Lighter Cheaper More Powerful Battery Changes Renewable Economics
Guest essay by Roger E. Sowell, Esq. Marina del Rey, California
It is not often on SLB that I use the phrase “game-changer.” Most things progress, if they progress at all, in small increments. This time, though, is one of those that deserves the phrase game-changer.
The innovation is the low-cost, light-weight but powerful battery developed by Nobel prize-winner Alan Heeger, PhD of the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB). The company is Biosolar . see link to www.biosolar.com
The battery is suitable for mobile and stationary applications such as cars, trucks, grid stabilization, home power storage, and others. The innovation is the use of the Nobel prize-winning plastic-that-acts-like-a-metal, haologenated polyacetylene.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2000: Conductive Polymers (see link) is lengthy but has this to say about the discovery:
” In 1977, however, Shirakawa, MacDiarmid and Heeger discovered that oxidation with chlorine, bromine or iodine vapour made polyacetylene films 10^9 times more conductive than they were originally. Treatment with halogen was called “doping” by analogy with the doping of semiconductors. The “doped” form of polyacetylene had a conductivity of 10^5 Siemens per meter, which was higher than that of any previously known polymer. As a comparison, teflon has a conductivity of 10^–16 S m–1 and silver and copper 10^8 S m–1.”
The battery, which is now patent-pending at the US and other patent offices, is expected to cost less than $100 per kWh (about one-fourth that of the best batteries today), to weigh less and therefore provide longer range to cars, to have a greater power density (power to weight ratio), have a faster charging time and much longer life. Another substantial positive is the material itself, made from common acetylene. There are no rare earths to mine and extract, no toxic residues. The halogen dopants are also common, cheap, and abundant.
This battery, which continues the use of lithium for the anode, is likely a primary contribution to the Tesla company’s announcement this week of a new mid-price all-electric car.
The renewable energy field, especially those technologies that have variable output due to changes in the wind or sunshine, will benefit greatly from a low-cost high-density battery. A wind energy project would not be limited to selling power at low prices, currently 3 cents per kWh, but instead selling the power as would a gas-fired power plant, on demand and reliably at the market price.
Added by Anthony:
From the Bisosolar website:
Breaking the $100/kWh Cost Barrier to Mass Market Adoption
Materials account for more than 70% of the cost of a battery. In particular, the cathode material makes up 20-35% of the total materials costs. Therefore, lowering the cost of the cathode is an effective way to lowering the total battery cost. The estimated raw materials cost of our cathode is similar to that of inexpensive plastics, with a very high possible energy density of 1,000 Wh/kg.
Our Super Cathode can be used to manufacture a super battery that is 2 times higher capacity than the batteries currently used in a Tesla Model S, at 4 times less cost.
Processing materials and time are additional cost drivers. Our cathode can be processed from water and eco-friendly solvents, which (i) eliminates the use of costly and toxic solvents, (ii) eliminates high temperature drying processes, and (iii) speeds up the production throughput.
Many analysts in the electric vehicle and solar industry consider $100 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to be the “holy grail” price threshold. In the case of electric vehicles, $100/kWh will make them undeniably cost-competitive with gas-powered vehicles. And in the case of solar, it will finally be cost effective to store daytime solar electricity for nighttime use and be less reliant on, or completely independent of, the power grid.
Our current estimate of the cost of a full battery using our Super Cathode with a conventional graphite anode is approximately $54/kWh.
Compared to Existing Batteries Based on internal experimental data, other published data, and a calculation model adopted from the Energy Laboratory of Samsung Electronics, we have estimated the energy density and energy costs of a complete super battery that uses our Super Cathode technology.
The BioSolar Super Cathode can be combined with conventional anodes to create different battery configurations to meet specific application or market requirements. Due to the overall low cost, high energy, long life and rapid charge features of our cathode, the resulting battery will be inherently lower cost, higher energy, longer life and faster charging.
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Hate to be a damp blanket, but so be it. I happen to know a lot about electric energy storage, especially lithium ion batteries, pseudo capacitors, and super capacitors. Have issued patents on improved materials for super caps.
So was curious.
