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"Home Batteries" Power Houses For a Week
tjansen writes "Panasonic has announced plans to create 'home batteries.' They are lithium-ion batteries large enough to power a house for a week, making energy sources such as solar and wind power more feasible. Also, you can buy energy when it is cheapest, and don't need to worry about power outages anymore."
I don't trust lithium-ion technology enough to want something with that much capacity in my basement. Wouldn't want my house to look like this
I have a thousand watt-hour battery that runs my sump pum during a power failure, but it's lead-acid. They've been around for a loooong time and are pretty damn stable (even so, this one is in a concrete-walled sump room.) Lithium-ions have a ways to go before they can be considered as trustworthy, and their higher energy density just makes them that much more dangerous during a catastrophic failure. Yet another reason why I'd never buy a hybrid vehicle. The idea of sitting atop a massive lithium-ion battery pack makes me far more nervous than I've ever been about a tank of gasoline.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Sounds like the shipstones Robert Heinlein wrote about years ago.
But how long does it take to charge?
At room temperature and a full charge LI lasts like a whole 2 years before battery life starts to seriously degrade, unless there has been some breakthrough in LI technology that I was unaware of. Keeping it 75% charged or so maximizes battery life, but who would want a partially charged battery when the power goes out for 3 days in the dead of winter? Also what about cost? I don't really see this as a cost saving measure, but I do understand the importance of having a battery solution when you are generating your own power from inconsistent natural sources.
zosxavius photography
We go from the future:
"Panasonic has announced plans to create 'home batteries."
That is, the batteries don't exist yet.
BUT:
Also, you can buy energy when it is cheapest [only there's nowhere to store it at the moment], and don't need to worry about power outages anymore [well actually you still have to worry, because they haven't actually invented the battery yet].
Who wrote this? I see a brilliant future for you writing prospectuses for investment bank companies. This is just hype. I for one will not be buying the $150k batteries that need special zoning permissions and need to be replaced every 3 years.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Can we get an actual source, not one that injects pointless banal commentary, and actual shows where they got their information? kthxbai
Wow, I can save pennies off my electricity! Now, how many centuries does it take for the battery to pay itself off?
LIthium is the second most common element in nature. And while there is a problem with air contact with Lithium, you are not going to kill all the earthworms with this.
Panasonic is going to create one of the hottest batteries available to date.
Wow, after all the exploding battery stories, I can't wait to have this model in my house. Does anyone actually proofread these articles?
I'm not interested in storing energy for a week, but if I can have one of these hooked to a smart meter, and get a rate reduction for allowing this battery to reduce demand from the grid during peak hours, I' d be very interested. That battery could even be a lot smaller (and cheaper) then the whole-week version.
The page linked to is an ad laden (carefully selected related items, yeah right) mess that has this third or fourth hand. Even physorg just has a press release that mentions the battery and focuses on Panasonic acquiring Sharp and how harsh the corporate environment is.
How big is this thing? What is it's capacity? Is that a Japanese house, or a North American one?
Third most common. H He LI.
Panasonic, another great American company leading the way to the future!
The average japanese household uses about 1/3rd the power of the average north american household. That works out to 11.7 kWh/day or 82 kWh a week.
This is why science is bad for children and humans and we need to go back to nature and live in harmony with the worms and other creatures.
No, but it does show that some children are bad at science.
The disadvantage is cost. There are many battery technologies more suitable for this application than lithium.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
LIthium is the second most common element in nature.
Um... your post makes me think that there's more stupidity in the universe than just about anything, inlcuding Hydrogen and Helium (and certainly Lithium).
Sorry, but if they have only just "announced plans", then, for the foreseeable future, I still can not power a house for a week, and I still need to worry about power outages.
Wake me up, when I can pick these up at Lowe's... Or, at least, order them online somewhere...
Indeed, TFA itself uses the proper tenses and gives the ETA for what currently can only be called "vaporware":
CmdrTaco, WTF?..
