Air car vs Electric car

[hmelton]

Whats your view?
Personally I've never thought much of pure Battery powered Vehicles. Batteries are an old technology that hasn't really improved significantly in about 50 years.
The Electric/gas Hybrid was a little better, but still severly limited by the batteries, which require heavy electric moters and expensive, heavy and relatively short lifespan batteries.
I've always thought a gas hybrid flywheel power storage system was a better bet than the gas hybrid battery system.
I've only quickly glanced through the website, but if this vehicle engine is truely a dual use device able to operate with compressed air or regular liquid fuels it will have several big advantages of both battery and flywheel type vehicles. They have replaced the heavy batteries and electric moters with a single engine a high pressure air tank and a regular liquid fuel tank.
here is the website
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www.theaircar.com/
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Off the top of my head I do see a few possible problems, such as the chance that the compressed air tank's failure creates fuel air mixture on a large scale that should only be found in a piston.
NOTE:
I don't plan on any further replies to this thread. Put it here in case it started an argument.
Just thought this idea might interest the Engineers on the list.
whats your view?
Have any interesting websites with other alternate approaches for hybrid vehicles?
howard melton
God bless

[Necratoid]

Looking at the aircar's webpage all I can say is... Wow, distort propaganda much? I mean, claim they has a zero emissions in city gas/air hybrid... then do this by dumping the exhaust into a storage tank for later disposal... which has nothing to do with the air car and everything to do with making you pay to get the fuel... then pay again to get rid of it. So as for what you do with the exhaust I note they fail to mention it... though I'm sure it has to do with the service station. They also have a list of prospective alternate energy sources, but they are pretty much pandering to 'green' energy people, so I'll ignore those.
The power models that made sense was the plug it in over night model and the compressor station model (though this could be adapted for a home fill up station as well as service station). It does appear to have a descent one day range, though the display model that is striped down, doesn't yet meet anyones safety standards. This means the 2000 km range is rigged to look good. Once they make it to government standards of safety, add in a trunk (a taxi without a trunk? What were they thinking), and make it into a street usable car, the mileage may drop to lets say 400-600 km range. Which is still a reasonable range for it advertised purpose.
Though I missed the max speed of the vehicle (if it can't hit 45-50 mph its going to be a pain to deal with for other drivers) and how loud your car's air compressor is going to be (charging will be done over night after all), in general it looks like the air car is a viable vehicle for around town and with fill stations and a trunk can be used as a taxi for many city... if it can get any descent speed and a trunk.
Battery power cars are a money sink hole. They cost a lot and don't pay for themselves in fuel costs for like a decade. The batteries are toxic waste and expensive to replace or dispose of legally. I think the price was around 3 grand US to replace one of the several batteries in the car last time I checked. That doesn't include disposal of the old one.
Current hydrogen cars are natural gas powered, they just make you feel better about not seeing the petrochemical fuel being used, as that is done where they make the hydrogen fuel from natural gas.
So, if the aircar can get a useful speed (if it goes like 30 mph max its going to be useless after all the traffic tickets hit you) and won't make anyone listen to 6-8 hours of air compressor noise (which is were the car not exploding if the tank takes a bullet comes in)... I think it may be the single most reasonable and effect 'green car' I've scene. How ever its ugly (color blind people should color things) and has emotional eyes that with has kids thinking its 'alive' like those cars on TV.

[rmthorn]

The biggest issue with electric powered cars that I can see is where the electricity comes from in the first place. If you're charging it in a place that generates its power from old coal-fired power stations, then you're no better off (or IIRC, actually worse off) than if you just ran the car using a standard internal combustion engine.

[Morganite]

There's another thing that also needs attention when evaluating alternative fuel vehicles. Necratoid touched on it a bit. The cost and environmental impact of making the vehicle, it's replacement parts, and disposing of same. I can't remember what it was now, but I once heard about some car design that had great reduction in fuel consumption, but the problem was what it took to *make* the thing...
As for this "air car"... Oh dear god that sucker's ugly. Perhaps I'll have time to read the page and comment more later. '.'
-Morgan."This continuity is now a Princess of Darkness crossover."
"... They're all going to die, aren't they?"
"Yep. Popcorn?"

[ECSNorway]

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The biggest issue with electric powered cars that I can see is where the electricity comes from in the first place. If you're charging it in a place that generates its power from old coal-fired power stations, then you're no better off (or IIRC, actually worse off) than if you just ran the car using a standard internal combustion engine.

