How much energy is contained within 20 litres of petrol? How long will it take before a battery of the same size and weight can contain the same amount of energy? Or (let's make it easy) one-tenth of as much energy? A long, long time, because there is a long, long way to go. And even if we assume the energy-density goal is attained, a petrol tank can be refilled in one minute while a battery takes hours. Quick charging systems mean high-current systems, and that means massive heat losses. And even if we assume quick-charging is perfected, where is the energy to come from in the first place? Burning coal, oil and gas? But even if we assume that a plentiful source of energy magically becomes available, what is the most practicable and convenient way of storing energy for use on a moving road vehicle? Why, utilise the energy to form liquid hydrocarbons of course, which are easy to store, use, and replenish. However you look at it, and even making every possible assumption in favour of battery-electric vehicles, they are still utterly hopeless for the foreseeable future. The only way they can be made to look viable is by ignoring lots of hard facts and hoping nobody will notice.
Thank you. So surely the project will just die because the economies of scale necessary for them to be put into mass production will never be achieved?
If everyone gave up when presented with an engineering problem we would still be riding horses bareback, houses would have never been built, you could only eat what you gathered or caught with your hands and don't even consider cooking it... The technology is in its infancy, the steam industry made similar clams about internal combustion engines. Yes there are problems, however generating electricity from liquid fuels on a large scale is far more efficient than trying to use that energy in a small scale to drive a vehicle forwards through a series of gears, drive shafts and wheels.
Isn't that a bit like comparing apples and pears ? The fundamental problem is what is the primary source of the energy you use, the rest is fairly well understood with only marginal gains left to be made. The advantage of fossil fuels is that they have been cheap and very plentiful, and they still are, but won't be forever.
I never had you down as a luddite Pete. A bloke I know has been using his utterly useless Vectrix scooter as his sole means of work transport for the last 6 years (although I'm sure he has a nice big Range Rover at his disposal for the weekends). And I believe the AA successfully trialled several of the same scooters for a couple of years. Travelling long distances is the stumbling block for EVs, for day to day use they are very viable. What they are not, though, is the same. I think the manufacturers of these vehicles are doing themselves harm by trying to compete directly with dinosaur brands; an electric superbike cannot (currently) compete directly with a modern superbike, they're too heavy, and too much energy is lost trying to attain a top speed to brag about, when the same power plant and battery combo could power a very decent day to day bike with a much better range. It's only battery technology holding EVs back, and the development of battery technology is in the hands of very large and wealthy multinationals, so we won't have to wait too long. Utterly hopeless for the foreseeable future..? I think not.
What about the environmental cost of producing and disposing of these battery technologies? they are packed full of harmful substances.
And where will the electricity come from to charge them? If everyone's going electric we'd better reopen those coal mines, build a couple of dozen nuclear power stations and get a fracking plant in every town.
In my recent post I conceded, hypothetically, that it might eventually be possible to store hundreds of KiloWatthours of energy in a battery the size and weight of a matchbox, and for it to be recharged in seconds. The fact remains - and there is absolutely no getting round this - the energy has to come from somewhere. There has to be a source. If that energy is lacking, no design of battery or anything else can result in propulsion because that would be a perpetual motion machine. If you do have energy available, there are many possible ways of storing it, transporting it, converting it from one form to another, and applying it. New ways will no doubt be devised in future. The question becomes what is the most practical, convenient and cheap ways of handling energy? Surely you know the answer?
Messrs Brush of Loughborough made thousands of electric milk floats, which operated successfully for many decades. Let's just take it as an established fact that it is possible to make battery electric road vehicles which actually work. There is no dispute about this, but that is not the point under discussion. The question is whether battery electric vehicles have, or could ever conceivably have, advantages in principle which could lead to them superseding internal combustion engine vehicles on a major scale. The answer, pretty obviously, is negative.
Nah. In a few decades at most, electricity will be dirt cheap. This because the sun does a lot of shining, winds blow and tides come in and out, waves go up and down. All these things will be harnessed. The computing power you now have in your pocket would have needed to be kept in a large ventilated room only about 70 years ago. Several rooms, probably. In the meantime, the silicon chip was invented (or at least exploited). Most vehicles do short journeys, so they could be charged at home or at work. Maybe hybrids will still be the way to go to cover all eventualities, but nearly all urban transport will be running on batteries. Setting fire to hydrocarbons may continue for decades, but it will be a niche activity in the not so distant future. May take longer for aeroplanes to go electric.
I would agree with you if your second sentence said "This is because of nuclear fusion". Without it I can't see how an exploding world population with a soaring appetite for electricity usage can be supplied with power.
Whilst the world population is soaring, it isn't because births are increasing. They are now decreasing, it's just that people are living longer, so although the rate of flow into the funnel has slowed down, it is still quicker than the people dropping out of the funnel (dying). Max births happened in 2000. So the population will stabilise and then may even decrease, who knows. Thing is, technological advance is so rapid that we can't really imagine what things will be like in even 30 years. I reckon that electricity generation will increasingly be small scale and private, rather than exclusively large scale. There was a really clued up bloke from the highly regarded EPFL, one of the two Swiss scientific universities, who pointed this out. He claimed that the huge investment in large scale electricity generating projects was a result of corporatism and politics and that the future was small scale as that way, you don't have nearly so far to transport the electricity. But this doesn't generate profits for the big electricity companies, so they don't pursue it. There has already been prototype solar paint. You just paint your house with it and it generates electricity for you. Stuff of this nature will see the light of day (ho ho!) in the next decades.
This is a very optimistic assessment and who knows it may be proven right. Did you post it after a few glasses of red ? Our world has been powered by ridiculously cheap hydrocarbons, to switch to renewables will require massive investment to produce expensive unreliable energy, our world will be a very different place as a consequence. I think the humble bicycle will play an increasing role.
Small scale Combined Heat and Power (CHP) can increase the efficiency of electricity generation by capturing the waste energy to heat local homes. This will prove very handy when the mini ice age arrives in 15 years time 'Mini ice age' coming in next fifteen years, new model of the sun's cycle shows - Climate Change - Environment - The Independent
These things don't happen overnight, so you often don't notice them. The internet didn't just happen, it evolved. I first heard about it in about 1993 or 4, but it was very niche then and no one much used it. Over the last 20 years it has obviously become huge. 20 years really isn't a long time. These days, hybrid cars are commonplace and I often see LPG vehicles around here. Even 10 years ago, not so commonplace. Transport isn't suddenly going to "go electric", but these technologies will become ever more viable and people will gradually adopt them. You might not even notice it happening. The "massive investment" has already started and the pace will accelerate.
I remember when Harold Wilson declared that nuclear power would produce electricity "too cheap to meter".
