Zell, Chris wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen A. Lawrence [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 11:41 AM
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Subject: Re: Who Killed the EV?
Here's an interesting question:
Is it possible to design a ground-fault interrupter which can carry --
and safely break -- a 1000 amp current going into a 1000 volt load?
Peaks of a megawatt in my car? Defrosting the windows should be pretty
easy.
Eh, that wasn't exactly what I was thinking. Rather, a roadside
fast-charging station needs to be able to source 1000 kV at 1000 amp;
how can we make that safe?
But I also wasn't thinking clearly about that, either -- the volts from
the charging station would have to be isolated from ground, so the only
way to get a shock from it would be across the two leads. And a GFI
won't help with that anyway. Something along the lines of a GFI might
still be useful to detect insulation faults in the station itself which
could accidentally ground one side.
As to your car peaking at a megawatt, if the battery pack is
high-capacity and fast-charging, then yes, it would very likely be able
to put out a megawatt without any trouble. It could very probably put
out a lot more than that, actually, and if you dropped a wrench across
the main battery terminals you'd most likely get an explosion.
On the other hand, on the balance it's probably a lot safer than driving
around with a half-full tank of gasoline in the back of the car, which
we almost never give a second thought to, partly because we're used to
it and partly because the manufacturers have had decades to figure out
how to package the "bomb in the back" reasonably safely and inexpensively.
