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Nanostructured Li-ion Batteries for Electric Cars
schliz writes "Researchers at the Delft University of Technology are developing nanostructured batteries that are expected to deliver more usage between charges, and shorter charge/discharge times, to mobile consumers within the next five years. The batteries will improve electric and hybrid vehicles, researchers say."
Battery technology will experience a sort of Moore's Law with the demand for hybrid and all-electric vehicles. This is just one of the first stories.
I'm always a bit skeptical of such items till I understand how likely it is to cause a fire in my garage while I'm sleeping or when accelerating away from a stop light. New tech is great, but means not a lot till tested in the real world.
With battery technology, the higher the density, the higher the chances of uncontrolled energy release. When it's safe and fairly cheap, then I'll be really interested.
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It's a not too well known fact that, in the beginning, a lot of things *were* actually powered by electricity, *before* something else took it over. That something else wasn't necessarily better then the batteries they'd replace, but, sadly, history is full of examples where a less good alternative wins over the market (betamax vs VHS, anyone?). Somtimes electricity did win (it replaced gas for lightening homes/streets) but sometimes, alas, it didn't.
The same was true for cars. Many would think cars were always powered by diesel/petrol, but nothing is further from the truth. In fact, there were many fuels used to drive cars when they were first developped, and electricity-driven cars were actually a rather considerable percentage of cars. But then petrol came and took it over for reasons that are unclear (it has been speculated that it might had something to do with the sound, strangely enough; it made for a more impressing 'look at me, here I am!' - not unimportant to the late-victorian elite of that time. Heck, even today half of the gadgets are bought to show off (blu-ray, HD-DVD, anyone?). In that time, battery- or oildriven cars were in fact ahead of the petrol ones, but that rapidly changed the more popular the petrol-using cars became. In a few decades, the rest was all but gone.
If that hadn't happend, it is obvious we would be FAR ahead of our current state of developement where batteries and electricity-storage is concerned (just like petrol-injection has come a long way since the 19thy century). Just imagine the state of technology now on the same scale as petrol has improved, and all what we invent now (including the nano-tubes) would probably have been developed ages ago. It would have led to efficiencies and yields we can only dream of today. And also imagine the impact it would have had on other areas; a lot less - or none at all - CO2 from cars (and maybe the petrol-industry as a whole would not have reached the peak it has today) and all the problems associated with that would not exist (maybe even les wars)! (Arguably, one would - maybe - have had a environmental problems with acids and such, from the batteries; in that respect, vegetable oil would have been best, perhaps.)
It's funny (well...) to think how one little thing in our history can lead to such huge (and possibly devastating) consequences for humanity more then a century later.
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If the car is fully electric it requires A LOT of new infrastructure (which is especially problematic in big open spaces where caves are more common than your "modern world")
If the car is a hybrid it's simply less efficient than diesel at the moment. Advances in battery power will improve efficiency, but it will not remove the need for petrol.
I see nothing wrong with electric cars, but with the current state of technology +5 years is not going to bring about a revolution, hence my irritation of this [false] advertisement. It's just a lot of hype about nothing of consequence and everyone joins in the "Hi Ho, it's off to greener earth we go".
As for the "tailpipe" argument, I fully acknowledge your point of view and the proof behind it. I do not, however, believe that building the necessary infrastructure for this is feasible in the foreseeable future (read my life time). Not all of us live in big cities and/or "modern world" countries. It takes 5 years to design a power plant, let alone build it and the supporting infrastructure and agree with all the relevant parties who/what the said plant will be supporting. A car manufacturer is simply not going to make something for less than 10% of it's customer base unless it's a PR stunt or it has money to burn.
Take a reasonably developed country like Russia. It has huge CO2 production, there's no way in hell you'd get anyone there to use an electric car. In USA where people drive to their neighbours, you still have vast distances to cover. A car that has 300 mile range and takes 2 hours to charge is not feasible. Who will buy this car? City dwellers? Where is the need? Most of the people I know in cities don't own a car... How will the charge time reduce? Make a hybrid, charge it with petrol and we've gone full circle.
In closing I'd like to state that in a perfect world I would love it if we would start building the said infrastructure for electric powered [everything] using the most up to date and efficient technology available at the time. Be it nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal or gravity as long as it's renewable. But we don't live in a perfect world and it takes a long time to take theory and put it into practice.
Of course no one really cares about reality and just wants to get on the environmentally high horse and pipe on about electric cars. Show me some news about something actually practical, like someone developing a way for people to stop commuting to work.
Let's assume an average cruising consumption of about 15kw for a small car. At 60mph with a 300 mile range, that's 75kwh. To charge those cells in 5 minutes, assuming an 80% efficiency, will need 75 * 12 * 1.25 =~ 1.1 Megawatts. At 440V, even with a 3-phase charger, that's over 1000 amps. At 11KV it's a more reasonable 100A, but the weight of the inverter gear and the shielded connector in the car is considerable and you are going to spend rather more than 5 minutes padlocking the interlocks and cross checking before and after charge. At 440V the main issue will be the weight of the cables. Three cores of around 400mm cross section each are rather heavy.
It's possible to imagine a world in which fuel stations supply exchange cells, but given the natural nervousness of most drivers when close to empty, it's unlikely to be practical or cost effective.
The model is wrong. You have to imagine a world in which car parks have charging stations that charge at reasonable rates, as do hotels and houses. You will need a general beefing up of the electricity distribution network, and you will need plenty of nuclear, solar and wind energy sources. And people will have to plan maybe a little further ahead than they do at present. Long trips will mandate an overnight stop. Probably a good thing as the only accidents I have ever had were after driving too long in a day.
On that model with a more reasonable 10-hour charge, the necessary charging rate is about 9KW - still a heavy cable, but with a socket about the size and complexity of the sort used for portable machines in factories and for boat shorepower.
Just don't try to use your wind turbine. In our location, to run my small car on its current, fairly low usage cycle, I would need a 6M diameter turbine on a 40M pylon, and I suspect the neighbours would object.
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