The Lemelson-MIT program made a press release yesterday citing that gasoline powered vehicles will become obsolete by 2015. This was mentioned on Tech Policy, a blog maintained by some current and past TPPers, so I am not going to elaborate on the same point again. Sure, the press release contains some forward-looking statements, but without sounding harsh to the teens, I say gasoline is here to stay. I am not here to belittle the teens but rather shed some light on why gasoline is still king since we talked about it in my Electrochemistry class.

Let's consider battery-powered cars since I am now more familiar with battery technology. I really think that battery-powered car is pretty much dead in the water. The current battery technology is impeding a successful debut of electric car in the marketplace. In terms of energy density, gasoline blows lead-acid battery away. Here are some numbers:

Energy density of gasoline = 2600 Wh/kg
Energy density of a lead-acid battery = 35 Wh/kg

Another constraining factor of electric car is the time it takes for it to refuel. When your car is out of gas, you go to the gas station to pump more gasoline to the car - typically a 5 minute endeavor. With lead-acid battery, this takes at least 3 hours to recharge. Then there is the question of price. Battery is very expensive. For example, a lead-acid battery costs about $4,000 and lasts about 2 years. Sure, there are more advanced battery technologies like NiMH and Li-Ion. They last longer, weigh lighter, and recharge faster; but they are also significantly more expensive. The bottom line is this: A 500 kg lead-acid battery costs $4,000 and takes 3 hours to recharge. Now compare to 1 liter of gasoline that cost $0.5 and takes about 3 seconds to transfer from the pump to the car.

There are other alternative fuel cars like fuel cell, bio-diesel; but they have yet to make it out of the lab. Call me a cynic, I highly doubt that any of these technologies will become cost-effective and reliable enough to replace gasoline technology in 9 years.

1/12/2006 8:22:16 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [3]

Thoughts

Funny... Now that I am more engaged with MIT, my life has just become more interesting - and so the incentive to blog more regularly. Today marks day 3 of my IAP at MIT. Sadoway's Electrochemistry class was, once again, exciting. I struggled with my reading on kinetics and mass transfer of electrochemical reactions last 2 days but I think I have a better grasp of the concepts after today's class.

Other than the for-credit class, today's IAP activities are mostly self-discoveries of a great MIT resource - the library. I checked out an iPod containing some 800 sample tracks that were taken from CDs in the Lewis Music Library. I also attended a workshop on EndNote, a powerful software tool allowing writers to create and to manage a database of bibliographic references. It can be integrated to Microsoft Word and Latex to generate citations and bibliographies seamlessly in one's manuscript. Better yet, attendees were taught tricks to download references to published literatures from various journal databases via the MIT library. Great class. What I have learned today will probably save me hours of work in citations and bibliography generation in my future thesis and papers. I urge anyone who is or will work on a thesis to attend this workshop.

1/11/2006 7:28:16 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [2]

School

Wow... According to the AP, China trade surplus surged to $101.9 billion in 2005. Also from the report: "With total global trade of $1.42 trillion, China is now the world's third-biggest trading nation." The trade deficit between the U.S. and China will most certainly cause a backlash on Capitol Hill. The question is: will China further adjust the value of its Yuan in the light of its robust economic growth? There are other economic concerns as well. The fiscal deficit is looming the U.S. economy. Currently, the U.S. account deficit can be maintained at the current interest and exchange rates - thanks largely to capital that is pouring into the U.S. from Asia and China. But the way that most of these Asian countries are doing to sustain their economic growth is by undervaluing their currencies. It all comes full circle. The fact is that U.S. and China has become more interdependent of each other. Any drastic change in trade policies probably cause more harm than good to the U.S. economy.

I think that China does have an unfair advantage with its artificial currency valuation. However, the U.S. is simply importing too much from other countries and not exporting enough to substitute for the goods it imports. Think about it, 20% of all U.S. imports are oil. With oil price still high (and likely to go higher), the U.S. import figure (in dollars) is likely going to go up. With an insatiable appetite for consumer goods, cheaper imports are likely not going to ease up anytime soon. On the side of export, even if the dollar were to depreciate I don't think exports will offset imports anytime soon since the U.S. is so overly dependent on imports and most U.S. trading partners, like the E.U. and Japan, won't have huge appetite for American goods anytime soon due to the slowdown in their economies. Anyway, I don't claim to be an expert in economics (especially macroeconomics) nor have researched much in this topic. I am just thinking out loud on the issues of the American economy this morning.

