The Hype over the Volt

Vincent J. Curtis



9 January 2008

*The piece below was intended to be published in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, but never saw print.*

            Every so often environmentalists go stark raving mad.  In 1997, the Kyoto Treaty, a product of environmentalism gone mad, called for unrealistic reductions energy consumption, through government regulation, just as India and China grew into first world countries.  In 2000, fantasies about the hydrogen fuel cell exploded on the world with its false promises of an economic, pollution-free source of energy for cars and homes.  Now, General Motors is about to launch its own green machine; an electric car called the Volt. 

            The new, experimental GM Volt is a four passenger automobile powered by a lithium-ion battery supported by a 1000 cc gasoline engine.  The Volt is supposed to be Detroit’s near-zero emission car of the future. The Volt is the car environmentalists have claimed the big car makers have been hiding for nefarious reasons.  Humbug!

            Though I am sure the Volt is a nice car to drive and works perfectly in accordance with the specifications, electric cars have hidden economic and environmental costs that seriously limit their usefulness as a means of reducing pollution over-all.  These limitations are quite similar to those that make the hydrogen cell propelled car forever uneconomic and of questionable environmental value.

            The hydrogen fuel cell worked by the conversion of hydrogen and oxygen into water with nearly perfect conversion of the energy of that reaction into electricity.  The lithium ion cell of the Volt converts lithium into a lithium salt with the nearly perfect conversion of the energy of that reaction into electricity.  So far, so good.  The problem lies in regenerating that hydrogen and that lithium from water and lithium salt.  Regeneration requires the input of electric power from some outside source; that is, from the increasingly strained electric grid.

            The problem of regeneration does not occur in gasoline and diesel engines.  Internal combustion engines take fuel we found in the ground and simply burn it in a way that provides motive power.  The sun and the earth created this energy source for us millions of years ago, and we are simply taking advantage of the energy content of material we found in the earth.  We don’t try to regenerate it.

            Unlike combustion engines, the lithium cell and the hydrogen cell require that their fuel be regenerated.  Recharging, it is called.  While the lithium cell presents far fewer practical and engineering difficulties as a rechargeable power supply than the hydrogen cell, like the hydrogen cell it also uses electrical generation from outside itself to recharge   Therein lies the fundamental economic and environmental fallacy of the electric car.

            Let’s look at the fallacy in a small scale and then the large scale.  Let’s say the power goes out, and you have to recharge the car by connecting it to the gas-powered electric generator you keep for such emergencies.  Because of the losses inherent in energy conversions, it would have been a more efficient use of the gasoline to have burned it in a car engine to propel the car directly than to have used it to create the electricity to regenerate the lithium and then to use the lithium in order to propel the car.

            In fact, the Volt carries its own gas-powered generator.  A one litre gas-powered motor mounted in the Volt provides the car with on-board regenerating capacity for the lithium cell.  Plugging in the car at night merely relieves the gas tank of the Volt from supplying the chemical energy necessary to convert lithium salt back into useful lithium again.  If the power was out, and you didn’t have a gas powered generator, you could idle the car in the driveway until the lithium cell was recharged.

            On a large scale, suppose that electric cars become popular and lots of people buy them.  Where is the grid electricity going to come from for all these cars?  Well, to replace gasoline made from Alberta tar sand, the expansion of the electrical supply will have to come primarily from the burning of West Virginia coal and from nuclear reaction of Saskatchewan uranium.  If electric cars become popular, we will have to build more coal-burning and/or nuclear powered generating facilities to replace the Alberta tar sands we no longer use as liquid fuel.  Wind power and solar power are fantasies that cannot fill the gap in Ontario.

            Burning coal is a dirty business; nuclear generation is extremely capital intensive; and these hidden environmental and economic factors have to be considered when evaluating the overall advantages of electric powered cars like the GM Volt.

            The economy in driving a Volt lies in the fact that the car is driven by a 65 hp, 1000 cc engine, the performance of which is enhanced by a battery, so long as it lasts.

