Posts Tagged by batteries
Solar Thermal Deserves Our Support
| May 13, 2012 | Posted by Craig Shields under Solar Thermal |
Here’s a good article on a recently completed solar thermal tower (aka concentrated solar power or CSP) in the desert between Las Vegas and Reno, NV.
The thing to like about solar thermal, as we’ve often discussed here, is that it affords us a fairly low-cost way of storing energy and delivering it when the sun isn’t shining. This is due to the fact that in today’s world, we can store heat energy (in vats of molten salt) far less expensively than we can store electrical energy (in batteries). Thus solar thermal installations can be treated as baseload, delivering power on a consistent 24X7 basis.
That’s the good news. Read More
Big Advancements in Electric Vehicle Batteries
| February 29, 2012 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
A reader asks my opinion of Envia Systems‘ lithium-ion battery. I reply:
If these claims are true, it’s a really important breakthrough — potentially even more significant than that of my friends at Eos Energy Storage.
The number one issue that electric vehicle nay-sayers throw in the face of us advocates is resistance of battery technology to rapid change: both in terms of cost and energy density. In particular, they say that where Moore’s Law (the idea that the functionality of technology increases exponentially over time) applies to things like integrated circuits, it absolutely does not apply to power systems like motors and batteries. I believe the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, and perhaps this is evidence of that. We’ll see.
Philadelphia Deploys Energy Storage Technology In Its Trains
| June 9, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Energy Storage |
I’m happy to report that my hometown of Philadelphia has recently implemented energy efficiency technology on the trains I ride virtually every time I go back. The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), the nation’s sixth-largest public transportation system and the fifth-largest electricity user in the Philadelphia metro region, has cut a deal with Viridity Energy to install an advanced battery storage system to recapture and deploy power from the trains’ regenerative braking.
I’ve seen a variety of competitive energy storage concepts, designed to accomplish the same task, and I find it interesting that we’ve wound up, at least for now, with batteries. Notably, it appears that flywheels make sense in this environment; the angular momentum that makes them impractical in vehicles with low turning radiuses is not a significant factor on trains.
In any case, go Philadelphia!
Liquid Ammonia as Fuel – More on the Subject
| June 4, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Energy Storage |
I figured that my posts on Renewable Energy World on liquid ammonia would eventually get some response. I had been wondered how it could be possible that so few people were working on projects in this area, as it really does seem like an important idea. In particular, as a liquid energy storage medium, it has the potential to solve three tough problems simultaneously. In addition to being clean, safe, reliable, and scaleable, liquid ammonia can help in:
1) Moving large amounts of energy around a large land mass (like the lower 48 states) in a way that would compete with electrical. (Proponents point out that a great deal of this piping infrastructure is already in place.)
Read More
Electric Vehicles – Batteries and Fuel Cells
| November 11, 2009 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
Honda’s Steve Ellis is one of the world’s foremost authorities on the subject of alternative fuel vehicles and their commercial trajectory. He happened to be a fellow speaker at last month’s AltCarExpo in Santa Monica, and I’m proud to count him among my friends. We’ve have had several meetings over the past year or so, from which I’ve learned how much more there is to the subject of fuel cells than most people realize. In an interview last night, Steve reviewed the subject with me from top to bottom, forming the basis of an important chapter in my book on renewables.
While they were fresh in my mind, I thought I’d note a few of the most interesting highlights from Steve’s presentation:
- Of those who know anything at all about fuel cells, most have opinions that are based on sources that have made essentially no effort to treat the subject fairly.
- It is true that the process by which hydrogen (the “fuel”) is electrolyzed from water and then, in the car, recombined with oxygen to form water is less efficient that the process of storing electrical energy in a battery and converting it to kinetic energy in an electric motor. However, this is largely missing the point; there are far more important factors that affect fuel cells’ utility in transportation that are normally overlooked.
- Both types of electric vehicles (fuel cell and battery) offer the potential for completely clean transportation; the issue is how the energy is generated in the first place.
- Over the past few years, the efficiency of fuel cells has improved faster than the relevant statistics (energy density and cost) of batteries.
- Technologies by which drivers can refuel their cars for longer trips will bedevil the battery electric vehicle market for the foreseeable future. Better Place is not a good fit for the US, and ubiquitous quick-charging is many decades away, if it ever comes at all. So if you want clean vehicles that can be refueled in a matter of a few minutes (versus many hours), hydrogen is your only answer.
I guess the most memorable moment of the interview was the concept of personal emotion and politics. Steve is at a loss to understand why people with a sincere devotion to environmental stewardship would manipulate the facts to denegrate a technology that is strategic to moving us in the right direction. “This is truly strange behavior. Fuel cell advocates don’t try to derail the battery industry. It’s obvious that both have strengths and weaknesses, and form complementary paths in our journey to clean transportation.”
I guess we’d all like to think that meeting the challenges of reducing our carbon footprint are purely technological, rather than political. Or — if the challenges in fact do have political components that it’s “the good guys against the bad guys” — and that there is a kind of “brotherly love” among the fans of renewable energy and electric transportation. But my recent interviews have suggested that this is not the case. All I can say is what I remind my kids of constantly: This is not going to be easy. Let’s not fight among ourselves and make it impossible.
