John Adam

Lithium Batteries Boom: Finding Value in the Automotive Sector

I get the idea that a large automotive led acid battery can store as much as 1-killowatt hours worth of power and weighs about 50lbs. Now I have read that the GM Volt battery weighs 400 lbs and stores about 16 kwh. Now the old led acid batteries with that capacity would weigh about 800 lbs. However these old batteries would probably cost about an eight as much and have no heating or other problems. They also can last a long time.

Now I see that NEW ADVANCED LEAD ACID BATTERIES have been designed with superior performance to current models and weigh and take up space at around one third to a quarter as much, www.fireflyenergy.com/... .

GM engineers may have become addicted to lithium. If Ford engineers actually do the math they may realize that they could easily buy better advanced lead acid batteries that are much better than lithium batteries. Lithium is also a much scarcer element than lead.

Time for America to Fire First Shot in the EV Revolution

John Peterson,

I was aware that the ultracapacitor was not used for storage. I can read and have degrees in Physics and Computer Science. The US Army uses them because they get much better MPG and can be used to generate electricity for camps, airfields, etc.

The US Postal Service and others could obviously us electric vehicles especially rural carriers.

Electric tow motors etc are fairly commonly used in warehousing.

What part of charging your vehicle in the parking lot at work is beyond your understanding? Most automobiles spend most of their lives sitting someplace where they could be charged on the electric grid. Long haul trucks and trains are often driven 24/7 not 1 or 2 hours a day. The fact is that charging batteries with grid electricity is much cheaper than using a diesel generator. An ICE generator, of any variety, runs at a constant speed and pure electric vehicles or Extended Range EVs, like the Volt, do not need a transmission to weigh them down.

Biodiesel made from soy oil or canola is fairly foolish compared to using mustard or algae. Salicornia oil from desert areas grown using salt water makes more sense than growing soy beans for fuel. Using corn for ethanol or butanol fermentation makes no sense when sweet sorghum will grow on poor soil in areas where corn grows. It requires less water and no chemical additives and can produce nearly as much sugar per acre, or various kinds, as sugar cane.

By the way butanol, unlike ethanol, can be blended with diesel fuel to high concentrations and improves the oil combustion in the diesel engine.

How close are you to the LHC and CERN? Have you ever met any of my red headed German/French relatives from Alsace?

Time for America to Fire First Shot in the EV Revolution

John Peterson,

Oshkosh has been making a large diesel electric hybrid truck for the Military for a few years, www.4x4offroads.com/os... . It only used an ultracapacitor and using the diesel electric techniques gets up 40% better MPG. If Boone Pickens was credible he would know that you can modify diesel engines to run on a mixture of diesel and Natural Gas. Most of the fuel used is NG the diesel is used to ignite the mixture, www.greencarcongress.c... .

Batteries do not make much sense for long haul trucking or trains. Commuting back and forth to work in a car like the Volt, with a battery, does. The amusing thing is that in the USA our stupidGRID for electric distribution wastes huge amounts of energy 24/7. A smartGRID could end most of the waste. Unfortunately the smartGRID 1.0 is still only thinking of off-peak hours rates. We need to rapidly develop the smartGRID 2.0 to minimize waste 24/7.

The USA already generates enough electric power to charge all the PHEVs to replace all the old ICE only vehicles. What we need is better management of the power we generate to stop wasting it. The answer is to SCHEDULE power usage using inexpensive computing power. In this case KNOWLEDGE really equates to better POWER UTILIZATION. Currently the electric utility companies are only THINKING ABOUT using their smartGRID 1.0 to interface with smartMETERS to reduce billing and maintenance expenses. SmartTHERMOSTATS are on their agenda, but charginging PHEVs 24/7 is not.

All the Politicians, Lawyers, and Accountants in the USA are blind to the potential of 21st century technology. Those that believe that Al Gore invented the internet are not Physicists or Computer Scientists.

Time for America to Fire First Shot in the EV Revolution

Chall74440,

The Volt goes the first 40 miles using only battery power and at the average cost of the electricity used to charge it compared to $2 gasoline it get the equivalent of 95 MPG. Then its gasoline powered generator starts recharging the battery. The driver may hear the gasoline engine start but otherwise he notices no change and the electric motor continues to propel the car. The gas generator gets the equivalent of 50 MPG because it runs at a constant optimum RPM to generate electricity.

