Companies Make Progress In Using Silicon To Boost EV Lithium-ion Batteries

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You don't *need* communication protocols and networks any more than you need it for air conditioners, laundry machines, electric stoves, or any other large appliances that people install. If you build a new office building you generally aren't putting in a SCADA system to integrate it with the utility grid... you submit a load letter to the local utility to let them know what you plan to add to the grid, and they provide it (or tell you they can't provide it and either tell you how long i

You don't need it, but it does make the system more efficient (especially as we move to a greater percentage of intermittent power sources like wind and solar). Even without the comms protocol, many people schedule heating/cooling/car charging/etc to happen at off-peak-demand hours when electricity rates are lower. With a smart grid, that could be expanded to coordinate intermittent loads with intermittent power peaks, for example, if there's a sudden gust of wind, dump that extra power into everyone's wa

many people schedule heating/cooling/car charging/etc to happen at off-peak-demand hours when electricity rates are lower

And here I've always scheduled heating and cooling by the temperature, not by when electricity is cheaper. I've noticed, for instance, that there's not much point in cooling the house down when it's, well, not hot. Likewise, heating the house when it's not cold does nothing useful...

I've noticed, for instance, that there's not much point in cooling the house down when it's, well, not hot. Likewise, heating the house when it's not cold does nothing useful...

If your home is well insulated, if you heat or cool it, it will stay that way for hours without any further use of energy.

And yet, while it's possible that you have an instant hot water system, it's pretty likely that you have a hot water heater. Water is heated in an insulated, pressurized tank, where it can stay hot potentially for days, and you use it when you need it. There's no particularly good reason that refrigeration couldn't work the same way: where you make cold water (maybe even ice or slush, but just liquid water with some antifreeze in it would work) in an insulated tank and then use a heat exchanger to dump heat

Maybe instead of having these energy storage system distributed throughout everyone's home we could centralize this for better economy of scale. Kind of like how we centralize electricity production in power plants.

Almost certainly. The economies of scale would make it cheaper to do in the grid rather than at the end nodes. However, a huge number of people still experience power outages as a result of downed lines and other grid problems. I tend to think of backup power supplies, even if they only operate for a short time, as something that really should be essential equipment for all homes. So many of us just end up so helpless without electrical power. I also think that people should keep at least a few months worth

I did the math once on how much it would cost to power my home with a natural gas generator of my own. It turns out that if I got the generator and maintenance for free I'd just barely break even, the cost of the fuel would be about what I pay the utility for electricity. In practice I'd likely lose money even with that since efficiency of a generator like that gets real low when powering small loads, such like when I'm not home and all the lights are out. This shows the thin margins electric utilities deal with. They make money on the marginal difference in efficiency from running a big generator to that of a small generator. That margin not only covers the difference in fuel cost but all the distribution infrastructure.

A small point - the efficiency difference between a large, modern combined-cycle gas turbine is quite large. A brand-new CCGT is up to 64% efficient, whereas a brand-new modern 20kW home generator might achieve 33% efficiency. This is partly because gas turbines are more efficient generally, partly because CCGTs use the exhaust heat to run a second stage steam generator, and partly because gas turbines get higher efficiency the larger they are as the tolerance ratio (size of the gap between the blades and

As someone living in a city with central heating, let me say what the issues are with that approach: Heat is a lot more difficult to transport and meter out than, say, electricity or gas, especially in older, soviet era buildings. The heat in our case is generated by gas turbine power plants which sell the electricity they produce preferentially (meaning the grid has to buy it and pay extra for it). Even with that - they are operating at a loss in the capital and need constant subsidies. There is a lot of

The only time central heating makes sense, I think, is when the heat is "free". Like from a nuclear plant or a server farm. Every thermal plant produces waste heat, which can be used for district heating. It is basically always free. What is not free is the infrastructure.

It's almost as if some people think customers are there to serve the utilities, and not the other way around.

And here I've always scheduled heating and cooling by the temperature, not by when electricity is cheaper.

That's because you have no thermal mass. But then there's also storage heating [wikipedia.org] which *does* schedule heating "by when electricity is cheaper". And so does phase-change storage air conditioning, for example.

