http://news.yahoo.com/energy-dense-battery-could-enable-long-distance-electric-230100576.html
Several groups are pursuing these ideas with silicon and germanium.
http://m.technologyreview.com/energy/38395 /
$125 per KWH would be a significant boost, comparable to lead-acid
cost with much less weight, if nanotube anodes can be produced cheaply
enough.
http://www.cheaptubesinc.com/carbon-nanotubes-prices.htm
jsw
And the rest of us will stand back and cheer them on, making sure they
have plenty of drinks and snacks while they do inscrutible things with
their magical stuff. d8-)
I expect to see something really practical come out of all this within
my lifetime. They'd better hurry....
And that explains why there is so much battery research going on, much
of it government sponsored. It also explains, at least in part, why
China was (and is) so hell-bent on controlling Tibet, home of the
world's largest lithium reserves.
On Sun, 26 Feb 2012 08:07:22 -0800, "Bruce L. Bergman (munged human
Has GM paid back all of the $13.4B they got in the bailout yet? the
last figure I saw was $8.1B repaid by April of 2010.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program
Or are you referring to another subsidy? I'm not nearly as critical
of the TARP program now that much of it has been paid back.
I can't believe they're trying to get $46k (merely -double- the cost
of a Prius) for those things. http://tinyurl.com/7evjd2c
For $20k less, I'd go for a Toyota Camry Hybrid and be extremely
happy. $25.9-27.4k. $2k upgrade from Prius to Camry? No brainer.
Makes one wonder how much they paid him for the article.
What are those, Gnu Yawk City prices? <sigh>
Yup.
--snip--
Now called the RUS, or Rural Utilities Service.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Electrification_Administration
--
Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before
which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.
-- John Quincy Adams
No. He says he pays $1.16 kWh for electricity. He's visually
challenged, or he can't read an electric bill.
Another technically incompetant reporter. Sheesh.
Well, yeah, the idea behind the car design is that you'd use
electricity for daily commuting, shopping at the local mall etc, but
if you needed to go on a long trip (or if you failed to charge) you'd
be able to use the same car, but in gasoline mode, so you can fill up
in 3.5 minutes including pee break.
Makes perfect sense, since most of us drive most of our miles/klicks
in a fairly small radius, but want the ability to go further
occasionally (and we also worry about running out of charge).
At a higher level, there is a big issue with renewable energy in that
storage (for when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining on
the panels) is expensive. One could imagine, say, 100,000,000 cars
plugged into the grid, and allowed to feed back, say, 20% of their
charge into the grid overnight (the owner would be paid back for that
energy and that service). Then, during the day, the cars could charge,
say with solar, and the owner would be billed for the net.
On Mon, 27 Feb 2012 14:01:38 -0500, Spehro Pefhany
Yeah. The viability of all of the electric-only and plug-in hybrid
cars is based on certain patterns of use. For the all-electic, it's
nothing but short hauls. At their present state of development, the
plug-ins are based on a large portion of short hauls.
As it has been for 100 years, the limitiation of any of the electric
configurations that run at least part of the time on electricity only
is the batteries. The Volt, as I said, may be a bit ahead of its time.
But the configuration and the expected use patterns are perfectly
viable. They're just not *yet* cost-effective, for all but a limited
number of drivers.
Those ideas are over my head. I read a paper or an article on using
cars as storage for the grid, but there are so many variables that I
haven't attempted to evaluate it.
Take a look at http://www.priups.com for an interesting application. I
know this guy. He's kind of a kook, and not the nicest guy top work
for (I know a few of his ex-employees), but you have to admit, it's a
cool idea, and he's been doing it for years.
On Mon, 27 Feb 2012 14:32:41 -0800 (PST), rangerssuck
Very interesting. I had heard something about this, but I never looked
into it. It sounds like a really good idea for someone like me, who
has no desire and little need for a generator.
But I don't have a lot of desire for a Prius, either. <g> Maybe a Leaf
or Leaf-like object as our second car, if my wife continues to work
one mile away and I continue to work at home.
Your numbers may be a little off (e.g. I think the panel costs are closer to
$4.50 per watt), but
not by much. Your overall point is clearly correct: that total cost of ownership
is likely to be
somewhere in the vicinity of ten grand per year. It's obviously cheaper to
recharge the
batteries from the grid than from a solar array, but even so, TCO is probably
still on the north
side of $5K per year.
By contrast, three years ago I paid $3300 for a used 1999 Saturn SL2 with 90K
miles on it.
Still going strong. Hasn't needed any significant repairs yet, not much beyond
normal
maintenance. My major operating expense so far has been gasoline, about $1500 a
year
(45K miles / 30mpg * $3 per gallon / 3 years). Counting a few minor repairs,
tires, oil
changes, and so on, my TCO to this point is about $1800 per year, and that's
likely to go
*down* as the initial purchase cost is amortized over more years, despite the
increasing
cost of gasoline. (Gas would have to average nearly ninety dollars a gallon,
over the next
seven years, before my ten-year TCO would reach $5K per year.)
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