Battery tech.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021028]

So it's probably well known that I am obsessed with subsea technology. But perhaps it's not as well known that I am a full on aspie about batteries. Raise your eyebrow all you want, they're fucking interesting. So many different types, all with unique properties, and breakthroughs happening in the lab all the time.

I always hear shit like "Why no progress in battery tech? We had electric cars that went 100 miles back in 1910." That's true, but cars back then went about 25mph and weighed very little, being made mostly of wood and leather. If a 1910 Baker Electric were fit with the battery from a Nissan Leaf, it would have an approximate range of 650-700 miles.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021062]

As cars developed, consumers demanded that they go faster and faster, while remaining safe, and packing in more and more features. This made them increasingly bloated, heavy and energy hungry, much like their drivers. :3

If we could revert to lightweight, low speed vehicles with a top speed around 25-25mph or so we could leave out a lot of the heavy reinforcing materials and they'd stay just as safe; We could use far less battery mass and yet achieve ranges *greater* than gasoline cars. In spite of the difference in energy density between gas and batteries on paper, only 15-20% of gasoline's energy is actually turned into wheel motion due mainly to the inefficiencies of the carnot cycle and transmission. You can pack batteries anywhere in a vehicle's frame and ultimately enough to achieve ranges superior to a gas vehicle of equivalent size, provided you go much slower.

[Anonymous No.3021064]

Done much research into Tesla? Does his work have any uses for battery tech?

possibility of me talking out my ass: high

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021088]

If communities were built around these cheap, long range, low speed vehicles they could even be entirely solar powered; Solar panels are just now achieving efficiency levels that would, provided a very light vehicle with a small battery mass, provide for all of its charging needs. Pic related.

Of course we don't live in that fantasy world, but it does seem like there's a niche between bicycle and car waiting to be filled by something low priced and electric. We'd need a secondary network of roads obviously, as lowspeed vehicles couldn't safely mingle with ordinary vehicular traffic. But this secondary network of lowspeed roads exists.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021099]

>>3021064

Actually Tesla's vision of wireless power has come true somewhat; Anyone who has ever built a crystal radio from a kit (myself included, lol boyscouts) has built a device which is powered entirely by the energy in ambient radio waves.

It's an extremely small amount of power but increasingly it's being used to keep things like weather sensors going without the need for batteries or solar panels that would give away the position of the sensors to vandals.

Anyway back on topic, federal law dictates that any vehicle with a top speed below 20mph, a motor not in excess of 750watts (differs by state, it's 1,000 watts here) and a functioning pedal system is legally considered a bicycle and can be used anywhere a bicycle can. See where I'm going with this?

[Anonymous No.3021112]

Inb4 oil company conspiracies

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021123]

If you could build something with the amenities of a car (the things that make it preferable to a bicycle, like an enclosed cabin that protects you from the elements, heating, etc.) but which satisfies the legal definition of bicycle, it could be used on paved bike paths, trails, and in the cycle lane. It would need to be a narrow single occupant vehicle, but it could use a very small battery mass to achieve a respectable range and it would be much cheaper than even a shitty used car.

The Sinclair corporation (of Sinclair Computers) tried this concept in the 80s with the Sinclair C5. Except it was poorly thought out; There weren't many bike trails in the UK at the time, the vehicle offered nothing in the way of protection from the elements and therefore no reason to prefer it over a bicycle, and it was of poor build quality which necessitated frequent repairs.

[Anonymous No.3021145]

Two links to articles from Americanantigravity website that may interest you

Tesla Atricle

http://pesn.com/2011/04/19/9501813_Tesla_Coils_Unleash_Aether/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=
feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+freeenergynews%2Fnqih+%28Free+Energy+News+by+PESN%29

Wave Disk Engine

http://pesn.com/2011/04/14/9501810_Wave_Disk_Engine_Sips_Fuel/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=
feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+freeenergynews%2Fnqih+%28Free+Energy+News+by+PESN%29

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021158]

>>3021112

>>Inb4 oil company conspiracies

Hate those. I argued with some idiot for hours because he didn't grasp that the water powered car is just a hydrogen fuel cell car that cracks its own hydrogen on the go from a hidden battery, and that it's an investor scam just like Moller's skycar.

Hydrogen fuel cell cars in general are retarded for reasons that are never publicized. But that's another convo.

GM didn't kill the electric car. NiMH batteries were too expensive at the time to make the EV1 anywhere close to affordable and it would have been a shitty product if they had stuck with lead acid batts. I have built electric vehicles using lead acid batts. They are cheap, that is their sole redeeming quality.

The only thing somewhat conspiratorial about the whole mess is the fact that Chevron bought the patent to the Ovionics NiMH batts that made the EV1 and Rav4EV so high performance for their time and has done nothing with the patent since. It's why you can buy small rechargeable NiMH commodity cells and why hybrids use those cells in their packs, yet no large format NiMH batteries are on the market for use in EVs right now. Which is a shame, as they offer longer lifetime and similar capacity to Lithium but for drastically less money.