This is the same technique used by railroad locomotives. They seem fairly reliable to me. The current battery technology is the only drawback and that could rapidly change. If the claims that Firefly makes about their advanced batteries are true perhaps GM and others are missing an inexpensive reliable battery technology just because it used lead,

www.fireflyenergy.com/

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Time for America to Fire First Shot in the EV Revolution

Sorry I did not paste this quote about the size and weight of their batteries:

<<Firefly 3D2 battery could be one third to one quarter the size and weight of a conventional battery of similar energy capacity.>>

Read it here, fireflyenergy.com/... .

Time for America to Fire First Shot in the EV Revolution

People just google 'advanced dead acid battery technology' you will get the Firefly site. Which says among other things:

<<Such a structure results in much higher power and energy delivery and rapid recharge capabilities relative to conventional lead acid products. These foam electrodes can be used in either flooded or VRLA battery designs.>>.

www.fireflyenergy.com/...

Another of their web sites pages says: <<Comparing Firefly’s Advanced Technology
Firefly’s microcell technology compares quite favorably with both lithium-ion and nickel-metal-hydride in larger multi-cell applications. It is competitive in the critical areas of energy density, cycle life, self-discharge rates, and charge acceptance. There are no issues of high operating temperatures or thermal runaway, and there is no “memory effect”. Furthermore, Firefly’s technology does not require the use of any high-priced metal materials. Some lead is used, but this is easily recyclable through the existing lead acid recycling infrastructure. Firefly’s primary new ingredient, carbon, is one of the most plentiful elements in the universe.>>

www.fireflyenergy.com/...

Then there is this critical statement:

<>

Read it here, www.fireflyenergy.com/... .

The big question is cost. However it would appear that if they went into mass production they would be cost competitive:

<<Our first batteries are being developed for specialized applications, working with large organizations like the U.S. Army and major trucking fleets and OEMs. We're in discussions with several large companies in the automotive industry, and hope to be making batteries for hybrid and EV applications.>>

www.fireflyenergy.com/...

This could be a viable option.

Saudis Try to Re-Invent the Internal Combustion Engine

Electric motors are 3 or 4 times more efficient than ICE engines. The electric grid charged Volt battery can go 40 miles and gets the equivalent of 95 MPG when gas in $2 a gallon. We waste more than enough electric power to charge enough batteries to power enough electric vehicles to replace all our ICE vehicles. The cost of the Volt and other electric vehicles and their batteries will rapidly go down because of increased production and rapid technology advances.

But I am not going to junk my Acura because as electric vehicles replace ICE vehicles the price of petroleum will go down as demand goes down. A properly maintained modern ICE vehicle will easily last over 20 years. Electric vehicles should last even longer and require less maintenance.

We can also use sustainable biomass technology to produce all the chemicals that we currently produce from petroleum. Sorghum Molasses, switchgrass, algae, Salicornia, Hemp, cellulose, fermentation, pyrolysis, We can grow plants near chemical plants and use CO2 to grow them. The cost of finding, extracting, shipping, and processing petroleum will not make any sense in a few more years.

Lawyers and accountants will fight to slow the acceptance of new technology that they do not understand and cannot control but change will continue and accelerate until a Natural Disaster or Human greed and stupidity cause a new Dark Age.

The Future of Ethanol

If you had bothered to read the links in my article you would have seen reference to new hybrid versions for use in India and other countries including the U.S.A. In the 19th century farmers in the Northern USA used molasses instead of expensive cane sugar. The people that run ADM very likely never heard of molasses from sweet sorghum. ADM first made inexpensive corn sweetener then ethanol. I doubt that the head executives at ADM know much about US agriculture or its history.

In Kentucky they produced over 1 million gallons of sorghum molasses in 1899. They used 1899 varieties that produced more juice than grain and harvested it with horse power and the implements they had then. They processed it like they process sugar cane now in Brazil, but with ancient equipment. When I was growing up I did listen to what my elders had to say even if some of them were old farmers.

I could mention another plant that George Washington grew and produced numerous products like sorghum, but you people would go crazy. That plant is another potential huge source for cellulose to sugar for butanol, ethanol, etc. It was also used for sails of ships and rope and also for its edible seeds. New varieties of this plant are grown all over the Earth, but not in the USA.

History is important. If you know how to feed questions to a search engine you can find answers on the WWW.