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Agreed. Also, battery tech has been improving greatly of late, the problem is that the alternatives to the lead-acid batteries are still expensive, and the real kicker is charge time.
Things needed for a viable electrical car:
1) Widespread acceptance and implementation of clean electricity production - solar/wind/nuclear - completely replacing coal/oil.
2) Batteries that can consistently hold a 300-mile charge and be recharged in under 10 minutes.
3) Implementation by industry of recharge stations capable of accomodating #2.
Electrical motors do not need to be heavy; the problems arise when you try to implement one without altering the basic mechanics of the car to compensate. Simply putting one in place of a conventional piston engine will drive you nuts because of how much it has to drive, and it'll have to be big and heavy.
The actual implementation car manufacturers are looking at does not do this; it uses the so-called "skateboard" design, with no central motor at all - just an independant smaller motor powering each wheel. This is immensely lighter and far more energy-efficient.--
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Necratoid]

Im not a fan of wind power. While technically it doesnt pollute, it does have a major environmental impact, especially in large numbers. Wind power is generated by spinning blades, blades that have a major tendency to mulch their way through large portions of the air born wildlife population. Out to sea they mostly catch sea birds like seagulls, but inland this gets bad. This is why I think of them as sky blenders. That and if they get enough wind they start letting off random sonic booms.
For instance a while back some people calculated that if South Dakota was converted into a massive wind farm the entire US power grid could be powered. However South Dakota is home to several species of bat, some rare or endangered, also lots of birds migrate through there. So if it was converted it would be a genocidal rampage on the air-born bird, bat, and insect wildlife. That and one major windstorm and you have dozens, if not hundreds, of sonic booms going off in close proximity. That and a single sonic boom will scramble the bats collective sonar for a while.
Any solution to power will have costs and benefits. It is basically a matter of no free lunch. Hydroelectric changes the landscape. Large scale solar eats up lots of land and screws up the local landscape in deserts and like useful areas for solar power farming. It also, alters the local ecology and it gives me a bit of cognitive dissidence to put heat/light absorbing devices into the areas the bounce large amounts of heat and light as a method to hamper the planet heating up. Small scale solar is useful, but only in some areas (snow on the panels is bad for efficiency) and it stops being useful at night. Good for random gadgets though. Nuclear has a lot of power for little fuel and waste that is hard to get rid of and it attracts protestors like moths. Geothermal is of limited use. Tidal power takes up a lot of space. Human mechanical energy (such as used in those handle rev radios and flashlights and the shaker ones) is limited and bigger things powered by such are considered throwbacks.
I'm kind of suprised that they haven't made a gym somewhere that uses the equipment to generate the power. That or a car that has pump foot pedals in it so each (non driver) seat(s) to help refill the batteries.

[hmelton]

It has rained, so for the moment I'm not doing much on the farm and I have a little free time.
What interested me the most about the aircar was the idea of using a high pressure air tank storage system.
If that air tank can compete with a battery in power density for a car then using it to store power instead of batteries is almost certain to make both solar and Wind power a viable alternative to the conventional power grid.
What I meant when I said battery tech hasn't improved in 50 years was that it's actual cost hadn't really went down significantly and all the various "advanced" battery chemistries have been built experimentally for about that long.
It just wasn't until the advent of cell phones and laptop computers that the relatively high energy density, but expensive chemistries had an application where the extra cost over lead acid or nickel-cadmium was worth mass production.

