Tech.view Running out of juice

Tech.view. Running out of juice of juice. How will we recharge all the electric cars?
Jan 29th 2010 | From The Economist online

IN THE ten years since hybrid electric vehicles first hit the highways and byways of America, they have come to represent 2.5% of new car sales. Yet, in places like Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area and Washington, DC, every other car seems to be a Toyota Prius. That is because hybrids like the Prius have sold overwhelmingly where well-heeled early adopters reside.

Expect the new generation of “Post-Prius” electrics—plug-in hybrids like the Chevrolet Volt from General Motors and those relying only on a battery such as the Nissan Leaf—to end up nosing around the same upscale neighbourhoods. With more than a dozen plug-in and pure-electric models arriving in showrooms over the next year or so, sales are expected to outstrip even those enjoyed by the Prius and other hybrids in their early days. A couple of million of the new electric vehicles could be bought by early adopters during the first few years.

Alamy
That would be a problem. Unlike the Prius and its ilk—which use their petrol engines, along with energy recovered from braking, to recharge their batteries while motoring—plug-in hybrids and pure electrics have to be recharged direct from the grid. The popular assumption is that they will be plugged into a wall socket in the garage late at night, taking advantage of cheap off-peak power. Unfortunately, things are not that simple.

For a start, the new generation of electric vehicles are not glorified golf-carts, but cleaner and more frugal alternatives to today’s petrol-powered family cars. When fully charged, the Volt (to be called the Ampera in Europe) can travel 40 miles (64km) on electric power, enough for three out of four commuters in America to get to work and back without needing to burn a single drop of fuel. Beyond that range, a 1.4-litre engine kicks in to generate electricity and simultaneously propel the car and recharge its batteries.

The medium-sized hatchback Leaf can carry five adults 100 miles on a single charge. To go farther, Nissan has put its faith in a network of rapid-charging stations it is developing with partners. The Leaf is expected to cost $25,000-30,000, about the same as a comparable diesel-powered car. But the battery pack will have to be leased separately (for around $150 a month).

One thing the new plug-ins and pure electrics have in common is a beefy lithium-ion battery pack that needs a lot of heavy charging. At the very least, that involves installing 220-volt wiring in the home. Trying to recharge a modern electric car with a standard American 110-volt supply takes too long to be practical (up to 18 hours in the case of the Leaf).

Of course, if not fully charged at night it may have to be recharged during the day—when electricity rates can be up to five times more expensive. Average peak rates in America are 33 cents a kilowatt-hour compared with seven cents off-peak. Charging at the peak rate is equivalent to buying petrol at $3.63 a gallon (80 cents a litre), instead of 77 cents a gallon off-peak, reckons Southern California Edison, a utility based in the Los Angeles area. In America, peak-rate charging totally destroys any economic advantage an electric car may have.

At least the electricity companies ought to be pleased at the prospect of selling more power, day or night. In theory, recharging electric vehicles during off-peak hours should help utilities “fill the valley”—the trough in electricity demand between midnight and six in the morning, and thereby get better utilisation from their coal- or gas-fired generating stations. But, again, things are not quite as they seem. No utility wants to run its network flat out. Scheduling maintenance becomes difficult, which can lead to more frequent failures. The net result is that additional capacity has to be installed at a cost that would not otherwise be justified.

A study done a few years ago by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, suggested there was enough idle generating capacity in America to recharge three quarters of the country’s 230m cars if they were plug-ins of one sort of another—provided they only connected to the grid during off-peak hours, and preferably in the coal-rich midwest. But the vast majority of new plug-ins will be located in a handful of urban centres on the east and west coasts, which, unlike the midwest, do not have huge reserves of cheap, coal-fired generating capacity. Nor can they import it easily from the middle of the country, given the fragile nature of the grid.

