attn peak oil fearmongers: fuel cell cars take a leap forward

[Felix_Nietzsche]

In Brazil they have an ethanol based economy. Their govt spent big bucks to eliminate their dependence on foreign oil. The grow sugar cane which they convert to ethanol. Sugar cane has HUGE advantages over corn in making ethanol. The problem is you need a certain type of land to effectively grow sugar cane. Corn based ethanol is MORE expensive than gasoline....hence all the BS subsidies the US govt gives to corn producing states. The US policy of promoting ethanol is crap... Perhaps if we had enough land to grow sugar cane, then MAYBE it might be a wash to go with ethanol....but as it stand now...ethanol...is just another example of US govt flushing money down the drain...

[natedogg]

[ QUOTE ]
That being said the oil companies are responsible for killing the trains and public transport sector in this country. There is no doubt about that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Only with the help of government. It is an unholy alliance, but people tend to only finger one half of the alliance for some reason.

natedogg

[frizzfreeling]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
To replace a 1000 Megawatt coal plant, you need a solar plant that produces a peak of 4000MW during high noon, while storing 3000MW of that power for use in off hours. Immediately, thats a 4:1 disadvantage.

[/ QUOTE ]

Where are you getting these numbers? As for storage well there are viable options. As for the "precious metals" well not all forms of electrical storage require the use of metal. I will admit this is the biggest question mark but I don't think the future is as bleak as you do. Too tired and too drunk to type more.

[/ QUOTE ]

The sunlight falling on a square meter in the best spots in the world is 6 KWH per day. This is equivalent to 6 hours of peak sunlight (when the sun is directly overhead).
A coal plant can produces a kilowatt of power continuously. A 1 kilowatt solar cell, on the other hand, can only produce at most 6 kilowatt-hours per day. Divide by 24 hours and you get .25 kilowatt average hourly output. So, to compete with the coal plant on energy produced in 24 hours, the solar cell has to have a 4 kilowatt peak output(4kw x 6hrs peak equivalent per day = 24 kwh/day).
Currently, it costs about $800 for every KW output when building a coal plant. A 1000 Megawatt plant (1,000,000 KW) therefore costs about $800 million. But back to the solar: This means that to be competitive in construction alone, given a bulk efficiency of 20%, you need 5m^2/peak kw x 4 peak kilowatts = 20 square meters of solar cell area to get the equivalent of 1 kilowatt of 24/7 power. This totally neglects storage costs. Take $800/kw and divide by 20m^2 to make construction costs equivalent. This comes out to $40/m^2. Labor alone to install these giant bases of solar cells probably comes to more than $40/m^2 when you talk electrical conduits and such. Also, to put this in perspective, the concrete for a simple driveway costs around $40/m^2 including labor and transport. Thats just a simple concrete driveway! Technology will undoubtedly make solar cells cheaper, but you cant forget there is a "wall" of sorts you begin to bump up against dealing with BASIC materials cost and instalation costs.
Storage is more of a basic materials problem with cost. A 1,000,000 m^3 pressurized hydrogen gas tank is made of mostly steel and concrete. It "might" be half the unit price per m^3 compared to a 100,000 m^3 tank. Scaling only saves so much money because the basic materials cost and labor are such a big part of this equation. Storage is also a major component of solar, and its not cheap. Storage also takes a big cut out of overall efficiency.

[frizzfreeling]

[ QUOTE ]
frizzfreeling,

I've talked to a lot of chemical engineers, biologists, etc about biodiesel from algae. Everyone I know says it has a lot of potential. Unfortunately there are some problems with it that need to be overcome. Think about what you are saying. If it is as good as you say it is then why aren't you growing algae in Arizona and selling it to truck drivers? I mean you are passing up an opportunity to make millions.

It has great potential but from what I'm told it's not ready for prime time yet.

[/ QUOTE ]

The technical hurdles are much lower in this area than in the electric/hydrogen car area. The reason you havent seen much about this is that the price of oil until just recently, has been low. On top of that, a company needs to know that the price of oil is going to STAY at sustained high levels for years to come, before they can take a realistic plunge into the market. This is the same reason why Canadian tar sands havent really taken off yet. Its cheaper right now to get oil from tar sands, at about $30/bbl, but what happens when you build the plant (taking a couple years in itself) and the price of oil drops to $15 a bbl? Buying a bunch of oil futures only partially solves this problem.
Im not in a place where bio-diesel makes sense. Im in the mountains and would need a closed system with corresponding inneficiency in the wintertime. If I had the money and lived in the right place AND knew that oil prices would be elevated for many years to come, yes, I would actually sink a large portion of what I had into something like this. I have the biology background to solve the "problems", which arent really as challenging as you put them to be, and probably enough tech know-how to build the system myself on a relatively small scale (construction background).

