"They just touch" doesn't explain how to get power from a wall socket to the battery in a reasonable amount of time. (I'm being loose with the term wall socket, I don't necessarily mean 110V 20amps).
The Volt is a plug-in hybrid. The problem with electricity is how long it takes to recharge (and the limited range). NG doesn't take nearly as long to refill.
Right the higher voltage you have the higher risk of arcing, and you need more insulation on cables, more danger, etc. Sure you can reduce the number of connections and divide the current flow, but lets say you're charging 20 individual modules, you still need 40 conductors capable of around 130 amps each to charge in 5 minutes. Is that more practical than swapping out a battery in 90 seconds?
Please research before you start to publish junk like the above. The problem is you are comparing apples and oranges, or more specifically apple juice with orange scent. Hydrogen is a gas. It does not come in "gallons." It is basically measured in pounds, etc. The big problem with hydrogen is to get it compact enough to be feasible as a fuel source. The energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline is about 2 lbs of hydrogen. The problem is that 2 lbs of hydrogen at atmospheric pressure would take up almost 3000 gallons of space. So it has to be compressed. To be worthwhile, it has to be compressed to about 5000 PSI or 340 atmospheres. I can't imagine driving a car with a fuel tank consisting of a highly flammable gas pressurized to 5000 psi. If that tank ruptures, you pretty much have a flamethrower that would make a car gas tank look tame. Hydrogen is not a good fuel source, IMHO. It is just too dangerous. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_gallon_equivalent
It can't work. It is chemically impossible based on the laws of thermodynamics. You can't get more energy out of burning hydrogen than it takes to electrolyze it. It's just impossible. The orion project is a bunch of crooks if they claim that they can do that. - - - Updated - - - Do you not read anything about alcohol? Under current methods, it's a net energy loser to produce. You don't get as much energy out of alcohol as it costs to produce it. - - - Updated - - - And the environmental impacts of producing batteries.....
I'm a biologist also, and honestly, you don't sound like one--are you an environmental sciences major or something less rigorous than biology. Why didn't you just look up things, and you would find that it takes 3000 gallons of hydrogen at room temperature/atmospheric pressure to equal a gallon of gasoline. At least at my university, to become a biologist, you needed two years of chemistry and a year of physics. You don't sound like you had any of that. Do the calculations and come back to me.
And the evironmental impact of increasing CO2 emissions and disposing of nuclear waste? ...batteries are the best option....
Your personals are not enhancing your point of view. I would match my degrees and publications against yours any day ! PM interests, not for the board unless one is just playing to the crowd ! 1) My father worked for Voice of America. He use to tell me of how they learned about the "Pearl Chain Effect". That being the intracellular proteins lining up per their polarity like a chain of pearls when zapped by RF. Early fifties. Y'see the tower workers didn't feel so good after preforming some maintenance on a tower as it broadcasted. Now that was my "early introduction" to the subject. My father was an engineer not into bio at all. 2) Finland has some of the most organized medical records of their citizens than any nation. Nokia is Finn. The Finns have the data regarding cell phones and brain cancer, down to the relationship of the side of the head one uses to hold the phone. The data is there ! 3) Tesla went the extra mile, sort of speak, realizing children would be in the back seat. And that cells of growing children are more biologically active which is associated with more susceptibility. So Tesla installed extra EMF shielding for back seat passengers although not required to do so. Some of us think outside the prescribed box. 4) Oh and remember the Testicular Cancers cops were getting because they habitually sat and held the radar gun between their legs. The assumption that EMF beyond naturally occurring sorts is absolutely benign is quite an assumption. A few decades of electric car use may well turn into "I don't Feel Well", "Chronic Viral Syndrome" with measurable decrease white blood cell activity although counts are low normal. Then on to the leukemias, lymphomas then on to the solid organ tumors. Remember, my father was dealing with high dose exposure, low dose exposures will add up. Is the Pearl Chain Effect of EMF limited to certain man defined frequency ranges ? ? Well maybe when you get up to Microwave frequencies it will be the heat and not the Pearl Chain Effect that gets you first. I bet it is troubling I lump all this EMF frequencies together but honestly the health effects have not been studied very well. That is why I prefer to drive a combustion driven vehicle. And regardless of figures, I want to see the physical comparison of the combustion of Hydrogen vs the Fuel Cell - Electric propulsion of the same quantity of Hydrogen. I'm just a "show me" kind of guy. Okay, perdidochas, above is a synopsis of my decades of EMF awareness. Did you ever look into it ? I mean beyond the classroom. Did you? I have and grew up with it. Moi r > g No
