Electric cars are at least three times more efficient that hydrogen powered fuel cell cars, assuming a close to theoretical maximum efficiency for electrolysis, which is something that hasn't been achieved yet:

http://www.physorg.com/news85074285.html

(Minor quibbles with the link: Most grids lose about 8% or less electricity in transmission and lithium-ion batteries can have charge/discharge efficiencies of over 99%.)

Fuel cells and batteries suffer material degradation during normal use

I really wish this wasn't the case BUT shunting huge amounts of energy around plated surfaces and and fine films is very damaging t them and i cannot see anywhere in the laws of physics or chemistry that this could be avoided. Much more research into self healing technology is needed.

High amp lithium cells for example and pretty much useless for their original task after a few dozen charge cycles

There's is decade's of real world use of all battery types with model cars, planes and boats. There must be a million radio control modelers out there praying for a high performance which didn't need replacing after a season or two.

I work in the area of electrical vehicles and agree the motor technology is very good and been around for ages. Issues with high power speed control can be addresses , though still unrelible and very expensive ( its a standing joke that MOSFET stands for more smoke,n fire etc )

Mosfet being a type of power chip

The various fuel cell technologies also suffer from membrane degradation.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nuclear Fusion could be the ray of hope we are looking for. If it is going to yield energy profits it may need building at large scales.

It may require reactor a mile or more in diameter to pull it off. Buildable yes, but beyond anyone nation budget. The french fusion reactor will hopefully give us some better answers to the future of fusion.

The Laws of physics is saying chase me ...i have everything you want

If nuclear fusion can be eventually pulled off with ease....then it would represent greatest advance for mankind. In energy terms it would be the financial equivalent of turning seawater into oil at the flick of a magic wand.

Future energy sources will come from damming every river, huge offshore windfarms

And vast solar arrays (maybe some off shore)

(not sure if a windmill has passed the von numan machine test...eg self funding in a world where all energy comes sources other than fossil fuels)

remember energy prices we pay today are 10 times cheaper than the laws of physics allow for. We are all living of the free energy coming from oil gas and coal, once these slaves have been exhausted we will have to go out and capture our energy the hard way as dictated by physics and the laws of thermodynamics

20 bucks for a beer ? 100 bucks for a gallon of fuel ?

this is the real price we should be paying for energy and the goods that need energy to make them and these prices reflect efficiency of tomorrows technology

using todays technology the true price of an artificial gallon of fuel would be around 500 bucks !

a sobering thought

Fuel cell cars will no doubt use batteries and regenerative braking. The last thing you want is for the car to go completely dead on you when you've ran out of juice. Which can happen with electrics and is a wee bit of a concern, IMHO, because of the drive-by-wire systems they want to use in many of the newer designs.

No, in Iraq, they don't have to worry about permitting processes, environmental impact statements, lawsuits, etc., etc., etc. According to one survey, people who've been shot and sued, if given the choice, would rather be shot than sued again.

Yeah, 'cause that's totally what I said. Not.

That's not the issue, and you know it. The fact of the matter is that our electrical grid is rather fragile because of its age, and is at, or near capacity, in many parts of the country. As I mentioned upthread, in some places by the time one gets through building a clean plant to replace an old, dirty electrical plant, the demand for electricity has increased to the point that the older plants can no longer be taken off line. Increasing demand by adding a lot of electric cars to the mix delays the amount of time it takes to shutdown those older plants. The best places to build many alternative energy plants are far away from where people live, in many cases. (North Dakota is cited as being prime wind farm territory, since there's plenty of wind, only problem is there's not a lot of people there.) High tension wires are rather ugly, and having them run cross country tends to be unpopular. Buried pipelines, however, generally go unnoticed.

No, but car makers are adding more and more plug ins to their line ups, and, IIRC, they plan on phasing out ICE-only vehicles completely around 2020. Major upgrades for the grid are mostly in the talking stages right now. Who knows when they'll actually get started, or if funding will be provided (since there seems to be an expectation for the government to help pay for this, while others complain that the government is spending too much money). Honda and GM (to name but two car companies) are shelling out money to expand the hydrogen infrastructure, but I've not heard of them doing anything for the electrical infrastructure. (Curious, since many automotive plants have their own, on-site electrical generation facilities so they don't overload the local grid, so its not like they're unfamiliar with the operation of electrical plants.)

That's what they said about waiting on building more fuel efficient cars in the 1970s after the oil shocks had passed. Of course, had we pushed harder for alternative fueled vehicles back then, we might not be having some of the issues related to oil we're having now.