[Anonymous No.3021175]

>>3021123
Velomobile.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021192]

Anyways, the Sinclair C5 concept was valid, just poorly executed. There's room in the market for something like it, but it needs to be sturdy, and offer the comforts of a car that a bicycle lacks. Something like a canopy-protected electric recumbent (pictured) would be ideal; The canopy should fully enclose the rider, with LED headlights, a resistive heated seat for winter and electric fans to circulate air through the cabin in the summer. The battery pack would have a handle and be removable, so that at the end of your trip you could swap it for a fresh battery from a sort of 'battery locker'. My idea is that you'd buy into a subscription based service that would have battery lockers at either end of major bike paths nationwide that pass through residential areas and on to businesses. After your commute you could use your key to unlock the battery cubby, which would have a receptacle for it similar to the one on your bike. You'd slide it in and lock it in place, and it would begin to recharge. From there you could go do whatever it is you came to do (work, shop, gym, etc) or you could pull out a freshly charged battery and be on your way. The company owns the batteries, much like the Better Place system, so they take care of battery maintinence, testing and replacement. Each battery alcove tests the batteries during charging. If one needs maintinence or replacement it's kept locked in place and the station 'calls home' and in a few days a mechanic makes the trip to remove that battery and swap it for a working one while it's being repaired or recycled.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021217]

>>3021175

Beat me to it, but yeah, same basic concept. A velomobile, plus swappable batteries, and a subscription service so you could swap them at either end of each trail.

The BugEV is similar to the design I had in mind although it's street legal and goes around 50mph. Pic related. There's really a continuity of potential niches between bicycle and car that are mostly empty right now, waiting for vehicles that make sense in terms of cost and features. I think as gas prices go up we'll see a greater diversity of vehicle types take over with a bunch of different fuel types, mostly electric and series hybrid.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021245]

But what if you need to travel between towns? Yeah, that occurred to me.

Recently Google invested in a retarded concept called Scwheeb. Human powered cycle pods using an overhead lightweight low cost rail network. Like personal rapid transit, but people powered, ideal for a world where no fat people exist and nobody gets sweaty and stinky in a clear plastic cycle-coffin that traps heat like a greenhouse. Yeah, I want to climb into a cloud of someone's BO after they'd done with a pod. (Pic related)

However part of this concept is golden; Use lightweight vehicles, and you can use far less metal in the overhead rail nework, drastically lowering the cost per mile of track.

What if each of my hypothetical electric cyclecars had an overhead arm that could latch into an overhead rail system? It could provide power, carrying your cycle car between neighboring towns, charging your battery on the way.

[Anonymous No.3021272]

>>3021062
>inefficiencies of the carnot cycle
A relatively small factor; the carnot efficiency of a typical piston engine is upwards of 60%. Losses result from factors relating to temperature limitations and extraction of the mechanical energy from the working mass (i.e. expansion = compression in most ICEs, when in fact the hot working gas could still exert far more work on the piston), and simple heat losses through the cylinder walls. Certain advancements are being made with regard to making ICE engines more efficient; higher compressions as in direct-injection and diesel engines push the Carnot efficiency up considerably; ceramic linings are permitting better thermal efficiency and wear resistance; the Prius' ICE achieves significantly closer to it's Carnot efficiency via it's psuedo-Atkinson-cycle arrangement, with 13:1 expansion and only ~10:1 compression (by simply venting fuel/air back into the intake for part of the compression stroke). You're correct in that Carnot efficiency is a theoretical limit, but we're still far below this limit, and this limit can rather easily be pushed arbitrarily close to 100% as technology advances allowing higher compression ratios and combustion temperatures.

I'm pretty sure we're all aware of why combustible fuels are so much lighter than batteries. Fuel cells are exciting for this very reason; they use electrochemical processes to efficiently extract energy from hydro(carbon) fuels and atmospheric oxygen. Batteries, on the other hand, must carry all reactants with them internally.

[Anonymous No.3021280]

let fat people walk.
They could use the exercise

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021290]

Before I get called out on this, I realize all of this requires a clean slate and blank check to totally redesign transit from the ground up. But we live in a world where transit is still based on the same design principles as the "horseless buggies" of the early 18th century. There's been no major rethink of how we should get around since then, just a gradual evolution of the same basic idea, increasing in speed, weight and energy consumption. We've wound up with massive concrete elevated highways all over the place to carry these stupid bloated machines, two tons of steel to carry some asshole 15 miles to buy 5 pounds of groceries wasting 75% of the energy fed into it in the process.

It seems like, knowing what we know now, we could do a much better job of designing transit. If we could start over from scratch, I mean. All this urban sprawl, this ugly concrete hell that used to be hyped up in the 1950s as the future of our autmotive obsession, is our own fucking fault for failing to think outside of the "everybody drives everywhere" paradigm.

[Anonymous No.3021303]

Very interested and reading intently so far (though some stuff may go way over my head if you start going into details). Do you think that a modernized version of the leyden jar or something else that utilizes the same principle would have potential as an alternative to batteries?

[Anonymous No.3021311]

>>3021290
This.

Any real change in intracity transit is a major overhaul of basic infrastructure. I don't know if it's even possible to do for a city that already exists.

[Anonymous No.3021317]

I'll hold out for small electric self-driving taxis, like in Rainbow's End

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021318]

>>3021272

>>Fuel cells are exciting for this very reason; they use electrochemical processes to efficiently extract energy from hydro(carbon) fuels and atmospheric oxygen. Batteries, on the other hand, must carry all reactants with them internally.

Are we ignoring the fact that fuel cells are still only 50% efficient, and that hydrolysis is also around the same efficiency? So you lose half of your energy to make fuel, then half of that amount again to turn it back into electricity to power the motor.

Also, fuel cells wear out and die like batteries, but much faster. The best to date would last around 6 or 7 years assuming only two hours of driving per day. They cost more as well; the first fuel cell cars slated to arrive in 2015 will both be around $50,000.

The max range of FCVs tops out at 250 miles as hydrogen is less energy dense than gasoline and must be highly compressed to store enough to go a useful distance. Even so the tank in an FCV is enormous.

It's fine to say "fuel cells will improve with time", but so will batteries, and they have an edge over fuel cells in the key areas listed above. By the time FCVs make it to market, we'll have battery electric vehicles that are better in every way and cheaper to boot.

