90 Minutes to Re-Charge Your EV? And They Call it a "Fast Charge?"

EV enthusiasts are attempting to paint Volvo's recent announcement in the best possible light. 90 minutes for a "fast charge" of your Volvo EV. Imagine if every time you refueled your gasoline or diesel powered auto, it took you 90 minutes!! No cigar, boys.

For those who don't know, charge time of all-electric vehicles can be a dealbreaker for the greenish technology — it can take 10 hours to charge a battery that only gets you 100 miles! Volvo's 90-minute claim is touted as six-times faster than comparable units, according to the company. The breakthrough could help spur sales.

While an hour and a half can seem like forever, with the appropriate infrastructure in place, getting a decent top-off in the parking lot at the grocery store or at the sports arena becomes a possible scenario.

Volvo is testing the technology in its Volvo C30 electric cars. No word on when it might be available to the public or costs, Earth Techling noted. _Fast Charger

Pluggable hybrids offer a lot of promise for the future, eventually. But for now? What a joke.

And yet, battery researchers continue to try to approach the energy density / power density advantages of fossil fuel powered cars:

... advanced battery makers in the United States have struggled. A123 Systems went bankrupt. Dow said its battery joint venture Dow Kokam had dropped markedly. And an LG Chem factory meant to supply batteries for the Chevrolet Volt has been built, but the factory is sitting idle, waiting for demand to pick up.

For electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids to compete with gas-powered cars, battery prices need to drop by between 50 and 80 percent, according to recent estimates by the U.S. Department of Energy. Getting there might require inventing entirely new kinds of batteries, but there’s also a strong case that improvements to the lithium-ion batteries that power the current generation of electric vehicles may be enough.

...The cost for the Leaf battery could drop to under $4,000 by 2025, according to a recent study by McKinsey, just by increasing the scale of battery production, forcing down component costs through competition, and approximately doubling the energy density of batteries, which reduces materials costs.

...24M, an early-stage startup based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is taking a different approach—rather than an all-solid battery, the company is developing a cross between a battery and a fuel cell in which the battery electrodes are a sludgy liquid that can be pumped around. The energy storage material could be stored in inexpensive tanks, and then pumped into a small device to generate power (see “A Car Battery at Half the Price”). _TechnologyReview

Perhaps within the next 20 years, battery technology will advance far enough to make pluggable hybrids competitive with ordinary workaday vehicles. But so far, you really have to want one, to be willing to put up with all the hassles and expense.

Versatile Home Power Distribution System for Use w/ EV

The DENSO power distribution system provides both quick DC charging of an EV battery AND emergency home power in the case of a power grid outage.

ENSO Home EV Power Distribution

The V2H system can quickly charge an EV with direct current from the HEMS storage battery, and can supply the electricity in the EV back to the household. In addition, the system can efficiently distribute electricity, including power generated by residential photovoltaic systems (solar panels), to the EV and to the home through the coordination of the HEMS. The two main features of the new system are as follows:

Quick recharging function using a HEMS storage battery. Because an EV is battery-powered, the battery needs to be quickly charged for the car to be practical and functional, particularly when the battery level is low. However, a quick charger uses a substantial amount of power, resulting in an increase in the consumer’s electricity contract/bill and it is difficult to install for household use.

DENSO’s new system can quickly supply the electricity that is stored in the HEMS storage battery to the EV when charging at home, which doesn’t require a dedicated charging device. Within just 15 minutes of charge using the DENSO system, the EV can travel up to about 20 km (12.4 miles).

Eco-V2H function. The HEMS can estimate the daily EV travel distance and household power consumption to best manage the charging and discharging of the electricity of EV and HEMS battery unit. Also, to achieve local production of energy for local consumer consumption, the energy surplus produced by the photovoltaic system can be stored in the EV or the HEMS storage battery as opposed to being sold to the local electric power company.

During the electricity peak time, surplus electricity stored in the HEMS storage battery is supplied back to the house to enable electricity peak shift. These functions require technology to combine electricity supplied back to the home from the EV and commercial power. Moreover, in emergencies such as natural disasters, electricity stored in the EV can be used at home in the same way as the PHV.

_GCC

Electric vehicles are likely to achieve slow but steady penetration into the private vehicular market. This will call for foolproof home systems which allow for quick EV charging. The ability to utilise stored EV and power system energy in the case of a power outage is an added plus.

Expect more intelligence to be built into such systems, so that they will be able to also integrate and control auxiliary generator and fuel cell backup, for more extended power outages.

More on the DENSO Home Energy Management System (HEMS)

Image Source

Two New Methods of Utility Scale Electrical Storage

Electrical storage technology is long overdue for significant innovations and breakthroughs. Applications from electric vehicles, to scalable emergency power backup systems, to power grid load leveling could all benefit immensely from improvements in energy storage. We take a look at two promising prospects below:

Brian Westenhaus takes a look at a new combination of supercapacitors and scalable flow cell batteries, as a possible future means of utility load leveling.

The Drexel’s team of researchers is putting forward a plan to integrate into the grid an electrochemical storage system that combines principles behind the flow batteries and supercapacitors that power our daily technology.

The team’s research has yielded a novel solution that combines the strengths of batteries with supercapacitors plus taking away the scalability problem. Their new “electrochemical flow capacitor” (EFC) consists of an electrochemical cell connected to two external electrolyte reservoirs – a design similar to existing redox flow batteries which are used in electrical vehicles.

The Drexel team’s new technology is unique because it uses small carbon particles suspended in the electrolyte liquid to create a slurry of particles that can carry an electric charge. The uncharged slurry is pumped from its tanks through a flow cell, where energy stored in the cell is then transferred to the carbon particles. The charged slurry can then be stored in reservoirs until the energy is needed, at which time the entire process is reversed in order to discharge the EFC.

The EFC design allows it to be constructed on a scale large enough to store large amounts of energy and allows for rapid disbursal of the energy when the demand load needs it. _NewEnergyandFuel

A distinctly different approach to utility scale electrical storage is taken by General Electric, with its new ceramic electrolyte battery:

The key to the technology is a ceramic electrolyte material that separates the electrodes. During charging, chloride ions are released from sodium chloride and combine with nickel to form nickel chloride. The sodium ions that remain move through the electrolyte into a reservoir. When the battery produces power, the ions move back through the electrode and the reaction is reversed. The process takes place at about 300 °C, inside an insulated container.

...The batteries are more expensive per kilowatt-hour than lead-acid batteries, but they're expected to last longer, especially in applications in which the batteries are deeply discharged on a frequent basis, which damages lead-acid batteries. In some applications, lead-acid batteries might last only six months. Designed to be deeply discharged at least 3,500 times, GE's sodium-nickel batteries could last through a decade of daily charging.

...GE will have strong competition for new grid battery technologies from companies such as Aquion Energy and Liquid Metal Battery, the manufacturing giant clearly has high ambitions for its technology, recently forming a new business unit to commercialize the battery technology. Indeed, at the factory opening, the company announced an additional $70 million investment to increase its capacity to help meet a backlog of orders. "The cost of electricity over time is going to go down because [GE's battery] is going to give utilities the ability to use a multitude of different technologies at the same time," GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt told a group of reporters at the plant opening.

