Re: EEStor Patent(was: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline)
A maximum speed of 25mph(40kph) is kinda slow even for city driving. Harry http://tyler.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2006/3/29 http://www.feelgoodcars.com/
Re: EEStor Patent(was: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline)
-Original Message- From: Murray Nightingale check out article on the web site Clean Break Scroll down to March 29th 2006 post. Sorry I cant give you the link. By the way, Feel Good Car mentioned in the bolg is a public company on the Canadian Stock exchange( the venture exchange) ticker znn. http://tyler.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2006/3/29 http://www.feelgoodcars.com/ ___ Try the New Netscape Mail Today! Virtually Spam-Free | More Storage | Import Your Contact List http://mail.netscape.com
Re: EEStor Patent(was: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline)
In reply to [EMAIL PROTECTED]'s message of Fri, 07 Apr 2006 14:02:19 -0400: Hi, [snip] -Original Message- From: Murray Nightingale check out article on the web site Clean Break Scroll down to March 29th 2006 post. Sorry I cant give you the link. By the way, Feel Good Car mentioned in the bolg is a public company on the Canadian Stock exchange( the venture exchange) ticker znn. http://tyler.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2006/3/29 http://www.feelgoodcars.com/ Anyone foolish enough to link up with this idiot of car maker will probably go broke. The feelgood car, has got to be one of the ugliest creations I have ever had the misfortune to set eyes on. If they sell *any* with the new battery, it will be despite the design of the vehicle, and solely because people are desperate to get hold of *anything* with the new battery in it. EEStor Inc. couldn't have picked a worse partner. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://users.bigpond.net.au/rvanspaa/ Competition provides the motivation, Cooperation provides the means.
Re: EEStor Patent(was: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline)
-Original Message- From: Robin van Spaandonk Anyone foolish enough to link up with this idiot of car maker will probably go broke. Chill, Robin. They are the only game in town (at least in NA) at the moment. We have a community here in the Atlanta metropolitan area called Peachtree City where people get around in golf carts. It is actually a nice place to live. I have yet to see what was shown at the EEStor open house. They are not yet web active . . . unless they sell T-Shirts. g (baby steps . . . baby steps) I think EEStor was looking for a demonstration unit. They probably dumped the LA battery for the bettery. I suspect it made them look quite good compared to the battery. Terry ___ Try the New Netscape Mail Today! Virtually Spam-Free | More Storage | Import Your Contact List http://mail.netscape.com
Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
- Original Message - From: Chris Zell Where can we go beyond lithium? ... That's why the ultracap approach is so exciting - it's a whole new way to fix the energy storage problem. Here is a slant on the bettery (better-battery technology) that you will likely hear nowhere else. That could be because: 1) it is wrong, or 2) there is a fair amount of intentional disinformation out there, or 3) both Ultracapacitors will help - but are probably only half the long-term answer to the bettery (better battery) ... in that there is an underappreciated synergy between the capacitor and battery - the so-called bat-cap. This is more than semantics - and more than 'just' a combination of two different and distinct electrical parts. You have to merge the two in the design process itself to get the synergy. The idea is that the cap layer (thin and planar) carries/stores the negative charge while the electrochemical ions of the battery carry/store the positive. The result is somewhere in between either device, but it does require an electrolyte, unlike the cap, and the best way that you can merge the two dissimilarities is to go with many thin flat layers using a solid electrolyte. Many people who have analyzed the EEStor patent missed this key point (mainly because the patent is artfully written to throw out a number of red herrings). Everyone on the cutting edge of batteries these days seems to be throwing out false-leads ... why? for one thing - basically, all of the important patents expired years ago (or are about to expire now). Now we are down to improvements disguised as breakthroughs. There is a good argument that lithium, as a charge carrier, is far from ideal - even if it were cheap. And it is very expensive. Even the present demand for small batteries for computers and cell-phones has pushed the price of large capacity lithium way too high for practical automobile transportation. Plus lithium has a molecular weight of 7 and only one oxidation or reduction state while carbon, which is a thousand times cheaper (literally) as a commodity item, and has a molecular weight of 12 - less than double but triple the number of *usable* oxidation or reduction states (all four are not usable). Less voltage available per cell - but - all in all, for charge-retention per unit weight and cost, carbon is preferable to any other material, especially for the negative charge carrier (as an ultra-cap): http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/batteries-0208.html In terms of cost/weight per stored charge - for the positive side, there is a good case of sodium. which is also low density, cheap, ubiquitous and - best of all ! - there is available a well-engineered (courtesy of FMC forty years ago) but largely ignored solid electrolyte - beta alumina: http://scienceservice.si.edu/001023.htm This concept of sodium used with a solid electrolyte is almost always mentioned in the context of NAS - or sodium sulfur, but I have wondered for a long time why this could not broadened and merged into the bat-cap category. IOW the two positive face-surfaces of the thin (sandwiched planar) cap (the negative terminal) substitute for the sulfur of the NAS, drawing sodium ions physically through the solid electrolyte on charging. This might require some kind of bellows type expansion mechanism between the layers. If the negative charge carrier is a layer of activated carbon (as in the MIT patent) then in effect you have cut the cost and weight of the NAS in half. Before it was already in the same weight per charge category as lithium - at a tenth the cost but with one major drawback - which has kept it from use as a small battery (and out of mass production). The problem remains that beta alumina needs to be warm (450 K) to conduct sodium ions, and even though this situation has been remedied by a few hundred degrees since Ford gave up on the project, there are practical solutions. (hint: you always have plenty of waste heat with a hybrid). I got an inkling description of a prototype NAS battery setup yesterday that will blow the socks off of anything currently available for battery power, including lithium and hydrides. This WILL happen in the next few years, even in the face of budget cuts, but - sadly because of lack of cooperation and the free-market forces involved - that which is on the cutting edge today (in at least a dozen labs) can be easily improved on if they all were to share technology... (this in the opinion of an outsider who would like to have some EEStor shares, regardless of the fact that they missed a few things). Jones
RE: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
I have feared that, perhaps, we have encountered fundamental problems with trying to squeeze more energy density and low cost efficiency out of an electrochemical process such as batteries depend on. Where can we go beyond lithium? That's why the ultracap approach is so exciting - it's a whole new way to fix the energy storage problem. -Original Message- From: Jed Rothwell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 6:07 PM To: vortex-L@eskimo.com Subject: RE: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline Zell, Chris wrote: This lack of additional generating capacity need is partly why a Really Good Battery would have such a dramatic effect on society. You create electric cars that run much cheaper per mile without much need for additional fossil fuel generator use. Indeed, I think that such a device would encourage an explosion of alternative development that would quickly challenge utilities fossil fuel use. Don't forget, Chris: it works the other way too. Sometimes superior technology creates the opportunity, and sometimes opportunity gives rise to superior technology. This is what is happening now with batteries. We do not have Really Good Batteries but we do have Considerably Improved Batteries, such as the latest generation that are going into hybrid cars and the upcoming plug-in hybrid cars. Hundreds of thousands of hybrid cars have been manufactured and this has created a large market for improved batteries, and a flood of RD funding. This, in turn, may eventually give rise to radically improved versions and the Holy Grail you speak of: the Really Good Battery. Batteries also improved over the last 20 years thanks to the demand for cell phones and portable computers. Persistent demand and a flood of RD funding will not produce a radical breakthrough such as cold fusion. That sort of thing only comes along once every century or so, and it is the product of genius with no connection to the quotidian world of money and business. (Believe me, CF researchers live in a mental space light years away from what usually passes for reality.) But RD funding will produce incremental improvements, and that may be enough to produce the Really Good Battery. Incremental improvements brought us microprocessors with 100 million components and 20 GB hard disks that fit into your pocket. Such things would have seemed utterly incredible 30 years ago -- to me, anyway. Yet they did not require any fundamental or surprising discoveries, just persistent slogging and one small improvement after another. - Jed
Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
I agree, progress in this field can't be incremental. The main issue with electrochemical batteries (lithium or whatever they might come up with in the future) is cost in the long run due to limited life (in number of recharges). A dry parallel plate type capacitor such as the EEstor device if it really works would last for ages (millions of recharges vs hundreds). We shouldn't get too excited though, people have been known to make extraordinary claims only intended for investors, I am not saying this is the case for EEstor and I certainly hope it isn't :) Michel - Original Message - From: Zell, Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 3:34 PM Subject: RE: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline I have feared that, perhaps, we have encountered fundamental problems with trying to squeeze more energy density and low cost efficiency out of an electrochemical process such as batteries depend on. Where can we go beyond lithium? That's why the ultracap approach is so exciting - it's a whole new way to fix the energy storage problem. -Original Message- From: Jed Rothwell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 6:07 PM To: vortex-L@eskimo.com Subject: RE: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline Zell, Chris wrote: This lack of additional generating capacity need is partly why a Really Good Battery would have such a dramatic effect on society. You create electric cars that run much cheaper per mile without much need for additional fossil fuel generator use. Indeed, I think that such a device would encourage an explosion of alternative development that would quickly challenge utilities fossil fuel use. Don't forget, Chris: it works the other way too. Sometimes superior technology creates the opportunity, and sometimes opportunity gives rise to superior technology. This is what is happening now with batteries. We do not have Really Good Batteries but we do have Considerably Improved Batteries, such as the latest generation that are going into hybrid cars and the upcoming plug-in hybrid cars. Hundreds of thousands of hybrid cars have been manufactured and this has created a large market for improved batteries, and a flood of RD funding. This, in turn, may eventually give rise to radically improved versions and the Holy Grail you speak of: the Really Good Battery. Batteries also improved over the last 20 years thanks to the demand for cell phones and portable computers. Persistent demand and a flood of RD funding will not produce a radical breakthrough such as cold fusion. That sort of thing only comes along once every century or so, and it is the product of genius with no connection to the quotidian world of money and business. (Believe me, CF researchers live in a mental space light years away from what usually passes for reality.) But RD funding will produce incremental improvements, and that may be enough to produce the Really Good Battery. Incremental improvements brought us microprocessors with 100 million components and 20 GB hard disks that fit into your pocket. Such things would have seemed utterly incredible 30 years ago -- to me, anyway. Yet they did not require any fundamental or surprising discoveries, just persistent slogging and one small improvement after another. - Jed
Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
Michel Jullian wrote: I couldn't agree more about CF, I am all for it, that's why I get so frustrated that CF issues aren't addressed a bit faster and with more efficiency, do we want to see this thing working in our lifetime I wonder? That all depends on politics. If we could persuade the public that CF is real, speed and efficiency of the research would increase by a factor about 100,000. I am not exaggerating; based on the history of airplanes and transistors, that is roughly how many more people and how much more funding would come into the field. If one or two breakthroughs are made, and a practical cell begins to emerge, there will soon be more progress every month than there has been over the last 10 years. - Jed
Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
That's why I think videos of working experiments which would make nice stories for TV should be taken. Michel - Original Message - From: Jed Rothwell [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-L@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 4:00 PM Subject: Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline Michel Jullian wrote: I couldn't agree more about CF, I am all for it, that's why I get so frustrated that CF issues aren't addressed a bit faster and with more efficiency, do we want to see this thing working in our lifetime I wonder? That all depends on politics. If we could persuade the public that CF is real, speed and efficiency of the research would increase by a factor about 100,000. I am not exaggerating; based on the history of airplanes and transistors, that is roughly how many more people and how much more funding would come into the field. If one or two breakthroughs are made, and a practical cell begins to emerge, there will soon be more progress every month than there has been over the last 10 years. - Jed
Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
From what I've seen on this topic, no one has suggested putting a high efficiency battery (comparable to the one in your vehicle) or other storage device in your garage and charging it with a rooftop solar panel, windmill (this was done down on the farm in the 1930s), waste heat device, then charge your vehicle from it while you are on rest mode. Then there are piped-in-hydrogen fuel cells on the horizon also. The Eiffel Tower could sport a windmill on top, Michel. :-) Fred Michel Jullian wrote. I agree, progress in this field can't be incremental. The main issue with electrochemical batteries (lithium or whatever they might come up with in the future) is cost in the long run due to limited life (in number of recharges). A dry parallel plate type capacitor such as the EEstor device if it really works would last for ages (millions of recharges vs hundreds). We shouldn't get too excited though, people have been known to make extraordinary claims only intended for investors, I am not saying this is the case for EEstor and I certainly hope it isn't :) Michel - Original Message - From: Zell, Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 3:34 PM Subject: RE: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline I have feared that, perhaps, we have encountered fundamental problems with trying to squeeze more energy density and low cost efficiency out of an electrochemical process such as batteries depend on. Where can we go beyond lithium? That's why the ultracap approach is so exciting - it's a whole new way to fix the energy storage problem. -Original Message- From: Jed Rothwell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 6:07 PM To: vortex-L@eskimo.com Subject: RE: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline Zell, Chris wrote: This lack of additional generating capacity need is partly why a Really Good Battery would have such a dramatic effect on society. You create electric cars that run much cheaper per mile without much need for additional fossil fuel generator use. Indeed, I think that such a device would encourage an explosion of alternative development that would quickly challenge utilities fossil fuel use. Don't forget, Chris: it works the other way too. Sometimes superior technology creates the opportunity, and sometimes opportunity gives rise to superior technology. This is what is happening now with batteries. We do not have Really Good Batteries but we do have Considerably Improved Batteries, such as the latest generation that are going into hybrid cars and the upcoming plug-in hybrid cars. Hundreds of thousands of hybrid cars have been manufactured and this has created a large market for improved batteries, and a flood of RD funding. This, in turn, may eventually give rise to radically improved versions and the Holy Grail you speak of: the Really Good Battery. Batteries also improved over the last 20 years thanks to the demand for cell phones and portable computers. Persistent demand and a flood of RD funding will not produce a radical breakthrough such as cold fusion. That sort of thing only comes along once every century or so, and it is the product of genius with no connection to the quotidian world of money and business. (Believe me, CF researchers live in a mental space light years away from what usually passes for reality.) But RD funding will produce incremental improvements, and that may be enough to produce the Really Good Battery. Incremental improvements brought us microprocessors with 100 million components and 20 GB hard disks that fit into your pocket. Such things would have seemed utterly incredible 30 years ago -- to me, anyway. Yet they did not require any fundamental or surprising discoveries, just persistent slogging and one small improvement after another. - Jed
Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
Any way you slice it, Michel battery storage of electricity off the Grid is the most practical way to store Pipeline Hydrogen for Vehicle use. Fred Michel Jullian wrote: Well no the Eiffel Tower couldn't support a windmill on top as it already supports TV emitters, and your scheme would make TV emissions stroboscopic at a frequency depending on wind speed :) A storage device in the garage will be recommended indeed, but it's not practical with electrochemistry because of the lifetime issues I mentioned. Ultracaps would be fine though, and would allow recharging in a matter of minutes i.e. as fast as refilling your gas tank. That's how EEstor envisions refill stations BTW, lots of ultracaps. BTW Fred (and other distinguished vorts) I would be interested in your opinion on the EEStor patent I discovered a few days ago http://appft1.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html (copy-paste app number 0040071944, I haven't found how to link directly to the patent) Michel - Original Message - From: Frederick Sparber [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 4:37 PM Subject: Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline From what I've seen on this topic, no one has suggested putting a high efficiency battery (comparable to the one in your vehicle) or other storage device in your garage and charging it with a rooftop solar panel, windmill (this was done down on the farm in the 1930s), waste heat device, then charge your vehicle from it while you are on rest mode. Then there are piped-in-hydrogen fuel cells on the horizon also. The Eiffel Tower could sport a windmill on top, Michel. :-) Fred Michel Jullian wrote. I agree, progress in this field can't be incremental. The main issue with electrochemical batteries (lithium or whatever they might come up with in the future) is cost in the long run due to limited life (in number of recharges). A dry parallel plate type capacitor such as the EEstor device if it really works would last for ages (millions of recharges vs hundreds). We shouldn't get too excited though, people have been known to make extraordinary claims only intended for investors, I am not saying this is the case for EEstor and I certainly hope it isn't :) Michel - Original Message - From: Zell, Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 3:34 PM Subject: RE: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline I have feared that, perhaps, we have encountered fundamental problems with trying to squeeze more energy density and low cost efficiency out of an electrochemical process such as batteries depend on. Where can we go beyond lithium? That's why the ultracap approach is so exciting - it's a whole new way to fix the energy storage problem. -Original Message- From: Jed Rothwell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 6:07 PM To: vortex-L@eskimo.com Subject: RE: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline Zell, Chris wrote: This lack of additional generating capacity need is partly why a Really Good Battery would have such a dramatic effect on society. You create electric cars that run much cheaper per mile without much need for additional fossil fuel generator use. Indeed, I think that such a device would encourage an explosion of alternative development that would quickly challenge utilities fossil fuel use. Don't forget, Chris: it works the other way too. Sometimes superior technology creates the opportunity, and sometimes opportunity gives rise to superior technology. This is what is happening now with batteries. We do not have Really Good Batteries but we do have Considerably Improved Batteries, such as the latest generation that are going into hybrid cars and the upcoming plug-in hybrid cars. Hundreds of thousands of hybrid cars have been manufactured and this has created a large market for improved batteries, and a flood of RD funding. This, in turn, may eventually give rise to radically improved versions and the Holy Grail you speak of: the Really Good Battery. Batteries also improved over the last 20 years thanks to the demand for cell phones and portable computers. Persistent demand and a flood of RD funding will not produce a radical breakthrough such as cold fusion. That sort of thing only comes along once every century or so, and it is the product of genius with no connection to the quotidian world of money and business. (Believe me, CF researchers live in a mental space light years away from what usually passes for reality.) But RD funding will produce incremental improvements, and that may be enough to produce the Really Good Battery. Incremental improvements brought us microprocessors with 100 million components and 20 GB hard
Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
(reply pb not gone Fred) Ok if by battery you mean ultracaps :) Wait, what do you mean by Pipeline Hydrogen? Michel - Original Message - From: Frederick Sparber [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 6:52 PM Subject: Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline Any way you slice it, Michel battery storage of electricity off the Grid is the most practical way to store Pipeline Hydrogen for Vehicle use. Fred Michel Jullian wrote: Well no the Eiffel Tower couldn't support a windmill on top as it already supports TV emitters, and your scheme would make TV emissions stroboscopic at a frequency depending on wind speed :) A storage device in the garage will be recommended indeed, but it's not practical with electrochemistry because of the lifetime issues I mentioned. Ultracaps would be fine though, and would allow recharging in a matter of minutes i.e. as fast as refilling your gas tank. That's how EEstor envisions refill stations BTW, lots of ultracaps. BTW Fred (and other distinguished vorts) I would be interested in your opinion on the EEStor patent I discovered a few days ago http://appft1.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html (copy-paste app number 0040071944, I haven't found how to link directly to the patent) Michel - Original Message - From: Frederick Sparber [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 4:37 PM Subject: Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline From what I've seen on this topic, no one has suggested putting a high efficiency battery (comparable to the one in your vehicle) or other storage device in your garage and charging it with a rooftop solar panel, windmill (this was done down on the farm in the 1930s), waste heat device, then charge your vehicle from it while you are on rest mode. Then there are piped-in-hydrogen fuel cells on the horizon also. The Eiffel Tower could sport a windmill on top, Michel. :-) Fred Michel Jullian wrote. I agree, progress in this field can't be incremental. The main issue with electrochemical batteries (lithium or whatever they might come up with in the future) is cost in the long run due to limited life (in number of recharges). A dry parallel plate type capacitor such as the EEstor device if it really works would last for ages (millions of recharges vs hundreds). We shouldn't get too excited though, people have been known to make extraordinary claims only intended for investors, I am not saying this is the case for EEstor and I certainly hope it isn't :) Michel - Original Message - From: Zell, Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 3:34 PM Subject: RE: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline I have feared that, perhaps, we have encountered fundamental problems with trying to squeeze more energy density and low cost efficiency out of an electrochemical process such as batteries depend on. Where can we go beyond lithium? That's why the ultracap approach is so exciting - it's a whole new way to fix the energy storage problem. -Original Message- From: Jed Rothwell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 6:07 PM To: vortex-L@eskimo.com Subject: RE: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline Zell, Chris wrote: This lack of