortable with the idea of a car you plug in.

Verizon to invest in solar power, fuel cells

The energy industry and the communications industry are getting quite cozy these days, and no wonder. Information technology and telecom companies like Google, Apple, Sprint and Microsoft (just to name a few) need innovative approaches to keep the power flowing to their ever-expanding networks of data centers, call centers, corporate offices and other properties.

Just this week, telecom giant Verizon Communications announced its plans to invest as much as $100 million in natural gas fuel cells and solar energy capacity in 19 facilities in seven states.

According to Reuters, SunPower Corp. will provide rooftop and ground-based solar arrays, some of which will be mounted onto parking facilities. Natural gas will power the fuel cells, which will be provided by Oregon-based ClearEdge Power.

Verizon will put these energy improvements into place at office space, call centers and data centers in Arizona, California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and North Carolina.

Officials from Verizon are insisting that these green energy sources are meant to boost system reliability — not merely to boost the company's environmental profile. The point out that fuel cells already in place at a switching station in Garden City, Long Island, N.Y. stayed active throughout Superstorm Sandy even when the local grid was knocked out of service.

The technology will be able to generate 8 million kilowatt hours of electricity every year — enough to power about 6,000 homes.

Verizon already uses fuel cells and solar energy, but this is the company's largest investment on such technology so far, officials said.

Likewise, Apple is building solar energy and fuel cell capacity to serve its data centers in North Carolina. Apple has told news sources that it wants to power its data centers entirely with clean energy.

Google is spending about $1 billion on clean or renewable energy for its energy needs and recently floated the idea of special renewable energy rates for large commercial and industrial firms whose customers would prefer them to use cleaner power.

Louie the Lightning Bug returns

A press release hit my inbox over the weekend that sent me into a nostalgic YouTube spiral. Apparently AEP Texas, Public Service of Oklahoma and the Southwestern Electric Power Co. are bringing back their Louie the Lightning Bug character in safety literature aimed at school kids.

After watching a few of "Louie's" old PSAs, I started emailing people I know who live all over the country to see how widespread the little guy's fame was. Just about everyone remembered him once they saw a clip.

If you don't remember Louie, he was a prominent figure during your Saturday morning cartoons, where his PSAs (sponsored by your regional utilities) would warn you about the dangers of fallen power lines, flying kites near power lines, or messing around with power outlets and cords in the household. (click hyperlinks to see the YouTube videos)

The voice of Louie and his animation style could be familiar to you even if you don't recognize him on sight. In his original PSAs, Louie was voiced (and sung) by Jack Sheldon, whose voice also featured prominently in "Schoolhouse Rock!" Especially the "I'm Just a Bill" skit, that walks kids through how a bill becomes a law.

Being reminded of this stuff and seeing how much of the visuals and music that I actually remember to this very day made me wonder why companies don't bother much with public service announcements anymore. They were hugely popular in the '70s and '80s, made big contributions to pop culture and were clearly successful in communicating their messages.

Utilities are always talking about the lessons they need the public to understand. Maybe a PSA with a catchy tune is in order every now and then.

What is in Obama's budget for energy?

President Barack Obama's running mate Joe Biden is fond of saying "show me your budget, and I'll show you where your priorities are." Media outlets have already begun picking through the wording of the president's $3.78 trillion 2014 budget to see what is being prioritized at a time when seemingly every cent of spending results in overheated press conferences on Capitol Hill and the threat of some catastrophic government shut-down.

When you look at just one area of the budget, massive at it is, it gets a little easier. So let's see what the budget has to say about energy policy. Here are some highlights:

The budget provides $28.4 billion in discretionary funds for the Department of Energy (DOE) — an 8 percent increase about the 2012 enacted level. This is meant to position the U.S. as a leader in clean energy while boosting energy security.

The budget proposes for $615 million to promote wind, solar, geothermal and hydrokinetic energy.

The document calls for a "Race to the Top" program to promote grid modernization and energy efficiency, which is something Obama mentioned in his most recent State of the Union. The awards would support state-level policies that increase energy productivity and modernize the grid — with the goal of cutting energy waste in half over the next two decades.

Also in the budget is more than $5 billion — 5.7 percent more than 2012 — for energy sector research and development. The need to continue R&D even in difficult economic times is something the present has said repeatedly, so finding it in the budget is perhaps not unexpected.