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
What place does fire and water sit?
I'm going to need a 16,000Ah rating at 48V, plus a 100kW inverter to power my 1600SF, 1960s ranch. Granted, it's not the most efficient home ever built, but it's all electric (yes, it's been upgraded to 400A/240V service, and I really do run through 800kWH a week during cold winter periods...which is when the electricity is most likely to fail).
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Some of these technologies are of no use to those of us that live in areas where the cost of energy is consistent all day and night and year round.
Part of that maybe the problem (no intelligence in the infrastructure). But in the meantime if I were to have solar or any other resource put up that would benefit from stored energy for later use, it'll throw the payback vs normal utility curve way off to where I'd have to live here for decades to get my money back in anything but smugness.
As far as LI battery technology, it seems that the Prius used NMhd batteries because the number of charge discharge cycles was greater, since the batteries in the story were expected to have a cycle per day, the owner would have to replace them realistically every 3-4 years.
As far as the greater energy content of LI batteries, that is a risk that is always present with batteries. As long as the controller / charger is smart and has a layer or two of fault checking, the risk of runaway thermal events is pretty low. (The problem people had with Lithium Ion AA cell batteries where they are available was when people put them into standard NiCad or NiMh chargers, which apply too much current too quickly and make them pop to start fires. Since this is an integrated system by Panasonic with no capacity to mix and match technology evident, I'd say the risks is low.)
It would be possible with standard deep cycle lead acid batteries, but than you have to have climate control for your batteries above and beyond that proposed, and than your dedicating a good chunk of floorspace to batteries (You can't stack them because of heat buildup when discharging). I know the Central Offices I've been in have had a good chunk of their floorspace dedicated to just power, and even than only for the few minutes it takes for the diesel to kick over .. and you don't want to know what happens to expensive telephone equipment when it starts getting fed progressive amounts lower than 48VDC.)
The lack of lithium in the universe is one of the great unsolved mysteries in astronomy.
I already have three [lead-acid] batteries providing emergency power in my house: the burglar alarm, the alarm's GSM modem, and the UPS serving the network cabinet. The alarm batteries are for obvious reasons; the network UPS is because I got tired of resetting the damn modem and router after every one-second power failure.
Outside of that, considering how rare power failures are, we have no reason for a whole-house UPS or generator. Should a hurricane cause a multi-day power failure, my calculations show that it's not worth $1600 for a standby generator to save $70 of food in the fridge. Like any good Florida residents, we have non-perishable food, bottled water, and a gas chainsaw at the ready. Our cell phone batteries can be charged off our cars' lighter sockets, or in the worst case, I could cannibalize the 12 V battery from the burglar alarm and MacGyverize a phone charger to it.
If our neighborhood should ever get a sewer main, there's a chance my house would need a sewer grind/lift pump. Likewise, if I ever decide to install plumbing in the basement--which is below the septic tank--I'd need a lift pump. Either of these situations would, for obvious reasons, tempt me to lay down $1600 for a 7 kW auto-start standby generator.
Preferentially, the one, in a fireplace, the other, in a stream. Next question?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Large UPS are common for data centers. But they are expensive and time consuming to maintain. In a data center the cost and time are justified. But for a home I would question the value.
This could be useful for our hut that has no electricity. Charge it during daytimes using solar-panels and hopefully it will buffer enough for it to be usefull. :)
The only advantage of lithium batteries is high energy density, which is irrelevant for a static installation. For powering something as long lasting as a house it would be better to use something more robust. Nickel-iron batteries have low energy density but are very robust. I wouldn't want a house battery I'd have to replace every few years.
I'd prefer an EESU from EESTOR (if that ever happens), since it would be cheaper on a buck-per-Joule level and it would last for a very, very long time. Second to that, nickel-iron batteries, which are heavy and inefficient, but survive much abuse and have working lifetimes far longer than that of most other batteries. Pity they are no longer made in the United States; much of their price is presumably in just shipping them here.