            Electric cars can be useful in reducing air pollution in dense urban areas where traffic is intensive, like New York, Los Angeles, and London.   A one liter motor creates less air pollution than a 2.2 litre motor; and the air pollution caused by the burning of coal for electrical power is created out of the downtown area in a facility designed to mitigate the pollution released.  Electric cars can be a small piece of the puzzle of solving certain, restricted air pollution problems.

            However, if you believe that man-created carbon dioxide is bad for the environment, and that nuclear power is next to nuclear weapons on the scale of evil, then you can only support the development of electric cars by hiding your eyes from the unintended consequences.  The Volt and cars like it will not take us on the road to environmental nirvana.

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Vincent J. Curtis was employed as a Research Scientist by the Ontario Research Foundation, and worked on high energy density batteries in the 1980s.

Budget Cuts Hit U.S. Military

Releases New Strategy Paper “in response to new global realities.”

Vincent J. Curtis



12 Jan12
 

Responding to the Budget Control Act of August, 2011, and to the failure of a Joint Congressional Committee to agree on some $1 trillion in budget cuts over ten years, the U.S. military is required by law to reduce its expenditures by $487 billion over the next ten years.  Without the cut, the U.S. Defense Department was expected to spend between $6,000 and $7,000 billion in that period.

In response to the projected cut, the Pentagon on January 5^th released a new strategy paper which maps out how the United States will maintain global dominance a period of reduced budgets and a smaller military.  The paper, released at a special press conference featuring President Obama, is entitled: “Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for the 21^st Century.”

The usual political suspects in the United States are saying the expected things about a plan by President Obama to reduce the military budget.

The plan itself starts with a re-evaluation of long-term strategic threats to U.S. interests in the aftermath of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It concludes that, at the head of a long list, Iran and China represent the threats which the U.S. military must plan for.  Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear device is seen as a threat directly to Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, and indirectly to the world economy by Iranian control of the sea lanes in the Persian Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz.  Some 40 % of the world’s crude oil moves on gigantic oil tankers through those waters.

Reference in the paper is made to al Qaeda and its affiliates as a threat to U.S. interests, but the strategic plan is to avoid the use of large ground forces to control the threat as was done in Iraq and Afghanistan.

China is seen as a threat due to the belligerent rhetoric coming out of the Chinese military, the cold diplomacy employed by China’s government, and the ever bolder use of her growing naval and air forces.  China is foreseen as attempting an “anti-access and area denial” strategy against U.S. intervention in an arc from Japan to the Philippines to eastern India, an area which includes Taiwan, South Korea, and Vietnam.

India is seen as a potential strategic partner in the paper, and is praised as “a regional economic anchor and provider of security in the broader Indian Ocean region.”

What may be the motivation for the Chinese government’s apparent departure from the long Chinese tradition of contentment with being a regional power was not discussed in the paper.

To fit into a small budget, the U.S. military will reduce personnel.  It will lose up to half a million troops out of a current military of 1.6 million, largely coming out of the Army and Marine Corps.  There are presently 565,000 soldiers and 201,000 Marines on strength, and between 76,000 and 114,000 will be lost.  In addition, some costly procurement programs, such as the acquisition of the F-35, are at risk.  The U.S. is expected to draw down between 3,000 and 4,000 of the 80,000 troops that are presently stationed in Europe.

The U.S. will also reduce its nuclear stockpile.

However, a new long-range strategic bomber program has been confirmed.

The AirSea Battle concept is at the heart of the new strategy.  This new operational concept is intended “to prepare the U.S. and its allies to deter or defeat Chinese power,” according to Air Force Magazine.  The new concept is aimed at aiding Joint Operations between the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy, and to avoid duplication of effort.

The U.S. Air Force will seek to be able to revive on short notice operations on air bases abandoned long ago, such as on Saipan and Tinian in the Northern Marianas, U Tapao and Korat in Thailand, Clark Air Base in the Philippines, in Australia, Halim Air Base in Indonesia, and possibly Tan Son Nhut in Vietnam.  These would augment fully operational Air Bases presently on Guam, Hickam AFB on Hawaii, Osan and Kunsan in South Korea, Misawa and Yokota in Japan, in addition to the U.S. Naval base at Yokosuka and Sasebo in Japan.  The U.S.A.F. wants to be able to disperse operations quickly in the event of a surprise Chinese missile attack, and avoid a Pearl Harbor catastrophe.

