Nanostructured Li-ion Batteries for Electric Cars 153
schliz writes "Researchers at the Delft University of Technology are developing nanostructured batteries that are expected to deliver more usage between charges, and shorter charge/discharge times, to mobile consumers within the next five years. The batteries will improve electric and hybrid vehicles, researchers say."
The first of many stories (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm always a bit skeptical of such items till I understand how likely it is to cause a fire in my garage while I'm sleeping or when accelerating away from a stop light. New tech is great, but means not a lot till tested in the real world.
With battery technology, the higher the density, the higher the chances of uncontrolled energy release. When it's safe and fairly cheap, then I'll be really interested.
Re:The first of many stories (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The first of many stories (Score:3, Insightful)
That was a common sentiment back in the early 90's when portable devices started to take off in a big way. It proved to be a stubborn problem that tended to ignore Moore's regulations and follow Murphy's code of natural conduct. After Murphy turned up the pundits started hyping fuel cells, that also proved to be a stubborn problem with no respect for Moore.
Given the huge effort that has gone into looking at batteries over the last few decades, I don't think we can expect to see a battery revolution any time soon.
Re:The first of many stories (Score:4, Insightful)
I also don't buy the "environmentally friendly" nature of them as well. While they may be better than NiCd batteries or the more traditional Lead-H2SO4 batteries in terms of what they will do to the environment, you can't call them a perfect solution either. The metals used in the construction of these types of capacitors have their own kind of impact on the environment just like any manufactured product.
If a "Moore's Law" were to apply to battery capacity, instead of the (presumed) 18 month half-life of procesor density and speed, it will be more like 15-20 years instead for improved energy density. While not something to ignore, you don't have to run out and buy a new battery pack every year just to keep up with changes in the battery industry. This is very hard science, using multiple meanings of that term.
electricity - alas (Score:4, Insightful)
The same was true for cars. Many would think cars were always powered by diesel/petrol, but nothing is further from the truth. In fact, there were many fuels used to drive cars when they were first developped, and electricity-driven cars were actually a rather considerable percentage of cars. But then petrol came and took it over for reasons that are unclear (it has been speculated that it might had something to do with the sound, strangely enough; it made for a more impressing 'look at me, here I am!' - not unimportant to the late-victorian elite of that time. Heck, even today half of the gadgets are bought to show off (blu-ray, HD-DVD, anyone?). In that time, battery- or oildriven cars were in fact ahead of the petrol ones, but that rapidly changed the more popular the petrol-using cars became. In a few decades, the rest was all but gone.
If that hadn't happend, it is obvious we would be FAR ahead of our current state of developement where batteries and electricity-storage is concerned (just like petrol-injection has come a long way since the 19thy century). Just imagine the state of technology now on the same scale as petrol has improved, and all what we invent now (including the nano-tubes) would probably have been developed ages ago. It would have led to efficiencies and yields we can only dream of today. And also imagine the impact it would have had on other areas; a lot less - or none at all - CO2 from cars (and maybe the petrol-industry as a whole would not have reached the peak it has today) and all the problems associated with that would not exist (maybe even les wars)! (Arguably, one would - maybe - have had a environmental problems with acids and such, from the batteries; in that respect, vegetable oil would have been best, perhaps.)
It's funny (well...) to think how one little thing in our history can lead to such huge (and possibly devastating) consequences for humanity more then a century later.
Re:The first of many stories (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The first of many stories (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Next best thing since... (Score:2, Insightful)
If the car is fully electric it requires A LOT of new infrastructure (which is especially problematic in big open spaces where caves are more common than your "modern world")
If the car is a hybrid it's simply less efficient than diesel at the moment. Advances in battery power will improve efficiency, but it will not remove the need for petrol.
I see nothing wrong with electric cars, but with the current state of technology +5 years is not going to bring about a revolution, hence my irritation of this [false] advertisement. It's just a lot of hype about nothing of consequence and everyone joins in the "Hi Ho, it's off to greener earth we go".