additional generating capacity need is partly why a Really Good Battery would have such a dramatic effect on society. You create electric cars that run much cheaper per mile without much need for additional fossil fuel generator use. Indeed, I think that such a device would encourage an explosion of alternative development that would quickly challenge utilities fossil fuel use. Don't forget, Chris: it works the other way too. Sometimes superior technology creates the opportunity, and sometimes opportunity gives rise to superior technology. This is what is happening now with batteries. We do not have Really Good Batteries but we do have Considerably Improved Batteries, such as the latest generation that are going into hybrid cars and the upcoming plug-in hybrid cars. Hundreds of thousands of hybrid cars have been manufactured and this has created a large market for improved batteries, and a flood of RD funding. This, in turn, may eventually give rise to radically improved versions and the Holy Grail you speak of: the Really Good Battery. Batteries also improved over the last 20 years thanks to the demand for cell phones and portable computers. Persistent demand and a flood of RD funding will not produce a radical breakthrough such as cold fusion. That sort of thing only comes along once every century or so, and it is the product of genius with no connection to the quotidian world of money and business. (Believe me, CF researchers live in a mental space light years away
Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
Michel Jullian wrote. Ok if by battery you mean ultracaps :) Wait, what do you mean by Pipeline Hydrogen? Hydrogen produced on a large scale by electrolysis or coal and biomass gasifican etc, delivered to the user by pipeline. Production based on demand eliminates the economically elusive cheap/safe storage solution. Fred Michel - Original Message - From: Frederick Sparber [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 6:52 PM Subject: Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline Any way you slice it, Michel battery storage of electricity off the Grid is the most practical way to store Pipeline Hydrogen for Vehicle use. Fred Michel Jullian wrote: Well no the Eiffel Tower couldn't support a windmill on top as it already supports TV emitters, and your scheme would make TV emissions stroboscopic at a frequency depending on wind speed :) A storage device in the garage will be recommended indeed, but it's not practical with electrochemistry because of the lifetime issues I mentioned. Ultracaps would be fine though, and would allow recharging in a matter of minutes i.e. as fast as refilling your gas tank. That's how EEstor envisions refill stations BTW, lots of ultracaps. BTW Fred (and other distinguished vorts) I would be interested in your opinion on the EEStor patent I discovered a few days ago http://appft1.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html (copy-paste app number 0040071944, I haven't found how to link directly to the patent) Michel - Original Message - From: Frederick Sparber [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 4:37 PM Subject: Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline From what I've seen on this topic, no one has suggested putting a high efficiency battery (comparable to the one in your vehicle) or other storage device in your garage and charging it with a rooftop solar panel, windmill (this was done down on the farm in the 1930s), waste heat device, then charge your vehicle from it while you are on rest mode. Then there are piped-in-hydrogen fuel cells on the horizon also. The Eiffel Tower could sport a windmill on top, Michel. :-) Fred Michel Jullian wrote. I agree, progress in this field can't be incremental. The main issue with electrochemical batteries (lithium or whatever they might come up with in the future) is cost in the long run due to limited life (in number of recharges). A dry parallel plate type capacitor such as the EEstor device if it really works would last for ages (millions of recharges vs hundreds). We shouldn't get too excited though, people have been known to make extraordinary claims only intended for investors, I am not saying this is the case for EEstor and I certainly hope it isn't :) Michel - Original Message - From: Zell, Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 3:34 PM Subject: RE: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline I have feared that, perhaps, we have encountered fundamental problems with trying to squeeze more energy density and low cost efficiency out of an electrochemical process such as batteries depend on. Where can we go beyond lithium? That's why the ultracap approach is so exciting - it's a whole new way to fix the energy storage problem. -Original Message- From: Jed Rothwell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 6:07 PM To: vortex-L@eskimo.com Subject: RE: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline Zell, Chris wrote: This lack of additional generating capacity need is partly why a Really Good Battery would have such a dramatic effect on society. You create electric cars that run much cheaper per mile without much need for additional fossil fuel generator use. Indeed, I think that such a device would encourage an explosion of alternative development that would quickly challenge utilities fossil fuel use. Don't forget, Chris: it works the other way too. Sometimes superior technology creates the opportunity, and sometimes opportunity gives rise to superior technology. This is what is happening now with batteries. We do not have Really Good Batteries but we do have Considerably Improved Batteries, such as the latest generation that are going into hybrid cars and the upcoming plug-in hybrid cars. Hundreds of thousands of hybrid cars have been manufactured and this has created a large market for improved batteries, and a flood of RD funding. This, in turn, may eventually give rise to radically improved versions and the Holy Grail you speak of: the Really Good Battery. Batteries also improved
EEStor Patent(was: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline)
-Original Message- From: Michel Jullian BTW Fred (and other distinguished vorts) I would be interested in your opinion on the EEStor patent I discovered a few days ago http://appft1.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html (copy-paste app number 0040071944, I haven't found how to link directly to the patent) http://tinyurl.com/fmwkv Keith should love the patent app. It has lots of chemistry. T ___ Try the New Netscape Mail Today! Virtually Spam-Free | More Storage | Import Your Contact List http://mail.netscape.com
RE: EEStor Patent(was: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline)
Hi Ham, Yes, I did like the app, and had a few thoughts about it. K. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 2:28 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: EEStor Patent(was: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline) -Original Message- From: Michel Jullian BTW Fred (and other distinguished vorts) I would be interested in your opinion on the EEStor patent I discovered a few days ago http://appft1.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html (copy-paste app number 0040071944, I haven't found how to link directly to the patent) http://tinyurl.com/fmwkv Keith should love the patent app. It has lots of chemistry. T ___ Try the New Netscape Mail Today! Virtually Spam-Free | More Storage | Import Your Contact List http://mail.netscape.com
Re: EEStor Patent(was: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline)
Hi K, do you think it can work? (you seem to have a reply-to problem just like Fred BTW) Michel - Original Message - From: Keith Nagel [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 8:55 PM Subject: RE: EEStor Patent(was: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline) Hi Ham, Yes, I did like the app, and had a few thoughts about it. K. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 2:28 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: EEStor Patent(was: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline) -Original Message- From: Michel Jullian BTW Fred (and other distinguished vorts) I would be interested in your opinion on the EEStor patent I discovered a few days ago http://appft1.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html (copy-paste app number 0040071944, I haven't found how to link directly to the patent) http://tinyurl.com/fmwkv Keith should love the patent app. It has lots of chemistry. T ___ Try the New Netscape Mail Today! Virtually Spam-Free | More Storage | Import Your Contact List http://mail.netscape.com
Re: EEStor Patent(was: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline)
-Original Message- From: Keith Nagel Hi Ham, Yes, I did like the app, and had a few thoughts about it. At 0.5 kWh per mile that's 104 miles for the 52 kWh, 336 lb battery assuming linear discharge and total depletion. Is the battery heavier when charged? g Terry ___ Try the New Netscape Mail Today! Virtually Spam-Free | More Storage | Import Your Contact List http://mail.netscape.com
