Battery-like device could power electric cars - CNN.com

[groovychk]

Originally published at Twixel.net. You can comment here or there.

Battery-like device could power electric cars - CNN.com

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Millions of inventions pass quietly through the U.S. patent office each year. Patent No. 7,033,406 did, too, until energy insiders spotted six words in the filing that sounded like a death knell for the internal combustion engine.

An Austin-based startup called EEStor promised “technologies for replacement of electrochemical batteries,” meaning a motorist could plug in a car for five minutes and drive 500 miles roundtrip between Dallas and Houston without gasoline.

By contrast, some plug-in hybrids on the horizon would require motorists to charge their cars in a wall outlet overnight and promise only 50 miles of gasoline-free commute. And the popular hybrids on the road today still depend heavily on fossil fuels.

“It’s a paradigm shift,” said Ian Clifford, chief executive of Toronto-based ZENN Motor Co., which has licensed EEStor’s invention. “The Achilles’ heel to the electric car industry has been energy storage. By all rights, this would make internal combustion engines unnecessary.”

—-

This sounds awesome. Too good to be true almost. So it probably is.

Comments

[maxomai.livejournal.com]

Too good to be true for two reasons:

1) The existing electricity infrastructure (T&D plus generation capacity) is nowhere near ready to handle a conversion to electric autos, and while market forces would drive utilities in this direction, the way they're likely to go is more fossil (coal) with only a smattering of renewable or carbon free sources. This essentially puts us as square one for carbon.

Consumers can ameliorate this by demanding wind power for their autos; government can ameliorate this with subsidies for wind power construction.

2) Unless the T&D is also upgraded, or you have industrial grade wiring, you're still going to have to plug this thing in overnight to get a reasonable charge.

[groovychk.livejournal.com]

I read somewhere - maybe the article - about allowing much quicker charges from solar power sources. There's definitely ways to do it if the technology is real.

[kyrie1618.livejournal.com]

Supercapacitor!

Well, no reason it's flat impossible... if they had said the advance came from a a new plate design we'd know they were lying. Batteries store energy in plates, capacitors store energy in dielectrics. And these guys are using barium titanate. All I know about that is that it's a ceramic insulator. Maybe it's a really good one? I can't find good data on it.