Lithium Batteries are SOOO yesterday

[kas_1611]

The biggest driver in battery technology right now is the need to develop something that can store the excess power generated by most forms of so called renewable generation that is produced when it isn't needed. Wind and Solar both suffer from this problem and until we crack the storage problem will never provide the basal power generation capacity that coal, oil, gas and nuclear currently do (that is the lights are always on capacity).

Lithium batteries currently are the leading form of storage based on capacity versus cost although there are several other variations being developed but they are cost prohibitive. Vanadium is one option being looked at as are various forms of Carbon Nanotechologies. Who knows what we'll be using in 10 years time as none of us would have predicted the incredible rise of the smartphone et al.

For transportation purposes oil will probably remain the fuel of choice for quite some time. It is the most energy dense fuel we have in the easiest form to transport and store. I agree we can't go on pouring it into fuel tanks and burning much longer, especially for short trips (get on your bike or walk!) but to move good around the planet I can't see any other feasible alternatives.

We also have to remember that even if we do crack the storage problem and are able to harness every form of renewable including tidal, river, geothermal, wind, solar and any other new ones that come along we will still need oil and gas. Petrochemicals from both these basics form almost everything we use in modern life. Imagine no iPhone, no plastics, no fertilizers, no pharmaceuticals or any of the millions of other hydrocarbon based products we use on a daily basis.

If you are worried about Carbon Dioxide and Climate Change there is a very simple thing we can all do to mitigate this. PLANT TREES!!!! Either do it yourself in your garden or donate to charities that do this on a larger scale. One of the biggest impacts man has had on the planet is the destruction of the rain forests which are Earth's lungs. Restore these and we could halt the rise of CO2, maybe even reverse it if we plant enough trees.

Oh and no I am not a tree hugging environmentalist before you ask. I'm an oil company geologist who just happens to like the planet I live on.

Keiron

[Leo Ticheli]

World changing technology is advancing at blinding speed and will continue to do so, beyond what could be conceived just a few years ago.

Consider a few examples: 16MM News Film; are you old enough to remember, "Film at eleven?" In about 6 months the majority of television stations dumped their film cameras, their processing machines, the foul chemicals, and their technicians. Gone, in the dumpster almost over night. And the video tape and tape manufacturing plants that replaced the film? Gone. Vanished. And the memory chips shrink in size and price faster than Carl Lewis.
Remember waiting in line at the airport to use one of the pay phones? Remember being charged for "long distance?"

What kind of social upheaval is coming? How long before every long-haul truck is self driving, displacing the bulk of the drivers? Think Uber is the future? Wrong. Select your destination on your phone and the driverless cab will roll up to you open the door and whisk you away. No cab drivers need apply.

Need to see your Cardiologist? Open your computer, stick your finger in the analyzer and your doc in Pakistan or India or wherever will get the advice from a Watson like program and your meds will be delivered the next morning. Price? How about $15.00.

We've already built tools in space with a 3D printer and the future is just dawning.

Hang on, boys and girls, it's going to be bumpy, but a hell of a ride!

Fair winds,
Leo

[MarkSF]

Originally Posted by Leo Ticheli

and the future is just dawning.

Generally, I find that's the case.

[Leo Ticheli]

Originally Posted by MarkSF

Generally, I find that's the case.

Ha! Well said! The difference now, of course is that the "future," in the sense of very rapid change, is just dawning. A hundred years ago, the "future" looked just like the past. People lived and worked exactly as their grandparents did.

One of my favorite quotes, as silly as my, "future is just dawning," is from the great philosopher, Yogi Berra; "it's hard to make predictions, especially about the future."

Fair winds,

Leo

[Saltyhog]

Originally Posted by zboss

<snip> Someone laughed at me when I made the prediction that within 20 years we will have a boat that is 100% powered by solar and electric and will run at hull speed indefinitely. <snip>

I don't think physics will bear this out in any practical way. (Disclaimer: I'm no physicist, so if I'm wrong, someone who is more knowledgeable please correct me)
From the solar irradiance data it seems that even being extremely optimistic, the most we can hope to collect is 9kwh/m^2/day. Divide by 24 and you get 0.375 kW average power / m^2. This is about 0.5 HP/m^2. Lets say you take a 50 foot boat and cover every bit of top surface with panels and can somehow achieve 50 m^2 of panel space. That would yield an average of 25 HP, which is probably just about enough to move the boat at near hull speed in flat water with no winds. This also assumes 100% conversion efficiency of the panels (unlikely to get near that in our lifetime), 100% battery efficiency (regardless of the chemestry), 100% power conversion efficiency, and 100% motor efficiency. The point is none of the above is practical. No new technology will change that this is the absolute most power you could collect with solar. You cannot change the laws of physics. And BTW, this leaves nothing on the table to run the fridge.


ps. And the boat would be butt ugly.