You don't *need* communication protocols and networks any more than you need it for air conditioners, laundry machines, electric stoves, or any other large appliances that people install.

In fact though the air conditioners and laundry machines very well could benefit from some sort of communications protocol for a smart grid. Air conditioners especially and Electric stoves less so, but maybe even then. The reason is that appliances like air conditioners use the most power right when the compressor comes on. True, it generally averages out on the grid, but you can still get spikes when many of them come on at once. That can be especially likely if, for example, people have thermostats that a

If you're saying this in the context of maybe using all these EV batteries as part of a vehicle to grid scheme, then I have good news: that's already a solved problem [wikipedia.org]. =Smidge=

And then, the bad news: Tesla's warranty explicitly excludes using the vehicle as a stationary power source. See the second-to-last bullet under "Warranty Limitations" on page 6 of this. [tesla.com]

Good thing nobody gives a shit about Tesla, then. The cost of fostering your own ecosystem is you risk getting left behind as the rest of the industry evolves.

Every other manufacturer is quickly learning that the relatively gentle usage from V2X applications is not only not harmful, but may actually be beneficial to battery health and longevity. Plus it's the killer feature of the F-150 Lightning and something people seem to like even when limited (See: Ioniq 5's V2L adapter that converts the charge port in

Good thing nobody gives a shit about Tesla, then.

Tesla has the lion's share of the EV market because they were the first. It can't be argued that being the upstart company with a disruptive, sexy product certainly goes a long way.

But they aren't in that position anymore. The industry as a whole has been catching up and is evolving without them. They lost the charging standard battle, and even their upgraded DCFC systems are slower than CCS stations that have been getting installed for the past year or so. They're losing the affordabi

Note that already the batteries are charged in parallel. A 'battery' is just a ton of cells. You can have more smaller capacity cells but at the cost of more overhead and thus lower energy density.

Charging tech isn't *that* critical beyond what is already feasible. For those that can plug it at home and the home has been wired appropriately, you can replenish over 30 miles for every hour charged. This may not sound like much, but that comfortably covers most daily driving scenarios, as at the end of the

DC fast chargers are now possible to charge up 600 miles of range in an hour, so one would anticipate even while road tripping, you might only have to take a 20 minute break every 200 miles. That may be somewhat slower than gas, but it's not *too* bad

Not only is it not too bad, it's something you really REALLY ought to be doing, because humans are just not very good at long distance driving without a break.

Right, because it is impossible for a car to contain more than one person that is able to drive. It is also impossible for a car owner to not have a space at home to charge an EV. Not everyone can charge at home so keeping charge times to a minimum will make BEVs more attractive to people that live in rental apartments and such, places to live where they don't have options for at home charging. If they can keep daily driving to what a 20 minute charge on the weekend can provide then it's no less convenie

I'm baffled over those that make the suggestion of EV chargers everywhere.

Because that can be more convenient. Currently we are forced to have gas as a separate thing (it needs more careful handling, needs tanks in big concrete enclosures, needs particular access for tanker trucks to replenish, needs babysitting while being dispensed, the gasoline smell doesn't go well with things like eating food). So you have things that are pretty much fuel centric, maybe with a convenience store to pick up snacks while you stopped your car anyway.

But we are fixated on that perception as we

Right, because it is impossible for a car to contain more than one person that is able to drive.

And the problems narrow yet further. No one claims that if you have a specific enough set of requirements then an electric car isn't for you. Yep, if you regularly need to make very long journeys and can convince someone to come along with you to swap regularly and don't need to pee often then yes, you will find a fuel fired car saves you time.

It is also impossible for a car owner to not have a space at home to

Or the person you are replying to just see evs as a possible replacement for petroleum powered wihecles, and expect to make changeover without him/her to make any changes to the wihecle usage oattern what so ever

Which is a bias in favour of the status quo, i.e. petrol cars. I can see this because I don't currently own a car, so every time I hire one, I'm painfully aware of all the weird shit I have to do, which is not part of my day to day life. And I can see the difference between petrol and electric. The

That's because you're biased against electric cars and thinking in terms of gas cars.