I don't care about the EMF stuff. IMHO, it's not a part of this discussion about hydrogen. The thing is, a gallon of hydrogen (at STP) has about 1/3000 of the energy that a gallon of gasoline does. So your initial contention is wrong. That said, that's not really the way to compare the two, and I would think a self-proclaimed biologist should have the intellectual background to be able to simply figure this out. I figured it out in about 5 minutes. It's not hard for anybody that has any college chemistry background. The main disadvantage of hydrogen is it's lightness. Actually, by mass, it's one of the most efficient fuels out there. The problem is that it's low density (at STP) means that it has to be compressed to be useful. Roughly speaking, hydrogen needs to be stored at about 5000 PSI (345 bars) to be useful (i.e. for an amount of hydrogen to be about the same volume as the same energy equivalent to gasoline). I, personally, don't want to sit in a car that has a 5000 psi hydrogen tank for fuel. Air at 5000 PSI is dangerous. I can't imagine how dangerous a flammable gas would be at that pressure. Hydrogen, as the other posters have said, is not an energy source, rather it is a medium for energy transference. You still need to produce the hydrogen, either from natural gas or electrolysis of water.
That's why you don't store your hydrogen as a gas. Stored as a compound, such as ammonia hydride, allows much greater energy density while being under no pressure at all. Supercapacitors will be available soon with comparable energy storage to batteries. They do not have the environmental problems that batteries have.
I haven't read fantasy that good since I first picked up Tolkien. News flash that has been "soon" my entire life.
Yes the holy grail will br discovered by some outside the box thinker not a bunch of greedy lab coats looking for grant money. You provided a perfect example.
They're already well on their way to developing these supercaps at MIT. http://web.mit.edu/erc/spotlights/ultracapacitor.html
Yep, and there will continue to be new devices for your entire life. So tell me again why an improved supercap is "fantasy"?
The timeline is a fantasy. It will come but not anytime soon and we shouldn't direct energy policy based on it being "right around the corner" its that thinking that put us in the energy (*)(*)(*)(*) hoke we are in right now. Oh no dont do that now the perfect solution is just around the corner. Been dealing with that (*)(*)(*)(*) my entire life.
Oh, didn't realize we were "directing energy policy" in this thread. But you know, at some point right before things happen, they are "right around the corner". So what makes you so sure that now isn't the time, and why should I believe you over MIT? Because your argument seems to consist of "since it hasn't already happened, therefore the time for it is not soon". That, my friend, is what we call a non-sequitur.
Please you are advocating energy policy in this very thread based on the expectation of these super capacitors being "soon". This foolishness has been going on my entire life.
I am not speaking to politicians here, I merely made a counterpoint to perdidochas' statement about batteries. And your statement "This foolishness has been going on my entire life" is just a continuation of your "since it hasn't already happened, therefore it won't happen soon" fallacy. Naysay all you want, but you don't have a crystal ball. And you may be ready to call the folks at MIT liars, but I'm not.
If I am advocating any energy policy, then it is a personal policy, which I stated in post #12: See, no suggestion that the government subsidize anything in expectation of future developments or anything like that. Just an acknowledgement that things aren't where I would want them to be before I would personally consider buying an electric car, and an expressed belief that they soon will be.
there was a new development just recently that greatly sped up the charging procedure...still early stages but I'll post it if I can find it...
something interesting I've noticed...in debates with climate change deniers they all claim humanity will adapt to climate change with technology, scientists will figure it out they always do, no worries, no problem, you warmists are so stupid! Lol!... but the moment the discussion turns to technology that would prevent/minimize climate change they all claim such technology is impossible...solar power, impossible!...wind power, impossible!...electric cars, impossible!...better batteries, impossible!...hydrogen cars, impossible....everything suddenly becomes impossible except the IC-engine, fracking and nuclear power...these people arent only deniers and contrarians they may be nutso...