Wow! "Plans" to develop batteries in 2011. Stop the press!! And, I have "plans" to develop a pocket watch-sized nuclear reactor for my home in 2012. It'll be designed with gum drops and built by my own sense of self-promotion. Perhaps they should have mentioned that each home battery will ship with a copy of Duke Nukem Forever and delivered by Saint Nick. Please...
The page linked to is an ad laden (carefully selected related items, yeah right) mess that has this third or fourth hand.
True. The source is a badly written Bloomberg story which says the new battery has a capacity of "3.4 amperes per hour". I wrote to the reporter pointing out the meaninglessness of that number. The useful numbers for battery technologies are $/KwH and Kg/KwH, and they don't have those. The only useful piece of information in the story is that Panasonic will make a real announcement tomorrow.
sorry, but this is BS.
50kWh Li-Ion battery pack in tesla roadster weights about 500kg, and I'm not sure if I want to know how much it cost. if you wants to know, it is about 36'000 USD (wiki...)
if your home consumes about 1kW per hour at average, these (half a ton, 36 grand) batteries batteries can power it for about two days. a week ? 1.5 ton and over 100 thousand for batteries !
are they nuts ?
what about safety? if they are overcharged or pierced it could have fatal consequences. how long will they last? even if it was 10 years, the cost is crazy.
both wrong. the periodic table has nothing to do with commonness.
From: http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/periodic/faq/what-element-is-most-abundant.shtml :
"On earth, oxygen is the most common element, making up about 47% of the earth's mass. Silicon is second, making up 28%, followed by aluminum (8%), iron (5%), magnesium (2%), calcium (4%), sodium (3%), and potassium (3%). All of the remaining elements together make up less than 1% of the earth's mass."
Sig out of date
While this was staged for demonstration purposes, it demonstrates the power Lithium Ion batteries can expel when they fail.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeWq6rWzChw
Pretty sure I don't want a huge one of these in my basement...
For the purpose of storing intermittent wind and solar power,
the electric utility companies could use mass installations of
these batteries. Assuming they don't have hydro dams to
run in reverse using the wind and solar, that is.
Just like it doesn't actually make sense for everyone on your block
to own a lawnmower or circular saw or carpet steam cleaning machine,
it doesn't really make economic sense for everyone to have their own
batteries either. A central utility could buy and maintain batteries
with economies of scale.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Gah, if you don't know basic stuff about science, I suggest you Google before posting! Or follow this link.
Well actually there is. When you look at the picture it looks awfully similar to a whole bunch of 18650's shoved into a box.
and besides. Lithium ion sucks, anyone who has owned an iPhone/iPod for more than a year will know this. -20% a year at room temperature, 500 cycle life.
The only way this would be a viable way to power a house is if you took an absolute crapload of 'spent' li-ion batteries from consumer electronics for free and assembled the pack yourself then put it in the shed to extend it's short lifetime. I'd say your average spent li-ion will have a better energy density than a brand new lead-acid battery
Bearing in mind what happens when it comes into contact with the most common (i.e. oxygen), at least here on earth, I don't think it's *that* much of a mystery.
Don't put it in your basement, or surround it with a metal garbage can and fireplace cinder blocks. I'm not going to let a remote chance of this happening stop me from saving money, esp when it is such an easy "disaster" to mitigate. Wasn't each electric light bulb a potential bomb when they first came out?
Certainly there's some risk of fire or explosion from a li-ion battery cell. I imagine just as there is risk of explosion from that propane tank in your BBQ grill, hot water heater, camp stove/lantern fuel, car tank full of gas, air compressor, and explosive diarrhea that you certainly no longer keep in or around your home!
But y'know, mindless paranoia has saved you from all those hybrid (NiMH) car battery explosions (that don't really happen... ever...). Phew, glad you dodged that bullet. Not to mention your link! God forbid ATT's equipment *outside* your house should fail catastrophically.