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.3021326]

>>3021290

That is something I have been thinking.

After cities are set in concrete there's no way to move them. All buildings, with very rare exceptions, must be put in 70x70m squares of asphalt. We must all abide by an old Greek design based on "well everyone's house will be sunny at some point of the year lul" paradigm.

Cities are not modular enough for their streets to be reshaped, which they should be: Pressure sensors and computers to measure traffic rates in order to re-design the streets, so they would look evolved rather than a dull, improper grid, speeding up traffic, creating new jams, being moved and reshaped again.

It doesn't even require modular buildings a-la Buckminster Fuller, you'd just elevate highways or some shit.

[Anonymous No.3021330]

>>3021318
IMO, you'll have trouble matching the energy density of hydrogen fuel cells unless supercapacitors really work out well.

And nothing is going to be cheaper than gasoline transportation is now. It has the advantage of already having the energy stored previously (as crude oil).

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021334]

>>3021317

>>I'll hold out for small electric self-driving taxis, like in Rainbow's End

That exists, it's called personal rapid transit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tO64CUg9R4

It's a practical compromise between light rail and driving, as the tracks can branch off like a network and take you directly where you're going instead of being constrained to a single loop like trains.

As the track needs only support lots of little podcars at different points around it instead of a single or multiple heavy trains, the stress is less concentrated and the track can be smaller, lighter weight and cheaper per mile. It's a solid idea I'm pretty excited about.

[Anonymous No.3021341]

>>3021088
>So you lose half of your energy to make fuel
>make fuel

[Anonymous No.3021344]

>>3021334
I like the idea, but the problem is the track infrastructure. This isn't a good candidate for installing in cities which already exist. The electric self-driving taxies can take advantage of the current infrastructure.

If we were building a city from scratch, it would be another matter.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021346]

>>3021330

>>IMO, you'll have trouble matching the energy density of hydrogen fuel cells unless supercapacitors really work out well.

Don't need to, fuel cells are only 50% efficient. Batteries have shit energy density but the efficiency of charging them (above 90% for modern lithium) and the efficiency of electric motors (85% or more) makes up for it. You wind up going much further on an equivalent amount of energy than you could in an FCV.

[Anonymous No.3021358]

>>3021341
Ummm... you have to produce fuel if you're going to use internal combustion. Electric cars get around that by using motors and batteries/capacitors.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021361]

>>3021341

Hey, I'm not the one pushing solar powered hydrolysis. That's the concept the hydrogen fans bring up when you point out that hydrogen is currently cracked out of natural gas and ultimately comes from oil just like gasoline.

There are some things we'll never be able to do with batteries, and for those things perhaps hydrogen is a good idea. For personal autos, batteries are better. A 375 mile range has already been achieved at an average speed of 55mph in experimental vehicles, far exceeding the 250 mile maximum of FCVs. We need only wait for the price per kwh to drop.

http://www.allcarselectric.com/blog/1050863_electric-car-drives-375-miles-at-55-mph-recharges-in-6-m
inutes

[Anonymous No.3021367]

>>3021346
Battery weight, and the lifetime/toxicity of those batteries are the two main problems IMO. The weight is a smaller issue for vehicles that can be fine with about 100 miles of range between recharging, like intracity commuting. But the battery toxicity problem is an issue. The cost of going that route should include a closed cycle for recycling/reclaiming all those components.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021386]

>>3021367

>> But the battery toxicity problem is an issue.

...You're aware lithium is nontoxic, right? Discussions about battery toxicity involve lead acid, NiCD and NiMH batteries which are based on toxic heavy metals that have to be smelted (very polluting) during manufacture and recycling.

Lithium carbonate is nontoxic. People consume lithium for medicinal purposes. In its natural form, it's a mineral salt. Lithium alloy is a soft, sticky metal that can be hydraulically extruded rather than smelted. Lithium batteries are very, very clean and imo electric cars can only be considered environmentally sound if they have lithium batteries.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021413]

>>3021367

P.S. Here's an MIT wheel to well analysis of EVs versus other vehicle types:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBgQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fweb.mi
t.edu%2Fevt%2Fsummary_wtw.pdf&ei=OEvHTdXMC4m4sQPZ7NHrAQ&usg=AFQjCNGAWpng0M9xCCLKS0hUfDfSQ8fM
Iw

You'll notice that taking everything into consideration (including the pollution involved in drilling for oil and shipping it overseas in bunker oil burning tankers, trucking it to refineries, trucking it from there to gas stations, etc) EVs are cleaner by far than gas vehicles. The exception is in areas where nearly all energy comes from coal. There, hybrids have a slight edge over EVs. But anywhere else, EVs using lithium batteries are as clean as you can get.

[Anonymous No.3021416]

>>3021318
>fuel cells are still only 50% efficient
Certain fuel cell chemistries have reached ~90%.

[Anonymous No.3021433]

>>3021386
Carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen aren't toxic either, yet hydrogen cyanide is. Imagine that.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021457]

>>3021416

Citation please.

>>3021433

I get what you're saying, but many lithium battery chemistries really are so nontoxic you could open up the battery and eat the contents if you wanted to and survive it. Wouldn't be pleasant, but you'd live. The Zero DS uses such a lithium variant, and proudly advertises how nontoxic it is.

[Nuca-Cola !dbLFTRZqOI No.3021484]

hey mad scientist
let's team up to build a LFTR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWUeBSoEnRk

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021501]

>>3021484

Thorium reactors are my favorite and extremely exciting, but pretending either of us could build one singlehanded is more than a little bit silly. I only take on projects I fully intend to complete.

