The end of gasoline/diesel powered cars?

[flyerdave01]

I confess that my 4kw per day was incorrect, I was in some what of a hurry when i wrote it.

I meant to say 4,000kwh pa and 11,000kwh pa combined. Some estimates go as high as 4,600kwh for electricity. It all depends upon the size of the property. Thanks for the correction.

In the UK there were 27.2 million households in 2017.

Currently, this equates to 27,200,000 x 4,000 = 108,800,000,000kwh per annum. (just domestic use)

So lets assume a rough average of the combined rate of energy per UK household is 11,000kwh pa (no gas).

This equates to 27,200,000 x 11,000 = 299,200,000,000kwh pa.(this is just domestic use)

So when gas and oil runs out, using current domestic electricity energy demands (2017) we will require a further 190,400,000,000kwh pa

In 2017, solar accounted for about 3.4% of Britain’s total electricity generation and 15% of the UK’s entire electricity was generated from wind power. I have been unable to find any future estimates of solar or wind generation.

If all of these households have just one ev and based on the lowest battery storage, say 48kwh and use 50% per day that will be additional 27,200,000 x 24 x 365 =  238,272,000,000kwh pa.

So based on the above using current UK households as of 2017 we will need to increase our electrical energy supply (just domestic plus EV use) by 3.94 times of what we use to day. This does not take into account, electric HGV's, coaches, trains, ships, ferries, roadside lighting, schools and factories converting to electrical heating, public buildings etc.

Please don't shoot me down in flames, as I am very much on the side of renewable energy. I just wish to point out the enormous challenges we face within the next 30 or so years. I cannot consider that it is possible to provide future energy needs without nuclear or coal power stations.

So getting back to the original question, "The end of gasoline/diesel powered cars?" I think the answer is we have to change over to electrical propulsion for all types of transportation, due to the world running out of oil and gas sometime in this century. Quite how we are going to accomplish this is another matter altogether.

A fascinating subject indeed!

[Moreno]

If someone wants to use solar energy to power cars, then the simplest solution is biofuel. No need for any solar panels. It would be interesting to find out a comparison between biofuel cars and EVs in terms of price, costs and efficiency. 

6 hours ago, flyerdave01 said:

I think the answer is we have to change over to electrical propulsion for all types of transportation

In this case, Metal-air fuel cells and metal powder is the most reasonable way to accomplish this with near future technology. They could be used efficiently not only in cars, but also in trains, ships, agricultural machinery, perhaps even in airbuses, if some new type of propulsion drive will be invented.

[Fuad]

On 6/3/2019 at 3:40 PM, Moreno said:

So, you propose to use 1 ton Li-ion batteries in each vehicle? Can you imagine their cost and size? I rather thought about Li-air or Li-Sulfur if they well be ever suitable to use them in cars.

What is weight and cost of batteries of semi's? Did you think about? Yes. Ton and cost is half of vehicle. Simply because there are just box and few electric motors and some plastic and rubber only for ~$100K. So, just see cost and weight of today's electric cars.

Soon Na will replace Li and cost and deficit issue disappear at all.

 

[Moreno]

15 hours ago, Fuad said:

Soon Na will replace Li and cost and deficit issue disappear at all.

Lithium energy density per weight is around 50 MJ/Kg, Sodium around 15 MJ/Kg and gasoline - 45 MJ kg. So, there is no way you can have just 20 kg of Li even in sedan, not talking about trucks and pickups. Even at 100% battery efficiency (what is unlikely). 

[Fuad]

1 minute ago, Moreno said:

Lithium energy density per weight is around 50 MJ/Kg, Sodium around 15 MJ/Kg and gasoline - 45 MJ kg. So, there is no way you can have just 20 kg of Li even in sedan, not talking about trucks and pickups. Even at 100% battery efficiency (what is unlikely). 

There is something is wrong. Li - ion battery energy is around 1 MJ per kg (0.9-2.3 MJ per cubic dm). Where did you get this 50 MJ ? 

I assume we are talking on different issues. 

[Moreno]

6 hours ago, Fuad said:

There is something is wrong. Li - ion battery energy is around 1 MJ per kg (0.9-2.3 MJ per cubic dm). Where did you get this 50 MJ ? 

I assume we are talking on different issues. 