Re: EEStor Patent(was: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline)
104 miles range isn't much! Are you sure about the 0.5 kWh per mile for an electric car? - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 9:27 PM Subject: Re: EEStor Patent(was: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline) -Original Message- From: Keith Nagel Hi Ham, Yes, I did like the app, and had a few thoughts about it. At 0.5 kWh per mile that's 104 miles for the 52 kWh, 336 lb battery assuming linear discharge and total depletion. Is the battery heavier when charged? g Terry ___ Try the New Netscape Mail Today! Virtually Spam-Free | More Storage | Import Your Contact List http://mail.netscape.com
Re: EEStor Patent(was: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline)
-Original Message- From: Michel Jullian 104 miles range isn't much! Are you sure about the 0.5 kWh per mile for an electric car? Uh, the first message in this thread: http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l%40eskimo.com/msg12220.html ___ Try the New Netscape Mail Today! Virtually Spam-Free | More Storage | Import Your Contact List http://mail.netscape.com
RE: EEStor Patent(was: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline)
Wow, hey Fred, we have something in common. BTW, how's the house coming? You get any bites yet? K. -Original Message- From: Michel Jullian [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 3:02 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: EEStor Patent(was: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline) Hi K, do you think it can work? (you seem to have a reply-to problem just like Fred BTW) Michel - Original Message - From: Keith Nagel [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 8:55 PM Subject: RE: EEStor Patent(was: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline) Hi Ham, Yes, I did like the app, and had a few thoughts about it. K. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 2:28 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: EEStor Patent(was: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline) -Original Message- From: Michel Jullian BTW Fred (and other distinguished vorts) I would be interested in your opinion on the EEStor patent I discovered a few days ago http://appft1.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html (copy-paste app number 0040071944, I haven't found how to link directly to the patent) http://tinyurl.com/fmwkv Keith should love the patent app. It has lots of chemistry. T ___ Try the New Netscape Mail Today! Virtually Spam-Free | More Storage | Import Your Contact List http://mail.netscape.com
Re: EEStor Patent(was: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline)
Thanks, sorry I have caught the thread en route, I should have looked it up myself. Jed/Wikipedia said 0.3 to 0.5 kWh in fact, 52 kWh would be nearly acceptable for say 0.3 kWh/mile on the road (170miles=300km range), and 0.5 kWh in town, 104miles in town as you said. The thing is with this battery you can fill up at a filling station in a few mn, with a lithium battery you would be stranded half way of where you're going for hours, so this really would be an enabling technology for the all-electric car. Michel - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 10:44 PM Subject: Re: EEStor Patent(was: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline) -Original Message- From: Michel Jullian 104 miles range isn't much! Are you sure about the 0.5 kWh per mile for an electric car? Uh, the first message in this thread: http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l%40eskimo.com/msg12220.html ___ Try the New Netscape Mail Today! Virtually Spam-Free | More Storage | Import Your Contact List http://mail.netscape.com
Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
In reply to Jed Rothwell's message of Thu, 16 Mar 2006 18:45:30 -0500: Hi, [snip] States with significant wind resources are thousands of miles away, and you cannot transmit electricity that far. Georgia has no significant renewable energy resources. It is a shame you cannot transmit electricity 2000 miles because if you could, we could establish a massive solar thermal plant in a 100 square mile area of the Southwest desert, and generate all the electricity we now consume. Or we could do the same trick with wind farms in North Dakota. Alas, it is impossible. Someday high temperature superconducting wires or hydrogen pipelines may allow electricity to be transmitted across the continent. [snip] Georgia also has it's own renewable resource just off the coast, in the form of the Gulf Stream. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://users.bigpond.net.au/rvanspaa/ Competition provides the motivation, Cooperation provides the means.
Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
Here is a simple comparison of electric vehicle versus gasoline vehicle cost per mile. Gasoline vehicle Gasoline cost: $2.36 (EIA average for U.S. as of 3/13/06) Average vehicle mpg: 22 mpg (DoE 2002 data) Cost per mile: 10.7 cents Prius gasoline mode: 45 mpg (Actual Atlanta in-town performance Jed's car) Cost per mile: 5.2 cents Electric vehicle (or plug-in hybrid) Electricity: 8 cents kWh Electric vehicle consumption per mile: 0.3 to 0.5 kWh (Wikipedia and other sources) Cost per mile: 2.6 cents to 4.0 cents Plug-in Prius while running as purely electric vehicle, cost per mile: ~2.6 cents * * The plug-in Prius will be an efficient electric vehicle because it is lighter than a pure electric vehicle. This is because the battery pack is smaller. That limits the range. A pure electric vehicle carries enough batteries to go 100 to 200 miles, whereas the plug-in Prius will only go 20 to 30 miles before the battery runs out and the onboard ICE powers the car normally. The assumption is that most commuters only go ~30 miles per day, so they will use mostly electricity. (At high speeds the plug-in vehicle will require both electricity and the ICE, so the cost will be a little higher than 2.6 cents/mile.) If you forget to recharge a plug-in, the only penalty will be that the cost of travel jumps up from 2.6 to 5.2 cents per mile. With a pure electric vehicle, if you forget to recharge the car stops and you are stranded. With older model electric vehicles the cost of the batteries over the life of the car was a major additional cost, but the latest batteries such as the ones in the Prius are expected to last 200,000 miles, the life of the car, and they are cheaper to start with. - Jed
Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
Jed wrote: Electricity: 8 cents kWh You're only paying 8 cents per KWH. I'm paying something like 13.4 cents per KWH. Craig Haynie (Houston)
Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
-Original Message- From: Craig Haynie You're only paying 8 cents per KWH. I'm paying something like 13.4 cents per KWH. I pay the co-op, Jackson EMC, 9.4 cents plus sales tax in the Atlanta suburbs. Keith pays Con Ed 20 cents in Brooklyn. If those ultracaps that Zell told about work out, I can sell it to Keith for 15 cents (plus a refundable deposit on the caps). g Terryu ___ Try the New Netscape Mail Today! Virtually Spam-Free | More Storage | Import Your Contact List http://mail.netscape.com
RE: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
I'll see your 13.4 cents, and raise you to 22 cents ( this includes the delivery costs, BTW ). Also, for Phil Winestone, I can appreciate your comments about counting the PV's that can fit on the head of a pin but given the insane cost I am now paying for electricity, you might plug through those calc's one more time... At the current rate I'll bet I could hire a couple of Mexicans from the nabe to pedal bicycles with generators attached and come out ahead, even including the cost of a few Modelos ( they're mixed ethanol/carbohydrate powered, you know? ) K. -Original Message- From: Craig Haynie [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 12:41 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline Jed wrote: Electricity: 8 cents kWh You're only paying 8 cents per KWH. I'm paying something like 13.4 cents per KWH. Craig Haynie (Houston)
Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
Craig Haynie wrote: You're only paying 8 cents per KWH. I'm paying something like 13.4 cents per KWH. Here is a map showing residential electric power costs in different states: http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/brochure/electricity/electricity.html The national average in 2003 was just over 8 cents. - Jed
Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
