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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Energy Storage

A young, bright, and extremely respectful friend sent me  this video on supercapacitors a few hours ago.  And, since he had been very active in communicating with me lately, he wrote, “Tell me to shut up if I get to be a problem.”  I respond:

Ha!  You’re NEVER a problem.  Trust me.  I have problems, and you, my friend, are not one of them.

Having said that, supercapacitors are super-hyped, IMO.  Yes, the rate at which energy can be charged and discharged (i.e., power) is limited with batteries. But this isn’t the factor that is limiting the success of the technologies that will change our world.  Would it be of great benefit if you could charge your cell phone in 30 seconds, or discharge its battery more quickly?  No.  

 When it comes to this subject, there are two issues on a scale that’s of importance to society: 

• utility-scale energy storage (which will enable replacing coal, natural gas and nuclear with renewables) and

• electric transportation (which will enable replacing oil with renewables).

Both of these are really about energy, and far less about power, i.e., the rate at which energy is transferred.  If you’ve ever sat down behind the wheel of an EV, certainly a Tesla (0 – 60 in 3.9 seconds), but even a Nissan Leaf, you won’t bemoan the vehicle’s sluggishness, because there is none to speak of.  I.e., you have plenty of power.  You may, however, wish you could drive beyond the vehicles’ range of say, 90 miles.  I.e., you may wish you had more energy.  

I believe the most important breakthroughs will come in energy density, not power density.  As always, I encourage comments. 

And again, please, never think that you’re a bother.      

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

When someone sent me this video with tagline “the future of mobility,” I lit into it like a hungry bear going after a salmon. After all, I’m convinced that our civilization is in the process of completely rethinking the concept of personal mobility, and that the paradigm that will win the day of the mid-21st Century will show scant resemblance to the 20th Century concept: big, wasteful hunks of iron parked in our garages during the 23 hours a day they’re not belching toxins into our atmosphere and enriching terrorist regimes.

Though the concept here is hardly persuasive, you can’t fault the purveyors of the idea for making such an assertion. And besides, it’s a neat, well-made video.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Energy Storage

Earlier today I wrote a post in which I pointed out the impracticality of hydrogen as a “fuel,” to which frequent commenter Aaron writes:

The US, even with a “smart grid” isn’t likely to get more than 16 hours of effective solar power in a day.  Large successful manufacturers are going to run 24 hours a day and therefore, going to need 24 hours’ worth of power a day. Not to mention the home used power for the idiot box, the stereo, the fridge and the heater when it gets cold that the average American will insist on.  Say what you want, the wind isn’t consistent enough to provide adequate power for the entire night. So, what if we used hydrogen gas to power the stand alone power stations that we will inevitably need?

Because the sun’s presence in the sky and human activity are so nicely aligned, there is no reason to store solar energy.  Obviously, that wouldn’t be the case if we were going to power the whole world with only solar, but we’re not.  However, we will eventually need storage, for example, when we want to integrate a huge amount of wind into the grid-mix.

But hydrogen won’t play a role in that.  The point of hydrogen is that it’s portable, like gasoline, and like batteries are becoming as we improve their energy densities.  But, unlike gasoline in our gas tanks and electricity in our batteries, we do not (and will not) have a fuel delivery infrastructure to dispense hydrogen.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

A friend sent me this piece on Solar City and Honda, asking if I’d seen it.

Yes, I did. But “why Honda?” is a good question, I would think. They DO have a battery EV – “The Fit EV,” but they were ridiculously slow in making this happen, and they’re way behind the curve.

I just called a local Honda dealership, and they’re obviously not trying too hard to sell the car. The first salesperson misquoted the MSRP as $17K when it’s actually $36K; she didn’t know the FIT came in an EV version. When I asked for the most senior EV salesperson, I got a kid who didn’t know the difference between range and the MPG equivalent. When I asked about a tax credit that could offset the purchase price, he paused and said, “Yeah, I think there’s one. I’m not sure.”

Doh!