__________________
We want our children to go to the planets. Burt Rutan 6/21/04 K.I.L.L. S.M.U.R.F.S.
Tuckers! Automotive Oddities! Building my hot rod with the help of the intarwebs Those who would delay scientific progress for a little temporary prosperity shall have neither. MachineCast Save the planet, by leaving it! "To be second in space is to be second in everything," LBJ.

According to a piece I read about Boeing's research into using fuel cells for aircraft, the fuel cells were far more efficient than batteries (even accounting for weight differences). Might be a different story if room temperature superconductors ever become a reality, but those, like fusion, are probably always going to be "just around the corner."

__________________
We want our children to go to the planets. Burt Rutan 6/21/04 K.I.L.L. S.M.U.R.F.S.
Tuckers! Automotive Oddities! Building my hot rod with the help of the intarwebs Those who would delay scientific progress for a little temporary prosperity shall have neither. MachineCast Save the planet, by leaving it! "To be second in space is to be second in everything," LBJ.

Hydrogen fuel cells are about 50% efficient:

http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=c...PmGHZnbm77ZZ5w

This is about half as efficient as a lithium-ion battery. Furthermore, Electrolysis and compression or liqufication results in battery electric cars being three times or more efficient than hydrogen fuel cell cars. Losses of hydrogen will further decrease efficiency. Over 20% of the hydrogen stored in a cars tank can be lost to the atmosphere.

I imagine the piece you read refered to specific aircraft applications and these fuel cells generally use aviation fuel rather than hydrogen.

Unfortunately it's not particularly realistic. Capturing CO2 emissions at coal plants, compressing it, transporting it and then injecting it underground is quite expensive and would add about 10 cents to the cost of a kilowatt-hour of electricity. Currently it would be much cheaper to build wind power capacity and burn biomass instead of coal to reduce CO2 emissions.

The idea does become more economical if there is an oil company willing to pay for the CO2 to inject into an oil field. However, the amount of CO2 they are willing to pay for is limited. It is also cheaper to capture CO2 emissions from natural gas turbines, so carbon capture may be more likely to be used for natural gas than coal.

Carbon capture can also be used with biomass to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This could be done buy using it in a power plant that burns biomass, or it could be done cheaply if fermentation is used to produce liquid fuels, as fermentation gives off almost pure CO2 and so needs no expensive equipment to capture it.

The Boeing engineer specifically stated that fuel cells were a better choice than batteries for efficiency reason, so much so that Boeing wasn't even bothering to research battery tech. Perhaps there was some finer details I'm forgetting or not covered in the article, but I haven't been able to find the piece again to be sure.

__________________
We want our children to go to the planets. Burt Rutan 6/21/04 K.I.L.L. S.M.U.R.F.S.
Tuckers! Automotive Oddities! Building my hot rod with the help of the intarwebs Those who would delay scientific progress for a little temporary prosperity shall have neither. MachineCast Save the planet, by leaving it! "To be second in space is to be second in everything," LBJ.

The power plant engineer I know was shown this piece in the NYT on a proposed CO2 injection process. Her comments are rather telling, I think:
Now, she's fairly bullish on green technology, and out of all the engineers I've dealt with, she's by far the most intelligent by several lightyears.

Another issue with carbon capture technology that I've only seen briefly discussed is that if one of those underground storage facilities springs a leak, its potentially going to be difficult to detect (And if it does start leaking, what do you do?).

__________________
We want our children to go to the planets. Burt Rutan 6/21/04 K.I.L.L. S.M.U.R.F.S.
Tuckers! Automotive Oddities! Building my hot rod with the help of the intarwebs Those who would delay scientific progress for a little temporary prosperity shall have neither. MachineCast Save the planet, by leaving it! "To be second in space is to be second in everything," LBJ.

A fuel cell can turn perhaps 50% of the energy stored in hydrogen into electricity while a lithium-ion battery can convert over 99% of the energy chemically stored inside it into electricity. At converting stored energy into electricity the battery is about twice as efficient.

In terms of amount of fuel used per kilometer traveled, it can be more efficient for a plane to use an fuel cell that uses aviation fuel because it is lighter than batteries.

In a car, the weight of a hydrogen storage system and a fuel cell is greater than the weight of batteries required for a plug in hybrid. For a car with longer electric range, a hydrogen fuel cell will have a weight advantage over batteries. This weight advantage does not come close to removing the three times or more kilowatt-hours to wheels efficiency advantage that batteries have.

