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We need high temperature energy storage and that requires large quantities of molten salt, so while NaCl only starts to melts at 800C or something like that, having very high temperature solar power is good for efficiency. We'll make everything out of ceramics fired in solar ovens to contend with the corrosion issues. If solar ovens can liquefy Tungsten, then we can use Alumina Oxide ceramics and even have our own Aluminum smelting operations so we don't need to import Aluminum. We need to restart our ceramics, metals, and semiconductor industries, so the first step is having the solar thermal power to do that. We should economize on Uranium / Thorium by only using that energy source to supply the electricity to our cities.
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The world is running low on rotten dinosaur juice.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/O … Peaks.html
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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Solar concentrate furnace are very possible here on earth as the scale would be greatly larger for mars but do able once we have a foot hold.
https://www.energymatters.com.au/renewa … ar-em5596/
The temperatures needed to produce iron from iron ore need to reach between 1,000 and 1,500 degrees Celsius. That requires an enormous amount of energy. According to Low-Tech Magazine, it takes 20-25 megajoules (5,550 to 6,950 watt-hours) to produce one kilogram of iron from its ore. The researchers state heliostats (mirrors) can reflect sunlight directly into a furnace, making it up to 80 per cent energy efficient. This is a big step up from steam-powered electricity generation that is just 10 – 15 per cent energy efficient.
Dr. Ekman says 2,000–3,000 of these mirrors precisely positioned over 70,000 square metres would be sufficient for a 10 megawatt solar powered reactor. Their plan is to use a hybrid power system; enabling the use of conventional power when needed and allowing for 24/7 iron ore processing.
Development of a High Flux Solar Furnace Facility at CSIRO for Australian Research and Industry
The Physics of Solar Concentration
https://physics.stackexchange.com/quest … d-solar-po
for the do it yourselfer
https://builditsolar.com/Projects/Conce … rating.htm
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Tesla's Musk halts use of bitcoin for car purchases https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-st … 26642.html
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To get a sense of how far we need to scale up solar furnaces to produce steel, 2019 global steel production amounted to 1,870,000,000t or 1,870,000,000,000kg. An Electric Arc Furnace requires 475,000Wh/t, so 888,250,000,000,000Wh / 888.25TWh of energy were devoted to steel production alone. The constant power requirement to deliver that much steel is 888,250,000,000,000Wh / 8,760 hours per year, so 101,398,401,826Wh for every hour of the year. In other words, 10,140 of the 10MW furnaces could supply that much thermal power. This corresponds quite well with the current "mini-melt" mentality towards steel production in the west. If 70,000m^2 of mirrors / lenses produce 10MW of power, or 709,800,000m^2 / 709.8km^2 of land area devoted to steel production using solar thermal power. The best places to produce steel and ceramics would obviously be deserts, and the land use devoted to steel production is quite reasonable, given its high value to society for practically every structure, transportation solution, and a myriad of finished products.
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Kbd, whilst solar furnaces like this could provide a lot of process heat, there still needs to be a chemical reducing agent to reduce the iron II oxide into metallic iron. Heat alone will not get the job done. The reducing agent is usually CO, though hydrogen could potentially be used.
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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Still amazed that the price at the pump is still $2.99 a gallon here....
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You knew that it was not going to last and today the price at the pump went up 6 cents and now is at $3.05 a gallon.
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The global economy is now facing limits to growth due to physical resource shortages. Gail Tverberg shows that these are not primarily the result of the corona virus epidemic. Chinese coal production stopped growing around 2013. This places limits on their steel and concrete production. Global oil production reached its historic peak in 2018 and global car sales reached their peak and started declining 2016-2017. The world is now ~5 years past historic peak production for cars; 3 years past peak for oil and 8 years past peak for coal. Peak coal, also means Peak Steel.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2021/05/27/d … -covid-19/
Gail speculates that part of the reasoning behind lockdowns and hysteria inducing propaganda, was to encourage changes in behaviour that would limit energy resource consumption. And in the western world it seems to have worked. Working from home and restrictions on foreign travel, led to sizable reductions in oil consumption, freeing up valuable diesel for real goods transportation.
One might also speculate that peaking Chinese coal production will stall any hopes of a renewable energy transition, especially projects involving photovoltaics. The two most important factors in PV manufacturing costs are the price of electricity and the cost of capital. The Chinese came to dominate PV module production, because coal based electricity was cheaper than anywhere else in the world and the Chinese government supported expansion of this sector with very low interest rate loans. The ERoEI of Solar PV in northern climates is so poor, that solar electricity is in reality just stored Chinese coal-based energy.
Between 2008 and 2016, the Chinese PV global market share went from zero to 70+%. There are now no PV module manufacturers left in Europe and the few remaining US producers, like First Solar, plan to close these operations, due to lack of profitability. For the wealthy consumer nations, purchase of these artifially cheap modules was assisted by low interest rates and low bond yields, both of which allow high capital investments with low real returns to be tolerated. So the PV industry was effectively subsidised at both ends. With Chinese electricity prices rising and inflation making future interest rate rises unavoidable, previous cost reductions in the price of solar electricity, which owed more to financial manipulation than to any technological innovation, may be in for a sharp reversal.
Plans for energy transition will therefore require a radical rethink. The is no hope whatever of replacing more than a fraction of present fossil fuel energy consumption with renewable energy. The material and embodied energy requirements are not affordable without the subsidies allowed by very cheap coal and oil based energy inputs at every point in the manufacturing process. In the absence of fossil fuels, high living standards can be maintained only by transitioning to energy sources with a similarly high ERoEI. The most promising options being fusion and fission based energy sources, or hybrid solutions involving both.
Last edited by Calliban (2021-06-09 10:50:19)
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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This is a type of Malthusian argument, an odd one on a forum where most people wish to see the colonisation of a planet with the same land area as Earth.
Leaving aside 2020 because of Covid, world production of motor vehicles has increased by something like a staggering 50% since 2000.
So that gives some context. I would agree you probably can't sustain that sort of rate of growth decade after decade. But also consumer trends are changing. Improved public transport and cycle routes, home working, widespread use of home delivery for groceries and other goods, and use of club cars has certainly led to changes in a city like London where young people don't feel the same pressure to acquire a car as two or three decades ago.
