Re: Electric Cars.
I can't really argue with you, Lather, since I am no engineer. But I can tell you are still talking about lead-acid batteries. I had in mind newer technologies, still in development, such as the following (from a Scientific American article):
Batteries are likely to play a diminishing role in electric
vehicles. Among the replacements now being developed
are ultracapacitors, which store large amounts of
electricity and can charge and discharge quickly;
flywheels, which store energy in a spinning rotor; and fuel
cells, which convert chemical fuel into electricity, emitting
water vapor.....
Fuel cells will generally be the least polluting of any
method for producing motive power for vehicles.
Furthermore, the ideal fuel for fuel cells, from both a
technical and environmental perspective, is hydrogen.
Hydrogen can be made from many different sources, but
when fossil fuels become more scarce and expensive,
hydrogen will most likely be made from water using solar
cells. If solar hydrogen were widely adopted, the entire
transportation-energy system would be nearly benign
environmentally, and the energy would be fully renewable.
The price of such renewable hydrogen fuel should not
exceed even a dollar for the equivalent of a liter of
gasoline.
sciam.com
Read the SA article, and then tell me what you think, Lather.
I should point out that it was written two whole years ago, and I know that further progress has been made in the interim. Just the other day I tuned in on an NPR program about electric cars, when I was driving around town doing errands. Unfortunately, I tuned in in the middle, and what with bopping in and out of the car, I missed a lot. But I can say that there was a woman on the program, who (believe it or not) makes electric race cars. She claimed her cars can go 600 miles without recharging. According to another program participant, electric busses equipped with fuel-cells, and operating on hydrogen, are already in operation. The problem is that the hydrogen tanks are so heavy that passenger cars can't carry them. However, he expected the problem to be solved -- and fairly soon. And so on. Very promising, IMO.
jbe
P.S. I must have glazed over (sorry, as I said, I am no engineer) before reaching the end of your post, because I see you DID address the fuel cell issue, after all. Take a look at the Scientific American article anyway. I'd like to know what you think. (By the way, I have seen some VERY negative stuff about diesel fuel -- not that I am capable of evaluating it.) |