That's current technology, however. There's some promising research in using carbon nanotubes to store hydrogen which if it pans out will offer greater storage capacity at much lower weight levels than we presently have. I've also seen research which indicates that the efficiency levels of fuel cells can be made much higher. If we're going to say that batteries will be better "some day," then we shouldn't assume that fuel cell technology is going to remain static.

For batteries, the real issue is recharge times. It doesn't matter if the range is all that short, if you can easily recharge the battery in a few moments (say roughly the amount of time it takes to refill the gas tank of an ICE powered car). The numbers I've seen for that are generally not pretty, however. Trying to safely push 80kw (roughly what the battery capacity of a Prius is) in a few minutes is not an easy thing to do. Some MIT students have done it, but the batteries for that cost $80K, which means it'll probably be over a decade before they come down in price, if they follow the pattern of Prius battery costs (which have been steadily dropping). Someone else has come up with a system that rather than recharging the batteries by pushing electricity to them, pumps the old electrolyte out and replaces it with fresh electrolyte in.

__________________
We want our children to go to the planets. Burt Rutan 6/21/04 K.I.L.L. S.M.U.R.F.S.
Tuckers! Automotive Oddities! Building my hot rod with the help of the intarwebs Those who would delay scientific progress for a little temporary prosperity shall have neither. MachineCast Save the planet, by leaving it! "To be second in space is to be second in everything," LBJ.

I'm not saying batteries will be better someday, batteries are better right now in terms of the total amount of energy required per kilometer driven. In the future the amount of energy required might not be a constraint, but it will be for the forseeable future.

An all electric car does have problems with range and recharge times compared to conventional cars. However, these problems can be avoided by using plug in hybrids. These cars burn gasoline or other liquid fuel to generate electricity when the batteries run low, so longer trips or forgetting to plug it in overnight aren't a problem. (Although there is a big incentive to remember to plug it in, as electricity is much cheaper to use than gasoline.)

Currently, I can save money on my motoring costs by buying a fuel efficient hybrid as it uses less gasoline than a conventional car. Very soon I will be able to buy a plug in hybrid that will cut my motoring costs even further by dramatically reducing my gasoline use while still having all the convenience of a standard gasoline car. What I won't be able to do is buy a hydrogen car, as there is no hydrogen infrastructure in my country and no plans to build one. Also, as hydrogen requires more energy and infrastructure than electricity, it will cost more per kilometer to use, even allowing for the fact that current batteries are expensive and eventually need to be replaced. For this reason I don't see hydrogen cars taking off. A hybrid car doesn't eliminate all CO2 emissions while a hydrogen car theoretically could, however there are solutions to this, even if battery technology doesn't improve further. Plug in hybrids require so little liquid fuel that it would be possible to use biofuels and/or the CO2 released from using gasoline could be removed from the atmosphere at a cost of perhaps 25 cents per liter of gasoline burned. This would be very expensive for a standard gasoline car, but as a plug in hybrid uses very little gasoline, this would be quite affordable.

Only if you run it on batteries rather than a fuel cell. Run it on a fuel cell and it's basically like driving a petrol car.

Incidentally, I'm yet to see a Hybrid car that ACTUALLY offers better mileage than the new eco-focused diesels here in the UK. VW's Blue-Motion Polo and Gold, or the Seat Leon Ecomotion. They're in the very lowest tax bracket for road tax because of their lower emissions and high MPG.

We're going to get a Leon before the end of the year - 99g/km of CO2 and combined cycle of 74 mpg.

The Prius - 104g/km of CO2, and a combined cycle and 72.4 in the combined cycle.

I understand that the Prius is just about as good as it gets in the US - and in California it has epic benefits on freeways because you can use the pool lane (I know - I've done it). But it's NOT the most environmentally friendly way of getting around. It just make people THINK it is. Which is very very clever marketing.

Diesel has about 20% more energy per liter than petrol. A diesel hybrid Prius would be able to get about 87 mpg. I'm not sure how they compare in size but it's also important to compare similar sized cars as the Prius is quite large, being classed as a medium sized car in the US.

The Seat Leon is also quite large - certainly as large as the Prius.

And Toyota just cancelled all plans for a diesel Prius. There is no such vehicle.

Diesel has about 6% more energy than petrol per unit mass, not 20% - the engines that use diesel, however, are inherently more efficient.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Currently wind power is expanding rapidly as it is competitive with natural gas and is quite profitable in many grids right now. If other sources of low emission energy drop in price enough wind might no longer be profitable. But that doesn't seem likely to happen for some time.