As renewable energy replaces fossil fuels, there will be plenty of oil available to use in plastics. Cars are now something like 50% plastic and that could go a lot higher.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck2x5qu6HX0
This writer (writing 5 years ago) reckons we can make and store electrolysed hydrogen for just over 5p per KwH. Not sure if that's correct but if it is, total green energy systems cannot be far away. Even in northern latitudes like Western Europe they will be cheaper than nuclear power.
There may have been some marginal benefit to the PV industry from Chinese state capitalist investment and low fossil fuel prices but the main driver of downward PV energy prices has been technological innovation.
The global economy is now facing limits to growth due to physical resource shortages. Gail Tverberg shows that these are not primarily the result of the corona virus epidemic. Chinese coal production stopped growing around 2013. This places limits on their steel and concrete production. Global oil production reached its historic peak in 2018 and global car sales reached their peak and started declining 2016-2017. The world is now ~5 years past historic peak production for cars; 3 years past peak for oil and 8 years past peak for coal. Peak coal, also means Peak Steel.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2021/05/27/d … -covid-19/Gail speculates that part of the reasoning behind lockdowns and hysteria inducing propaganda, was to encourage changes in behaviour that would limit energy resource consumption. And in the western world it seems to have worked. Working from home and restrictions on foreign travel, led to sizable reductions in oil consumption, freeing up valuable diesel for real goods transportation.
One might also speculate that peaking Chinese coal production will stall any hopes of a renewable energy transition, especially projects involving photovoltaics. The two most important factors in PV manufacturing costs are the price of electricity and the cost of capital. The Chinese came to dominate PV module production, because coal based electricity was cheaper than anywhere else in the world and the Chinese government supported expansion of this sector with very low interest rate loans. The ERoEI of Solar PV in northern climates is so poor, that solar electricity is in reality just stored Chinese coal-based energy.
Between 2008 and 2016, the Chinese PV global market share went from zero to 70+%. There are now no PV module manufacturers left in Europe and the few remaining US producers, like First Solar, plan to close these operations, due to lack of profitability. For the wealthy consumer nations, purchase of these artifially cheap modules was assisted by low interest rates and low bond yields, both of which allow high capital investments with low real returns to be tolerated. So the PV industry was effectively subsidised at both ends. With Chinese electricity prices rising and inflation making future interest rate rises unavoidable, previous cost reductions in the price of solar electricity, which owed more to financial manipulation than to any technological innovation, may be in for a sharp reversal.
Plans for energy transition will therefore require a radical rethink. The is no hope whatever of replacing more than a fraction of present fossil fuel energy consumption with renewable energy. The material and embodied energy requirements are not affordable without the subsidies allowed by very cheap coal and oil based energy inputs at every point in the manufacturing process. In the absence of fossil fuels, high living standards can be maintained only by transitioning to energy sources with a similarly high ERoEI. The most promising options being fusion and fission based energy sources, or hybrid solutions involving both.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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Louis, this is one of your lamest energy posts yet, out of a long history of lame energy related posts. Seriously man, you need to do some background reading.
Without a shred of evidence to back it up, you claim that the global downturn in car sales is due to some cultural phenomenon of young people choosing to use public transport, which apparently suddenly got much better around 2016. There has certainly been no dramatic improvement in public transportation in the UK in the past 20 years. Service has if anything gotten poorer and costs have risen. What has happened, and I have posted numerous links on this site that provide supporting evidence; is that people have gradually become poorer, with less disposable income. This is due to the deteriorating energy dynamic behind the economy, which is a machine the modifies matter, using energy, to produce goods and services.
I posted a link to an interview with a 40-year solar industry veteran about a week back. You swiftly dismissed it as irrelevant because it said something that you didn't want to hear. Here it is again:
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/04/16/ … he-market/
Some highlights: (1) The most important cost drivers for production costs of solar modules are the cost of capital and the price of electricity. (2) For amorphous silicon cells, there have been no significant technological developments of any importance since the turn of the century. Low costs result from cheap electricity and low debt servicing costs, both of which are unsustainable. Don't take my word for it. This is the opinion of a man that spent his entire career working with these things.
For hydrogen to be cheap, it requires that efficient electrolysis stacks are operated at high capacity factor using low cost input electricity. Solar power cannot achieve the first and cannot achieve the second in a normal interest rate environment or without the subsidy of cheap coal providing low cost input electricity. There is a strong possibility that a PV panel generating hydrogen would be a net energy sink when all inefficiencies are captured. If it is in a high latitude country, then making the panels and electrolysis units will consume more energy than they can actually produce in their lifetime.
As for Malthusianism, the facts are what they are. The energy cost of energy is rising and disposable income (wealth) is diminishing fast in first world countries and has stopped growing now even in the poorer countries. This isn't something that might happen in the future, it is something that has been happening since at least the turn of the century and will continue deteriorating in the future. Getting to Mars won't be any easier just because we pretend that problems don't exist. I take it that you do understand that the practicality of technology, isn't a function of how strongly you believe in it?
Last edited by Calliban (2021-06-09 16:12:17)
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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Sorry - I missed off the link re electrolysis of hydrogen:
https://www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2 … on-economy
It's an interesting read. I recommend it.
As for influences on car purchases...
You do realise you no longer have to queue for half an hour at a bus stop never knowing if one is going to turn up? You can check your mobile to see if a bus is coming and time your arrival. That's a huge plus.
Until the Year of Covid, there were plans to extend the use of underground lines making some of them 24/7.
Certainly I know the introduction of the London Overground since 2007 has made a huge difference in getting to parts of London not served by the traditional tube. It has 112 stations on 9 different routes.
Uber means taxis have become more affordable for lots of people.
Electric bikes have become common - and are probably a faster way of getting around the capital than cars for many routes.
Car clubs were virtually unknown 20 years ago. Now they are common and easy to use.
Safe cycle routes and places to park up your bike have been hugely expanded in the last 20 years.
Pay as you go "Boris Bikes" were introduced 11 years ago.
At the same time over the last 20 years there has been the spread of residents parking schemes (you have to pay for a permit in your own area and you have to pay to park everywhere else) plus we now have congestion charging.
I think this has all had an effect in London at least. I think it does influence people to put off purchase of their own vehicle until they start a family.
There are two aspects to technology - the technology itself and the technology of production. I doubt that the technology of telephones changed much between 1900 and 1950 but I would be very surprised if the cost of production remained the same. There will have been numerous improvements in manufacturing technology that would reduce the price.
