The Magic Bullet - the end of Batteries?

[webbie]

This article describes a company about to unveil "giant capacitor" technology which could eliminate the need for batteries in electric cars!

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070903/no_more_batteries.html

""technologies for replacement of electrochemical batteries," meaning a motorist could plug in a car for five minutes and drive 500 miles roundtrip between Dallas and Houston without gasoline."

 

[keyman512us]

"Don't sell off your oil stocks just yet Web..."lol

To quote from the article "ADVERTISEMENT


An Austin-based startup called EEStor promised "technologies for replacement of electrochemical batteries," meaning a motorist could plug in a car for five minutes and drive 500 miles roundtrip between Dallas and Houston without gasoline."

Keyword: "Promised". Put it there in front of me and we'll talk.

...Pardon my skepticism but I've heard (similiar) before. Haven't we all???

For years we have been "promised" a wide variety of cars that get 50MPG, mass produced EV's, Hydrogen fueled vehicles....and on and on...

When is someone going to deliver on ONE of these promises???

Whether they can "deliver or not" only time will tell. My prediction?? These folks will sell out to "the highest bidder that comes along" a group of "so called experts will then come up with reasons of 'why it will never work'..." and one more great idea will be sacrificed to save big oil's self carved market niche...

Someone else want to dispute "my predictions"???

You don't even need facts or examples...however, if history does trully repeat itself and past examples are indicators of future results...I think we can be safe in assuming this "promised idea" is no big hope on the horizon.

Apples and oranges being considered... For Americans to give up on the internal combustion powered, something driven by "cast metal and a crankshaft" to switch to something powered by "thousands of sheets of wax paper and bubblegum wrappers"???

They better hire the Geico advertising team and start the comercials tommorow....

 

[GVA]

MIT has been working on the super capacitor for a while now.
Still seems way out there..
http://www.businessweek.com/autos/content/jun2006/bw20060628_655501.htm

 

[KeithO]

"Vaporware" ????

Lets do a little math. Assume that the car is going to be acceptably light and aerodynamic, with the result that 30kW (~40hp) is sufficient as average power to complete the trip. The trip is 500 miles and assume 50mph is the average speed. Thus the round trip is going to take 10 hours (more than likely close to reality).

Now multiplying 30kW x 10 hours gives us 300kWh that has to be stored. Lets assume for the sake of simplicity, that the electric motor that will drive this new vehicle will run off 1000V. Hybrids today run off 120-400v for the sake of efficiency, so in electrical terms higher =better.

So, at 1000V, the supercapacitor is discharged at a current of (300000/10/1000) = 30 amperes over 10 hours to complete the trip. So now to charge this sucker in 5 minutes will require (10*60 minutes)/5min * 30amperes = 3600 amperes. Yes siree, thats right up there in the lightning category. How close did you say you want to stand to this thing ? And I might add that lighning is but for a fraction of a second, not 5 minutes solid.

Now we could switch things around a bit, since it seems that 3.6k amps is not going to fly. Lets assume that their capacitor was 100kV instead of 1kV. That means that (provided someone builds a 100kV motor that can actually fit into a car AND their supercapacitor works), the charge voltage drops to "merely" 36 amperes. This sounds more like something we expect on a piece of rail equipment and not a passenger car that needs to have a crash test rating. Imagine what will happen with all that potential energy in a crash ?

Anyway, as can be seen from this simple exercise, which excludes heating losses in the conductors and all the other factors that will reduce performance, this is still a serious challenge. Until someone finds a way not only to make this technology work, but also be safe to use (we don't have nuclear reactors in cars either, and they have been around for more than 50 years) this is not going to threaten batteries. More likely, much smaller supercapacitors will be used to supplement batteries for things like regenerative breaking and strong acceleration that batteries cope with badly because of inertia in the chemical reactions. And needless to say, more advanced forms of IC engines are going to be with us for some time.

We just need to downsize the engines, and learn to not expect neck snapping acceleration, experience a styling revolution (that our transport can be more streamlined than our current bricks and it is OK) and work with media that alows energy to be stored (in batteries, hydraulic accumulators, capacitors or whatever) to cope with peak load situations. This is the path to 60-100mpg vehicles and beyond. Lets not forget small diesels.

 

[Mike Wilson]

Sweet... and you thought it was fun when the battery in your laptop explodes...

Man, you have no idea how fun it is when a giant capacitor decides to give up the ghost... woo hoo! Now that's a bang!

-- Mike

 

[DiscoInferno]

"Vaporware" ????

