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Ultracapacitor Bus Recharges At Each Stop
TechReviewAl writes "A US company and its Chinese partner are piloting a bus powered by ultracapacitors in Washington DC. Ultracapacitors lack the capacity of regular batteries but are considerably cheaper and can be recharge completely in under a minute. Sinautec Automobile Technologies, based in Arlington, VA, and its Chinese partner, Shanghai Aowei Technology Development Company, have spent the past three years demonstrating the approach with 17 municipal buses on the outskirts of Shanghai. The executive director of Sinautec touts the energy efficiency of this approach: 'Even if you use the dirtiest coal plant on the planet [to charge an ultracapacitor], it generates a third of the carbon dioxide of diesel.'"
The next model will come with a flux supercapacitor, and will generate several sequels.
Exxon buys them out, or lobbies against the tech and throws campaign money to the folks that make the municipal decisions, as big oil does with everything else progressive that possibly endangers their energy monopoly.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Engineer: Sorry, the idea didn't pan out. The battery works, but it's got no capacity. Useless.
Marketing Guy: What do you mean, no capacity? It can't be zero if it works, right?
Engineer: Sure, but it gets drained in seconds by any sort of circuit.
Marketing Guy: They recharge as fast as they drain, right?
Engineer: Yeah, sure. but...
Marketing Guy: "Recharges in under a minute". Nothing on the market can match it. When can we ship in volume?
The advantage with a bus is that its much easier to add new stops and routes. You only have to build up the charging station, whereas with a trolley, one has to tear up the road, put in tracks, and build stations.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
The gasoline-filled tank is under the seats? Call me old fashioned (and it won't be the first time) but I'll take a pennyfarthing, thank you.
Why would you be dead at a red light? If you're not moving then you're motors are drawing power.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Is what makes bus travel POSSIBLE!!!
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Springs and the support post are under the seat? Call me old fashioned (and it won't be the first time) but I'll take a horse, thank you.
Most caps can store charge for months or even years. They can store both high current and high voltage, but cannot deliver a sustained current. In that respect they're a bit like a high pressure air tank, where the gas doesn't change state to a liquid in the tank. (like CO2 does, those are called "constant air" tanks, and are more akin to lead acid batteries because they maintain their pressure until almost exhausted) Like an air tank can retain pressure for months without significant loss as long as there's no leak, so can capacitors.
I work on HV equipment and am all too aware of how capacitors (and things that behave like them... picture tubes in particular) can retain several hundred volts (life threatening) of power for months. Always have to discharge them before working on them, even if they HAVE been unplugged for a month.
Buses I've been on aren't known for their air conditioning anyway. When the bus is idling in a jam it's just sitting there and consuming almost zero of its power reserves.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
http://www.utexas.edu/research/cem/Energy%20Storage%20Composite%20Rotor.html
The University of Texas at Austin Center for Electromechanics (UT-CEM) has developed a 2 kW-hr flywheel battery for energy management on a hybrid electric urban bus. The battery will recover braking energy and store excess energy generated by the prime mover. The flywheel rotor, fabricated from high-strength composites, spins at 36,000 rpm at full charge (~825 m/s tip speed), and is housed in a vacuum enclosure to minimize windage drag. A cross-section of the flywheel system design is shown. Ensuring flywheel safety is a major issue that must be addressed in using flywheels for transportation applications. In support of this activity, the durability tests performed under Phase IV of the DARPA Flywheel Safety Program, focused on this flywheel design.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Inherently unstable bipedal locomotion under the hip? Call me old fashioned (and it won't be the first time) but I'll stick to swinging around on vines, thank you.
Limited stop options and the serious risk of drowning? Call me old fashioned (and it won't be the first time) but I'll take a Ultracapacitor Bus which recharges at each stop, thank you.
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
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