So it is with PV. It doesn't require a change in the PV technology for us to see steep falls in the cost of PV because cost of manufacturing is falling fast. You only have to look at pics of PV manufacture from the turn of the century compared with now. A couple of decades ago hundreds of people were involved. Now, it is very highly automated.
That we have ended up with a situation where China manufactures over 70% world PV production is to be laid at the door of globalists, not me or other PV advocates.
Re hydrogen production, in NW Europe its more likely to be achieved through surplus wind energy.
Longer term it's clear we don't have any sort of resouce problem. Asteroid mining, lunar mining, Mars mining, and, closer to home, ocean mining, all offer opportunities to hugely increase resource acquisition. Solar power technology is not going to stop developing. We will see solar power satellites beaming back energy to Earth probably within 50 years. Progress is slow but it is being made.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Yarhdh0I4A
We can already see the outlines of a solar system resource economy.
Once batteries are a relatively cheap option I think we will see large "oil tanker" size ships out on the ocean in sunny equatorial regions charging up 500,000 tons of batteries (using floating PV systems). At 300 whes per kg a 500,000 ton vessel would have a combined charge of 150 Gigawatt Hours of electricity. Enough to run the UK for a couple of days or thereabouts. A fleet of maybe 40 such vessels combined with an increased wind energy input and significant cheap PV roof top film systems could probably power the whole of the UK, including the millions of EVs that will supplant ICE vehicles. You can throw in existing hydro, some geothermal, heat pump systems, wave energy and waste to energy...which might produce 5-10% of your energy demand as well.
Louis, this is one of your lamest energy posts yet, out of a long history of lame energy related posts. Seriously man, you need to do some background reading.
Without a shred of evidence to back it up, you claim that the global downturn in car sales is due to some cultural phenomenon of young people choosing to use public transport, which apparently suddenly got much better around 2016. There has certainly been no dramatic improvement in public transportation in the UK in the past 20 years. Service has if anything gotten poorer and costs have risen. What has happened, and I have posted numerous links on this site that provide supporting evidence; is that people have gradually become poorer, with less disposable income. This is due to the deteriorating energy dynamic behind the economy, which is a machine the modifies matter, using energy, to produce goods and services.
I posted a link to an interview with a 40-year solar industry veteran about a week back. You swiftly dismissed it as irrelevant because it said something that you didn't want to hear. Here it is again:
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/04/16/ … he-market/Some highlights: (1) The most important cost drivers for production costs of solar modules are the cost of capital and the price of electricity. (2) For amorphous silicon cells, there have been no significant technological developments of any importance since the turn of the century. Low costs result from cheap electricity and low debt servicing costs, both of which are unsustainable. Don't take my word for it. This is the opinion of a man that spent his entire career working with these things.
For hydrogen to be cheap, it requires that efficient electrolysis stacks are operated at high capacity factor using low cost input electricity. Solar power cannot achieve the first and cannot achieve the second in a normal interest rate environment or without the subsidy of cheap coal providing low cost input electricity. There is a strong possibility that a PV panel generating hydrogen would be a net energy sink when all inefficiencies are captured. If it is in a high latitude country, then making the panels and electrolysis units will consume more energy than they can actually produce in their lifetime.
As for Malthusianism, the facts are what they are. The energy cost of energy is rising and disposable income (wealth) is diminishing fast in first world countries and has stopped growing now even in the poorer countries. This isn't something that might happen in the future, it is something that has been happening since at least the turn of the century and will continue deteriorating in the future. Getting to Mars won't be any easier just because we pretend that problems don't exist. I take it that you do understand that the practicality of technology, isn't a function of how strongly you believe in it?
Last edited by louis (2021-06-09 17:14:41)
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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Louis, it sounds like you live in London, which does explain something about your thinking. You think that what you see in London, is in some way typical of the rest of the world? I think you are a fantasist and have trouble separating fanciful ideas from reality. It is true that much of what we discuss on this board is highly fanciful, but discussion always needs to have some engineering judgement in the background. You seem to think that if you want something enough and do a good enough job of talking it up and cherry picking facts, you might make it real. You tend to ignore things that don't corroborate your pet ideological obsessions. Facts are things you steam roll or pick selectively on the way to your sales pitch. That is why these discussions always end up going nowhere. At no point are you grounded in reality. And without that grounding, there really is nothing to discuss. You might as well say that people can travel using magic carpets. That is about as much real science as there is in these discussions.
You also seem to be confusing small-scale strategies that people use to try and cope, as evidence that there is no problem in the first place. People unable to afford cars and taxis now have access to public bicycles, at least in Central London. But bicycle use was much higher 50 years ago than it is now. The fact that bikes exist in central London has no bearing on the UKs declining car sales. This is occurring because people can longer afford them.
So let me sum up the situation that we are in: People in developed countries have been gradually getting poorer since around 2000. The cause of this problem in physical resource depletion, especially fossil fuel energy. Energy use per capita has been shrinking in developed countries, as industries close and average incomes decline. Oil depletion was the direct cause of the 2008 Great Recession. I have explained how it happened several times before on these boards. This is reality and it is not negotiable.
Hydrogen produced by electrolysis has been the next big thing for at least thirty years. It has never found anything other than niche applications, because of the high cost of electricity, electrolysis capital costs and the impracticality of hydrogen as a fuel. What do you think has changed recently? You seem to imagine technology as some sort of magician's box, that will make real any technological fantasy that you can imagine. But in the real world, electrolysis makes use of the same alkaline cells that it has done for fifty years. Real efficiency is about 50%, because efficiency is a function of current density, and high current density cells have lower capital costs. Maybe something really amazing is just around the corner - some very low capital cost, highly efficient electrolysis technology. But it does not exist at present.
There is simply no reason to expect batteries to become a cheap option. They are manufactured products, that require high embodied energy and a high mass of rare elements. And on top of that, like all manufactured goods, their costs must amortise labour, capital and operating costs of the factory where they are made. Why would you expect some magic wand to suddenly make these things cheaper? Why would anyone expect battery production to follow different laws to other types of goods? I cannot buy a car or an aeroplane very cheaply. Why would you expect batteries to be different?
Last edited by Calliban (2021-06-11 18:27:18)
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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Your refusal to address reality is sad but typical...Here's the reality of the steep decline in battery prices.