1. Why BioSolar? Company was started to develop a plant based rather than petroleum based plastic for solar panels. Public for several years. Not successful, as the current OTCQB quote for BSRC is $0.145. Yup, a classic ‘green’ penny stock.
2. UCSB sponsored research started July 2014. First joint patent filed 2/2016— for polymer hybrid super caps, NOT batteries. Batteries use either electrochemical redox or intercalation (standard ‘rocking chair’ lithium ion is the latter, lead acid and NiMH are the former). Super caps rely on the formation of a Helmholtz double layer at the interface of an electrolyte and a conducting solid. A capacitor, not a battery. So they apparently have no IPR filed yet on batteries.
3. They have never made and tested a battery cell. So all their claims about energy density are hypotheticals. Their website claim to longer cycle life is based on ‘stable redox chemistry compared to redox. That is bassackwards; redox usually has lower cycle life for fundamental electrochemical reasons. Maybe there is some not yet patented magic.
4. Conductive polymer batteries have been researched for a long time. I spent 1/2 hour doing a quick lit scan (abstracts only). Earliest paper found was 1991. Doped polypyrolle, not doped polyacteylene. As of late 2014 (a serious Chinese paper) there were still significant problems with cycle life degradation not solved in the lab. Several conductive polymer pouch cell battery startups in the mid to late 1990s aimed at mobile electronics because of form factor. While I was at MOT we tested every prototype we could get our hands on. All failed.
Color me more than just skeptical. Penny stock hype based on early lab results and no prototypes is something to stay away from to preserve financial health.
Yes, but you forgot that it’s a game changer.
lol
No! The game was changed to investor fleecing.
g
Sounds more and more like Steorn
BZ
Thank you, Ristvan.
I fully agree.
The technology I am watching is the Aquion saltwater battery. It is in production and already has applications. It is competitive with lead-acid but has much longer service life. It is also non-toxic when it comes time to recycle. Maybe not earth shattering but at least competent.
cB, I am watching that one also, for grid scale stuff. Still many questions, but I have not uncovered any obvious show stoppers. Its basically a cost/cycle life question.
Supercaps are a bloody clever alternative to batteries for storage of small amounts of energy. Being just a capacitor, they are ‘fully charged’ at whatever voltage they are at, and the voltage is somewhat irrelevant.
So what can you tell us about their pulsed current delivery capability ? Are they low ESR, and can deliver high pulsed current ?
Electrolytic capacitors including Tantalums, have very high capacitances, but that often comes with an ESR penalty so you can’t really suck a high current out of them, which is often exactly why you would use a cap in the first place.
G
GS, sorry for tardy reply. Was almost done replying on my old iPad when glitched (again). So came to a real computer cause you deserve a real answer before I go to dinner. Stat.
Supercaps are the highest energy density capacitors by a factor of about 100. But they are still less than garden variety LiIon batteries by a factor of about 10. The difference is power density and cycle life. Supercaps have demonstrated over 1 million full charge discharge cycles at a much less than 1C rate. Best power dense LiIon are 1/5 this power density, with a cycle life of maybe only maybe 100, not 1 million. Horses for courses.
So for engine start (idle off) and regen braking, super caps are far superior to batteries. Ditto for reactive power correction in AC grids up to about 4MVAR. (Then inertial mass is superior).
What is particularly interesting for the vehicle future is hybrid hybrids. Take a hybrid vehicle like my Ford Escape, or a Prius, or a Chevy Volt ER. Replace about 1/3 of the battery with super caps. Present volume a bit larger, with my materials a bit smaller. You need to add DC/DC conversion, since otherwise the battery clamps the capacitor. (OK, explanation. Battery voltage declines only a little with charge until the end. How cell phone state of charge indicators work; monitoring voltage. Supercap voltage declines linearly with charge. So, in a simple series or parallel wiring, the battery voltage staying up prevents the super cap from discharging, rendering it mostly useless.) DC/DC electronics are coming down exponentially as frequency is increased by silicon on carbide power transistors. A trick to the gen 4 Toyota Prius my2015. Power conversion electronics are 1/4 of gen 3. Higher frequency, less copper/steel magnetics. Smaller.