If you think you can prove me wrong and make it happen, by all means, do it. I'll eat crow until you say stop. Until then, pardon my skepticism.

[Anonymous No.3021518]

>>3021028
> So it's probably well known that I am obsessed with subsea technology.

Oh, is that what you mean when you write "We should put all the Jews on the bottom of the ocean!"

[Anonymous No.3021524]

man fuck batteries
gen IV reactor that directly generates hydrogen is the way to go

[Anonymous No.3021528]

>>3021457
http://www.magpowersystems.com/mafc/hfc

Certainly not the most PRACTICAL fuel cell chemisty, but indeed the most efficient.

My point is, there are more fuel cell chemistries than just hydrogen fuel cells, and many of them are both more practical AND more efficient than hydrogen.

[Anonymous No.3021541]

HHO ALL THE FUCKING WAY fuck batteries

[Anonymous No.3021559]

The answer is simple; elastic-mechanical energy storage is one of the most efficient methods out there. We should build giant wind-up cars to ride around everywhere in.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021571]

>>3021524

Even provided a better way to generate the hydrogen, you can only store enough to go 250 miles. Even with current battery tech, we can build an EV that goes further. By the time FCVs hit the market, we'll have EVs with superior range at the same price or lower. >>3021416 claims that there's some experimental fuel cell with 90% efficiency. I'm pretty well versed in alt energy and I've never heard of such a thing, but I could just as easily show examples of experimental batteries with enormous potential ranges. Hydrogen fans would laugh at these pie in the sky battery chemistries, while taking their own pie in the sky "just around the corner" fuel cell breakthroughs totally seriously.

All I feel like I can reliably judge the situation on is the tech that exists now, and the historical rate of improvement. Lithium batteries have fallen in cost consistently by about 9% per year since 1989. The rate has accelerated recently due to the construction of domestic lithium battery manufacturing plants funded by stimulus money and a 24kwh pack is conservatively projected to cost around $3,300 by 2050. Already, Enerdel is selling battery mass for around $350/kwh, a steep drop from the average market price of $1,000/kwh back in 2008.

[Anonymous No.3021599]

>>3021571
>you can only store enough to go 250 miles.
Tell that to THE FUCKING SPACE SHUTTLE.

[tyler No.3021605]

>>3021571

Why does the Leaf have a range of forty miles while the Tesla Model S has a range of three hundred miles?

[Anonymous No.3021616]

>>3021524
Are you the same motherfucker I always see posting Tatami stuff?

[Anonymous No.3021628]

>>3021571
The fact of the matter is, lithium batteries use the lightest, densest chemistry in existence; further refinement of battery technology is merely splitting hairs. Achieving significant increases in electrochemical energy density necessarily requires scavenging one or more of your reactants; enter the fuel cell. You're right, major further advances in fuel cell tech are probably not right around the corner. But at least they're there.

[Anonymous No.3021629]

>>3021571
The only downside to electric motors in cars is the weight of the batteries. I see this disapearing in the near future, with the advent of lighter and more efficient power supplies. But for now, hydrogen still holds the weight factor.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021631]

>>3021599

The space shuttle does not use fuel cells for propulsion purposes.

>>3021605

It doesn't, you have the Leaf confused with the Volt. The Leaf has a 100 mile range.

>>3021528

Look at the "what it powers" portion of the site. Magnesium Air fuel cells are low output and don't scale up well. They're a useful alternative to small gensets and potentially a valid range extender but could not be used by themselves to power an FCV.

Natural gas fuel cells, such as the ones used in the Bloom Box, may be more practical as range extenders because they use a very clean burning fuel that we already have a delivery infrastructure for.

[Nuca-Cola !dbLFTRZqOI No.3021634]

>>3021501
i was going to upload some reactor schematics and diagrams i have put together, but the 4chan post server forcefully disconnects me whenever i try. what the fuck

[tyler No.3021636]

>>3021631

Oh, then I will modify my original question:

Why is the Volt a steaming pile of shit compared to other cars hitting/on the market?

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021647]

>>3021628

>>You're right, major further advances in fuel cell tech are probably not right around the corner. But at least they're there.

Lithium batteries will improve too, and appear to be improving much faster.

By the time fuel cells become practical for automotive use, electric vehicles will be so much better and cheaper that nobody will want an FCV.

[Anonymous No.3021648]

I'll just leave this here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EEStor

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021673]

>>3021636

>>Why is the Volt a steaming pile of shit compared to other cars hitting/on the market?

Because it has to haul around a complete internal combustion engine drivetrain in addition to the electric one. Unlike a hybrid it needs to carry enough batteries to have a useful all electric range, and a beefy enough motor to fully supply for the electric motor's needs when the batteries run out.

So you wind up being forced to carry around useless dead weight during 90% of your trips where you only use the batteries, then the batteries become dead weight when they run out and you have to rely on the range extender.

It's like a swiss army knife, it tries to do two things and winds up being poor at both.

What would make sense imo is a range extending trailer you could pull behind your EV on longer trips. Some Rav4EV owners in the 90s actually built these; This way you only need to carry that extra weight when you know you're going to need it, and the rest of the time you can leave it at home.

[Anonymous No.3021687]

>>3021647
Honestly, I hope you're right. But the way I see it, the frontier you're speaking of just isn't there. Look at the development of any other battery chemistry; it came out, and within about a decade it had essentially reached the maximum of it's potential; further development only increased safety or charge rate or lifetime, and within another decade a newer, better chemistry had been developed. I got news for you; we're out of newer, better battery chemistries. Lithium is as good as it gets, and it's never going to suddenly get more energetic or more dense - just easier, safer and more convenient to handle.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021700]

>>3021648

I don't know what to think of Eestor. They've made big promises but so far only the engineers at Lockheed Martin have actually seen/played with their purported ultracapacitors. They were apparently impressed enough to give them a contract for ultracaps, presumably to power low heat signature/low noise UAVs or something.