//www.statista.com/chart/23807/lithium-ion-battery-prices/
You will no doubt claim that the technology is now mature and can't go down in cost. But there are numerous options for battery storage and most analysts think that battery price is going to continue falling dramatically owing to volume production and technological advances.
I am not saying there hasn't been a "disposable income" crisis since the turn of the century. There has, for sure. But that is not the only determinant of whether you buy a car to own outright. It's a lifestyle choice and lost of young people in their twenties now feel they don't have to own a car themselves to enjoy everything an urban area like London has to offer.
In countries like the UK and USA, the disposable income crisis has been created by globalist policies (so called "free trade"), and the associated pressure on welfare. It is a totally manufactured crisis.
The Greater London Plus conurbation - stretching to places like Reading, Southend, and the Medway ports probably has 15% of the UK population so it is still highly representative of the UK and matches the experience in other big conurbations around the world. Young people in cities like Birmingham. Manchester and Glasgow will experience similar influences on their behaviour.
I would sum it up like this: in 1990 it was difficult to be part of the elite modern world as a young person without personally owning a car but now it is not. You could be on £100k pa in London and still not feel it's worth owning a car in your name. There would be no social discredit involved in not having your own car as long as you could display your £100k status in other ways (and you can, of course!).
I have been sceptical about hydrogen myself in the past. Storage and safety are big and difficult issues. But they are capable of being resolved at utility scale where there are specialist power generation facilities.
The problem in the past I think is that hydrogen from water was being viewed as a stand alone technology. But as an adjunct to green energy technology I think it can work. The reason it can work is because green energy costs keep falling and surplus green energy has a marginal cost close to zero - and that can drive the hydrogen production. While on Mars I favour methane production from PV energy (because methane has to be produced for rocket fuel) for Earth I am increasingly thinking hydrogen makes sense for utility scale electricity generation from stored energy.
Louis, it sounds like you live in London, which does explain something about your thinking. You think that what you see in London, is in some way typical of the rest of the world? I think you are a fantasist and have trouble separating fanciful ideas from reality. It is true that much of what we discuss on this board is highly fanciful, but discussion always needs to have some engineering judgement in the background. You seem to think that if you want something enough and do a good enough job of talking it up and cherry picking facts, you might make it real. You tend to ignore things that don't corroborate your pet ideological obsessions. Facts are things you steam roll or pick selectively on the way to your sales pitch. That is why these discussions always end up going nowhere. At no point are you grounded in reality. And without that grounding, there really is nothing to discuss. You might as well say that people can travel using magic carpets. That is about as much real science as there is in these discussions.
You also seem to be confusing small-scale strategies that people use to try and cope, as evidence that there is no problem in the first place. People unable to afford cars and taxis now have access to public bicycles, at least in Central London. But bicycle use was much higher 50 years ago than it is now. The fact that bikes exist in central London has no bearing on the UKs declining car sales. This is occurring because people can longer afford them.
So let me sum up the situation that we are in: People in developed countries have been gradually getting poorer since around 2000. The cause of this problem in physical resource depletion, especially fossil fuel energy. Energy use per capita has been shrinking in developed countries, as industries close and average incomes decline. Oil depletion was the direct cause of the 2008 Great Recession. I have explained how it happened several times before on these boards. This is reality and it is not negotiable.
Hydrogen produced by electrolysis has been the next big thing for at least thirty years. It has never found anything other than niche applications, because of the high cost of electricity, electrolysis capital costs and the impracticality of hydrogen as a fuel. What do you think has changed recently? You seem to imagine technology as some sort of magician's box, that will make real any technological fantasy that you can imagine. But in the real world, electrolysis makes use of the same alkaline cells that it has done for fifty years. Real efficiency is about 50%, because efficiency is a function of current density, and high current density cells have lower capital costs. Maybe something really amazing is just around the corner - some very low capital cost, highly efficient electrolysis technology. But it does not exist at present.
There is simply no reason to expect batteries to become a cheap option. They are manufactured products, that require high embodied energy and a high mass of rare elements. And on top of that, like all manufactured goods, their costs must amortise labour, capital and operating costs of the factory where they are made. Why would you expect some magic wand to suddenly make these things cheaper? Why would anyone expect battery production to follow different laws to other types of goods? I cannot buy a car or an aeroplane very cheaply. Why would you expect batteries to be different?
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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The cost of gas has gone up again reaching $3.09 a gallon. The daily commute means more money that is not coming from any pay increase but from cutting back on other things.
No bicycle to be practical at a distance of 35 miles one way and being capped at 30 mph means longer time to get to and from work with nearly no safe routes to take as the roads have not been designed for then to be on the same roads as common motorists. Being slow means no highway use at all even when motorized assisted to max speed of 30 ish.
Yes they would be ecological and economical just not for the weather we have....as you need something more enclosed like the hybrid bike cars to make them safer.
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Louis,
Let's address your fundamentally fallacious argument about the cost of batteries falling into perpetuity. Lead-acid batteries are very mature battery technology that has 95%+ recycling rates, so they're representative of where Lithium-ion needs to be in the very near future, in order to be a pervasive technology with similar cost. To this very day, Lead-acid remains cheaper than Lithium-ion, on a per-kWh-basis, but the cost of Lead-Acid battery technology, per-kWh falls between $100 USD (SLA) and $200 USD (AGM).
1kg of Lead costs $2.17
1kg of Lithium-Carbonate costs $9.39
Lead-Acid provides ~50Wh/kg
Lithium-ion provides ~250Wh/kg
On average, it takes 150kWh of energy to produce a 1kWh Lead-acid battery.
On average, it takes 450kWh of energy to produce a 1kWh Lithium-ion battery. <- How do we overcome that?
If your argument about battery prices falling as technology and mass production techniques improve was correct, then why have we not seen a greater decline in the price of Lead-acid batteries?
Lead-acid batteries should be much cheaper than they are if your argument holds water, but they're not, because it takes significant energy, resources, and machinery to produce them, albeit far less than for Lithium-ion. They're still expensive to produce in terms of energy expenditure and raw materials usage because capacity hasn't fundamentally improved for production cells. The same applies to Lithium-ion batteries. Nothing has fundamentally changed about Lithium-ion battery capacity. Tesla's 4680 cells are the same technology that goes into Panasonic's 18650 cells, but Tesla has scaled up the cell size to pack in more active material, thus more Watt-hours per kg, into a given cell geometry. However, there's a limit to that "scaling-up" effect that improved the Wh/kg rating for 4680 vs 18650 cells. Elon Musk and Sandy Munro have alluded to the issues with "going bigger" (than Tesla already has). You might want to listen to what they have to say about the limits of cell size since they're automotive engineers with experience designing electric vehicles.
The 12V battery in our Cadillac Escalade is around 19.5kg. The DieHard brand costs between $170 and $220, dependent upon whether or not you get a regular SLA-type or AGM-type unit. The 94RH7 model weighs 19.5kg. The capacity is around 80Ah. They last for about 3 years before they have to be replaced. Cost per kg is around $8.72. An equivalent LiFePO4 with 80Ah of capacity and 800 Cold-Cranking Amps costs around $1,000. That battery only weighs 12.7kg. Cost per kg is around $78.74. Although it's obvious that the Lithium-ion will store more power for a given amount of electrical input power, and self-discharge less, both types of batteries provide nearly the same Amp-hour rating at the same voltage, but the Lithium-ion is just over 9 times as expensive. If we consider the average lifespan of each type of battery, the SLA or AGM will last around 3 years and the LiFePO4 will last around 5.5 years with daily charge / discharge cycles. In the end, we spend about the same amount of money for both types. The SLA is recycled about as perfectly as we're going to achieve, and uses abundant source materials, whereas the LiFePO4 is seldom recycled and does not use abundant source materials.
The following are name-brand, proven reliable batteries, not cheap knock-offs that may or may not function correctly:
DieHard Group Size H7, 800 CCA - Part No. 94RH7
ChargeEx - Group 27 - 12V 80AH RV Lithium Battery
Here's a $220 no-name brand 100Ah SLA battery for comparison:
12V 100Ah AGM Sealed Lead Acid Battery UB121000 Group 27
Here's a $460 no-name brand 100Ah LiFePO4 battery for comparison:
12V 100Ah LifePO4 Battery Lithium Iron Phosphate
Perhaps those no-name brands will work every bit as well as name brands, but if they don't, then you're still out the money and still don't have a functional power storage solution. Anyway, the SLA weighs 32.44kg and the BLM Power FeLiPO4 weighs 16.33kg, so for a practical storage unit there's not a dramatic power-to-weight advantage.
This ultimately begs the question of why the Lead-acid batteries haven't become any cheaper than they already are, since they're very mature technology that's mass-manufactured and has achieved the highest recycling rate of any type of battery to date. If we can't make a battery that requires 1/3rd as much energy to produce, any cheaper than it already is, then why would we ever expect Lithium-ion to become any cheaper than Lead-acid? The answer should be painfully obvious, but I'm sure you'll find a way to hand-wave objective reality.
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/20 … 6748604016
The lead acid battery industry claim that "lead battery life has increased by 30-35% in the last 20 years". This is one of those examples of a hidden price reduction. You might be paying the same price, but you are getting a whole lot more. Likewise with automobiles themselves.These days you can probably expect a car to keep pretty well for 8 years or more whereas 40 years ago they would be rusting hulks within 5 years.
Innovation can make a big difference in lots of areas. If we develop electric roads with induction charging we can probably reduce the battery mass in automobiles by something like 80%. That would be a really dramatic cost saving and improve the efficiency of EVs hugely (not least because they could be much lighter and so require less energy to move).
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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Sure the battery last longer than the car it goes in as its rotted out in 5 yr in some of the states due to the winter salts....So car prices went up to keep the cost of the battery from climbing.....
Nice information on the Wh/kg rating for 4680 vs 18650 cells kbd512 which is why after 10 yrs of hard use the hybrids are just not worth the additional cost to replace....
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Louis,
Notes on my last post:
If it's not clear, I'm only considering grid-scale storage, where cost over time matters, not batteries for vehicles, despite using "vehicle type" battery form factors as a kind of "measuring tape", since those batteries are discrete tangible products with known / tested / regulated electrical properties that can be directly compared with each other to evaluate overall performance. I think it's already pretty clear that nobody who wants to produce a competitive product will use Lead-acid batteries for directly powering vehicles of any kind.
When I was referring to Lithium-ion being superior in terms of self-discharge, I meant to suggest that it's superior in terms of energy-in (charging efficiency) vs energy-out (lost to self-discharge over time, if not used), not in the absolute sense, where LiFePO4 is about 10% per month, whereas SLA is about 2% per month.
There are certain types of Lead-acid batteries that can last up to 5 years as well, such as AGM. These tend to be more expensive than regular SLA types, but they exist and they do work. In the same way that Lithium-ion can last 1,000 to 2,000 cycles, if Depth-of-Discharge (DoD) is strictly limited, the same is true of Lead-acid. If you limit an AGM type cell's DoD to 30%, it can absolutely last 1,000 cycles, same as Lithium-ion. If you discharge either AGM or LiFePO4 to 80% on a routine basis, they will have a very short service life. As such, how long the user wants their battery to last is largely a function of their charging and discharging habits while using their cells. Incidentally, AGM also has the same type of sensitivity to over-charging as LiFePO4, as well as the same sensitivity to overheating. There's a trade-off for everything. There is also a marked difference between starter-type batteries for combustion engines and deep cycle batteries, for both Lead and Lithium.
The CSIRO Lead-acid battery / ultra-capacitor is able to fast-charge like Lithium-ion from regenerative braking, is 70% cheaper to produce than Lithium-ion, and cell life is purported to be around 12 years. This technology was developed for Honda HEVs.
The FireFly Oasis Carbon Foam Electrode AGM-type Lead-acid batteries, have greater than 90% electrical efficiency, can operate for extended periods of time at partial states-of-charge, and can deep-cycle, just like Lithium ion. These batteries are in very limited production here in the US and cost every bit as much as Lithium-ion. Unsurprisingly, performance and cycle life is nearly identical to a high quality LiFePO4 unit, with the exception of weight. These are specialty type batteries typically sold for marine applications. Could they potentially be cheaper in mass-production? I don't know enough about how they're made to make that determination, but it's possible.
Moving on...
