Zell, Chris, who pines for better batteries (with good reason!) writes:
Damn! I wish somebody would invent a super battery and end this
nightmare!
Actually, in recent years, incremental improvements have added up to
remarkable overall progress in batteries. We do not have a super battery,
but look at the specifications for the Valence Saphion lithium-ion battery
that has has been selected for the plug-in Prius+. This gives the car a 50
mile range in electric mode, and it is only three times bigger than the
present batteries, which power the car for 1 mile. And the present
batteries are better than the 1999 models. See:
http://www.valence.com/saphion.asp
I really, really hope that the Japanese can bring down the hybrid premium
by a LOT and fast.
They have already, and I think they will continue to do so.
And we have not even started to tap the potential of the plug-in hybrids
yet. I think they have a tremendous impact.
It reminds me of a debate between Lovins and Herman Khan many decades
ago. Khan claimed that you could just drill ever deeper and Lovins
countered that the extra drilling represented more fossil fuel energy
expended, so that at some point, you couldn't justify going deeper.
If they were talking about drilling for oil they are both fools. There is
no oil below 15,000 feet, and we reached that depth in 1938, as I mentioned
yesterday. I do not think there is much natural gas down there, either.
Lovins is twice a fool at times. If we could find more oil simply by
digging deeper, people would have discovered ways to drastically reduce the
cost of digging, by now. Duffeyes says that drill bit technology has
matured and the cost is not likely to fall, but I think that is only
because there is no need to dig deeper or bigger holes. The equipment has
been optimized for the required depth.
- Jed