Well, no. About 20% of the electricity in my state comes from wind and it is cheaper than the natural gas that supplies the bulk of the power. Its low cost is why it is expanding rapidly. In six years it could supply 50% or more of our electricity.

Fortunately it's not quite that bad. If electricity is your fuel, then it is cheaper to power your car with it than gasoline, even if the cost of buying and replacing batteries at current prices is included. And electricity can be had for a reasonable price from wind and other low emission sources of energy.

I certainly have never heard of one. But if the Economotion had a diesel hybrid engine its fuel economy would be considerably improved and would be far ahead of the Prius.

Diesel is more dense then petrol, giving it about 20% more energy per liter. I believe you when you say it has 6% more energy per kilogram. Diesel engines are more efficient than petrol ones, giving them about a 40% fuel efficiency advantage per liter all up, so my estimate for the milage for a diesel Prius should be higher, but I don't know if the way a typical hybrid ICE operates might have an effect on the difference.

It would also be more expensive, and when running on the diesel engine it would be less efficient as you've got to lug around the batteries and the motor, and it's total carbon footprint would grow, and the total cost of ownership due to the added complexity of hybrid drives would increase because of servicing costs. Furthermore, the switch to an automatic transmission because of the hybrid drive would decrease fuel efficiency again.

IF there was a diesel Prius. There isn't. IF they made a Hybrid Leon. They don't.

Lots of 'If' in your discussion. Why?

Yes, a hybrid engine is more expensive than a conventional internal combustion engine. Fortunately it can pay for itself through reduced fuel use.

A hybrid engine is able to increase fuel efficiency despite the need for an electric motor and battery by running the internal combustion engine at its most efficient point and using the electic motor to provide acceleration. In addition they use regenerative breaking (something that can be done with a flywheel in a conventional car, but is easier to do electrically). This improved fuel efficiency reduces the cars carbon footprint.

Hybrid engines reduce the need for servicing as the internal combustion engine is run at a steady rate that reduces wear and tear and electric motors require far less servicing than internal combustion engines.

As energy for acceleration is provided by the an electric motor that is much more efficient than an increasing and decreasing the output of an internal combustion engine, a hybrid is able to provide fuel efficiency despite being automatic.

It's a method that is often used to explain things. Frequently following the form of If A then B because of Y.

But A doesn't exist. So no B.

The worlds best hybrid is outperformed by cheaper, simpler diesels. Fact.

Okay.

I have the feeling you may have misread my posts. If you reread them and aren't clear on what I've said you can ask me some questions.

I have the feeling you just hold a particular view about fictional products that are not going to come to market. Meanwhile, I've presented facts about actual cars that do exist.

Okay.

Have I written anything that you disagree with?

Yes.

What is it?

You don't think hydrogen cars are going to work.

They are.

You think you can get better mileage with a hybrid. You can get EVEN BETTER with a cheaper and simpler efficient diesel, right now.

You've said fuel cells are heavier than batteries.

http://www.h2gen.com/Uploads/file/Ba...elCell_EVs.pdf

Wh/kg - Fuel cells are twice as good per unit mass compared to Li-Ion and the same per unit volume.

Fuel Cell is how this is going to work. The infrastrcuture can evolve from diesel and petrol stations, to hydrogen stations far more easily than the electricity grid can evolve to carry current capacity PLUS every iota of driving energy required.

I've said it again and again. Fuel Cell cars are the cars of tomorrow, because to the end user they work just the same as the cars of today.

I'm done debating you - it's really quite pointless.

All of that is assuming that we can make enough hydrogen for everyone.
that remains to be seen. I think we are going to require a mix of technology
for quite some time before we throw any babies out with the bath water.
Time, gentlemen. It governs many things.

Best regards,
Dan

I don't think hydrogen cars will be able to compete in a free market with plug in hybrids.

I think that the diesel SEAT Leon Economotion does get better milage than the hybrid Toyota Prius. And the SEAT Leon twin-drive, which is a plug in hybrid, gets even better milage than both.

No, I said they were lighter.

As it requires several times more energy to for a car to drive a kilometer using hydrogen than for a car to drive a kilometer using a battery, hydrogen powered cars will require more infrastructure than electric cars or plug in hybrids will require.

Plug in hybrids work just the same as the cars of today from the point of view of the driver. Actually, they generally have better range.

I didn't know we were debating. If we are debating whether or not the SEAT Leon gets better mileage than a Prius or if fuel cells are lighter than batteries, then I agree with you on those points.