It's one thing to have a healthy fear of something that you can use it *safely*-- like say a gun or vacuum cleaner. It's entirely another to be ignorantly paranoid.
+1 Disagree
There are pure electrics (like the Tesla) and home-made plugins (like the California Prius Mods) that use LIon, but the mainstream hybrid cars you see on the street use NimH... fundamentally safer than a gas tank. Gas tanks, much like LIon batteries, are extremely explosive and flammable. Adding LIon batteries to a vehicle with a gas tank makes this even more dangerous, adding NiMH does not.
In a home, weight is not an issue, so deep-cycle lead-acid or similar heavyweight technologies are the obvious way to go.
What place does fire and water sit?
Water is a combination of H and O, and fire is Li. The latter might pose "interesting" engineering challenges for this product.
You silly goose; being part of an ionic compound doesn't destroy the element. GP's statement includes lithium compounds.
dude are you fucking kidding me? Ill bet life was a lot easier a thousand years ago when everyone farmed for twenty years, got rickets or dysentery, then died by the time they were 25, had no wealth or land or civil rights. Yea, thats way better than my life right now. Youre a fucking moron. Go move to zimbabwe or the DRC and see how you like living in harmony with nature.
Perhaps there are better battery chemistries that we should be pursuing. I purchased a solar-powered gizmo that uses a Lithium Iron Phosphate battery. While the conventional Li-ion batteries have somewhat higher energy to weight ratios, this isn't as important for something sitting in one's basement as it is in a laptop you've got to lug around all day.
Have gnu, will travel.
The manufacturing of said batteries, in addition to being expensive (working against the return-on-investment aspect of the house battery), is rather detrimental to the environment (kind of like solar cells, especially the old ones). One has to wonder whether building and using this system will result in a net benefit to the environment, let alone your pocket.
(((dB)))
These only make financial sense if you have a BEV you can charge off the batteries. Same for photovoltaic solar cells. They take 10-15 years to pay off otherwise. With a BEV solar panels can pay off in 5 years on 15kmiles/year (in the E.U.).
Taxi companies. Big milages. Of course, feasible BEVs are required[1].
Solar thermal panels OTOH can pay off in 3-4 years if you size them to replace both your DHW and CH.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solectria_Sunrise
Deleted
Also, you can buy energy when it is cheapest
You can charge them at night if your power company has lower rates at night. It's pointless though as any savings in the cost disappear in the inefficiencies of the ac->dc for charging, the heat losses during charging, and the dc->ac conversion to use that power again. A 10% savings in the power cost is stupid when you give up %15 of the energy trying to save it.
Bearing in mind what happens when it comes into contact with the most common (i.e. oxygen)
from an elemental standpoint, nothing happens to it. it is lithium before it reacted, and is lithium after the reaction...just bonded to different atoms.
The lack of lithium in the universe is one of the great unsolved mysteries in astronomy.
In solar fusion, it is rather difficult to form Li from H and He. The "normal" form of He is He-4. If H-1 is added to this, Li-5 is formed. However, Li-5 is not stable, and decays to He-5, which decays to He-4. Therefore, it is not possible to form stable Li using the most abundant isotopes of H and He.
Heavier elements are usually formed by combining multiple He-4 nuclei. This can give Be-8, C-12, O-16, and so on. These elements and isotopes show correspondingly high abundances in the universe as a whole.
In order to form any isotope of Li, the Li-5 step must be completely avoided. Instead of adding H-1 to He-4, either H-2 or H-3 must be added, forming stable Li-6 or Li-7. The H-2 and H-3 are present in much lower concentrations than H-1, and so we are much less likely for these to interact with He-4. There is some interaction, which is where the current Li comes from.
Does the battery cost more than the house? Given the cost of laptop batteries that use Li-ion I would think so.
Deep cycle lead acid can last a lot longer than that with shallow cycling, intelligent charging and the use of a desulphator. Mine are over ten years old now, work fine. They've lasted that long because I never beat on them.