So, I think every vehicle will eventually become a gasoline/electric hybrid, and the energy storage system will be ~1/3 super cap and ~2/3 LiIon battery linked by a solid state DC/DC converter. Just a lowest cost solution to eventually rising oil prices. (Don’t be fooled by the present Saudi price war on US shale oil. Wrote half of a book about that, already. Real pain by 2023-2025).
Thanx Ristvan. My kid keeps asking me about stuff like that that I never played around with myself.
G
GS, get ahold of me (I hide in plain sight) and I will send you two explanatory illustrated presentations for your kid. First is a two hour plenary from the 2010 AABC (advanced automotive battery consortium). Second is an update from the 2013 ISDLC (International Symposium on DLC [double layer capacitors, aka supercaps]). I presented there both tutorials and double/single length plenaries until it folded in 2014, as the science had been now fully resolved (by me) and the market path is clear. Settled science, finally, in the literal sense. Regards.
Duke Energy is using a hybrid of super capacitors and Aquion batteries for grid stabilization.
I found the capacitors surprising. I’ve been involved with a number of large uninterruptible power systems (tens of kW). The grid could do literally anything and the equipment behind the ups would be completely unaware of it. We had large banks of lead-acid or ni-cad batteries plus diesel generators and nary a trace of a supercapacitor.
cB, you are seeing the simple (via DC/DC) elegant combination of energy dense batteries plus power dense super caps, in real world applications. That is what engineers far smarter than I do with scientific advances (of the minor sort in my issued US, Japan, Korea, Russia, patents).
This doesn’t make sense to me. In order for the battery to prevent the supercap from discharging, it has to be supplying the power. But the whole point of using (super)caps is their fast response time/high power compared to batteries. The ESR of the battery should make it a non-issue over the time scale of interest.
Yes, it sounds like a lot of wishful thinking – you can almost smell the desperation for it to be true.
Agreed.
Yes, almost certainly 90% hype, and the rest digestive gases. Magic does not happen easily in the well trodden world of batteries.
Thank you Rud for your balanced and informative post here. It confirms my gut feeling based on experience in areas I actually know something about that genuine — game changing — breakthroughs are very uncommon and that virtually all technology improvements are small and incremental. Mostly technology based stuff seems to improve exponentially and often, the exponent is pretty small.
My gut feeling, based on no numbers whatsoever, is that batteries capable of making intermittent power sources practical at grid level probably will happen. But not for 30 or 40 years. (About the time that the general public, even the nut cases, has given up on green power.)
Ristvan says,
“That is bassackwards”
An amusing word to an excellent post. Thanks. I also am occasionally dyslexic. It is ok as I understand 10 out of 4 people are.
David,
‘bassackwards’ is a word that has been in common use for at least 40 years, and I expect much longer than that. Google the word and see the number of hits.
Conductive polyacetylene has been around for many, many years. From the end of the wikipedia entry-
“Polyacetylene has no commercial applications,…Therefore, much attention in recent years has shifted to other conductive polymers for application purposes, e.g. polythiophene and polyaniline.”
So, despite decades of work, it has not made any commercial inroads. It has been a great research vehicle with which to learn about how to synthesize conductive and semiconducting/luminescent polymers with much better properties than polyacetylene.
Well known problems have prevented its use-
“Polyacetylenes suffer from many drawbacks including instability in air and insolubility in solvents making it essentially impossible to process the material… When polyacetylene is exposed to air, oxidation of the backbone by O2 occurs. Infrared spectroscopy shows formation of carbonyl groups, epoxides, and peroxides.”
Based on this information, the cost estimates claimed by biosolar may be plausible, but until small scale production of battery packs is under way, they are just guesses.
The energy density comparison is missing critical information. The Tesla battery uses individual standard lithium cells packaged into an array. The packaging of the biosolar battery is not defined. The packaging has a huge impact (factors of 2 or 3) on energy density of the finished device.
Also, high energy density (by weight or volume) is not an important metric for stationary energy storage systems used for intermittent wind or solar. Number and depth of charge/discharge cycles before end of life, self-discharge rates, and maximum discharge rates while avoiding damage are much more important.
