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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."
"Reserves", for anything (Lithium, oil, whatever), are calculated according to what is predicted to be economically feasible to extract within the near future. If something suddenly spikes demand, resulting in a higher price, then new sources "magically" become available. That's why Malthusian disasters haven't happened.
But broadly speaking, yes, there's probably not enough Lithium in the Earth's crust to run all the cars and houses like this.
Not a typewriter
But for the individual homeowner, it really does seem like overkill. If our power becomes so erratic that these things actually start to make sense, I'm going to say we've a lot more serious issues to deal with.
Now, I actually have a similar set up to this, I have a bank of 10 110Ah lead gelcell batteries connected to a 3500w Xantrex charger/inverter. It's worth every penny.
You see, the thing is, I live in the third world. Around here, we have power outages about once every two weeks. Usually they last less than a couplefew hours, but occasionally they go much longer, the record since I've been here is three days. While I will admit that I reduced my power consumption for the three day one once I found out how long it was going to last, I still kept the important stuff going (fridge, water pump, computer etc).
Most gringos around here have some sort of generator, be it gasoline, diesel or LPG, and while the initial investment is lower, I think the battery system is far superior. For one thing, it's almost completely silent (the cooling fans kick in on the inverter, and the ceiling fans start to hum because of the modified sine power the inverter provides), and for another it's got an instant transfer of power (Even with a automatic transfer switch on a generator, there's a slight delay while the generator warms up, not to mention that the humid, salty air around here tends to do bad things to ATSes, an dyou really don't want to see what happens when they fail so as to leave the generator on when the line power comes on.).
While those are nice, what's really superior is the fact that even when the line power is flowing, the battery system serves to condition it, brown outs and surges both.
Oh, and even with the efficiency losses, it's cheaper to recharge the batteries than it would be to buy the gas/diesel/LPG.
While I will admit that my case is not typical, I think it's foolish of you to dismiss this technology out of hand.
I needed a sig so people would know who I am, but I was too drunk to make something witty, so you get this instead.
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!