Science

http://www2b.abc.net.au/science/k2/stn/newposts/4571/topic4571500.shtm

linked above is a breif and incomplete discussion about a doped paper "battery"

it sound more like a capacitor to me.

Might interest some here

Hi Guys,

Have posted in quite a while. If you're wondering what I've been doing, then you can look here: http://www.ilovephysics.com/forum/t2149-Electrons-protons-standing-electromagnetic-waves.html . I posted a theory I have about subatomic particles as standing electromagnetic waves. If you have some thoughts about it, I would be interested in hearing them.

In terms of the EV front, I'm looking forward the Nissan Leaf at the end of the year.

Thanks,
Daniel

Peak oil is defined as the point where the oil companies can no longer increase oil production. One of the reasons to electrify transportation is the peak of oil production. For example many want renewable energy (solar, wind) to replace coal, but the only way for solar/wind to power vehicles is if the vehicles are electric.

Anyway ...

There is plenty of oil but . . .
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6041

It's an excellent exploration of the "huge amount of oil which theoretically can be extracted" and "whether the cost will be cheap enough for us to be able to afford to extract it". In many ways, the folks who say we a have lots of oil are correct. All one has to do is include the oil which is extremely expensive and slow to extract. Much of the cheap, easy-to-extract oil has already been removed.

An economist would say oil prices rise, and the higher price causes us to look for substitutes, which will tend to bring prices back down. Except ... the substitutes are poor. Biofuels compete with food production and/or land for food production. Or as I said, renewable energy sources that produce electricity does not power the majority of vehicles.

High oil prices means something has to give ... people might miss debt payments, or cut back on other things. This is how high oil prices cause recessions like the one we're in now.

..etc.. there's a lot more in the article. Highly recommended reading.

TechnoSanity #30: Peak Oil and the UKERC Peak Oil report is about a report released in October from the UK Energy Research Center. The report is about peak oil and the need for increased action on switching away from a dependency on fossil fuels.

"Global Oil Depletion" a report on Peak Oil by the UK Energy Research Centre is a summary of that report.

In view of the intensity of the debate between Mik and John, relating to different battery technologies. I thought it may be of interest to have a wider range of views about battery technology. After all the heart of any EV is the performance of the battery, so this should be a subject for some really creative contributions and ideas!

Gentlemen???......

Here's some deep physics analysis into the requirements for using solar panels to charge an electric motorcycle or other EV.

http://blog.dotphys.net/2009/05/solar-powered-motorcycle-possible/

Some vehicle makers might add solar panels as a way to woo people into thinking the car is extra cool. Such as Fisk'ers karma which has solar panels on the roof ... but the roof is so small it only provides a modest amount of power, enough to run the in-cabin stuff like air conditioning.

Anyway.. the guy goes to the trouble to calculate wind resistance to estimate power requirements. I think it's a bit simpler, that you can simply measure the power used to recharge the battery averaging over several rides. I've done that with my motorcycle and know it took 0.2-0.3 kwh per mile (over a 10 mile journey I took several times a week).

So if you know you have n kilowatt-hours to put into the bike, how many solar panels for how many hours are required to recharge the bike? And can you manage to fit that many solar panels onto the bike?

Just got to publish a break though in lithium battery technology

Ober 30 years of service life,
Electrolyte is exchangeable.
BMS gives maybe every 10 years a message: please exchange the electrolyte.

Extrem fast charging possible

A car with the new batteries will be shown at the
5th International Symposium of Large Ion Battery Technology and Application (LLIBTA; June 8 - 10, 2009; Long Beach, California). .

Normal car converted - 500km - 5 minute to recharge
70 kWh batteries.

This talk just came in through the TED Podcast and I thought it was immensely interesting. Bill Gross, the presenter, is the founder of Idealab (linked below) which seems to be a kind of high tech incubator company. It appears from Idealab's website that they spun up a company named Stirling Cycles, which was later sold to Infinia Technology (also linked below). This appears to be unrelated to Stirling Energy Systems who is building some kind of large installation in the Mojave desert.

The idea he talks about is an intelligently designed heat capturing system that feeds heat into a stirling engine to produce electricity.

Last weekend I attended a talk by the CEO of Coulomb Technologies. They're making charging stations meant to be deployed around a city for electric vehicle drivers to use. He had an extremely interesting presentation, and it gave me the topics for a series of blog posts.

This first Equating "fuel" efficiency between electric, hybrid, and gasoline vehicles tries to answer the efficiency of an EV over a gas vehicle. For instance Tesla claims its Roadster gets 190 miles/gallon equivalent efficiency.

It seems my electric motorcycle gets 112 miles/gallon and my electric bicycle gets 1120 miles/gallon.

Okay electricity isn't measured in gallons that involves some conversion factors.

Curious what y'all's thoughts are...

POZNAN, Poland – The first solar-powered car to travel around the world ended its journey at the U.N. climate talks Thursday, arriving with the message that clean technologies are available now to stop global warming.

The small two-seater, hauling a trailer of solar cells and carrying chief U.N. climate official Yvo de Boer, glided up to a building in Poznan, Poland, where delegates from some 190 nations are working toward a new treaty to control climate change.

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Grandpa Chas S.