A low cost, long life battery technology will immediately find application for anyone who lives in a utility distribution area that has adopted time-of-use electricity pricing. Charge the pack at night when prices are low, and discharge for use in-house when grid prices are high during the day. No solar or wind capital equipment needed.
These will be obsolete within a few years as graphene becomes more readily available. Anyone investing large sums of money into electronic R&D not involving graphene should rethink their direction.
http://www.graphene-info.com/graphene-batteries
Nope. Graphene clumps due to VanderWahl force. The more you shake it, the larger and tighter the clumps. Ma Nature wants to turn graphene back into graphite. Much easier to just start with graphite, like LiIon anodes today.
Uh, if you have loose graphene bits in a jar and shake them then sure they will clump together into graphite, but luckily there is a little nano-engineering that is going into graphene batteries.
RWTurner, here is Dr. James Tour, Rice U. synthetic chemist in Dec., 2015 talking about graphene (his lab is a pioneer in graphene research — personally, I think his is the premier graphene research lab in the world):
(youtube)
From the video’s description:
This is REAL science — not mere “game changer” hype. They admit that they are not there yet…
(there are lots of great graphene and nano-tech videos by Tour, et. al. on youtube, just FYI)
ristvan
Ma Nature wants to turn graphene back into graphite. Much easier to just start with graphite, like LiIon anodes today.
Much easier to just burn coal.
I can actually speel Kemystery, and that’s about my limit. But just a WAG suggests that the extraordinary ability of carbon to form a near infinity of different molecules, is also its Achilles heel, in that it is not all that reluctant to have one molecule turn into a different one at the drop of a hat.
So stability and lifetime have been perennial problems with things made from carbon chemistry.
The early liquid crystal displays failed right before your eyes out in sunlight. These problems were eventually solved so that today liquid crystals are a mature technology.
Any reversible chemical process, would seem to be a hazardous thing to hang your hat on for longevity.
The automobile industry for example struggles continually to get ‘plastic’ materials that survive for years out in the sun, for things like lighting windows. PMMA seems to be one of a very few materials that can last almost as long as the car.
G
Dear RW Turner,
I don’t want to appear to have been contradicting you (just supplementing and supporting, I hoped) by my synthetic chemistry/graphene video comment above. Here is what appears to be a video (posted Feb., 2016) about working graphene batteries (RC hobbyists are using them) to SUPPORT you. 🙂
Create This (with “Jesse”)
(youtube)
“… you can get more amperage through-put from these batteries than you would a traditional battery as a result of the graphene layer that they’ve embedded in the battery… [thus,] one of the advantages is cycle life … 600 plus [cycles] … [one guy said] 1,000 cycles and only 20% reduction in capacity…
[v. a v. cars] … [you] don’t get any extra capacity, but that additional through-put and … that additional cycle life could make them desirable …”
Not ready for cars yet, but the guy (Jesse) is hopeful… .
That’s nice. Sure wouldn’t invest my money in Mr. Sowell’s “game changer” at this point, though. Especially when I see no need for electric cars — at all. I’m not denigrating those who like them. I’m just stating a fact: electric cars are desirable to some, but, needed by none.
******************************
Anyway, R W, there are, indeed, batteries using graphene.
And for the last time, WORDPRESS, would you stop turning “graphene” (grrrr — did it AGAIN!) into “grapheme!” (as if WordPress can hear me… or cares, lol).
Hoping that your silence was not due to being offended,
Your WUWT ally for science realism,
Janice
I just don’t always have time to respond.
We’re just now scratching the surface on graphene production, engineering, and marketing. It has only been properly studied since the early 2000s and wasn’t catching on as a major research interest until the 2010 nobel prize paper about it’s isolation and properties.
Going from its first isolation and major study to marketable products in under 10 years is remarkable. It is my opinion that the material will revolutionize the world in this century.
The first issue is the absence of any actual performance demonstration that such a battery can be built.
Assuming that it can, then the most obvious effect will be on automakers : gas powered vehicles will immediately become obsolescent, although it will take many years for a complete changeover.