I know about putting "flat" motors at the wheels, but those four motors taken together are still relatively heavy. The Saving comes from replacing the drive shaft and transmission and other gears with copper wire.
In a hybrid electric car you have the weight of the batteries, the weight of the liquid fuel engine, weight of the liquid fuel and the weight of those 4 electric motors.
In the Hybrid version of the aircar you have the weight of a single dual purpose compressed air or liquid fuel engine, the weight of a small battery and standard small alternator, the weight of a liquid fuel tank, the relatively light weight of a high pressure air tank and the is the added disadvantage of gearing and transmission for the single engine.
The big advantage of the aircar is it's use of a single engine and a energy storage system that has a relatively low weight and cost compared to batteries.
Chemical batteries are usually the "hidden" cost of any alternative electrical power system.
I have a friend who lives several miles from the power grid and when he built his home they wanted 15,000 up front to run a power line to his home.
He instead refused to pay the power company and purchased just over 8,000 dollars worth of deep cycle batteries and solar panels.
His water heater, cook stove and Deep Freeze are powered by propane and his house is wired for 12 volts. He has a 12 volt refrigerator and a 12 volt washer and all his lights and electronics are 12 volts systems. (I think he has a small microwave run by a 12 volt to 120 volt AC converter.)
Just over 8,000 dollars worth of solar panels and batteries often left him in the dark dependant on a exspensive small gas powered backup generator after just 2 consecutive days of cloud cover.
I suggested purchasing a small wind generator pointing out that here in Arkansas if it was cloudy then the wind was usually blowing.
He purchased a small fully enclosed integrated DC generator and wind turbine putting it on a 20 foot pole. He now has power to spare for his fans (no airconditioner), but when you factor in the 2 to maybe 4 year lifespan of the deep cycle batteries his electrical power cost are at least 50% to double the cost of buying power from the electric company. Also note that he does not have the capacity to run any size airconditioner in his home.
The Wind generator has actually proved to be a real cost saver by letting his batteries last longer and taking up the slack as the several thousand dollars worth of solar panels age.
Solar panels lose capacity as they age producing less power for a given amount of sunlight and so far the excess capacity of his wind generator has kept him from having to buy additional solar panels and because he isn't having to drain his batteries as deeply it is letting him go slightly longer before he has to purchase new batteries.
The small wind generator mentioned above could be fitted with a wire mesh screen, but I've seen larger designs of wind generators that don't use the traditional exposed propellar set on top of a pole or tower.
One of those "safe" windmill designs require the construction of a expensive very tall smoke stack style tower with an enclosed propellar filling the base of the tube.
The "smoke stack" tower design does have some advantages to offset it's high construction cost. It doesn't really have a maximum windspeed and if it is designed correctly the tall tube can actually supply some power on windless days by using the temperature changes from the base to the tower's top.
Someone mentioned the need for a battery that can be charged in under 10 minutes. I doubt that is doable from several standpoints.
Given the chemistry and physical structures needed I believe it's an almost mutually exclusive requirement between high capacity and fast charging of a chemical battery.
You can have one or the other, but I doubt you can have both and when you add in the huge demand such a fast charge system would place on a electrical power grid it will probably create more problems than it solves.
Your talking about a HUGE amount of electrical power being pushed into a battery in just 10 minutes.
We can use the simple, but in detail wrong example below to get an idea of the magnitude of power your wanting to put into a battery in just 10 minutes.
Lets assume you have an electric vehicle that can use just 5 hp of electric motor capacity to cruise at 60 km/h and has at a set of batteries that can supply power for 300 kilometer. (5 hours of cruise controled 60 km/h on a flat road with no stops.)
Ignoring nearly all losses in conversion the 5 hp constant power is about 3,750 watts of electrical power coming from the batteries.
Lets assume you cruise for 4 hours or 240 minutes before you pull over at a recharging station.

You need to put 3750 watt * 240 minutes or 900000 watt-minutes of power back into the battery.
900000 watt-minutes/10 minutes means your road side charging station needs a powerline able to handle more than a 90 kilowatt demand to recharge a single vehicle with a 20 percent reserve left in the "tank".
When do you fill your vehicle? In the above I assumed the driver pulled off when he had just under a 1/4 of a tank.

Someone mentioned atomic reactors and then the problem with the waste, if we allowed a few breeder reactors to reprocess the spent rods then the waste issues would be minor.
Yes I know the reprocessed fuel is relatively easy to turn into weapons grade material and at one time that was a good argument against building breeder reactors to convert the other reactor waste back into useable fuel, but given the spread of atomics in todays world it's now nearly a useless safety measure.
howard melton
God bless

[Morganite]

Okay. Looking at this further... Perhaps I am an idiot on this, but I'm not following how this vehicle takes compressed air and turns it into the vehicle moving. ^_^;;;

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Large scale solar eats up lots of land and screws up the local landscape in deserts and like useful areas for solar power farming.

