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Lithium Ion Batteries and GEVs: False Gods for the New Millennium

John - Thanks for another insightful post!!

You may not have seen the Wall Street Journal special section on "How to Rebuild Global Prosperity" in the issue of Nov 23. Carlos Ghosn (CEO of Nissan/Renault) in the subsection on Energy and the Environment says: "... about energy efficiency, the ability to store energy is absolutely important. ...I think focusing and developing capacity to store energy ... is absolutely fundamental to have a much higher efficiency in terms of use of energy." (Can you send Mr. Ghosn a copy of your article?)

That said, there is a fundamental limitation in your analysis, that being the type of driving used for comparison of the candidate vehicles. You postulate a range of 12,000 miles/year, but if this range is mostly driving at highway speed then there will be little if any advantage for a hybrid over a conventional IC engine. We drove a Ford Escape hybrid for three years, experiencing average mileage of about 25 mpg, mostly at highway speed (here in central Virginia, we seldom encounter stop-and-go traffic). We traded in the hybrid for a 4-cylinder Escape, and get about the same mileage. More to the economic point, we paid no cash for the trade and financed the new vehicle (both at zero interest) for a payment $50 less per month -- even with the hybrid depreciated for three years. The premium paid for the hybrid buys a lot of gas!

Hybrids make a lot of sense in city driving, thus their adoption by New York taxis, delivery trucks, and urban buses. Maxwell Technologies is selling ultra-capacitors to China for the latter application. For suburban and rural driving, the gas engine in a hybrid will take most of the load, with the batteries and electric power train just along for the ride. I don't knock the Prius - it's a fine car - but for many people the Camry will give equivalent mileage at a much lower capital cost.

CNG conversion of a gasoline-fueled vehicle costs about $8000 (comparable to the hybrid premium, maybe less for original equipment), so there needs to be a large difference in fuel cost per mile to justify the premium. Also, the energy density of CNG is about 1/5 that of gasoline, so the fuel tank will be about 5x larger for equivalent range. This is less of an issue for big trucks and transit busses, thus many buses in California have large CNG bottles strapped to their roofs.

I certainly concur in your conclusion that the market for electric-only vehicles in the US will be limited to affluent zealots. In Europe, distances traveled are likely to be shorter, more traffic will be encountered, and gasoline costs are higher, so EVs and hybrids may be more popular.

Alternative Energy Storage: It's All About Price vs. Performance

John - Great post and debate! I particularly appreciate your distinction between invention and product. You're right on top of the issue that befuddles the exponents of alternative power: energy storage, needed to translate the variable power supply from wind and solar generators to the times of peak demand.

I retired from the Babcock & Wilcox Co. (sub of McDermott International, MDR) in 2000. My last project there was a Superconducting Magnet Energy Storage (SMES) system funded with about $25 million from DOE. The objective was to serve utility-scale grid stabilization applications with stored energy of about 100 MJ and discharge power of 100 MW. In the course of developing the system, we tried mightily to find a utility willing to foot the cost of integrating the system into their grid, given the magnet for free. The Anchorage AK municipal utility has a real problem in service stability at the end of long supply lines, but they couldn't find the money to provide the foundation, enclosure, and electronics to charge and discharge the magnet. AEP has a station in KY with a power controller that would be ideal for the application, but they were unwilling to take the risk of modification of their controller to charge and discharge the magnet. Eventually the magnet was completed and delivered to the DOE-funded National High Magnetic Field Lab at the University of Florida at Tallahassee, where to my knowledge it sits in the boneyard with other relics of DOE programs that have never been put to use.

The Navy is developing an Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) to replace the steam catapults on future aircraft carriers, improving energy efficiency and reducing force variability on the aircraft and maintenance workload. I consult with the prime contractor, General Atomics (private). The system includes 12 flywheel generators charged at a relatively low power level from the ship's bus, then discharged in a 5-sec pulse to launch an aircraft. Each flywheel stores over 120 MJ (33 kWh) of energy and discharges with a peak power over 100 MW. These specs are somewhat more than the 25 kWh capacity advertised by Beacon Power. I don't believe GA has any plans to commercialize the product, and given our experience with SMES i doubt that many utilities would want to invest in it.

GA operates the largest Tokamak fusion research machine in the country, also funded by DOE. Research results from this facility are key to the development of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in France, intended to produce the first continuous fusion reaction apart from the sun. Although the uranium fuel for fission reactors may run out in 50-100 years, within that time span we can hope to realize essentially limitless power production from fusion reactors, with little or no hazardous waste product. BTW the largest lode of uranium ore in the US is down the road from where I now live in Virginia, but given community fears of digging the stuff up, I doubt it will ever be mined.

Regarding pumped hydro storage, I live a few miles from a pair of artificial reservoirs built with private capital by AEP in the 1960s. The generators on the main dam operate in reverse at night to pump water from the lower reservoir back into the upper, to be released during the day to feed the variable load. Problem is, the water level in the lower reservoir varies as much as 20 feet per day, which depresses the value of land abutting the lower lake. Regardless of governmental regulation, local property owners will have strong reservations about permitting widespread use of pumped hydro power.

The reason utilities build large generating plants is pure economics: small distributed generators will never compete in thermal efficiency or maintenance cost with large plants. So unless we are willing to foot the extra cost, the idea of little green generators in every backyard or neighborhood will remain a fantasy.

In the 1980s I built a house in Maine with the objective of economizing as much as possible on energy and capital costs. The Central Maine Power Company installed two meters, one for the daytime load and the second metered at a lower rate for off-peak load. We installed German-made energy storage heaters in each room (ceramic bricks were heated at night by electricity), saving the capital cost of a furnace and ductwork; and we connected an over-size water heater to the off-peak meter. We put concrete thermal mass behind large south-facing windows, and had wood stoves in the living areas for ambience and emergency heat. The system worked like a champ through the Maine winters.

Regarding hybrid vehicles, I bought a Ford Escape hybrid three years ago, and have rolled up over 35,000 miles with no power train maintenance issues. When I bought the car (with tax credit, thank you), I figured the hybrid premium was justified over a 5-year life with gas at about $2.75 a gallon. Last summer I made money; not so now, with gas at $1.50 locally.

BTW I share your agnostic position on global warming; the more I hear ignorant politicians and their followers rant about it, the less I believe in it. The decisions I have made were primarily based on economics, with some consideration of being an early user of new technology. Heaven save us from more ill-considered Washington mandates.