Toecutter,
Do you have a link for the following. I've found bits and pieces, but not the detail you have here. Thanks.
Jim
http://home.comcast.net/~oil_free_and_h ... tches.html
>In mass production, ECD Chairman Stemple, who formerly worked for General Motors, quoted mass production price of the vonic NiMH battery at $150/kWh storage in enough units for 20,000 cars per year. Cycle life is quoted at 1,750 cycles to full discharge, Southern California Edison has literally run millions of miles on fleet vehicles and had like 3 battery module failures out of all of those miles. EVs running NiMH batteries like the Toyota RAV4 EVs have had over 150,000 miles of use with no degredation in batteries yet. A 30 kWh pack using Stemple's figure, which would be good for about 150-200 miles range in a Ford Taurus-size car with clean Prius-like aerodynamics, would cost ~$4,500. 1,750 cycle life to full discharge(longer with shallower discharges more typical, as few drive 200 miles everyday on the same trip), you do the math. The batteries weren't perfect, as in hot weather they had massive problems with cooling while being charged or pushed under high current draws for racing, but it has not hindered the battery, either. Nickel is also getting more scarce and the environmental aspects of obtaining it shouldn't be ignored, but it can be argued that the matrerials cost is not the most expensive part of the battery, the computer system to manage it and the labor to build it are.
Chevron Texaco bought this patent from GM(who didn't want the EV to take off) and is practically sitting on it, restricting AH size of modules to keep it restricted to hybrid applications only. These batteries don't charge well in parallel, thus the AH size restriction keeps them out of long range EV application(A 600+ volt pack would not be practical), and even worse, Chevron charges over $1,000/kWh for this battery in the hybrids available, adding greatly to the cost premium.
PeakOil is You
Keeping energy technology secret?
Re: Keeping energy technology secret?
by oilfreeandhappy » Mon 06 Feb 2006, 04:07:33
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Re: Keeping energy technology secret?
by MonteQuest » Mon 06 Feb 2006, 04:32:08
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Rich7', 'I') had a discussion about alternate energy sources with a person who didn't know much about peak oil. There defense about the lack of energy technology is that it would benefit the USA to keep their technology secret or classified so in an oil shortage or peak they could sell technology or resources to other countries and become even more of a superpower and control the price of energy. My question is do you think this could be a possibility?
No. How could you hide the infrastructure to use it?
We could develop fusion tommorrow and it would take 20 years for it to make even a small difference.
Same with nuclear. Build all the plants you want. No grid exists that is capable of handling it. Same can be said for new coal-fired plants too.
Too little, too late. A powerdown is the only option...after the resource wars, that is.
Besides, technology is only an energy transformer, not a source.
A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
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Re: Keeping energy technology secret?
by Aedo » Mon 06 Feb 2006, 22:12:31
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('The_Toecutter', '
')
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Z', 'T')his is the main drawback. The one that kills it, fast charging or not. You are essentially limited to the range of the car, and you need to refill every night, provided you have access to a mean of refill.
')
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Z', 'T')his is the main drawback. The one that kills it, fast charging or not. You are essentially limited to the range of the car, and you need to refill every night, provided you have access to a mean of refill.
Most people have access to a means to refill at home in their garage.
"Most people in America", perhaps - not every country in the world has a garage for each car and street parking is common in old cities - living in London I was lucky if I could park within 5 minutes walk of my home.
Car companies are extremely risk averse and won't make something they are not 120% confident of selling - they still make mistakes though! - but if EVs were likely to make a profit why aren't the consumer electronic companies making them? Some of these companies are quite big enough not to be scared/bought off a potentially profitable product.
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Re: Keeping energy technology secret?
by Odin » Mon 13 Feb 2006, 00:22:57
Big corporations definitely supress technology and research. It's one of the reason corporate capitalism is a crap economic system, nothing matters except the almighty buck, if a pharmacutical company has a choice between developing a cure for a disease and a medicine that just mitigates the symptoms they'll go for the latter because the consumer will have to use more of it. Right-wingers like to say that capitalism promotes innovation, they forget that the form of capitalism they idealize has been distroyed by multinational corporations that have rigged the system to preserve the status quo by squashing small innovators and getting copyrights and patents that last for a rediculous amount of time.
"Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis." -Starvid
The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics only applies in a closed system; Earth is NOT a closed system.
The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics only applies in a closed system; Earth is NOT a closed system.
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Re: Keeping energy technology secret?
by The_Toecutter » Sat 18 Feb 2006, 00:53:07
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')kay, so it should be obvious now that EV’s are completely possible. So again I ask, why isn’t this technology being mass produced? Is it really as simple as auto manufacturers wanting more profit thanks to less reliable ICE’s which have more parts? This just seems far to simplistic an explanation, and if it were in fact the case, couldn’t the auto manufacturers simply raise to cost of ICE’s to factor in this apparent lost revenue?
If they raise the cost of ICE's to make up for lost revenue, it is logical to conclude even less ICEs would be bought because less potential buyers would be willing to pay that premium for an inferior technology. This probably wouldn't be a sustainable means to maintain profit, as the company would be making their cash cow even less desirable to consumers.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')s the issue lack of consumer interest? There certainly doesn’t appear to be a lack of consumers wanting to escape high gasoline prices.
