It sounds like this battery would be much more suitable for Tesla's automated battery swap station. Except you would install it in the frunk/trunk for longer trips, and ditch the extra weight when you're done.
Electric car with massive range in demo by Phinergy, Alcoa
71–80 of 88 posts
Re: Electric car with massive range in demo by Phinergy, Alcoa
#72I hate being a naysayer - this is cool technology - but the energy economics won't work out for metal-air batteries if they're used as the main power source. Recharging a metal-air battery is grossly inefficient, and a big part of the advantage with electric cars is that they use less energy in every step of the process except initial manufacturing. This means that the general economics of metal-air batteries will no…
"... and a big part of the advantage with electric cars is that they use less energy in every step of the process except initial manufacturing." The most important part for me for electric cars is the simpler power-train system which is less likely to break... which is why i would never buy an hybrid that has both systems.
A hybrid is still a lot simpler than a regular IC vehicle, even when running on the ICE.
Re: Electric car with massive range in demo by Phinergy, Alcoa
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
and just dump the alumina result out the tailpipe - its just ceramic dust. And refill with new powder. So it becomes very much like the process of gasoline fueling.
I thought ceramic dust was toxic, at least in the large quantities a fleet of cars would produce? Is that not the case?
Well, its non-reactive (doesn't break down with low or high ph). But I don't know otherwise.
A little Googling shows lots of problems with clay dust (toxins for coloring etc) but nothing about actual fired ceramic dust. For clay it seems to depend upon the particle size in large part. So some control there might help alleviate the risk.
Re: Electric car with massive range in demo by Phinergy, Alcoa
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
The BMW i3 Rex carries around about that weight right now for it's gas generator, plus tank, and it will only go 50 miles or so once the battery runs down! Since it seems to be selling just fine, people are obviously willing to spend weight to get range. Think how much lighter the Volt would be with no gasoline engine! And they also don't mention if you can choose how much to lug around. Maybe I think I'll only need…
I figured that 50 miles for the BMW had to be wrong, it's way too small, but I looked it up and it's about right. Officially it's more like 70 miles, but that's still ridiculously small. I have to really wonder what the point of that option is. I get it for the Volt, you're pure electric for most of your trips, but you have gas range when you need it. But here, you still have typical crappy pure electric range, but w…
Well, it's a pure series hybrid, so, apart from the engine itself, it doesn't actually add too much complexity. It's a very small engine (650cc motorcycle engine) and there's never any direct connection to the drivetrain. The Volt engine is 1.4 liters and there's several clutches to hook it into the drivetrain at various speeds/modes.
The BMW Rex is so close to perfect, that I think a lot of people are getting it with the hope that maybe they will be able to swap in a larger tank somehow later down the road. The tank right now isn't even 2 gallons. It's pathetic, and done to get some kind of damn sticker in California, not for any practical reason. Make that a 6-gallon tank with some after-market solution, though, and you've got a car with an 80-mile electric range and then several hundred more miles on gas for road trips.
Re: Electric car with massive range in demo by Phinergy, Alcoa
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I figured that 50 miles for the BMW had to be wrong, it's way too small, but I looked it up and it's about right. Officially it's more like 70 miles, but that's still ridiculously small. I have to really wonder what the point of that option is. I get it for the Volt, you're pure electric for most of your trips, but you have gas range when you need it. But here, you still have typical crappy pure electric range, but w…
Well, it's a pure series hybrid, so, apart from the engine itself, it doesn't actually add too much complexity. It's a very small engine (650cc motorcycle engine) and there's never any direct connection to the drivetrain. The Volt engine is 1.4 liters and there's several clutches to hook it into the drivetrain at various speeds/modes. The BMW Rex is so close to perfect, that I think a lot of people are getting it wit…
I can definitely see the appeal with a larger gas tank. The original size is just crazy. I guess "compliance car" may explain it, although it seems to be available in many jurisdictions.
I didn't know that the Volt has a mechanical connection from the engine to the wheels. For some reason I thought it was also a pure series design.
Re: Electric car with massive range in demo by Phinergy, Alcoa
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
This particular smelter uses hydroelectric power, mentioned in the article.
Though you might want to read here: http://www.cpcml.ca/Tmld2013/D43129.htm for a bit of background on the price paid for such electricity.
The communists are against them? Fucking go Alcoa, I say!
Re: Electric car with massive range in demo by Phinergy, Alcoa
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Carbon electrodes used in industrial processes are generally formed from processed coal and mineral graphite: the fossiliest of the fossil fuels. Again, there's no fundamental reason why this must be the case. You could theoretically produce synthetic bulk carbon from atmospheric CO2 using the Bosch process, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosch_reaction ) at incredible cost per kilogram of carbon produced, which woul…
It's more like saying 'if you're looking at a new solution you better account for every step of the process, including costs and losses, and compare to viable alternatives, before deciding it's a good thing. The logic isn't circular. Rather, you're conflating multiple independent processes. Even if we did have a commercially viable way to capture atmospheric co2 and turn it back into carbon that still doesn't mean we…
It's more like saying 'if you're looking at a new solution you better account for every step of the process...The logic isn't circular.
In the general context of whether we can get ourselves out of carbon dioxide pollution, it is, and this happens again and again. If we assume that the current truism of our industrial society -- that you almost can't do anything without a carbon footprint -- is somehow true for all time is a vastly convoluted circular logic.
You will also note that the "two positions" above are actually the same position. The big caveat is the massive power use in recycling. We just interpret that in two different ways. "Not viable because it's not viable in our present economic infrastructure" is a position that's clearly false in the historical record. Unless you're being specific to the short term only, using that to justify a position is just obfuscated circular logic.
