Article

2007-01-03 Science & Technology

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Posted by ed 2007-01-03 07:13|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 What happens to the batteries after their useful life? The environmentalists will have a cow if it doesn't meet their guidelines.

Posted by Jonathan">Jonathan 2007-01-03 09:10|| 2007-01-03 09:10|| Front Page Top

#2 That's what people forget about hybrids and electrics. The fact they take exotic materials that are quite hazardous and polluting. If you have a wreck in a normal car, it'll get cleaned up pretty quick. You have a wreck in an electric car and it's batteries are broken, you have a heavy metal haz mat site that will require a haz mat clean up crew hours to clear, at least.

The site for dead and old batteries would likely end up on the Superfund clean up list.

Posted by Silentbrick">Silentbrick 2007-01-03 10:05|| 2007-01-03 10:05|| Front Page Top

#3 Further, those plug-ins that are left connected to an electrical socket after being fully charged can substitute for expensive natural gas by providing electricity from their batteries back to the grid

Am I missing something or is this as stupid as it sounds?

Posted by SteveS 2007-01-03 10:07|| 2007-01-03 10:07|| Front Page Top

#4 After reading Rantburg since the start, I am all for anything that reduces our dependence on foreign oil.

Posted by Penguin 2007-01-03 11:25|| 2007-01-03 11:25|| Front Page Top

#5 Steve,
The theory is that the battery powered cars will take the cheap off peak electricity and store it so that some of it can be "re-tapped" during peak hours. I think this was in Peter Huber's The Bottomless Well.

Posted by Whinemp Unogum4891 2007-01-03 11:50|| 2007-01-03 11:50|| Front Page Top

#6 Ah, the old "Perpetual Motion Ploy".

Posted by Deacon Blues 2007-01-03 12:16|| 2007-01-03 12:16|| Front Page Top

#7 I've got a question, then. In reality, for ANY of this to work, it has to be o.k. with our (the consumers') pocketbooks. Sure, to screw the jihadis, I'll pay a little more even than the cost of gas.

BUT, we (as consumers) don't get this "off-peak" break, do we? My electricity company just comes and reads the (totalized) meter at the end of the month. Doesn't tell when (during the 24 hour cycle) I used each of those KWh, just the total used. Sure, at the power plant, it may be "off peak", but for us consumers, it won't matter a hill of beans.

And, I don't believe that garbage about them not needing ANY new power plants to charge these plug-ins until 80+% of the cars are plug-ins. ANY add'l plug-in (at least at my house) will require additional power. I guess in theory, I wouldn't stop by the gas station as frequently (which, in theory, would lower their electric demand for the pumps), but I'd assume it would be a NET increase in demand, as I'd be "plugging in" a LOT more than the gas station would decrease by me NOT pumping gas? Is that logical?

I'm all for doing what we can to get off foreign oil. But, as others here more eloquent than i have stated, it WILL take a mix of options to do that (long term) and short term will require INCREASED domestic production (of oil). Heck, you add in tar sands (oil), and POOF, Canada of all places becomes the world's SECOND LARGEST proven reserve right behind Saudi (and far outpacing any of the other ME Countries).

Posted by BA 2007-01-03 14:06|| 2007-01-03 14:06|| Front Page Top

#8 And, Jonathon's right too. That doesn't even start to take into account the "cost" of all those old/spent batteries a few years from now.

One of my parents' friends hopped in on the "electric car" fad when it first started. She bought one of the first Honda Insights. Of course, they didn't tell you that the battery was shot by 60k miles, and whammo, cost $10,000 to replace! That's the cost (back then) of a stripped down Civic, which would (almost) get the same milage, but you didn't have to pay for it twice (once for the Insight, then almost a full second cost for a new battery), and it would last well past 200k miles.

Posted by BA 2007-01-03 14:09|| 2007-01-03 14:09|| Front Page Top

#9 The crux of the article is that there is a lot of unused base load (enough to power 84% of the USA's 220 million vehicles) at night that is maintained (at an economic loss) that plugin hybrids can use to power up and eliminate most of the gasoline used by the USA.

Let's face it, you do not pay $2.25/gallon for gas. Just this year the US is spending at least $150 billion in the muslim world (That's $34/ barrel of all oil imports or $137/barrel on the mideast oil imports). In addition, the mideast's political and religious problems already raise the price of oil from around $10/barrel, in a free arket, to today's $60/barrel. That is money that we would not have to waste if we imported no oil from them.