On Mar 16, 2006, at 7:55 AM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Plug-in Prius while running as purely electric vehicle, cost per mile: ~2.6 cents * We may get away with that for a while, but sooner or later the states have to find a way to pay for the road maintenance currently paid for by gas taxes. Meanwhile, the lack of road taxes on electricity is a great and automatic incentive. On Mar 16, 2006, at 10:22 AM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Craig Haynie wrote: You're only paying 8 cents per KWH. I'm paying something like 13.4 cents per KWH. Here is a map showing residential electric power costs in different states: http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/brochure/electricity/electricity.html The national average in 2003 was just over 8 cents. - Jed The above map only shows current electric prices, not the incremental cost of new electricity. It reflects much old capital invested in dams, etc. As vehicles are converted from petroleum to electric power the incremental demand will cause new the electric rates to come more closely in line nation wide. However, implementation of communication system based power company managed demand control systems for load balancing could significantly reduce power costs. A load demand control system in concert with renewable energy sources could produce dramatic long term savings. Horace Heffner
Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
Horace Heffner wrote: We may get away with that for a while, but sooner or later the states have to find a way to pay for the road maintenance currently paid for by gas taxes. Meanwhile, the lack of road taxes on electricity is a great and automatic incentive. I had not thought of that. However, the Federal road maintenance highway tax is only $.18 per gallon, or 0.8 cents per mile for the average car. You could replace it with a mileage tax based on the odometer reading, or a simple flat fee per vehicle. The above map only shows current electric prices, not the incremental cost of new electricity. It reflects much old capital invested in dams, etc. New electricity from wind power or large-scale solar in the Southwest is presently expensive but if it is developed on a large scale it will soon become dramatically cheaper. As vehicles are converted from petroleum to electric power the incremental demand will cause new the electric rates to come more closely in line nation wide. Actually, electric vehicles use such a small amount of electricity, I doubt that any additional generator capacity will be needed. Some additional fuel will be burned and fissioned, of course. Here is 2001 data from the Annual Energy Review 2002: Average annual mileage (miles per vehicle): 11,766 Miles per day: 32 Electric vehicle consumption per mile: 0.3 to 0.5 kWh (Wikipedia) Electric energy per day: 16 kWh In other words, recharging a car would be like plugging in a 1.5 kW electric room heater for just over 10 hours. If every US household did this from 9:00 p.m. until the next morning, it would put no strain on our generating capacity. It would be a problem with everyone did it at 3 p.m. a summer afternoon, but not at night. In many houses you could probably turn off a half-dozen lights and a television to save most of this power. If the car dealerships and grocery stores a few miles from my house would turn off half the lights they leave burning all night, they would save enough electricity to power every car in the County! - Jed
Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
Jed you made an excellent point here, as amazing as it may seem no additional generator capacity would be needed (if your maths are right which they seem to be). Michel - Original Message - From: Jed Rothwell [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-L@eskimo.com Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 10:28 PM Subject: Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline Horace Heffner wrote: We may get away with that for a while, but sooner or later the states have to find a way to pay for the road maintenance currently paid for by gas taxes. Meanwhile, the lack of road taxes on electricity is a great and automatic incentive. I had not thought of that. However, the Federal road maintenance highway tax is only $.18 per gallon, or 0.8 cents per mile for the average car. You could replace it with a mileage tax based on the odometer reading, or a simple flat fee per vehicle. The above map only shows current electric prices, not the incremental cost of new electricity. It reflects much old capital invested in dams, etc. New electricity from wind power or large-scale solar in the Southwest is presently expensive but if it is developed on a large scale it will soon become dramatically cheaper. As vehicles are converted from petroleum to electric power the incremental demand will cause new the electric rates to come more closely in line nation wide. Actually, electric vehicles use such a small amount of electricity, I doubt that any additional generator capacity will be needed. Some additional fuel will be burned and fissioned, of course. Here is 2001 data from the Annual Energy Review 2002: Average annual mileage (miles per vehicle): 11,766 Miles per day: 32 Electric vehicle consumption per mile: 0.3 to 0.5 kWh (Wikipedia) Electric energy per day: 16 kWh In other words, recharging a car would be like plugging in a 1.5 kW electric room heater for just over 10 hours. If every US household did this from 9:00 p.m. until the next morning, it would put no strain on our generating capacity. It would be a problem with everyone did it at 3 p.m. a summer afternoon, but not at night. In many houses you could probably turn off a half-dozen lights and a television to save most of this power. If the car dealerships and grocery stores a few miles from my house would turn off half the lights they leave burning all night, they would save enough electricity to power every car in the County! - Jed
RE: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
This lack of additional generating capacity need is partly why a Really Good Battery would have such a dramatic effect on society. You create electric cars that run much cheaper per mile without much need for additional fossil fuel generator use. Indeed, I think that such a device would encourage an explosion of alternative development that would quickly challenge utilities fossil fuel use. In their late night nightmares, I suspect that Arab nations fear such a development, as some of them take a long term view , such as the Saudis. -Original Message- From: Michel Jullian [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 5:17 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline Jed you made an excellent point here, as amazing as it may seem no additional generator capacity would be needed (if your maths are right which they seem to be). Michel - Original Message - From: Jed Rothwell [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-L@eskimo.com Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 10:28 PM Subject: Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline Horace Heffner wrote: We may get away with that for a while, but sooner or later the states have to find a way to pay for the road maintenance currently paid for by gas taxes. Meanwhile, the lack of road taxes on electricity is a great and automatic incentive. I had not thought of that. However, the Federal road maintenance highway tax is only $.18 per gallon, or 0.8 cents per mile for the average car. You could replace it with a mileage tax based on the odometer reading, or a simple flat fee per vehicle. The above map only shows current electric prices, not the incremental cost of new electricity. It reflects much old capital invested in dams, etc. New electricity from wind power or large-scale solar in the Southwest is presently expensive but if it is developed on a large scale it will soon become dramatically cheaper. As vehicles are converted from petroleum to electric power the incremental demand will cause new the electric rates to come more closely in line nation wide. Actually, electric vehicles use such a small amount of electricity, I doubt that any additional generator capacity will be needed. Some additional fuel will be burned and fissioned, of course. Here is 2001 data from the Annual Energy Review 2002: Average annual mileage (miles per vehicle): 11,766 Miles per day: 32 Electric vehicle consumption per mile: 0.3 to 0.5 kWh (Wikipedia) Electric energy per day: 16 kWh In other words, recharging a car would be like plugging in a 1.5 kW electric room heater for just over 10 hours. If every US household did this from 9:00 p.m. until the next morning, it would put no strain on our generating capacity. It would be a problem with everyone did it at 3 p.m. a summer afternoon, but not at night. In many houses you could probably turn off a half-dozen lights and a television to save most of this power. If the car dealerships and grocery stores a few miles from my house would turn off half the lights they leave burning all night, they would save enough electricity to power every car in the County! - Jed
Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
