The Electric Vehicle to alleviate Energy Crisis

[nbrack]

Much of the time, when the electric car is debated, most don't believe it is a feasible solution. I looked for logical approaches to implementing the EV and came across this author and speaker. I found his steps logical for today's demands and overall interesting. Prices now aren't feasible for a mass movement, but with technological advancements, I would assume they could be reduced to an affordable range. What do you think?

Due to the fact that I do not have enough posts I cannot post a URL. However, simply go to youtube, search bradfregger, and scroll down to the "An Energy Solution Video." This is the video I refer to.

 

[keee keee]

Electric vehicles sound great but how are you going to charge these vehicles without building up the infrastucture. the Greenies/enviromentalist won't allow new power plants to be constucted, unless they are wind generated and those won't work!!! Most power today is created burning fossil fuels. We need to start building Nuke power plants like in the rest of the world.

 

[Zoom-boing]

Much of the time, when the electric car is debated, most don't believe it is a feasible solution. I looked for logical approaches to implementing the EV and came across this author and speaker. I found his steps logical for today's demands and overall interesting. Prices now aren't feasible for a mass movement, but with technological advancements, I would assume they could be reduced to an affordable range. What do you think?

Due to the fact that I do not have enough posts I cannot post a URL. However, simply go to youtube, search bradfregger, and scroll down to the "An Energy Solution Video." This is the video I refer to.

Is this the right link?

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rImKRTBwXkc]YouTube - An Energy Solution[/ame]

 

[Old Rocks]

Electric vehicles sound great but how are you going to charge these vehicles without building up the infrastucture. the Greenies/enviromentalist won't allow new power plants to be constucted, unless they are wind generated and those won't work!!! Most power today is created burning fossil fuels. We need to start building Nuke power plants like in the rest of the world.

If you own your home, solar on the roof is a reasonable solution. With grid parrallel configuration, when you are producing more than you use, the meter runs backward. When you are useing more than you are producing, forward. That way, you would be putting power on the net at the time of highest useage, during daylight hours, and taking it off the net during the hours of least usage, at night.

Plugin hybrids are the real answer here. A good plugin hybrid that could get 80 miles on a single charge would very seldom use gasoline for most consumers. But it would have the range for trips at a moments notice, also.

 

[keee keee]

What about long distant trips. Get serious it took years for the country to switch from horse and buggies to cars and from whale oil to electricity so in the mean while when we are all waiting for this make believe, non funtioning GREEN energy source to be invented, developed and implimented why not use our current oil deposits, build some refineries and nukes in the mean while. Just imagine the numbers of jobs that would be immediatly be created by us drilling, building, refining and suppling our country with our own energy. if we built let say two or three nukes in the heaviest populated states, where jobs and low cost energy is NEEDED NOW!!!!! Jobs would be created and the economy would be on the road to recovery.

 

[Tech_Esq]

This game is about to change. The world will be a VERY, VERY different place at this time next year.

For those of you who have not been following the eestor saga, here's a quick primer. Dave Weir, a former board member of Dell and inventor of several technologies around transistors and hard disk technology is the chief founder of Eestor. It stems from a proof of concept that he invented prior to the end of the cold war. The technology is an ultra capacitor. For those not up to speed, the problem with a battery is that it can only charge (or discharge) but so fast. (Hence long charging times). Capacitors do not have this limitation. But, so far, nobody has invented one that could store a lot of energy, maintain the charge and discharge it at will. Eestor, is in the process of breaking that barrier.

We are now about 3 or 3 1/2 years into the Eestor story. They have significant partners in Zenn (a car company in Canada) and Lockheed Martin (who has locked up all military and homland security rights to the technology). Eestor is currently in pre-production of its eesu power units. They will deliver these to Zenn by Q 4 this year. they estimate full production to begin Q 1 2010. They are currently in testing by Underwriter's Labs (UL) for their seal of approval. Their technology has been independently verified by third-party scientists. The production uses barium inside the capacitor. This is a VERY available element as it used to be the coating inside TVs. But not used in current technology. The production lines are modular and cheap. Units costing tens of thousands not millions of dollars. The unit will begin pricing at less than Lithium Ion. It weighs less, holds more power and does not degrade over time.

What does this mean? A car can get a full charge in less than 5 minutes. A cell phone holds 5x the power, the battery never degrades and it charges in 1 second. Power tools, roughly the same. For the grid? Simply by adding eesus to the grid, they can absorb electricity at night and push during the day. Estimates are that this will increase available power by 45%. By adding eesus to wind and solar, they can level out the grid so they wind farms and solar farms appear to produce like a coal plant. One of the first things they want to tackle is strapping these on a bike with a electric engine. (no crash testing, low barrier to market, high profits).

This is the missing link that could change everything.

