If it starts showing this sort of reading, put on your jogging shoes...

How much radiation is too much? What level is considered safe?

Radiation levels can be a very complicated thing to figure out, with alpha, beta, and gamma rays to understand. I won’t go into details, or you’ll have 10 pages of reading to do, so I’ll just post a chart of what levels of radiation are safe to live in - and when it’s time to start running!

So, here’s a simple, plain-English chart of radiation doses in millisieverts (mSv/h) and microsieverts (µSv/h) per hour. Most dosimeters (the handheld Geiger counters that measure your body’s “Dose”) operate in these units.

Simplified hourly dosage rates

It’s quite a simplified chart, and it helps to know that radiation gets more dangerous, the more your body gets. If you get a big amount of radiation in an hour, it’s more hazardous than getting the same amount over an entire year. This chart is measured in an hourly dose, just like what your meter will probably show on the screen.

I hope it offers some help to those learning to use their radiation meters, and feel free to add more information in the comments below. There’s a very handy radiation level conversion site here too: http://www.radprocalculator.com/Conversion.aspx

* Please feel free to reuse this chart; just be sure to accredit my website.

Electric cars are definitely coming - but can you afford one yet?

The revolution is coming, most likely next year when enough electric cars are on the road to cause a massive change in public opinion.

Mass conversion to electric is inevitable, Posawatz says. It’s simple mathematics based on the price and limited quantities of oil available. But right now the problem with factory-built electric cars, is that they are still too expensive for the average consumer.

Early owners of the plug-in Nissan Leaf are claiming that, “total cost of ownership is the same or less” than a conventional car, according to Mark Perry, director of product planning and strategy for Nissan America.
Which is why Nissan-Renault has placed a $4.5-billion bet on the future by building bricks and mortar capacity for 550,000 EV units a year.

Posawatz, GM’s promoter of all things electric, believes the revolution will come when a critical number of drivers reach their “aha! moment.” That’s when they realize an EV will work for them, not just the neighbour or green-freak across the street.

Still, fewer than 10,000 Chevy Volts have sold due to a lack of availability and high price. “But we have in our customer base … fanatics” who are so head-overheels in love with avoiding gas stations with their Volts, you can hardly shut them up.

Some consumers call their EVs the best vehicle they’ve ever owned, and some couples even fight over who gets to use it in the morning. The problem remains however, that they’re still expensive vehicles.

Naturally, like any new technology, the price will fall with time. But, as the price of gasoline gets out of control, people are starting to realise the freedom of a gasoline powered vehicle comes at a cost – quite literally.

The interim solution for those on a budget? Easy: Why not tackle a “Do it yourself” electric car conversion, where you remove the engine from a gasoline powered car, and replace it with an electric motor and batteries. It’s not complicated, and can be performed with a standard tool kit, however you should set aside quite a few weekends for it.

Realistically, a neck-snappingly fast, long-range conversion will set you back around $15,000 if you plan on using new parts and lithium batteries. For those on a budget, a conversion can easily be acheived for half that price. It all depends on how far, and how fast you want to be travelling. For more information, download this.

For the meanwhile, we’d better get used to paying for gas. It’s going to be at least a decade before this new wave of factory-built electric cars comes down to a price the average person can afford. That’s ten long years of shelling out $60 a week in gasoline.

The death of the expensive internal combustion era can’t come soon enough.

The Toyota Prius Copycat - Should Toyota be Worried?

The Chinese have been at it again, knocking off their own cheap versions of existing cars from reputable sellers such as BMW, Daewoo, and even Rolls Royce. Almost predictably, it’s now Toyota’s turn with the world famous Prius hybrid.

Fortunately, Prius owners don’t have to worry too much about these new Chinese models saturating the market and devaluing their cars, because these artificial Priuses have one minor flaw: They’re ridiculous.

Not only are the four wheeled examples above considerably narrower and shorter than the real Toyota Prius, you can guarantee these knock-off vehicles have not undergone crash testing. Almost certainly, these cars will not have even a fraction of the safety available in a genuine Prius.

It’s a strange situation, and it’s about to get even stranger: enter the three wheeled version.

It gets even stranger...

While China has a large number of three wheeled vehicles operating, I never in a million years expected to see a Prius knock-off among this collection.

Sadly these cars were originally on the Alibaba website, but have since been removed. There’s no pricing information any more, and no details on drivetrain. When it’s all said and done, perhaps this is a good thing.

UPDATE: After some serious web hunting, I have a suspicion this three-wheeled “Prius” might just be a 4-wheeled knock-off with the front missing, and a deceptive camera angle. Does anyone know for sure?

