Ascension of Lithium

[Lou_tribal]

"... a cleaner way a of motoring."

Not much cleaner [if at all cleaner] when the electricity comes off an electrical power-grid whose electric plants are burning coal... Even NG emits pollutants. Electrically recharge-powering cars in any location simply shifts the pollution into atmosphere from car exhaust onto electric plant chimney exhaust. With 18 to 22 percent loss factor over electricity power-grid transmission lines to reach the vehicle charge stations even though there are efforts to clean-up electric plant chimney emissions... representative air pollution due to cars is still occurring.

Now... if the electric energy used to recharge vehicle batts comes from "clean" electricity manufacturing sources i.e. PV, Airflow/Wind Blades, Geothermal, Wave/Tidal Action... etc. Then we are on the correct path to curtail atmospheric pollution from vehicles.

That said: After battery powered vehicles become dominant in sales/use... we run into another problem; i.e. taking care of the BILLIONS of Batteries' demise and hopefully 100% batt-product recycling. That in and of itself will become an enormous industry!

You nailed it down. A lot of people love the electric cars who are not releasing any gases... well yes, but if every kidam get an electric car... think about it. Some places already produce electricity from coal, some place already have issue to provide electricity to everybody... magine if you add the load of 2 or 3 car per house. Electricity may be clean when we use it but it s certainly not when we produce it...

But like Murray I am interested in lithium batteries. The day they will become cheaper I will certainly replace my oldies acid batteries with them as they are so much better.
If you lot at anything powered by batteries it followed the same path... straight old batteries to end with lithium batteries and it is not for no reason.

L.

 

[Moonstruck]

Damned it! I'v just finished to do my new propane installation aboard



L.

Lou, don't be too disturbed about that. It takes about 900 watts of solar panels to run and electric cook top and small refrigerator with a Danfoss compressor.
Even in RVs unless you are in the SW with unrestricted sun it's borderline. You may be able to run a 13-15,000 btu A/C for only a couple of hours.

For most propane will be king for cooking, refrigeration, hot water, and heating in RVs for a long time to come. I follow a couple of guys who have made the conversion to electric, but they are all in the SW.

Solar and wind power are great. They are just not there yet.

 

[rwidman]

There are plenty of charging stations in this area already.
The city of Adelaide has free electric charging stations in many of their city owned car parks. The bonus is you get free parking while you are getting free electricity. Just another way of promoting a cleaner way a of motoring.

Just another way of the government ripping off taxpayers. Electric vehicles need to be able to survive on their own with the drivers paying for their own "fuel". And while the brainwashed masses claim that electric vehicles create no pollution, the fact is, they create pollution, it's just not in their neighborhood, it in someone else's neighborhood where they mine and/or burn the coal to produce the electricity to run these "pollution free" vehicles.

So the government is subsidizing the production and operation of electric vehicles. The government itself has no money to do this, it is taking money from taxpayers and giving it to other taxpayers to buy and operate these vehicles. Where does that help anything?

 

[rwidman]

......................... In Canada we have lots of hydro (dam-water-turbine) power, so less air born pollution transfer from car to power plant.

And in the USA, we have tree huggers demanding that dams be removed so the fish can swim upstream. There is close to zero chance that another hydro electric power plant will ever be built in this country even though they generate no pollution and the resulting power is produced at near zero cost other than the one time cost of building the dam and power plant.

 

[MurrayM]

And in the USA, we have tree huggers demanding that dams be removed so the fish can swim upstream. There is close to zero chance that another hydro electric power plant will ever be built in this country even though they generate no pollution and the resulting power is produced at near zero cost other than the one time cost of building the dam and power plant.

That's because, as far as your lower 48 west is concerned, you have zero rivers which run free to the sea. Not a problem in Canada

 

[MurrayM]

The Colorado River doesn't even reach the ocean any more. Your rivers do need help...

 

[DavidM]

Let's look at the entire carbon picture for plug in electric cars vs gasoline powered cars.

A gasoline engine converts about 20% of its thermal energy to work, ie moving the car. And it is burning a hydrocarbon so CO2, the greenhouse gas is produced. There is another X% of green house gasses produced in the exploration, production, refining and transportation of that gasoline and I have no idea what that is, but it is significant.