The first applications will be somewhat less ambitious. GE's first customer is a South African company—Megatron Federal—that will use the batteries to power cell-phone towers in Nigeria. Those are usually powered by diesel generators. Pairing the generators with the new batteries can help them run far more efficiently. "You save 53 percent on fuel, 45 percent on maintenance, and about 60 percent on diesel generator replacements," says Brandon Harcus, division manager for telecommunications for Megatron Federal. "For our Nigerian application, the savings are substantial, about $1.3 million over 20 years per cell tower. You use a lot less fuel and produce a lot less carbon."

For this application, the battery has two primary advantages over the lead-acid batteries that sometimes back up the generators. They can charge faster—over two hours compared to 10 hours for lead-acid batteries. And unlike many other batteries, GE's new battery doesn't require air conditioning, which helps reduce fuel consumption at the site.

Besides powering cell-phone towers, the batteries could also be used to store power from wind turbines and solar panels to even out fluctuations in these power sources. GE also says they could be used in microgrids, small grids that are often the size of a village or military base and are designed to operate independently of the larger electrical grid while still getting grid-quality electricity. _TechnologyReview

These are very interesting technologies, and deserve to be tested in the real world to see what they can do.

Unfortunately, they are being promoted as technologies which can remedy the faults of intermittent unreliable approaches to energy, such as big wind and big solar. The swings of intermittency in big wind and big solar are unfortunately too large to allow for the affordable use of energy storage for large grid backup, with these or any other technologies currently in the pipeline.

Much better to promote these useful technologies for what they can do, rather than to promise things which cannot be delivered for many decades yet. And by then, people will wonder why anyone would be willing to go to so much work and expense for the sake of inherently flawed approaches to energy production, such as big wind and big solar.

Replacing Internal Combustion Engines

First let's look at a common and widespread industrial application for electric vehicles, and how manufacturers and owners eventually settled on a hybridised solution combining batteries with ultracapacitors, to successfully replace internal combustion engine performance in the short-range heavy duty vehicles.

Forklift manufacturers have tested out several technologies over the years in attempts to increase the efficiency of their vehicles. Their success was limited, and they have traditionally settled for batteries as the energy storage system of choice. However, batteries have proven to be less than satisfactory. They are energy dense but not power dense, and they have temperature and lifespan limitations that affect productivity. Increasingly, forklift manufacturers are adopting ultracapacitors in tandem with batteries. Ultracaps are power dense, but not energy dense, and they allow for a lower charge rate, enabling the application to operate at a lower temperature. The result of the ultracap-battery combination: longer lifespan and better performance.

Ultracaps also offer other benefits to forklift manufacturers and AGV owners. In an emergency situation, ultracaps provide enough energy for peak shaving, which lowers the power to a safe and manageable level. In full-crane operations, users need only four megawatts of ultracap banks. Ultracaps also increase the life of the batteries with which they partner; a 3,000 pound lead acid battery partnered with an ultracap can last up to four hours, when alone it would last only one hour. And finally, ultracaps have endured and successfully completed crash tests, meaning they are rugged enough for the nature of the work AGVs do.

Ultracapacitors are particularly useful in dynamic systems where applications perform several accelerations that last just a few seconds. These rapid movements, typical in AGVs, set the stage for energy recapture, which ultracapacitors excel at doing. The high-power and high-energy applications in the AGV market can benefit significantly from a hybridized solution of ultracapacitors and batteries, while seeing a payback on the ultracapacitor investment in just 18 months. _Environmental Leader

This solution will not be enough to replace internal combustion engines (ICEs) for on-road vehicles, due to their lack of range. To replace ICEs for on-road vehicles, a triple-hybrid solution might be best: fuel cells, batteries, and supercapacitors.

Internal Combustion Engines Best Single Power Source for Energy & Power Densities
It is impossible at this time for any single electrical power storage device to match the internal combustion engine for both power density and energy density, particularly when taking expense into account.

Comparing Fuel Cells, Batteries, and Supercapacitor Power Response
As you can see when comparing fuel cells, batteries, and supercapacitors, each has different strengths and weaknesses in terms of supplying power for acceleration, and in terms of storing energy for long range driving between recharge or refuel.

Specific Energy vs Specific Power for Fuel Cells, Batteries, and Capacitors

Energy Management for Fuel Cell - Battery - Supercapacitor Vehicle

This paper proposes a perfect energy source supplied by a polymer electrolyte membrane fuelcell (PEMFC) as a main power source and storage devices: battery and supercapacitor, for modern distributed generation system, particularly for future fuelcell vehicle applications. The energy in hybrid system is balanced by the dc bus voltage regulation. A supercapacitor module, as a high dynamic and high power density device, functions for supplying energy to regulate a dc bus voltage. A battery module, as a high energy density device, operates for supplying energy to a supercapacitor bank to keep it charged. A FC, as a slowest dynamic source in this system, functions to supply energy to a battery bank in order to keep it charged. Therefore, there are three voltage control loops: dc bus voltage regulated by a supercapacitor bank, supercapacitor voltage regulated by a battery bank, and battery voltage regulated by a FC. To authenticate the proposed control algorithm, a hardware system in our laboratory is realized by analog circuits and numerical calculation by dSPACE. Experimental results with small-scale devices (a PEMFC: 500-W, 50-A; a battery bank: 68-Ah, 24-V; and a supercapacitor bank: 292-F, 30-V, 500-A) corroborate the excellent control principle during motor drive cycle. _Abstract of Journal of Power Sources study

Fuzzy logic power management for fuel cell - battery - supercapacitor electric vehicle IEEE Vehicular Transactions

Some manufacturers are attempting to combine the battery and the ultracapacitor into a single device, and others are combining the two into a single sealed package. The advantage of combining the two devices for better total power and energy densities is clear. The addition of the fuel cell to provide much longer range -- providing for fully charged batteries and ultracaps over an extended time -- creates more expense and a more difficult technical challenge, but appears to be the only way of replacing the ICE ultimately.

A future invention which combines the functions of all three devices in one, is not out of the question, and is likely to reduce the cost of the all-electric powerplant eventually, when it can be manufactured as an integrated device.

Intermittent Wind Cannot Replace Baseload Power

Affordable, utility-scale batteries are a number of decades away. One cannot rationally discuss the topic of national or international grid dependency on intermittent power sources without admitting that basic fact.

We should first look at some basics.

Let's look first at two graphs depicting power grid load curves:

This graph looks at

• baseload power -- predictable 24/7 power loads
• intermediate load -- predictable loads of intermediate duration
• peak loads -- less predictable shorter duration loads.

for both summer and winter conditions. It is clear that baseload and intermediate load, being predictable, would require predictable supplies of power, generated by reliable power sources.

Energy sources that are intermittent are -- by definition -- not predictable, and generally unsuitable to supply baseload and intermediate load power. In the same way, intermittents are even less suitable to supply peak power, since in that case both the load and the supply are unpredictable to grid managers.