Lithium ion batteries (as ref in the article) do not use heavy metals (Li, Ti, Mn, Fe in some combination). They do not use sulfuric acid. Some are even in solid form (acrilamide?).

Plug in hybrids can be useful to smooth peak power demands because the cars plugged in the garage can supply power back to the grid on hot summer days. That also means fewer peak load power plants. Even at 20% conversion loss, it's still much cheaper to buy off peak power at 5 cents and sell it back at 10 cents or more (it's peak demand). It is a matter of communication links and an inverter.

The biggest hurdles are cost and battery life. Most batteries last 5 years, but newer Li ion tech are good for 20,000 cycles and still retain 85% capacity. 20K cycles is 55 years of daily charge/discharge cycles. A 35KWh batterypack (at pilot production) cost $14,000. A plug in hybrid like a Prius needs 5KWh ($2,000 battery cost, 50 cents electricity at 10 cents/KWh, 25 cents at off peak rates) to go 25 miles. A mid sized sedan needs less than 10KWh.

Like I said earlier, it's much cheaper to give every new car a battery pack (12 million X $4K for a 10KWh battery = $48 billion) than to blow 4 times that each year just on the USA's mideast governmental spending, not even counting robber baron's price for oil and billions on home security. Best to spend it on domestic growth an completely isolate the muslims from our economic, political, and demographic system.

Posted by ed 2007-01-03 14:52|| 2007-01-03 14:52|| Front Page Top

#10 Until the hybrid replacement battery cost comes way down, the only useluf thing i can see them for is to clearly identify the treehuggers so you can either tailgate them or get right in front so the diesel exhaust from your 1 ton dually commuter truck can really p!ss them off. and a hybrid suv is almost as oxymoronic (IMHO)as moderate muslim.

Posted by USN, Ret. 2007-01-03 15:04|| 2007-01-03 15:04|| Front Page Top

#11 BA, you can get off peak pricing today. It requires installation of a (more expensive) meter that records power usage and time. Industrial users have it. Most homeowners do not. While you would use additional power, a plugin would use it at night, when power plants are below capacity and losing money. Therefore it is also a more efficient use of our power plant resources to have plugin hybrids. Better efficiency = lower total unit cost (cents/KWh).

Posted by ed 2007-01-03 15:08|| 2007-01-03 15:08|| Front Page Top

#12
10,000 miles/year at 25 miles/gallon:
Gasoline cost at $2.50 gallon: $1000

10,000 miles/year at .4KWh/mile:
5¢/KWh Off peak electricity: $200$800/year
10¢/KWh electricity: $400

10,000 miles/year at 25 miles/gallon:
Gasoline cost at $2.50 gallon: $1000

10KWh battey ($4000) amortized over 15 years: about $300 year.

Savings in American lives, societal well being, and economic growth: Priceless.

Posted by ed 2007-01-03 15:19|| 2007-01-03 15:19|| Front Page Top

#13 5¢/KWh Off peak electricity: $200/year.

Posted by ed 2007-01-03 15:19|| 2007-01-03 15:19|| Front Page Top

#14 Or we could just conquer western Iran, ~~Iraq~~, ~~Kuwait~~ and northwestern "Saudi" Arabia and take the oil. Heck, it would be self-financing.

Posted by Excalibur 2007-01-03 16:21|| 2007-01-03 16:21|| Front Page Top

#15 Ed, thanks very much for the summary.

About two years ago I came across a link to a very clever engineer (in the SW USA, I think) who was developing high performance electric power trains for cars and who had on his site either papers on energy leveling by car battery or links to the same. Do you have the link to him by any chance?

Did he morph into Tesla Motors? (They have quite a few job openings, btw.)

Posted by KBK 2007-01-03 16:44|| 2007-01-03 16:44|| Front Page Top

#16 Don't know the guy or much about Tesla Motors. Even though I've read they have the FASTEST prodction sportscar, it uses thousands of old style AA NiMH batteries that last 2-3 years. I also can't justify $100K+ for the average Joe. A more interesting example is Phoenix Motorcars who are developing 130 and 250 mile SUVs using Altair Nanotechnologies Lithium ion batteries. Even then, until batteries are less than $100/kWH (if ever), I believe small battery hybrids that use electricity for 80% of the miles driven are the way to go.

