Posted on 01/01/2007 10:44:24 AM PST by Uncledave
Right now any high capacity battery has toxic components that will do the same thing. Let's take a couple of these new batteries, break them open and you wash your face in what comes out of them, 'k?
But, but, but... your internal combustion engine runs on heat.
>Still, 80% is a pipe dream, unless you are at 1 STD. try it at 40 below. or 120 above.
What number do you think is a reasonable average to use?
When my car leaves the garage, its temperature is rarely outside of the range of 40 to 90.
Lithium polymer is solid and rather inert.
Europositron batteries use sodium chloride as the electrolyte.
Supercap "batteries" use an inert ceramic like material.
As you can see, not all high capacity batteries have to be toxic or corrosive and their desirability will include such factors.
I realize it is rather late but you seem a little grumpy. I don't think you really want anybody intentionally exposing themselves to battery components, toxic or not 'k.
--Right now any high capacity battery has toxic components that will do the same thing. Let's take a couple of these new batteries, break them open and you wash your face in what comes out of them, 'k?--
But washing your face in gasoline is ok?
Thanks! I prefer to be positive, rather than negative, about possibilities.
No, I don't. But at some point it will happen because AFFORDABLE battery technology means a lot of acidic toxics. At least with petrol, it is sufficiently volatile that it will evaporate off (unless it meets a spark or hot surface), but it's a danger we're more or less used to.
I wouldn't do either one... but my point is that AFFORDABLE battery technology still raises the specter of disfiguration and worse in an accident and the newer ones which might not will not be AFFORDABLE without more gubmint subsidies for a long time to come. Subsidies I am NOT willing to see continue.
--Of course, there will be the backlash against these vehicles the minute we have the first accident when battery acid is released into the street, eating away at an otherwise lightly-injured victim, killing her (IF she's lucky) and horribly disfiguring her corpse at the same time.--
Sort of like the backlash of severely burned accident victims in gasoline fueled vehicles.
--acidic toxics--
Have you never used ALKALINE batteries?
review
To provide secure charging that means a lockable plug compatible with that of the car. Course there will be midnight clowns that will l try to cut the cable to steal juice.
The suburbs bring similar problems. In many of the older suburbs or quasi-suburbs such as NYC's outer boroughs there are few garages or driveways for single family homes/ Worse they are very nearly totally dependent on random street parking with no commercial garages in the neighborhood. These folks will be SOL with their electric only vehicles.
The suburban co-op/condo clusters present the same problems.
Bottom line is that a whole new electrical infrastructure would be necessary for all these juice joints, independent of the efficiency of batteries.
--But to go back to the article's touting of "Plug-in" electrical vehicles ( that's non-hybrid) --
You should read the article before you go about (incorrecdtly) touting what the article says.
When you move the electric car from rest, the chemical energy is transformed to electricity. The electricity drives electromagnets in the motor. The drive train converts the rotation of the motor into linear motion via the wheels. The moving vehicle now possesses kinetic energy and momentum. When you apply the "brakes", the linear motion of the car is transformed to rotation of the wheels. That rotation is fed back through the drive train to the motor where the back EMF can return a portion of the original electrical energy back to recharge the battery. You gain nothing. You do recover a small percentage of the original chemical energy. There is loss along the entire path of transformation each direction.
If you happen to be going downhill, the regenerative braking may transform some of your gravitation potential energy into chemical energy in the battery. Still, what goes up must come down. You'll have to climb that hill later and you'll burn more than you captured.
Thanks for the heads up on my error in citing non-hybrid. The rest of my commentary still stands vis a vis the 'plug-in'.
It's late and I'm gone.
--You gain nothing.--
Wrong. With friction braking, the energy all goes to wasteful heat but with regenerative braking you recover much of the energy to use later to accelerate the car back up to speed.
The vehicle won't even budge with zero input. It's nonsense to even discuss that point. The efficiency is way below 100%. A lead-acid battery is only 75-85% efficient. The rest is lost to heat. Lithium ION is 86% efficient.
A study extolling the virtue of the Prius says it delivers 32% of the power from the battery as power to the wheels. The gasoline engine only delivers 16%...the rest is lost in the form of heat out the exhaust and radiator (70%). The balance is due to braking friction, aerodynamic drag and frictional losses in the engine and drive train.
If the Prius is delivering 32% to the wheels, that means the other 68% is wasted is some fashion. It's clearly not a "reversible" process as defined in classical thermodynamics.
That's a bit disingenuous to change the standard of comparison. I'm talking about terms of absolute use of energy. You've turned it into a comparison between friction brakes and regenerative EMF recovery of energy. Apples and oranges. You still have a net loss relative to the initial energy input to move the car. The losses are reduced, but not eliminated.
Current battery technology is not affordable or you would be driving some sort of hybrid now.
Not all batteries use toxic or corrosive material. The batteries that have the best potential to be affordable for this purpose happen to be the ones that do not use particularly toxic, explosive or corrosive material.
And will a huge electric bill, like several hundred dollars, be a great path. Is there a breakdown on a cost comparison, on a cents per mile basis, for electric from the grid vs gasoline?
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That fact is indeed important. I do know that wind, clean coal, nuclear, and other alternatives are much more economical when used for the electrical grid, and that the hardest area to introduce them is for transportation. The battery issue is the key link.
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