Now lets look at plug in electric. It uses electricity from the grid to charge it up. Yes there are maybe 20% losses in transmission and charging efficiency. But all new electricity is being made from natural gas or renewables. So lets look at natural gas, the biggest fuel for power produced in the US right now.

You can use natural gas two ways to make power: cogeneration facilities or straight burning in boilers which mostly are coal conversions today. Cogeneration converts 45+% of the energy in natural gas to power and even more if the waste heat is used in industrial processes. Simple burning of natural gas in boilers converts about 35% of the energy to power.

Then there is the amount of greenhouse gasses produced for each fuel. For equivalent btu produced, natural gas produces significantly less CO2 when it is burned than gasoline due to the molecular structure of each fuel.

Sooooo, my guess based on the above is that an electric car produces half or less of the CO2 of a gasoline car. And that number will decrease as power generation shifts to renewables.

David

 

[sunchaser]

There are plenty of charging stations in this area already.
The city of Adelaide has free electric charging stations in many of their city owned car parks. The bonus is you get free parking while you are getting free electricity. Just another way of promoting a cleaner way a of motoring.

Cleaner, maybe or maybe not. Where do those KWs come from? And, some even like to drive 1000 kms in a day. Even Elon Musk is now saying the answer to a cleaner planet is - gasp - fewer people! Chinese sales of Tessa's have recently cratered, subsidies are gone.

Kinda funny that we are talking from one of the least efficient means of travel, power boats.

 

[Xsbank]

Sorry djmarchand, renewables are only 15% in the US. Natural gas is big... but only 33%.

What is U.S. electricity generation by energy source?

In 2016, about 4.08 trillion kilowatthours (kWh) of electricity1 were generated at utility-scale facilities in the United States.2 About 65% of this electricity generation was from fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, petroleum, and other gases), about 20% was from nuclear energy, and about 15% was from renewable energy sources. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that an additional 19 billion kWh (or about 0.02 trillion kWh) of electricity generation was from small-scale solar photovoltaic systems in 2016.3

Major energy sources and percent shares of U.S. electricity generation at utility-scale facilities in 20161

Natural gas = 33.8%
Coal = 30.4%
Nuclear = 19.7%
Renewables (total) = 14.9%
Hydropower = 6.5%
Wind = 5.6%
Biomass = 1.5%
Solar = 0.9%
Geothermal = 0.4%
Petroleum = 0.6%
Other gases = 0.3%
Other nonrenewable sources = 0.3%
Pumped storage hydroelectricity = -0.2%4

 

[Xsbank]

Electric cars are not a panacea.

We have it a bit better - In 2013, the leading type of power generation by utilities in Canada is hydroelectricity, with a share of 60.1%. Nuclear (15.8%), natural gas (10.3%), coal (10%), wind (1.8%), fuel oil (1.2%), biofuels and waste (0. ...

 

[Jeff F]

Sorry djmarchand, renewables are only 15% in the US. Natural gas is big... but only 33%.

That's the snapshot view. But graph it out over the preceding ten years and a few things will pop, particularly renewables. Of course these trends can be reversed by things like significant changes in energy or environmental policies. November's election made predicting the future a bit more difficult.

 

[dhays]

So the government is subsidizing the production and operation of electric vehicles. The government itself has no money to do this, it is taking money from taxpayers and giving it to other taxpayers to buy and operate these vehicles. Where does that help anything?

You describe just another example of societies using taxation as a form of social engineering. Most communities use their tax structure to promote some types of behavior and discourage other behavior.

The answer to your question is simple. These types of tax/social policy help the community to guide behavior in ways that they feel is valuable. The larger community feels that is helpful.

 

[dhays]

Sorry djmarchand, renewables are only 15% in the US. Natural gas is big... but only 33%.

I think Dave's point was that NEW power generation is coming from natural gas or renewables. Kind of like our marginal tax rate. Not sure if he is entirely correct, but I think he is close. As we add new generation capability most of it is NG or renewables. As we add more new sources of power generation, the percentage of total power production from coal and diesel is decreasing.

 

[Xsbank]

I think we were discussing unintended consequences, like how twisted the market and huge quantities of damaged engines after the ethanol nonsense or the results on groundwater from fracking natural gas. The disposal of huge quantities of used batteries, just as the problems from the disposal of tires; how to dispose of those small flourescent bulbs after governments mandated their use. Bird deaths from windmills and being incinerated in solar farms. What happens to all those solar panels after 20 or 30 years? What happens to the power grid if suddenly everyone wants electric cars?

