nakedjaybird

PHEVs and EVs: Plugging into a Lump of Coal

Thomas Brennen - actually, the old, comfortable path is very rewarding; the questions are: for whom, and how long???

Change for the sake of change is not necessarily beneficial; but, change to fix what is broken --- now, that's beneficial.

Knowing what's really broken is the key!!!!!

The rest is floundering, which looks very familiar.

PHEVs and EVs: Plugging into a Lump of Coal

Let's make that Dr. Chu.

PHEVs and EVs: Plugging into a Lump of Coal

Der Chu - are you listening??

PHEVs and EVs: Plugging into a Lump of Coal

JIC - regarding HYBRIDS ......

nakedjaybird: Comments (609) Follow

Fred Linn (and John) - as some of us know, in the near future (I'll tell you more after I've finished acquiring my positions - selfish greedy little me!), the ONLY ONBOARD STORED ENERGY in hybrid vehicles will be a small GRASS TANK refillable at every yet existing refueling pump dedicated to renewable non-food-chain-threate... BIOFUELS which will be burned in a NO-MOVING-PARTS BURNER (non-ICE) while capturing 70-80% of the energy in solid-state direct conversion THERMIONIC DEVICES for the electric drive HYBRID. Possibly, just possibly, they may be an onboard quick charge/discharge device, but small at best, and more than likely NOT an electrochemical device (why bother with all that messy manufacturing stuff to then contend with its charge/discharge inefficiencies). This market will grow in concert with the an exaggerated biofuels market (assuming aircraft demand does not cause an initial delay in the available biofuel supply).

Then, look out! As you well know, the first 10% reduction in crude consumption has already arrived (for the second time - the first being 1973!). So the world is awash in crude all the way to zero - while the folks continue to play their pricing games.

But the replacement market for the new hybrid vehicles need only grow at a few percent a year to make huge new markets for much stuff, while the crude traders die with buggywhips in their hands.

Aug 30 03:14 PM |Report abuse| Link | Reply 00

PHEVs and EVs: Plugging into a Lump of Coal

Dave Marsh - hey, I've got a novel idea for you; another Gov't program called "Nukes for Clunkers" (the coal type). That way the coal generators will be equally or overly compensated and won't have to totally waste their assets already sunk (not to mention the uproar and lobbying we'd see from the whole coal mining industry).

But, hey, maybe we can also compensate them somehow too.....we'll call it "OBAMASIZED".

Hey, even better, let's dismantle, ship and reconstruct all the US coal fired plants in China (and then sell China all of our coal - you know, why keep it - we'll never use it!! Everyone will be pleased!!). And then we can also export all our clean coal technology, services and equipment - help the trade imbalance.

That's what we should have done with all the auto clunkers instead of just squashing them - China could have used the vehicles til they wore out - (and helped keep the world oil demand up!); they're going to get the scrap iron, regardless!!!!

Marsh said- "John's last sentence about will power goes equally for nuclear power. It is not cost prohibitive when done properly, only when re-starting a dormant program as we have here. China is building 45 reactors, and twenty or so other countries are building nuclear plants also. I believe John spends time in France, where they derive >80% of their power from nuclear, have the cleanest air in Europe, and if they are not laughing at us, they should be. One hundred fifty two-unit plants could eliminate coal-burning completely. Staggered over twenty-five years it's completely possible, as is restarting fuel reprocessing which will close the loop on the nuclear fuel cycle, and qualify nuclear power as largely renewable. Onl then will your EVs become CO2 free and not "plugged into a lump of coal." Grid-scale storage for intermittent wind and solar is not going to be economically viable in our lifetimes, if ever. Storing a single ten-hour night's worth of power from a single two-unit nuclear plant (e.g. Diablo Canyon - two 1100 MW reactors) would require 22,000 Megwatt-hrs of storage, i.e. 22 million kilowatt-hrs. Even at $100/kW-hr, that's 2.2 trillion dollars. How absurd. No amount of Rube Goldberg "smart grid" shell-gaming will get around this. We need nuclear power to make things like pure EVs - largely recharging at night - viable over the long haul. As has become all too common, the rest of the world is passing us by, and we will deserve our fate. Step up to the plate Energy Secretary Chu." Aug 30 11:24 AM

White House Report: GM Volt Is Not Ready for Prime Time

Right on, John; time to push the "BULLSHIT" button.

We're talking about productive, effective, efficient transportation; moving cargo, goods, and people both long and short distances. Right Thinking Required!

Hence, more electrified steel-wheeled rails takes care of cargo and goods and gets that off the interstates and off of diesel (less imported oil - do I still have to say that?? Well yes, even if it's biodiesel/biofuels). And no, I have not given up on electrified interstate FERRIES for goods and people (and their hybrids).

Electrified high speed rail will handle the busy people between major cities and get them out of commuter planes and also off the interstates (ahem! - less oil).

Inside beltways, electified rails takes care of the willing (yet, selfish) commuter, softened maybe by some rubber tired diesel/hybrid buses to take care of the last mile, doorstep issues, both ends.

As for the willing flex-route commuter, it's going to be a small-battery biofuel-hybrid with waste heat recovery thermionics powering a ChorusMotor (same as the busses, only smaller).

All these are possible maybe without the gas tax if we stop subsidizing oil, gas, coal. And by the way John, don't push the compressed gas rigs; push the biofueled diesel which you like, as a small-batteried hybrid.

Are you listening Steven Chu??