Elon Musk has also been hott nutts about ultracaps lately. He must know something I don't, because last I heard ultracaps have pitifully low energy density compared to batteries. The public buses in Shangai run on them and get only 20 miles per charge. It works out because every bus stop has an overhead charging coupler that tops up the bus to 100% in under a minute, but for personal vehicles those capacitors wouldn't cut it.

Pic related, capacitor bus.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021709]

>>3021687

>>Look at the development of any other battery chemistry; it came out, and within about a decade it had essentially reached the maximum of it's potential

Where did you get the idea that we've maxed out the potential of lithium? Lithium air has something like ten times the energy density of lithium ion, and that's one out of a bunch of contenders for the next gen lithium chemistry.

The maximum theoretical energy density of lithium batteries is actually just a little less than gasoline.

[Anonymous No.3021727]

So you wanna build an electric vehicle...
Of course, you realize the energy you use to charge it WILL ultimately come from a fossil-fuel power plant that likely achieves only 40-60% efficiency, right?

IMO, if you can build a compact, powerful heat engine that can achieve power-station-level efficiencies, it'll be much more revolutionary.

[Anonymous No.3021741]

>>3021709
>Lithium-air
Technically a fuel cell.

Intellectual checkmate.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021746]

>>3021727

>>Of course, you realize the energy you use to charge it WILL ultimately come from a fossil-fuel power plant that likely achieves only 40-60% efficiency, right?

Of course, you realize it's ultimately still much cleaner than a gasoline engine, right? I posted the MIT wheel to well efficiency study demonstrating this earlier in the thread:

http://web.mit.edu/evt/summary_wtw.pdf

There are a few states where enough power comes from coal that hybrids are slightly cleaner than EVs. There are no states where gas vehicles are cleaner than EVs or hybrids.

"Hur hur the energy still comes from fossil fuels" is a fucking Rush Limbaugh talking point, for fuck's sake. The only people who repeat it are the ones who don't know any better.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021764]

>>3021741

Haha! Well played, and yeah I can buy that. Fuel cells and batteries are nearly the same thing; Both have cathode/anodes, electrolyte, etc. and the line will probably become blurrier over time. Just saying, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in particular aren't likely to regain their lead over EVs now that EVs can surpass their range, last longer before replacement and cost less.

[Anonymous No.3021783]

>>3021062
>superior to a gas vehicle of equivalent size

Horseshit, assuming the gas vehicle was similarly designed to only go 25mph. Energy density is energy density.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021796]

>>3021783

>>Horseshit, assuming the gas vehicle was similarly designed to only go 25mph. Energy density is energy density.

Gas engines are drastically less efficient at low RPMs. It's not as cut and dry as it seems. The theoretical endgame for lithium battery tech has it approaching the same energy density as gas, but at 85% efficiency instead of 15%. As weird as it seems, we will probably see electric cars with better range than gas vehicles before the century is out. If we can already make an EV that does 375 miles per charge at 55mph, it's hardly a stretch to suggest that we'll be doing 1,000 miles per charge at 80mph within 50 years or so.

[Nuca-Cola !dbLFTRZqOI No.3021822]

>>3021727
>Of course, you realize the energy you use to charge it WILL ultimately come from a fossil-fuel power plant that likely achieves only 40-60% efficiency, right?

welllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
>>3021484

[Anonymous No.3021832]

>>3021796
>Gas engines are drastically less efficient at low RPMs.

facepalm.jpeg

Have you not heard of gears before? The engine can run at any RPM it wants.

[Anonymous No.3021839]

Batteries will not be a competitive vehicle power source until they have lifetimes orders of magnitude above the current ~500 cycle limit.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021850]

>>3021832

>>Have you not heard of gears before?

Sure have, another source of ICE inefficiency that electric vehicles don't have.

>>The engine can run at any RPM it wants.

Except zero. Electric motors don't need to idle while at stoplights or stuck in traffic.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021873]

>>3021839

>>Batteries will not be a competitive vehicle power source until they have lifetimes orders of magnitude above the current ~500 cycle limit.

They already do. LiFePO4 batts last around 10 years on average, and around 15 years until totally spent. NiMH, while dirty, is similarly long live; There are Rav4EVs from the 1990s still on the road with their original batteries, getting about 80% of their original range.

Lithium Ion and Li-Polymer are the ones with the shitty 5-8 year longevity, depending on whether there's a cooling and cell balancing system onboard. Lithium Iron Phosphate and Li-Titatane last nearly twice as long, and next gen chemistries purport a lifespan in excess of 20 years.

[Anonymous No.3021895]

>>3021850
Show me the math. Smaller gasoline engines are more efficient eve on a per-joule basis than larger ones, and a lightweight vehicle only designed to go 25mph could have a very small engine indeed.

The real Achilles' heel of electric vehicle is that batteries are fucking expensive and they have to be replaced every so often. I'm willing to bet the cost of replacing the batteries twice over a ten year period plus the cost of electricity will be greater than the cost of maintenance and gasoline for a lightweight car designed to only go 25mph.

[Anonymous No.3021901]

>>3021873
>measuring battery lifespan in years

lol wut. Translate that into cycles, not everyone drives exactly the same distance every day.

[Anonymous No.3021913]

Mad Scientist
what happened to hampture and earthrover

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021916]

>>3021895

>>Show me the math

Posted it twice now. But what the hey. http://web.mit.edu/evt/summary_wtw.pdf

>>The real Achilles' heel of electric vehicle is that batteries are fucking expensive and they have to be replaced every so often. I'm willing to bet the cost of replacing the batteries twice over a ten year period plus the cost of electricity will be greater than the cost of maintenance and gasoline for a lightweight car designed to only go 25mph.