1/11/2006 7:02:28 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [1]

Business

Day 2 of IAP at MIT. The class, 3.53 - Electrochemical Processing of Materials, has so far exceeded my expectations. Prof. Sadoway has been very engaging at class. This is a very intensive graduate (H-level) class as we try to squeeze 9 units of coursework that is typically done in 14 weeks into 2 weeks. For some reason, I have been treating this course very seriously. I have been doing all the reading before class, going through the problem sets, and reviewing my basic chemistry. I am actually learning something from this class.

I have also been interacting with the new SDM 06's lately as I have spending the last few nights at the LFM-SDM office to study for 3.53. They look like a spirited bunch. Not surprisingly, there is a high level of collaboration among the teams on the DC1 project. Today, I got bombarded by questions on research assistantship, electives, recruitment, and thesis. I enjoyed answering their questions as it shows that I have something positive to contribute to ease their transition to MIT. Enough blogging for the day, time to hit the sack.

1/10/2006 11:32:26 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

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School

I met the new SDM class entering 2006 last night as they partook in Design Challenge 1, a critical exercise of the SDM January "bootcamp" where teams build robots to compete against one another. My reputation has preceded me. Granted that I have met some of the new students in the past, but for those that I have not met, I am quite surprised that most of them recognized me. I heard responses like: "Hey, you look different in person." "Have you lost weight." Anyway, for those whom I have met the first time last night, I can only presume that they have been reading my blog. Many students asked for my advice to DC1 and the January program. I have answered all of them with the same theme of taking things in stride. But let me reiterate the main points of my advice on this blog:

• The January program is first and foremost about cohort building and getting acclimatized at MIT.
• Don't burn yourself out by spending too much time on the Design Challenges.
• DC1 should be fun not punishing. Learn to work smart not hard.
• As far as designing a winning robot, be creative and keep things simple. You will be amazed how effective a simple design can be.
• Work as a team. Don't be a hero trying to do more than your teammates - it is not worth it.
• Sure, there are free loaders, but you will find many more outstanding people during the January program. The relationships that you establish in this initial period will stay with you for the rest of the program. People who are apathetic to networking and team-building are missing an important part of the experience.

1/5/2006 12:27:33 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

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School

After 2 1/2 weeks of reruns, the new season of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart was finally aired on Comedy Central last night. Yay!!! Looks like my nightly routine of watching the Daily Show is back...

In closing, here's a really funny footage that was recently shown on the Daily Show.

1/5/2006 12:35:41 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [1]

The Daily Show

Starting today I will be actively participating in MIT IAP. I am taking 2 for-credit courses - Electrochemical Processes of Materials and Graduate Writing Workshop. As a TPP student, I have to take the graduate writing exam which was administered to most incoming graduate students at MIT (oddly enough not to MBA and SDM students) at the beginning of each Fall semester. I received a decent grade and was not required to take the writing workshop. Nonetheless, I am going to take it since I will be using this class as a motivation factor to writing my thesis proposal. It is also a good opportunity to have my writing critiqued by a writing instructor.

My motivation for taking Electrochemical process is to understand the fundamentals of electrochemistry and how fuel cell or other new novel electrochemical processes in the industry work. This class should complement my knowledge on material science and nanotechnology that I plan to accumulate while I am at MIT. Besides I have heard that Prof. Sadoway is an accessible and animated professor. I am looking forward to this class. The first class starts next week but being an accelerated course, the students were already given assignments to work on earlier today. We were instructed to invest several hours to reading the textbook in advance of a lecture. The textbook, however, isn't cheap - it costs $120 (shipping included) from Amazon.com. Thinking smart, I checked the MIT library website for that book and found 2 copies available. I scrambled to the library to pick the book up. 15 minutes later, I found that they were all gone from the library. At the self where the 2 books were supposedly placed, I can clearly see an empty space of about 2 books wide in an otherwise untouched section of the self. Darn it, someone beat me to it. I eventually settled for a brand new one from Amazon.com.

