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Anecdotal local evidence to exhibit 3: There are a few go-kart places here, I hadn't been there for a few years, and now I learned that they all switched to electrical. Much quieter, no fumes, works great indoors
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That's not really their point, it's do we have any reasonable hope of applications that require the energy density of fossil fuels (flight) to be powered by electricity.
Flight will never be powered by electricity, so you can stop checking. Using synthetic liquid fuels for flight is the only currently-foreseeable path to carbon-neutral, long-haul passenger flight.
Fuel cells could well enable 30X better power densities. That would count to me as flight powered by electricity. There's also beamed power. Perhaps this wouldn't be practical, but it's a thought experiment that shows there's nothing impossible from first principles for electrical powered flight.
This is all very encouraging and in particular batteries role in solar Two interesting data points to that end 1) The "duck curve" for CA is almost neutral - eg the timing imbalance between peak demand and solar power generation - battery utilization is the most straightforward solution here - https://twitter.com/baker_edmund/status/1750644294673748366 2) There has been a massive decline in rooftop solar applications…
> There has been a massive decline in rooftop solar applications in CA since solar energy reimbursements dropped People also learned that the cheap Chinese solar cells die in 5-10 years and aren't worth installing unless your electricity costs are really high.
Regarding price, leading manufacturers are already selling at a price below what was always understood as the point where EVs win in terms of economics: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2024/01/ev-lfp-battery-price-w... The recent price war in China is a testament to that.
If ubiquitous and cheap charging infrastructure is not being priced in, which is still a blocker for many.
For example, I cannot reasonably run lengths of 110v extension cords down the block to charge a car overnight, and acquiring my own house with a garage is dramatically more expensive than any fuel savings. :p
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There are some very early stage tests, there is some kind of island hopper electric airplane that flys regular service, and it's only like 5 or 10 miles across water. Batteries will get more energy dense, the range will increase a bit. But yeah, it's hard to see it getting to a few 100 miles.
Hello, do you have a link or name?
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That's not really their point, it's do we have any reasonable hope of applications that require the energy density of fossil fuels (flight) to be powered by electricity.
Flight will never be powered by electricity, so you can stop checking. Using synthetic liquid fuels for flight is the only currently-foreseeable path to carbon-neutral, long-haul passenger flight.
Given that the status quo is "go out of business when old planes can't be maintained anymore" the possibility of some radical change like electrification or a change in the scope rules is increasingly likely.
> "Enabling the phase-out of fossil fuels" How much hydrocarbon fuel is needed to produce these batteries each year? How much fuel is needed to charge them?
Currently used? Probably quite a bit. But usually still a net emissions win for using an EV vs a fossil fuel vehicle even with current grids. Required? None. There's nothing in EV battery production or charging or usage that requires burning fossil fuels. That fossil fuels are a major source of our current energy is part of the problem that we are also working to solve. And mass production of economical batteries is…
so 273 billion kWh of hydrocarbon fuel burned to make batteries that can hold only 51.5 million kWh of energy.
And then roughly a few billion or more to fill them up each year.
What year will we make enough solar & wind power to compensate for the 21 billion gallons of fuel?
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Lithium Battery 0.5 kWh/kg Diesel 12.7 kWh/kg
Diesel is more like 3.175 (25%) due to the inefficiencies of small heat engines. You're throwing away like 3/4 of the energy as waste heat. Electric motors are >95% efficient and lithium batteries are in the high-90s percent efficient. Electricity is already low-entropy, whereas energy from burning petrol is high entropy and thus contains less useful work.
I'm a little surprised by that energy density chart. Who's selling batteries that carry 500 Wh/kg? Those are research prototype numbers; I think that Amprius and the gamma-sulfur people have hit (or passed) that mark. But cars and cellphones have been using the Ni-Mn-Al-Co oxide family of cathodes for a decade. The recent large-scale development has been bringing on LiFePO4 which actually accepts a lower density in e…