Telco exchanges had/have big aquarium looking lead acid backup batteries that lasted twenty years then tons got sold off cheap to enthusiasts where they were put into service for the earlier adopter off grid solar guys. This is *old* mother earth news and home power magazine info, and the battery subject has been looked at in depth by literally hundreds of people, and year after decade lead acid still rules for the cash involved for large applications, until you get to utility scale, where it is pumped water storage and turbines, etc.
Lead acid is still the king for stationary storage purposes when it comes to amp hours/dollars, for home use. I seriously doubt that lithium ion will come close for a long time, I mean, look at what replacement cellphone and laptop batteries cost.
And how many just car starter batteries do we see at whatever*mart or the auto parts stores that use lithium tech yet? Yep, about zilch, people don't want to spend a thousand bucks for a starter battery. There are still some advances in lead acid out there, the most common you see for cars is the spiral system from Optima http://www.optimabatteries.com/home.php , and the Firefly company http://www.fireflyenergy.com/ is allegedly going to start having more fleet sales "soon" with their lead "sponge" tech, and perhaps eventually normal retail.
The cheapest locally sourced way to get lead acid today that I have found is to look around at forklift stores and get an electric traction battery pack @ 12 to 48 VDC (probably other voltages as well, haven't looked for awhile now).
They are *heavy* and come in steel cases with lifting points and welded bus bars.
[citation needed] /morbid curiosityZ
Stories like this always have the flavor of a urban legend.
The automated roll bar deployment is a feature of some BMW covertibles only.
It uses springs. Not explosives.
Emergency services guidelines September 2009.
For a full description with handsome cutaway illustrations in color click to pages 22 and 23 of the PDF.
The oceans contain about 230 billion tonnes of lithium. The cost to extract lithium from seawater is currently around four times the market value, but should come down with further research. Building these "home batteries" may or may not make economic sense, but the lack of lithium is not a fundamental problem.
There are people out there who want to keep stuffing the hotdogs in their mouth, slurping down the 100 ounce sodas and riding the battery powered carts at Wal-Mart, but love advocating that how the stuff is bad and that everybody else but them should live like how life was like in the Middle Ages.
Technology is part of our life now. I know nobody who is willing to give up electricity, running water, basic sanitation, basic immunization (where diseases that we don't give a shit about now like mumps, chicken pox, measles, and smallpox were extremely life threatening 100 or so years ago), car/bike/bus/teleporter transportation without stepping in horse shit on cobblestone roads, basic drainage so streets wouldn't turn into bio hazards come a rainstorm. I'm also sure we don't want an infant mortality rate of 25% again, nor a mean life span of 20 years.
So, when some unenlightened individual says that we have to give up and live in caves for the environment, they deserve the same category as the guy who is talking to himself on a street cornet and doesn't have a BlueTooth earpiece. The world cannot and will not go back to living in as they did even 100 years back, even if a nuclear disaster takes out 99% of the population.
First, you really need a lot more than a mere 100AH for a 2.4KVA inverter. Second, your continuous charger is unlikely to deliver anything like 30A into 100AH. If it did, the risk of combustion would be non-negligible, and also you would shorten the battery life - not a good idea in a standby application.
I take as a rule of thumb an absolute short term max of C1. That means 100A from a 100AH battery. To power a 2.4KVA inverter I would recommend 400AH min. For this, a 30A smart charger is about right as this gives a nice safe 8% charge. The cells should be paralleled with minimum 35 sq millimetre cable (50 preferred) with properly crimped contacts and hot melt adhesive lined heatshrink over the exposed wire. The fuse should be 400A and a 50 sq millimeter cable should connect to the inverter.
