Unintended consequences are always a big factor in any new thing. Both lithium and rare earth materials must be mined and refined and this leads to pollution. China is the big source for both of these items and has an abysmal record when it comes to pollution. It is only a matter of time before the "green" activists point out the consequences of going electric. This will drive the cost of the raw materials up or make them unavailable.
On the other hand a battery that better utilizes it's raw materials is to be welcomed because it uses fewer raw materials although it seems that the more efficient a battery becomes the greater it's safety risks and hence potential for widespread adoption.
EV cars will only be a practical alternative to good old gasoline when they can go as far as the driver can, so more like 1000 miles is needed than 300. Until then they will remain only a novelty, a city car for those that can afford to have multiple vehicles, and have enough money to not even care about the extra money spent to be using an EV. An EV has more in common with a boat or a motorcycle than a gasoline powered car. If Envia indeed lives up to it's claims, although I'll admit skepticisim, there certainly are a lot of other markets that would use this battery technology other than EVs, so I hope their business plan is not banking on EV sales to survive. As for the use of "biological batteries", we have that now, it is call a bicycle.
TJ - While the grid runs a little more to the edge in the northeast, line maintenance is a big cause of problems there.
Moving from Texas to Virginia 9 years ago, I was shocked at how poorly the line right-of-ways are maintained. Back home the power companies thought nothing of removing any trees even remotely threatening to lines; here they are content to carve a little path through the trees. The rest of the states up here are about the same.
We haven't yet become close to being able to condense engergy as well as nature can - wood, coal, oil, atomic, etc. Most of these take a life form to make it possible.
Is there any work out there on a biological "battery"?
The gyroscopic effect can be delt with by making the axis of rotation vertical. That allows you to drive in circles all day long. Gimbal mounting allows you to go up and down hills. San Fracisco would be an extreme case.
We have our own well. All the water that we use goes through a heat exchanger first. That is how I air condition our house. The slight increas in water temperature keeps the plumbing from sweating and it also takes some of the load off the water heater.
Around 1950 there was a flywheel powered bus, the Oerlikon Gyrobus. Also, the Joint European Torus at Culham Lab uses a huge flywheel, the peak pulse is not far off the whole UK National Grid power. Modern flywheel design is much faster, a light composite wheel with great tensile strength. If the axis is vertical with compliant mountings, gyroscopis moment is not problem. However I think the total energy storage is not that high.
My money would be on algae derived oil, produced in sunny places and easily stored and shipped using existing infrastructure. The CO2 from burning it has been absorbed from the atmosphere in growing it, so there is no net CO2 production.
If somebody figured out how to make an on-board fuel reformer that would convert fuel, butanol or ethanol for instance, into hydrogen, or make a fuel cell that efficiently used molecular fuel directly, you could have the advantages of our fuel infrastructure plus the advantages of electric cars. You could "gas" up at a service station in a few minutes with fairly safe, liquid fuel in a few minutes, and drive hundreds of miles.
This is a great development and will speed the day we can have a 'commuter vehicle' that is all electric.
As far as hydrogen infrastructure, that's the big problem. Fuel cells will NEVER work because of this. The dollars needed to build a hydrogen infrastructure would never be recovered. Hydrogen is a boondoggle that is used by politicians to distract from real solutions.
Far better to use a fuel for which the infrastructure exists now: Biodiesel. With new algal production methods, we could replace all of the liquid fuel needed for transportation in this country with biodiesel. The infrastructure exists, the engines exist. What we need is the political will. The EROI on biodiesel is very high and this combined with technologies like we see from Envia would make us energy independent within 5 years. The solutions are there. We are held back only by corporate and political manipulation.
Fly-wheels are a horrible idea. They are extremely heavy and if you move their axis of rotation even by a few degrees the amount of force exerted on the unit would tear it apart. Fly wheels were considered for trains that stop frequently. The idea was to store some of that energy on a flywheel and reuse it. Obviously even on its intended use it's still far-fetched. Water when in freezes it decreases in density causing it to burst most vessels it's stored in. Water is great energy storage for heating and cooling. Sun to water heat transfer can be 80%+ for heating and with water evaporative process an extremely high amount of heat can be moved with relatively cheap water pumps. HVAC power systems on the other hand are less than 10% efficient and the colder the process the less efficient. You are speaking about a system that is barely 2-5% efficiency. Batteries on the other hand can have efficiency of between 30-70%.
As energy efficiency becomes more and more a concern for makers of electronics devices, researchers are coming up with new ways to harvest energy from sound vibration, footsteps, and even electromagnetic fields in the air.
The government wants to study your brain, and DARPA wants to use similar information to give robots true autonomy beyond any artificial intelligence developed to date. Sound like science fiction? It's not.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 3
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
A quick look into the merger of two powerhouse 3D printing OEMs and the new leader in rapid prototyping solutions, Stratasys. The industrial revolution is now led by 3D printing and engineers are given the opportunity to fully maximize their design capabilities, reduce their time-to-market and functionally test prototypes cheaper, faster and easier. Bruce Bradshaw, Director of Marketing in North America, will explore the large product offering and variety of materials that will help CAD designers articulate their product design with actual, physical prototypes. This broadcast will dive deep into technical information including application specific stories from real world customers and their experiences with 3D printing. 3D Printing is
To save this item to your list of favorite Design News content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
If you found this interesting or useful, please use the links to the services below to share it with other readers. You will need a free account with each service to share an item via that service.
Tweet This
8 