Oh, and there are actually people selling bio-diesel to truck drivers right now. They arent getting it from algae farms, but from free fat waste products. This, however, wont due on a large scale, so its not really important. If you live in a good climate, there is no tech hurdle for you to simply build a shallow concrete basin with a paddle and do it yourself. Foreign algae infestation affects the ammount of production per unit area, not the concept itself. Its the difference betweeen getting 20,000 gallons/acre-year under ideal conditions, and getting 3,000 gallons/acre-year in a tank with infestation problems. As a side note, I have a relative in the midwest who is considering building a system to use for fueling his farm equipment. His figures are showing profitability IF fuel prices stay the same, and thats without government subsidies, and a production quote of only 1,500 gallons/acre-year. Also, as ive already said, there is at least one major project in the works. Give it time.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Nobody other than a complete nutjob will claim that commercial grade cars can be powered by solar panels on their roof.

[/ QUOTE ]
Wow, a strawman debate and an ad hominem attack in the same sentence. Impressive.

[/ QUOTE ]

When reading your post it sounded to me like you thought I was saying cars would be powered with a solar panel on the roof of the car. It wasn't meant at an attack at you. It was meant as an attack at anyone that thought that technology was viable.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It's win/win with no downside.

[/ QUOTE ]

Its been >5 years and my research then was fairly narrow, but i recall that there was a problem with solar panels in that they used large amounts or arsenic to build (maybe signifigant instead of large) and that disposing of the residues/disposing of the old panels was a problem at the time. Is my memory correct and has this changed much if it is?

[/ QUOTE ]

Your memory is correct but only with some types of solar panels. Not all solar panels are based off of silicon. Thin film is one such example and there are several more techs around the corner.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
That being said the oil companies are responsible for killing the trains and public transport sector in this country. There is no doubt about that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Only with the help of government. It is an unholy alliance, but people tend to only finger one half of the alliance for some reason.

natedogg

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, the auto industry got Washington to build highways which allowed cars to compete unfairly with streetcars and trains. It is a problem that exists to this very day and should be remedied That doesn't change the fact that the auto/tire/oil industry performed hostile and illegal takeovers and shut the public transport industry down. The fact remains that the streetcar industry was all but obliterated by 1955. The $25 billion Federal-Aid Highway Act didn't arrive until 1956. So to say that it couldn't be done without the federal government is to view history with a selective and narrow eye.

[natedogg]

[ QUOTE ]
.....Gasoline tanks the size of elephants just to have a range of 200 miles.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, they don't. The very article linked in the OP contradicts that.

natedogg

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
This means that to be competitive in construction alone, given a bulk efficiency of 20%

[/ QUOTE ]

Try doubling that:
http://www.energy.gov/news/4503.htm

We are at 40% now and there's plenty of unexplored techs for increasing efficiency left. On top of that the Stirling solar panels are expected to produce electricity at 5 cents a kilowatt. I'd have to write an entire page full of technical details to explain my thoughts as to why I, and many Nobel Laureates, disagree with you. Maybe I'll do that on my blog but I'm not going to do that in a thread I barely have the will to post in.

[ QUOTE ]
Storage is more of a basic materials problem with cost. A 1,000,000 m^3 pressurized hydrogen gas tank is made of mostly steel and concrete.

[/ QUOTE ]

As I explained earlier in this thread nobody in their right mind is going to use hydrogen to store energy. You get 4 times the efficiency by simply compressing air. Pumping water up and down a hill is even better. Energy storage is why we need a Manhattan project. There are many extremely promising options that need to be explored and that is simply not happening right now.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
The reason you havent seen much about this is that the price of oil until just recently, has been low. On top of that, a company needs to know that the price of oil is going to STAY at sustained high levels for years to come, before they can take a realistic plunge into the market. This is the same reason why Canadian tar sands havent really taken off yet. Its cheaper right now to get oil from tar sands, at about $30/bbl, but what happens when you build the plant (taking a couple years in itself) and the price of oil drops to $15 a bbl? Buying a bunch of oil futures only partially solves this problem.

[/ QUOTE ]

I listened to a podcast that involved interviews of a bunch of people in the industry. A possible drop in the price of oil is not their biggest worry, or much of any worry. Despite high pay rates they are having extreme labor problems. They also have problems with producing enough energy to create steam. Some of the companies are considering building nuclear reactors on giant mobile trucks. Other people are lobbying to remove the already lenient environmental controls.

[ QUOTE ]
Oh, and there are actually people selling bio-diesel to truck drivers right now. They arent getting it from algae farms, but from free fat waste products. This, however, wont due on a large scale, so its not really important.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for not forcing me to make a basic and obvious response. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[ QUOTE ]
As a side note, I have a relative in the midwest who is considering building a system to use for fueling his farm equipment. His figures are showing profitability IF fuel prices stay the same, and thats without government subsidies, and a production quote of only 1,500 gallons/acre-year. Also, as ive already said, there is at least one major project in the works. Give it time.

[/ QUOTE ]

I suspect we will see lots of "major projects" in the works which will be little more than investment scams. I've already seen plenty of those and I expect them to increase in the next few years. If you have information about a commercially viable project please PM me details. Right now all of the people I trust on the subject are optimistic but think there is a lot of unmerited hype about the current state of the technology and not enough basic research. They would be very very interested in hearing more.

I must say it is good to see at least one other person on this forum that has decent background on the topic. It is a pleasant surprise.