I'm talking about energy that Lithium releases in ideal conditions reacting with air and forming Lithium ...oxides. In Li-ion, Li-sulfur, etc. batteries Lithium produces even less energy than that (per kg), by definition, so you need to account to use even more Lithium per km (that vehicle passes) than in Li-air batteries (if they will be ever suitable for use in EV vehicles).

Edited June 10, 2019 by Moreno

[Sensei]

Quote

The end of gasoline/diesel powered cars?

Actually it's not gasoline/diesel etc. fuel that is problem itself, but its primary origin.

Hydrocarbons, ethanol, methanol etc. can be created from e.g. water and carbon dioxide from the air. In the middle of nowhere in hot and uninhabited region of desert, in Africa, Asia, US, Mexico and Australia, there can be build facilities using solar energy to help produce liquid hydrocarbon fuels for cars and airplanes. What is created in this process, is used the same year, 1:1. Concentration of CO₂ in the air will remain the same. I was couple times promoting e.g. GMO algae which will be modified in such a way to give product not dissolvable in water for easier extraction.

Petrol, hydrocarbons, oil which is pumped from the ground by petroleum industry, during processing and burning, releases carbon dioxide entrapped millions years ago, and its concentration in the air is growing.

Edited June 10, 2019 by Sensei

[Moreno]

8 hours ago, Sensei said:

Hydrocarbons, ethanol, methanol etc. can be created from e.g. water and carbon dioxide from the air. In the middle of nowhere in hot and uninhabited region of desert, in Africa, Asia, US, Mexico and Australia, there can be build facilities using solar energy to help produce liquid hydrocarbon fuels for cars and airplanes. What is created in this process, is used the same year, 1:1. Concentration of CO₂ in the air will remain the same. I was couple times promoting e.g. GMO algae 

I think it would be interesting to have comparison of a car which runs on biofuel with car which runs on metal powder. The later is basically EV and typically 3 times more efficient. It is simpler, cheaper and releases zero gaseous exhaust in the cities. Electricity from the cheap sources could be cheaper than biofuel (as it is now), I think.

[Sensei]

17 minutes ago, Moreno said:

I think it would be interesting to have comparison of a car which runs on biofuel with car which runs on metal powder. The later is basically EV and typically 3 times more efficient. It is simpler, cheaper and releases zero gaseous exhaust in the cities. Electricity from the cheap sources could be cheaper than biofuel (as it is now), I think.

Biofuel is easy and cheap.. the problem of biofuel is that if you use normal area land to grow plants for biofuel, it can't be used for growing normal eatable crops for humans.... i.e. farmer who is making biofuel is not making food, so there is less farmers making food, so food price grows..

 

Edited June 10, 2019 by Sensei

[Moreno]

1 hour ago, Sensei said:

Biofuel is easy and cheap...

Is biodiesel from algae cheaper than gasoline? At present it is more expensive, and gasoline, in its turn, is several times more expensive than electricity which is used to power EVs. Aluminum price is mostly defined by price of electricity which could be quite cheap at night or at remote areas. Also EVs are cheaper initially, and maitenance is cheaper too. 

[koti]

2 hours ago, Sensei said:

Biofuel is easy and cheap.. the problem of biofuel is that if you use normal area land to grow plants for biofuel, it can't be used for growing normal eatable crops for humans.... i.e. farmer who is making biofuel is not making food, so there is less farmers making food, so food price grows..

 

I'm wondering, is there an area of science (or of life or any other area of anything) where you have anything left to learn? Maybe you could give a hint ?

[et pet]

4 hours ago, Sensei said:

Biofuel is easy and cheap.. the problem of biofuel is that if you use normal area land to grow plants for biofuel, it can't be used for growing normal eatable crops for humans.... i.e. farmer who is making biofuel is not making food, so there is less farmers making food, so food price grows..

 

    Maybe recycling Plastic to produce Diesel/Jet Fuel could help. It is not a panacea but it may help keep more land for growing Food and helps to get rid of a Nasty Waste Problem, too! 

   https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190603151554.htm   "   

Science News

from research organizations

 

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Plastic water bottles may one day fly people cross-country

Research group has found a way to turn plastic waste products into jet fuel

Date:

June 3, 2019

Source:

Washington State University

Summary:

Researchers have melted plastic waste at high temperature with activated carbon, a processed carbon with increased surface area, to produce jet fuel.