Posted by ed 2007-01-03 17:09|| 2007-01-03 17:09|| Front Page Top

#17 Tesla Motors says it uses 500 cycle Li-ion batteries:
Li-Ion batteries are good for 500 complete charge/discharge cycles. One cycle consists of discharging the pack from 100% state of charge (SOC) to 0% SOC. ... If a driver continues to drive 50 miles every day and recharges every night, then after 5 days they would complete the equivalent of one charge/discharge cycle.

Hopefully they will soon upgrade to the new generation Li-ion batteries.

Posted by ed 2007-01-03 17:23|| 2007-01-03 17:23|| Front Page Top

#18 For Gearheads on something less than a Hollywood star's budget, the Toyota FT-HS
Toyota envisions that punch to be a rear-wheel-drive Hybrid Sports Concept (HSC) that develops 400 horsepower. "It's a new kind of sports car for the 21st century," adds Hunter. "Eco and emotion in a sports car concept with a performance target of 0-60 mph in about 4 seconds and a price tag in the mid-$30,000 range."

Posted by ed 2007-01-03 17:41|| 2007-01-03 17:41|| Front Page Top

#19 What percentage of US energy consumption is consumed by personal transporation?

Something to think about: Even if we assume the availability of highly time and energy efficient mass transportation, I doubt we would save enough to really fix things. I doubt in the real world there will ever be highly time-efficient mass transportation. You have to get that back by using less energy-efficient means to get you where you are going quickly. Sorry, one or the other, not both! And time spent with your finger up your a$$ is not economically productive. I think we're screwed. The only answer is more domestic production of oil.

Deep thought: If the US annexed Iran, would oil produced there and shipped here be considered "domestic"? :-)

Posted by gorb 2007-01-03 17:58|| 2007-01-03 17:58|| Front Page Top

#20 Ed, well, that's still about 10 years of life if you drive 13K miles/year.

Got it! 19Sep03 NYT article. I had to mount my Windows partition to dig out a copy I'd saved. I could post it somewhere if you're interested or mail it to you.

It's AC Propulsion and the guy's name is Alan Cocconi. He was a founding engineer on the EV1 project.

They have a number of interesting reports on grid leveling technology.

They recently gave a paper at the ZEV Technology Symposium. It's a pdf, on slide 24 he talks about the company's eBox with a 35 KW Li Ion battery. 3 cents/mile energy cost, 30 cents per mile battery cost (!!?? I would like to have heard his remarks on that slide!)

Posted by KBK 2007-01-03 18:26|| 2007-01-03 18:26|| Front Page Top

#21 The US uses about 140 billion gallons of gasoline/year or 5.0 trillion kWH. That's 3.5 trillion miles at 25 miles/gal (US fleet avg). Diesel not taken into account as most use is commercial (40 billion gals/year). Total US energy consumption is 100 billion BTUs or 29 trillion kWH. Gasoline = 17% of total energy use.

The rub is that gasoline engines are about 20% efficienct and uses high priced fuel. At 25 miles/gallon (US fleet average). Thats 10C/mile or 1.4 kWH/mile. An electric car of average weight will only require .25kWH/mile (Phoenix Motors SUV requires .27kWH/mile). A coal fired plant generates electricity at 3.5C/kWH and can be delivered at 6-8C/kWH (24 hour avg rate). A little higher (regulations) for a nuclear plant. So to go 1 mile assume it requires .30kWh (w/ convserion losses) at 8¢ kWH gives a electric cost of 2.4¢/mile vs 10¢/mile for the gasoline car.

Posted by ed 2007-01-03 19:07|| 2007-01-03 19:07|| Front Page Top

#22 Gorb, I also think mass transportation is a waste of Americans' time (therefore money) except in the most dense cities.

While I advocated on Sept 12 to take the Saudi oil fields, kick out the Arabs and turn Arabia into one big killing field for any muslims who wanted jihad (while plugging the US' biggest vulnerability and make billions $ in the process), that is not going to happen with any conceivable political party with a chance at power. Energy independence and smarter use of the resources we have is the next best alternative.

Posted by ed 2007-01-03 19:15|| 2007-01-03 19:15|| Front Page Top

#23 #3: Further, those plug-ins that are left connected to an electrical socket after being fully charged can substitute for expensive natural gas by providing electricity from their batteries back to the grid

Am I missing something or is this as stupid as it sounds?