Southern California Edison has been operating a fleet of 300 electric vehicles to find out how customers will use and recharge them. Above all, it wants to make sure that a conversion to electric motoring goes smoothly, unlike a previous attempt in the mid-1990s. Back then, California thought electric cars like the Honda EV+ and the General Motors EV1 were the wave of the future, and thousands of public charging points were hurriedly installed in shopping centres, libraries and airports. But the enthusiasm collapsed when the motor industry successfully lobbied the California Air Resources Board in 2001 to get it to relax a mandate requiring 10% of new cars sold in the state to be emission-free by 2003. With no need to worry about zero-emission vehicles any more, GM and Honda promptly called in all their leased electric cars and crushed them.

This time the Californian utilities are being more circumspect. They are concerned about highly concentrated pockets of ownership and the effects of everyone deciding to recharge their electric vehicles at once—as they inevitably will do when they return home from work. The local electricity system could be easily overwhelmed, and wider swathes of the grid brought to its knees in the process. Preparing for this means beefing up local transformers as well as installing heavy-duty wiring and smart meters in homes to provide early warning of network troubles ahead. Sooner or later, those additional costs will have to be passed on to customers.

Much, of course, will depend on how quickly the new plug-ins and pure electrics become part of mainstream motoring. Generally speaking, it takes 15-20 years for a new technology to capture 10% of an established market, and a further 10-15 years for it to own 90%. That was the case when steam ships replaced clippers in the mid-19th century, and when petrol-engined taxis took over from horse-drawn cabs in the early 20th century. The same sort of lag occurred with the introduction in the 1970s of emission controls on cars. It takes years for the benefits of volume production to work their way through to the market, and for the supply chain to catch up.

If plug-in electrics follow a similar demand curve to other disruptive technologies, there could be 25m of them humming quietly around by 2025, and ten times that number by 2040. Hopefully, by then, the utilities will have learned to cope with recharging them.

Excuses for not doing what is needed- Europe

Reforming European economies. The cruelty of compassion.
Social cohesion has become an excuse for avoiding necessary reforms in Europe
Jan 28th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

SOCIAL cohesion is one of those values all decent Europeans can sign up to: less social conflict and less of the inequality that America and Britain (see article) put up with. Some countries, notably Germany, really do manage to marry social harmony and economic reform. In the past decade Germany has—thanks to good management and obliging unions—kept its public sector in check, partly freed its labour market, held down unemployment, and regained competitiveness. Elsewhere, though, the need to preserve social cohesion, parroted by European politicians from left and right, has become a self-defeating excuse to avoid reform.

In Greece, for instance, the hard-pressed Socialist government of George Papandreou talks up social cohesion as a reason to avoid unduly large public-sector pay cuts in its urgent fiscal retrenchment. Spain’s Socialist prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, touts it to justify the retention of labour-market laws that make it ruinously expensive to sack permanent employees. Italy’s right-wing government, under Silvio Berlusconi, is similarly loth to lift burdensome regulations on small businesses and services for fear of protests and strikes. Sweden’s centre-right leader, Fredrik Reinfeldt, is reluctant to be seen attacking his country’s generous social model by trimming benefits, pay and pensions. Even France’s conservative president, Nicolas Sarkozy, is unwilling to damage social cohesion (and risk trouble in the streets) by pushing hard for labour-market, pension and welfare reforms.

Two worrying common threads can be discerned in all this. One is that the natural desire for social cohesion is being abused to justify the protection of “insiders”—those in permanent jobs, in trade unions or in privileged professions. But the cost of protecting insiders falls largely on “outsiders”—the unemployed and those in temporary work, especially young people and immigrants. The gulf between insiders and outsiders destroys the very social cohesion that the policy is meant to preserve. And in the long run it is bad for everyone, because employers do not train temporary workers—a particular problem in economies like Italy and Spain, where new permanent contracts are rare. This lack of training is one of the main reasons why Europe’s productivity growth over the past two decades has persistently lagged behind America’s.

The second common thread is that social cohesion has become a reason to defend the privileges and perks of the public sector, which is also now the last bastion of trade unions. Across Europe many private-sector workers have seen their pay, pensions and other benefits frozen or cut by cash-strapped employers during the recession. Yet most governments, even Britain’s, have been reluctant to apply similar treatment to the public sector. One result is that the state is taking a rising share of GDP, which is sure to lead to heavier taxes. Another is that public-sector pay and benefits have shot ahead as a cosseted caste extends its privileges.