Michel Jullian wrote: Jed you made an excellent point here, as amazing as it may seem no additional generator capacity would be needed (if your maths are right which they seem to be). Actually, several authors have pointed this out and they have done more sophisticated analyses. I just ran a quick reality check to confirm them. Recharging electric automobiles with Internet connected smart meters would be an ideal application for intermittent wind generated electricity. As long as it gets done in less than 10 hours or so nobody cares whether it happens at 11 p.m. or 3 a.m. A regular 120 VAC connector is only supposed to carry 1.5 kW (although we had more powerful room heaters when I was a kid!), but you can use a heavy-duty 5 kW line such the ones for washing machines. Then you could charge the car in 3 hours when the wind blows and power is available, and cut the power when the wind stops. In Georgia we have no wind power but this would ensure that most of the electricity used to charge cars comes from nuclear power plants. - Jed
Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
There may be no wind power in Georgia, but your electricity network may be interconnected with other networks far away where there is wind power, that's the nicety of these networks (makes up for their ugliness). Now would potential US wind power be enough to recharge all US automobiles at some time or other of the night do you think? Michel - Original Message - From: Jed Rothwell [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-L@eskimo.com Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 11:45 PM Subject: Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline Michel Jullian wrote: Jed you made an excellent point here, as amazing as it may seem no additional generator capacity would be needed (if your maths are right which they seem to be). Actually, several authors have pointed this out and they have done more sophisticated analyses. I just ran a quick reality check to confirm them. Recharging electric automobiles with Internet connected smart meters would be an ideal application for intermittent wind generated electricity. As long as it gets done in less than 10 hours or so nobody cares whether it happens at 11 p.m. or 3 a.m. A regular 120 VAC connector is only supposed to carry 1.5 kW (although we had more powerful room heaters when I was a kid!), but you can use a heavy-duty 5 kW line such the ones for washing machines. Then you could charge the car in 3 hours when the wind blows and power is available, and cut the power when the wind stops. In Georgia we have no wind power but this would ensure that most of the electricity used to charge cars comes from nuclear power plants. - Jed
RE: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
Zell, Chris wrote: This lack of additional generating capacity need is partly why a Really Good Battery would have such a dramatic effect on society. You create electric cars that run much cheaper per mile without much need for additional fossil fuel generator use. Indeed, I think that such a device would encourage an explosion of alternative development that would quickly challenge utilities fossil fuel use. Don't forget, Chris: it works the other way too. Sometimes superior technology creates the opportunity, and sometimes opportunity gives rise to superior technology. This is what is happening now with batteries. We do not have Really Good Batteries but we do have Considerably Improved Batteries, such as the latest generation that are going into hybrid cars and the upcoming plug-in hybrid cars. Hundreds of thousands of hybrid cars have been manufactured and this has created a large market for improved batteries, and a flood of RD funding. This, in turn, may eventually give rise to radically improved versions and the Holy Grail you speak of: the Really Good Battery. Batteries also improved over the last 20 years thanks to the demand for cell phones and portable computers. Persistent demand and a flood of RD funding will not produce a radical breakthrough such as cold fusion. That sort of thing only comes along once every century or so, and it is the product of genius with no connection to the quotidian world of money and business. (Believe me, CF researchers live in a mental space light years away from what usually passes for reality.) But RD funding will produce incremental improvements, and that may be enough to produce the Really Good Battery. Incremental improvements brought us microprocessors with 100 million components and 20 GB hard disks that fit into your pocket. Such things would have seemed utterly incredible 30 years ago -- to me, anyway. Yet they did not require any fundamental or surprising discoveries, just persistent slogging and one small improvement after another. - Jed
Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
Indeed those 310Wh/Kg EEStor ceramic ultracaps we discussed the other day, or similar, would just make the difference between an all-gasoline and an all-electric car society. Present best Lithium Polymers with their 185Wh/Kg are just not enough, they would allow 2h autonomy only IIRC, and would be too expensive for an all-electric solution (although they are perfectly sufficient for hybrids). Michel - Original Message - From: Zell, Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 11:37 PM Subject: RE: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline This lack of additional generating capacity need is partly why a Really Good Battery would have such a dramatic effect on society. You create electric cars that run much cheaper per mile without much need for additional fossil fuel generator use. Indeed, I think that such a device would encourage an explosion of alternative development that would quickly challenge utilities fossil fuel use. In their late night nightmares, I suspect that Arab nations fear such a development, as some of them take a long term view , such as the Saudis. -Original Message- From: Michel Jullian [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 5:17 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline Jed you made an excellent point here, as amazing as it may seem no additional generator capacity would be needed (if your maths are right which they seem to be). Michel - Original Message - From: Jed Rothwell [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-L@eskimo.com Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 10:28 PM Subject: Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline Horace Heffner wrote: We may get away with that for a while, but sooner or later the states have to find a way to pay for the road maintenance currently paid for by gas taxes. Meanwhile, the lack of road taxes on electricity is a great and automatic incentive. I had not thought of that. However, the Federal road maintenance highway tax is only $.18 per gallon, or 0.8 cents per mile for the average car. You could replace it with a mileage tax based on the odometer reading, or a simple flat fee per vehicle. The above map only shows current electric prices, not the incremental cost of new electricity. It reflects much old capital invested in dams, etc. New electricity from wind power or large-scale solar in the Southwest is presently expensive but if it is developed on a large scale it will soon become dramatically cheaper. As vehicles are converted from petroleum to electric power the incremental demand will cause new the electric rates to come more closely in line nation wide. Actually, electric vehicles use such a small amount of electricity, I doubt that any additional generator capacity will be needed. Some additional fuel will be burned and fissioned, of course. Here is 2001 data from the Annual Energy Review 2002: Average annual mileage (miles per vehicle): 11,766 Miles per day: 32 Electric vehicle consumption per mile: 0.3 to 0.5 kWh (Wikipedia) Electric energy per day: 16 kWh In other words, recharging a car would be like plugging in a 1.5 kW electric room heater for just over 10 hours. If every US household did this from 9:00 p.m. until the next morning, it would put no strain on our generating capacity. It would be a problem with everyone did it at 3 p.m. a summer afternoon, but not at night. In many houses you could probably turn off a half-dozen lights and a television to save most of this power. If the car dealerships and grocery stores a few miles from my house would turn off half the lights they leave burning all night, they would save enough electricity to power every car in the County! - Jed
Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