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I have a novel around here, one of whose setting elements is that the city of Phoenix was roofed over with solar panels. Everyone who lived *outside* the city loved it, as did everyone who lived above the panels. The people below? Not so happy. '.'
The ten minute charge time is probably based on the idea of being able to recharge the vehicle at something like a gas station. If one charges the vehicle overnight at home, then charging speed would be less of an issue, but for some uses that might be inadequate. If someone spent large amounts of time travelling, it wouldn't work for them unless recharging facilities were available at hotels and such.
The biggest problem I think would still be enough clean energy production. Less efficient vehicles might be okay with a good enough energy source, but no technologically likely electric car is going to be an improvement if a coal burning power plant is providing the electricity.
Got any links to information on these "smoke stack" windmills? It doesn't sound quite like anything I've been able to find information on.
-Morgan. Mmmmm... rice."This continuity is now a Princess of Darkness crossover."
"... They're all going to die, aren't they?"
"Yep. Popcorn?"

[ECSNorway]

I've seen some bits on the "smoke stack" windmills too. They use an impeller blade that runs the entire height of the "stack", actually, not quite an Archimedes Screw but close. I'll look for some more references when I'm more awake. The key is that it doesn't care which way the wind is blowing, it takes up a much smaller square footage, and it can easily be completely covered in wire mesh to prevent bird accidents.--
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[hmelton]

I did a university design project on "smoke-stack" wind systems back in the late 1980's and I vaguely remember using several old issues of Popular Science and several engineering magazines as sources for the project.
I've done a little quick searching and I'm not turning up as much on the net as I did then in the engineering journals and science magazines of the university library.
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peswiki.com/index.php/Dir...gy_Systems
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here is a related topic, but it deals with using towers with the venturi effect for ventelation of buildings.
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www.battlemccarthy.com/re...owers.html
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howard melton
God bless

[hmelton]

/QUOTE/
Okay. Looking at this further... Perhaps I am an idiot on this, but I'm not following how this vehicle takes compressed air and turns it into the vehicle moving. ^_^;;;
/ENDQUOTE/
I'm assume they feed the high pressure air into the engine pistons system and use the pistons valving to inject the compressed gas and remove it.
The Electronics probably adapts the timing depending on if compressed air or if an explosion is used to drive the pistons.
The website is fairly vague about the engine and I'm not sure if they have a duel feed system one providing compressed air and the other a liquid fuel.
Looking at it I'm not even sure if they use a traditional explosion in the piston cylinder or just burn the liquid fuel to produce a high pressure gas that is then sent to the pistons.
howard melton
God bless

[jpub]

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Batteries are an old technology that hasn't really improved significantly in about 50 years.

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HORSECRAP.
Battery technology has improved by leaps and bounds in the last 50 years. The AA battery of the 80's is hopelessly deficient in today's devices.
The problem is that despite all the work they've done on the battery, the energy *requirements* of battery power devices keeps increasing at a rate faster than the batteries have improved.--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel
"Camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legend! Right, Boo?"

[hmelton]

Whoa there Jpub.
Don't just make smelly statements provide statistics or websites with statistics to back your statements.
Do you know the average milliAmp-hours or mAh in a AA battery in the 1980's?
How about the mAh in a AA sold today?
(I don't off the top of my head, but I'd like to know find some websites with the data.)
I didn't say there wasn't improvements, just that the old Nag isn't up to many more leaps or bounds.
I've not seen a improvement in Battery tech that wasn't mapped out or mentioned in a 1950's era book on battery design and chemistry.
There has been a few surprises, but even then I'd not describe the improvements in power density as being a leap or bound.
Also I'm fairly certain that the majority of the "enhancements" to the AA of today where known and could have been done on the AA of the 1980's, but weren't because it wasn't seen as needed at the time.
I hope you can find me a cheaper alternative to the well over 50 plus year lead acid batteries that we currently use everywhere on the farm.
I've not found a battery yet that can beat the old lead acid battery when you factor in initial cost, power density and service life.
A few years ago I came across some spiral plate battery designs that came close, but the last time I checked the manufacturer still hadn't got the manufacturing cost low enough to let the improved power density and service life beat a much cheaper standard plate design.
Prove me wrong. Provide facts to dis-prove my assertion that chemical batteries are a old tech with few improvements in the last 50 years.
Yes they have been spending lots on improving batteries and have made improvements, but I think most battery research would be better spent looking into alternate power storage methods.
I think chemical batteries are pretty much a dead horse maybe it's time to stop beating on it and tossing research dollars into it's stall.
It may be better to invest research in fuel cells, Gas Microturbines, hyper-compressed air systems and other ideas.
Thinking about it given the improvements in material science we might need to look into windup systems again as a method of storing power.
howard melton

[jpub]

1) Efficiency (energy released compared to cost to charge). Most batteries of 20+ years ago had efficiencies lower than 80%. Today's Lithiums and variants have as much as 99%. That's incredible.
2) Shelf-life. The ability for a non-rechargable (ie Alkaline) has improved immensely. On average, an alkaline of 20 years ago had a 3-year shelf-life, today's batteries routinely have 7+.
Additionally, rechargables traditionally had poor shelf-life, but some modern products have a self-discharge factor low enough that they can actually be stored and last for years.
3) Your car battery is a lot tougher, and can work better over a wider range of temperatures and conditions than it used to.