As for the "tailpipe" argument, I fully acknowledge your point of view and the proof behind it. I do not, however, believe that building the necessary infrastructure for this is feasible in the foreseeable future (read my life time). Not all of us live in big cities and/or "modern world" countries. It takes 5 years to design a power plant, let alone build it and the supporting infrastructure and agree with all the relevant parties who/what the said plant will be supporting. A car manufacturer is simply not going to make something for less than 10% of it's customer base unless it's a PR stunt or it has money to burn.
Take a reasonably developed country like Russia. It has huge CO2 production, there's no way in hell you'd get anyone there to use an electric car. In USA where people drive to their neighbours, you still have vast distances to cover. A car that has 300 mile range and takes 2 hours to charge is not feasible. Who will buy this car? City dwellers? Where is the need? Most of the people I know in cities don't own a car... How will the charge time reduce? Make a hybrid, charge it with petrol and we've gone full circle.
In closing I'd like to state that in a perfect world I would love it if we would start building the said infrastructure for electric powered [everything] using the most up to date and efficient technology available at the time. Be it nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal or gravity as long as it's renewable. But we don't live in a perfect world and it takes a long time to take theory and put it into practice.
Of course no one really cares about reality and just wants to get on the environmentally high horse and pipe on about electric cars. Show me some news about something actually practical, like someone developing a way for people to stop commuting to work.
Just one small technical problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's assume an average cruising consumption of about 15kw for a small car. At 60mph with a 300 mile range, that's 75kwh. To charge those cells in 5 minutes, assuming an 80% efficiency, will need 75 * 12 * 1.25 =~ 1.1 Megawatts. At 440V, even with a 3-phase charger, that's over 1000 amps. At 11KV it's a more reasonable 100A, but the weight of the inverter gear and the shielded connector in the car is considerable and you are going to spend rather more than 5 minutes padlocking the interlocks and cross checking before and after charge. At 440V the main issue will be the weight of the cables. Three cores of around 400mm cross section each are rather heavy.
It's possible to imagine a world in which fuel stations supply exchange cells, but given the natural nervousness of most drivers when close to empty, it's unlikely to be practical or cost effective.
The model is wrong. You have to imagine a world in which car parks have charging stations that charge at reasonable rates, as do hotels and houses. You will need a general beefing up of the electricity distribution network, and you will need plenty of nuclear, solar and wind energy sources. And people will have to plan maybe a little further ahead than they do at present. Long trips will mandate an overnight stop. Probably a good thing as the only accidents I have ever had were after driving too long in a day.
On that model with a more reasonable 10-hour charge, the necessary charging rate is about 9KW - still a heavy cable, but with a socket about the size and complexity of the sort used for portable machines in factories and for boat shorepower.
Just don't try to use your wind turbine. In our location, to run my small car on its current, fairly low usage cycle, I would need a 6M diameter turbine on a 40M pylon, and I suspect the neighbours would object.
Re:The first of many stories (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, sounds great, until you realize that gasoline (petrol) has 45 MJ per KILOGRAM - the same order of magnitude as coal, 10 times as much as TNT, and over 80 times that of the best batteries.
The reason? Things like coal and gasoline don't carry a heavy oxidizer with them. "Air-breathing" fuels will always be better than "rocket" type fuels for transportation because of the weight and storage expense of carrying both the oxidizer and the fuel on the vehicle. That's a substantial feature for "battery-like" technology to overcome for everyone who is not a short-distance commuter.
Re:electricity - alas (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The first of many stories (Score:3, Insightful)
Demand helps, but physics (and return on investment) has limits. If technological progress (like we experienced with semiconductors) depended only on demand, then the energy market would have experienced a revolution long ago. Instead, we're still using fossil fuels and copper wire -- technologies that are at least a century old. We also still have cancer, AIDS, people dying of the flu, I can still hear my neighbor hammering, and my mail client interface still sucks.
I read an historian of science (can't remember which one) who pointed out that, contrary to popular belief, we can't create technological revolutions on demand, simply by applying resources like money and talent. His example was wireless energy distribution, to rid ourselves of the ridiculous distribution infrastructure of wires connecting every room in every building and batteries -- if it could be done, it would have been long ago. Think of it this way (and maybe this would make a good 'ask Slashdot') -- If we could choose the next technological revolution, what would it be? Free energy? Teleportation? Photosynthesis for humans (for nutrition)? Brain-wave interfaces? Reliable lie detectors?