Share:

     

FULL STORY

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A research group led by Washington State University scientists has found a way to turn daily plastic waste products into jet fuel.

In a new paper published in the journal Applied Energy, WSU's Hanwu Lei and colleagues melted plastic waste at high temperature with activated carbon, a processed carbon with increased surface area, to produce jet fuel.

"Waste plastic is a huge problem worldwide," said Lei, an associate professor in WSU's Department of Biological System Engineering. "This is a very good, and relatively simple, way to recycle these plastics."

How it works

In the experiment, Lei and colleagues tested low-density polyethylene and mixed a variety of waste plastic products, like water bottles, milk bottles, and plastic bags, and ground them down to around three millimeters, or about the size of a grain of rice.

The plastic granules were then placed on top of activated carbon in a tube reactor at a high temperature, ranging from 430 degree Celsius to 571 degrees Celsius. That's 806 to 1,060 Fahrenheit. The carbon is a catalyst, or a substance that speeds up a chemical reaction without being consumed by the reaction.

"Plastic is hard to break down," Lei said. "You have to add a catalyst to help break the chemical bonds. There is a lot of hydrogen in plastics, which is a key component in fuel."

Once the carbon catalyst has done its work, it can be separated out and re-used on the next batch of waste plastic conversion. The catalyst can also be regenerated after losing its activity.

After testing several different catalysts at different temperatures, the best result they had produced a mixture of 85 percent jet fuel and 15 percent diesel fuel.

Environmental impact

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, landfills in the U.S. received 26 million tons of plastic in 2015, the most recent year statistics are available. China has recently stopped accepting plastic recycling from the U.S. and Canada. Conservative estimates by scientists say that at least 4.8 million tons of plastic enters the ocean each year worldwide.

Not only would this new process reduce that waste, very little of what is produced is wasted.

"We can recover almost 100 percent of the energy from the plastic we tested," Lei said. "The fuel is very good quality, and the byproduct gasses produced are high quality and useful as well."

He also said the method for this process is easily scalable. It could work at a large facility or even on farms, where farmers could turn plastic waste into diesel.

"You have to separate the resulting product to get jet fuel," Lei said. "If you don't separate it, then it's all diesel fuel."

This work was funded by the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grant no. 2014-38502-22598, 2016-67021-24533, 2018-67009-27904 from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, United States Department of Agriculture.   "

   https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190603151554.htm   

[Sensei]

8 hours ago, koti said:

I'm wondering, is there an area of science (or of life or any other area of anything) where you have anything left to learn? Maybe you could give a hint ? 

Do you mean generally by humans?

...how human brain works is not understood very well.. (otherwise it would be no problem to create artificial brain simulator algorithm for AI)..

..there are science areas which are almost endlessly changing i.e. Computer Science programmers are making their own new APIs and upgrading existing, every day, so you have to learn every day something new..

 

Edited June 11, 2019 by Sensei

[dimreepr]

On 5/30/2019 at 3:54 PM, Fuad said:

Hydrogen? Is big problem from generating, logistics and safety. Electric is near future.

1/ Whats the problem with generation? It's very easy, electric + water.

2/ Logistics is just a matter of infrastructure; there's a reason we swapped canals for railways. And we already drive/walk/live/sleep with the potential of death by fire.

3/ Hydrogen fuel cell is already here and well understood.

And since we could easily power our homes with the car, when were not out driving, it doesn't matter if renewable (solar/wind) energy is intermittent because water isn't. 

No, the big problem is, once it's up and running, there's little profit for the investors.

Edited June 11, 2019 by dimreepr

[Phi for All]

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

No, the big problem is, once it's up and running, there's little profit for the investors.

This is why solar electric utilities should be publicly owned. Forget profit and make super cheap electricity available everywhere, and it will benefit big business most (except fossil fuels). Anyone who claims solar isn't cost-effective these days is protecting established technologies.

[koti]

1 hour ago, Phi for All said:

This is why solar electric utilities should be publicly owned. Forget profit and make super cheap electricity available everywhere, and it will benefit big business most (except fossil fuels). Anyone who claims solar isn't cost-effective these days is protecting established technologies.