This graph looks at grid load curves in summer and winter, but assumes a large electrical vehicle fleet, which is re-charging itself during non-peak hours, when power charges are lower. When such a large-scale re-charging takes place, the grid load curves are essentially altered to make most demand into baseload.

Such a grid load curve -- where most of the load over 24/7 is baseload -- matches both nuclear power plants and coal power plants almost perfectly.

Here is a very basic introduction to the problem of trying to use intermittent power supply for critical power loads which must be supplied on a reliable basis:

Here is the analogy: Suppose there is a car on the market that is very environmentally friendly. Its mileage is phenomenal! I call it a “super-green” car.

This super-green car has the same horsepower as a conventional car. It will handle steep hills as well as a conventional car. It has the same 0 to 60 mph performance. The only difference is that when you try to start it in the morning, it will only start 25 percent of the time, and you can never predict on which day it will start. It runs, randomly, 25 percent of the time.

Would you replace your conventional car with a super-green car to get you to work every day? To keep the analogy simple, let us assume that if the car starts on a particular day, it will also take you home at the end of the workday. If it doesn’t start on a particular day, however, it won’t start that day no matter how often you turn the starter key.

To most people, the answer is obvious. Most of us would not hold on to a job very long if we randomly showed up at work only 25 percent of the time. So the answer is no, the super-green car cannot replace the conventional car. Horsepower is the equivalent of capacity in this analogy. An intermittent electrical power source with a capacity (or power capability when it is working) to generate 1000MW cannot replace a conventional power plant with a capacity of 1000MW. Even though the capacities are the same, the power plants are not equivalent. Yet capacity comparisons are made all the time, as if this somehow makes the power plants equivalent. They are not equivalent.

Capacity factor

Others would say that since the capacity factor is 25 percent (the car works 25 percent of the time), you would just need four cars to reliably get you to work every day. This is also not true, however. There is a chance that none of the cars will work on a particular day. As a matter of fact, this probability can be computed, if the probability of each car not working is independent of the other cars not working. It is 0.75 x 0.75 x 0.75 x 0.75 or (0.75)^4, which is equal to 32 percent. So if you owned four super-green cars, the probability of none of them working on a particular day is 32 percent. So, with four super-green cars, you get to work 68 percent of the time, which is better than 25 percent of the time, but it is still a long way from 100 percent of the time.

Another problem with using capacity factor as an equalizing parameter is that there are times when more than one car will start. The extra cars, however, are of no value to you as far as getting to work is concerned. The extra working cars do not average out with the demand to get to work on time each day. They are working at the wrong time.

Note that in the case of a wind farm, the probability of each turbine not working is not independent. If the wind doesn’t blow in a particular area, it will affect all wind turbines. The probabilities are not randomly independent. Therefore, wind farms must be in separate weather patterns, in order to significantly reduce the unavailable time.

Generation

A better equalizing parameter is generation. When the super-green car works, it generates highly economical miles. That parameter has its problems as well, however. The generation of economical miles can be increased simply by taking the long route to work. Those extra economical miles are of no value as far as getting to work is concerned. In the same way, generated electricity has no value unless there is a demand for it at the time that it is generated. This is because electricity has zero shelf-life. It must be consumed when it is generated.

So, when generation cost comparisons are made between intermittent and baseload power sources, this presumes that the resulting electricity value is the same. This is actually not the case, because electricity generated when the demand for it is not certain does not have the same value as electricity that is generated when there is demand for it.

There is no perfect equalization parameter when making comparisons between intermittent and baseload generated electricity. Capacity is by far the worst, next comes capacity factor, and the best is generation, but it is not perfect.

Conclusion

So, the conclusion is that intermittently generated electricity cannot replace baseload generation. Just like there is a chance that none of the super-green cars are working on a particular day, there is also a chance that no electricity is generated by an intermittent source. Hence, all the conventional power sources are still needed. _Energy Collective

Go to the link above and skim through the article, then read the comments. It is obvious that many of the readers of the website live in a land of green dreams and wishful thinking. Affordable and reliable utility scale storage batteries are decades away. And yet these green dreamers want to push big wind and big solar onto the grid today! And at a much higher proportion of total grid capacity than power grids can adjust to. In other words, for all their good intentions, these green commenters are promoting policies that would crash the power grid!

It is true, of course, that large scale electrical fleets capable of converting grid load curves to an overall 24/7 baseload graph, are also decades away. Because the same technological limitations on utility-scale batteries also apply to EV batteries.

Even if utility scale batteries were available, would it make sense to replace nuclear, coal, and gas power plants with big wind and big solar? Of course not. If you look at the total costs of methods of power generation over their lifetime, adjusting for the cost of infrastructure buildup and conversion, and adjusting for the costs of backup power, maintenance, and replacement -- it becomes clear that big wind and big solar are not even close to ready for prime time.

Green dreamers will be the death of us all -- which is exactly what many of the purveyors of these green dreams are hoping. The people behind the green dreams know better, but they do it anyway. Powerful individuals in the big money green-industrial-political complex -- better known as lefty-Luddite dieoff.orgiast greens -- would like nothing better than to see 90% or more of the global human population simply disappear. At least they believe they would like to see it.

Energy starvation of the advanced world -- through forced conversion to unreliable intermittents, through forced carbon taxes and trading, through carbon hysteric rules and regulations etc. -- will have cascading effects on the emerging and developing worlds, leading to significant hardship and possibly large-scale death. At least that is the hope and the plan, by the lefty-Luddites at the top of the food chain. The green dreamers who leave vacuous comments on Energy Collective websites are the expendable cannon fodder.

As for those who understand the potentially disastrous effects of green faux environmental policies being forced onto the industry, commerce, and power supplies of the advanced world: Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

IBM and its New 800 Km Range Lithium-Air Battery

Electric vehicles are cursed by ludicrously expensive, short-range batteries, which sour new owners on the technology all too quickly. The EV and hybrid automobile industries cannot survive for long, if they cannot even attract old owners back for new designs and models.

But what if a company -- perhaps IBM -- were to invent and produce a reasonably priced battery that provided a 500 mile range per charge? How would that change the equation?

Most fully charged lithium ion car batteries today will take an electric vehicle only 160 kilometers before petering out. (Nissan says its all-electric Leaf has a range of about 175 kilometers.) Plug-in electric vehicles such as the Chevy Volt have an even more limited range of up to 80 kilometers before its gas-powered motor must kick in.

...Researchers predict a new type of lithium battery under development could give an electric car enough juice to travel a whopping 800 kilometers before it needs to be plugged in again—about 10 times the energy that today's lithium ion batteries supply. It is a tantalizing prospect—a lighter, longer-lasting, air-breathing power source for the next generation of vehicles—if only someone could build a working model. Several roadblocks stand between these lithium–air batteries and the open road, however, primarily in finding electrodes and electrolytes that are stable enough for rechargeable battery chemistry.

IBM plans to take lithium–air batteries out of neutral by building a working prototype by the end of next year. The company announced Friday it has stepped up development efforts by adding two Japanese technology firms—chemical manufacturer Asahi Kasei Corp. and electrolyte maker Central Glass—to the IBM Battery 500 Project, a coalition IBM established in 2009 to accelerate the switch from gas to electric-powered vehicles among carmakers and their customers.

