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500 Miles on a 5-Minute Recharge?
ctroutwi writes "In the wake of rising gasoline costs there have been plenty of alternatives seen on the horizon. Including Hybrids, Biofuels, fuel cells and battery powered all electric cars. CNN has recently posted a story about a company (EEStor) that plans on offering UltraCapacitor storage products. The claim being that you charge the ultracapacitor in 5 minutes, with approximately $9 of electricity and then drive 500 miles."
As long as you get the ultrafluxcapacitor car going at 88 mph, you can go anywhen... ahem anywhere.
Where were you when the voynix came?
How about a system in which cars connect to electric lines along the highways, like they use for electric busses and trollies, and use ultra-capacitors to get from the highway to your home?
Behold the future.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
CNN has recently posted a story about a company (EEStor) that plans on offering UltraCapacitor storage products. The claim being that you charge the ultracapacitor in 5 minutes, with approximately $9 of electricity and then drive 500 miles.
This is simply shocking news.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Exploding laptop batteries are one thing, but exploding fully-charged ultracapacitors, now you are talking real damage.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I'm thinking of a system more like this...
What gauge wire do I use for my 4000 Amp circuit and why can't I find a 4000 Amp circuit breaker at Home Depot. I will tell you why, Big Oil.
At what cost per kWh does it require 1.21 gigawatts?
Taking that one step farther... The maximum current a circuit using 0000AWG copper wire (11.5mm diameter, the largest I can find specs for online) should carry is 380 amps. That means you have to run the charger at about 3200 volts to deliver 1.2MW of power. I think this would be the end of self-serve fueling, the first driver who shorts a 380A 3.2kV capacitor charger with part of their body is going to become a very messy warning to others.
0 1 - just my two bits
>system in which cars connect to electric lines along the highways
would work for me, I already wondered how to be a free-loader on the ultra-high voltage powerlines. Just need a flexibile input voltage charger, and some metal filiment fishing line, oh and a good faraday cage for the driver. just shoot a arrow/kite over the existing power line trailing the wire, ground just enough to charge, when your done you ground your end of the line, and poof one lightning bolt evaporates the charging line.
now this is extreamly wastefull if your paying the electric bill, but if your cost is just a $0.50 kite, and $1 per 100' of fishing line...
Not that hard to do. Drive into an enclosed area, with multiple ben franklin rods, close the door, plug the car in. and let it power up. Disconnect, open the doors, drive out to a fertility clinic, to see if you will ever be able to produce sperm again.
There. Fixed it for you, Dr. Frankenstein.
Hey three of my best friends just died in a freak gasoline fight accident, you insensitive clod.
"But then we are stuck with the leapords" i hear you proclaim, NO, we put fricking laserbeams on their frickin heads and send them into Afganistan, If Bin laden isnt already dead, he soon will be!
I think he's talking about "100 octane electicity".
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
It might be easier to just electrify the roadways themselves.
That would take care of hitchhikers and wild animals, too.
However, the question is this - is it more efficient to burn the gasoline/fuel to create the electricity to use the electricity to run the cars, or to just continue refining internal combustion engines.
Well, I certainly don't want those nuclear reactors to get built into vehicles that crash by the thousand every day. And mounting a 50 metre windmill on a car strikes me as impractical when you're going through a tunnel.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Ha!
What would car crashes look like in the movies in the future with these cars?
A blinding light, a loud "BZZZZZT!", and a mess of welded metal with organic matter fused to it.
Of course the good guys would be able to cut themselves out or break away and the bad guys would have their limbs and face in various places of the ex-vehicle.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
I would be terrified to stand next to a fueling station that dispenses a highly flammable, poisonous and carcinogenic liquid at a rate of several gallons per minute!
How about a system in which cars connect to electric lines along the highways
My entire hick town wouldn't buy into this "cars on rails" philosophy. How are you going to be able to go mudding in a Corn Field?
Terrific!! All you need now is a system like the one used in those hand-charged flashlights. 500 miles is plenty of time to charge it back up again. And you could get the kids to do it.
"Hey you two!!! Sit down back there-- Shut up and keep cranking!"
"But Da-a-a-a-a-d!"
"I'm warning you... Don't make me stop this car... ('cause we'll probably never get it started again!)"
Or, imagine your reaction on the ladies as you whiz by in your new BMW JAKOV 3000... top down, wind breezing through your hair-- ear-to-ear grin as you're cruising down the road, uh, "charging your car"... oh wait-- hey, wait! that's not the charging handle...
And how about this-- put a coil and magnet under the back seat... that way you can drive your girl out to lover's point and have fun re-charging the car for the ride home...
There's all kinds of possibilities here!
Just stick a lightning rod into your flux capacitor and drive by the local clock tower.
Pfft. That will barely get you to the store.
Fnord.
Next on slashdot?
"Alan was on the other side of the parking lot from his car. I was elsewhere. He yelled out, I ambled towards the parking lot in my own good time, and then I heard 'Fire! Real fire! Call the fire brigade, now!' and I speeded up a bit. From Alan subsequently, I gather there was an explosion and flying pieces of car, and a fireball, and a couple of fires started where (presumably) boiling capacitor landed, and one fragment smashed an SUV windscreen. And then there was smoke and smell (there is still smell) and smoke alarm wailing and firemen and sirens and paramedics (happily unneeded) and police and a man with a notebook asking questions for the fire report.'"
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
CNN has recently posted a story about a company (EEStor) that plans on offering UltraCapacitor storage products
Uh huh. And I plan on building flying brooms that will whisk us around by magic alone. No fuel or flying license needed! Who wants to lend me money to persue this goal?
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
"Doing that means a crapload of both volts and amps."
Is that crapload US/Imperial or metric/SI? I know the difference between a metric and US crapload is small, but at these levels, that difference compounds. Now, had you measured it in assloads, or the universal shit-ton, then we'd have a total other story.
jX [ Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler. - Einstein ]