As for renwable energy systems, the author of this article obviously has a fair amount of igorance as to the problems with using wind and solar. Wind and solar are unreliable, and storing energy in a battery does nothing to change that fact. Even though the batteries can operate successfuly a large proportion of the time (which they can’t) the grid requires a certain level of capacity and batteries can only store energy,
not generate energy. They are dependent upon an unreliable source of power and therefore are also unreliable as well. Their storage capacity can be far less than the amount of power required before the unreliable sources begin generating sufficient amounts again. A simple extended period of cloudy weather can destroy a grid that is heavilly dependent upon solar and calm winds can do likewise for wind power.
There are also the cost considerations – wind mills cost way way more than advanced nuclear generators like molten salt, which will be the cheapest power of all, and the safest as well.
Is there a reason that the cost of converting the direct current (DC) coming from solar cells and batteries to alternating current (AC) is not discussed? Seems to me that a whole lot of transistors would be involved.
James Francisco
Losses (as a perfect efficiency) increase with power, then level off as conversion gets to higher and higher power levels. (Cables get huge, het sinks and their coolers change from free air circulation, to fans, to water-cooled rectifiers, etc. )
Figure 8-10% losses each way.
You start with 100 Watts from your primary power plant, than plant will be anywhere from 35% efficient to 62% efficient at using the available chemical energy of fossil fuel. 15% to 20% of available “green energy” solar or wind power.
Transfer that power from the primary generator to the storage unit and convert what is left over after 3-5% transmission losses and 8-10% AC-DC conversion losses (both of which become useless heat) then into battery power in the form of a chemical change + more heat losses (those charging chemical conversion losses are also 85 to 92% efficient – this battery may be better than most. May be much worse.)
Store the energy as chemical energy. Then wait.
Some batteries lose 1-3% in storage losses over time, some don’t. We don’t know what this battery will lose in conversion efficiency from electrical DC current to chemical energy, then from chemical energy to released DC electrical energy.
Re-convert the stored DC electrical energy to AC (85% – 90% chemical to electrical DC current is a very, very good return value!), then send the new AC power back up the transmission line voltages (1-3% losses again in the transformers and HV lines cross-country.)
James,
Converting from AC (power line) to DC (to charge finger toys) and verse vicea to go from Solar cells / batteries to power line AC is a very thoroughly researched technology. The term ‘switching power conversion’ would generally describe it.
AC has advantages in that magnetic transformers, can convert to almost any voltage or current values that you would want, but magnetic circuit elements are bulky, costly and consume lots of iron and copper.
Switching power supplies allow you to go both ways, and have a good deal of flexibility in voltage or current ranges, but ultimately the ratings of semiconductor switching devices restrict what you can do.
You can think of a switching power supply as akin to stomping your foot on the gas pedal of your car, all the way to the floor, but then quickly getting off it, before you hit the car in front, and then you keep on doing that adjusting the stomps and let ups to maintain the speed you want.
The common desktop IBM or Apple type computers use some of the best examples of efficient switching power supply technology. The don’t use ordinary magnetic transformers, of the older door stop transformers.
Most computer switching power supplies these days guarantee better than 80% conversion efficiency, and that seems to be a more or less required minimum.
Some of the very best higher power computer supplies boast up to 92% efficiency at design full load.
That may seem like a miniscule improvement for a lot more cost, but that is a mistaken idea.
a 1,000 watt AC input power supply with 80% efficiency will put out 800 watts, more than enough for all but the biggest home computers. So a 92% efficient one will give you 920 watts out . Big Deal !!
Well yes it is, because the 80% one is generating 2 1/2 times as much waste heat as the 92% one, and that is far more important than what you pay for at the PG&E desk. Heat kills electronics, and shortens lifetime.
The solid state lighting industry is going through the same revolutions now. To run LED lighting off the line, you need efficient line AC to controlled drive current output for the LEDs.
Once again, the companies making the LED drivers, think 80% is an acceptable efficiency.
It is NOT ! Modern efficient LED semiconductor diodes, are running at over 99% internal quantum efficiency, converting current electrons to radiated photons. Well you still have to get the photons out of a high refractive index light trap.