This is probably going to come as a shock to you, but I do try and keep up with the latest in automotive developments. I know it sounds silly, what with me taking my screen name after a car that was one of the most innovative designs of its era, but I'm a rebel like that.

Not necessarily. Jevons Paradox strikes again. Actually, since 2006, you've been able to buy kits to convert the most popular hybrid vehicles to plug-in technology. IIRC, you're an Aussie, if so, then hydrogen cars do exist in your neck of the woods. As for the lack of infrastructure, its true that there's no retail outlets in significant numbers there, but hydrogen is commonly used in industrial operations. Additionally, if the US (or more likely China, since they're buying more cars than anyone else) decides that hydrogen's the way to go, given that economies of scale dictate the rest of the world fall in line, you'll get 'em as well. Everybody's going to be spending boatloads of money to upgrade their infrastructure in the coming years, and it appears that hydrogen costs in Australia are currently on par with that of petrol, if not less.Toyota's aiming for a 2015 release date. The problems with biofuels are that the water demands are so high, that you're better off using them in an electric power plant than you are even in a hybrid. Thermal depolymerization might become cost effective, but the experts I know in the energy fields are skeptical this will happen any time soon. As for how little fuel plug-in hybrids use, see my earlier comment about Jevons paradox.

__________________
We want our children to go to the planets. Burt Rutan 6/21/04 K.I.L.L. S.M.U.R.F.S.
Tuckers! Automotive Oddities! Building my hot rod with the help of the intarwebs Those who would delay scientific progress for a little temporary prosperity shall have neither. MachineCast Save the planet, by leaving it! "To be second in space is to be second in everything," LBJ.

Von Numan Machine

all living things are von numan machines. A machine that can replicate itself by absorbing energy and matter from its environment in order to replicate

Is a windmill a von numan machine ? in terms of energy in energy out

if it is how good is it in terms off efficiency

This is an important question to ask

thought experiment

Imagine a world where the only energy comes from windmills ..we are heading for a world very similar to this once fossil fuels have been exhausted

In this windmill world the cost of energy is 10 times more than today and the cost to make the windmill is also increased.

It is of great importance to understand that the price off all human activities today is greatly subsidized due to the free energy coming from fossil fuel

today a giant wind turbine may cost a million dollars...90% of the energy used to dig the hole in the ground pay the factory worker , transport it to site and maintain it over its lifetime is paid for by FREE OIL

when the oil is gone the cost of the windturbine will be much higher
the cost to dig the hole in the ground will be higher
the cost of every link in the chain will be higher

this may well mean that the overall cost of the windturbine may be 10 times todays price....the energy it produces will be 10 times as expensive to buy as it does today !


I ask you stop for a moment and think about this....we have lived our entire lives subsided by oil and fossil fuels...we forget that every man woman and child living in a modern society has 20 invisible human slaves working for them round the clock when those "oil" slaves are no longer you will be 20 times poorer than you are today !

now you understand this...you can see that asking if a windturbine is a von numan machine is a question of critical importance....is a wind turbine an artificial tree in terms of energy yield after all true costs have been factored in

a windturbine must generate enough energy to do all the following things

dig a hole in the ground
transport the ore to a smelting plant
power that smelting plant
deliver the purified metals and minerals to a factory
power the assembly line in that factory
deliver the windturbine to the windfarm

AND
pay all the energy costs for maintaining it over its lifetime (say 25 year)
let us assume that over 25 years every part will be replaced just once and that ad hoc maintenance over 25 years is = to building a second wind turbine

so in effect the one windturbine has to pay for itself twice

IN ADDITION a windturbine on it own is useless with out a power grid to transmit that power

If we assume that the cost of laying AND maintaining an electrical grid for 25 years = a similiar cost to building one turbine then the power generated by one active turbine must cover the cost of itself,its maintenance, the grid construction and maintenance.....or the price equivalent of 3 wind turbines !!!

so now we are looking at tomorrows windturbines costing 30 times what they do to day without that free energy from oil subsidy

this means that the cost to buy electricity from tomorrows windturbines will be 30 times what the price is today times

If a windturbine is NOT a von numan machine then building one is just a waste of time

It's von Neumann. John von Neumann. http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/VonNeumann.html

Von Neumann machine is usually used to describe a type of computer architecture; I suspect that the people writing about "von numan" machines are confusing them with self-reproducing von Neumann automata. Since none of our current machinery is self-reproducing, one should not expect windmills to do so, either.

At least one of the reasons why power sources like coal (especially) or oil remain economic is because of damage to resources which are not "owned" are not considered in their cost structure.