Given that until a few years ago 99.999% of cars ran on diesel fuel or gasoline everyone will be comparing BEVs to gasoline cars. There's no fuel pump at every parking spot, so why would a car need an electrical outlet for every parking spot? That is a failure of BEV technology to meet our expectations of what a car should be able to do.

Because a BEV can't fill every use case for gasoline cars, but synthesized fuels can, I reject the premise that government mandates to increase rates of BEV adoption is a

Well, the key is whether or not the infrastructure becomes available so that the timing/location of desired human break coincides with a good car break. If your humans want to stop and eat at restauraunt X, but there's no fast charging within reason of X, then that removes the opportunity for a nice overlap break for you and your car.

Which is one frustrating thing about the emphasis on making dedicated charging stations instead of trying to instead get more restaurant charging. People keep imagining 'gas s

True to an extent, but in the not uncommon case of motorway or interstate services, you still need a fuckton of infrastructure because you have to have sliproads built to the relevant standards, a duplication of facilities, road bridge or footbridge. Once you're putting in a lot of money, the thing scales because putting in one more restaurant, random shop, hotel, etc is relatively cheap compared to building the entry and exit.

I don't foresee motorway services going away for that reason, so you're stuck wit

I disagree with your general premise; EVs today are plenty good enough for WAY more people than currently drive them. We don't need bigger, better batteries, even though that would be nice... what we NEED is to reduce the costs, and build out the supporting infrastructure.

> Transmission/Generator Side - IE Find a way to not lose as much power during transmission over large distances

In the US at least, the transmission grid is already 90%+ efficient. Not sure what more you expect.

> Battery Capacity - Able to store higher energy level > Battery Size - Able to store higher energy levels in a smaller form factor > Charing Capability - Able to put more charge faster into batteries

While these would certainly be nice, they are not strictly necessary; Current tech is adequate for much wider adoption than we currently have. Again, getting the price down is more important, so these items are only "necessary" to the extent they may help lower costs.

> Generator Power Loss - Loss that may occur at the plug in generator transitioning from a Traditional AC current, into whatever form the battery needs

This is also already 90%+ efficient so I'm not sure the incremental cost of improving this will be a good use of time and resources.

> Power Recovery while driving - Find a way to use the forces already present in a car to send back some energy as power to improve charge life

> the engineer in me has doubts

Boy I hope it's not an electrical or mechanical engineer... =Smidge=

It is just *astounding* to me that people haven't heard of regen braking in 2022

In their defense, this could potentially mean better aerodynamic efficiency. That is an area where most of our machines, even airplanes leave something to be desired. Basically, when you move through a fluid fast, you use energy pushing it out of the way, that energy is not lost though, it becomes potential energy that returns when the void closes up behind your vehicle. It's not actually violating any laws of thermodynamics to recover some of that energy. It certainly could be recovered a lot better than w

It's called regenerative braking and every highway-capable EV has this feature... unless by "while driving" you're suggesting something that would waste energy at best(or violate the second law of thermodynamics at worst. Even ICE cars have that. They charge the battery, because stuff like AC is using so much electricity that it is worth it.

I think they mean to actually make synthetic gasoline, not use the hydrogen directly. That does solve some problems, but it has plenty of its own. One of them being the large efficiency loss of converting your initial energy source (I assume they mean green hydrogen produced from electrolysis with renewable power) into a synthetic liquid gasoline. Then there's the question of if you continue to use the old, inefficient ICE vehicles, or if you switch to hybrids. Finally, while global warming is a serious con

(I assume they mean green hydrogen produced from electrolysis with renewable power)

Don't assume that. Electrolysis is but one method among many to get hydrogen from water, and far from the most efficient. Since the end product is a hydrocarbon and not hydrogen there's experimentation on processes that incorporate the extraction of hydrogen from it's bond to oxygen with the chemical reaction that bonds that hydrogen to carbon.

Then there's the question of if you continue to use the old, inefficient ICE vehicles, or if you switch to hybrids.

I don't believe that is a question anyone is asking. We will see a switch to hybrids.