...the lithium–air batteries might be ready for production by 2020 at the earliest, "if we don't find any show-stopping technology along the way." [Winfried Wilcke] adds: "The only thing I'm certain of is that it won't happen this decade." _SciAm

Well, it was a thought. But it is just as important to understand development timeframes when they are stretched out, as when they are compressed or accelerated.

EVs and hybrids are not magic carpets, sent from an alternate Persia to rescue us from hydrocarbon fueled vehicles. It takes time to overturn infrastructures based upon $trillions of investment, development, and production base.

Fortunately, there are many decades worth of oil remaining, and centuries worth of liquid fuels from CTL, GTL, BTL, KTL, and GHTL [gas hydrates to liquids]. If you throw in the cheap and abundant industrial process heat from new generations of safer, cleaner, scalable nuclear reactors, we are not likely to run out of liquid fuels for combustion engines for a very long time.

Peak oil religionists are good at sitting around in circles, droning their liturgical repeats, centered upon a dark and constricting future. The rest of us have work to do.

Breakthrough in Battery Electrodes and Fuel Cell Catalysts?

For catalysts in fuel cells and electrodes in batteries, engineers would like to manufacture metal films that are porous, to make more surface area available for chemical reactions, and highly conductive, to carry off the electricity. The latter has been a frustrating challenge.

But Cornell chemists have now developed a way to make porous metal films with up to 1,000 times the electrical conductivity offered by previous methods. Their technique also opens the door to creating a wide variety of metal nanostructures for engineering and biomedical applications, the researchers said.

The results of several years of experimentation are described March 18 online edition of the journal Nature Materials.

"We have reached unprecedented levels of control on composition, nanostructure and functionality -- for example, conductivity -- of the resulting materials, all with a simple 'one-pot' mix-and-heat approach," said senior author Ulrich Wiesner, the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Engineering.

...The researchers report a wide range of experiments showing that their process can be used to make "a library of materials with a high degree of control over composition and structure." They have built structures of almost every metal in the periodic table, and with additional chemistry can "tune" the dimensions of the pores in a range from 10 to 500 nanometers. They have also made metal-filled silica nanoparticles small enough to be ingested and secreted by humans, with possible biomedical applications. _RDMag

This is another example of the "dull revolutions" taking place in research labs around the world every day. It is the breakthroughs in materials, catalysts, electrodes, solvents, and basic processes, which will build the bridges to a more prosperous, clean, and abundant future.

The biggest threat to such a transition to a cleaner, more abundant future, is the threat from well intentioned political and faux environmental movements, which have pure feelings but feeble minds.

A "Nation-Sized Storage Battery" and the Wind Power Delusion

In "How Big a Battery Would it Take to Power the USA?" a recent Scientific American article asks whether the US is ready to be powered by wind and solar. Wind and solar are intermittent energy sources, inherently unreliable.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, when intermittent sources such as solar or wind reach about 20 percent of a region’s total energy production, balancing supply and demand becomes extremely challenging: rolling blackouts can sometimes become inevitable. The same problem exists elsewhere, notably in Germany, where a vast photovoltaic capacity has sprung up thanks to generous subsidies.

Burton Richter, a physics Nobel laureate who was on a recent panel that studied California's power supply situation, told The New York Times blogger Andrew Revkin that because of intermittency, utilities would need to keep fossil fuel–burning plants as a backup that can quickly ramp up generation as need be. This large-scale load following, as it is called, "can only be done with natural gas," Richter told Revkin. _SciAm

And what if the wind stops blowing for several days in a row? The author speculates on the possibilities of using a giant, nation-sized storage battery to power the entire US national grid. Unfortunately, he does not quantify the speculations, but he does help fuel the undying wind and solar fantasy, if the comments are any judge.

Fortunately, UCSD physicist Tom Murphy has looked at this question quantitatively in "A Nation-Sized Battery."

...solar and wind suffer a serious problem in that they are not always available. There are windless days, there are sunless nights, and worst of all, there are windless nights. Obviously, this calls for energy storage, allowing us to collect the energy when we can, and use it when we want.

... We’re not a nation tolerant of power outages. Those big refrigerators can spoil a lot of food when the electricity drops away. A rule of thumb for remote solar installations is that you should design your storage to last for a minimum of three days with no energy input. Even then, sometimes you will “go dark” in the worst storm of the winter.This does not mean literally three days of total deprivation, but could be four consecutive days at 25% average input, so that you only haul in one day’s worth over a four day period, leaving yourself short by three.

So let’s buy ourselves security and design a battery that can last a week without any new inputs (as before, could be 8 days at 12.5% average input, or 10 days at 30% input). This may be able to manage the worst-case “perfect” storm of persistent clouds in the desert Southwest plus weak wind in the Plains.

Let’s also plan ahead and have all of our country’s energy needs met by this system: transportation, heating, industry, etc. The rate at which we currently use energy in all forms in the U.S. is 3 TW. If we transition everything to electricity, we can get by with 2 TW, assuming no growth in demand.

...Running a 2 TW electrified country for 7 days requires 336 billion kWh of storage. We could also use nuclear power as a baseload to offset a significant portion of the need for storage—perhaps chopping the need in two. This post deals with the narrower topic of what it would take to implement a full-scale renewable-energy battery. Scale the result as you see fit.

...Large lead-acid batteries occupy a volume of 0.013 cubic meters (13 liters) per kWh of storage, weigh 25 kg/kWh (55 lb/kWh), and contain about 15 kg of lead per kWh of storage.

How do we put this into more familiar terms? A 12 V battery rated at 200 A-h (amp-hours) of charge capacity stores 2400 W-h (watt-hours: just multiply voltage and charge capacity), or 2.4 kWh. 200 A-h means that the battery could discharge a 10 amp current (120 watts) for 20 hours, or a one amp current (12 watts) for 200 hours—though in actual practice the capacity is lower at higher currents.

I can’t resist the temptation to ask: what is the minimum amount of lead that is theoretically needed to build the battery? The chemical reaction for a lead-acid battery is such that each interaction involving the transformation of one lead atom to PbSO4 liberates one electron at a 2.1-volt potential. This electron then is bestowed 2.1 electron-volts (eV) of energy, amounting to 3.4×10−19 J (see page on energy relations). One kilowatt-hour is 3.6 million Joules (1000 W times 3600 seconds), so that it takes 1025 lead atoms (where every one participates). If you remember that Avogadro’s number is 6×1023, we need about 20 moles of lead atoms. At 207 g/mol, this comes out to about 4 kg per kWh of energy, which is a factor of four less than the realized value above.

...Putting the pieces together, our national battery occupies a volume of 4.4 billion cubic meters, equivalent to a cube 1.6 km (one mile) on a side. The size in itself is not a problem: we’d naturally break up the battery and distribute it around the country. This battery would demand 5 trillion kg (5 billion tons) of lead.