An interesting aspect of battery technology that's worthy of note when it comes to storing power into perpetuity is the fact that Lithium-ion batteries are already "cheaper" than Lead-acid in terms of power stored over time, yet the purchase cost of the Lithium-ion batteries remains 2 to 3 times higher, or more, on a per-capacity-basis. Both types of batteries are already manufactured at massive scale, with production facilities all over the world. Since nobody has found a way to produce Lithium-ion batteries using less energy, the cost remains substantially higher than SLA or AGM. Absent fundamentally new technology for producing the cells, this status quo will remain. Since nobody is producing new Lithium-ion batteries using recycled Lithium-ion batteries, at least not at any significant scale, the ultimate energy cost remains unknown. In short, it's an input energy, manufacturing process, and raw material scarcity problem.
The cost to use the SLA technology is $0.155 on a per-day basis. The cost to use the LiFePO4 technology is $0.299 on a per-day basis. If we determine the true cost of using SLA over the same lifespan that the longer-lived Lithium-ion is capable of, then it's $0.285, which means the true cost of using legacy Lead-acid battery technology is little different than what Lithium-ion currently provides, with the only actual difference being the weight of the cell, which matters for vehicles that are entirely battery powered, but is not significant for combustion engine powered vehicles. If both types are limited to 30% DoD, then Lead-acid is already the clear winner on cost, yet we don't see Lead-acid pervasively used for grid scale storage, due to cost. You either spend more up-front for the LiFePO4 battery or about the same amount for SLA over 5.5 years if you deep-cycle both types (which will kill both types long before their stated cycle lives are achieved). Either way, LiFePO4 still requires 1/3rd more energy to produce, assuming both are inappropriately sized to not limit DoD to 30%. If both are appropriately sized for 30% DoD, then LiFePO4 is triple the cost. Even if the marginal cost of energy is zero, which is impossible to sustain in the real world because it means the energy companies are producing power that they have to dump into the ground because there's no customer willing to pay for it, then LiFEPO4 is still more expensive to manufacture (in terms of energy)... by a lot.
It's almost as if basic physics has a science lesson in there somewhere, for anyone who is willing to learn.
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I wasn't suggesting batteries were currently cheap enough to provide utility scale storage. I think that will be done through hydorgen or methane production first. But longer term, I think batteries will become cheap enough for us to think in terms of solutions like the 500,000 tons solar energy ships.
Louis,
Notes on my last post:
If it's not clear, I'm only considering grid-scale storage, where cost over time matters, not batteries for vehicles, despite using "vehicle type" battery form factors as a kind of "measuring tape", since those batteries are discrete tangible products with known / tested / regulated electrical properties that can be directly compared with each other to evaluate overall performance. I think it's already pretty clear that nobody who wants to produce a competitive product will use Lead-acid batteries for directly powering vehicles of any kind.When I was referring to Lithium-ion being superior in terms of self-discharge, I meant to suggest that it's superior in terms of energy-in (charging efficiency) vs energy-out (lost to self-discharge over time, if not used), not in the absolute sense, where LiFePO4 is about 10% per month, whereas SLA is about 2% per month.
There are certain types of Lead-acid batteries that can last up to 5 years as well, such as AGM. These tend to be more expensive than regular SLA types, but they exist and they do work. In the same way that Lithium-ion can last 1,000 to 2,000 cycles, if Depth-of-Discharge (DoD) is strictly limited, the same is true of Lead-acid. If you limit an AGM type cell's DoD to 30%, it can absolutely last 1,000 cycles, same as Lithium-ion. If you discharge either AGM or LiFePO4 to 80% on a routine basis, they will have a very short service life. As such, how long the user wants their battery to last is largely a function of their charging and discharging habits while using their cells. Incidentally, AGM also has the same type of sensitivity to over-charging as LiFePO4, as well as the same sensitivity to overheating. There's a trade-off for everything. There is also a marked difference between starter-type batteries for combustion engines and deep cycle batteries, for both Lead and Lithium.
The CSIRO Lead-acid battery / ultra-capacitor is able to fast-charge like Lithium-ion from regenerative braking, is 70% cheaper to produce than Lithium-ion, and cell life is purported to be around 12 years. This technology was developed for Honda HEVs.
The FireFly Oasis Carbon Foam Electrode AGM-type Lead-acid batteries, have greater than 90% electrical efficiency, can operate for extended periods of time at partial states-of-charge, and can deep-cycle, just like Lithium ion. These batteries are in very limited production here in the US and cost every bit as much as Lithium-ion. Unsurprisingly, performance and cycle life is nearly identical to a high quality LiFePO4 unit, with the exception of weight. These are specialty type batteries typically sold for marine applications. Could they potentially be cheaper in mass-production? I don't know enough about how they're made to make that determination, but it's possible.
Moving on...
An interesting aspect of battery technology that's worthy of note when it comes to storing power into perpetuity is the fact that Lithium-ion batteries are already "cheaper" than Lead-acid in terms of power stored over time, yet the purchase cost of the Lithium-ion batteries remains 2 to 3 times higher, or more, on a per-capacity-basis. Both types of batteries are already manufactured at massive scale, with production facilities all over the world. Since nobody has found a way to produce Lithium-ion batteries using less energy, the cost remains substantially higher than SLA or AGM. Absent fundamentally new technology for producing the cells, this status quo will remain. Since nobody is producing new Lithium-ion batteries using recycled Lithium-ion batteries, at least not at any significant scale, the ultimate energy cost remains unknown. In short, it's an input energy, manufacturing process, and raw material scarcity problem.
The cost to use the SLA technology is $0.155 on a per-day basis. The cost to use the LiFePO4 technology is $0.299 on a per-day basis. If we determine the true cost of using SLA over the same lifespan that the longer-lived Lithium-ion is capable of, then it's $0.285, which means the true cost of using legacy Lead-acid battery technology is little different than what Lithium-ion currently provides, with the only actual difference being the weight of the cell, which matters for vehicles that are entirely battery powered, but is not significant for combustion engine powered vehicles. If both types are limited to 30% DoD, then Lead-acid is already the clear winner on cost, yet we don't see Lead-acid pervasively used for grid scale storage, due to cost. You either spend more up-front for the LiFePO4 battery or about the same amount for SLA over 5.5 years if you deep-cycle both types (which will kill both types long before their stated cycle lives are achieved). Either way, LiFePO4 still requires 1/3rd more energy to produce, assuming both are inappropriately sized to not limit DoD to 30%. If both are appropriately sized for 30% DoD, then LiFePO4 is triple the cost. Even if the marginal cost of energy is zero, which is impossible to sustain in the real world because it means the energy companies are producing power that they have to dump into the ground because there's no customer willing to pay for it, then LiFEPO4 is still more expensive to manufacture (in terms of energy)... by a lot.