Look, do you really think your CELL PHONE would be possible 20 years ago? That you wouldn't be swapping out that battery every month or so?

Claiming that 'everything was predicted in a 1950's chem book' is a bit silly, and you know it. Yes, batteries are based on a chemical reaction, and the fundamentals of that reaction were known a long time ago. That hasn't changed.
By the same token, the IC hasn't changed in the past 50 years either - it's still nothing more than a bunch of transistors. The gun is still just using the explosive reaction of gunpower (or some variant) to throw a projectile, but they've changed quite a bit in the last 50 years.
The material sciences used in the design and manufacture of batteries has changed immensely, and THAT is where the improvement lies. Hey, the Lithium battery, as used today, wasn't even possible commerically until the mid 90's. The Li-poly battery, probably the pinnacle of battery design, wasn't available until sometime in the last 5 years.

BTW, the mAh rating of a battery is meaningless. An Alkaline has a rating of 2300-2500, while a NiCd has 1200-2000. Yet the latter is better in electronics. The big advancements have come not in how much energy they store (although there has been some - Lithium batteries have vastly higher energy density than Alkalines), but how they release the energy.

Edit: Nonetheless, I do agree that we do need something better than the battery, be it fuel cells or anything else. It just bugs me when people complain about batteries not improving.--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel
"Camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legend! Right, Boo?"

[Morganite]

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I'm assume they feed the high pressure air into the engine pistons system and use the pistons valving to inject the compressed gas and remove it.

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Hmmm... My understanding from what I've read is one of the reasons gas is so useful is that it yields an incredibly high amount of energy for it's mass... It doesn't seem like it'd be easy to match that without a much larger amount of air. Tanks containing that kind of pressure could present their own set of dangers.
On the battery issue, maybe it's more reasonable to say that batteries haven't improved enough in the way that's needed. For electric powered cars, it sounds like energy density is the factor that's still lacking. Things like acceptable temperature ranges would of course be even more important for an electric car, but as you say significant improvements have been made there. Enough energy from something of low enough mass... not sure.
I still think power generation has issues that would need to be dealt with first though.
-Morgan.
"Humans cannot help Reyvateils."
-Mir

[jpub]

For electric cars, there's a couple options. These are called traction batteries, and they tend to be stupidly high current (because motors are current, not voltage dependant).
1) Lead acid wet-cell
2) Abosrtbed-glass-mat (AGM), in which instead of just floodying the electrolyte with lead acid, you soak fibreglass with it, so the acid can't spill anymore. These are technically lead-acids, but they've got higher current flow since they can use purer lead (since the electrodes need less structural rigidity), they've got better temperature tolerance, and best of all, they self-discharge slower. These are what are used in motorcycles, military vehicles (like SUBS), BMWs, and some sports cars. Theyr'e also used in electric cars since they have better power density than standard lead-acids.
3) Na/NiCl2 Molten Salt (ZEBRA) - temperature limited, as it's not really good below freezing (especially not in areas like Canada, where it gets well below), but it's better than other molten salts which need stupidly high (400-700C) temperatures. These are *great* for rechargable uses, as they seem to never get worn out, but their limitations make them unattractive for use in the 1st World.
4) NiZn - these are *way* better than lead-acids. Expect to see them more. They were actually invented a long time ago (30's) but for some reason went nowhere. My power eletronics prof used to claim that the lead-acid conglomerates killed it. They've got much better power density.
5) Lithium - most of the work today is being done on these - I haven't seem them used much for high-current apps, but I won't be surprised.

Amazing what you pick up when doing a RFP to replace the UPS systems at work.
On a completely unreleated note: Someone want to explain to me why Homeland Security flagged an RMA shipment of batteries? Are 700lbs of battery packs really that suspicious?--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel
"Camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legend! Right, Boo?"