...A USGS report from 2011 reports 80 million tons (Mt) of lead in known reserves worldwide, with 7 Mt in the U.S. A note in the report indicates that the recent demonstration of lead associated with zinc, silver, and copper deposits places the estimated (undiscovered) lead resources of the world at 1.5 billion tons. That’s still not enough to build the battery for the U.S. alone. _Tom Murphy

So we are confronted with "the limits to lead." Not only is such a battery unaffordable, but it is unobtainable. Trying to use any other technology in place of the old standby, lead acid, would make the impossibility of a national battery even worse.

Dreams are wonderful things. But they should not distract us from the things that need to be done. Lefty Luddite dieoff.orgy greens have taken over the governments of much of Europe, North America, and Oceania. Their delusions -- when put into law -- threaten to make it impossible for their societies to achieve an abundant future.

What the residents of those nations choose to do when their power cliques are operating with a destructive and delusional mindset, is up to them.

More: The German government's decision to precipitously close all nuclear power plants, and to rely upon unreliable big wind and big solar for industry-critical power, is creating an economic disaster. More on dealing with intermittency:

The industry is concerned that it isn't clear how the government intends to guarantee the power supply in the future. Pumped-storage hydroelectricity plants would have to be built to store energy for periods when there is little wind or solar energy. But hardly any new facilities are currently in the works. Billions would also have to be invested in reliable power grids so that wind-generated electricity can be transported from the coast to the industrial Ruhr region and to the southern states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. But national and state politicians are still fighting over where the lines should be installed and whether it will be necessary to bury all cables underground. Finally, additional natural gas-fired power plants are urgently needed. Not surprising, however, very few companies are prepared to invest in facilities that may or may not be profitable, depending on which way the political winds happen to be blowing.

...The energy supply is now "the top risk for Germany as a location for business," says Hans Heinrich Driftmann, president of the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK). "One has to be concerned in Germany about the cost of electricity," warns European Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger. And Bernd Kalwa, a member of the general works council at ThyssenKrupp, says heatedly: "Some 5,000 jobs are in jeopardy within our company alone, because an irresponsible energy policy is being pursued in Düsseldorf and Berlin." _Spiegel

Energy Density of Automotive Fuels: Electricity Trails Badly

Exxon Mobil via New Energy and Fuel
The most striking thing about the graphic above is the poor performance by today's automotive electrical storage devices. Liquid fuels far outperform electrical storage in terms of energy density -- range of travel between refuelings. Until better electrical storage devices are developed and delivered -- which may take decades -- liquid fuels will be demanded by discriminating drivers.

...contrast the 300 to 400 miles that a gasoline vehicle can take you with what it would take to do the same in an electric vehicle. Electric vehicle batteries have just a fraction of the energy density of gasoline, meaning they would have to be charged multiple times during a 400-mile trip. There’s currently no major infrastructure for charging electric vehicles on the road, and it can take hours for an electric vehicle battery to charge.

Consumers at times may take for granted the convenience and time-savings offered by the existing fuel station network. The technological processes that recover crude oil from the earth, transport it to refineries, refine it into gasoline and diesel, transport it to fuel stations and store it over time are so incredibly advanced that consumers can fill up with gasoline 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in as many quantities as necessary. That’s a convenience that does not currently exist with other transportation fuels.

...One of our top scientists uses the analogy of backpacking when talking about the importance of energy density: You want to buy the lightest, most easily carried food for backpacking, but it also needs to contain a lot of energy to keep you going. Likewise, gasoline and diesel are the lightest and most energy-dense fuels to carry for transportation. A typical car’s gasoline tank contains less than 100 pounds of gasoline but can power a 3,000 pound car for 400 miles at 60 miles per hour. This performance sets a high standard, and there are few transportation fuels currently on the market that are as light, energy dense and portable as gasoline or diesel. _EMblog via Brian Westenhaus

In the future, the development of lightweight advanced fuel cells running on liquid fuels will shift the equation toward the use of electric motors. But liquid fuels will still be valued for their high energy density, compared to electrical storage.

Super-hybrid vehicles utilising fuel cells, supercapacitors, and chemical storage batteries are likely to play a part in the future vehicular mix. All of those components will be necessary just to match the performance of the internal combustion engine running on liquid fuels.

But with far fewer moving mechanical parts, once such systems are perfected they should have fewer maintenance problems, and may have longer useful lifetimes.

New Sodium Ion Battery May Be Best Battery for Utility Grid

Whitacre's sodium-ion cells are similar in some ways to lithium-ion cells--the type used in portable electronics and in some electric vehicles. In both types of cell, ions are shuttled between the battery's positive and negative electrodes during charging and discharging, with an electrolyte serving as the medium for moving those ions. But because sodium is orders of magnitude more abundant than lithium, it is cheaper to use. To make the cells cheaper still, Whitacre plans to operate them at lower voltages, so that water-based electrolytes can be used instead of organic electrolytes. This should further decrease manufacturing costs, since water-based electrolytes are easier to work with.

The change to water-based electrolytes could also make it possible to eliminate much of the supporting material needed in conventional lithium-ion cells, again reducing costs. This is because increasing the ionic conductivity makes it possible to use thicker electrodes with fewer layers of separating and current-collecting materials inside the cell.

"In principle, a sodium-ion system can be low-cost, and with aqueous electrolytes, it could be really low-cost," says Jeff Dahn, a professor of physics and chemistry at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada. _TechnologyReview

Jay Whitacre, a professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, is perfecting a sodium ion battery meant for use at utility-scale. It will contain no toxic materials, cost 1/3 as much as lithium ion cells per kwh stored, and will last longer through more charge-discharge cycles than conventional cells.

Aquion's battery uses an activated carbon anode and a sodium- and manganese-based cathode. A water-based electrolyte carries sodium ions between the two electrodes while charging and discharging. The principle is similar to lithium-ion, but sodium ions are more abundant and hence cheaper to use. Compared to solvent-based electrolytes, the aqueous electrolyte is also easier to work with and cheaper. Even better, the materials are nontoxic and the battery is 100 percent recyclable, Whitacre says.

Grid-scale trials of the technology are next. Aquion has started shipping pre-production battery prototypes to off-grid solar power companies. Next month, a 1,000-volt module will go to KEMA, a Dutch energy consulting and testing outfit, which has a facility outside Philadelphia.

...John Miller, an electrochemical capacitor expert and president of consulting firm JME in Shaker Heights, Ohio, says Aquion's battery could be the cheapest of the various battery technologies vying to provide grid storage. He compares it to today's most common grid storage technology, pumped hydro, which accounts for 95 percent of utility-scale energy storage. Pumped hydro involves moving water to an elevation when electricity demand is low, and releasing that water through turbines during peak periods. It is, however, limited by geology and space, and pumped hydro systems take many years and millions of dollars to build. Utilities are now starting to look at batteries because they can be delivered in months and, in principle, can be sited anywhere.

"Lead-acid is even too expensive," Miller says. "Aquion's technology is getting to the range of pumped hydro in cost, which is two cents per kilowatt-hour [over the system's lifetime]. They're unique. I would say it's very promising for grid storage."