1. Not a fair comparison if you're talking about an EV that does highway speeds.

2. Battery replacement isn't a lump sum, it's paid for gradually over the lifespan of the battery either as part of your lease or (under the Better Place program) as an 8 cents per mile fee. By the time you need a new battery, it's paid off. This is on top of the benefits of being able to swap out your battery for a freshly charged one in under 2 minutes on long trips.

www.betterplace.com

[Anonymous No.3021922]

>>3021764
Glad we're on the same page.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021927]

>>3021913

>>what happened to hampture and earthrover

Hampture was successfully deployed in a pool at 8 feet for 15 minutes, and in a lake at 4 feet for 5 hours. Here's the video of the lake mission: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05pkg0DuPNQ

Parts for the Mk. III habitat are still coming in the mail. It will house 3 hamsters and feature an exercise wheel and small clover garden.

Earth Rover is around 75% complete. I have the robot modified as necessary with the high capacity battery and 1 watt laser, but it needs a new micro usb port for the webcam as the old port is rusted out. I have the solar panels to keep the docking station and Mifi uplink running, but the battery pack isn't here yet and I still need a Mifi mobile hotspot for it to work.

[Anonymous No.3021931]

>>3021916
>8 cents per mile fee

For me that's the equivalent of buying gas at $3.20 per gallon. I fuckin' hope that includes the electricity.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021962]

Btw I eventually plan to make the Mk III habitat self-sufficient; the water intake is filtered and uses the same ball stopper mechanism as a normal hamster water tube, letting them drink safely directly from the lake outside, and their urine will nourish the plants. Composting soil will handle their poop, and the solar panels I've bought for project earth rover (plus a battery bank) will ensure that the air compressor can run continuously 24/7. I just need more batteries, and a weatherproof enclosure. I could always just keep it plugged in and deploy it in the pond outside, but that's only like 2 and a half feet deep, and it's not as cool as having it be solar powered and self sufficient.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3021985]

>>3021931

Yes, electricity is included in your emiles package provided it's from Better Place chargepoints. But because gas vehicles average 13 cents per mile, even if you pay for electricity separately (at about 2 cents per mile even for the dated Rav4EV) you still wind up paying 3 cents less per mile when you drive electric.

[Anonymous No.3022006]

>>3021985
>chargepoints

I'm confused. Do you get the battery changed out or do you have to wait for it to charge?

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3022017]

>>3022006

Both. You plug in wherever you park, which covers your basic day to day needs. The battery swapping feature is only for longer trips. The idea is to have maybe one or two swap stations in cities, but most of them would be dotted along interstate highways about 80 miles apart to ensure that even in cold weather, a swap at one station would get you safely to the next at highway speeds.

[Anonymous No.3022030]

>>3022017
>plugin wherever you park

That sentence doesn't make any sense. Since when do parking lots come with electrical outlets of any kind, let alone these BetterPlace ones that let me access the electricity I payed for with my per mile fee?

[Anonymous No.3022041]

>>3021746
Hmm, I'll have to read that. I was always under the impression that power stations, lacking catalytic converters, have substantially-higher NOx emissions than automotive piston engines. Naturally, hydrocarbon emissions will be near zero with a hot, lean-burning power generator, but undesirable nitrogen-oxygen reactions will occur. Modern cars revert these NOx compounds back to N2 and O2 in the cat, but AFAIK power plants do not.

When you factor in that a compact 50%-efficient natural-gas or LPG engine is not entirely unrealistic, you could see some SUBSTANTIAL reductions in emissions even amongst ICEs.

[Anonymous No.3022051]

>>3021927
Any truth to the rumor you were threatened with animal cruelty charges?

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3022054]

>>3022030

>>That sentence doesn't make any sense. Since when do parking lots come with electrical outlets of any kind, let alone these BetterPlace ones that let me access the electricity I payed for with my per mile fee?

Since the nine city rollout in 2009.

http://www.chargepointamerica.com/

There's about 8 of these downtown that I use all the time. One of them is a solar carport, and all of them get most of their power from renewable sources.

These aren't better place owned, but then I don't own a swappable battery car. Currently Renault, Tesla and Nissan are the only ones with models in the works that will be capable of battery swapping. But Toyota's huge recent investment in Tesla means they'll have access to the technology also, although it remains to be seen whether or not they'll make a swappable battery vehicle.

Incidentally, long before they rolled out chargepoints in my city, I was charging up at public outlets. You probably see them all the time but don't notice them as you don't need 'em. They're along the exterior of many buildings at ankle height, at the base of many street lamps in large parking lots and so on. So long as you ask the business owner if it's okay to plug in, no harm no foul.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3022062]

>>3022051

>>Any truth to the rumor you were threatened with animal cruelty charges?

Lol no. People joked about it on the blog but nothing ever came of it. I over-engineered the habitat for safety and comfort, complete with a resistive heating pad so the hamster could moderate his own warmth by moving closer/further from it. There was ample LED lighting and the habitat had an air flow rate sufficient to sustain 15 hamsters. Check out the video, he spends most of the time just chilling, like it's no big thang.

The MkIII will also have a CO2 sensor that people will be able to monitor online and at least one live webcam.

[Anonymous No.3022064]

>>3022054
So what's the point of the whole "electricity is provided in the fee" if I'm still going to have to pay out of pocket for the vast majority of my vehicle electricity?