Re: Electric car with massive range in demo by Phinergy, Alcoa
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aluminium is not going to get any easier, barring massive breakthroughs in fusion energy and/or the Second Coming. How about vast solar thermal plants in the Sahara?
that would lead to even better thing - silicon-air cells :)
Power being one of the big expenses, materials for smelting are often shipped to where there is power.
Re: Electric car with massive range in demo by Phinergy, Alcoa
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's more like saying 'if you're looking at a new solution you better account for every step of the process, including costs and losses, and compare to viable alternatives, before deciding it's a good thing. The logic isn't circular. Rather, you're conflating multiple independent processes. Even if we did have a commercially viable way to capture atmospheric co2 and turn it back into carbon that still doesn't mean we…
It's more like saying 'if you're looking at a new solution you better account for every step of the process...The logic isn't circular. In the general context of whether we can get ourselves out of carbon dioxide pollution, it is, and this happens again and again. If we assume that the current truism of our industrial society -- that you almost can't do anything without a carbon footprint -- is somehow true for all t…
Uhh... I disagree. Firstly, I don't see the circle in the following:
- SolutionX puts lots of CO2 into the atmosphere compared to alternatives, and would be extremely uneconomic if we included in the cost/unitSolutionX the cost required to extract that CO2 from the atmosphere again.
- Lots of CO2 in the atmosphere is bad
-> SolutionX is either bad because it's uneconomic, or bad because it leads to lots of CO2 in the atmosphere.
-> We shouldn't use SolutionX until some factors change such that SolutionX is better than alternatives, rather than worse.
That's linear reasoning. If you want to change one of the underlying assumptions, namely that it's expensive to capture CO2 (and convert it back to carbon in this case... where at least the CO2 is coming from a concentrated point which reduces the cost of the process) then it's still linear reasoning with a slightly different result.
For it to become circular there would have to be some step where we said "If we had SolutionX it would be cheap and easy to get CO2 from the atmosphere and turn it back into carbon, but we don't have SolutionX because the methods of getting CO2 from the atmosphere without SolutionX are expensive so SolutionX is dirty".
That, interestingly, was used and is used as an argument against solar cells (e.g. solar cells made on power grids consume energy that may have a large CO2 loading). But it's easily revealed as bullshit through the use of EROEI (Energy returned on energy invested) accounting, and it's easy to show how 'SolutionX' (solar in this case) makes itself clean over time.
How is that the case with this aluminium fuel cell concept? Any advances in energy generation and CO2 capture are probably going to happen independently of aluminium fuel cell production. There's certainly plenty of incentive for both already, the aluminium fuel cells won't create a new market.
In conclusion, you're right that an aluminium based energy storage cycle would be more attractive if we had vast quantities of cheap and clean energy and low emission method of capturing CO2 and turning it into carbon. But.... 1. We have neither of those things 2. So for now an aluminium energy storage cycle is probably unattractive for most applications 3. If we did have both of those things it would totally change the economics of all sorts of other solutions, so you'd need to recalculate those as well before doing any comparisons between aluminium fuel cells and (e.g.) synthetic gasoline.
Re: Electric car with massive range in demo by Phinergy, Alcoa
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's more like saying 'if you're looking at a new solution you better account for every step of the process, including costs and losses, and compare to viable alternatives, before deciding it's a good thing. The logic isn't circular. Rather, you're conflating multiple independent processes. Even if we did have a commercially viable way to capture atmospheric co2 and turn it back into carbon that still doesn't mean we…
It's more like saying 'if you're looking at a new solution you better account for every step of the process...The logic isn't circular. In the general context of whether we can get ourselves out of carbon dioxide pollution, it is, and this happens again and again. If we assume that the current truism of our industrial society -- that you almost can't do anything without a carbon footprint -- is somehow true for all t…
Uhh... I disagree. Firstly, I don't see the circle in the following:
- SolutionX puts lots of CO2 into the atmosphere compared to alternatives, and would be extremely uneconomic if we included in the cost/unitSolutionX the cost required to extract that CO2 from the atmosphere again. - Lots of CO2 in the atmosphere is bad -> SolutionX is either bad because it's uneconomic, or bad because it leads to lots of CO2 in the atmosphere. -> We shouldn't use SolutionX until some factors change such that SolutionX is better than alternatives, rather than worse.
That's linear reasoning. If you want to change one of the underlying assumptions, namely that it's expensive to capture CO2 (and convert it back to carbon in this case... where at least the CO2 is coming from a concentrated point which reduces the cost of the process) then it's still linear reasoning with a slightly different result.
For it to become circular there would have to be some step where we said "If we had SolutionX it would be cheap and easy to get CO2 from the atmosphere and turn it back into carbon, but we don't have SolutionX because the methods of getting CO2 from the atmosphere without SolutionX are expensive so SolutionX is dirty".
That, interestingly, was used and is used as an argument against solar cells (e.g. solar cells made on power grids consume energy that may have a large CO2 loading). But it's easily revealed as bullshit through the use of EROEI (Energy returned on energy invested) accounting, and it's easy to show how 'SolutionX' (solar in this case) makes itself clean over time.
How is that the case with this aluminium fuel cell concept? Any advances in energy generation and CO2 capture are probably going to happen independently of aluminium fuel cell production. There's certainly plenty of incentive for both already, the aluminium fuel cells won't create a new market.
In conclusion, you're right that an aluminium based energy storage cycle would be more attractive if we had vast quantities of cheap and clean energy and low emission method of capturing CO2 and turning it into carbon. But.... 1. We have neither of those things 2. So for now an aluminium energy storage cycle is probably unattractive for most applications 3. If we did have both of those things it would totally change the economics of all sorts of other solutions, so you'd need to recalculate those as well before doing any comparisons between aluminium fuel cells and (e.g.) synthetic gasoline.