Electric vehicles-Conversions

[elma]

I like the sound of that, not familiar with it. Will be the subject of my bedtime reading.

[elma]

Oh actually I am familiar with it, Dinorwic in North Wales being a good example I know well. It's a very good solution if it's using its own wind or solar to pump up the water. A stupid option if, like in the case of Dinorwic is using the grid to pump up the water. It makes the owner a fortune though.

They essentially use a big version of economy 7. The water is pumped up at night on cheap electricity then released at peak times when they can charge significantly more to give energy back to the grid.

There's arguments at the moment over siting another one over the road in an old WW2 RAF site. The council really want it done and are granting all permissions, the locals really don't. There's also an issue that nerve gas was stored there and is believed to be at the bottom of the lakes. The tests they did for its presence were potentially unsuitable and the point t is being argued currently.
A great shame in my opinion, we used to visit it as it was essentially a secret RAF station with 2 platforms and a massive munitions store. A wonderful piece of history will be wiped out.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.dailyp ... 558183.amp

Of course the council there don't give a monkeys as long as they get cash. Right next door is Siemens dxpl, they dump massive amounts of alkaline phosphate into the 2 lakes which are tourist hotspots causing significant issues. The council did a study and blamed the locals for using too much washing detergent. Those of us who've worked for Siemens know that's utter crap.

[Mandrake]

All very good points but storing energy in batteries is just as deadly to life.
The extraction and refining of lithium is a serious problem.
Just look at how it's done.
images.jpg
download.jpg
This is the nicer of the 2 common methods.
The extraction itself uses a vast amount of energy.
So much so that it is totally unviable. Hence the huge, highly toxic, man made lakes full of lithium brine evaporating in the sunlight.

Once it is evaporated enough it is refined by industrial process, using ridiculous amounts of energy from fossil fuel or nuclear.

The harm done is incredible, life is totally wiped out and much pollution is created.

Sorry but I think this is a little bit hypocritical if we are perfectly happy to mine the earth for coal, natural gas, oil, and any one of a vast array of minerals and materials that we make use of in our modern world that are, surprise surprise, obtained by mining.... Just about anything you see around you that is plastic or metal and isn't wood or stone comes from mining something and I very much doubt that any of these forms of mining is "good" for the environment either. They're all "bad" to differing degrees.

The amount of mining for oil, coal and materials for construction will absolutely dwarf the mining for lithium for batteries by so many orders of magnitude that the suggestion that mining for Lithium is worse than drilling for oil or mining coal is laughable. The alternative to mining materials to make high energy density batteries is to just continue to drill for oil and run internal combustion engine cars! In other words, do nothing.

Not to mention that the Lithium used in a battery is not burnt for energy like oil, coal and many other materials that are mined - it is used to create a product - a battery - that is reusable over many thousands of cycles and will last many years, (so far EV's are on track for the original battery to last well beyond 10 years) compared to oil or coal that was burnt for energy and is gone in a puff of smoke.

There is a big difference in my mind between mining materials to build something that will function for years and can theoretically be recycled at the end of its service life, than mining something that will be shipped somewhere and then just burnt to make heat, when heat is raining down on us from the sun every day... If someone did manage to develop a Lithium Ion battery that doesn't degrade and can last for decades in active service then what ? How many barrels of oil to make petrol for a car over its whole lifetime compared to a few Kg of Lithium to make a battery that lasts the same car for over 20 years and is then recycled ?

I would also point out that Lithium gets all the headlines but is actually less than 2% of the constituent materials of of a Lithium Ion battery by mass. There are many other materials like cobalt that are present in much greater quantities than the Lithium. In a 200Kg battery pack there is only about 4Kg of Lithium at most.

Having said all that, I would still like to see energy dense battery technologies that don't rely on Lithium. The obvious candidate is Sodium, which is in the same column in the periodic table so has similar properties, is readily obtainable from salt water and is apparently a usable electrode for the solid state batteries which are in the research stages at the moment.

So I think 10 years from now Solid State Electrolyte Sodium Ion batteries may be the gold standard and Lithium may just be a thing of distant memory...

[elma]

All very good points but storing energy in batteries is just as deadly to life.
The extraction and refining of lithium is a serious problem.
Just look at how it's done.
images.jpg
download.jpg
This is the nicer of the 2 common methods.
The extraction itself uses a vast amount of energy.
So much so that it is totally unviable. Hence the huge, highly toxic, man made lakes full of lithium brine evaporating in the sunlight.

Once it is evaporated enough it is refined by industrial process, using ridiculous amounts of energy from fossil fuel or nuclear.

The harm done is incredible, life is totally wiped out and much pollution is created.