[hmelton]

Hello Jpub
Been busy farming it rained today so my work has slowed considerably.
By the way may the next 360 days be as happy as your birthday. Hope your enjoying the game.
Just to make sure the next 360 days are happy "DON"T FORGET YOUR WIFES BIRTHDAY!".

/QUOTE/
1) Efficiency (energy released compared to cost to charge). Most batteries of 20+ years ago had efficiencies lower than 80%. Today's Lithiums and variants have as much as 99%. That's incredible.
/ENDQUOTE/
Yes I have to agree that is increadible, but wasn't that a given from the Lithium battery's type of chemistry?
Seems I remember reading that the Lithium chemistry would lead to a very efficent recharge capability when compared to the other battery chemistries like Nickel-cadmium or lead acid.
(Please Correct me if I'm wrong it has been several years.)

/QUOTE/
2) Shelf-life. The ability for a non-rechargable (ie Alkaline) has improved immensely. On average, an alkaline of 20 years ago had a 3-year shelf-life, today's batteries routinely have 7+.
Additionally, rechargables traditionally had poor shelf-life, but some modern products have a self-discharge factor low enough that they can actually be stored and last for years.
/END QUOTE/
Yes I know, anybody else know people who keep thier batteries in the fridge?
If I'm not mistaken wasn't improved self life used as part of a advertisement campaign by a battery company starting about 20 years ago?
Up until about then Alkalyne batteries were a desposable item that the average consumer didn't hold to a very high standard and there was little incentive for the battery companies to make any improvements.
When large numbers of battery powered devices appeared they suddenly increased in importance in consumer's minds and the battery companies eventually caught on.
Thinking about it doesn't that under 3 to over 7 year improvement in self life in 20 years prove my point that chemical batteries are a very mature power storage technology?
It has taken them over 20 years to double what has become a very significant statistic.
/Quote/
3) Your car battery is a lot tougher, and can work better over a wider range of temperatures and conditions than it used to.
Look, do you really think your CELL PHONE would be possible 20 years ago? That you wouldn't be swapping out that battery every month or so?
/End Quote/
No I do not think a battery of 20 years ago would have worked, but the CELL PHONE was the "Killer Application" that suddenly made the consumer market willing to pay for a large number of improvements that had been waiting in the wings.
I know my car battery is tougher and can work better over a wide range of temperatures, but the improvement is a relatively low sloped linear improvement that took a significant investment to achieve.

/QUOTE/
Claiming that 'everything was predicted in a 1950's chem book' is a bit silly, and you know it. Yes, batteries are based on a chemical reaction, and the fundamentals of that reaction were known a long time ago. That hasn't changed.
By the same token, the IC hasn't changed in the past 50 years either - it's still nothing more than a bunch of transistors. The gun is still just using the explosive reaction of gunpower (or some variant) to throw a projectile, but they've changed quite a bit in the last 50 years.
/END QUOTE/
Nope I don't know that it is silly.
Chemical Batteries have the improvement curve of a very mature technology with doublings of significant values like shelf life, power density and recharge efficency every 20 to 30 years.
The Integrated Circuit has the the exponential expansion curve of a immature technology ICs are doubling in significant values such as speed and density every 2 or 3 years.
I can see the justification for spending large amounts of money in researching improvements in IC Chips, but chemical battery technology improvement has been far more linear in it's improvements. That chemistry book predicted the power densities very closly for technologies like lithium and yet it took a significant amount of research and retooling to build them.
I can't personally see the spending of the same sums of money on battery chemistry research when it take 20 to 30 years to gain a doubling.
There are alternative power storage systems especially when it comes to vehicles.
I personally think 30% to possibly 50% of the research into chemical batteries would have been better spent in looking at alternative power storage systems.
GUNS! want to start a thread on guns?
Assuming I can find time to reply regularly we could discuss everything from ancient fireworks to modern near science fiction systems like coil guns and railguns.
/QUOTE/
The material sciences used in the design and manufacture of batteries has changed immensely, and THAT is where the improvement lies. Hey, the Lithium battery, as used today, wasn't even possible commerically until the mid 90's. The Li-poly battery, probably the pinnacle of battery design, wasn't available until sometime in the last 5 years.
/End Quote/
True, but how much of an improvement over the Earlier batteries is it?
/QUOTE/
BTW, the mAh rating of a battery is meaningless. An Alkaline has a rating of 2300-2500, while a NiCd has 1200-2000. Yet the latter is better in electronics. The big advancements have come not in how much energy they store (although there has been some - Lithium batteries have vastly higher energy density than Alkalines), but how they release the energy.
/END QUOTE/
NO! your wrong when your comparing batteries with the same battery chemistry it is a very helpful measurement.
YES your right when it comes to different battery chemistry it's nearly useless.
You brought up a point we have both been ignoring with chemical batteries you very much need to choose your battery's chemistry based on the power curves and demands of the application.
This thread started over a vehicle using compressed air instead of chemical batteries.
Lithium batteries are economically and chemically needed for applications like cell phones and other hand held devices, but I doubt we will ever see them used extensively in the car industry as a power storage system.
howard melton
God bless