A better idea if you can manage it is to find a suitable DC motor for the pump, but for this you might need to put your cells in a 24V configuration. This gives a much more manageable 120A, though of course you do need a rather large relay for the motor.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
If you could substantially increase the number of full (or nearly-full) charge cycles in the lifetime of a battery, then you could buy off-peak power and sell it back during peak hours. Of course, some things would have to change for this to be lucrative, but it's not an impossible dream. All it really has to do is pay for itself and people will do it, because it gets them whole-house UPS... and we all win.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That sounds like bad news for all the carbon-based lifeforms.
just gone out and bought a VW diesel TDI 2010 model. It's as quiet as a petrol engine when running, and only (very) slightly louder than a petrol engine while idling. The exhaust is very clean...
As for efficiency, the TDI is currently averaging 49 miles/gallon for the sportwagen, that's real honest-to-goodness driving on both freeway and city streets, and is ~7mpg higher than the official rating of the car.
I didn't quite believe it, so I did the calculation myself based on mileage and purchased fuel, and my figures came to 52 miles/gallon. If anything, the car is under-reporting the fuel economy. Not to mention that diesel is actually cheaper per gallon than unleaded.
Note that the jetta sportwagen is the identical size to the normal jetta (it's just a different top), and that the engine is only a 2.0 litre engine, smaller than the 2.5 litre base jetta engine.
In short, I don't think you could actually be any more wrong about diesel engines.
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Any form of stored energy can present a fire hazard, and yes those fires are often "spectacular." A "whole house battery" should be subject to the same sorts of construction rules that apply to things like home fuel storage tanks. It's not for the fainthearted, but that hasn't stopped people from making good and productive use of energy storage for centuries.
On average, I'm sure that most cars have less than 1/2 tank of gas at any given time. Think about it. People fall into one of 3 groups: 1. Those who only put enough gas in their tank for what they can afford until pay-day ($10.00 for now) (100% of time 1/2 tank) Group 2 is probably the majority of the people (say 60% to 80%). Group 1 probably covers 2/3 of the rest. With group 3 brining up the last 1/3 of 20 to 40% (at best).
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
Robert Cringely had an article about Home batteries a while back. http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2001/pulpit_20010510_000690.html His idea was a response to the rolling blackouts California was experiencing in 2001. Power would be cached at night to eliminate peaks in demand.
I propose a common name, week batteries, that really expresses the value and utility of this new technology.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Fascinating that hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon don't even make the list. The things we take for granted.
I'm not even sure where he got his prejudices from. Certainly not from the rest of the world, where diesel is a preference. (If they sucked, they wouldn't both cost more and be more popular, now would they?) Personally, I blame Ford and the inexpensive gas engine for this shortcoming.
Yeah, some diesels burnt too much oil. Some ran like crap, particularly large trucks when dumping too much fuel. If anything, the smaller ones run better, in my limited experience.
But even an old Cummins or Detroit runs better than a similar gas engine, by quite a bit. Considering the amount of junk people throw in landfills, I'd think not throwing huge chunks of metal out to rust would be on the priorities list of the greens and warmers. But, apparently, most want to actually add more heavy metals to our waste heaps via their EV batteries instead of using what we've already got.
Also, the idle on a diesel isn't as hard on the engine as with a gas engine (also using significantly less fuel). That's important in colder climates, where a lot of people start their cars to warm up before going out.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
As of the time of this posting it's sleeting, and we face the prospect of 30+ MPH winds along with ~6 inches of snow.
On the subject of a battery back up system for a house I have to say, "Duh, I wish it would have been done sooner." It's a little unpleasant to think that my evening could be a long, cold night with howling winds and sleets of ice.
..but hey, maybe we'll get lucky.
Of course the safety of the batteries is a concern, but right now I just wish this would have been standard a long time ago. Heck, solar roofs and possibly wind power should have been standard a long time ago (reducing, not eliminating, the reliance on a public power system), but that's a whole other rant.
I seem to remember Mitsubishi announcing a self-contained, maintenance-free, appartment-block scaled reactor a couple of years ago. Sounds like a much better plan to me, if you get over the nuclear scare.
On earth, oxygen is the most common element, making up about 47% of the earth's mass. Silicon is second, making up 28%...