It's almost as if basic physics has a science lesson in there somewhere, for anyone who is willing to learn.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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Vehicle use of roads need all types of vehicles to pay for the use there in....
Offline
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/20 … 6748604016
The lead acid battery industry claim that "lead battery life has increased by 30-35% in the last 20 years". This is one of those examples of a hidden price reduction. You might be paying the same price, but you are getting a whole lot more. Likewise with automobiles themselves.These days you can probably expect a car to keep pretty well for 8 years or more whereas 40 years ago they would be rusting hulks within 5 years.
Innovation can make a big difference in lots of areas. If we develop electric roads with induction charging we can probably reduce the battery mass in automobiles by something like 80%. That would be a really dramatic cost saving and improve the efficiency of EVs hugely (not least because they could be much lighter and so require less energy to move).
Louis,
That's true, but it's also true that the improved technology costs more money to produce. Since nothing lasts forever, this means that total cost or real cost is increased over time, if we want to make use of the improved technology. I'm not arguing that we shouldn't strive to improve our energy storage technologies, but that it isn't cheaper to actually produce and use. Whereas the old Lead-acid batteries required more maintenance, but were still user-serviceable to a degree, the newer Lead-acid batteries are not, they don't last for a meaningfully greater period of time as compared to a properly-maintained user-serviceable design, and aren't easier to recycle. That is typically the case with all supposedly "better" technology.
An Aluminum engine block is much lighter than a cast Iron engine block and much easier to repair by welding, but the energy required to produce the Aluminum block is much greater than the Iron block and that is reflected in the price of the Aluminum block. In other words, real cost ultimately boils down to energy usage and the additional cost of "the machines that make the machine". In practice, almost nobody except NHRA teams actually repair their Aluminum block if it cracks, so overall the cast iron engine block is superior if cost is a consideration. For marine engines, especially those operated in salt water, Aluminum simply doesn't last as long as Iron. If everything we make is service-life limited, and in current objective reality that is most certainly the case, then the energy cost of energy will ultimately win the argument, even if the entire concept of "money" never existed.
It's pretty difficult to argue that a modern motor car is less desirable than a horse-drawn carriage, but it's also an undeniable fact that an all-steel or combination steel / Aluminum / composite motor car costs more to produce, because it requires vastly greater quantities of energy to fabricate, with or without an assembly line using specialized labor, as compared to a horse-drawn carriage. That was SpaceNut's underlying point in the various posts he's made about "low technology". If the constant "churn" of "newer is better" means ever-escalating energy costs, then the end result is ultimately unsustainable.
Virtually none of the "better technology" solutions we've come up with result in reduced costs, because virtually all of that new technology requires more energy, more materials, and more labor, forever and always. The fundamental problem is that purchasing power hasn't likewise increased at an equivalent rate. That's the real reason that most new car chassis and frames are still made from steel. Steel is the "minimum energy" / "minimum cost" material acceptable for that use, proven durable over many years of use, provided that a modicum of care is put into preventing it from rusting. Aluminum can be made to work. Magnesium can be made to work. Composites can be made to work. However, none of those "lighter / faster / stronger" materials have ever achieved what steel has, for use as a structural material, at reduced total cost.
If we developed "electrified roads", then the total cost / real cost of motor vehicles is drastically increased by requiring a much greater mass of very expensive materials (Aluminum and Copper) that have more complex maintenance requirements, along with entirely new power plants to supply the enormous amount of power required. Current roads are built as they are because after an initial input of energy, materials, and labor, they're usable for decades thereafter with a modicum of annual maintenance. Here, again, we should define what we actually mean by "better". Steel-reinforced concrete is technically "better" than asphalt in terms of durability, but it's far more expensive to repair or replace after it does inevitably fail, as compared to asphalt or "black top", which is comparatively easy to repair or replace. Anyway, drastically increasing the cost of roads because batteries remain an abject failure for actually supplanting the capabilities of prototypical internal combustion engine powered motor vehicles is a mistake of epic proportions.
Ironically, capturing CO2 out of the air to produce new liquid hydrocarbon fuels has proven far more practical and has advanced to a far greater degree in a far shorter period of time than batteries. That's unsurprising since chemical reactions are easier to manipulate than electrochemical reactions. There are over 4 million miles of roads in the US, and over 64 million miles of roads globally that fit the American definition of what a road is. Any attempt to electrify a significant proportion of these would be wildly impractical and require insane quantities of Aluminum wiring. In short, it's a plan to spend money, with little meaningful effect.
A motor vehicle is a discrete system that is self-powered and can travel anywhere that the motor can develop sufficient torque and the tires can develop sufficient traction to take it. An electric vehicle that requires powered roads to function simply doesn't work well enough to be practical unless virtually all of the existing roadway infrastructure is electrified.
California already looked into powering heavy duty trucks that offload cargo containers from container ships and move them to storage facilities away from the docks, a few short miles away. These few thousand trucks would require a meaningful proportion of California's total electrical power generation infrastructure to supply the juice. That's why the idea was scrapped. It wasn't practical in any sense of the word, from an energy, economics, or disruption standpoint to the in-place system.
If you spend the money on roads, then the money isn't there for battery development. If you spend the money on batteries, then the money isn't there for more efficient combustion engine development. If you throw money at everything, then you have very diluted resource allocation that's unlikely to uncover something significant that can eventually be reduced to an engineering practice.
To the people saying, "if only we had this / that / the other or spent like drunken sailors on my pet project of choice", I say the following:
If only we had pragmatic engineering-literate people who were cognizant of the practical limitations of existing technology who focused all of their creativity on fruitful projects that don't require non-existent technology or technology that mandates massive sweeping changes and is therefore wildly impractical to actually implement, which is the precise reason why so little major advancements in power generation and storage have taken place in my lifetime. We don't need massive sweeping changes to existing systems that fundamentally work quite well. What we do need are actual pragmatic improvements that have knock-on effects to every other aspect of a technologically advanced society.
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Vehicle use of roads need all types of vehicles to pay for the use there in....
SpaceNut,
How is this counter-productive?
If you directly benefit from public-use infrastructure, then you need to pay for it.
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Hybrids and all electrical do not pay all or any of the highway road use fees....only the full gas power do...
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I really think you are underplaying the role of technological advancement. Often you get two technologies coming together to produce a leap forward.