So to recover from the losses in an 80% efficient driver circuit, you only need to raise the internal quantum efficiency up to 124.8%.
The clowns designing the LED drivers think their failures can be compensated at the highest difficulty technology end.
That will change. But eventually it will be recognized that there is merit in a low voltage solar cell to battery to LED all at off line DC architecture for a lot of lighting.
18 volts is a fairly common number for running six GaN Blue pumped white light diodes in series, and that is a good voltage for both batteries, and solar panels.
Lighting should come off grid in some applications, and do it at the lower voltage.
G
‘gas powered vehicles will immediately become obsolescent’
????????????????????????????????????????????
All very well. But slaying the intermittency demon would be a heap big hurdle for the solar and wind interests to get past.
… Looking for a battery company to work with, which I think means looking to do a patent license deal with a company in the lithium battery business.
Might be great for long-lasting lawnmower so or cordless power tools, or even a Segway, but I would not want one on a plane or on a highway…
The company itself says it has not yet filed any battery patent applications. One PCT on hybrid conducting polymer supercaps, nationalized into the US 2/2016 and not yet published. Nothing to license (yet).
So you’re saying that Roger E. Sowell lied when he put this in the article: “The battery, which is now patent-pending at the US and other patent offices…”?
Short answer after having searched Biosolar, PCT, and USPTO is, YES.
More likely is answer is not lying, but possibly deceived or simply mistaken.
Storing that lawnmower in your garage?
> Might be great for long-lasting lawnmower so or cordless power tools, or even a Segway …
How about a battery powered snow thrower? Who wants to tinker with a temperamental gasoline powered small engine in sub-freezing weather? With deep cycle lead-acid — which is what is used in my battery powered lawnmower — the snow thrower would probably be too heavy to move.
From CNN Money, February 2016:
“The Company plans to pursue key benchmarks that include designing and building prototype electrodes and battery cells in multiple stages that will facilitate systematic evaluation of the technology’s performance.”
They haven’t built a battery yet. What is the basis for these claims?
They have a model. Haven’t you heard? That’s all you need these days.
The solar PV sector is moving ahead with allowance for storage in the utility scale plant architecture.
see page 18
http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/FSLR/1584062178x0x884415/15EEFBFE-58CD-41E1-A505-8FCD0FAEE7B7/FS_AnalystDay_TechnologyUpdate.pdf
First Solar does not report actual performance.
The is a storage device for electricity near Cooper MT solar project near Bolder, NV. Hoover Dam.
Indeed. All it lacks is a serious source of water and maybe half a billion dollars worth of pumps and plumbing to push water up from Black Canyon to Lake Mead.
Orrrrr, it’s a pitch designed to match John Kerry’s challenge, to stimulate investment.
These folks look like they are burning cash pretty fast. They need to find some deep-pocket, long-view ( for this, patient) investor and partners, or someone to buy them out of business.
But I still think a rechargeable rider mower would be neat, or a long duty cycle electric scooter…
You might want to get an explanation of why this is a penny stock. I mean with such perfect world descriptions and all. I don’t care if it is still in development with no revenue yet.
Where can I hurry up and send all the money I have saved and can scrounge or borrow?
It could be a near perfect money storage device in the end.
Nobody wants to buy it?
It’s not a game changer until the game changes, and this we will know in the fullness of time.
Reminds me of the Scuderi Engine.
Hmmm.
Gasoline energy density: 46 MJ/kg
BioSolar battery energy density = 0.0036 x 459 = 1.65 MJ/kg
Since a gasoline tank is basically a chunk of cheap cast plastic costing maybe $10 to make I’d say that this advance is a little underwhelming.
Or conversely, if you are into iPads instead of Teslas, a methanol fuel cell in an iPad would allow it to operate for roughly a month without recharge. And recharging would take about a minute. So, Nobel scientists, can we have a methanol fuel cell for electronic devices please?
BoN, we worked on that at MOT. Idea was meyhanol fuel cell battery charger, not battery replacement. Further idea was for developing world where electricity is unreliable or even unavailable. Worked technically, although we struggled with commercial lifetime and cost. We finally realized that anybody anywhere who can afford a cell phone has access to sufficient electricity. No market.