The AirSea Battle is intended to defeat an “Anti-Access, Area Denial” strategy employed by the Chinese Navy and Air Force. The A2/AD strategy would protect the Chinese People’s Liberation Army as it invaded China’s neighbors from attacks by the U.S. air power.  By denial of safe access to the battle theatre through sea lanes, the Chinese would deter the deployment of the U.S. Army into the field.  Such is the rationale of A2/AD.

In addition to defeating Iranian ambitions and deterring Chinese aggression, the strategy paper rounds out the requirements of U.S. military capability under the heads of: counter terrorism and irregular warfare, conduct stability and counterinsurgency operations, deter and defeat aggression, counter WMDs, operate effectively in space and cyberspace, maintain a nuclear deterrent, provide a stabilizing presence, humanitarian and disaster relief, and homeland security.

The strategy intends to use a whole-of-government approach, which means the use of diplomacy to gain the permission of other countries for use of their military facilities and to encourage the deployment the military forces of allies in aid of the U.S. strategy against a common foe.

NORAD is not mentioned in the strategy paper, and NATO only briefly.  NATO is seen as a source of augmenting military forces on someone else’s budget, as is presently the case in Afghanistan.

Before he retired in July of last year, Defense Secretary Robert Gates hinted heavily that changes of this nature were coming.  The first examples of the use both of the A2/AD strategy and of the AirSea battle were tested by NATO in Libya when he was in office.

A part of Canada’s close and inevitable friendship with the United States is military relevance.  Not much is expected of Canada by the United States, but something beyond favorable diplomatic noises is desired.  What is it that the Canadian military could do that fits into the new U.S. strategic concept?

Whatever it is, it needs to be “visible” to the American and Canadian public.  (“Visibility” is a requirement demanded by retired General Rick Hillier when he was CDS, and was one reason why Canada took on the combat mission in Kandahar in 2006.)

Eyes turn quickly to the navy.  A Canadian F-35 does not appear to be operationally relevant to the new concept because the U.S. Air Force will knock out the Chinese Fighter force on its own, and air superiority is the only role the F-35 is suited for.  The stealth fighter could be used in a surveillance and reconnaissance role for short ranges in the Pacific if it operated out of a U.S. Air Base.  Long range bombing with cruise missiles, as can be done with the B-1, B-2, B-52, and the new strategic bomber, is not in the realm of capability of the F-35.

The new class of frigates and destroyers planned for construction could play a role in a U.S fleet protecting the big aircraft carriers.  What could make the RCN really visible would be a capability to destroy fast moving Iranian PT boats and Zodiacs that carry torpedoes in the Straits of Hormuz.  If it could be made to work, a Bras d’or  class of hydrofoil destroyers would be a real attention-getter in the Straits.  A hydrofoil, in virtue of its 71 knot speed and elevation above the water, could, if it mounted powerful, computer aided automatic cannons, quickly disperse and destroy a fleet of PT boats that moved in the 40 knot range, like a fox among chickens.  Whatever new ships are built for the RCN, some capability to participate in the AirSea battle needs to be designed in.

The Canadian Army could play a visible role under the heads of counterterrorism and irregular warfare, and conducting stability and counterinsurgency operations.  This would be a reprise of the role the army and special operations forces played in Kandahar.  However, these heads are seen as secondary to the main mission of the U.S. Joint Forces, which is the air and sea battle in the western Pacific and Indian Oceans.

As events in Libya proved once again, air and sea power alone are not decisive.  Ground forces are essential to bring matters to a decisive conclusion.  Thus, the AirSea battle may prove to be ineffective as an operational concept except as a preliminary.  A survey of the capabilities of the elements of the Canadian Forces shows that the army is the service most likely to provide visible proof of Canadian intent and support of its great ally and neighbor.

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Talking to the Taliban: Bad New Year’s Resolution

 
Vincent J. Curtis 


30 December 2011

Now that Canada has withdrawn from combat operations in Afghanistan, we can look at the military-political situation in that country dispassionately.

