Posted on 06/08/2011 5:00:36 PM PDT by dangerdoc
“Batteries degrade. They charge less, as they age.”
More than that. They eat energy during charging that is quickly lost before you get a chance to use it(much more with older batteries). It is dissipated as heat. And you thought incandescent light bulbs were wasteful.
At noon on the equator, the sunlight sunlight energy about 1 kilowatt per meter squared. Averaged over a sunless day, you may be talking 6-8 kilowatt hours. For a large car, you could probably mount about 6 square meters of solar cells giving a theoretical 36-44 kilowatt hours. Unfortunately, affordable solar cells are about 10% efficient giving you about 1 horsepower peak power or if you use a battery about 4 kilowatt hours of power per day. That would take a car about 15-20 miles per day.
I posted an article a few months ago about a potential solar cell technology that would be 90% efficient. Now you are talking about a car that could be powered over 100 miles per day just on daily solar input. Unfortunately, just the batteries to store this much energy would buy a couple of regular cars. You would also have to deal with minor problems such as winter and rainy days.
If the technology improves, solar could be practical for stationary applications, it could even charge up the batteries on electric cars. Unfortunately, neither the solar cells or batteries are here yet. I posted this article because it may be an improvement on the battery side of the equation.
I don’t know if any of this will ever be practical but I find it very interesting.
So far as yet gasoline seems to be the best fuel for an internal combustion, piston engine such as that in a car. It’s also lubricates the engine and other moving parts(people always concentrate on the rear of the car, never under the hood) Gasoline comes from oil and oil comes from the ground. And we’ve got lots of it. Oil is a demoracys most precious natural resource. It’s the black blood that makes possible all we produce and build and drive and fly to be the super power we are, to enjoy the standard of living we have— and to be free. It’s the reason the liberals and the ‘’greens( reds, really) are pushing this ‘’green revolution; green technology’’ bs. They hate American exceptionalism , they hate freedom.
Use the hundreds of years of oil in the United States known reserves and kill electric cars!
I had 2 cars a whole lot faster that electric thing over 50 years ago.
128 in the quarter mile and 154 at bonneville in 1954.
Our stock 1957 Corvette was clocked at 157 in the back straight at Riverside in 57.
DangerDoc, you’re a smarter man than I am.
That’s very good information to have; perhaps
solar cells will get better over time. Thank
you for reply, and not laughing at me :)
I’m not smarter, I am just interested in the subject and have been following it for a while.
Yup. Coal provides 44.9%, natural gas 23.4%, petroleum 1% (fossil fuel component 69.3%); hyroelectric 6.9%, and other renewables 3.6%. Nuclear energy accounts for 20.3%.
The consensus since Fukashima seems to be that nuclear is intolerably dangerous so we won't see many new plants built - it takes at least a decade to go through the approval process anyhow. The Monkey Wrench people think hydro dams are unthinkable and want to tear them out. It's very unlikely we'll see any major new hydro projects. At present output the total from hydro and other renewables is a pathetic 10.5% of the total used.
Since about 70% of U.S. electricity comes from fossil fuels I don't see how a faster way of charging car batteries with it is going to solve any problems. I believe nuclear power is the only long-range solution.
I’m wondering if it catches fire as well as the original batteries?
From what I understand, it is MUCH higher than 5%
The 5% comes from a european study I saw years ago.
This is what Wikipedia says:
Transmission and distribution losses in the USA were estimated at 6.6% in 1997[10] and 6.5% in 2007.[10] In general, losses are estimated from the discrepancy between energy produced (as reported by power plants) and energy sold to end customers; the difference between what is produced and what is consumed constitute transmission and distribution losses.
So, yes losses are more that 5% but not much higher.
New cogeneration plants can reach 60% effiency, even with a 10% loss in transmission, that leaves the power plant operating at 50% at your door step.
Traditional automobiles are about 10% efficient over all which give a rechargable electric cars two advantages. One, over all effiency from fuel to pavement would be higher and second, that energy can come from cheaper domestic fuels.
Normally you are charging at night when power would be produced locally and grid losses are minimal. Moreoever deep cycle battery efficiencies are 85-95%. Electic motor efficiencies are over 90%. Also, you haven't factored in the cost of getting and refining oil.
Electric cars are quite efficient. That is not the problem. The problem is initial capital cost, battery lifetime and range.
Normally you are charging at night when power would be produced locally and grid losses are minimal. Moreoever deep cycle battery efficiencies are 85-95%. Electic motor efficiencies are over 90%. Also, you haven't factored in the cost of getting and refining oil.
Electric cars are quite efficient. That is not the problem. The problem is initial capital cost, battery lifetime and range.
Decades of Watermelon “Nimbyism” have created an antiquated, vulnerable and inefficient “grid” system. Now the same folks want to further increase our dependence upon this tottering technical nightmare with NUG solar/wind/whatever transient sources by claiming “its green”. Of course they completely ignore the costs - financial and environmental - the additional thousands of miles of grid interconnects would impose, without reducing reliance upon coal as many units would have to be kept on “spinning reserve” in order to level out supply. >PS
I’m glad to see someone else who gets it. We must move away from the centralized grid delivery system to a local distributed network or even better off the network entirely.
Imagine this “goo” could eventually hold enough of a charge to power a typical home for a month.
The possibilities are endless.
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