There were two competing methanol fuel cell laptops heading to market at the turn of the century. Somehow, they never made it. Good reviews by people who had them, with some drawbacks, but everyone that knew anything was saying they would be a good alternative to batteries, especially when no outlet-power was to hand. I don’t know what happened. They didn’t make it. Toshiba was one of the makers. I forget the other.
Yawn. A revolutionary “game changing” new battery technology and five dollars buys you a cup of coffee. These things get announced roughly twice a day. Let me know when they can mass-produce a working product that actually passes the purchasing tests of car and device manufacturers. Until then, talk is cheap.
They sound so good in the lab. The trouble is they stay there.
http://legacy.wfaa.com/story/tech/2014/08/07/13502358/
I am reminded that in Monopoly, when one player goes bankrupt that also changes the game.
So if this turns out to be as cost effective as stated, does that mean Tesla will no longer need government subsidies to stay in business?
Or this could be “Pay My Taxes for Me” week in California.
Perspective is everything. The energy density of 459 Wh/kg is still a lot less than that of wood.
Good point, dgp, but the recharge time on the wood is seven years.
How many charging cycles will this thing take?
ristvan
April 8, 2016 at 11:48 am
“Hate to be a damp blanket, but…”
Very nice analysis ristvan! If we did this kind of reporting in the mining industry in Canada, the SEC would shut down our trading and have a little chat with you to see if you should be suspended, fined or jailed. It sounds like stock pumping. There is no way you can make the kind of comparisons to other products without having built, probably several generations of batteries, resolved manifold glitches, tested numbers of cycles for recharging, shelf life, deterioration, charge leak, hazards, etc. Physicists are among the worst offenders in technological fields because they think engineering is a poor cousin of physics and chemistry and think it beneath themselves to engage an engineer, even if you are speculating on what you think you have. This technology doesn’t sound as far along as fusion energy is.
Agree. Somewhere between fusion and LENR. Theoretical physics has never produced anything other than ideas. It is the resulting engineering hard slog that eventually, maybe, sometimes, produces something useful. I travelled that hard slog once concrning Helmholtz double layer capacitance. A multiyear saga journey worthy of The Princess Bride.
Yes, and the derriere licking name itself, “Biosolar” raises at least two red flags.
The company announced this just last February: http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/marketwire/11G081006-001.htm
That would be the real hurdle, but it would be interesting to find out if they have inked any of those partnerships yet [although that’s probably a year long process itself]. This is where the green eyeshades guys get a look at the real world economics of the thing. More power to ’em if they got something worthwhile. I’m one that believes these things can be game changers; the changes in the last ten years of battery tech are already enabling the drone explosion.
“…will make them undeniably cost-competitive with gas-powered vehicles. ”
Watch me denie it. A bad idea is still a bad idea, even at 1/4th cost. I suspect that Sowell is is the only person who thinks he is a credible source of info. Typical from the land of fruits and nuts.
Again it a power industry thing verses all those who chose other lines of work. Sowell is a chemical engineer not a power engineer. The ICE and steam turbine have the ability large amounts of work for there size.
So do motors when connected to a stationary high voltage power supply that only infrequently sends a fireball to vaporize the electrician that comes to investigate why it is running hot. All my pump motors that have the horsepower to run a car are in nice clean air conditioned rooms not vibrating down a dirt road.
Motors and batteries lose efficiency under higher loads. The same with faster charging. Lower efficiency translates to higher operating temperatures which shortens the life of components. Sometimes they just short out, sometimes there is a interesting fire signaling end of life.
As far as Sowells wind and solar BS, storage is not an issue yet. It is that ugly tendency of power system components to end life requiring the fire brigade to be called. Of course, we who have spent time up close and personal with those components, try to avoid such events by close monitoring and shutting things down before they fail.
On the other hand, great improvements have been made auto ICE over the years. I have had several with more than 250 miles on the block that did not use a quart of oil between oil changes. Proven performance versus wishful thinking.