Follow the Irish—or Germans
Most governments seem too paralysed by their muddle-headed talk of social cohesion to act, despite the struggle to finance huge deficits. Yet they now have a striking example in Ireland. Faced with a gaping budget deficit and a recession, the Irish government has torn up its 30-year social compact with employers and unions. It has slashed public spending and made sharp cuts in pay. Indeed, pay is now falling across the whole economy. Not surprisingly, workers and unions are unhappy. This week, the public sector began a work-to-rule. But the harsh medicine seems to be working, as Ireland pulls out of recession, the public finances improve and the economy regains competitiveness lost inside the euro.

It is not always necessary to face down strikes. Italy and Spain could learn from Germany’s trick of reforming without strife. But that may be beyond deeply troubled countries like Greece, which probably has no alternative but to copy Ireland. What all European governments must grasp, though, is that many of the policies espoused in the name of social cohesion do not promote compassion over cruelty. Rather, they encourage decline, entrench divisions and thus threaten the harmony they pretend to nurture.

New money for corrupts

Fighting corruption in India-zero contribution-unconventional way to combat petty corruption
Jan 28th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

5th Pillar
A ZERO-SUM game is one in which the gains of one player are exactly balanced by the losses of another. In India a local non-governmental organisation has invented a new sort of zero sum which, it hopes, will leave everyone better off: the zero-rupee note.

What on earth is the point of that? The note is not legal tender. It is simply a piece of paper the colour of a 50-rupee note with a picture of Gandhi on it and a value of nothing. Its aim is to shame corrupt officials into not demanding bribes.

The idea was dreamt up by an expatriate Indian physics professor from the University of Maryland who, travelling back home, found himself harassed by endless extortion demands. He gave the notes to the importuning officials as a polite way of saying no. Vijay Anand, president of an NGO called 5th Pillar, thought it might work on a larger scale. He had 25,000 zero-rupee notes printed and publicised to mobilise opposition to corruption. They caught on: his charity has distributed 1m since 2007.

One official in Tamil Nadu was so stunned to receive the note that he handed back all the bribes he had solicited for providing electricity to a village. Another stood up, offered tea to the old lady from whom he was trying to extort money and approved a loan so her granddaughter could go to college.

Mr Anand thinks the notes work because corrupt officials so rarely encounter resistance that they get scared when they do. And ordinary people are more willing to protest, since the notes have an organisation behind them and they do not feel on their own. Simple ideas like this don’t always work. When India’s government put online the names of officials facing trial for corruption, the list became a convenient guide for whom to bribe. But, says Fumiko Nagano of the World Bank, transforming social norms is the key to fighting petty corruption and the notes help that process. They are valueless, but not worthless.

Columbia University ASOCIATED WITH 78 NOBEL LAUREATS.

Research universities Powerhouses Jan 7th 2010
From: The Economist print edition

The real dangers facing America’s most important universities

The Great American University: Its Rise to Pre-eminence, Its Indispensable National Role, Why It Must Be Protected. By Jonathan R. Cole. PublicAffairs; 640 pages; $35. Buy from Amazon.com

WHAT do the following have in common: the bar code, congestion charging, the cervical Pap smear and the internet? All emerged from work done at America’s pre-eminent research universities. The central contention of Jonathan Cole’s book is that these mighty institutions are “creative machines unlike any other that we have known in our history”. They stand at the centre of America’s intellectual and technological global leadership, but are now under threat as never before.

Professor Cole has worked all his life at one of these institutions, Columbia, where he was provost for 14 years from 1989 until 2003. His book is really three, each a magisterial work. First, he sets out an admirably comprehensive history of how America’s great universities came into being. Then, he trawls for examples of the enriching inventiveness of these institutions, listing the extraordinary range of innovations in technology and in thinking that have sprung from their research. Finally, he outlines the forces that threaten America’s research universities.