Sorry but I think this is a little bit hypocritical if we are perfectly happy to mine the earth for coal, natural gas, oil, and any one of a vast array of minerals and materials that we make use of in our modern world that are, surprise surprise, obtained by mining.... Just about anything you see around you that is plastic or metal and isn't wood or stone comes from mining something and I very much doubt that any of these forms of mining is "good" for the environment either. They're all "bad" to differing degrees.
Yes thats exactly my point, the mining is typical but the refining is particularly bad. So Lithium is up at the top of dodgy things to extract in great quantities.
You say if we are perfectly happy.... Well I'm not happy with it at all but my views on how we deal with it aren't really forum friendly

The amount of mining for oil, coal and materials for construction will absolutely dwarf the mining for lithium for batteries by so many orders of magnitude that the suggestion that mining for Lithium is worse than drilling for oil or mining coal is laughable. The alternative to mining materials to make high energy density batteries is to just continue to drill for oil and run internal combustion engine cars! In other words, do nothing.
I didn't say that, I said it's deadly to life and a serious problem. I'll put the figures up later when I get time (not silly ones actual yields and energetics) they will terrify you. By the time we make all cars electric everyone will suddenly notice we have moved the problem rather than curing it. The other alternative is hydrogen which has more advantages and less disadvantages than fossil or electric fuel. For the purposes of actually progressing the conversation please can we stick to the batteries themselves rather than comparing everything to oil. We all know oil is very bad and we need to change, I'm saying why change to something that's also really bad when there's better options.

Not to mention that the Lithium used in a battery is not burnt for energy like oil, coal and many other materials that are mined - it is used to create a product - a battery - that is reusable over many thousands of cycles and will last many years, (so far EV's are on track for the original battery to last well beyond 10 years) compared to oil or coal that was burnt for energy and is gone in a puff of smoke.
So it's ok to kill and destroy vast areas of our planet in order to make a product but only if you don't burn the product? Not in my book.

There is a big difference in my mind between mining materials to build something that will function for years and can theoretically be recycled at the end of its service life, than mining something that will be shipped somewhere and then just burnt to make heat, when heat is raining down on us from the sun every day... If someone did manage to develop a Lithium Ion battery that doesn't degrade and can last for decades in active service then what ? How many barrels of oil to make petrol for a car over its whole lifetime compared to a few Kg of Lithium to make a battery that lasts the same car for over 20 years and is then recycled ?
It's still the wrong technology and will harm the planet terribly. The Sodium batteries you mention later are a far more realistic solution

I would also point out that Lithium gets all the headlines but is actually less than 2% of the constituent materials of of a Lithium Ion battery by mass. There are many other materials like cobalt that are present in much greater quantities than the Lithium. In a 200Kg battery pack there is only about 4Kg of Lithium at most.
Multiply that by the number of cars on the planet and you get to a problem

Having said all that, I would still like to see energy dense battery technologies that don't rely on Lithium. The obvious candidate is Sodium, which is in the same column in the periodic table so has similar properties, is readily obtainable from salt water and is apparently a usable electrode for the solid state batteries which are in the research stages at the moment.
So I think 10 years from now Solid State Electrolyte Sodium Ion batteries may be the gold standard and Lithium may just be a thing of distant memory...
I agree with this and it's only at this point we should be loping at migrating to EVs en mass.

[bobins]

BBC article:

Dyson to make electric cars from 2020

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41399497

[NewcastleFalcon]

Dyson to make electric cars from 2020

The comments on such things often turn up some cringeworthy gems....

"Are they going to suck", or is "Dyson going to clean up!"

Regrards Neil

[elma]

Judging from every Dyson product I've ever used or installed this is going to be hilarious.

[CitroJim]

If Dyson cars are anything like their hand driers then I hold out no hope for them at all...

They're just a load of noisy hot air that ultimately do a very poor job of the one task they're supposed to....

[Mandrake]

They're just a load of noisy hot air that ultimately do a very poor job of the one task they're supposed to....

Are you talking about Dyson PR when announcing an EV ?

I took the announcement with a big grain of salt - apparently they have many engineers working on this for over two years now but have no physical prototypes at all...

Which means they just have CAD designs and computer simulations of what might eventually become parts of a car. Wake me when they have a functioning prototype...

[elma]

Wow, I'm way ahead of them.

Courtesy of Google images

[CitroJim]

Wow, I'm way ahead of them.
images.jpg

[Hell Razor5543]

Wow, I'm way ahead of them.
images.jpg

You forgot the trailer with the huge roll of mains cable (connected to the plug socket near the front door at home)!

[elma]

Damn, back to playschool for me.
Where's them crayons?

[bobins]

I've been given a sneak preview of the Dyson CAD drawings on condition I don't show anyone. All I can say is that their 2 seater sports car looks a lot like this...



And the family runaround looks a bit like this.....

[CitroJim]

I've been given a sneak preview of the Dyson CAD drawings on condition I don't show anyone.

And his small city car looks like this: