The latest issue of design News has an article about difficulties in storing enough energy in batteries to replace gasoline. Here is a link to the online article: <http://www.designnews.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA6551284> As usual, you have to watch out for mis-information. for example the "cute" bar graph has gasoline's energy level vs. weight, w/o considering that most of that energy is lost in an internal combustion engine. they do mention this in the article though. They also don't differentiate on efficiencies, such as lowering vehicle weight and speed.
My copy is sitting on my desk ... I didn't have time to take lunch and read it. But I would only add a couple of additional points to the article: Wiki has a great article on "energy density" and gives a complete list Gasoline uses 14.7 times the mass in air and throws all combustion products overboard. Batteries, with rare exception, carry the same chemical mass charged or discharged. I have been thinking along the lines of metal-air batteries with the by-products being environmentally safe. Aluminum-air or iron-air would be excellent chemistries with relatively benign by-products. Saving and selling the high quality, aluminum and iron oxides would make transportation to a fueling station quite practical. Curiously, the car would be lightest when freshly charged and heaviest with a full bin of metal oxide. Bob Wilson
Hi Bob, Back in the 80's, I remember hearing of somebody in the FVEVA (Fox Valley Electric Vehicle) had a car that ran on pop-cans. Kinda like using Pacific North West hydro power to run his car, using the aluminum as a the intermediary. He had to shovel out the Al2O3 of it, and put in new cans every once an a while. Kinda a solid-metal fuel cell. Makes more transportation sense than hydrogen. That would be a neat secondary electicity source for the Prius. Also, there is a group at Perdue who is using Aluminum doped with Galium, to generate hydrogen from water, then running it into a fuel cell. Another way to make a metal fuel cell.
I thought the article 'No Batteries Required' in the same issue was also interesting. The one about hydraulic hybrid ('hybra' or 'hydrid') technology and potential mass market for it on passenger cars. Sounds very promising. I think there was also another article in that issue about 'lean-burn' ICE technology which could further improve fuel economy in conventional cars. I'm optimistic that everyone will be driving much more fuel efficient vehicles in the near future, hopefully including the hundreds of millions of Chinese & Indian people with newly acquired disposable income.
Wow, I haven't heard about Design News in 20 years! I'm amazed they were still in business! Thanks for the link. Tom