Claiming your power generation is all ok despite only being currently at 14%, because I presented a "snapshot" is specious.

 

[Art]

With associates, universities and govt. orgs: Corp I founded has been working diligently on the following... for well over a decade.

Solar powered massive airflow that "cleanly" accomplishes the following group of environment-friendly items:

- Generates electricity,
- Creates potable water from ambient air humidity,
- Desalinates ocean water,
- Helps enable others' "Direct Air Capture" [DAC] devices to separate CO2 from atmosphere, and;
- Which therefore enables others' devices with amble amount of 98% pure CO2 to turn that CO2 into fungible, drop-in fuels for gasoline, diesel and jet engines.

This solar powered "Full-Cycle" process for creating atmospherically suspended CO2 based fuels = "Carbon Neutral" fuel supply that will efficiently suffice to run the billion plus liquid hydrocarbon combustion engines throughout the world.

In simplest terms:
1. CO2 gets extracted form atmosphere,
2. CO2 gets turned into "syngas",
3. Syngas gets turned into gasoline, diesel or jet fuel, and;
4 Fuels get burned in combustion engine with CO2 readmitted back into atmosphere

From point #4 go back to point #1... and do it all over again and again; time after time after time!

That is why it is called a "Full-Cycle" "Carbon Neutral" liquid hydrocarbon fuel source. This revolutionary method of a new-source for vehicular and generator and appliance and airplane propellants creates no new CO2. Completely different than all forms of fossil fuels that are "Carbon-Positive" and that must be stopped in use before it is too late to save our ecosystem and climate environments.

Cheers!

Art

 

[dhays]

Claiming your power generation is all ok despite only being currently at 14%, because I presented a "snapshot" is specious.

Yeah, I didn't take David's post to imply that US power generation is "all OK". I certainly don't think it is. I do think that it has been improving in many ways over the years. Of course, if POTUS has his way, we may be building a lot of new coal fired power plants.

 

[Jeff F]

I think we were discussing unintended consequences, like how twisted the market and huge quantities of damaged engines after the ethanol nonsense or the results on groundwater from fracking natural gas. The disposal of huge quantities of used batteries, just as the problems from the disposal of tires; how to dispose of those small flourescent bulbs after governments mandated their use. Bird deaths from windmills and being incinerated in solar farms. What happens to all those solar panels after 20 or 30 years? What happens to the power grid if suddenly everyone wants electric cars?

Claiming your power generation is all ok despite only being currently at 14%, because I presented a "snapshot" is specious.

No disagreement here on unintended consequences. I think Europe and wealthy parts of Asia have a big problem right now. They pushed diesel in personal transport largely for energy conservation/GHG reduction and now find their cities being threatened by NOx emissions from those 'clean' diesels. Change is hard, and this is a tough set of challenges.

What the trend in energy mix and storage tells us that the snapshot doesn't is that the future holds possibility for reducing fossil fuel consumption while continuing to enjoy the benefits and wealth that abundant energy has provided. I wouldn't claim that all is OK now, but based on the trend I'd say that there are clearly opportunities for continued progress.

Maybe I lapsed into analyst speak, but hopefully this clarifies my point.

 

[Cottontop]

With associates, universities and govt. orgs: Corp I founded has been working diligently on the following... for well over a decade.

Solar powered massive airflow that "cleanly" accomplishes the following group of environment-friendly items:

- Generates electricity,
- Creates potable water from ambient air humidity,
- Desalinates ocean water,
- Helps enable others' "Direct Air Capture" [DAC] devices to separate CO2 from atmosphere, and;
- Which therefore enables others' devices with amble amount of 98% pure CO2 to turn that CO2 into fungible, drop-in fuels for gasoline, diesel and jet engines.

This solar powered "Full-Cycle" process for creating atmospherically suspended CO2 based fuels = "Carbon Neutral" fuel supply that will efficiently suffice to run the billion plus liquid hydrocarbon combustion engines throughout the world.

In simplest terms:
1. CO2 gets extracted form atmosphere,
2. CO2 gets turned into "syngas",
3. Syngas gets turned into gasoline, diesel or jet fuel, and;
4 Fuels get burned in combustion engine with CO2 readmitted back into atmosphere

From point #4 go back to point #1... and do it all over again and again; time after time after time!

