"LIFE CYCLE COST" As I've been screaming at the top of my lungs for 40 years. It has only improved SLIGHTLY in all that time!A recent study by MIT and a Norwegian University, found that if one factors in the energy cost and carbon production of extracting the minerals necessary for making batteries, refining them, and manufacturing them into batteries, the carbon production exceeds that saved by use of the batteries in electric vehicles.
Bottom line: electric vehicles are responsible for more carbon than fossil fueled vehicles!
Slick
I still don't know why this isn't explored more, is it a lack of lobbying or too much investment gone to electric vehicles already.
Energy density.
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So Electric cars powered by batteries are a dead end.
It certainly can, the trick is storing it safely at high pressures and densities efficiently. There is a significant energy cost in compressing hydrogen - up to 20% of the energy content. Hydrogen can also be stored as hydrides; reversible hydrogen compounds, typically Metal Hydrides, at moderate pressures and low temperatures. A hydrogen economy is possible with existing technologies and ongoing research is making this ever more a reality.acotrel said:... hydrogen probably cannot be stored safely, like acetylene.
Not quite. In the end we want to produce torque, generating a motion, right?
Electric energy stored in batteries may be converted into wheel torque by an efficiency factor of 0.9 .
The best NiCad batteries are able to store 265 Wh/kg. Usable specific energy is therefore 239 Wh/kg. Battery technology is still in its infancies and Bosch company predicts a storage capacity of a new generation of batteries at 500 Wh/kg by 2020 (usable specific energy 450 Wh/kg).
On the other hand, thermal energy stored in gasoline (fossile or synthetic) may be converted into wheel torque by an efficiency factor of 0.2 . Hence, the usable energy density of gasoline is 12000 * 0.2 = 2400 Wh/kg.
Yes, there is still a gap but it's closing. Considering the simplified propulsion design of an electric vehicle, the gap is actually smaller than shown here, maybe 700 Wh/kg usable energy by 2021. Anyway, isn't energy density per volume more appropriate than per weight?
-Knut