Retired Kit P wrote, “Sowell is a chemical engineer not a power engineer.” A battery is an electro-chemical device.
Please provide your opinion on the advisability of using electric motors to drive railroad locomotives.
Electric motors have advantages over internal combustion engines (in automotive systems) with respect to packaging and power transmission. These include one motor per wheel or axle located at the wheel or axle; no torque converter or clutch or multi-ratio transmission with reverse; regenerative braking; and simplified ABS, traction control and electronic stability control. What are your views about these features?
Railroad locomotives are powered by diesel fueled ICE.
There are many examples of diesel electric drives and variable speed steam turbine generators in heavy load applications. Does not apply to puny little cars.
“Electric motors have advantages over internal combustion engines (in automotive systems)”
ICE is a power source. An electric motor needs a power source. Rovingbroker is either dishonest or ignorant.
“What are your views about these features?”
The weak link is the battery. Since this essay is about a new battery I think maybe Rovingbrover is more on the dishonest side. Last new car I bought was a 2007 Corolla for $16k. The fuel tank will store enough energy to get us 400 miles. Since my wife needs potty breaks more often that is not an issue. I suspect the engine will outlast my wife and I. The car handles just fine. Since I do not drive aggressively, none of those features impress me.
I am not a car guy, at least since I became a parent with responsibilities. I follow the KISS principle. Keep it simple stupid. I like to adjust my seat manually not with a motor that adds weight to a car. I check consumer reports for the reliability of the drive drive train.
It will be a long time before an EV will beat a Corolla.
Keep the motor(s) off the wheels! Sprung to unsprung weight is very important.
Well I can comment on one aspect of your question.
The ” one motor per wheel or axle located at the wheel or axle ”
This is a very old idea, A lot of work was done on ” pancake motors ” that were more disk like electric motors than cylindrical rotor types.
What could be simpler, a flat motor located right in the wheel, directly driving the wheel, no drive shaft needed.
But there’s a catch: ….. Unsprung weight …..
Well more accurately it is unsprung mass.
The suspension of a car connect two masses together, well actually five masses on most cars, those being the five wheels, and the rest of the car.
When your car hits a bump, the wheel gets driven upward, and it connect that impulse to the rest of the car, through the suspension (the springs).
The mass of the automobile is the ‘sprung’ mass, and the wheel/tire/brake/pancake motor/whatever, is the unsprung mass, it is usually in direct contact with the road.
But when the wheel bounces up from hitting a bump the compressed spring force, pushes up on the car, and down on the wheel.
The ratio of the sprung mass to the unsprung mass, determines how much each one moves. If the car is much more massive than the wheel, the car body moves upwards very little.
But if the car body is light and the wheel is heavy (big Detroiosaurus Maximus, balloon tires) then the body moves a lot more and the ride is very rough and uncomfortable.
If the car is a sports car (or not) the car can only accelerate, or brake if the wheel is on the ground, so the more the unsprung mass is, relative to the sprung mass, the longer it takes to put the wheel back down on the road, so the tire can grip the surface, either for acceleration or braking or more importantly for going around a corner instead of flying off the side of the road.
So sports and race cars, minimize the unsprung to sprung mass ratio to get fast responsive suspension systems that don’t jar the bones of the driver or passengers.
So those nifty pancake motors which are a great idea, are unfortunately an unsprung weight element that you cannot afford to have. Disk brakes, and unballoon tires have helped reduce unsprung weight and made modern cars much more comfortable riding.
The Mercedes W-196 GP car of 1954/55 and its 300 SLR sports car version had inboard brakes, which then become part of the sprung weight, instead of the unsprung. The penalty of course is the complexity of the universal joints needed for the drive axles.
So if you are a fan of those giant 16 inch or larger wheels on your road chariot, thinking they look cool, just remember that you are paying an unsprung weight penalty for that cool look. By the way, they don’t look even remotely cool.
G
Stock Price Today…up 19.95%
BioSolar, Inc. (BSRC)
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Is there a volume consideration to think about with these?
Not if you have sufficient cents 8>}
Polyaceylene in a high-energy battery. What could go wrong??