I was viewing a You Tube video today about recycled plastic roadways that are laid in sections and are hollow so you can run various conduits under them. Clearly perfect for electrical induction set ups. These new plastic roadways are actually going to be more durable and therefore cheaper than traditional tarmac.
EV engines are way simpler and cheaper to maintain than ICE engines. That is a given. The fuel cost is also much lower. The only issue is the upfront capital cost.
Look no further than Musk for a person who squeezes maximum performance out of existing technologies. And Musk of course is promoter of PV energy, battery use and colonising other planets using those technologies.
louis wrote:https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/20 … 6748604016
The lead acid battery industry claim that "lead battery life has increased by 30-35% in the last 20 years". This is one of those examples of a hidden price reduction. You might be paying the same price, but you are getting a whole lot more. Likewise with automobiles themselves.These days you can probably expect a car to keep pretty well for 8 years or more whereas 40 years ago they would be rusting hulks within 5 years.
Innovation can make a big difference in lots of areas. If we develop electric roads with induction charging we can probably reduce the battery mass in automobiles by something like 80%. That would be a really dramatic cost saving and improve the efficiency of EVs hugely (not least because they could be much lighter and so require less energy to move).
Louis,
That's true, but it's also true that the improved technology costs more money to produce. Since nothing lasts forever, this means that total cost or real cost is increased over time, if we want to make use of the improved technology. I'm not arguing that we shouldn't strive to improve our energy storage technologies, but that it isn't cheaper to actually produce and use. Whereas the old Lead-acid batteries required more maintenance, but were still user-serviceable to a degree, the newer Lead-acid batteries are not, they don't last for a meaningfully greater period of time as compared to a properly-maintained user-serviceable design, and aren't easier to recycle. That is typically the case with all supposedly "better" technology.
An Aluminum engine block is much lighter than a cast Iron engine block and much easier to repair by welding, but the energy required to produce the Aluminum block is much greater than the Iron block and that is reflected in the price of the Aluminum block. In other words, real cost ultimately boils down to energy usage and the additional cost of "the machines that make the machine". In practice, almost nobody except NHRA teams actually repair their Aluminum block if it cracks, so overall the cast iron engine block is superior if cost is a consideration. For marine engines, especially those operated in salt water, Aluminum simply doesn't last as long as Iron. If everything we make is service-life limited, and in current objective reality that is most certainly the case, then the energy cost of energy will ultimately win the argument, even if the entire concept of "money" never existed.
It's pretty difficult to argue that a modern motor car is less desirable than a horse-drawn carriage, but it's also an undeniable fact that an all-steel or combination steel / Aluminum / composite motor car costs more to produce, because it requires vastly greater quantities of energy to fabricate, with or without an assembly line using specialized labor, as compared to a horse-drawn carriage. That was SpaceNut's underlying point in the various posts he's made about "low technology". If the constant "churn" of "newer is better" means ever-escalating energy costs, then the end result is ultimately unsustainable.
Virtually none of the "better technology" solutions we've come up with result in reduced costs, because virtually all of that new technology requires more energy, more materials, and more labor, forever and always. The fundamental problem is that purchasing power hasn't likewise increased at an equivalent rate. That's the real reason that most new car chassis and frames are still made from steel. Steel is the "minimum energy" / "minimum cost" material acceptable for that use, proven durable over many years of use, provided that a modicum of care is put into preventing it from rusting. Aluminum can be made to work. Magnesium can be made to work. Composites can be made to work. However, none of those "lighter / faster / stronger" materials have ever achieved what steel has, for use as a structural material, at reduced total cost.
If we developed "electrified roads", then the total cost / real cost of motor vehicles is drastically increased by requiring a much greater mass of very expensive materials (Aluminum and Copper) that have more complex maintenance requirements, along with entirely new power plants to supply the enormous amount of power required. Current roads are built as they are because after an initial input of energy, materials, and labor, they're usable for decades thereafter with a modicum of annual maintenance. Here, again, we should define what we actually mean by "better". Steel-reinforced concrete is technically "better" than asphalt in terms of durability, but it's far more expensive to repair or replace after it does inevitably fail, as compared to asphalt or "black top", which is comparatively easy to repair or replace. Anyway, drastically increasing the cost of roads because batteries remain an abject failure for actually supplanting the capabilities of prototypical internal combustion engine powered motor vehicles is a mistake of epic proportions.
Ironically, capturing CO2 out of the air to produce new liquid hydrocarbon fuels has proven far more practical and has advanced to a far greater degree in a far shorter period of time than batteries. That's unsurprising since chemical reactions are easier to manipulate than electrochemical reactions. There are over 4 million miles of roads in the US, and over 64 million miles of roads globally that fit the American definition of what a road is. Any attempt to electrify a significant proportion of these would be wildly impractical and require insane quantities of Aluminum wiring. In short, it's a plan to spend money, with little meaningful effect.
A motor vehicle is a discrete system that is self-powered and can travel anywhere that the motor can develop sufficient torque and the tires can develop sufficient traction to take it. An electric vehicle that requires powered roads to function simply doesn't work well enough to be practical unless virtually all of the existing roadway infrastructure is electrified.
California already looked into powering heavy duty trucks that offload cargo containers from container ships and move them to storage facilities away from the docks, a few short miles away. These few thousand trucks would require a meaningful proportion of California's total electrical power generation infrastructure to supply the juice. That's why the idea was scrapped. It wasn't practical in any sense of the word, from an energy, economics, or disruption standpoint to the in-place system.
If you spend the money on roads, then the money isn't there for battery development. If you spend the money on batteries, then the money isn't there for more efficient combustion engine development. If you throw money at everything, then you have very diluted resource allocation that's unlikely to uncover something significant that can eventually be reduced to an engineering practice.
To the people saying, "if only we had this / that / the other or spent like drunken sailors on my pet project of choice", I say the following:
If only we had pragmatic engineering-literate people who were cognizant of the practical limitations of existing technology who focused all of their creativity on fruitful projects that don't require non-existent technology or technology that mandates massive sweeping changes and is therefore wildly impractical to actually implement, which is the precise reason why so little major advancements in power generation and storage have taken place in my lifetime. We don't need massive sweeping changes to existing systems that fundamentally work quite well. What we do need are actual pragmatic improvements that have knock-on effects to every other aspect of a technologically advanced society.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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