Michel Jullian wrote: There may be no wind power in Georgia, but your electricity network may be interconnected with other networks far away where there is wind power, that's the nicety of these networks (makes up for their ugliness). States with significant wind resources are thousands of miles away, and you cannot transmit electricity that far. Georgia has no significant renewable energy resources. It is a shame you cannot transmit electricity 2000 miles because if you could, we could establish a massive solar thermal plant in a 100 square mile area of the Southwest desert, and generate all the electricity we now consume. Or we could do the same trick with wind farms in North Dakota. Alas, it is impossible. Someday high temperature superconducting wires or hydrogen pipelines may allow electricity to be transmitted across the continent. Now would potential US wind power be enough to recharge all US automobiles at some time or other of the night do you think? Potential US wind power could supply more energy than you get from burning the entire flow of oil from the Middle East. It could easily supply all of the energy consumed by everyone in North America. For that matter, so would a 200 square mile area of the desert. One hundred to replace all electricity, another 100 to replace all other sources of energy. Renewable energy such as solar and wind could easily meet all of our needs indefinitely, if only we had the technology to harness it. However, it would be thousands of times more expensive than cold fusion. (As are present day fossil fuel and uranium fission.) If we develop wind and solar power for the next 500 years, the price will fall until it is far cheaper than today's energy, but it will never fall to anything like the level that cold fusion could reach. Look at the 25 kW solar generator here: http://www.stirlingenergy.com/imagesdet.asp?type=allsolarimageID=11 This prototype costs hundreds of thousands of bucks, but look at the materials and the size of the gadget. You can imagine that after 50 years of manufacturing millions of these things the cost falls to, say, $5,000. It is no bigger or more complicated than a small automobile. That would be $200/kW, for with zero fuel cost, compared to $6,000/kW for nuclear plants (where the fuel costs practically nothing), or $2,000/kW for wind (where the fuel costs absolutely nothing). In other words, in 50 years these things could easily produce electricity far cheaper than it is today. Now think of a 25 kW cold fusion generator. After 50 years of intense development, you can imagine one the size of today's 25 kW portable generators that costs $1,000, or maybe even $500. It would have no moving parts and it would last for 30 years, or maybe 50 years. (As far as I know, thermoelectric devices in a pristine, sealed environment cannot degrade much.) The gadget would not need an electric power grid. It would work 24 hours a day, unlike the Stirling Energy 25 kW generator. It would also serve as a space heater in a cogenerator configuration. Over the life of the machine the heavy water fuel it consumes would cost a few dollars. Clearly, that would reduce the cost of energy far below the levels you could achieve with the Stirling generator. The only thing remotely comparable would be 25 kW hydroelectric generator on your own property 50 feet from your house, in a climate where the stream never freezes or dries up. Even that would call for much higher maintenance costs, and much more expensive generating equipment which would have to be replaced more often. - Jed
Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
I wrote: Now think of a 25 kW cold fusion generator. After 50 years of intense development, you can imagine one the size of today's 25 kW portable generators that costs $1,000, or maybe even $500. In a walk. An ICE costs ~40/kW of capacity, or $750 for 25 kW. After hundreds of millions of CF generators have been produced, and after robots become widespread and CF reduces the cost of raw materials, I will bet generators are a lot cheaper than that. Generator cost and all, a century from now, the average person will pay a few bucks a year for unlimited amounts of cold fusion electricity. Nothing else -- not wind, fission, fusion, or space-based solar -- could ever come close. Nothing else could produce massive amounts of energy to irrigate 4 million square kilometers of desert, and do all these other pet projects of mine, described in the book. - Jed
Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
Jed, thanks for the link to the spreadsheet. We do exchange electricity between european countries over here, but not across 2000 miles that's for sure. I couldn't agree more about CF, I am all for it, that's why I get so frustrated that CF issues aren't addressed a bit faster and with more efficiency, do we want to see this thing working in our lifetime I wonder? Good night Michel - Original Message - From: Jed Rothwell [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-L@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 12:45 AM Subject: Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline Michel Jullian wrote: There may be no wind power in Georgia, but your electricity network may be interconnected with other networks far away where there is wind power, that's the nicety of these networks (makes up for their ugliness). States with significant wind resources are thousands of miles away, and you cannot transmit electricity that far. Georgia has no significant renewable energy resources. It is a shame you cannot transmit electricity 2000 miles because if you could, we could establish a massive solar thermal plant in a 100 square mile area of the Southwest desert, and generate all the electricity we now consume. Or we could do the same trick with wind farms in North Dakota. Alas, it is impossible. Someday high temperature superconducting wires or hydrogen pipelines may allow electricity to be transmitted across the continent. Now would potential US wind power be enough to recharge all US automobiles at some time or other of the night do you think? Potential US wind power could supply more energy than you get from burning the entire flow of oil from the Middle East. It could easily supply all of the energy consumed by everyone in North America. For that matter, so would a 200 square mile area of the desert. One hundred to replace all electricity, another 100 to replace all other sources of energy. Renewable energy such as solar and wind could easily meet all of our needs indefinitely, if only we had the technology to harness it. However, it would be thousands of times more expensive than cold fusion. (As are present day fossil fuel and uranium fission.) If we develop wind and solar power for the next 500 years, the price will fall until it is far cheaper than today's energy, but it will never fall to anything like the level that cold fusion could reach. Look at the 25 kW solar generator here: http://www.stirlingenergy.com/imagesdet.asp?type=allsolarimageID=11 This prototype costs hundreds of thousands of bucks, but look at the materials and the size of the gadget. You can imagine that after 50 years of manufacturing millions of these things the cost falls to, say, $5,000. It is no bigger or more complicated than a small automobile. That would be $200/kW, for with zero fuel cost, compared to $6,000/kW for nuclear plants (where the fuel costs practically nothing), or $2,000/kW for wind (where the fuel costs absolutely nothing). In other words, in 50 years these things could easily produce electricity far cheaper than it is today. Now think of a 25 kW cold fusion generator. After 50 years of intense development, you can imagine one the size of today's 25 kW portable generators that costs $1,000, or maybe even $500. It would have no moving parts and it would last for 30 years, or maybe 50 years. (As far as I know, thermoelectric devices in a pristine, sealed environment cannot degrade much.) The gadget would not need an electric power grid. It would work 24 hours a day, unlike the Stirling Energy 25 kW generator. It would also serve as a space heater in a cogenerator configuration. Over the life of the machine the heavy water fuel it consumes would cost a few dollars. Clearly, that would reduce the cost of energy far below the levels you could achieve with the Stirling generator. The only thing remotely comparable would be 25 kW hydroelectric generator on your own property 50 feet from your house, in a climate where the stream never freezes or dries up. Even that would call for much higher maintenance costs, and much more expensive generating equipment which would have to be replaced more often. - Jed
Re: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
On Mar 16, 2006, at 2:45 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: It is a shame you cannot transmit electricity 2000 miles because if you could, we could establish a massive solar thermal plant in a 100 square mile area of the Southwest desert, and generate all the electricity we now consume. Or we could do the same trick with wind farms in North Dakota. Alas, it is impossible. Someday high temperature superconducting wires or hydrogen pipelines may allow electricity to be transmitted across the continent. The Georgia coast seems like it should be a good place for solar chimmneys - assuming they can be built economically to handle category 5 hurricanes. The wind typically blows along the coast, which should give a solar chimney a significant boost. Power transmission from the windy state of Texas should not be infeasible if done using HVDC lines. For example, see: http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm? PgNm=TCEParams=M1ARTA0002566 Horace Heffner
