Re: Solar Power can now be stored?

On Fri, 8 Aug 2008 14:50:02 -0500, "PecosBill" <w8j5c9o2l7l6u4m8@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

"Vince Wirth" wrote
"PecosBill" wrote:

A typical "fully charged battery car" will give you about 40 to 60 miles
of
range. That's the equivalent of driving around in a Prius with only
1-gallon
in the gas tank.

Bill,
In my past life at JPL, I was assigned to investigate the feasibility
of Electric vehicles-EV- and have some basic knowledge of
the subject.

Your above statement reminded me of one fact that was the basic reason
for the slow to nonexistent acceptance of the EV. That fact was the
energy in one gallon of gas - 6 pounds - would need 1000 pounds of
lead-acid battery to store it.

Go to my EV page to see a picture of what 1000 pounds of battery looks
like;

http://webpages.charter.net/vincewirth/ev01.htm

This was way back in time but not much has changed because of the lack
of motivation - gas is cheap -.

Thanks, Vince. I didn't know that JPL had messed around with electric
vehicles.

With all due respect, Vince (and I do have a lot), 30 year old data is pretty
meaningless in this context. Everything from batteries to motors to tires has
changed a lot since then.

Let's take the good old Trojan T-105 battery that we all know and love. About
as basic a lead-acid battery as there is. The "105" designates the battery's
life in minutes at 75 amps. Or it used to. Improvements in the battery now
let the 75 amp life be 115 minutes
http://www.trojanbattery.com/Products/T-1056V.aspx
Not a huge increase but a significant one.

Vince, Let's consider what you did NOT have in 1980

Lithium batteries
Nickel-metal hydride batteries
sodium/sulfur batteries
power FETs
IGBTs
High performance variable frequency induction motors
Variable frequency drives - at least not outside the space program.
BLDCs
Rare earth magnets
Low Rolling Resistance tires.
Microprocessors with more than 8 bit capacities and clock speeds >4mhz
Large series motors designed for traction duty.
Large SEPEX motors designed for traction duty.
Large permanent magnet motors designed for traction duty.
Miniaturized vacuum breakers
Smart high speed battery chargers

You were no doubt working with the GE EV1 SCR speed controller because that
was about all that was commercially available then. It worked but was
significantly less efficient than modern FET or IGBT controllers. One of your
photos shows a GE motor designed for elevator work - not exactly an optimum
motor for traction use.

Your ton of lead-acid batteries is about 150 lbs of Lithiums at the current
state of the art. Actually, nowadays, with better PbA batteries and motors,
the rule of thumb has changed to 1 gallon of gas is about equivalent to 750
lbs of lead.

My Citcar was made at about the same time (1976) and used a simple contact
controller. The pack was split in halves. Three speeds. Half packs in
parallel through a resistor, half packs in parallel, half packs in series. An
undersized GE motor and inefficient golf cart axle completed the package.

When I got the car, the mileage was in the 450 watt-hour per mile range. I
cut that in HALF by simply upgrading the motor and installing a modern solid
state controller. A whole bunch of the energy was being wasted as battery,
cabling and motor heat when over 1000 amps was slammed into a little motor
rated for about 80 amps. I joked that the original motor was a heater that
also happened to turn.

At the time I sold the car I had planned the replacement of the motor with a
vastly more efficient variable frequency AC induction drive and axle which,
according to my calculations, should have put the efficiency in the 150-175
watt-hours per mile range.

A whole bunch of things have changed since 1980.

Two major reasons EVs why failed in the market in the past. Cheaper'n bottled
water gasoline and cost. Range was a secondary issue. Even 30 years ago one
could achieve enough range to be practical (100-150 miles) using enough lead.
Several veterans whom I'm familiar with are still driving cars they built back
then.

A third major factor was the smothering of the concept with eco-bullsh*t. For
folks like me who haven't drank the Kool-aid, all that crap closed a lot of
minds and hid all the other positive attributes. I don't care if the power
plant that fuels my EV burns used tires and lays a black cloud all the way to
California. I'd still drive an EV because of all the other good stuff.

Cost was and is the biggie. Nobody's going to pay $15-20,000 for a second
runabout car. Well, no one except for the True Believers, of course. Many
people would pay $5-8,000 for the same car.

Problem is, here in the US, practically alone in the world, it is impossible
to build an EV that cheap because the feds and the major car manufacturers
insist that these relatively low speed vehicles comply with all the various
safety regulations. Air bombs and all that other rot that is inappropriate
and un-necessary for a vehicle that'll never see 60.

We came real close a few years ago with the Neighborhood Electric Vehicle
legislation. The Big 2.8 pushed through the 25 mph speed cap at the last
moment as a means of killing that market before it developed. Everywhere else
in the world including Europe, NEV-like cars that do 50 mph for 50 or 60 miles
are selling like hotcakes.

Here in the US, one can buy certain NEVs that with the snip of a wire, a turn
of a pot or a program change, remove the governor. Certain others come with 48
volt batteries but a 96 volt battery slides right in after the sale.

A major problem remains in that the car still has a low speed tag so an
aggressive fee-grabbing cop that clocks one doing over 25 mph can write a
ticket - even if the car isn't breaking the posted speed limit. That's what I
liked about my Citi - it had a regular tag with no speed cap. My hotrodded
one would do 50 mph for about 50 miles as it existed when I sold it.

I don't understand your hostility toward EVs, Bill. I'm fairy sure you've
never actually driven a competently built one. Probably not any sort of EV at
all. Golf carts don't count. So why the strong feelings?

Perhaps it's the eco-bullsh*t that poisons the concept in your mind. I
suspect that you and I despise the eco-nazis about equally. But they're not
joined at the waist to EVs. They're simply the cross that the technology has
to bear. Just like nuclear power.

If I presented you with a $5-8000 runabout (motive power unspecified and
hidden) that would go 50-60 miles between refuelings and do so at a nickel a
mile or less, wouldn't you jump on it? I certainly would. Not a car to
replace your gas car but one to augment it. If Congress lifted the speed cap
on NEVs today, exactly that car could be bought tomorrow. It already exists
everywhere else in the world.

As far as the long charge interval that you complained about, Bill, that's a
thing of the past too. With modern batteries, the charge rate is essentially
limited by the available power. The Hawker/Enersys Genesis pure lead AGM
batteries that power my hotrod scooter are spec'd for a charge cycle as short
as 15 minutes. I don't have a charger capable of supplying that much current
but I DO charge them in under an hour. The Genesis has been around for at
least 20 years.

For larger vehicles, the charge rate is limited by grid considerations. The
utility feed's ampacity and demand charges, that kind of stuff. The charge
interval really doesn't matter when it happens while you sleep but it is nice
to know that a quick "opportunity charge" can be done as needed.

Meanwhile, if things go well, in about 6 months I'll be tooling around these
hills in my electric S-10 pickup, smiling as I pass by the gas pumps most of
the time. In a few years when ChiCom-made lithiums become available at a
price I can swallow, I'll pass the gas pumps all the time. There'll be a
sticker on the back like there is on my scooter that says "This vehicle runs
on nuclear energy" :-)

John
--
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.johndearmond.com <-- best little blog on the net!
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
There is nothing more frightening than active ignorance. ~Goethe

.

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