The author describes how these institutions built upon Germany’s model of the 19th century, with its combination of research and teaching; how they benefited from America’s early enthusiasm for mass education as a route to social mobility; and how they hit the jackpot in the 1930s, when many brilliant academics in Germany and Austria fled to American universities (some of which had recently been purging Jews from their own academic bodies).

In the post-war era, the research universities—he reckons about 260 institutions might now claim the name, of which maybe 100 are key—became far larger and more complex. Many turned into “full service” universities, with a clutch of professional schools teaching business, medicine, law and engineering. A flood of federal and foundation funding increased the size of individual departments, bringing benefits of scale. Success bred success. In 2001, America produced a third of the world’s science and engineering articles in refereed journals, and in three of the past four years its academics received two-thirds of the Nobel prizes for science and economics. No wonder America’s great universities lure the world’s cleverest students and the finest academics, many of whom stay to enrich their new country.

Now these great factories of talent, ideas and technologies are threatened from without and within. Professor Cole makes several important points here, though his argument would have been strengthened with the addition of more statistics and tables. Increasing dependence on research funds distorts internal priorities, he says. Columbia University Medical Centre, for example, accounts for more than half of that university’s total budget, while humanities receive almost no external federal funding, and social sciences precious little.

Outside funding also breeds a sense of entitlement to interfere. Government has meddled increasingly. An especially noxious instance is the Patriot Act, passed in the aftermath of the September 11th 2001 attacks, which has had all kinds of adverse consequences for scientific researchers and librarians. Certain areas of study, such as climate change, stem-cell research and work on the Middle East, are particularly vulnerable to political pressure. Professor Cole tells how two respected scholars, Joseph Massad at Columbia and Nadia Abu El-Haj at Barnard College, were harassed by the Jewish lobby—and asks what would have happened had American universities given in to rampant institutional anti-Semitism and “resisted hiring the Jewish scientists and scholars from Nazi Germany”?

Most curious, to non-American ears, is another complaint: that the big universities are simply too big and too rich. Professor Cole frets about the growing gap between the richest (not Columbia, wealthy though it is by global standards) and the rest. The growth in Harvard’s endowment in 2006 was greater than the combined total endowment of all but the top dozen American universities. The ranking of research quality is highly correlated with the size of a university’s endowment. What if, muses Professor Cole, America ended up with four or maybe six wealthy giants with a lead so large that even the most entrepreneurial of the rest—Berkeley, say, or Chicago—struggled to compete, and became mere talent farms for the richest?

That is a worry most countries would love to have, as they see their brightest students and academics follow the money to the United States. A bigger concern should be the growing divide between research and teaching—especially undergraduate teaching—as research grows ever more complex. Professor Cole insists that one feeds the other, and so it often does. But he also notes that those hugely expensive medical schools often teach few or no undergraduate students. If the synergy between teaching and research is lost, the whole basis of America’s research universities is undermined. That, surely, is the greatest threat of all to these institutions.

Reflexión de como combatir la drogadicción.

El poner a toda Wall Street en el mismo cesto, Dr. A. no es justo. Cierto, Wall Street Journal es muy conservador especialmente desde que es propiedad del Sr. Murdoch. Por ello sorprende que publique la opinión que se deba de discutir la legalización de la marihuana.

Pero otro riquísimo miembro de Wall Street, el Sr. G. Soros bajo su organización filantrópica’ Open Society’ hace décadas que financia un grupo de académicos y expertos que através de sus estudios han propuesto la legalización de las drogas. Y no solo a nivel de EE UU, sino a nivel mundial. No sirve de mucho si no incluye Colombia, el mayor productor de cocaína, Bolivia el mejor agricultor de la hoja, Afganistán como el gran productor de opio y aun más el Triangulo Dorado lugar de la mejor calidad de opio.

Esos estudios han mostrado algún ejemplo de soluciones no tan logradas: sustitución de Heroína por otra medicina en Inglaterra, venta abierta en cafés de marihuana en Holanda, receta ‘médica‘ y permiso de cultivo en California, etc.

En España yo he visto a gente inyectarse en una avenida turística principal sin que nadie se incomodara.

En Suiza han designado plazas para los adictos. Si es de nacionalidad suiza se le proporciona útiles estériles para evitar SIDA, etc.

