ucodegen, you said “There is no way for a battery to contain the same amount of energy per pound as a gallon of gasoline.”
I agree that today’s batteries can’t, but why do you say that there is no way?
Because the nature of the chemistry involved. Batteries are capturing the charge that moves in a reaction. The reaction involves few bonds. In the case of gasoline, the reaction involves several bonds and several exothermic reactions. If you notice, the higher capacity batteries are almost (but not quite) like explosive (ie: Lithium Ion batteries) The chemistry in these batteries have to be very reactive to produce the electrical energy. But these batteries end up producing even more energy if they burn (but then they can’t be recharged).
Also, I’ve heard of ultra capacitors possibly being used in electric cars, which could be a significant break through.
Not really. Ultra capacitors will never be able to store the amount of energy in a battery. That is because capacitors (even ultra caps) store energy at a physical structural level(several atoms in size) while a battery stores energy at an atomic level. Ultra caps are useful for storing moderate amounts of energy over a short time (they leak energy) and being able to dump that energy incredibly rapidly. They can be used to flatten peaks in the demand and fill up the valleys.. ie: discharge an ultra cap when acceleration and recharge when de-accelerating. You need very high currents during both of these, but between.. the demand is low.
I’ve read that that the “well-to-wheel” efficiency is better using an electric car than a gasoline car. In other words, generating electricity at a remotely located power plant using a gallon of gas… This is because the power plant is much more efficient and clean in the power conversion process.
Are you taking into account transmission losses (radiated, resistive and inductive coupling)? Step down transformer losses? These loses are quite considerable, and are part of the reason why several companies have resorted to generating their electricity on site (UCSD is an example). If you look at the cost of generating electricity with an engine vs what it costs to produce with your own generator, it can come quite close. This ignores that the electrical generating stations get a break on the cost of fuel (buy in bulk – Costco model, don’t have consumption taxes – no gasoline tax, can sell their waste heat to factories near by). I have read the same.. but using my EE-CE background and running the numbers, it just ain’t so. In fact these losses are so great that power companies try to get the generating station as close to the point of consumption as possible.
Once the price of solar panels comes down, people can install panels on their roof and possibly drive with only the cost of vehicle maintenance.
There are people already doing this. The problem is that you need over 2000sq ft with full sun visibility to have it effective. Using solar panels at the site of consumption(house) is more effective than off in the desert somewhere. You have eliminated the electrical transmission losses. The one problem in “price of solar panels comes down” is that they are already subsidized (through tax offsets). You need large amounts of very pure silicon (same type you make computer chips from) to make solar cells (99+% pure is very expensive) Even then, you are looking at a conversion efficiency under 10% except for expensive exotics. The reason why it is hard to get any higher than this has to do with quantum physics; energy of a photon and electrical breakdown voltage threshold in a semiconductor junction. Each wavelength of light has a different energy in Volts, though each contributes 1 electron of charge at that potential.
I admit we likely do not have the power generation facilities to accommodate a large number of electric cars today, but it is certainly a feasible alternative in the near future.
This will only be feasible of you tax the crap out of gasoline and subsidize electricity. Electrical companies are all for this.
@kewp There are much more efficient engine designs available, its just no one has brought them to market yet. I guess the invisible hand is going to change that shortly.
Yep there are. It is interesting how it takes only one auto company to prod things into motion. Example: the direct injection gasoline(not diesel) engine that Audi and Mazda are coming out with/using was first being designed back around 1982 (or before. ’82 was when I first heard about it).
@arraya
We don’t panic very easily around here… so don’t bother. There is still an incredible amount of energy around (in one form or another)… so the population will continue to grow…