 

[Old Rocks]

Another game changer. Voxtel, a small firm in Oregon, has a manufacturing process that reduces the cost of the Q-dots from $5000 a gram to $10 a gram. It takes about a 1/10 gram of Q-dots to make 1 square foot of solar cell. This cell will be in the neighborhood of the 40% efficient. And be created with ink jet technology. As in cheap.

Beaverton firm will produce cheaper quantum dots - OregonLive.com

 

[Cold Fusion38]

Electric vehicles sound great but how are you going to charge these vehicles without building up the infrastucture. the Greenies/enviromentalist won't allow new power plants to be constucted, unless they are wind generated and those won't work!!! Most power today is created burning fossil fuels. We need to start building Nuke power plants like in the rest of the world.

Most would charge at night during "non peak" hours. You could also put a solar panel on your house and with the right batteries you could charge your car COMPLETLY off the grid.

 

[Cold Fusion38]

Electric vehicles sound great but how are you going to charge these vehicles without building up the infrastucture. the Greenies/enviromentalist won't allow new power plants to be constucted, unless they are wind generated and those won't work!!! Most power today is created burning fossil fuels. We need to start building Nuke power plants like in the rest of the world.

If you own your home, solar on the roof is a reasonable solution. With grid parrallel configuration, when you are producing more than you use, the meter runs backward. When you are useing more than you are producing, forward. That way, you would be putting power on the net at the time of highest useage, during daylight hours, and taking it off the net during the hours of least usage, at night.

Plugin hybrids are the real answer here. A good plugin hybrid that could get 80 miles on a single charge would very seldom use gasoline for most consumers. But it would have the range for trips at a moments notice, also.

I have to disagree with you on this point. Hybrids take a rather simple EV and complicate it by having an IC engine. A plug in electric has about three major parts. Battery, electric motor, and control unit. The one reason the major car cos don't wnat that is because the EV needs FAR less maitinence.

 

[American Horse]

Electric vehicles sound great but how are you going to charge these vehicles without building up the infrastucture. the Greenies/enviromentalist won't allow new power plants to be constucted, unless they are wind generated and those won't work!!! Most power today is created burning fossil fuels. We need to start building Nuke power plants like in the rest of the world.

If you own your home, solar on the roof is a reasonable solution. With grid parrallel configuration, when you are producing more than you use, the meter runs backward. When you are useing more than you are producing, forward. That way, you would be putting power on the net at the time of highest useage, during daylight hours, and taking it off the net during the hours of least usage, at night.

Plugin hybrids are the real answer here. A good plugin hybrid that could get 80 miles on a single charge would very seldom use gasoline for most consumers. But it would have the range for trips at a moments notice, also.

When an electrically driven hybrid vehicle is not using gasoline it will be using oil or coal for the electrical charge-up. And due to the inefficiency of converting coal or oil to energy and then charging the battery, along with other side issues pertinent to inerfficiency, the amount of "oil" used for driving electrically will be greater than if it were simply refined into gasoline for driving purposes. It's a fool's errand unless the electricity is nuclear generated.

 

[Cold Fusion38]

Electric vehicles sound great but how are you going to charge these vehicles without building up the infrastucture. the Greenies/enviromentalist won't allow new power plants to be constucted, unless they are wind generated and those won't work!!! Most power today is created burning fossil fuels. We need to start building Nuke power plants like in the rest of the world.

If you own your home, solar on the roof is a reasonable solution. With grid parrallel configuration, when you are producing more than you use, the meter runs backward. When you are useing more than you are producing, forward. That way, you would be putting power on the net at the time of highest useage, during daylight hours, and taking it off the net during the hours of least usage, at night.

Plugin hybrids are the real answer here. A good plugin hybrid that could get 80 miles on a single charge would very seldom use gasoline for most consumers. But it would have the range for trips at a moments notice, also.

When an electrically driven hybrid vehicle is not using gasoline it will be using oil or coal for the electrical charge-up. And due to the inefficiency of converting coal or oil to energy and then charging the battery, along with other side issues pertinent to inerfficiency, the amount of "oil" used for driving electrically will be greater than if it were simply refined into gasoline for driving purposes. It's a fool's errand unless the electricity is nuclear generated.

The IC engine is one of the LEAST efficient ways to burn fossil fuels.

 

[Cold Fusion38]

What about long distant trips. Get serious it took years for the country to switch from horse and buggies to cars and from whale oil to electricity so in the mean while when we are all waiting for this make believe, non funtioning GREEN energy source to be invented, developed and implimented why not use our current oil deposits, build some refineries and nukes in the mean while. Just imagine the numbers of jobs that would be immediatly be created by us drilling, building, refining and suppling our country with our own energy. if we built let say two or three nukes in the heaviest populated states, where jobs and low cost energy is NEEDED NOW!!!!! Jobs would be created and the economy would be on the road to recovery.

Knee Knee the "Long distance" argument is a LAME argument at best. Tell you what how about if your household replaces just ONE of your cars with a plug in electric.