Nepal es el paraiso del fumador de maruhuana.

O sea que los Benchmarks existen para formular una política del siglo XXI.

De todas formas, para los traficantes de drogas el problema logístico mayor es el del dinero. Un kilo de coca es como un kilo de harina para tortillas. El dinero que eso genera de los consumidores- billetes de U S $ 10 y 20 - requiere una maleta de viaje mediana. Durante la época dorada de la construcción se podía convertir en casas ese dinero…y así ‘legalizar‘ ese dinero cuando se vendia la casa pagada toda en efectivo en su fase de erección. Eso ahora no es ‘racional’ ya que las casas no se venden … Así que vuelve el viejo problema de cómo poner en circulación las maletas de dinero…El impuesto de 3% por deposito de efectivo por encima de los 15000 pesos no muerde mucho a ese trafico.

El Colegio de México o aun uno que otro de sus investigadores podría fácilmente participar en las investigaciones que el Sr. Soros paga y de su propio bolsillo. No como se acostumbra en México, a través de las empresas controladas por los magnates superriscos…para mejor descuento fiscal y repartición de la carga entre los accionistas- a los que no se les pregunta si están de acuerdo. Pero si esas empresas usan en sus membretes eso de ‘empresa socialmente responsable’. Ah ¿si?

El Sr. Soros es de izquierdas. Su profesor más influyente de la London School ya lo era.

Buckley, el comentarista- fundador de Front Line y de New Republic así como creador de la nueva ideología conservadora de EE UU también ya abogaba - sin éxito – por la legalización de la droga.

Si se logra la legalización, se resuelven muchos otros problemas, Bajaría la criminalidad necesaria para poder obtener la droga. Desalojaría gran parte de la sobrepoblación de las prisiones y reduciría las cargas de procesos judiciales. Y sobre todo, reduciría mucho la corrupción del sistema político democrático. ¿De donde sacan en los municipios y en los estados esos muy amplios recursos para las campañas y las compras de votos? El I F E es generoso y costoso, pero no tanto…

No pretendo proclamar que la legalización de las drogas curara todos los males sociales, pero si eliminara' muchos. Y ¡eso seria ya un gran beneficio!

Ranking

Logros y su transparencia.

En un evento reciente el director de un plantel de educación enumerò los muchos y grandes logros de sus estudiantes.
Eso es de esperar de la administración de una institución.
Son pocos los que tiran piedras a su propio tejado de tejas.

Pero hay que crear mayor transparencia y verificación. Comparaciones independientes son – en el resto del mundo – muy bien arraigadas.

Si la muy venerable y bien establecida Universidad de Oxford en Inglaterra publica en su 1ª pagina de acceso a través de la red su ranking internacional, lo podrían hacer también otras instituciones. Y nos dicen que están entre las 20 primeras – lo que significa que es 18ª o 19ª en postgrado. Están mucho mejor en licenciatura. Pero no temen en ir con la verdad por delante.
Y si necesitan guías: la UNAM es a nivel internacional la mejor universidad de México, pero está en el lugar 100… hay 99 por delante. Decidan si eso es poco o mucho…
Universidades de élite forman a los que se les otorga Premios Nobel en ciencias…y también ¡emplean Premios Nobel! O sea que tienen posibilidades de investigación…discusión… publicación...

¿Cuando se difundirán esta clase de estadísticas aquí? ¿Cuando tendremos verdadera transparencia? No nos lo darán hasta que no deban hacerlo y no hay muchos que se preocupan y menos los que lo exigen.

Pero eso es muy importante. Otra vez pocos quieren saber que los mexicanos ya tienen que competir con los chinos por trabajo… claro que no vamos a ir a Pekín solo para cortarnos el pelo. Ni dormiremos todos los días en Shangai si nuestro trabajo es en B. C.
Y aun a esto hay ya excepciones: una página Web se puede confeccionar en Hong Kong y domiciliar en Tijuana.