So far, no available technology meets all grid energy storage requirements, says Haresh Kamath, a program manager for energy storage at the Electric Power Research Institute. "Each technology has a different sweet spot" in terms of cost, safety, reliability, lifespan, and efficiency, he says. _TechnologyReview

Here is more information about the new battery from Aquion:

Safe

The core Aquion technology contains zero toxic or otherwise hazardous materials. This facilitates battery installation and manufacturing facilities by preventing delays associated with hazardous material zoning issues. The technology was designed such that harvesting and recycling both the packaging and the active materials is easy. The batteries are also much more efficient than traditional batteries at both a cell and systems level; the end result is an energy storage system that makes better use of the energy it stores.

Reliable

The centerpiece of the technology is an innovative hybrid energy storage chemistry. Over the last two years, the chemistry has been rigorously proven in a laboratory environment and certified by independent third party testing. The electrochemical couple that has emerged from this process is one that combines a high capacity carbon anode with a sodium intercalation cathode capable of thousands of complete discharge cycles over extended periods of time. The materials couple can deliver over 30 Wh/l as packaged. The device functions in a broad range of ambient temperatures and can be repeatedly cycled with little to no loss in delivered capacity. Rapid cycle testing indicates at least 5000 cycles with no fade in delivered capacity, while ongoing calendar life testing shows stable performance for over a year of continuous deep cycle use.

Affordable

To minimize cost, only the cheapest raw materials were considered in the basic R&D phase. As a result, sodium interactive materials and water based electrolytes are used instead of the traditional lithium-based materials and organic solvents. We are also vertically integrated, with manufacturing that incorporates in-house electrode active materials production. Processes borrowed from the food and pharmaceutical industries are then used to create freestanding electrodes that are then packaged into large units. _Aquion

It is likely to take years more to perfect the technology for industrial and utility scale use and production. But this technology would seem to be the most promising battery technology seen recently, besides flow cell batteries -- which will take up to 10 more years to perfect.

In the meantime, the cryogenic storage technology being developed in the UK is felt to be the most promising non-battery utility storage technology.

Comparing Different Methods for Electrical Energy Storage

Images via ESA (ht NBF)
The Electricity Storage Association provides a useful comparison for different methods for electrical energy storage (via Brian Wang). One significant omission from the list is "Cryonic Energy Storage," which may prove to be the best of the current crop of contenders for now, until "flow batteries" are perfected.

Large -scale stationary applications of electric energy storage can be divided in three major functional categories:

Power Quality. Stored energy, in these applications, is only applied for seconds or less, as needed, to assure continuity of quality power.

Bridging Power. Stored energy, in these applications, is used for seconds to minutes to assure continuity of service when switching from one source of energy generation to another.

Energy Management. Storage media, in these applications, is used to decouple the timing of generation and consumption of electric energy. A typical application is load leveling, which involves the charging of storage when energy cost is low and utilization as needed. This would also enable consumers to be grid-independent for many hours.

Although some storage technologies can function in all application ranges, most options would not be economical to be applied in all three functional categories.

... _ESA

More graphic comparisons from ESA below:

Read the entire ESA comparison sheet for more information.

Cryonic energy storage has far more potential than compressed air storage, given the phase change energies involved.

Among electric battery storage methods, flow cell batteries are most scalable and versatile in application. Newer approaches to flow cells using more viscous electrolyte media should allow the technology to be used in vehicular power storage applications.

Better Batteries, Cheaper Splitting of Water to Hydrogen, O2

Ionic Liquid Batteries from US Naval Research Lab

While working with ionic liquids based on mineral acids, such as hydrogen sulphates, it was observed that Zn metal would react to form zinc sulphate. Since this is similar to that observed for the zinc anode in a standard alkaline cell, a series of experiments were then performed to determine how different metal oxides reacted in these types of ionic liquids.

Electrochemical experiments demonstrate that not only can these reactive ionic liquids act as the electrolyte/separator in both solid state and liquid batteries, but they can also act as a reactive species in the cell’s electrochemical makeup. Using a non-aqueous approach to primary and secondary power sources, batteries are designed using standard cathode and anode materials such as magnesium dioxide (MgO2), lead dioxide (PbO2) and silver oxide (AgO). The ionic liquid that is the main focus of this work is 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium hydrogen sulphate (EMIHSO4), however, other ionic liquids such as those based on the nitrate and dihydrogen phosphate anions have also been found to work well in this type of a battery design. _GCC

Cheap, Molybdenum based catalysts for inexpensive splitting of water

A team led by Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) Professor Xile Hu has discovered that a molybdenum-based catalyst allows the electrolytic production of hydrogen at room temperature, and is inexpensive and efficient. The results provide new opportunities for the development of renewable and economic hydrogen production technologies. A paper on the work appears in the RSC journal Chemical Science. _GCC

Xtreme Power's proprietary Power Cell technology will be used to provide 36 MW of storage at Duke Power's Texas "Notree" wind farm. More: "World's Biggest Battery"
PDF details
Large scale power storage may eventually make wind and solar more competitive power providers for particular locations where nuclear power is not practical -- isolated third world locations with minimal technical expertise.

Who Needs Rare Earth Magnets? Not NovaTorque

Source
Sunnyvale California's Nova Torque has introduced 3 permanent magnet motors that use magnets costing only 1 / 15th the cost of a neodymium magnet.

So how does NovaTorque do it? Take a look at the photo. The motor (foreground) consists of conical hubs (background) containing magnets separated by a tapered motor shaft (left). The hub is the component that looks like a space capsule and the shaft has the band of copper. The key here is that the interface between the magnetic surface of the hub and the shaft is diagonal, not flat like in most motors. A diagonal interface dramatically increases the surface area between the two, thereby increasing magnetic flux transmission (good) and reducing materials (also good). The magnets are the raised surfaces on the side of the conical hub.

Think of how baguettes get cut in restaurants: you can put more butter on diagonally cut bread than slices lopped off the top. The expanded surface area permits NovaTorque to switch to ferrite magnets.

NovaTorque also manages to reduce the amount of copper needed for the coils in the motor. Less copper, less cost.

Efficiency in the motor is greater than average due to the fact that the magnetic field is axial, i.e., it runs in an oval around the axle, instead of being radial, i.e., circumnavigating it. One advantage: the axial field means NovaTorque can use gain-oriented transformer-grade sette, which lowers eddy current losses and boosts efficiency. Higher efficiency should also result in fewer breakdowns: a large percentage of mechanical failures can be traced to ambient waste heat generated by motor inefficiencies.

The motor also pairs well with variable drives, and variable speed air conditioners are one of the top priorities in data center retrofits.

The company's Premium Plus+ motors are currently spec'd for refrigerators, HVAC systems, vacuum pumps and industrial equipment. But if the technology scales well to larger motors, other markets could open. _greentechmedia

In other news from GreenTechMedia, Massachusetts company Premium Power is introducing a zinc bromide flow battery system scaled for a large home. It is clear from the comments following the article that most readers have no idea what a flow battery is. Still, the announcement is good news for anyone looking for advances in large scale power backup systems.