I have a friend who lives in Burbank California who works as an electritian for a state company. He baught w bunch of solar panels 2 years ago for his home, the other day while at my buddies summer house 30 miles from Warsaw we had a long video chat the three of us, my buddy here attempted to equip his summer house with solar but the state taxes you, doesn’t let you do anything with surplus energy generated, its a real pain here. The Burbank friend on the other hand sends his surplus energy back to the grid and is getting payed for it. I ron’t know how it is in the other states but in California it seems its a great idea to go for solar. Here its a nightmare, they will excise tax you to the point it doesn’t make financial sense to do it unless youre wealthy and stubborn. 

[Phi for All]

11 minutes ago, koti said:

I have a friend who lives in Burbank California who works as an electritian for a state company. He baught w bunch of solar panels 2 years ago for his home, the other day while at my buddies summer house 30 miles from Warsaw we had a long video chat the three of us, my buddy here attempted to equip his summer house with solar but the state taxes you, doesn’t let you do anything with surplus energy generated, its a real pain here. The Burbank friend on the other hand sends his surplus energy back to the grid and is getting payed for it. I ron’t know how it is in the other states but in California it seems its a great idea to go for solar. Here its a nightmare, they will excise tax you to the point it doesn’t make financial sense to do it unless youre wealthy and stubborn. 

Even California uses privately held "public" utilities. They're regulated like a public provider (which is why they have to buy back surplus energy from wind and solar) but the prices they charge include profit for investors, and they get further subsidies to offset restricted growth. Imo, it's a dumb way to use public funding, and it was a dumb move selling public ownership of something so important in the first place.

Electricity is such an integral part of our society these days, but we don't need an unlimited amount of it. We don't need business models for this, we need a utility focused on providing inexpensive electricity to EVERYONE, and let the lower costs all around fuel profit for private ventures. How many manufacturing opportunities are waiting to replace jobs lost to ending fossil fuel use, waiting on cheap electricity to make more concepts viable? 

Who owns the utilities in Poland? Private? Public? State?

[Sensei]

8 minutes ago, koti said:

I have a friend who lives in Burbank California who works as an electritian for a state company. He baught w bunch of solar panels 2 years ago for his home, the other day while at my buddies summer house 30 miles from Warsaw we had a long video chat the three of us, my buddy here attempted to equip his summer house with solar but the state taxes you, doesn’t let you do anything with surplus energy generated, its a real pain here. The Burbank friend on the other hand sends his surplus energy back to the grid and is getting payed for it. I ron’t know how it is in the other states but in California it seems its a great idea to go for solar. Here its a nightmare, they will excise tax you to the point it doesn’t make financial sense to do it unless youre wealthy and stubborn.  

In California it does not make too much sense to sell your self made electricity from solar panels on your roof to the grid. Unless you have really huge surplus...

After all, due to California climate, user has to use air conditioner (3000-5000 Watts 9h long *).

Refrigerator.

Family of four is making at least one clothes washing per day.

Good idea would be to use electric powered water boiler. There will be needed to heat 4x 60-120 L of water per day, for bath all four people.

*) 16% efficient solar panel is giving 1370 W/m^2 * 0.16 = ~ 220 W/m^2 at peak. To have 5000 W you would need ~ 23 m^2 of solar panels... That's quite a lot I think.

5 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Who owns the utilities in Poland? Private? Public? State?

If it's solar panel on roof on the top of private owned property, it is rather possession of house owner.

[Phi for All]

22 minutes ago, Sensei said:

In California it does not make too much sense to sell your self made electricity from solar panels on your roof to the grid. Unless you have really huge surplus...

After all, due to California climate, user has to use air conditioner (3000-5000 Watts 9h long *).

It's all metered, so if you need it for air conditioning, it isn't surplus. When we still owned our state Public Service utility, a friend of mine was a meter reader, and told me about homes with windmills and solar where the meters ran backwards, even back then. Public Service sent checks to those folks instead of bills.

 

22 minutes ago, Sensei said:

If it's solar panel on roof on the top of private owned property, it is rather possession of house owner.

But koti claimed his friend tried this and was taxed by the state. Maybe if you weren't connected to the grid, you could get away with generating all your electricity this way, but in the US, many states have a way of claiming it's part of public safety. They won't let you go off grid, or collect rainwater, or compost. They usually define what is an approved power or water supply, and then pass laws requiring everyone to use them (not just those who want to be on the grid). 

[koti]

2 hours ago, Phi for All said:

Who owns the utilities in Poland? Private? Public? State?