1/4/2006 10:30:36 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [1]

School

I didn't get care to blog the last couple of days because I was busy making improvements and cleaning in my apartment. I wasn't particularly busy but I wasn't constantly on the computer or the Internet so the motivation to blog was nominal. As the house work dwindles down, I see myself settling into a more or less the same student routine. This means that I will start to blog more regularly.

1/4/2006 5:28:09 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

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Blog

After years of celebrating New Year's Day overseas or with a bang, I decided to just have a good dinner with a few friends at Rendezvous, a new restaurant in Central Square, and then just lay low by staying at home for the countdown. The truth is that since school ended, I have really enjoyed doing little and taking it easy. I know it sound anti-social; but for a change, keeping a low profile is great. This also explains why I haven't been blogging much. Apart from being lazy, there really aren't any new insights (I have not been reading or thinking) or interesting stories to share. :-(

This year, there will be no New Year resolutions for me. I figured that I (or anyone) don't really keep my resolutions anyway because by the end of the first month I realize that it is all about "everything in moderation". Happy New Year everyone.

1/1/2006 2:13:40 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

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Personal

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of the devastating tsunami that laid waste to coastal communities around the Indian Ocean. I was in Phuket, Thailand a year ago. I recall blue-sky and perfect temperature - relatively dry and mild for a tropical country - just before the tsunami struck. Seriously, I was paradise. Then the wave came and everything in this path was razed to the ground. I was farther inland and was able to run to higher ground quickly. Earlier on, my group that I was with had contemplated going to the beach. Had my group taken the path to the beach that day, I am not sure if I would be alive today. You can read the full story here. For now, let us mark the anniversary by observing a minute of silence in memory of the victims of the tsunami disaster.

12/26/2005 12:21:47 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [1]

Personal

Moving is a time consuming undertaking and I hate doing it with a passion. Yet, I have moved twice this year. I was overconfident and made a miscalculated decision to move earlier this year - just don't ask why I did what I did. Nonetheless, I couldn't have asked for a better time to move than today. There was absolutely no problem getting a moving truck and parking it right outside the apartment building. Best of all, today's spring-like climate was perfect for moving - not too cold, not too warm. I also have helpers, who are essential to a successful move. Thanks to Michelle, Milt, and Brian B., we were able to transfer all my stuff over to the destination in record time. Thanks guys.

Afterwards, Michelle, Brian B., and I went to Michelle's family's house in Reading for Christmas dinner. It was great to finally meet Michelle's family after hearing so much about them. This year's Christmas movie at Michelle's family was Fantastic Four. The movie, like any superhero comic adapted movie, has enough entertaining value to keep me occupied while I digest my Christmas dinner but I don't think I would rent the movie on my own - you seen one, you seen them all. Nevertheless, the food was delicious and time spent at the Hayes was great. Well, it's almost (or past) midnight now. So merry Christmas everyone.

12/25/2005 12:01:45 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [3]

Personal

I am a huge fan of Ikea as I like furniture that is affordable and has modern design appeal. In the past years, I have driven over 150 miles to Connecticut and New York to visit the Ikea stores in those states. I am very excited to finally learn that an Ikea store has opened within a 20 minute drive from my house.

Last night, Camille and I, along with his dad and brother who are visiting the States from France went to the newly opened Ikea store in Stoughton. After hearing that traffic to the Stoughton Ikea store has virtually come to a standstill in the first 2 days of its opening on November 9th, I anticipated a similar experience last night especially during the peak of Christmas shopping rush. On the contrary, my first trip to the Stoughton Ikea store was the most pleasant experience ever. There were no traffic around the store. in fact, we found a parking spot right next to the entrance. With very few customers shopping that night I was able to easily browse through the merchandise in the store. Best of all, there were absolutely no checkout lines. I went straight to the checkout counter. Overall, I really like the Stoughton store. The place is huge and the merchandise are well organized. Knowing that the store is open till 10pm and that there are very few people during the week, I am going to start shopping at Ikea after 7pm.

12/23/2005 12:26:29 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [3]

Personal