Also from GreenTechMedia, an announcement that Sapphire Energy is beginning work on the first of a series of 3 100 acre algae biofuel pilot plants in New Mexico. Ignore the facetious comment left by yours truly after the article. The website will probably alter the article by the time you read it to make the comment seem superfluous, or may delete the comment altogether. Website administrators tend to take themselves and their sites altogether too seriously! ;-)

Brian Wang describes research from Montana State University, which demonstrates that algae are capable of thriving on added HCO3 -- producing significantly more oil as a result of the extra carbon. This is actually good news for those worried about ocean acidification from atmospheric CO2, since most dissolved CO2 turns promptly into HCO3 (over 90% I believe). In other words, sea creatures will take this extra bicarbonate and turn it into more plankton, sponges, coral reefs, and shelled sea creatures.

Robert Rapier describes a visit to a Shell Oil Gas-to-liquids plant in Malaysia. The plant utilises gasification plus F-T synthesis of liquids. Very enlightening, and most optimistic toward the future of GTL.

CTL and BTL are still considerably more expensive, but given time we are likely to see a lot of progress on those fronts as well.

Novel Electrochemical Cell Produces Electricity AND H2

GCC

Scientists from the Energy Technology Research Institute, AIST in Tsukuba, Japan, have developed a lithium-water electrochemical cell for the controlled generation of hydrogen and electricity. The researchers, headed by Haoshen Zhou, foresee the use of this process in fuel cells for mobile applications. A paper on their work was published in the journal ChemSusChem.

Although direct chemical reactions between water and certain metals—alkali metals including lithium, sodium and others—can produce a large amount of hydrogen in a short time, these reactions are too intense to be controlled.

...Only lithium ions can pass across the LISICON film. The rate of both half reactions within the lithium–water electrochemical cell can be controlled by the current, indicating a controllable hydrogen generation.

Another attractive aspect of this technology is that lithium metal can be produced from salt solutions (e.g., sea water) by using sunlight. In other words, energy from the sun can be “stored” in the metal, and then be used on demand by reacting the lithium in the fuel cell. Recharging the battery would be a matter of replacing the lithium metal cell. _GCC

The device is in its early stages, and inefficient. But a controllable hydrogen generator -- once perfected -- could be useful in several ways.

Combining Ultracapacitors in Parallel w/ Batteries

Brian Westenhaus takes an intriguing look at an ultracapacitor kit from Ioxus for forklifts, which combines ultracapacitors in parallel with the lead acid storage batteries for superior performance and much longer battery life.

The effect is that the battery set can run 30% longer and avoids a deep discharge, an enemy to lead acid cells life expectancy. If not in a deep freeze ware house customers can reduce the total battery set size by 15% or so.

...This gets more interesting when considering a regenerative braking system. The charging effect is magnified in a fast braking effort. A lot of energy is suddenly loaded into a system – a reverse of the discharge. As readers know, the battery chemistries don’t like those fast charges and discharges. The Ioxus design does just what is needed for those fast cycles. _NewEnergyandFuel

Some very interesting speculation on how to apply this technology, and what the future may hold. Brian goes right to the core of the electric vehicle problem: how to achieve excellent power density and energy density, plus long component life and low cost.

Ultracapacitors provide high power density with rapid charge and discharge. Batteries provide high energy density for long cycling. Combined in parallel, they provide reasonable power density and energy density, plus longer life for the expensive batteries. Not as good as internal combustion engines, but getting there slowly but surely (and with better torque).

New Air Battery to Provide 10X the Energy?

Scientists at St. Andrews are developing an air fueled battery that already provides 3X the energy density of a lithium cobalt oxide cell. They are aiming for 10X the energy sometime in the next 4 to 5 years.

Improved capacity is thanks to the addition of a component that uses oxygen drawn from the air during discharge, replacing one chemical constituent used in rechargeable batteries today. Not having to carry the chemicals around in the battery offers more energy for the same size battery. Reducing the size and weight of batteries with the necessary charge capacity has been a long-running battle for developers of electric cars.

The STAIR (St Andrews Air) cell should be cheaper than today’s rechargeables too. The new component is made of porous carbon, which is far less expensive than the lithium cobalt oxide it replaces.

This four-year research project, which reaches its halfway mark in July, builds on the discovery at the university that the carbon component’s interaction with air can be repeated, creating a cycle of charge and discharge. Subsequent work has more than tripled the capacity to store charge in the STAIR cell. _ImpactLab

Air has proven to be a useful reactant for many human purposes. Zinc-air and aluminium-air fuel cells use a similar chemical trick as the air-carbon batteries. Of course all combustion engines that operate in Earth's atmosphere utilise air as a reactant. New hybrid rocket engines are an attempt to save on rocket fuel by using air as a reactant on the upward passage through the atmosphere. And so on.

Now if they could only devise battery that consumed CO2 from the air in the charge cycle. But that might not be as good as you think -- most plants evolved in a much denser CO2 atmosphere. They are already starving for CO2 as it is. And don't get me started on how chronically hungry the oceans are for more CO2. The oceans simply cannot get enough -- like most terrestrial plants.

Better Batteries Needed

Battery systems that fit in cars don't hold enough energy for driving distances, yet take hours to recharge and don't give much power for acceleration. Renewable sources like solar and wind deliver significant power only part time, but devices to store their energy are expensive and too inefficient to deliver enough power for surge demand.

...Electrical energy storage devices fall into three categories. Batteries, particularly lithium ion, store large amounts of energy but cannot provide high power or fast recharge. Electrochemical capacitors (ECCs), also relying on electrochemical phenomena, offer higher power at the price of relatively lower energy density. In contrast, electrostatic capacitors (ESCs) operate by purely physical means, storing charge on the surfaces of two conductors. This makes them capable of high power and fast recharge, but at the price of lower energy density. _Source

The molten electrode battery pictured above may change the rules of the game. They should be scalable, and when ganged together may offer utility scale storage -- which is badly needed.Nanocapacitor arrays developed at the University of Maryland offer another alternative for electronics devices.
From the Universities of Miami, Tokyo, and Tuhoku, comes the completely new concept for energy storage pictured above. It derives voltages from large numbers of spinning nano-magnets.

And then there is the MIT developed electrode for the lithium ion battery that allows much more rapid charge and discharge speeds.

The need for better batteries ranges from the small -- cellphones -- to the medium -- electric cars -- to the very large -- utility scale storage. For merely large scale power storage -- apartment complexes, hospitals, commercial buildings -- the need is also significant.

No single technology will suit all needs. But the race is on, and the stakes are high.

High Flow Battery Allows Quick In and Quick Out Flow of Electrons via Bypass Channels

MIT's Gerbrand Ceder has developed a new electrode for Lithium Ion batteries that should allow very rapid charging for cell phones and automotive batteries, for example, and very rapid discharging for laser weapons and race cars.

This level of power output would put these batteries on par with ultracapacitors, gadgets that can rapidly discharge power but can't carry much energy for their size, says John Miller, a vice president for systems and applications at Maxwell Technologies, a manufacturer of ultracapacitors, who wasn't involved in the research. The new batteries would store nearly 10 times as much energy as an ultracapacitor of the same size. The combination of small size and extreme power could make the batteries particularly useful for race cars, he says. (Starting this year, new Formula One racing rules will allow race cars to store energy from braking to deliver very brief jolts of acceleration.)