About $153 million in research and development funding is proposed for grid modernization, cybersecurity and energy control systems. Advances in the technologies and tools for improved clean energy integration onto the grid through an $80 million coordinated effort within the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

Part of this tranche would include $20 million for a new Electricity Systems Hub, which would explore the interface between transmission and distribution systems in the smart grid context. The budget would support hardware and modeling R&D to improve the integration of renewable energy into the distribution grid, distributed generation, electric vehicles and residential/commercial buildings loads behind the meter.





About $575 million will be invested in alternative vehicle technologies, according to this budget — presumably this goes further than electric vehicles and charging stations, but likely includes both. There is also mention of a $2 billion of proposed mandatory funding for an Energy Security Trust (also mentioned in the State of the Union), intended to transition cars, trucks and other vehicles off of oil (biofuels, hydrogen, natural gas and electricity are specifically mentioned).

The budget provides $735 million for the Office of Nuclear Energy, which includes funding for small modular reactors. There is also $379 million for the Advanced Research Projects Agency — Energy, or ARPA-E, which is the agency that investigates "long game" technologies.

Carbon capture and storage is mentioned in the budget breakdown, with $421 million for the Fossil Energy Research and Development program, including an investment of $266 million in fossil energy R&D primarily dedicated to carbon capture.

The budget eliminates $4 billion yearly in "unnecessary subsidies to the oil, gas and coal industries;" restructuring the plutonium disposition program; cutting low performing programs; and using existing facilities and infrastructure.

In another energy efficiency measure, the budget calls for funding of the president's Better Buildings Initiative, which is meant to help consumers and businesses save money through energy efficiency.

There is $16 million — up from $10 million — in enhanced energy infrastructure security and energy recovery capabilities.

Separate from the DOE funding, the Environmental Protection Agency budget is about $296 million lower than the 2012 level, with the president's budget allocating the EPA $8.2 billion.

First fatal accident at Arkansas Nuclear One is painful for many

By Teresa Hansen
Editor in Chief

You've probably heard by now that a fatality accident occurred on Easter morning at Entergy's Arkansas Nuclear One Unit 1 in Russellville, Ark. The accident was an industrial accident and did not involve the nuclear side of the plant, so the public and most workers on site were never at risk.

The worker who died and eight other injured workers were removing handrails in the travel path of a generator stator replacement project when the lift system collapsed and the stator fell. Unit 1 is offline for maintenance, which included the turbine-generator work.

Any accident at a power plant, especially a nuclear power plant, resulting in injury or loss of life is certainly tragic. For me, this accident seems almost personal. I got my start in the electric utility industry at Arkansas Nuclear One, where I worked for 13 years. I still have many ties to the area. In fact, I was in Russellville celebrating Easter with my family when I heard about the accident.

I've been reading about it daily in the local newspaper and have read statements from people with whom I once worked closely. My heart goes out to the family of the young man who died, and to the people who work at the plant. I know from first-hand experience that it is a close-knit group and those who work at and manage the plant are heartsick. Russellville itself is a close-knit community that has been hit hard by this tragedy.

Arkansas Nuclear One Unit 1 came online in 1975 and Unit 2 came online in 1980. Construction began almost a decade earlier. This is the first fatality accident at the plant and as far as I know it was the first serious accident. I hope the fact that it occurred at a nuclear power plant doesn't create negative press or taint public opinion about the nuclear power industry. Such an accident could have occurred at any industrial facility.

I will continue to follow the news of the accident as Entergy and federal authorities work to determine what went wrong. We will update this website as new information is released. In the meantime, please let this tragedy be a reminder for you to make safety your No. 1 priority.

Getting serious on cybersecurity

There's no shortage of cyber-attack stories in the news, but as you read them you tend to wonder how serious the problem really is. Maybe this is because no group of hackers has been able to do something big and dramatic, like say triggering a cascading power outage that knocked San Francisco off the power grid for a full day.

But just because it hasn't happened yet is no guarantee that it can't or won't happen. I spoke with Marty Meyer, president and CEO of Corero Network Security, who said utilities, if anything, are more vulnerable than entities that have already been attacked.

"We're on the first step of a twelve-step program to admitting we have a potential problem with cybersecurity," Meyer said.