That is why it is called a "Full-Cycle" "Carbon Neutral" liquid hydrocarbon fuel source. This revolutionary method of a new-source for vehicular and generator and appliance and airplane propellants creates no new CO2. Completely different than all forms of fossil fuels that are "Carbon-Positive" and that must be stopped in use before it is too late to save our ecosystem and climate environments.

Cheers!

Art

Assuming you're not working on a perpetual motion machine, where does the energy for 1, 2 and 3 come from?

 

[Ski in NC]

I think we were discussing unintended consequences, like how twisted the market and huge quantities of damaged engines after the ethanol nonsense or the results on groundwater from fracking natural gas. The disposal of huge quantities of used batteries, just as the problems from the disposal of tires; how to dispose of those small flourescent bulbs after governments mandated their use. Bird deaths from windmills and being incinerated in solar farms. What happens to all those solar panels after 20 or 30 years? What happens to the power grid if suddenly everyone wants electric cars?

Claiming your power generation is all ok despite only being currently at 14%, because I presented a "snapshot" is specious.

Wow, getting a bit hyperbolic??

1. Ethanol damaged engines? Yes, initially. Mostly fixed now.
2. Disposing of used batteries? Recycle them. Already happening.
3. Disposing of tires? Recycle them. Already happening
4. Small flourescent bulbs? Trivial amount of mercury, moot as those are obsolete now considering LED.
5. Bird deaths from windmills? I have not researched, but what I have read is that the numbers are an order of magnitude less than those killed by house cats.
6. Birds incinerated by concentrated solar farms? That number HAS to be trivial.
7. Old solar panels? Recycle them or into the landfill. Not particularly toxic.
8. What happens to the grid if everyone suddenly gets ecars? Silly, that will not happen suddenly. Gradually perhaps, and the grid can and will adapt with the adoption. In some ways ecars help as charging at night helps flatten the diurnal load fluctuations, which have buggered utilities for ages.

Take a breath....

 

[rwidman]

That's because, as far as your lower 48 west is concerned, you have zero rivers which run free to the sea. Not a problem in Canada

I have no idea how you think that relates to what I posted. We will have no new dams because "tree huggers" believe endangered frogs and such are more important than human's needs.

 

[MurrayM]

I have no idea how you think that relates to what I posted...

Hard to see around the blinders, eh?

 

[rwidman]

You describe just another example of societies using taxation as a form of social engineering. Most communities use their tax structure to promote some types of behavior and discourage other behavior.

The answer to your question is simple. These types of tax/social policy help the community to guide behavior in ways that they feel is valuable. The larger community feels that is helpful.

Spoken by a democrat and a true liberal. What right does the "community" have to "guide my behavior"?

I suggest you rethink your ideas of what communities and governments should have the right to do. Remember, we (boat owners) are a group of people who use gasoline and diesel fuel to go places we don't need to go. Outlawing boating would be a great way to save energy.

Think about it.

 

[dhays]

This solar powered "Full-Cycle" process for creating atmospherically suspended CO2 based fuels = "Carbon Neutral" fuel supply that will efficiently suffice to run the billion plus liquid hydrocarbon combustion engines throughout the world.

In simplest terms:
1. CO2 gets extracted form atmosphere,
2. CO2 gets turned into "syngas",
3. Syngas gets turned into gasoline, diesel or jet fuel, and;
4 Fuels get burned in combustion engine with CO2 readmitted back into atmosphere

From point #4 go back to point #1... and do it all over again and again; time after time after time!

That is why it is called a "Full-Cycle" "Carbon Neutral" liquid hydrocarbon fuel source. This revolutionary method of a new-source for vehicular and generator and appliance and airplane propellants creates no new CO2.

Art, organic chemistry was never a strong suit of mine. As such, I am am pretty ignorant when it comes to carbon based fuels. As I understand it, syngas is created by combining H2 and CO with a bit of CO2 thrown in.

The syngas can then be used a a carbon source in further reactions to produce a variety of fuels and chemical by-products. In this way, I understand that syngas can be used to create liquid synthetic fuels such as gasoline, diesel, and even liquid fuel cell fuels. How that is actually done and what additional elements need to be added and at what energy cost, I have no idea.