[Kokuten]

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On a completely unreleated note: Someone want to explain to me why Homeland Security flagged an RMA shipment of batteries? Are 700lbs of battery packs really that suspicious?

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Because they are a useless and silly people, who need to be sacked?
I've got a UPS replacement happening at work, as well, I wish I was in the RFQ procedure for it. I'll just be happy when my new DC power system for the comm room is SNMP capable.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[hmelton]

The last question in this thread asked why homeland security considered batteries a danger that needed to be flagged?
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www.reghardware.co.uk/200...es_laptop/
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Let the pictures load and then mentally expand this less than 1 lb battery to 700 lbs and imagine the damage it would do.
howard melton
God bless

[jpub]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone have any info on the total cost for a Nuclear Fission Reactor (for example, a modern CANDU) versus a comparable wind farm?
Including such issues as - the *size* of the area needed for the wind farm (which would be HUGE), the possible environmental impact of all those turbines, and costs in materials/energy for building & maintenance?
--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel
"Camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legend! Right, Boo?"

[hmelton]

I can't find it.
At one time back in the late 1990's I had a website bookmarked that listed the "Cradle to Grave " economic cost of most of the things we commonly use or encounter in modern society.
I can't even find the old book mark, which I doubt would even work now.
jpub you might have some success doing a search using "Cradle to Grave" or "Cradle to Grave cost".
Right now I'm doing a quick Yahoo search using "Cradle to Grave cost", but I'm not going to be able to give it much effort. I'm busy planting my crop and I don't have the energy to do a very complete search.
If you don't find anything I'll also slowly check all the Alternate History discussion boards I frequent.
I'm fairly certain that one of the boards had a thread that mentioned "Cradle to Grave" cost and it is something AH writers find useful so a link might turn up in one of the collected references link threads.
howard melton
God bless

[jpub]

The reason I wonder is because there was some rhetoric passed around when they were looking at a CANDU (Slopoke) reactor here about 15 years ago:
1) A Windfarm equivalent to even the smallest reactor would require the removal of unacceptable amounts of Northern Forest, or the loss of far too much farmland.
2) A Windfarm of the size required to equate a small reactor would cause the jetstream to change, since it would essentially 'nudge' the airflow.
3) The capitol cost of the Windfarm would be some multiple of a reactor's cost.

I'm trying to find if there's anything to support that or if it's just handwavey hoo-ha.--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel
"Camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legend! Right, Boo?"

[Kokuten]

I still think that in Happy Conceptual Land, many nukes are a damn fine stopgap, the ~100 years we can get out of 'em before waste starts to become a problem should be enough to let us develop;
a) an actual presence in space.
b) orbital power transmission
which would let us shut down the nukes gracefully and huck the waste into that handy nuclear crematorium in the sky.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[hmelton]

I agree with Kokuten's post above.
Atomic power looks like a better stopgap than windpower.
Windpower has a lot of advantages, but those that support it seem to forget that windpower needs a wind to produce power. You don't always have wind so even with large wind farms you still have to build conventional powerplants to take up the slack when those wind farms are becalmed.

If your going to have to build powerplants anyway then I personally lean toward Atomics being better than the Coal or gas powerplants.

Did a little more searching this time with "Atomic power vs wind power." Came up with several websites, but here are two that caught my interest enough to read.

anti-nuclear
-----------
www.renewableenergyaccess...y?id=46546
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Pro-nuclear
--------
www.wired.com/wired/archi...ar_pr.html
--------

howard melton
God bless

[Kokuten]

check out atomic power vs. coal power, especially on radiation levels.. you might be surprised.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979