Electric cars, unclean at any speed

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

As far as storage batteries you cant use lithium, its far too expensive. You can use Ni it will be expensive, but then there will be a lot less around for electric car and hybrid batteries.
Take away lithium and nickel whats left?
On the other hand there is no shortage of lead for the time being.

In point of fact, lithium is more abundant in the Earth's crust than lead: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth's_crust And nickel is more abundant than either.

It's also interesting to note that the so-called rare earth elements are present in similar amounts.

The cost factor in lithium batteries to date isn't the lithium, it's the manufacturing scale, which hasn't yet ramped up to where it's really efficient, especially for anything larger than AA-sized cells. Then there's the fact that the tech is still being developed, so as soon as company X starts rolling out batteries with its tech, company Y or some university research lab invents something a bit better.

Another potential storage technology for utility-scale applications is the vanadium redox battery.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Wind blows more at night

Audi is starting to store excess wind energy as synthetic CNG, which in turn is fed into the gas grid to power their CNG cars ...

Our imagination rather than physics limits the ways in which we can store renewable energy.

[P-hack]

Originally Posted by euromodder

Audi is starting to store excess wind energy as synthetic CNG, which in turn is fed into the gas grid to power their CNG cars ...

Our imagination rather than physics limits the ways in which we can store renewable energy.

The efficiency of any storage solution is of course of primary concern, and is limited by physics. Not sure "synthetic CNG" is all that efficient, though I have not looked into it.

But for electrical purposes research is being done on wood based sodium ion batteries. They lack the energy density of lithium but they are showing comparable charge/discharge efficiencies and may be suitable for power plants, someday.
Sodium-ion battery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[NeilBlanchard]

BREAKING: Germany Sets Solar Power Record (Again) -- 23.9 GW | CleanTechnica

Germany is not even a very sunny place - it is about like the least sunny piece of the northwest of Washington State, or Alaska. The latitude of Germany is about mid Canada.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by P-hack

The efficiency of any storage solution is of course of primary concern, and is limited by physics. Not sure "synthetic CNG" is all that efficient, though I have not looked into it.

While the laws of physics mean we lose useable energy in any energy conversion, this is energy that'd otherwise have been lost (currently, excess energy is being destroyed if no further production unit can be throttled down or shut down) or not generated at all (shutting down the windmill, reducing its lifetime efficiency).

Audi uses CO2 to make CH4 - for carbon, that's a balanced one-for-one situation. Ideally, not considering conversion losses.
But as the plant is run on wind energy, the losses are also renewable, rather than simply gone forever when fossil fuel is used.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

The latitude of Germany is about mid Canada.

Yes, but we have more of a moderate sea climate around here, rather than a continental climate.
You can't just go by latitude alone.

[P-hack]

Originally Posted by euromodder

Audi uses CO2 to make CH4 - for carbon, that's a balanced one-for-one situation. Ideally, not considering conversion losses.
But as the plant is run on wind energy, the losses are also renewable, rather than simply gone forever when fossil fuel is used.

Ok, not arguing that renewable is more disposable given the current infrastructure in germany, but the audi plant uses electrolysis to make the hydrogen, then converts it to ch4, then distributes it and compresses the hell out of it. Again, not attacking renewables, just wanting them to be used most efficiently, since they do come with a cost in materials and real estate and existing implementations will be referenced (for good or bad) if they are to be utilized elsewhere.

I think my instincts on compressed ch4 from co2 are spot on, though audi does admit it is a workaround for a grid that isn't up to the job, the same 1500 CNG cars it does fuel could possibly be 3000 electric cars from the same real estate, if you could charge them during off-peak hours (or peak as the case may be), and not perpetuate ICEs.

I suspect this approach is somehow linked to Audi's lack of an electric vehicle offering, but that might just be me.

[Occasionally6]

Originally Posted by P-hack

I think my instincts on compressed ch4 from co2 are spot on, though audi does admit it is a workaround for a grid that isn't up to the job, the same 1500 CNG cars it does fuel could possibly be 3000 electric cars from the same real estate, if you could charge them during off-peak hours (or peak as the case may be), and not perpetuate ICEs.

I suspect this approach is somehow linked to Audi's lack of an electric vehicle offering, but that might just be me.

I am sure that the major vehicle manufacturers could all manage to find the resources required to design electric vehicles. Building them is another problem.

Perhaps 5 years ago I can recall reading an article where the person in Mercedes-Benz responsible for investigating battery options, for hybrid or pure BEV, suggested that there simply wasn't the battery manufacturing capacity, throughout the world, to switch to BEV's in any volume. That would have to be built. Apart from utilising their existing skills and manufacturing assets, I suspect that is why ICE options are still being pursued by the car manufacturers.

Returning to the article linked to in the OP. The point the writer is making is that shifting wholesale to BEV's, in place of ICEV's, isn't going to be a solution. If we were to all drive cars like the Tesla S and Nissan Leaf et al we will still hit resource limits.

The doubling time of the Chinese economy, at the present rate of growth, is just under a decade. That of India's is just over a decade. We can hit resource limits very quickly and we are already past some of them (like AGW).

9 billion people in the developed world vs 1 billion. All 9 billion of us can't drive BEV's that are anything near to the same as the cars we currently drive. What is required is a complete rethink about our way of life and economy, including the type of vehicles we drive or indeed if we drive at all.

Will we see BEV's? Yes but there has to be a much greater change made than just that.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Occasionally6

...suggested that there simply wasn't the battery manufacturing capacity, throughout the world, to switch to BEV's in any volume. That would have to be built.

Well, duh! Now if you go back not too many years, there wasn't any manufacturing capacity for airbags, electronic ignitions, in-car GPS displays... Yet new cars today have them. Must be some sort of magic, eh?

[Occasionally6]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Well, duh! Now if you go back not too many years, there wasn't any manufacturing capacity for airbags, electronic ignitions, in-car GPS displays... Yet new cars today have them. Must be some sort of magic, eh?

The thing is it would take time and resources to build that capacity. If doing so doesn't solve in an effective way any of the problems that shifting to BEV's is meant to solve, then why do it?

It would be almost worse than business as usual because it consumes the resources, effort and intellectual capital that has be used to solve the problem(s) without solving it (them).

Change what a car is or substitute for it with alternatives like public transport, telecommuting, HPV's, redesigned cities etc. and it makes the task of building the (lower capacity) battery manufacturing easier and lowers the impact of the ICE vehicles being built in the interim.