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

The mayor of New York City wants to install 10,000 EV charging stations.

Yikes.  I hate to sound unsupportive, but the last thing I want on that island is a car – of any type.  When I have meetings in the surrounding areas of New Jersey or Connecticut that aren’t served well by train and then find myself coming into the city, I reluctantly rent a car.  But the very first thing I do when I get through the tunnel is drop that sucker off at the nearest AVIS location — as if it were a hot potato.  If there were ever a case of the “wrong tool for the job,” it’s a car in Manhattan.  

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

A friend of mine sent me an invitation to a webinar called the “Roadmap to a Hydrogen Economy and Review of Alternative Energy Technologies.”  I hope he doesn’t regard my response as indelicate or ungracious: 

Thanks!  I’ll try to check this out, even though I’m in complete disagreement with the thesis, for two reasons:

1)     The idea that “The planetary fossil fuel system will be replaced by a transition to a hydrogen based system” is false. We’re going to retrofit our 3.5 million square miles (of the continental U.S.) with a delivery system for hydrogen?  Not in a million years. 

2)     That the idea is impractical is only part of the problem; it doesn’t make any sense.  It’s like saying “we’re replacing gasoline with steam or compressed air.”  OK, there is chemical energy in gasoline that can be released, but there isn’t in water or air.  Where’s the energy going to come from to evaporate the water or compress the air? If you want hydrogen, where’s the energy going to come from to, e.g., electrolyze water?

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Here’s an article whose author is attempting to show that the goal of 100% renewables is closer than we think.  At the risk of stating the obvious, I jotted down a few notes I wish to share:

• We’re a very long way from replacing coal using market-driven forces in places like West Virginia and the rest of the “coal-country” in America.  The world is not running out of coal (unfortunately). In certain parts of the U.S., you don’t even have to dig for it; you have to be careful not to trip over it when you walk through places like Wyoming.  If we can’t stop burning coal for other (i.e., moral) reasons, it’s going to be around for at least a few decades, as the cost of wind and solar coupled with energy storage solutions slowly falls and the two graphs finally cross.  Other parts of the world (like Beijing, pictured to the left) have their own tragic stories to tell about the effluent of their coal-fired power plants. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Here’s a report on the amount of CO2 associated with various power sources.  It’s not uncommon for the nuclear industry to seize upon reports like this, and say, “Ya see?  We’re clean energy too.”  Of course, that’s true, and I wouldn’t have a concern in the world about nuclear except for its huge (and rising) costs, and the dangers it represents, both in terms of operations and waste disposal. 

Going back to the cost issue, I’m reminded of the question I often ask about energy-related hardware, whether it’s a type of power plant, a form of energy storage, a piece of smart-grid electronics, or whatever, i.e., “Where are the cost structures likely going to take us over the coming years or decades?”  This is what I don’t like about pumped hydro and advanced rail energy storage: they’re based on technologies that are almost 200 years old; their cost structures cannot logically be predicted to fall.  Conversely, when we look at technologies like PV and advanced battery chemistries that invoke nano-physics, is fairly obvious that costs will fall as technology improves and undergoes economies of scale.

 

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

I often mention FedEx and how impressed I am with some of their more progressive efforts in corporate sustainability.  I should also mention that their rival, UPS, is working hard in the same direction.  As noted here, “Brown” is currently in the process of octupling (a word you don’t see often) their solar power capacity from 360 kilowatts to 2.76 megawatts.  Perhaps more interestingly, they like to own the PV on their roofs, rather than contract it out to a third party.  

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Efficiency

Frequent commenter and alternative fuels expert Ben Thorp responds to my piece on electric transportation the other day, noting:

Energy efficiency … may be the largest issue if saving fossil fuel or the global environment is a major concern. The US utility energy efficiency has been ~34% for decades as reported by the Department of Energy. When you add line losses and battery efficiency and driving losses there are huge efficiency challenges. Let’s focus on the major issues to see if anyone has solutions.

Ben:  I think you’re right on here. (more…)

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