It seems to me that the refining process to go from syngas to a viable liquid fuel would be rather energy intensive in its own right, but again, I have no idea. It seems to me that it can't be easy to turn syngas into stable long-chain hydrocarbons, but what do I know?

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that it is possible to use solar energy to reduce CO2 into CO + O2. I would assume that water would have to be involved as well as a Hydrogen source as part of the process but I don't know. This type of endothermic reaction would be neat trick since I am only aware of plants that can do that when they break one of the CO bonds in CO2 to form carbohydrates.

From the "sounds too good to be true" category, I'm a bit skeptical. My guess would be that the first step of reducing CO2 would require some interesting (ie expensive) catalysts, and then the process of using the CO to create syngas would require more resources, and that is before it is used to create a stable liquid fuel.

If it is practical, as opposed to simply possible, it would be a game changer.

 

[dhays]

Spoken by a democrat and a true liberal. What right does the "community" have to "guide my behavior"?

I suggest you rethink your ideas of what communities and governments should have the right to do. Remember, we (boat owners) are a group of people who use gasoline and diesel fuel to go places we don't need to go. Outlawing boating would be a great way to save energy.

Think about it.

You are making all kinds of assumptions there.

The community guides and dictates our behavior all the time. This is done in obvious and not so obvious ways. Are you suggesting that the US (one of our communities) shouldn't have the ability to tell us how we can operate our boats? We would miss out on all the discussion of what is a "stand on" vessel. Why should I have to put a red running light on my port side?

Beyond the safety rules, we have decided through our federal government that we should contribute to it via income tax. I don't like paying taxes, but the greater community has decided that I should. However, that same community, for a variety of reasons, has said that as a home-owner with a mortgage, I don't have to pay as much tax as someone who owns their home outright or is simply renting. The community wanted folks to borrow money from banks for homes, so they used the tax structure to encourage that. They also encourage us to give money to charities via the same mechanism. You and I may not agree with those, but we don't have a choice.

There are lots of ways that our government encourages certain types of behavior and discourages others. Some of them I agree with and others I don't. Those that you or I disagree with, can be changed if I can convince enough other people that it is important.

As for the government incentives to stimulate renewable energy, I am not sure. In some cases I think it can make sense but in others it doesn't. I do find it ironic that the coal and oil industries that complain about incentives going to alternative energy technologies achieved their dominant position in the energy sector in this country in large part through the help and support of the government.

 

[dhays]

Assuming you're not working on a perpetual motion machine, where does the energy for 1, 2 and 3 come from?

In the case of step 1, the sun. I have no idea for steps 2 and 3. You asked the question much more succinctly than I.

 

[Art]

Assuming you're not working on a perpetual motion machine, where does the energy for 1, 2 and 3 come from?

Read carefully: Solar power that also created electricity. Pretty much Everything is derived via clean-production energy

 

[Art]

If it is practical, as opposed to simply possible, it would be a game changer.

Yes, Dave... That it is - and - that it will become. There is soooo much more to the mix then I have provided access to. Just gave the basics, i.e. similar to a high altitude helicopter view.

I envisioned, invented, designed and own rights my solar powered airflow "machine" - so to say. It's scalable for moving massive amounts of air and while so doing creates MW electricity and potable water!

There are others in the mix for CO2 atmospheric separation, turning CO2 into syngas and turning syngas into fungible, drop-in liquid hydrocarbon fuels.

All in all there is much effort still needing to be accomplished in order to get this big baby up and flying correctly. Resulting new-source fuel industry will become global and its currently known fuel capable components could last well in to the 22nd Century, maybe much longer.

This is necessary and FUN!!

Happy New-Source Energy Daze! - Art

 

[Cottontop]

Read carefully: Solar power that also created electricity. Pretty much Everything is derived via clean-production energy

Once you have the electricity, why bother with 2 and 3? Exxon spent about $4 Billion (if memory serves) on a syngas plant back in the 70s-80s, when Jimmy Carter made it illegal to burn natural gas, and ended up trash canning it.

 

[rwidman]

Hard to see around the blinders, eh?

No, you are just not good at putting your thoughts into words.

 

[MurrayM]

No, you are just not good at putting your thoughts into words.

Why bother. You are inflexibly position bound, which results in every argument you make to originate from a position of fear and unable to empathically adopt another's viewpoint in order to learn or broaden your own view.