I am making my own assumption, that this is about cars and light trucks and no

Let's at least assume green hydrogen of some kind since the whole thing is a bit self-defeating if it comes from fossil fuel sources to start with. I'm also not sure what process you think is significantly more efficient. Electrolysis is actually quite efficient.

I don't believe that is a question anyone is asking. We will see a switch to hybrids.

For practical reasons, it makes absolute sense (provided you're still using liquid fuels that you burn). It seems like there are lot of people who are opposed to hybrids for weird emotional reasons, otherwise you would not have politicians making ca

That's a pretty big exaggeration, and you're ignoring particulates.

It's not an exaggeration. The pollen, dust, bits of rubber tire, and other stuff floating in the air and sucked into a car engine will have these things caught in the filter or burned up in the engine cylinder. The the burned up bits go to the catalytic converter. I didn't ignore particulates as that's something already in the air, so the engine isn't adding anything, or it is incompletely burned fuel, soot is a particulate that is made of incomplete combustion of carbon and that would be destroyed in th

The catalytic converter doesn't stop particulates, or it would be quickly clogged. The particulates produced are generally worse than what's already in the air. The gases produced are harmful even without the CO2. If you filled a room with nothing but car exhaust, but extracted all the CO2 and raised the Oxygen partial pressure to match the normal atmosphere, the room would quickly make someone feel sick from the unburned gasoline alone. It's just not going to be the case that the exhaust will be cleaner th

You clearly did not read to the end of my comment before making that reply.

That feels like kind of a 'well duh' if its in the garage it doesn't matter much. The problem is, and this is where I struggle when I think of when I'd consider buying one. It travel over the mountains from Virginia into West Virginia frequently enough, getting to my relatives is within range usually, but I wonder if charging while visiting is an issue when your destination lacks the same charging equipment. To me that's really the bigger issue, that and capacity in the Grid.

See, this sort of thing bothers me. This should be solvable by simply bringing power generation equipment with you either on a trailer or maybe even just in your trunk or something. Something that would let you use gasoline if you really have to in order to charge up your vehicle either once you've stopped or, if the car supports it, while you're actually still driving. In a pinch, you could just use a regular emergency generator. There are plenty that are pretty cheap, but they also tend to have pretty lim

What you described is a plug-in hybrid. There's variations on this theme that I've seen. One end of the spectrum is the "range extended electric vehicle" or some similar nomenclature, this is a vehicle that will primarily run on battery power so the gasoline engine is optimized for powering the car at highway speeds. The other end is a "mild hybrid" or some such, this is a vehicle that will primarily move by gasoline power and so the electric motor and battery is optimized for low speeds and short distan

What you described is a plug-in hybrid.

Sort of. The problem is that the car companies these days seem to mostly reserve the concept of "options" for the car for stuff that's pretty cosmetic like tire rims and upholstery and, of course, electronics packages (and now, disturbingly, subscriptions to seat warmers and stuff like that). Aside from that, the cars are pretty rigidly built according to categories. The car companies have decided that "plug-in hybrid" means 20-40 miles on battery and any greater distance than that on gasoline. That's great

If you want a full size battery with an additional option for running on gasoline in an exceptional situation, they don't have that and they seem to have no interest in making the cars modular so you can add that.

It seems Wikipedia has a number of examples listed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

The definition of "full size battery" has shifted quickly over time, and a large selling point on a range extended EV is the cost savings for having the battery sized for daily driving and the engine needed rarely, reserved for long trips, extreme weather (where heat or cold would make cabin HVAC work hard enough to impact range), and power outages. A range extended EV with 120 miles of range is enough that large portions

It seems Wikipedia has a number of examples listed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

Looking at those: Chevy Volt 25-50 mile battery range, so basically the range I was complaining about. BMW i3, 80 to 100 mile battery range. Better, but not what I would consider full range. Also, the range extender is also apparently limited performance and really just intended for limping to a charging station Then there are some discontinued vehicles mentioned. A sedan that apparently never became available, some buses, a dedicated taxi, one SUV apparently not available, and some patents that have not beco

That said, I don't insist on the idea.