Cyber-attacks on utilities are up 52 percent, according to the Department of Homeland Security's cybersecurity protection arm.

An attack like a distributed denial of service attack (or DDOS attack) can flood a computer network with a large, sudden volume of attack traffic until it is overwhelmed and shuts down, he said. The systems that support power grids weren't designed to handle this level of attack traffic, and a DDOS attack is relatively unsophisticated — easily within the capability of a small group of hackers, such as Anonymous.

"There was an attack reported on an unnamed U.S. utility, and it was one of these DDOS attacks. The impact was that people could not pay their bills online. It wasn't people losing their electricity and freezing in their homes, but it was still a successful attack that denied service to people," he said.

Cyber-attacks can range in severity from "this is annoying" to something more malicious, he said. Furthermore, a relatively simple DDOS attack could be used as a diversionary tactic to distract from a more sophisticated network intrusion.

"So while I would say there's been no advertized take-down of a major utility where people lost actual services, but there certainly could be concerned from the utilities to protect themselves now instead of waiting around," he said.

Simple firewalls by themselves are not a prudent strategy to prevent malicious attacks, he said. Geoblocking (also known as geofiltering) is an extra layer of protection that works by cutting off network access to computers from IP addresses that are affiliated with a geographic area or country that you don't want to allow access to.

Another way of launching a malicious attack is to "spoof" an IP address, which lets a malicious computer disguise itself as coming from a trusted address. Utilities can upgrade their systems to unmask such attacks, he said.

"There are technologies that can make sure that addresses are trusted," he said. "Utilities need to specifically look at technologies that restrict access in terms of geography or known problem locations to ensure that the network connection that's coming in is a real connection and not a spoofed connection."

My thanks to Marty Meyer for his help in putting this post together. His company, Corero Network Security, is based in Hudson, Massachusetts.

10 facts about Obama's new head of the DOE

After a lot of speculation, the official announcement has been made. Ernest Moniz will be President Barack Obama's main man at the Department of Energy pending approval by the Senate. Here are 10 things worth knowing about Moniz, who will run the DOE during Obama's second term.

1. Moniz is a nuclear physicist by training, and an advocate for the safe use of nuclear power as an energy source. In the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Moniz said it would be a mistake not to pursue a nuclear friendly energy policy in the U.S.

2. Obama is the second president Moniz has worked for. Moniz was President Bill Clinton's undersecretary of the DOE from 1997 to 2001. He also served as an associate director for science in Clinton's Office of Science and Technology Policy.

3. Moniz has a "wait and see" approach to new techniques in natural gas extraction, like "frakking." He says the risks of such techniques are challenging, but manageable. He has also referred to natural gas as a "bridge" fuel that can take the country to a future low-carbon energy portfolio (i.e. Away from coal).

4. Among the issues Moniz has handled at the DOE are: Oversight of science and energy policy, nuclear weapons proliferation and stockpile stewardship, nuclear fuel cycles (including waste disposal) and solar energy in a low-carbon world.

5. In a Washington Post story about carbon capture and storage, Moniz was quoted as saying in 2009 that there is no credible pathway to meeting greenhouse gas reduction targets without cutting carbon dioxide from existing coal-fired power plants.

6. As director of MIT's Energy Initiative, Moniz has some financial ties to the energy industry via the research group's $125 million in donations from the oil and gas industry since 2006, according to reports. Founding members of the organization include BP, Saudi Aramco and Shell.

7. Unlike his predecessor Steven Chu, Moniz will probably have less funding to work with. Chu's tenure at the DOE was marked by the early passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which significantly expanded the department's operating budget.

8. Moniz's grandparents were immigrants to the U.S. who came from the Azores, an archipelago that is an autonomous region of Portugal. He grew up speaking some Portuguese.

9. Moniz serves in Chu's Blue Ribbon Commission on nuclear energy's future, which was tasked with finding new solutions for storing and disposing of nuclear waste. Moniz advocated transferring spent nuclear fuel from pools to dry casks.

10. On solar power, Moniz said he is "bullish," adding, "It just has so many features, including the fact that even though it's intermittent, at least it tends to be on when you want it." He adds, however, that fossil fuels like oil and gas will remain at the forefront of the world's energy picture for the foreseeable future.