El mensaje que quiero transmitir y muy en claro: el mundo es ya un mercado universal. Como consumidor queremos lo bueno, barato y hermoso: el iPhone se diseñó en EE UU, pero se compone de elementos de muchos países; asiáticos principalmente. El Nano, un carrito nuevo que en su versión minima cuesta menos de US$ 2 500 - funcionando. Lo diseñaron los Tata de India. En 2010 se venderá ya fuera de India.

Así que el que vive de su trabajo tendrá que competir a nivel global, le guste o no.
Por ello hay que estar educado y preparado como lo están los mejores si se quiere competir en este mundo.
EL RANKING ES PUES MUY RELEVANTE.
Si no sabemos donde estamos, cualquier camino es bueno. Pero si queremos llegar al D.F. mejor saber en que dirección está Para mi ahora ¡está al SUR!
Además, está muy claramente establecido que un país se desarrolla según su capacidad humana. Si, también hace falta dinero…pero dinero viaja muy fácilmente. Si se tiene muy buena capacidad productiva, viene solito el dinero…ya que quiere multiplicarse…
Así, no busquemos mas excusas: comparémoslo con el mundo y utilicemos lo mejor para adelantar. Eso se llama Benchmarking – no es robar. Es aprender y hacerlo mejor.

Para las escuelas el sitio a ir para aprender es a Finlandia o... a Arizona, pero a una charter school en especifico. También hay éxitos con hispanos en Bronx….y si buscan encontraran más.

Que la educación en México es deficiente y tiene que mejorar muchísimo lo señala la OECD, el club al que México se unió y que nos compara principalmente con solo los otros 29 miembros. El mundo consiste de + de 200 países…

Aquí unos datos recientes
Los dineritos para Elba Esther. Cuadros resumen
(pesos mexicanos) dividan por 12.5 para u s $

Educación Básica
Min Max
2007 4.633.939.186 238.163.947.289
2008 10.865.992.013 263.222.178.614
2009 11.942.571.611 283.927.129.738
Total 27.442.502.810 785.313.255.641

ISSSTE
Min Max
2007 80.919.900.000 100.330.655.016
2008 79.218.800.000 95.040.139.048
2009 88.358.000.000 150.637.237.787
Total 248.496.700.000 346.008.031.851

Partido Nueva Alianza
Min Max
2007 189.054.882 189.054.882
2008 193.478.527 193.478.527
2009 255.178.627 255.178.627
Total 637.712.037 637.712.037

Transferencias de la SEP al SNTE por cuotas
Min Max
2007 98.053.497 98.053.497
2008 102.214.782 102.214.782
2009* 42.826.085 42.826.085
Total 243.094.364 243.094.364

Educación en estados
Min Max
2007 20.073.937.529 136.699.373.243
2008 19.000.511.801 150.588.774.119
2009 19.759.469.703 169.535.730.476
Total 58.833.919.033 456.823.877.838

Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Pública
Min Max
2007 1.153.966.211 6.203.966.211
2008 4.226.258.933 11.542.818.900
2009 ? ?
Total 5.380.225.144 17.746.785.111

Lotería Nacional
Min Max
2007 1.242.953.991 1.323.442.180
2008 1.759.359.826 1.827.268.651
2009 1.748.979.371 1.847.102.025
Total 4.751.293.188 4.997.812.856
Presupuesto ? GDP ?
Resumen total
Min Max Gasto Neto Total % Min % Max 2007 108.311.805.296 483.008.492.318 3.151.511.071.585 3% a 15%
2008 115.366.615.882 522.516.872.641 3.565.000.838.121 3% A 15%
2009 122.107.025.397 606.245.204.739 3.953.815.215.377 3% a 15%
Total 3 años345.785.446.575

Fuente: Elaboración propia con datos de cuadros básicos 1, 2, 3 y 4 mencionados en Reforma 13 Dic.09
Por Sergio Aguayo y Alberto Serdan Edicion: JMV

LABS GALLERY: Chrome OS Developer Edition Looks and Feels Just Like Chrome Browser - Application Development from eWeek

LABS GALLERY: Chrome OS Developer Edition Looks and Feels Just Like Chrome Browser - Application Development from eWeek

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