Lets do a little math. Assume that the car is going to be acceptably light and aerodynamic, with the result that 30kW (~40hp) is sufficient as average power to complete the trip. The trip is 500 miles and assume 50mph is the average speed. Thus the round trip is going to take 10 hours (more than likely close to reality).

Now multiplying 30kW x 10 hours gives us 300kWh that has to be stored.

And at $0.15/kWh, this trip will cost $45. This is comparable to a car getting 33mpg, with gas at $3/gallon. Assuming your power/energy estimate is valid, I'm underwhelmed. Why do I want an electric car again? (Hybrids, I understand the advantage of.)

 

[karl]

Personally I don't think they are anywhere near the capacity they say they are. Thats just too big of a jump. Improvements are made in small steps with nearly everthing and had they gotten 1/3 of the performance they claimed, they would have already brought it to market. So don't look for this product to make gasoline cars obsolete. However, I bet they find their way in to hybrids very quickly.

The sad thing about all this environmentally friendly stuff is that the emphasis is placed in the wrong place. New cars come out every year and most people buy a new one every 5-7 years, so virtually none of us are driving anything over 20 years old and most have something that's less than 10 years old. How old is your house? How efficient is it? The people on this site probably have better than average houses and they certainly are heating them in an environmentally friendly way. Why won't the Federal government make any meaningful incentives to make houses more energy efficient? The current and soon to expire energy credit is a joke. Google solar panles in CA. That state is giving meaningful, five figure credits and you're going to see solar panels on virtually every house out there.

 

[webbie]

Obviously, any even slightly technical person can see through the "five minute charge" routine. However, just taking the advances in power tools....it used to be you had to charge the batteries overnight, now many are one hour. So it makes a BIG difference if you can recharge in even 10 or 15 minutes and get even 100 miles or even 50 miles. Taking those figures into account, we'd have a 30x reduction in the power needed from 5 minutes/500 miles.

I have to say the idea is intriguing.....and does not sound impossible. Sometimes, as in the case of the integrated circuit (or even transistor), breakthroughs are made which are so revolutionary that they were unforeseen and they change the entire landscape.

 

[webbie]

Sweet... and you thought it was fun when the battery in your laptop explodes...

Man, you have no idea how fun it is when a giant capacitor decides to give up the ghost... woo hoo! Now that's a bang!

-- Mike

Yeah, and try lighting off 1/2 cup of gasoline - the same stuff you ride around in your car with 20 gallons of!

I guess I'm somewhat optimistic about the capabilities of science combined with capital.

 

[jjbaer]

Obviously, any even slightly technical person can see through the "five minute charge" routine. However, just taking the advances in power tools....it used to be you had to charge the batteries overnight, now many are one hour. So it makes a BIG difference if you can recharge in even 10 or 15 minutes and get even 100 miles or even 50 miles. Taking those figures into account, we'd have a 30x reduction in the power needed from 5 minutes/500 miles.

I have to say the idea is intriguing.....and does not sound impossible. Sometimes, as in the case of the integrated circuit (or even transistor), breakthroughs are made which are so revolutionary that they were unforeseen and they change the entire landscape.

Craig...that "overnight charge" thing was because of battery limitations (inability to charge quickly)...i.e., the battery was the limiting factor and not the household circuits ability to deliver current. This company however, claims "5 minutes" and this does grossly exceed ANY household electrical systems ability to deliver the required current.

 

[jjbaer]

"Vaporware" ????

Lets do a little math. Assume that the car is going to be acceptably light and aerodynamic, with the result that 30kW (~40hp) is sufficient as average power to complete the trip. The trip is 500 miles and assume 50mph is the average speed. Thus the round trip is going to take 10 hours (more than likely close to reality).

Now multiplying 30kW x 10 hours gives us 300kWh that has to be stored.

And at $0.15/kWh, this trip will cost $45. This is comparable to a car getting 33mpg, with gas at $3/gallon. Assuming your power/energy estimate is valid, I'm underwhelmed. Why do I want an electric car again? (Hybrids, I understand the advantage of.)

Keith assumed 40HP to cruise but this is far too high. A small, aerodynamic automobile might require 10 HP to cruise. This puts the trip cost at about $11 and it will get about 132 MPG. This then puts the cost per mile at about 2 cents/mile (1100 cents/500 miles = 2.2 cents/mile) which is in-line with what other electric vehicles cost to run.