 

[American Horse]

If you own your home, solar on the roof is a reasonable solution. With grid parrallel configuration, when you are producing more than you use, the meter runs backward. When you are useing more than you are producing, forward. That way, you would be putting power on the net at the time of highest useage, during daylight hours, and taking it off the net during the hours of least usage, at night.

Plugin hybrids are the real answer here. A good plugin hybrid that could get 80 miles on a single charge would very seldom use gasoline for most consumers. But it would have the range for trips at a moments notice, also.

When an electrically driven hybrid vehicle is not using gasoline it will be using oil or coal for the electrical charge-up. And due to the inefficiency of converting coal or oil to energy and then charging the battery, along with other side issues pertinent to inerfficiency, the amount of "oil" used for driving electrically will be greater than if it were simply refined into gasoline for driving purposes. It's a fool's errand unless the electricity is nuclear generated.

The IC engine is one of the LEAST efficient ways to burn fossil fuels.

CF, that sounds a little expansive; would you please list the viable alternatives to an IC engine in a standard automobile platform which are preferable and adequate to the purpose?

 

[Cold Fusion38]

When an electrically driven hybrid vehicle is not using gasoline it will be using oil or coal for the electrical charge-up. And due to the inefficiency of converting coal or oil to energy and then charging the battery, along with other side issues pertinent to inerfficiency, the amount of "oil" used for driving electrically will be greater than if it were simply refined into gasoline for driving purposes. It's a fool's errand unless the electricity is nuclear generated.

The IC engine is one of the LEAST efficient ways to burn fossil fuels.

CF, that sounds a little expansive; would you please list the viable alternatives to an IC engine in a standard automobile platform which are preferable and adequate to the purpose?

The point I was arguing was that it would be FAR more efficient to burn fuel in an energy production plant than in countless automobiles.

 

[KittenKoder]

Not to mention, something they never mention about electric charges, even when not in use, electric charges fade, quite quickly. With gas, you turn it off and gas consumption ends, with electric, you turn it off and you still have to recharge to use it.

 

[Old Rocks]

At ZENN annual shareholder meeting in Toronto yesterday, company officials made a big announcement about their plans to move beyond mere neighborhood electric vehicles. They plan to launch a model called the cityZENN which will be a fully certified electric car with 80 mph top speed and 250-mile range. The most important element of the cityZENN is the use of EEStor ultra-capacitors to store electrical energy. ZENN is claiming five minute recharge capability for the EEStor energy storage system. However, don't expect to do five minute recharges at home. Just as with fast charging batteries from the likes of Altairnano, putting that much energy in the capacitors so quickly requires very high current and voltage, much more than is available from any regular outlet. It will also take a very thick cable to provide sufficiently low resistance.

ZENN claims they will launch EEStor-powered EV in fall 2009 — Autoblog Green

 

[Old Rocks]

I’ve interviewed the CEO of Zenn Motors who has an exclusivity agreement with EEStor for cars, and who assured us production EESUs would be delivered by the end of this year.

I also interviewed a director at Lockheed-Martin, the company that has signed a military contract with EEStor, who actually saw EEStor’s production facilities and too advised working EESUs would be delivered by year end.

Now a company called Light Electric Vehicles has also reportedly signed an exclusivity agreement with EEStor to use their storage devices in 2 and 3 wheel vehicles.

Per the company’s press release, which actually is its entire website, the EESU would provide “over 450 watt hours per kilogram and over 700 watt hours per liter, charge in minutes, and, for all practical vehicular purposes, last indefinitely.” As well the company said it expects to offer the EESU in “a variety of electric propulsion systems for use in electric bicycles, scooters, motorcycles, and three-wheeled vehicles.”

They say they plan to offer a bike with a 1 kwh EESU weighing less than 5 pounds that will propel the bike over 100 miles.

EEStor Rides Again, This Time on a Bike | GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

 

[Chris]

Another game changer. Voxtel, a small firm in Oregon, has a manufacturing process that reduces the cost of the Q-dots from $5000 a gram to $10 a gram. It takes about a 1/10 gram of Q-dots to make 1 square foot of solar cell. This cell will be in the neighborhood of the 40% efficient. And be created with ink jet technology. As in cheap.

Beaverton firm will produce cheaper quantum dots - OregonLive.com

Great post.

Solar panels are getting better and better.

 

[Cold Fusion38]

The Tesla S at $67,000 dollars is way out of range for most people but with a $7,500 tax credit and all the bells, whistles, style, and performance of a high end luxery sedan $60,000 is NOT out of range for people who can buy that type of car. I think we should give $20,000 tax credit for electric vehicles. $5,000 a year over four years. If we can get enough of these cars on the road then cheaper versions will not be far behind.

 

[Cold Fusion38]

I challenge anyone to tell me WHY the Tesla S would not provide everything their daily needs. With a 300 mile range and very good performance I see ZERO reason that a person would NOT buy one. Oh and the claim that you can't drive cross country just replace ONE of you households cars with an electric car for your EVERY DAY commute.