On Nov 17 10:28 AM National Sorghum Producers wrote:

> Very simply, there are three major types of sorghum that can be used
> in ethanol production.
>
> 1. Grain sorghum (aka milo) - grown in the center “belt” of the nation
> and currently used interchangeably with corn for starch based ethanol
> production.
>
> 2. Sweet sorghum - grown in the warmer Southern regions of the U.S.
> Sweet sorghum is being used for ethanol production in India but the
> market scale production of sweet sorghum ethanol in the U.S. is not
> yet reality because of logistics issues. Oklahoma State University
> is researching harvest and in-field distillation equipment.
>
> 3. Cellulosic or energy sorghum - used in ethanol production schemes
> for its high biomass. These plants can be 10 or more feet tall and
> can be grown all over the U.S.
>
> For more information, visit the National Sorghum Producers website
> at sorghumgrowers.com.

Ethanol: In the Tank

Here are the complete links that my word processor insisted on truncating.

www.new-agri.co.uk/06-...
cincinnatilocavore.blo...

Ethanol: In the Tank

Using corn instead of sweet sorghum to produce ethanol makes as much sense as using wood instead of coal or oil to fuel trains. Only fools continue to make the same bad choices out of habit, www.new-agri.co.uk/06-...... .

It grows well in the Midwest USA, cincinnatilocavore.blo...... .

<<Sorghum cane is well-suited to growing in the lower Midwest (Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, and Missouri are historically the major producers) and in Appalachia, and today it is produced in only a few states. It looks a bit like very tall corn >>

Nissan: Serious About EV Leadership

Unfortunately no one appears to understand how antiquated our electrical power transportation and distribution grids are. We are wasting huge amounts, in the neighborhood of 10%, of all the electric power we generate in order to prevent possible blackouts. That was necessary because before inexpensive computer microprocessors became available and Power Line Communication technology was developed it was impossible to integrate nearly instantaneous micro management into the fabric of these power grids. Smart grid technology makes this possible now, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... .

The electric companies are already installing electric meters with micro processors that can do this. These meters communicate with their billing computers to determine your bill. And if you fail to pay your bill these computers can communicate a command to stop service to your electric meter. We need battery chargers with micro processors that can communicate with computers controlling the electric distribution networks. These chargers would not begin charging until AUTHORIZED by the grid control computers that would fine tune power generation to usage at any instant in time. This would allow minimal wasted power without power blackouts.

This could be done 24/7 not just at “off peak” times. This is a merger of IT and electric power network technologies. Security can be done even better than on business computer networks. The chargers could be AUTHORIZED and SHUT OFF. They could be ordered to HELP POWER the distribution network. You could add millions of SOLAR ROOFS to the network and actually buy and sell this new power generation with minimal waste.

Technology is the solution. Technology challenged politicians and lawyers are big problems.

A Smart Electricity Solution for Transportation

John S Gordon,

It would be nice if a human dispatcher could "instantaneously" do what you imply he can. If that were actually possible "off peak" rates would not exist or make sense! What I described is computer process control of electric power transmission, distribution and use system by adjusting the number of electric vehicle batteries being charged. The dispatcher does not have a clue as to how much electric power customers are currently considering using to dry clothes or charge batteries. Computers at millions of homes could make requests over a smart grid and computers controlling the grids could schedule them and authorize them to manage the grid at a micro level that your human dispatcher obviously could not.

The dispatcher could reduce the amount of electricity being generated but this takes time. However the burning coal producing heat can not be put out nearly as rapidly. Even if you could extinguish the burning coal you would waste energy extinguishing and reigniting it over and over again. It would be nice if your dispatcher had such god like power, but unfortunately massive hot processes are not easily controlled.

Computer process control for smaller processes does work in most of the things we do already. Humans can be a good fail safe control but otherwise computers are clearly superior.

A Smart Electricity Solution for Transportation

John S Gordon,

It would be nice is a human dispatcher could "instantaneously" do what you imply he can. If that were actually possible "off peak" rates would not exist or make sense! What I described is computer process control of electric power transmission, distribution and use system by adjusting the number of electric vehicle batteries being charged. The dispatcher does not have a clue as to how much electric power customers are currently considering using to dry clothes or charge batteries. Computers at millions of homes could make requests over a smart grid and computers controlling the grids could schedule them and authorize them to manage the grid at a micro level that your human dispatcher obviously could not.

The dispatcher could reduce the amount of electricity being generated but this takes time. However the burning coal producing heat can not be put out nearly as rapidly. Even if you could extinguish the burning coal you would waste energy extinguishing and reigniting it over and over again. It would be nice if your dispatcher had such god like power, but unfortunately massive hot processes are not easily controlled.

Computer process control for smaller processes does work in most of the things we do already. Humans can be a good fail safe control but otherwise computers are clearly superior.