I didn't claim you did insist. I'm trying to convey the reasons why it is unlikely for such a product to be offered and why people would be unlikely to buy it if offered. There's certainly a market for a trailer to push and/or recharge a BEV while driving, as can be demonstrated by people building examples. The option to drop in an extra battery or generator into a BEV might have a large enough market to be profitable. The utility of these would be increased if these add-on units were modular to where they could fit into multiple models of vehicles and/or put to use as home backup systems. I can think of a family that has a car, truck, and home power system all from the same manufacturer. In normal situations a generator pack and battery can sit at home. When extra range is desired the family could put either the generator or battery pack into a vehicle. This can make an opening for a battery swap service to make recharge stops shorter, but with higher power charging being a thing now I suspect that battery swapping for vehicles is a dead end. A possible exception are vehicles larger than the typical passenger car and light truck which would make a 20 minute, or even 8 hour, recharge impractical. By having the generator pack serve as a house backup there's air intake and exhaust set up for safe operation (it's not just parked in a garage where it could gas people out or something), and some kind of system to monitor the engine so it doesn't turn to mud from disuse. Rental modular units might be viable but there's a chicken/egg issue where there would have to be a market established for the rentals, and people not all too willing to invest in a modular system that isn't established. Tesla might be able to get it to work but they tried a battery swap system before and it didn't get much attention. Generators might get more attention from users but they will require more attention from the rental places.

I can think of a family that has a car, truck, and home power system all from the same manufacturer. In normal situations a generator pack and battery can sit at home. When extra range is desired the family could put either the generator or battery pack into a vehicle. This can make an opening for a battery swap service to make recharge stops shorter, but with higher power charging being a thing now I suspect that battery swapping for vehicles is a dead end. A possible exception are vehicles larger than the typical passenger car and light truck which would make a 20 minute, or even 8 hour, recharge impractical. By having the generator pack serve as a house backup there's air intake and exhaust set up for safe operation (it's not just parked in a garage where it could gas people out or something), and some kind of system to monitor the engine so it doesn't turn to mud from disuse.

Rental modular units might be viable but there's a chicken/egg issue where there would have to be a market established for the rentals, and people not all too willing to invest in a modular system that isn't established. Tesla might be able to get it to work but they tried a battery swap system before and it didn't get much attention. Generators might get more attention from users but they will require more attention from the rental places.

Admittedly, there isn't much of a market, largely because range anxiety is mostly unfounded and there may not be a rational reason for the problem to exist. Of course, I think that most of the reticence about adopting electric cars is irrational at this point (not all of it, there are some valid reasons to think costs might go down or value for your dollar will go up if you hold out, and also some concerns about privacy issues etc. with increasingly connected modern vehicles as well as vendor lock-in proble

Significant, but not most. This is slightly old data, but as of 2015, in the US, 63% of occupied housing units had a garage or carport.

https://www.energy.gov/eere/ve... [energy.gov].

So yeah, if you live in an apartment in an urban area where you don't have the ability to charge your own vehicle then you're pretty much SOL and will be paying higher prices to charge elsewhere and have to sit around and wait while it charges. People with garages/carports who want an EV can let their car charge while they sleep or while t

During road trips in my Model 3, typically from Houston to Wisconsin to visit family, I've used quite a few Superchargers located at grocery stores. A number of times I saw people pushing full grocery carts up to their Tesla and realized that was a good fit for people without charging at home or work as EV range was now far enough that they could get by with charging whenever they bought groceries.

I've personally charged at these grocery stores:

During these trips I've noticed other EV chargers (CCS connection) also going in at grocery stores, such as these Electrify America chargers [goo.gl] at the Walmart in Tomah, WI that offer up to 350 kW charging.

Martin's (Giant / Martins chain) in Martinsburg, WV has installed some of the Electrify America chargers. I've also seen them in other locations.

Percentage of homes with a garage is a relevant statistic, but really doesn't describe how many cars are parked in garages. People use garages for all kinds of things (not just car parking), and people have more cars than they have garage spaces. Given that, I'd go with "cars parked in garages" sill being a minority of US residential living.