Nope, you're not missing a thing, batteries store DC (Direct Current) which cannot go back into the power lines, (Massive shorts, transformer fireworks, big damage) whoever said that is a total Idiot, and doesn't understand electricity one little bit.

Inverters are required to convert DC back to AC (And have huge losses doing the double converting first to DC, then back to AC)

Posted by Redneck Jim 2007-01-03 19:24|| 2007-01-03 19:24|| Front Page Top

#24 I think 10 years is "optimistic". For a standard Li-ion I would give it 3-5 years before shelling out $15-20K for another pack. That's way to short and expensive. The new nanotech batteries (20K cycles) have the problem solved for a little decrease in energy density. It could even mean swapping in your battery pack each time you buy a new car and then passing the battery pack to your grandkid.

Posted by ed 2007-01-03 19:27|| 2007-01-03 19:27|| Front Page Top

#25 That's $15-20K or more depending on the range for a battery only car. $4k or less for a plugin hybrid.

Posted by ed 2007-01-03 19:29|| 2007-01-03 19:29|| Front Page Top

#26 Small inverters have 90% efficiency. Larger ones 95% efficiency. GT 3.0 Grid-Tie Inverter has >94% peak and average efficiency.

Posted by ed 2007-01-03 19:33|| 2007-01-03 19:33|| Front Page Top

#27 Unless it returns me time and money, I'm not going to cycle my precious battery by plugging it into the grid. If the idea was so great, everyone would have a battery and an inverter already.

Also, looking at #21, it seems like that at best we could save (I'm guessing!) 50% of 17%, or about 9% on total US energy consumption at huge cost to convenience and productive time. Not worth it, except for the loss of petrodollars to F-ing terrorists and terrorist states.

The ability to work from home and reliable mass delivery of things like groceries and other such commodities is the answer, I think.

Posted by gorb 2007-01-03 20:02|| 2007-01-03 20:02|| Front Page Top

#28 The whole idea is to store cheap power and sell expensive power. Unless you have batteries that can take thousands of cycles, it's not worth the cost. Right now you pay a HUGE subsidy on the oil you import. But you do not pay it at the pump. You pay it on your bi-weekly tax deductions so unlikely to factor that into the pump price you pay.

Posted by ed 2007-01-03 20:07|| 2007-01-03 20:07|| Front Page Top

#29 Sounds to me like hydrogen and fuel cells are the way to go.

Posted by mrp 2007-01-03 20:50|| 2007-01-03 20:50|| Front Page Top

#30 Most of the Mideast oil patch is within a horseshoe shaped area encompassing the Northern most section of Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait and Iran. (Only 15% of Iraq has been fully explored for oil deposits) US occupation of same would not put US troops in the position of taking ambush casualties, because the patch would have to be depopulated of locals; much of the oil patch work could be done using cheap (non-Muslim) Indian, Chinese, and Philipino contract workers.

Is my car worth more than the economic interests of millions of Persian Gulf savages? No, the dirt on the bottom of my tires is worth more.

Posted by Sneaze Shaiting3550 2007-01-03 21:00|| 2007-01-03 21:00|| Front Page Top

#31 Thanks, Ed for a cogent explanation.

Posted by gromgoru 2007-01-03 21:12|| 2007-01-03 21:12|| Front Page Top

#32 It's got nothing to do with energy. We don't have an energy problem. We've got a petroleum problem until we adopt SS3350's attitude (Something I don't recommend.) We can generate all the energy we need from domestic sources. It just won't be low cost, easy to use, easily transported petroleum.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2007-01-03 21:18|| 2007-01-03 21:18|| Front Page Top

#33 OK, Tesla is an AC Propulsion licensee.

Wow, some really cool links on their licensees!!

Posted by KBK 2007-01-03 21:33|| 2007-01-03 21:33|| Front Page Top

#34 Clearly, solve the battery problem and we've got it made.

Go Nuclear!

Posted by KBK 2007-01-03 21:36|| 2007-01-03 21:36|| Front Page Top

#35 The Tesla 2 will be a $50-70K 300 mile range sedan available in 2009. The Tesla 3 a mid $30K sedan. That's more like it, but didn't get a time line for that.

Posted by ed 2007-01-03 21:50|| 2007-01-03 21:50|| Front Page Top

23:59 gromgoru
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23:52 Jimmy Carter
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