By way of comparison, a 50 MPG diesel with diesel costing about $3/gallon, equates to 6 cents/mile (300 cents per gallon/50 MPG = 6 cents/mile) so 2 cents/mile is a HUGE difference especially given the fact that a standard car might get only 30 MPG (about 9.5 cents/mile). So:

Current car getting 30 MPG: 9.5 cents/mile
50 MPG diesel: 6 cents/mile
electric car: about 2 cents/mile

bottom line: most people if they went electric would see their fuel costs drop from about 10 cents/mile to 2 cents/mile............

 

[Eric Johnson]

Isn't it also true, cast, that power plants have to back off production at night because of lower demand? This is not the most efficient way to run a power plant, and I would think that the widespread use of electric cars would help balance out the production cycle to the extent that you wouldn't necessarily need more plants to supply the increase in consumption. That is, assuming that everyone charged their cars up at night.

 

[jjbaer]

Isn't it also true, cast, that power plants have to back off production at night because of lower demand? This is not the most efficient way to run a power plant, and I would think that the widespread use of electric cars would help balance out the production cycle to the extent that you wouldn't necessarily need more plants to supply the increase in consumption. That is, assuming that everyone charged their cars up at night.

Good point.......especially for nuclear plants that they like to run at a high constant load. That's what "hydro pump storage facilities" do.....they pump water to an elevated storage area at night when elec demand is low and power is cheaper and turn it into elec during the day when they can sell it at higher rates. We'd probably also charge our cars during the night whenever possible for lower rates. But, as with natural gas, it too was cheap in the summer (because people weren't using it for heat) but that changed when all the NG powered electric plants sprang-up and the cost of NG got expensive even in the summer.....so once we get elec cars, look for even the night-time rates to skyrocket........sub-liminal message to the French: get off your asses and your 30 hr work week and 6 week summer vacations and crack the "fusion nut"......LOL

 

[Burn-1]

Isn't it also true, cast, that power plants have to back off production at night because of lower demand? This is not the most efficient way to run a power plant, and I would think that the widespread use of electric cars would help balance out the production cycle to the extent that you wouldn't necessarily need more plants to supply the increase in consumption. That is, assuming that everyone charged their cars up at night.

Perhaps something like this?

Excess Nightime Grid Energy Could Power More Than 70% Of Electric Vehicles

 

[Eric Johnson]

That's it. We don't have night rates where I live, but I suspect every time they build a new plant, the rates go up.

How's this for a work perc: Free plug-in for your vehicle. Or create your own employee benefit plan: sneak an extension cord into your office when nobody's looking, then act dumb when they get the power bill.

 

[KeithO]

Yeah, and try lighting off 1/2 cup of gasoline - the same stuff you ride around in your car with 20 gallons of!

I guess I'm somewhat optimistic about the capabilities of science combined with capital.

Why is it that change is "expected" to be revolutionary in form ? Could it be from shame that we westerners are unable to get the process of continuous improvement right ? The "competition" (Japs, Koreans") have no truly "revolutionary" technology, yet they are thrashing the big 3. Think about this: If one is unable to manage continuous improvement, how does one expect to dominate with "revolutionary technology" ?

Yes, we have sent a man to the moon, but at what cost ? The space program virtually collapsed once Kennedy no longer backed it as a truly strategic project. Look at the present generation of astronauts who grow old waiting for their ride. Does this sound like the combination of science and capital you were referring to ? Don't be expecting anything from these types of efforts to show up in your driveway anytime soon.

And if company X actually invents a capacitor 1/100th of what they promise, you can be sure the government contractors will be snapping them up and buying the patents to keep the technology off the market. Similar to the way that Burt Rutans outfit (Space ship 1 / scaled composites) has now been purchased by a defense contractor.

 

[DiscoInferno]

How's this for a work perc: Free plug-in for your vehicle. Or create your own employee benefit plan: sneak an extension cord into your office when nobody's looking, then act dumb when they get the power bill.

Don't try that at some (broken link removed)...

 

[KeithO]

Quote directly from the article: "According to a recent U.S. Department of Energy study, there is so much excess energy on the U.S. grid nightly that if every light-duty car and truck in America today used plug-in hybrid technology, 73 percent of them could be plugged in and “fueled” without constructing a single new power plant. So much for the myth that electric vehicles will cause more emissions."

Well.. How about that for a "smart" statement. "Capacity" exists since the COAL FIRED (for the most part) power stations throttle back and thereby PRODUCE LESS EMISSIONS at night. Just like us with our woodstoves, except that they burn coal.