I highly doubt it is lack of consumer interest.
See the following from 2000 for the state of California alone:
www.arb.ca.gov/board/mt/mt090800.txt
We just completed a study, The Current and Future Market for Electric Vehicles for the Electric Transportation Coalition. I will briefly present some key findings. Most importantly, our market research shows a strong market for electric vehicles in California right now. Our studies found that there are 150,000 to 225,000 consumers ready to buy EVs currently, and we estimate that there will be 12,000 to 24,000 fleet customers annually by 2003. Collectively, that dwarfs the State's estimated production requirement of about 22,000 vehicles for 2003. Our market research was performed by the Doring Company, one of the most respected and experienced companies doing retail and automotive research. The study surveyed 934 prospective new car buyers in California, plus or minus three percent. In the survey, we found that 33.4 percent of California new car buyers wanted to buy an EV for their next vehicle. Using very conservative methodology, which assumes an EV is not the only car in the household, that no household has more than one EV, that means 12 to 18 percent of the new car buyers annually would choose EVs. Those who wanted to buy EVs were aware of the range limitations of the vehicle but have said that they could live with a 60 to 80 mile range vehicle.
Also reported in the Wall Street Journal:
The Wall Street Journal, “Californians Show Potential Demand for Electric Cars”, by Jeffrey Ball, 09/05/2000, page B12
“The poll, conducted in July and designed and funded by California environmental groups, concludes consumers in the state would buy between 151,200 and 226,800 electric vehicles annually if they were "available at reasonable prices." That market would amount to between 12% and 18% of all new cars and light trucks sold each year in the state.”
Electric cars using NiMH and LiIon/LiPoly batteries have 3-4 times the range of lead acid equipped cars that go 60 to 80 miles per charge now.
Wonder what the market for a 200-300 mile range pure-electric midsize car that could seat 5 with design attention payed to aerodynamic efficiency, had about 110 horsepower at the motor, topped 100 mph and did 0-60 mph in 9 seconds would be, with say, a $20,000-25,000 price tag?
The Prius, a 55-60 mpg hybrid that still requires gasoline, cannot be plugged in, and is even slower than the above theoretical car is in that price range and Toyota cannot even keep up with demand. The market for the Prius in the U.S. is now ~100,000 cars per year and Toyota has recently(in the past few years) began to turn in profits on them.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t does appear that for some reason, auto companies are in a sense keeping EV technology secret. Most people are simply not aware that EV’s are real and in many cases better then ICE’s. Earlier responses in this thread demonstrated that – even many peak oilers aren’t aware of EV’s, so how can the public at large be aware? It just seems like there is some barrier to certain technologies that present possible threats to income to the big players, and because of this they end up taking far too long to see the light of day.
The oil industry, at the heart of the peak oil crisis, also plays into this heavily. If we adopt solutions to a meaningful degree and reduce consumption before peak oil hits, prices and profits will plummet. Not good for the oil industry's bottom line. Further, with peak oil and rapidly increasing prices, the oil industry has the opportunity to pull in record profits, as even though the oil might get higher in demand and shorter in supply, it is not as proportionally expensive to extract and refine compared to pre peak as the amount that prices consumers pay rise. Profits go straight up, and is very evident with the profit spikes during Rita and Katrina.
http://futures.fxstreet.com/Futures/charts/futuresource/custom.asp?cID=FXSTREET&iFSsymbols=(28*HU)+(14*HO)-CL&iFScompareTo=&iFSperiod=D&iFSvminutes=&iFSchartsize=575x300&iFSbardensity=HIGH&iFSbartype=BAR&iFSstudies=&iFSohlc=true&action=chart
A peak oil crisis with people literally killing each other over the product and paying anything to attain it because society has been conditioned/coerced to rely on it with little alternatives offered to the public on a meaningful scale? An oil baron's wet dream...
It is no wonder that the oil industry lobied so hard to kill the electric vehicle in the 90s and early 2000s. Gasoline for private cars accounts for 40-45% of America's oil consumption! Or, basically, 10-11% of the world's total oil used is used exclusively to fuel America's auto fleet, not counting all the other autofleets of the rest of the first world countries. America's IC automobiles are perhaps the oil industry's single largest source of revenue and they are not likely going to be willing to let that fade away over the 15 year period it would take for the auto fleet to turn over. EV technology came in the late 90s, and we'd likely have turned over 1/4 of our autofleet had we acted.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t’s not inconceivable that other potentially beneficial technologies have been developed but will not see the light of day for quite a while because they threaten certain interests.
And if there's a hell, I bet Satan's got a special place in hell just for the people that are vested in these interests, for it is those individuals that are sealing the fate of billions of people around the world, virtually garunteeing a hard crash and years of fascism and resource wars all so that they can maximize their bottom line at the expense of everyone else. This is sick.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')oecutter,
Do you have a link for the following. I've found bits and pieces, but not the detail you have here. Thanks.