Among its New Year’s resolutions, the Obama Administration hopes to restore ‘momentum’ in the spring to U.S. talks with the Taliban.  Talks, which had been going on behind the scenes, fell apart in December due to objections from Afghan President Hamid Karzai, according to an AP report.

Officials from the U.S. State department and White House, headed by Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama respectively, plan to continue a series of meetings with Taliban representatives, provided the alleged representatives, which the U.S. believes to be legitimate, remain willing, according to AP.   U.S. officials describe the outreach to the Taliban as ‘sensitive and precarious.’

You have to wonder what’s in the Kool Aid that officials in the State Department and White House are drinking.  Hamid Karzai had his own case of vapors, until his head was cleared by a shocking event in September, 2011.  It is no wonder that Karzai derailed the secret U.S. – Taliban talks.

That these secret talks were ongoing makes some sense of the otherwise outrageous statement made by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in early December that “The Taliban are not our enemy…Our enemy is al Qaeda.”

The basis for a U.S.-Taliban settlement apparently includes a provision that the Taliban separate themselves from al Qaeda.  Biden may have been sending the Taliban an unmistakable signal of U.S. seriousness of intent for settlement.

On September 20^th, the respected former president, head of the Afghan Peace Council, and emissary of Hamid Karzai, Burhanuddin Rabbani, was treacherously assassinated by a suicide bomber.  According to reports, the assassin claimed that he was a Talib who wished to make peace with the new political regime in Afghanistan, and requested that he surrender to Rabbani personally.  Rabbani accepted the man into his chambers unsearched, as a sign of respect.  The assassin, who hid the bomb in his turban, apparently bowed to Rabbani, touching his head to Rabbani’s chest, and then detonated the bomb.

Reuters news agency reported immediately afterwards that the Taliban accepted responsibility for the killing.  However, on their website, the Taliban contested the Reuters report but refused to discuss the incident further.  Mullah Omar knew that assassinating a respected man like Rabbani in such a treacherous way was a blunder.

At best the assassination showed Mullah Omar’s lack of control over the movement; at worst it showed a division between the Taliban proper, and the so-called ‘Haqqani network’.  It provided tangible evidence that Taliban protestations of peace were not to be trusted, and left them open to the charge that they were mere agents of the Pakistani ISI, the Interservices Intelligence Agency, who seek to sow confusion and discord in Afghanistan.

Retiring Chairman of the U.S Joint Chiefs of Staff accused the Taliban of being influenced by the ISI in congressional testimony.

The political take on Rabbani’s assassination at the time was that it was ‘a blow to the peace process.’  U.S. Marine General John Allen, Commander of ISAF, released a statement at the time that said that “…Rabbani’s assassination is a sign that the insurgents are afraid: they are afraid of the peace process…Insurgent leaders understand that peace and reintegration is one of the greatest threats they face…”

Right.  Now, the Obama Administration appears willing look past this Taliban marker of less than six months ago, ignore the statements of its own most senior military leaders, and by-pass its erstwhile ally, the president of Afghanistan, and seek peace talks with untrustworthy assassins.

For its part, the Obama Administration is taking the war to the Taliban where they live.  Hellfire missile strikes from U.S. operated drone aircraft killed ten senior Taliban and al Qaeda leaders in sixty-four attacks in 2011, and twenty in one hundred seventeen attacks in 2010, according to reports from Long War Journal.

Perhaps, like Richard Nixon’s Christmas bombing campaign against Hanoi in December 1972, fierce American attacks will bring the enemy, much to his surprise, to the table, go through the charade of a settlement so that the U.S. can withdraw with its dignity intact, and leave the field open to the enemy.

When it speaks of ‘restoring momentum to the peace talks’ and overcoming ‘blows to the peace process’, the Obama Administration is directing these soothing sentiments to an American audience.  It is quite possible that a segment of Obama’s political base actually believes this stuff, as well as addled senior officials of the U.S. State Department.

All would be well advised to heed Rudyard Kipling: his poems “The East is East,” and especially the line from The Naulahka, “an Epitaph drear: A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the east.”