The 2012 Ford Focus - Finally Ford Offers an All-Electric Option

It’s almost here, and the pricing has been announced. Ford has priced its new Focus Electric at $39,995 USD -essentially the same price as the Chevrolet Volt, but more than the Nissan Leaf, which starts at about $35,200 USD.

American buyers will qualify for a $7,500 federal tax credit, which directly reduces the price they pay, and makes it closer to the Nissan Leaf in price.

Ford dealers in California, New York and New Jersey are now taking orders. Consumers can choose options and accessories online at www.ford.com/electric/focuselectric/2012/ . Options come at a price however, and by selecting a special paint coating or leather seats, the price can reach $41,485.

A limited number of the cars will arrive at dealerships in the three launch states by the end of this year. That’s right, December 2011. It seem Ford have been spooked by the sales of the Nissan Leaf and are going to cash in themselves. God knows Honda and Toyota have some embarrassing catching up to do in this area too.

The Focus Electric is powered by a 92-kilowatt electric motor, and can be recharged in a little more than three hours using a 240-volt charging station.

“The all-new Focus Electric is an important part of Ford’s overall strategy, bringing another option to customers who want a car that is fun to drive, easy to own and fully electric,” said Chad D’Arcy, marketing manager for the car.

So far, Americans haven’t rushed dealerships to buy either the Leaf (8,048 sold through October) or the Volt (5,003 sold) due to the high cost and low availability, with a small few opting for home conversions instead, where they take an existing gasoline powered car, and convert it to run on clean, silent electricity (shameless plug for my do-it-yourself conversion series available to download here).

But what about range? Will the Focus finally prove that you can make modern electric cars that can travel longer than 100 miles per charge (like the Tesla Roadster), or will they play it safe, as to not make their diesel and gasoline fleet look low tech by comparison.

Well, call me a conspiracy theorist, but Ford can be added to the growing list of gasoline car makers which provide a limited-range electric car. Yep, you guessed it. Like the BMW i3, the Nissan Leaf, the Mitsubishi iMiEV, the new Ford Focus electric has been given a capped range of 100 miles.

Oh well. Can someone wake me when the 300 mile per charge Tesla Model S arrives in early 2012?

This is very good news for electric car conversions

By 2012, thousands of new plug-in hybrid and all-electric vehicles will be filling garages, from expensive factory-built electric vehicles such as the LEAF and i-MiEV, to cheaper home-converted vehicles using this now affordable, long range battery option.

Lithium battery systems are the largest single cost component of electric vehicles, adding between $5,000 and $15,000 to the price, depending on the size of the packs and the desired range. This high battery premium is expected to limit the appeal of the factory-produced vehicles, which may be out of the reach of many consumers.

Companies such as Nissan are looking to reduce the initial cost of the vehicles by offering financing for the batteries separate from the vehicles, and startup company Better Place is developing battery subscription services that would charge customers monthly flat fees or fees based on the amount of electricity that flows into the batteries.

The cheap option is a home conversion, where you remove the engine and gas tank from your family sedan, and replace it with a small, powerful electric motor & batteries. While not a complex task, the cost of a home converted electric car is often only around thirty percent of a factory-built electric car.

But what should you do when your lithium batteries eventually get sick? After repeated recharging, lithium batteries slowly lose their ability to store energy, and after 8 to 14 years (depending on how the vehicles are used), the batteries could be past their useful lifespan in a road-going vehicle. From this point, the financially sensible solution is to onsell the pack to utilities to use as energy storage devices as part of the “Smart Grid”.

Lithium battery makers want EV sales to grow rapidly, and therefore it’s unlikely the cost of the batteries will plummet overnight. While cheaper per mile than using a lead-acid battery pack (over a 10 year period), lithium batteries are still a large investment, though fortunately the price reductions are making a 100-kilometre-range battery pack less than the cost of 2 years’ gasoline spending.

Pike Research estimates that – thanks to volume production and improvements in technology and manufacturing the price of Lithium batteries will fall to a possible $470 per KWh in 2015 for the average consumer. This is in part thanks to the factory built electric cars entering production now. Sadly however, these factory-produced electric cars are still around 2 to 3 times the price of a home converted car with a similar 100-mile range. That’s a lot of money to spend, regardless of the falling price of lithium.

My advice? If you’ve got $40,000 USD sitting in your bank account with nothing to do, buy a factory made electric car. You can have one ordered, and be driving away in just a few weeks. Alternatively, if you can’t afford this, consider converting your existing car to run on batteries.

It’s now a highly popular activity with thousands of satisfied converters driving silently past the gas stations. No skills are required, and a typical conversion takes about 4 months of casual weekend tinkering, but I have seen it done in less than 24 hours!

Either way you’re going to win, choose the one that works best for your budget, and say goodbye to filling up.