Solar Power vs. Utility Companies 'Power Trip'

panteragstk

panteragstk

Audioholic Warlord
How practical is electric in industry with large vehicles, towing etc? Or would they remain gas?
It would work quite well considering the electric motors have instant full HP/TQ so towing would be awesome. The issue still comes down to battery capacity, charger speed, and charger availability.

I can to an insane amount with my diesel truck. Plus, I can go around 500 miles highway on a single tank. More depending on terrain. Electric vehicles just aren't there yet. Yet.
 
Irvrobinson

Irvrobinson

Audioholic Spartan
It would work quite well considering the electric motors have instant full HP/TQ so towing would be awesome. The issue still comes down to battery capacity, charger speed, and charger availability.

I can to an insane amount with my diesel truck. Plus, I can go around 500 miles highway on a single tank. More depending on terrain. Electric vehicles just aren't there yet. Yet.
The bigger the vehicle the more room there is for batteries, which is why there's so much interest and investment in electric semi tractors. The only thing stopping Tesla from moving forward is a shortage of battery cells. For consumer use to replace vehicles for interstate travel electrics are still in their infancy. But look at it this way, it took about 75 years for diesel and gasoline IC engines to get where they are in terms of efficiency and power. I'm thinking in 10 years electric propulsion should be ready for direct replacement. The question is, will the electrical grid be ready while we're simultaneously trying to convert to renewables. I doubt it.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
The bigger the vehicle the more room there is for batteries, which is why there's so much interest and investment in electric semi tractors. The only thing stopping Tesla from moving forward is a shortage of battery cells. For consumer use to replace vehicles for interstate travel electrics are still in their infancy. But look at it this way, it took about 75 years for diesel and gasoline IC engines to get where they are in terms of efficiency and power. I'm thinking in 10 years electric propulsion should be ready for direct replacement. The question is, will the electrical grid be ready while we're simultaneously trying to convert to renewables. I doubt it.
Right, but the weight of the batteries will affect the draw.

IMO, if the manufacturers had actually been more motivated to reduce emissions, it would have happened years ago. EPA keeps screwing with the fuel formulations, manufacturers have to scramble to calibrate/validate and it ends up with delays, poor performance for some period of time and people hate the cars when they're in the 'working the bugs out' phase.

Energy is understood fairly well, but storage/duty cycle and portability are the hard parts.

Now where did I put my Mr Fusion?
 
T

trochetier

Audioholic
One solution would be to standardize the batteries so it can be swapped out like those 5 gal propane tanks. One would swap it at a station like a gas station?
Tesla toyed with the idea early on. They even had a prototype battery swap station, it could swap out a battery in the same time as it took to fully gas up an (I think an Audi 8). They had a video of it online.

Batteries with standardized battery sizes, mount points and connectors along with swap stations as ubiquitous as gas stations or very fast charge (as fast and gassing up) only two ways e-vehicles will find wide adoption. I have been touting it for a few years now.

There is some work going on super capacitor based batteries. If that is ever commercialized it will be game changer.
 
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Irvrobinson

Irvrobinson

Audioholic Spartan
There is some work going on super capacitor based batteries. If that is ever commercialized it will be game changer.
There's no such thing as a "capacitor-based battery". These are two different concepts. Batteries hold a lot of energy, but have slow charging rates. Capacitors charge quickly, but have a lot of current leakage, so they can't hold a charge very long. Some newly proposed capacitors hold more energy, but they're still just capacitors. The thinking I've read about is that cars is that a combination of super-capacitors and batteries could possibly solve the quick-charge problem, but capacitors are also less volume efficient (they're bigger for a given charge capacity). And capacitors have the advantage of not wearing out with successive charges like lithium ion batteries do, so I've read some thinking over the years that capacitors could be the "buffer" that allows batteries to become just an optimally managed pool of watt/hours, and capacitors soak up the transient stuff, like regenerative braking, but I've read nothing lately on recent product plans.
 
D

Dude#1279435

Audioholic Spartan
I'm onboard with nuclear power, in addition to hydro-electric generation. Wind and solar just aren't going to cut it.

But, if nuclear is to replace fossil-fuel power generation, the safeguards will have to be ramped up to utter overkill. With the number of plants that would be required, the chances of disasters will go way up. We cannot have any more 3-Mile Islands, Chernobyls or Fukushimas.

I'm also concerned about the laws of unintended consequences. Without foolproof safety measures, the possibility of nuclear accidents - especially in less wealthy countries - will rise to near-certainty. Plus, I have concerns about batteries. E-waste is a problem now. Just imagine how bad it will be if all modes of ground transport ran on batteries. Plus, there is the mining of the raw materials needed to make them.
That's what I was thinking. Now you have batteries everywhere. It reminds me of the water bottle consumption. I haven't bought one in ages and just use tap. I kinda liked the idea one guy had a number of years back. He wasn't interested in all these alternatives so much as he was trying to make gas last longer. I assume mixing. I doubt that would work though.
 
T

trochetier

Audioholic
There's no such thing as a "capacitor-based battery". These are two different concepts. Batteries hold a lot of energy, but have slow charging rates. Capacitors charge quickly, but have a lot of current leakage, so they can't hold a charge very long. Some newly proposed capacitors hold more energy, but they're still just capacitors. The thinking I've read about is that cars is that a combination of super-capacitors and batteries could possibly solve the quick-charge problem, but capacitors are also less volume efficient (they're bigger for a given charge capacity). And capacitors have the advantage of not wearing out with successive charges like lithium ion batteries do, so I've read some thinking over the years that capacitors could be the "buffer" that allows batteries to become just an optimally managed pool of watt/hours, and capacitors soak up the transient stuff, like regenerative braking, but I've read nothing lately on recent product plans.
Correct there is no such thing as a "capacitor-based battery" - yet. Work is on going - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202004560
 
Irvrobinson

Irvrobinson

Audioholic Spartan
Correct there is no such thing as a "capacitor-based battery" - yet. Work is on going - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202004560
That is one hell of a dense paper, and I'm not a chemist, so understanding much it is beyond me. I did notice that the charge retention range of these capacitors, while projected to approach the lower range of batteries, are not going to compete with SOTA batteries, especially by the time these capacitors are commercially available. Nonetheless, they look like awesome parts for potentially great capacitor-battery hybrids, assuming they can be manufactured cost-effectively.
 
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