Seeing as how most rocks are mostly silica - silicon dioxide - and most of the mass of the earth is rock, this doesn't surprise me. Oxygen's tendency to bind up with everything into heavier compounds (aluminum oxides, iron oxides, etc) nicely explains its dominance on a rocky planet, too.
I wonder now how different a planet not predominantly silica would be. I've always presumed the other rocky planets in our solar system are made up of mostly the same kind of rock, but what difference would it make if a planet was mostly, say, iron oxide instead?
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Inspection? $15 fee? I think an brand new (empty) tank is like $40. I just assumed people cut the empties into BBQ grills.
Diesel prices fluctuate - but one thing remains constant - diesel packs more energy per gallon than gasoline, so that explains a small part of the fuel economy.
If we all drove diesel cars, gasoline would get very very cheap....there's not too much flexibility to the ratio of diesel/gasoline that comes from a given barrel of crude.
Latest energy mining trends in the US suggest that we should be looking for LNG (methane) burning cars in the not too distant future.
I have an Audi A4 TDI - probably the same engine as your Jetta. I average better than 50mpg on good drives, if I'm getting the conversions right.
But where a hybrid would be really useful (particularly a diesel hybrid) is the sort of urban driving I do on many days, where my average speed is less than 20mph on heavily congested roads. Then I only get 35mpg.
I used to drive a Subaru Forester with a 2.5litre petrol engine over the same route. I was going through at least 3/4 of a tank of fuel each week. The A4 I fill up about once every three to four weeks or so. Granted, it's a bigger tank (65 litres vs 55 litres), but that's about 40 litres per week against 60 litres per three weeks.
And it's just a nice car to drive... :-D Quieter inside than the Forester was, and much quieter than the brand new Holden Commodore hire car I drove a few weeks back. (That's a Pontiac G8 for you folks over there)
It's always good to understand if you have a money problem (not enough energy) or a time problem (usage patterns).
The battery is basically looking to time-shift consumption.
Since weight and space is not at premium, Li ion seems like a bad idea, and since TFA just talks about "looking at" the conclusion will probably be "not feasible". What is feasible is a big flywheel. A 1 ton flywheel can store more than 50kWh. You can build one yourself, and bury it in your back yard. The only challenge would be to place it in vacuum.
What you need:
1. Wheel bearings and HW. Cheap, solid and strong. Find a complete rear suspension with disk brakes and mount it with the axle vertical. Replace the grease with vacuum rated grease. $20
2. Fiberglass (e-type) and epoxy for wheel. Build it in place like a spoked rim on top of a wheel that fits your vertical read suspension. $1000 You can use carbon fiber, but e-glass is just as strong, just less stiff, but for your use, e-glass is OK. Dont use s-glass.
3. Electric motor/generator. Pick a flywheel diameter that allow a rotational speed where the motor is happy. Use a brushless design. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel#Physics
4. Build it into a vacuum and bury it in your back yard. The reason to bury it is both to get it out of the way, and to have a solid mass to capture parts if the flywheel disintegrates. Above ground, and you will have a lot of bullet velocity fragments that will pierce your neighbors houses. Dirt will stop this easily. A small vacuum pump should be added.
Balance, clean and evacuate the whole setup carefully, and speed it up. One note of caution: If you plan to run it fast, balance it carefully. Even the weight of a fingerprint can cause the whole wheel to vibrate above safe levels. This was discovered violently by the Iranian nuclear scientists when setting up their Uranium hexafluoride centrifuges.
Have fun.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
on the mileage... You said petrol, so I assume you're in the UK. you are aware that imperial gallons are 4.22 litres while American gallons are only 3.88 ? (from a Canadian... the only ones who know about both...)
No, I'm from the UK. Been living in CA for the last 5 years or so. All them there gallons are pure ole US gallons. No 'mpeerial thingamubobs around here, no siree :)
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Hydrogen is #10 at .12% of crust mass. .03%, but passes all other elements in industrial production at 8.6 gigatons/year, not counting agriculture. Iron is next for production at 1.2 gigatons. .005%, right below lanthanum and yttrium! And Lithium is #33.