If you've filled you garage with so much stuff that you have to park your car in your driveway, you can still use an extension cord.

I'm pretty sure that having a garage/carport serves as a pretty good proxy for having the ability to put in a charger, even if the car does not actually go into the garage/carport. Just having your own driveway should be sufficient. It means that you have the capability to set up a charger wired to your home. The stacks of vintage newspapers and old Christmas decorations filling the garage are irrelevant.

You don't need one home charger per car! EVs typically get charged like once a week.

So yeah, if you live in an apartment in an urban area where you don't have the ability to charge your own vehicle then you're pretty much SOL

Locally to me, chargers have started springing out of lamp posts (in addition to a few beefier roadside units dotted around). No one on my road has a garage or even driveway.

I think most of us know that better battery and charging tech is needed.

We know, they are called solid state batteries and they are being developed. They are likely three to 10 years out depending on if we're lucky or unlucky. The present issues are engineering challenges.

I am not downing on EV tech, the engineer in me has doubts about how far we can reasonably push things with current technolog potentials.

Then you haven't been paying attention.

Battery Capacity - Able to store higher energy levels Battery Size - Able to store higher energy levels in a smaller form factor

I am not downing on EV tech, the engineer in me has doubts about how far we can reasonably push things with current technolog potentials.

The engineer in me looks at how a battery works and sees that there's physical limits on the energy density of batteries. One limit is that a battery by definition contains both the "fuel" and "oxidizer", as opposed to an internal combustion engine that contains only the fuel. I put "fuel" and "oxidizer" in scare quotes when referring to a battery because the chemical reaction isn't exactly combustion. This alone limits the energy density of a battery to half of most any internal combustion engine, the m

so, good batteries with nontoxic composition that can actually be recycled are still over a decade away. Good to know.

And no, no one has come up with a way to recycle current EV batteries effectively. Tesla has subcontracted that problem out, they aren't doing it. The subcontractors are floundering around and can't do it.

God help us if we had say 10 million EV with toxic waste batteries to deal with, let alone going all EV.

EV right now aren't green, they're black!

There are no batteries to recycle except some 2012-2014 Leaf batteries (because their battery cooling is terrible). Most of the remaining EV fleet is still in use, and car owners generally object when you try to recycle the batteries that they're still using.

No, you're making up fake "facts"

Tesla accepted 26,000 batteries for recycling in 2020 and that number only is rising. Tesla gives them to 3rd parties that are working on the recycling problem and then claims 100 percent are recycled. Zero to date are.

https://electrek.co/2022/05/09... [electrek.co]

"Tesla batteries, including the battery packs in our vehicles and our energy storage products, are made to last many years, and therefore, we have received a limited number of them back from the field. Most batteries that Tesla recycles today are pre-consumer, coming to us through R&D and quality control. None of our scrapped lithium-ion batteries go to landfills and 100% are recycled. Furthermore, Tesla has an established internal ecosystem to re-manufacture batteries c

You are linking to a PR lie and marketing spin.

They give the batteries to 3rd party recycling; they have not solved the recycling issue.

The batteries are wearing out in 7 years for some people, even less for others for defects or if they go over 300K miles, as time goes on the number of dead batteries is only going to increase. With millions of cars there will be hundreds of thousands of dead batteries per year, that is reality.

Why is it that synthesized fuel technologies aren't getting more attention? Batteries don't have the energy density required to get aircraft to fly. Well, there are people that built battery powered aircraft but they aren't practical for moving people or cargo over long distances. Batteries can't power a rocket. If someone looks for an electric rocket they could find some ideas on how this might work, but they don't use batteries for the power source, rather they use solar panels or a nuclear fission reactor.

I thought I'd do a search for recent news on synthesized hydrocarbon fuels using a couple popular web search services. I found a lot of hits from the last couple weeks. It appears that there's been a couple conferences where a number of companies announced they are working on net-zero-carbon fuels. There's been many such announcements in the news from just the last hour or two, apparently there's one of these conferences going on right now. Maybe Slashdot hasn't had time to process these announcements into something they can post for discussion just yet.