I’m not sure about the ownership, since the big electrical companies are being merged/sold it would seem that they are at least partially private but the regulations are made on legislative level throughout the whole industry. Its silly but I don’t know who owns the company which provides electricity to our house, it might be a French corporation that owns it (forgot the name) From what Ive been told though, youre not allowed to produce your own energy without paying a tax to the state, its like with tobbaco and alcohol. Theres a constant dissonance between how the EU regulates these things and how our government does things. They burried wind and solar a couple years ago with some ridiculous laws.

[Phi for All]

17 minutes ago, koti said:

I’m not sure about the ownership, since the big electrical companies are being merged/sold it would seem that they are at least partially private but the regulations are made on legislative level throughout the whole industry. Its silly but I don’t know who owns the company which provides electricity to our house, it might be a French corporation that owns it (forgot the name) From what Ive been told though, youre not allowed to produce your own energy without paying a tax to the state, its like with tobbaco and alcohol. Theres a constant dissonance between how the EU regulates these things and how our government does things. They burried wind and solar a couple years ago with some ridiculous laws.

If part of the reason for having a democracy is so "the People" will always own something (the streets, sidewalks, parks at least) then the best thing for us to own is the energy it takes to run everything. If our economies rely on us using electric technology, imagine the boost it would give us if electricity were $0.06/kWh instead of $0.133/kWh?  There are already lots of subsidies in most countries for oil and gas operations, so we should be able to use those to help solar/wind overcome some of their environmental problems. 

I'd love to own a fully electric car, and charge it up every night off the batteries from my solar panels. I'd drive it down to Home Depot and buy the materials to build some goddamned water reclamation barrels and a composting station. 

[koti]

1 hour ago, Phi for All said:

I'd love to own a fully electric car, and charge it up every night off the batteries from my solar panels. I'd drive it down to Home Depot and buy the materials to build some goddamned water reclamation barrels and a composting station. 

The panels are cheap but the batteries are still a big a hit for the pocket. A decent single 18650 battery costs around 4-5 bucks when you buy bulk and you need ~7000 of them to get an 85kWh pack which I presume would be the territory needed for a household...so youre looking at ~25K USD for energy storage which after 10 years is scrap (runs down below 50% capacity) Unfortunately energy storage is still a privilege for the wealthy. 

[Phi for All]

50 minutes ago, koti said:

The panels are cheap but the batteries are still a big a hit for the pocket. A decent single 18650 battery costs around 4-5 bucks when you buy bulk and you need ~7000 of them to get an 85kWh pack which I presume would be the territory needed for a household...so youre looking at ~25K USD for energy storage which after 10 years is scrap (runs down below 50% capacity) Unfortunately energy storage is still a privilege for the wealthy. 

Some of the best battery tech at the time was bought up by (drum roll) Chevron, who sat on it and refused to make large format batteries for a long time. Oil & gas will hold us back as long as they can make a little more money.

[koti]

30 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Some of the best battery tech at the time was bought up by (drum roll) Chevron, who sat on it and refused to make large format batteries for a long time. Oil & gas will hold us back as long as they can make a little more money.

Back in 2006 I was on the coast of Angola giving training for a Chevron-Texaco oil rig (dozens of them on the ocean) The closed small town was about 2500 people governed entirely by the US in a military manner. They had a 24 hour strike few days before I got there, it cost them 168 milion USD. It sure puts the scale of the business into perspective. I had a talk with a foreman of one of the rigs over lunch one day...I don’t feel comfortable typing about what he said on the internet but let me just say that my jaw was open most of the lunch. 

[Ken Fabian]

9 hours ago, Phi for All said:

Some of the best battery tech at the time was bought up by (drum roll) Chevron, who sat on it and refused to make large format batteries for a long time. Oil & gas will hold us back as long as they can make a little more money.

It is an interesting question - the extent to which competing new technologies are bought out in order to prevent their use rather than to fully develop and commercialise them. Good ideas can be lost because of that as well as to inadequate funding and various forms of mismanagement. I once naively thought patent law was for making inventions and innovations widely available to others, with royalties ensuring a means for the inventors to be justly rewarded where it happens. It appear to be used more to prevent others using them - despite the potential for earnings from others succeeding at perfecting and commercialising them. It does appear that patents are for the big players - that without financial and legal resources the smaller players cannot defend against their theft of intellectual property.