To improve the batteries, the researchers modified an electrode material called lithium iron phosphate to allow electrons and ions to move in and out of it much more quickly. The advance is based on computer models that Ceder developed in 2004. The models suggested a way to improve conductivity by directing lithium ions toward particular faces of crystals within the material.

To exploit this, Ceder included extra lithium and phosphorus. This helps form a layer of lithium diphosphate, a material known for its high lithium-ion conductivity. He says that ions encountering the material are quickly shuttled to faces that can pull them in, allowing for very fast discharging.

The fast-discharging materials may also recharge quickly, raising the possibility of cell phones that charge in seconds, Ceder says, but this would require expensive chargers. Ric Fulop, vice president of business development at A123 Systems, a battery maker based in Watertown, MA, that has licensed Ceder's new material, says that it could be useful for hybrids or for delivering the power needed for laser weapons. (Fulop notes that A123 is not developing batteries for the latter application.) _TechReview

Very interesting, if it pans out anywhere close to the numbers given in the article above. The new battery would provide much greater power density -- surge current -- but perhaps not significantly more energy density -- total energy storage.

In other words, this development will prove useful for many applications, but it does not seem to be the magic breakthrough that suddenly makes all-electric cars feasible for the masses. Of course, one cannot reliably predict when a breakthrough will happen. If a scientist five years from now discovers a battery that provides ten times the energy density of the best competing batteries, at one tenth the cost, Al Fin's predictions about the future of all-electric cars might have to be modified.

What is needed, is a fast-charging, high energy capacity, compact, lightweight, flexible, inexpensive storage battery, and we need it yesterday. In the real world, we work with what we have. Fast charging batteries for cars will make distributed charging stations far more practical, extending the effective range of electric vehicles. What we want, is batteries that can take you 1,000 miles between quick, cheap charges.

We will have to wait for that, but just knowing that scientists such as Ceder are working on the problem makes me feel better, somehow.

All Electric Cars? Not a Good Bet

Electric storage batteries cannot store enough energy to transport an electric powered automobile very far. This is a serious drawback, and one of the reasons that some people are predicting that it may be more than 50 years before electric cars are taken seriously by most of the buying public.

Brian Westenhaus takes a look at new competition for EESTOR, the maker of a mysterious hybrid battery : supercapacitor. He discusses a "Reticle Carbon", a new electrode material for ultracapacitors that may give electric cars a big boost. As described by Brian, the technology looks fascinating. They may have to wait for financing, however, in this extreme economic slowdown of 2009.

One California startup plans to boost the range of electric cars by placing charging machines at convenient locations. They call them "vending machines for charging electric cars." An important development for California, where daily commutes can be far and long.

For those wondering, Elon Musk's Tesla electric car is still out there working, planning to make a big splash soon.

Hybrids are a necessary link in the development chain, combining internal combustion engines with electric motors. Here is an interesting look at the hybric car, going back to the 1800s.

Some electric car enthusiasts are promoting a "battery swapping" approach to extending range, but executives at Mercedes are giving that idea a thumbs down. Mercedes is promoting permanent lithium ion batteries with a driving range of just over 100 miles.

The bottom line is that traditional internal combustion engine automobiles are in no immediate danger of being replaced by all-electric cars. So far, hybrids have not lived up to their promise, and are more expensive in both short and long term calculations, when taking into account battery replacement.

Al Fin's prediction? Fuel cells that run on all types of hydrocarbon including ethanol and methanol will begin to replace the ICE within 10 years. The new power plants may very well also incorporate newer, lighter hybrid ultracapacitor : battery storage packs for extended boosting power when passing or accelerating onto a turnpike. Fuel cells are on a rapid developmental trajectory, as are ultracapacitors and batteries. But all electric autos are an impractical solution looking for a cause. Only carbon hysteria delusions underlie the persistent demands for all-electric cars.

Power Storage Solutions for Wind and Solar

Wind and Solar power are insignificant portions of the world power jigsaw puzzle. And world power needs are growing faster than wind and solar can grow--especially in the absence of utility-scale electrical storage. What kind of advances in storage technologies are necessary to change the outlook for wind and solar from total losers to potential team players?

“Having no form of storage is not a problem right now, because only (about 2) percent of our power comes from wind and solar,” says George Crabtree, senior scientist and Distinguished Fellow in Argonne National Lab.'s Materials Science Div. “But that won't work if you intend to get really serious and create 30 percent to 40 percent of your power that way. Every wind and solar source has to have a backup.”

Wind turbines generate power when and only when the wind blows; solar cells make power only when the sun is shining brightly. Like all other sources of power — coal, nuclear, hydro — the electrical current created by wind and solar is used immediately. With only a few minor exceptions, utilities don't have a way of storing that electricity for later use.

That's why “balancing resources” are so important. Without them, utility customers face the prospect of blackouts, as happened in a wind-dependent area of west Texas earlier this year when the wind died down. Or they face the opposite problem — too much generation — as occurred in New York state recently when wind turbines had to be shut down because they caused “grid congestion.”

“As we put more 'intermittency' — wind and solar — into our system we need the balancing resources for those times when they are not available,” says Arshad Mansoor, vice president of power delivery and utilization for the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). Mansoor says the most common balancing resources today are gas turbines and coal plants. In other words, utilities must balance large amounts of wind and solar with the very CO2-spewing sources they are trying to eliminate..... _designnews

What are some possible solutions? Pumped water gravity storage and compressed air storage are limited and expensive small-scale solutions being utilized now. They are not even close to being sufficient.

Promising longer term solutions:

Redox Flow Cells
NaS Utility Scale Batteries
Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage
Advanced Flywheels, etc.

Of course, some good solutions being overlooked are scalable gasification combined cycle turbines, and scalable nuclear reactors for baseload. Modular nuclear makes for excellent baseload power, and scalable coal/biomass combined cycle turbine facilities allow for flexible adjustment to demand needs. If you add utility scale storage to the mix, you have a fairly well-balanced power solution.

An emphasis on wind power at this time is misguided, but expected of people such as Pickens, Pelosi, Boxer, Obama, Salazar etc. By designating CO2 as a dangerous pollutant, these unscrupulous fools are threatening to cripple the US power supply at a time when it has never been more important. Power reserves to prevent brownouts and blackouts are already dangerously low in many parts of North America. Wasting resources on immature and inefficient technologies such as wind will only reduce necessary reserves to critical levels. Obama may want to cripple the US power supply as Chavez has done to Venezuela, as the ANC has done to South Africa, or as any number of third world dictators have done in their petty fiefdoms. Socialist third world mentality is pretty much the same around the globe. The most successful dictators learn how to distract the people with pretty talk, even as the land is burning around them.

Wind and solar are miniscule contributors to total energy supply, and will remain that way until viable large-scale electrical storage solutions come onto the market. For politicians to suggest otherwise in order to push a political climate agenda, is criminal. Oynklent Green is monitoring the situation.