They neglected to mention that even modern internal combustion engines can only capture about 18%-20% of that energy.[1]
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine#Ener...
How many gallons of gasoline would it take to charge an iPhone?
11–20 of 66 posts
Re: How many gallons of gasoline would it take to charge an iPhone?
#12Key takeaway: Vehicles powered by petroleum fuels are incredibly power consuming. Driving a car a single hour on a highway consumes as much energy as an iPhone does in about 46 years. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+hour+*+100km%2Fh+%2F+...
All vehicles are incredibly power consuming (compared to iPods) and there are basic limits to improving this. If you want a vehicle that is large enough to hold a human and can push air out of the way at 60 mph, it's going to take a lot of energy. Driving habits, aerodynamics, and size can change this usage by a factor of order unity, but they can't do it by orders of magnitude. Thus, alternative energy sources must…
My bad, poor choice of words. Of course it is not the fact that it is fueled by petroleum that contributes most to the five+ orders of magnitude in difference in power consumption.
Re: How many gallons of gasoline would it take to charge an iPhone?
#13We don't mine batteries from the ground. Misleading industry puff piece. The question isn't how much would it take but rather how much does it take. Petrochemical / coal, fossil fuels in general are already generating our power at increasing cost in terms of the raw materials, processing (more difficult processing of oil sands, frakking, etc.) Give me modern nuclear combined with alternatives like increasingly cheap…
"We don't mine batteries from the ground"
Er...
Re: How many gallons of gasoline would it take to charge an iPhone?
#14Key takeaway: Vehicles powered by petroleum fuels are incredibly power consuming. Driving a car a single hour on a highway consumes as much energy as an iPhone does in about 46 years. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+hour+*+100km%2Fh+%2F+...
I realize you're being slightly snarky... If the chart on the website is to be believed, gasoline is second only to diesel in terms of energy density of viable fuel sources. The power consumption of a vehicle has little to do with gasoline, though there is an important consideration for efficiency in terms of converting the fuel to linear motion (internal combustion engine and drivetrain). Vehicles powered by any met…
Upvoted because of the reasons above. Bad choice of words on my part. Should have been "Vehicles (period) are incredibly power consuming".
Re: How many gallons of gasoline would it take to charge an iPhone?
#15Key takeaway: Vehicles powered by petroleum fuels are incredibly power consuming. Driving a car a single hour on a highway consumes as much energy as an iPhone does in about 46 years. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+hour+*+100km%2Fh+%2F+...
All vehicles are incredibly power consuming (compared to iPods) and there are basic limits to improving this. If you want a vehicle that is large enough to hold a human and can push air out of the way at 60 mph, it's going to take a lot of energy. Driving habits, aerodynamics, and size can change this usage by a factor of order unity, but they can't do it by orders of magnitude. Thus, alternative energy sources must…
No, people need to realize that cars weighing in at 3+ tons with capacity for 5+ passengers to transport a single person to work are not viable. Because the "give us something we can hotswap for oil" attitude is obviously going nowhere.
Re: How many gallons of gasoline would it take to charge an iPhone?
#16Energy density of the batteries has been steadily increasing. There's no reason to believe that it will hit a way, so this argument is misleading in that it assumes the density will be constant.
Re: How many gallons of gasoline would it take to charge an iPhone?
#17That's odd, they neglect to mention the true cost of gasoline; both in subsidies used to keep it cheap at the pump, as well as the environmental cost associated with cleaning up their profit-generating mess.
ETA: Point out an oil company's dishonesty, get downvoted. Only on HN.
Re: How many gallons of gasoline would it take to charge an iPhone?
#18> And energy density is one of the key factors behind the reliability Density can actually be per-mass or per-volume. Per mass hydrogen is pretty attractive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density Now we just need an efficient, safe and clean way to turn gasoline into electricity and problem solved ;-) right ?
> Per mass hydrogen is pretty attractive.
A bucket of gasoline contains more hydrogen than a bucket of liquid hydrogen, and you can actually keep the gasoline in the bucket.
Hydrogen is awesome as an energy source if you look at the combustion formula and the per-mass energy density. In all other aspects it's a horrible, horrible, horrible fuel. :-)
Re: How many gallons of gasoline would it take to charge an iPhone?
#19Key takeaway: Vehicles powered by petroleum fuels are incredibly power consuming. Driving a car a single hour on a highway consumes as much energy as an iPhone does in about 46 years. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+hour+*+100km%2Fh+%2F+...
All vehicles are incredibly power consuming (compared to iPods) and there are basic limits to improving this. If you want a vehicle that is large enough to hold a human and can push air out of the way at 60 mph, it's going to take a lot of energy. Driving habits, aerodynamics, and size can change this usage by a factor of order unity, but they can't do it by orders of magnitude. Thus, alternative energy sources must…
> If you want a vehicle that is large enough to hold a human and can push air out of the way at 60 mph
But do we really need to go 60 mph? Vehicles seem to be optimized for less-common use cases (e.g. 5 people in the car traveling 60 mph) instead of their more common uses (e.g. one person commuting at 30-40 mph). I, for one, would like to see smaller vehicles - NOT SmartCars and the like but an actual rethinking of the car that would be optimized for the single person commute.
Re: How many gallons of gasoline would it take to charge an iPhone?
#20We don't mine batteries from the ground. Misleading industry puff piece. The question isn't how much would it take but rather how much does it take. Petrochemical / coal, fossil fuels in general are already generating our power at increasing cost in terms of the raw materials, processing (more difficult processing of oil sands, frakking, etc.) Give me modern nuclear combined with alternatives like increasingly cheap…
"We don't mine batteries from the ground" Er...
We don't mine lithium or nickel for its intrinsic energy.