Add a "load" like EV's that recharge all night, and buster, you had better believe that there will be more emissions and of the worst kind. That you can't see the pollution when the electrons move back and forward in the extension lead does not mean it doesn't exist. This is why most environmentalists don't support DIRTY plug in electric vehicles. Now installing a solar array that you plug the Prius into is a different matter. This is why it is so important to get to the point that investors who purchase solar and wind power generation equipment should be able to sell excess power at fair market rates instead of the current "thanks for nothing" deal.

Isn't it also true, cast, that power plants have to back off production at night because of lower demand? This is not the most efficient way to run a power plant, and I would think that the widespread use of electric cars would help balance out the production cycle to the extent that you wouldn't necessarily need more plants to supply the increase in consumption. That is, assuming that everyone charged their cars up at night.

Perhaps something like this?

Excess Nightime Grid Energy Could Power More Than 70% Of Electric Vehicles

 

[KeithO]

1c / mile is here. (broken link removed) Nobody is falling over each other to buy it, but I'm at least considering it. No pie in the sky supercapacitors required, although adding a few sure would be nice.. The electric motor is rated 3hp cont and 17hp peak, so I think that a multi passenger vehicle capable of highway speeds will not make it on 10hp. Even the Honda Insight, one of the most feeble vehicles on the road is a lot more powerful than I suggested (edit: 73hp with 14hp parallel electric motor. In highway conditions, the gas engine runs full time, in stop and go the electric motor shares the work and provides regenerative braking. end edit)

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Brake levers and cables

Power Kit from EV Parts: $1154 (plus shipping)
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Power Controller
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"end quote

Keith assumed 40HP to cruise but this is far too high. A small, aerodynamic automobile might require 10 HP to cruise. This puts the trip cost at about $11 and it will get about 132 MPG. This then puts the cost per mile at about 2 cents/mile (1100 cents/500 miles = 2.2 cents/mile) which is in-line with what other electric vehicles cost to run.

Current car getting 30 MPG: 9.5 cents/mile
50 MPG diesel: 6 cents/mile
electric car: about 2 cents/mile

bottom line: most people if they went electric would see their fuel costs drop from about 10 cents/mile to 2 cents/mile............

 

[Burn-1]

Well.. How about that for a "smart" statement. "Capacity" exists since the COAL FIRED (for the most part) power stations throttle back and thereby PRODUCE LESS EMISSIONS at night. Just like us with our woodstoves, except that they burn coal.

Add a "load" like EV's that recharge all night, and buster, you had better believe that there will be more emissions and of the worst kind. That you can't see the pollution when the electrons move back and forward in the extension lead does not mean it doesn't exist.

I'm not so sure. First, even though it might take some serious tooth pulling with the power generation companies, it would be far easier to clean up ten thousand coal plants then it would be to clean up the exhausts of a hundred million cars. And, it would be much easier to measure and manage both progress and compliance when there are known point sources of the pollution. Also, there would be serious decreases in the amount of NOx and ozone mixing with sunlight in daylight hours forming smog so air quality might even increase for major metro areas.

Edit: Here's a link with some good information (broken link removed to http://www.radix.net/~futurev/pwrplnt.pdf)

No solution is perfect. Given the population density of the central portions of New England, I would like to see more widespread electric light rail in the region come in tandem with any changes in automobiles.

 

[KeithO]

Burn-1 People focus on removal of visible emissions at power plants. The electrostatic precipitators have been around for ages, they remove ash which is the most visible component of the emissions. The NOx emissions can be reduced too by selective catalytic reduction, using urea injection. The turbine type generators used in locations that generate using natural gas are good examples since they run lean and produce quite a bit of NOx. The urea based catalyst systems are not Platinum / Paladium based, with the result that it is relatively cheap technology. Coming to every new diesel engine in America starting in 2010 I might add.

The problem that is not mentioned too much is related to sulphur dioxide from burning low grade coal. I am not aware of any low cost technologies to remove this toxic emission which results in acid rain downstream of the source. It is this emission that has ruined much of eastern europes forrests and polluted groundwater over generations.

When used in combination with solar and wind energy, I fully agree that EV's have a place in society. Who will be first to get past his ego and show up at work in one of these funymobiles ?

 

[KeithO]

Some info on how clean electricity is locally (michigan) and on a map showing emissions by state.

To get the first chart, go to (broken link removed to http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/powerprofiler.htm) and enter 49201 (Jackson MI zip code)

For the second, go here (broken link removed to http://www.epa.gov/solar/energynyou.htm) and scroll part way down the page.

 

[begreen]

Keith, source links please.