The problem with internal combustion vehicles is that the fuel is from a source that adds CO2 to the environment, and CO2 is a greenhouse gas, where we are increasing this greenhouse effect on the planet at a rate that could prove problematic in the future. Synthesized hydrocarbons can close this carbon loop, therefore avoiding the issues from continued use of internal combustion engines.

Given the need for hydrocarbons for aircraft and spacecraft that are practical and useful we need to develop net-zero-carbon fuel technology or face the problem of global warming.

Synthesized hydrocarbons aren't just useful for lowering CO2 emissions but other nerdy things like getting people to Mars and back. Anything that can get more humans into space should be "news for nerd" and "stuff that matters".

What bothers me more than a lack of news reporting on synthesized fuels is that we are seeing legislation and government regulation that will restrict use of internal combustion engines in the future. A lack of reporting on a topic doesn't impact me nearly as much as laws that could discourage development of technologies that could reduce our CO2 emissions. But then maybe we would not have these laws and policies from elected politicians if there was better reporting on the technology. If voters don't know net-zero-carbon hydrocarbon fuels are possible then they won't be upset about government restrictions on the technology.

Internal combustion engines are not the problem. The problem is petroleum fuel. We know how to produce net-zero-carbon fuels for internal combustion engines. If people don't know about this then that can mean a lot of bad policies from government, and possible delays on solving the problem of global warming.

I'm confused on how so many people on Slashdot seem concerned about global warming but there doesn't appear to be much concern on finding solutions.

Why is it that synthesized fuel technologies aren't getting more attention?

Because people go apeshit bonkers whenever gasoline approaches $5/gal.

When you try to charge them $20/gal, the ensuing riots will burn every city and town in this nation to the ground.

Because people go apeshit bonkers whenever gasoline approaches $5/gal.

I don't see how that is relevant.

When you try to charge them $20/gal, the ensuing riots will burn every city and town in this nation to the ground.

And forcing people by law into high electricity prices and expensive electric cars will keep them calm and orderly? This cuts both ways. Mandates for EVs will not end well if taken too far.

Nobody is suggesting forcing synthesized fuels on anyone. If synthesized fuels can't compete on price then someone should keep working at it until it does. Given that energy prices track supply and demand we could see $20/gal as a bargain some day not too far in the future. There was

Synthesized fuels will never compete with pumping sludge out of the ground, and there is plenty of sludge still available to pump.

There's no point in using synthesized fuels unless you pull the carbon directly out of atmospheric CO2. That's expensive in itself. Then you have to supply enough renewable energy to form the fuel. Then you have to refine it into usable chemicals. All of that is going to be much more expensive than boiling ground sludge and catalyzing it a bit. (Of course, this is at any fixed po

There's no point in using synthesized fuels unless you pull the carbon directly out of atmospheric CO2.

Getting hydrocarbon fuels to be carbon neutral is kind of the point in synthesizing them.

Synthetic fuels would only be cheaper than fossil fuels overall if you include external environmental costs into the calculations and price fossil fuels accordingly.

Or, we have a war between two major producers of petroleum where they blow up a bunch of refineries, seaports, pipelines, and other stuff which would create a global shortage of petroleum and therefore drive up costs to a point synthesized fuels are economically viable. Or, we see development of synthesized fuels to a point that costs come down to that of petroleum fuels. Or, a little bit of the last two impacts on th

Why is it that synthesized fuel technologies aren't getting more attention?

Because most people drive cars. Few fly planes and fewer still fly rockets.

The problem with internal combustion vehicles is that the fuel is from a source that adds CO2 to the environment

That's not the problem, it's one of the many problems. Other problems: * They spew out pollution where the car is, which is where people are * You have to drive somewhere to charge it, no charging overnight at home * High level of mechanical complexity *

* You have to drive somewhere to charge it, no charging overnight at home

Not true, natural gas vehicles are an option.

I have problems with your other points as well but I'd rather not distract from this one point.

Well, there are people that built battery powered aircraft but they aren't practical for moving people or cargo over long distances.

