Voting is closed

Richard Sharpe
My answer is Yes. Maybe not today, but you can when service stations not only fill up your gas tank or diesel tank, but will swap out your depleted battery pack with a fully-charged one. A bit like trading in the empty propane tank for a full one for the BBQ. Will take about one minute. Far less time than it takes to use the rest room and eat that hamburger.
Car companies and battery makers are dickering over the details at this time, but it is coming. They need to settle on a standardized battery geometry and access port. Batteries get recharged by the service station in a back room somewhere, who cares if it takes 4 hours or 16? Just need a bigger inventory.
The energy density of batteries (Kwh/kg) is increasing. I predict this will improve, somewhat like computer power on a chip — maybe not quite that fast, doubling every two years, but something similar. Right now, cars can do around 40 miles on one battery charge. Doubling that gets 80 by 2010, then 160 by 2012, then 320 by 2014. That is a good four or five hours in a car, plenty of distance to make it convenient to stop and stretch.
E.M. Smith,
You are right on with your alternate energy analysis. The key truly is crude oil prices at or above $80 per barrel. Lots of economic options at that point. That is why I believe the Saudis will do all they can to produce new oil and keep the market price just under $80. They did it in 1979, when crude price jumped to $32 per barrel. The reason? We had just completed the coal liquefaction studies, coal-to-oil, and needed about $40 per barrel crude to make it worthwhile. The Saudis were not about to let that happen.
However, for the OPEC members who do not have a long supply of crude oil left, they want much higher prices to maximize their revenue.
What will be interesting is to see if Obama keeps the tax credit for hybrid vehicles, or perhaps increases them to promote their sales. Win-win there, for car manufacturing, car sales, sales taxes, less oil imports. Can do the same for plug-ins and pure EV’s. Hope he does. Would even be better if the Feds would make the money available at time of purchase, and not have to wait as much as a year to get the tax credit. The down side is reduced federal gasoline taxes, at least from the U.S. treasury viewpoint.
Companies in the hybrid business include virtually every car maker now, but one to watch is AFSTrinity. They are privately held, but make a pretty good combined battery-ultracapacitor power delivery system. Eaton is another, and they are publicly traded.
http://www.eaton.com/EatonCom/ProductsServices/Hybrid/index.htm
Roger E. Sowell
Marina del Rey, California

Tim Clark (19:00:51) :
Jeff Alberts (09:08:17) :
“You can not replace gasoline and Diesel liquid fuels with solar without changing the entire vehicle fleet to electric vehicles and that would take at least 15 years if we were already doing it, and we are not.

Sorry, Tim, but I didn’t say what you’re attributing to me.

‘I believe you folks are not including agriculture in this picture. As an agronomist, I must add that efficient modern agriculture demands the use of 300 – 1,000+ horsepower tractors.’
I’m sure many of you have seen the railroad commercial about how they can get 425 miles per gallon of fuel. Why can’t that type of technology (engine powers generator which powers wheel motors) be used in heavy road haulers and farm equipment?

Roger E. Sowell:

The energy density of batteries (Kwh/kg) is increasing. I predict this will improve, somewhat like computer power on a chip — maybe not quite that fast, doubling every two years, but something similar. Right now, cars can do around 40 miles on one battery charge. Doubling that gets 80 by 2010, then 160 by 2012, then 320 by 2014. That is a good four or five hours in a car, plenty of distance to make it convenient to stop and stretch.

320 miles per tankful is about as much as I can get on my car right now, but…
Do you have some historical information on energy densities of batteries to support your predictions?
I could not find any convenient graphs that would show it, but my impression is that battery’s technology advances are nowhere near Moor’s law.
If I remember right, 40 miles per charge was feasible about 15 years ago, so doubling every 2 years doesn’t sound very realistic.

Looks like it’s official!
The winners have been posted on the Weblog Awards home page:
http://2008.weblogawards.org/
Congrats!

J. Peden (19:46:33) :
man, what gives? why should I have to justify anything? i don’t see you getting on anyone else because for these things. just relax and enjoy the commentary…

Far Out, Man.
Reply: OK, enough.

nichole;
sea levels are rising. deny your faces off.
nichole, I thought you said that those who are not “Climate Scientists” should not speak as to the “Climate”.
Btw, I’m still waiting for your explanation as to the supposed benefits concerning the “Theory behind Trolling an Oppontent’s Site”.
As far as I can tell, your trolling only brands your supporters as imbeciles. So I wonder what the offset in your specific Trolling could be which offsets that.

“Derek (01:01:14) :
Did anyone else notice DeSmog only got 88 votes in their catagory.”
Now that is funny. Thanks for pointing it out. Btw – gotta love the CO2 work on your site right now.
HadleyMet appear to have “discontinued” the world’s longest historical record.
Used to be here;
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/fourofour/hadleyredirect.html#/CR_data/Daily/HadCET_act.txt
Big Brother “working for you”.
I must, also, admire the previous posts on alternative fuels.
My two-penneth-worth;
Solar array next to the seaside somewhere hot. Crack seawater to get hydrogen. Use current tech to transport and deliver – docks – tanker – docks. – refinery – tanker – gas station. This maintains the status quo and the top dogs should hardly complain.
http://www.rmets.org/pdf/qj74manley.pdf
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