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Embraer’s Super Tucano A-29 Turboprop Chosen for Counterinsurgency Role

Vincent J. Curtis


4 Jan 12

***This just in:  The USAF on Feb 28th unexpectedly cancelled the contract mentioned in this post due to political pressure.*** 

In a move that surprised many, the US Air Force chose the Super Tucano A-29 over an American competitor for a light attack aircraft, it was announced on December 30, 2011.  The A-29 is a design of Brazil’s Embraer Defense and Security company.  The initial contract is for twenty of the aircraft, with an ultimate order for one hundred.  The aircraft is capable of air interdiction of prop-driven aircraft often used by drug-runners, and of ground attack with machine guns, missiles, and bombs.  A turboprop, the A-29 is far cheaper to operate for the counterinsurgency missions that presently are assigned to A-10 Thunderbolt II and F-16 fighter jets.

The aircraft for the US Air Force will be built in Jacksonville, Florida, with Sierra Nevada Corporation as the prime contractor and Elbit Systems of America supplying the avionics.

The main competitor to the A-29 was the AT-6 Texan II, made by Hawker Beechcraft, formerly Raytheon Aircraft.  A variant of the AT-6 is used by the RCAF as a trainer aircraft known as the CT-156 Harvard II, and is based at 15 Wing, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

The Super Tucano is a single-engined turboprop with a cockpit configuration for either one or two in tandem.  The powerplant is a single Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-68C, generating 1600 hp.  The A-29 has a top speed of 590 km/hr, a service ceiling of 10,700 m, and a range of 1,330 km.  It can remain aloft for as long as eight hours, forty minutes.

The armament it can carry is modest by jet standards, but is sufficient for the counterinsurgency role.  The A-29 carries two .50 Cal machine guns in the wings, a 20 mm Vulcan-style cannon in a pod below the fuselage, plus five hardpoints for up to 1500 kilograms of rockets, missiles, and bombs.  The missile it would carry for counterinsurgency is the AGM-65 Maverick, but can also carry general purpose, incendiary, cluster, and precision guided bombs.

The Light Air Support program began in 2009 when the U.S. Air Force sought an aircraft that could fill the role once filled by the A1-E Skyraider in Vietnam.  A heavy, single-engined piston  prop plane, the A1-E carried up to 3,600 kg of ordinance on fifteen hardpoints, and was able to linger over the battlefield in Vietnam for hours, providing support for embattled ground troops with napalm, rockets, and strafing fire from the four 20 mm cannons it carried in the wings.  Much slower than a jet, far more powerful than a helicopter, and with more endurance than either, the A1-E proved ideal in the counterinsurgency role fifty years ago.

While the A-29 is not as powerful as the A1-E, like the Skyraider the cost of purchasing an A-29 is low.  Being a turboprop, the A-29 is far cheaper to operate in terms of fuel and maintenance than the modern jets of today, and can it operate from austere airfields.  The fly-away cost of a new A-29 is approximately $10 million.  The USAF contract signed on December 30^th specified a fixed price of $355 million for twenty aircraft, but that includes ground training devices and support for all maintenance and supply requirements and associated support equipment.

The A-29 is presently in service in the Air Forces of Brazil, Dominican Republic, and Columbia, where it has already seen service combating the FARC drug cartel.  Besides the United States, the A-29 is on order from Ecuador and Chile.  The U.S. may also supply the air forces of Lebanon and Afghanistan with the Super Tucano.

The competitor AT-6 Texan II, though similar in performance and also employing the Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-68C turboprop powerplant, has no configurations for carrying machine guns, missiles, or bombs, and is used exclusively for training purposes by the RCAF, the Luftwaffe, and the air forces of Greece, Israel, Iraq, Morocco, and the U.S.  It is not used in a counterinsurgency role anywhere at present.

The RCAF could get into the counterinsurgency business, if it wanted to, in an innovative way by working with a highly motived Hawker Beechcraft company.  A portion of the RCAF’s current fleet of 25 Harvard IIs could be retrofitted with hardpoints for weapons and upgraded avionics to fill the light attack role.  The benefit to Hawker Beechcraft to be that by learning how to upgrade the Harvard II platform with the RCAF the company would be able to offer a package to the owners of the current installed fleet of more than 425 airframes that is less expensive than purchasing an all-new platform from the Brazilians.

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