Air Canada just ordered 30 electric planes, so it looks like we're not at the level of just some people that built some (your implication apparently being that they're a hobby project). The basic range of the planes is 124 miles, so they're for short hops, although they also have a hybrid option that extends range.

You do have a point about synthetic fuels for aviation. Although I'm not that sure that it needs to be synthetic gasoline. That would obviously allow usage of legacy aircraft, but there should pro

Any alternative fuel than synthesized hydrocarbons would require big changes in infrastructure and logistics. Working around the edges with battery-electric and hybrid-electric relies on an existing electrical grid. Metal powder fuel is something that has no existing infrastructure to draw from and so would have to be a highly awesome fuel to get adoption. Ammonia as a fuel might be a viable alternative because we have an existing base of ammonia supplies and expertise to build from. Hydrogen isn't goin

Any alternative fuel than synthesized hydrocarbons would require big changes in infrastructure and logistics.

It would, but keeping that infrastructure for that reason smacks of the sunk cost fallacy.

Working around the edges with battery-electric and hybrid-electric relies on an existing electrical grid. Metal powder fuel is something that has no existing infrastructure to draw from and so would have to be a highly awesome fuel to get adoption.

Moving powders or grains around is not really that hard to do though. You could even use the same tankers as gasoline, although you would need some modifications to handle the solid fuel. Its not like it's the first time there have been cars/etc. that take powdered solid fuel.

Ammonia as a fuel might be a viable alternative because we have an existing base of ammonia supplies and expertise to build from.

I don't think I would want to be carting around tanks of pure anhydrous ammonia everywhere. It's kind of nasty stuff to inhale. Sure, it's used a

No matter which electric car I look at, the price is always nearly the same. Base model MSRP is around $40k, and I'm sure the majority of that cost is in batteries. Batteries also lose range with each charge, usually around 8% per year of initial capacity if charged nightly.

We need to get this cost down. I think manufacturers should agree on a standard battery form factor, and charging/information protocol so swapping car batteries is almost as easy (and cheap) as swapping flashlight batteries. Things are s

Tesla's demo of the automated battery swapping machine is the right idea

Fake it and never make it?

I think manufacturers should agree on a standard battery form factor

Not going to happen. Period.

I think manufacturers should agree on a standard battery form factor, and charging/information protocol so swapping car batteries is almost as easy (and cheap) as swapping flashlight batteries.

For an occasional use torch... sure, but you have concerns like self discharge then. I've not had a replaceable battery front light for my bike (essentially a rechargeable torch) for years. The convenience of recharging greatly exceeds the inconvenience of not having replaceable batteries.

As for cars: recharging works

What the fuck are you talking about? EVs don't lose 8% per annum of range. You'd have to do a full charge-discharge cycle every single night to begin to get close to those kind of range losses, ie driving 300 miles a day in an M3. That's *ten times* the average daily distance driven in the US.

A much more typical pattern is what I've had with my 2015, 2018 and 2020 Renault Zoes (with 80, 180 and 250 miles range respectively) - no noticeable deterioration in range at all, over the course of three years. And n

So basically, our battery technology will become dependant on sand [yemenextra.net].

"the silane gas is injected into a carbon product that on the plant floor resembles blocks of charcoal. After quality control, the final powder ends up packed in foil bags, then stowed in big cardboard boxes for shipment."

Infuse blocks of carbon with silane gas, then grind it up and ship it? Maybe there are some additional steps, but that sounds like a pretty simple manufacturing process. Silicon will physically swell and shrink during a charge/discharge cycle, which presumably will eventually cause the ano

How does it solve the problem? It solves the problem of a gee whiz press release, keeping the bosses happy. Happy boss means no job loss.

Another silver bullet. Someone needs to design a gatling gun for all these silver bullets.

California had to tell people not to charge their cars when the electrical grid was about to be overloaded. And that was with the relatively small number of electric cars on the road today. If every car were electric, the grid would overload at all times of the year. And it will take decades to make a more resilient grid. Electric cars are not the answer. We need to continue to promote green H2, and move away from battery cars. We already know how to distribute liquified gas for fueling vehicles. And we hav

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