Carbon is #15 at
Nitrogen is #31 at
You can find the full list at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth's_crust. I love Wikipedia. That is all.
That one was tested by Mythbusters. IIRC, they concluded that it was almost impossible to launch the bumper accidentally.
And here's a link to mythbustersresults.com so you can check it yourself. Assuming they don't just make up the results on that site, of course.
I'll agree on fuel usage but not on fuel cost. In Wisconsin diesel is always atleast a $1 more per gallon.
Not the case here in CA. It does vary (seemingly depending on the supplier), but Chevron stations always price their diesel lower than all other kinds of gas...
My car is a rag-top, so of course it takes the high-octane gas. The difference between mine and my wifes (hers is the diesel) prices per gallon is ~25 to 30 cents/gallon.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
That's why Malthusian disasters haven't happened.
They have. Just not to you.
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At least Greenpeace Germany thinks that EVs are not all that great. They try to push the automobile industry to develop more efficient fuel cars, by more supercharging, downsizing etc.
After the crap articles in "gizmo" rags, the actual announcement from Panasonic was released on December 25. "Panasonic Corporation today announced the development of two new 18650-type (18 mm in diameter, 65 mm in height) high-capacity lithium-ion battery cells[1] for use in laptop computers and environmentally-friendly energy technologies. The company boosted the capacity of 18650-type battery cells, which are widely used in laptops, by improving electrode materials. By improving the positive electrode, it has achieved the 3.4 Ah cell which offers 20 percent greater capacity than the current 2.9 Ah model. The 3.4 Ah cell will be mass produced in fiscal 2012 ending in March 2012. The 4.0 Ah cell, which has 30 percent greater capacity compared to the 2.9 Ah cell, uses a next generation electrode material, a silicon based alloy for the negative electrode, substituting carbon. The 4.0 Ah cell will be mass produced in fiscal 2013 ending in March 2013."
So that's it. Lithium-ion batteries with 20% more capacity in 2012, and another 17% for 2013, or a 38% improvement over the next 3 years. Nice for laptops, very helpful for electric cars.
I think everyone questions the value of having a large battery pack in their basement. I know I did.
So I thought of alternative energy storage - like kinetic. My idea was to have the solar cells pump water into an above ground tank, 10 meters high. With water weighing ~1 ton per cubic meter, even a small tank would suffice. My back-of-the-napkin calculations revealed that a tank a few meters in diameter and a few meters high could hold enough energy in the water downflow to power a house for a month.
The only problem was that building something capable of suspending many tons of water at a height of 10 meters was neither trivial nor inexpensive. And this even without the problem of finding a small, highly efficient hydroelectric turbine. Nor of that of solving the water-freezes-in-winter problem.
I don't have a natural gas furnace because of a religious belief in spending a few thousand dollars for HVAC; I have one because it is the most cost-effective form of HVAC at the moment. It's not a matter so much of what is possible, but for most homeowners, a matter of the most cost-effective way of heating and cooling their abode. *Everyone* wants free energy, but if it were possible, people would already be doing it. Batteries are hardly news, except when they make the conventional methods of powering one's house economically obsolete.
Maintenance is a matter of the cost equation. Most people would care less about replacement every 3 years if they saved money over conventional energy sources. Heck, I have to change the oil in my car every 3 months, and even that's not a major burden.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
1) EV batteries are designed to be recycled. Unsurprisingly. Dead ones are worth cash and are not discarded.
2) American diesels emit ridiculous amounts of particulates. They suck compared to Euro diesels. US law stupidly assumes that all diesels emit particulates at the level of crappy Detroit diesels, because politicians are techno-illiterate.
3) So-called "greens" have a long-standing love affair with the diesel engine because bio-diesel is carbon neutral.
4) Opposing sustainable technologies is just the latest way to be an anti-technology whack job. Move over Amish!