This is still much more expensive than my little gasoline sedan, even ignoring the fact that EVs cost a lot more to buy.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3022070]

>>3022041

>>you could see some SUBSTANTIAL reductions in emissions even amongst ICEs.

Sure, but EVs simply use drastically *less* energy per mile. Even if it's produced in a dirtier fashion, the fact that far less is used (and only 6.5% is wasted on average in transmission to your home) means that the EVs pollutes less.

EVs lose out in range right now, but can't be beat for pure efficiency.

[Anonymous No.3022078]

>>3022062
>There was ample LED lighting
Hahaha. That's funny. Hamsters are crepuscular burrowing animals; they spend most of the time in complete darkness, and can hardly see as it is. I doubt the hamster would mind if it were completely dark inside the habitat.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3022080]

>>3022064

>>This is still much more expensive than my little gasoline sedan, even ignoring the fact that EVs cost a lot more to buy.

The calculations assumed 25mpg and $3.00 per gallon. Gas is now over $4.00 in some states. Be honest now, what's your typical mileage?

[Anonymous No.3022081]

>Any truth to the rumor you were threatened with animal cruelty charges?

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3022084]

>>3022078

>>Hahaha. That's funny. Hamsters are crepuscular burrowing animals; they spend most of the time in complete darkness, and can hardly see as it is. I doubt the hamster would mind if it were completely dark inside the habitat.

When doing stuff like this, you have an awful lot of people who perhaps don't know stuff like that. And if you try to tell them, you're likely to be accused of negligence. It's easier to satisfy their demands and have a habitat that's overdesigned than it is to convince them that it's fine as-is. Besides, only the finest for little Megafucker Supreme. :3

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3022087]

>>3022081

That strip was not based on actual events. I figured that was obvious.

[Anonymous No.3022097]

>>3022080
My Fiesta averages about 38 on my commute. Last time I filled up gas was at $3.75. Fucking robbery.

[Anonymous No.3022106]

>>3022070
You're not hearing me; a 50%-efficient compact ICE is certainly viable, provided you're willing to put up the capital (which, in the end, will be equal to or less than your battery-electric equivalent). 50% is right in the butter-zone of modern fossil-fuel power plants, which range from 40% amongst steam-turbine coal plants to 60% amongst combined-cycle oil or gas power stations. Thus, ceteris-paribus, an ICE-powered vehicle COULD in theory have lower macro-scale emissions and similar macro-scale efficiency to an EV charged with fossil-fuel-sourced electricity, if only consumers were willing to put up the dough for a more advanced, more efficient ICE engine.

Which they aren't, because if they're paying extra for efficiency, they'd rather see something radically different and unique, like a full electric drive system.

[Anonymous No.3022110]

wait
legorobot = mad scientist?

[Anonymous No.3022122]

Still waiting for you to tell me how many cycles those batteries last.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3022152]

>>3022106

Sure, miracle future tech ICEs could be far more efficient. And miracle future tech batteries could deliver 1,000 miles per charge at 80mph for a few thousand bucks. So long as we're talking about hypothetical technology it's only fair to perform similar extrapolation for battery electrics.

However, here in the present, there's a compelling case to be made for battery electric vehicles even assuming that comparative efficiencies stayed the same forever. This is mainly because we're running out of oil. At some point there will no longer be a choice. None of the alternative are quite as good as gas in terms of performance, but batteries suck the least, and have some incidental benefits that make it desirable on its own merits. A BEV doesn't care where its power comes from. It's future proof in that regard. And electricity is easier to make at home than fuel, although people do both.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3022164]

>>Still waiting for you to tell me how many cycles those batteries last.

Altairnano's next gen pack is alleged to last 40 years:

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=200610260051
07&newsLang=en

Competitors claim around 20 years for the various other lithium chemistries in the works. The expectation is twice the capacity and twice the longevity, bare minimum, in the next round of Lithium variants.

[Anonymous No.3022165]

>>3022122
Lithium battery lifetimes still aren't measured in cycles, but in a calendar shelf-life. Part of this is because of their resistance to battery-memory effects; part is because they simply degrade faster over time than other chemistries. This is one of the few aspects of lithium batteries that is still improving, along with charge rate and fire resistance. Last I heard, they typically lasted about 2 years for small cells before experiencing significant degradation, but it's probably quite a bit longer now.

[Anonymous No.3022184]

>>3022165
I've never read it put in anything but cycles, usually about five hundred for most li-ion batteries.

[Anonymous No.3022186]

>>3022152
>A BEV doesn't care where its power comes from. It's future proof in that regard. And electricity is easier to make at home than fuel, although people do both.
Agreed. Probably the biggest reason to push for EVs; it puts the pressure on the energy companies to get off the fossil fuel train before it flies completely off the rails.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3022187]

>>3022165

>>Last I heard, they typically lasted about 2 years for small cells before experiencing significant degradation, but it's probably quite a bit longer now.

Laptop batteries are made from lower grade commodity cells and typically lack cell balancing and cooling. Tesla uses laptop cells, which is why their pack only lasts 5 years. Other major EVs use what are called large format cells; As you scale up, the wear and tear/degradation factor is diminished as the strain is spread out over larger cells and more of them. Altair Nano's cells retained 80% capacity after 15,000 cycles, although critics claim that it was in ideal conditions. Independent calculation based on their published studies suggest about 20 years is what we can realistically expect, assuming a full charge and discharge every day. The 'calendar shelf life' if the battery were never used would likely be many times that figure. In low strain applications like solar energy storage (the #1 use for EV batteries that have degraded to 80% capacity) they last much longer than they would in comparatively high stress vehicular use.

[Anonymous No.3022191]

>>3021927
Ooooooo. What fun projects.
And it's just you doing all this as a hobby?


