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CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg

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Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg

#441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with jet fuel on a plane. They calculate the amount to fuel carefully to be efficient but safe. Too much and the plane is heavier and uses more fuel. Too little and you might run out if put into a holding then diverted. Obviously jet fuel is what it is it wont get more dense but a more efficient engine means less fuel needed means even more efficiency and so on.

It was something I had never considered but it is wild to think about. I believe it was Vaclav Smil that highlighted it to me. On its longest trip an A380(I think?) takes off weighing 400 tons and lands weighing 200 tons. That kind of thing is just cool to ponder.

It is literally insane how much oil there is. Planes use i think less than 10% of world oil consumption.

Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg

#442
post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hybrids almost never emit carbon though. Because they're almost always running from the battery that you charged up from the wall before leaving home for your daily commute. And the daily commute is less, or maybe a little over the battery range. If it isn't then you have bought the wrong car, if you goal is carbon neutrality. You can use a smaller battery, which means using less rare materials that are very expensiv…

I could not be more bored by people who go off on the indirect emissions tangent. Because it always mysteriously winds up at "so anyway, buy a vehicle/house/plane/whatever which directly burns fuel and will thus never be green". It's an argument pushed by fossil fuel company's because it pretends the world is static and unchanging, as though the energy mix of the electrical grid can't vary, or that changes in fuel so…

It's always been my hope that my state (Kentucky) would get on board with EV's. A really smart marketer could court the powerful coal interests in the state and start selling EV's on the premise that they are powered by coal here. Eventually the power mix would change to be more sustainable

Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg

#443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big reason for this is thermodynamics. A conventional internal combustion engine car has to convert chemical energy to kinetic energy - the absolute best theoretical efficiency of this might be 70%, but in practice it's more like 30%. Electric cars have to pay the same thermodynamic penalty, but they pay it at the power station (In practice, thanks to renewables, not all the electricity used to charge a car will…

> A modern series hybrid like a Toyota Prius is effectively an electric vehicle and a gas generator (which means it has the same efficiency gains due to regenerative braking). That gets 52 mpg, which is about 493 Wh/km. Wait, does a new prius or something like a hyundai ioniq (also 52-53 mpg) not have the internal combustion engine mechanically coupled to the transmission and drive wheels anymore?

Some do, some don't. As an example the Nissan Qashqai is available as a conventional hybrid, with mechanical transmission, and an "e-power" version, where the engine only drives a generator:

https://www.nissan.co.uk/range/e-power-cars.html

Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg

#444
post #133

I just realized how much energy efficiency is being squeezed out of a Tesla. It's incredible. A normal diesel fueled sedan such as the Chevy Cruze diesel runs at about 31mpg, which is 13.2 km/l or 15.3 km/kg. Diesel has a mind-boggling 12700 Wh/kg energy density[1], which translates to an efficiency of ~827 Wh/km for the Chevy. By contrast, the Tesla Model S, has a ~540 kg battery[2]. At 272 Wh/kg (from the posted ar…

Relative efficiencies also explain why city/highway efficiency is inverted between EV & ICE.

Gasoline is rather energy dense, but the ICE is rather wasteful. There is a certain base load of energy being generated by an ICE engine, regardless of if you are moving or how slow you go. This is why carmakers experimented with things like rapid stop/start engines, regen batteries&motors, etc.

ICE becomes more efficient as you reach highway speeds, which is why highway mpg is better than city mpg.

Batteries by contrast are not very energy dense, while EV motors are extremely efficient. The only energy being consumed is that which is needed to move the car, plus fight rolling & wind resistance, and power AC/heat. Wind resistance increases with the square of speed.

EVs as a result are most efficient at low speed, and at highway speeds become noticeably less efficient as you go from 55->65->75mph. This is also why running AC/heat has a noticeable impact on range in EVs.

Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg

#445
post #133

I just realized how much energy efficiency is being squeezed out of a Tesla. It's incredible. A normal diesel fueled sedan such as the Chevy Cruze diesel runs at about 31mpg, which is 13.2 km/l or 15.3 km/kg. Diesel has a mind-boggling 12700 Wh/kg energy density[1], which translates to an efficiency of ~827 Wh/km for the Chevy. By contrast, the Tesla Model S, has a ~540 kg battery[2]. At 272 Wh/kg (from the posted ar…

in practice, I get 400Wh/mi. So, 50%?

Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg

#446
post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many countries are running on part-ethanol already; the UK is on "E10" (up to 10%)

partial ethanol and full alcohol are not even close.

Close enough. E10 is enough to see most of the issues you will see with pure Ethanol. Most engines just need to run is different fuel maps. ideally you would make other changes (increase the compression ratio), but they are expensive.

Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg

#447
post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big reason for this is thermodynamics. A conventional internal combustion engine car has to convert chemical energy to kinetic energy - the absolute best theoretical efficiency of this might be 70%, but in practice it's more like 30%. Electric cars have to pay the same thermodynamic penalty, but they pay it at the power station (In practice, thanks to renewables, not all the electricity used to charge a car will…

It is a sign of the success of the oil industry that this analysis always takes the cost of electricity generation back to the source, but assumes that fuel stations pump from a perfect source of naturally refined/distilled hydrocarbons. It is surprisingly difficult to get numbers on how much oil is used to extract, refine and transport oil. The best I found was this: https://www.speakev.com/threads/energy-required-t…

> It is surprisingly difficult to get numbers on how much oil is used to extract, refine and transport oil.

Not to mention the socialized costs of all the wars, military spending and human lives spent to secure stable sources of fossil fuels. If you actually break down the numbers and applied some basic ethics, I doubt fossil fuels have been cost competitive for decades.

Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg

#448
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in 15 years there will be so few ice cars on the roads that gas could very well be cheaper than electricity. Finding a gas station may be problematic ( although i doubt truck will move to electricity that soon)

At some point dramatically lower demand will start to push the gas price higher.

Not really because some amount of a barrel of oil is gasoline. The other uses of oil will still want their fraction and be willing to pay. The refineries will need to get rid of the parts of the crude that doesn't have a market to sell to the market they have.

There will of course be much less refineries. The other uses of oil are small niches, and so the world needs one-two small refinery to supply their needs. So there will be price shocks as the large refineries close.

Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg

#449
post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a fundamental question though. Will EVs (Li battery based) achieve the holy grail of IC engine replacement? Earth's Lithium deposits.................. 88,000,000,000 Kilograms [2], [3] @25% Viable for mining.................... 22,000,000,000 Kilograms [2], [3] Tesla S battery weight.................... 540 Kilograms per car [4] Lithium weight per Tesla S battery........ 63 Kilograms per battery [4] Max Tesla…

You didn't cite sources for the critical pieces of that (the first three numbers). You also assumed that the battery is 100% lithium, which is obviously wrong. A random Googling says closer to 62kg. And now I'm tired of bothering to fact check you. I'm also going to say that all the car companies, battery companies, and governments in the world probably took six seconds to do basic math before investing trillions of…

The 62kg is a valid point. I have revised the calculation and added the citations. The problem still remains (at the global level).

Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg

#450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is surprisingly difficult to get numbers on how much oil is used to extract, refine and transport oil. Damn, I've never thought about that before. In hindsight that feels like an obvious thing to consider but this is the first time I'm aware of that thought entering my brain. Thank you for provoking the thought. What would be the equivalent consideration on the other side? Would it be something like inquiring in…

Yes, people usually call this "Full lifecycle analysis". It takes about as much electricity (or energy) to refine a tank of gas as to charge an EV, so there isn't necessarily an increase in load on the grid by electrifying transport. However some energy generation used by refineries that isn't electricity from the grid would have to get re-arranged. Anyway maintaining a more robust grid should be much cheaper than ma…

Don't forget shipping!

ChatGPT summary:

In 2019, the world seaborne trade volume reached about 11.08 billion tons. Out of this, crude oil, oil products, and gas accounted for approximately 32.5% (3.6 billion tons) of the total volume. Coal made up another 8.4% (935 million tons). In total, energy products represented around 40.9% of the global seaborne trade volume.

It's important to note that these figures are from 2019, and the percentages may have changed since then due to various factors, including evolving global energy markets, fluctuations in demand, and the transition to renewable energy sources. The percentage may also vary depending on how you define "energy products."

Sources: https://unctad.org/webflyer/review-maritime-transport-2020

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