[GoingWalkabout]

Sometimes social changing new developments can take years of R&D hidden away in research labs and then suddenly the new invention or innovation cones to life. Then it usually takes on a life of its own spawning even greater innovation.

I know this from first hand experience. Owning a number of patents and still inventing I have seen long research and development time scales to bring new products to market. One game changing product took more than 10 years of R&D by my company. But while really new inventions can take a long development time when they spring onto the market you can see revolutionary change almost overnight. Then you have incremental change such as seen in the field of silicon wafers.

Moore law is real. But then you have truly earth shaking developments that amount to quantum leaps that make even moores law look like standing still.

Yes we live in an amazing time. I'm glad to be alive.

[zboss]

I can see for airplanes that petrochemicals will remain important for a long time (what is a "long time" gets shorter every year).

Even so, distribution of power or our purposes (boats) is irrelevant outside out engines, we already produce most of the power we need from solar and wind. Batteries with energy densities far exceeding what we have now are going to come in the next 20 years - crossing seas on solar and batteries is already possible.

Solarpowered vessels - aquawatt electric yachts, electric boats, electric boat motors, solarpowered vessels, solarpowered yachts - Green Marine Technologies

This one can complete an atlantic crossing faster than many sailboats, all on solar and batteries:

World's largest solar-powered boat cruises into London - CNN.com

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by kas_1611

The biggest driver in battery technology right now is the need to develop something that can store the excess power generated by most forms of so called renewable generation that is produced when it isn't needed. Wind and Solar both suffer from this problem and until we crack the storage problem will never provide the basal power generation capacity that coal, oil, gas and nuclear currently do (that is the lights are always on capacity).

Lithium batteries currently are the leading form of storage based on capacity versus cost although there are several other variations being developed but they are cost prohibitive. Vanadium is one option being looked at as are various forms of Carbon Nanotechologies. Who knows what we'll be using in 10 years time as none of us would have predicted the incredible rise of the smartphone et al.

For transportation purposes oil will probably remain the fuel of choice for quite some time. It is the most energy dense fuel we have in the easiest form to transport and store. I agree we can't go on pouring it into fuel tanks and burning much longer, especially for short trips (get on your bike or walk!) but to move good around the planet I can't see any other feasible alternatives.

We also have to remember that even if we do crack the storage problem and are able to harness every form of renewable including tidal, river, geothermal, wind, solar and any other new ones that come along we will still need oil and gas. Petrochemicals from both these basics form almost everything we use in modern life. Imagine no iPhone, no plastics, no fertilizers, no pharmaceuticals or any of the millions of other hydrocarbon based products we use on a daily basis.

If you are worried about Carbon Dioxide and Climate Change there is a very simple thing we can all do to mitigate this. PLANT TREES!!!! Either do it yourself in your garden or donate to charities that do this on a larger scale. One of the biggest impacts man has had on the planet is the destruction of the rain forests which are Earth's lungs. Restore these and we could halt the rise of CO2, maybe even reverse it if we plant enough trees.

Oh and no I am not a tree hugging environmentalist before you ask. I'm an oil company geologist who just happens to like the planet I live on.

Keiron

Well, written! I would not call you a tree hugger. You are correct trees being the lungs of the earth. The tree huggers worried about global warming might should be more concerned with breathable air and how much we are contributing to the lack of that vs. warming.

I have solved the whole thing about using unused energy. I have a funnel with a hose going to the air breather I sit on the funnel and burn all that unused methane. I know, it's coming you're full of ****.

[nimblemotors]

"The tree huggers worried about global warming might should be more concerned with breathable air and how much we are contributing to the lack of that vs. warming."

Did you not notice that tree huggers are called 'tree huggers' for preventing trees from being chopped down?