SouthernCEO - as for your ilk, the selfish thrillseeker - you will always be around just as the maucho off-road bigwheeler - some of that is in us all; that's why whores exist and we have what's called Adultery - but what's your normal everyday ride; sans Shakespears "no sooner had than wished not"?

Lithium-ion Batteries: 9 Years of Price Stagnation

John - I agree that for a mature battery operation the materials costs will represent 80-90% of direct product cost which as you know is not the same as total cost. The question really is, which cost are we really looking at here? And we may also have to be clear about cost v/s price, especially when price is not cost-based but market-priced as every Madison Avenue Harvard graduate has learned.

Smart Grid's Enabler - Alternative Energy Storage

Old wizzard- building out the grid can be as simple as providing a canal large enough to function regardless of the leaks.

Smart Grid's Enabler - Alternative Energy Storage

Tiny tim = pumped storage doesn;t nrecessarily go thru the same turbines.

Smart Grid's Enabler - Alternative Energy Storage

BWA - right on; end-use storage: add on a little stored heating and/or cooling via products that exist and are already used (refrigerators [ice] - simple thermal storage - get rid of the standard ovens/stoves and their 220v hookups and anything "red". Avoid any conversion inefficiencies wherever possible (like batteries!).

Instead, push local/remote no-moving-parts biofuel injected solid state generators that capture/and or make use of all the energy; no conversion losses on the way in or out. John will be able to invest in these SOON. Then we can throw away many of the other schemes. Oh yes, and God DOES NOT forbid solar PV and wind, at the home, etc., jic.
Nor hybrids on the hyway.

And on the front end, pumped hydro opportunities do exist and are only complicated by regulators, of which we should eliminate about 80% (or more!).

Amazingly, according to JOhn, less that 1/2 our electrical generating capacity is utilized. So that 12 Quads of annual electricity we do generate (at 40% effeciency because of not using the low pressure steam) and the grid we already transmit and distribute on (losing max 10%) could easily be bumped up 50% using existing technologies and with the extra 6 Quads we would have enough energy to electrically power all the existing Transporaton industry that currently consumes 25 Quads and produces only 5 Quads or useful work, wasteing 20 Quads (80%) of it's energy from all the crude in the internal combustion engine conversion. Come on electrified interstate ferries and grid.

Throw in the solar PV and wind AFAP (as fast) and AMAP (as much) and our problems are solved. Storage?? Come on LEADERSHIP.

Lead-Acid, Lead-Carbon Batteries: The Only Option for Average Consumer

JKessler - what does matter as you well know and speak around is the actual life-cycle and then total cost/performance comparison between the batteries you actually "test" for real, even tho it is an amusement application.

You apparently achieve significant benefits in:
- faster full-charges,
- fewer charges,
- fewer chargers,
- fewer batteries,
- no battery changeout chores,
- faster turn-around,
- significantly lighter weight batteries, and
- fewer demands of the maintenance crew, or
- maybe fewer maintenance crew and which must
- translate into lower capital, labor cost, power cost and
- better vehicle performance, or
- more payload.

And for the greenies, no emissions.

Walla!! Impressive toy.

How's it stack up to the Volt? Much cheaper, for starters.

Go cart!

And here's the important question: would you go back to internal combustion engines??????

Lead-Acid, Lead-Carbon Batteries: The Only Option for Average Consumer

jkessler - if you don't mind disclosing, what are you motor specs? What would a lighter, higher low speed torque motor do for you?

Lead-Acid, Lead-Carbon Batteries: The Only Option for Average Consumer

speculawyer - you're a great addition. Thanks for pointing out the facts of the DOE paper.

When the DOE (and the US) addresses electrified TRANSPORTATION other than the LVT's of your referenced paper AND the inefficiencies of POWER GENERATION, we'll not only knock off the rest of imports but attack coal and ng and their wastes, being left with the need for the INTER/INTRASTATE right-of-way Power Grid and ELECTRIFED FERRIES while removing most rubber tired vehicles from long distance transport, all powered by the upcoming solar, wind and bio farms.

Lead-Acid, Lead-Carbon Batteries: The Only Option for Average Consumer

John - 'scuse me - i meant BIOFUEL hybrids, not just biodiesel (and yes, the celulosic type not necessarily from the kernal) - yet, not excluding biodiesel. This goes for hybrid truck transportation too; and not to exclude railroads, barges, ships. airplanes and electrified ferries (?). That should cause some head scratching.

Lead-Acid, Lead-Carbon Batteries: The Only Option for Average Consumer

John - you are getting it right: you just scratched the <50 mi commuter itch; just like Eurpoe does it: cheap batteries, fleet maintenance, highly taxed fuel.

Your next article will probably address the >50 mi "commuter" using the diesel hybrid.

AND THEN, you can write about the BIODIESEL hybrid with the no-moving-parts biofuel injected container encapsulated with solid state direct coversion to electric ChorusMotor powered transmission-less hybrid with the ONLY ON-BOARD STORED ENERGY DEVICE being a GRASS TANK, refuleable at any of the then existing biofuel stations, because this hybrid captures and makes use of 80-90% of the energy in every gallon of biofuel instead of the 20% we get from every internal combustion engine.

It seems like most folks writing or responding in SA don't get the fact that our useful total energy needs are less than 1/2 of what we consume due to waste because we are using inefficient methods for both POWER GENERATION and TRANSPORTATION. Of course, DC doesn't get it either.

But times may be a'changin': Steven Chu, Obama's new Energy Czar from Livermore Labs understands the real energy issues from a proper perspective. I truly hope he is effective in properly directing our money the Government is going to spend for us.