Also, shit guise, why is it so difficult to store energy and retrieve energy efficiently, and at respectable energy densities?

And I don't know anything about chem at all so this is undoubtedly a stupid question but, have we not yet developed a way to just like, I dunno, type what properties we want a material to have into a computer, and have the computer spit out what compounds will suffice?
I mean, why is it that coming up with designs for these energy storage devices seem less procedural, and more like some sort of dark art?
Why /sci/? WHY!?

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3022197]

>>3022184

>>I've never read it put in anything but cycles, usually about five hundred for most li-ion batteries.

This is for small single cell or simple multi cell laptop/cell phone batteries. It does not stay the same as you scale up. A larger battery pack made from automotive grade large format cells (and lots of them) predictably lasts much longer.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3022208]

>>3022191

>>And it's just you doing all this as a hobby?

Yeah, it beats collecting stamps.

>>have we not yet developed a way to just like, I dunno, type what properties we want a material to have into a computer, and have the computer spit out what compounds will suffice?

Predictive modeling is used widely in the industry, but it is not precise enough to give us a complete schematic, just promising leads to investigate in terms of what chemistries to pursue, what molecular structure would be best as a cathode/anode material and so on. I'd like to see evolutionary algorithms leveraged against the problem but I imagine we'll never quite be able to punch in parameters and have it come back with the precise details of what the ideal battery is and how to build it.

[Anonymous No.3022209]

>>3022187
>Laptop batteries are made from lower grade commodity cells and typically lack cell balancing
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't laptop batteries typically single-cell now?

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3022218]

>>3022209

>>Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't laptop batteries typically single-cell now?

Lithium Polymer ones, yeah. Although often it's two pouch style LiPo batts stacked or side by side. Li-Ion packs are usually made up of cylindrical cells, between 6 and 12 of them.

[Anonymous No.3022223]

>>3022191
>And I don't know anything about chem at all so this is undoubtedly a stupid question but, have we not yet developed a way to just like, I dunno, type what properties we want a material to have into a computer, and have the computer spit out what compounds will suffice?
Because such a program/database would need to be written by materials-science majors, who would therin be sacrificing the majority of their job security.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3022259]

BTW I was looking at RC subs a while back and I found a really cool one. It's $700, but is basically a fully featured ROV with a video camera and video outputs on the controller so you can use a small TV as a viewfinder. It's truly hydrostatic, with an air bladder and air compressor onboard so it can alter its buoyancy like a real sub. Most RC subs use their diving planes to descend or ascend, such that they can only descend while moving forward, and immediately begin to rise if they stop.

It's rated for up to 30 feet deep, and sophisticated enough that it's now being used for water line inspection, pic related.

I was thinking, wouldn't it be cool if I could make one of these drivable over the internet so people could tool around Hampture MkIII and peer in from the outside?

[Anonymous No.3022274]

>>3022259
>I was thinking, wouldn't it be cool if I could make one of these drivable over the internet so people could tool around Hampture MkIII and peer in from the outside?

[Nuca-Cola !dbLFTRZqOI No.3022296]

>>3022259
that's actually a very cool fucking idea. setting up livestream of the camera's output would be easy, control over the internet will be a little trickier, you'd have to set up some kind of Arduino wizardry to interface with the remote controller and then some kind of javascript GUI that can be hosted on a website

>in b4 some /b/ tard uses the sub like a battering ram and tries to destroy hampture

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3022317]

>>3022296

Well the interior webcam is confirmed, at least. I'll have a laptop connected to its own solar panels on-site, connected via 4G, livestreaming from one or more cams inside the habitat itself. I'd just like some way for you guys to interact rather than simply watch. I'm not proficient enough to rig up an arduino interface for the sub, but if I could find a ready made solution that would plug into the PC or connect over wifi, it's a done deal.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3022338]

BTW I do plan to pay for this mostly out of pocket, but if you'd like to help the project happen faster, I do accept donations on the blog:

http://hampture.blogspot.com/

If nothing else I could plug the sub's video output into a capture card and broadcast its view live as I fly it around the habitat. But I'll need a little help to afford a $700 RC sub that isn't directly neccessary for the success of the habitat.

[Nuca-Cola !dbLFTRZqOI No.3022364]

>>3022338
protip; put that idea and donation request within its own thread

speaking of donations and websites, i need to set up one for project F.R.T.H.R (fully recycling thorium home reactor). i don't think hastelloy-n is cheap

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3022390]

>>3022364

Ehhh, seems distasteful. I don't want to turn this project into a begathon. I'll do my best to afford the parts myself and if people want the sub as an extra, I can drop the idea here and there. Those who really want to can donate, but I want the main project to be something everyone can follow and enjoy without spending anything.

[Nuca-Cola !dbLFTRZqOI No.3022403]

>>3022390
also, saw your earthrover project...
you really need to get versed with arduino and C++, you could do that entire project in a week with stuff like that. you're reinventing the wheel.

although the internet connectivity bit will require some outside code. get a java bro from /g/ to rig it.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3022452]

>>3022403

I'm boning up on that, but I've got a bro who would be doing the programming for me as I have no background in that. I'm the DIY construction half of it, he's the coder.

Ultimately the robot already does 90% of what I need. I just need to set it up so that the gripper and laser can be controlled over channels that normally activate/deactivate decorative fiber optic lighting. Not as if the robot will need that in the woods.

[Anonymous No.3022612]

I like how this started out related to batteries but inevitably became about the hamster and robot dealies. Keepin' those priorities straight, /sci/.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.3022642]

>>3022612

Gotta give the people what they want.

[Anonymous No.3022669]

>>3022642
Na-NiCl2 battery, do it