The people looking for an excuse/rational to keep doing the same thing they are already doing will find it somewhere. On my website, I quote George Bush in 2006 state of the union speech. "We are addicted to oil". Like heroin or smoking or alcohol, changing can often only happen when all other alternatives are exhausted.
So now we drill for oil at the bottom of the ocean. (And just to add, those who are selling you the heroin or payday loans or rum, don't want you to change either.)

And to the OP, with a title "Lithium Batteries are SOOO yesterday", you are not just 'reporting the news', and being a year old, it isn't even news.

I built my first electric car 10 years ago, btw.

[Lancerbye]

Today an electric powered plane left Dubai for a world circumnavigation. Four electric motors, a lot of solar panels and batteries. They plan on doing this without using any fuel. I have also been involved in cutting edge computer technology in industry most of my life. Technological change is happening at an exponential rate.

[a64pilot]

OK look at it this way, 1 gl of gasoline is 33 KWH, average American house uses 30 KWH per day, or equivalent to slightly less than 1 gl of gas per day.

To replace 1 gl of gasoline with electricity, you do the same as adding another house to the electrical grid, roughly

There are 121 Million households in the US

We consume 368 Million gallons of gas, daily

To replace our gasoline use with electric, we need to generate 4 times the amount of electricity that we currently do that is used in households. I have no idea what the percentage of electricity produced is used by households.

When you plug in that electric car to re-charge it, the power has to come from somewhere, currently there is no where near enough generating capacity to replace a significant amount of gasoline.

Look at it another way, assuming you actually get 330 W of Solar average from however big your array is. It will take 100 hours to get the equivalent power to replace 1 gl of gas.

Somebody check my numbers, it's all off the cuff, and I'm often wrong, I'm always misplacing a decimal or squaring when it should be cubed etc.

[a64pilot]

I'm all for electric power, but we have to do two things to make it work, in my opinion.

1. become way more efficient
2. generate way more electric power

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by nimblemotors

"The tree huggers worried about global warming might should be more concerned with breathable air and how much we are contributing to the lack of that vs. warming."

Did you not notice that tree huggers are called 'tree huggers' for preventing trees from being chopped down?

The people looking for an excuse/rational to keep doing the same thing they are already doing will find it somewhere. On my website, I quote George Bush in 2006 state of the union speech. "We are addicted to oil". Like heroin or smoking or alcohol, changing can often only happen when all other alternatives are exhausted.
So now we drill for oil at the bottom of the ocean. (And just to add, those who are selling you the heroin or payday loans or rum, don't want you to change either.)

And to the OP, with a title "Lithium Batteries are SOOO yesterday", you are not just 'reporting the news', and being a year old, it isn't even news.

I built my first electric car 10 years ago, btw.

At least you didn't say I was full of ****, which I am.

The tree went out of the generic tree hugger 20-30 years. age.

One question, what's fueling the recharge on the electric cars? Is it more efficient considering transmission loses commuting employees, to the plants, and all of the hidden costs?

I don't want to get into a pissing contest, you are right. We can't keep making the same mistakes over and over. I wish we had the answer.

Wind farms chop up birds so I guess that is out. Large solar farms would
shade vegetation. I'm waiting for ET to come down in a UFO with the an answer.

[Mycroft]

EVs are usually charged at night when utilities are supplying the least amount of energy. This allows them to actually be more efficient with their generators.

Even if cars are charging from energy created from coal, it's a lot easier to focus cleanup efforts at a single point than over thousands of vehicles.

With distributed power, (i.e. solar cells on rooftops), energy companies will not need to expand and in fact, they may soon need to down-size.

With airplanes flying around the earth on solar energy, how long will it be that we can use solar to fuel our *auxiliary* motors in sailboats in addition to fueling our fridge?

[rwidman]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

I suspect it will be decades before we see significant reduction in dependancy on fossil fuel


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

And I suspect you are right.

People have been led to believe that electric cars or electric boats will end dependence on fossil fuel and the end to pollution.

NEWS FLASH: The electricity to run these things has to come from somewhere and for the most part it is from burning fossil fuel. The difference is, they can't see it and the pollution is in someone else's neighborhood, usually a poor neighborhood.

Hydroelectric generation was going to save the world but if floods farmland and prevents fish from going upstream to spawn.

Nuclear energy was going to save the world but there have been a couple accidents and nobody knows what to do with the radioactive byproducts.

Solar only works when the sun is shining.