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Major ultra capacitor advance

QS2
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Major ultra capacitor advance

So it is reported that they have an ultra-capacitor with two magnitudes (100x) improvement in energy stored per kilogram, over the current best ultra capacitors. Which translates to one magnitude improvement over the worlds current best used battery, which means it can store rather massive amounts of power. In fact, effectively this would probably allow electric cars to out range gasoline cars in all situations, due to terrible efficiency of internal combustion engines and the truly stupendous efficiency of electric engines. (+-20% and +-90% respectively I believe)

So I guess this settles the question once and for all what cars in the future are going to be using in the end, not biofuels or hydrogen, but pure electrics. The only thing left is to fight it out between batteries and ultra-capacitors to see which one can achieve the best price/energy ratio. emoticon

3/25/2009, 7:37 pm

Firlefanz
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Re: Major ultra capacitor advance

That's great news!

Now, those electric cars just need to learn how to fly.

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3/25/2009, 7:44 pm

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QS2
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Re: Major ultra capacitor advance

Well I should add to make sure everyone is clear on it, that this is a prototype though. Getting it to mass production will obviously be a most difficult uphill battle.

3/25/2009, 7:45 pm

Reythia
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Re: Major ultra capacitor advance

Very cool!

Of course, just to play devil's advocate, I'll point out that we still do have to create that electricity somehow in the first place, to power the awesome-capacitor-using electric cars. I always smile (cynically) when I see a "green bus" or something cheering about how it's a "zero-emissions vehicle". Sure, zero emissions HERE -- how about where the electricity was manufactured, though?!

But in any case, getting beyond the old Carnot efficiency problem is a big, big step, since it means less energy will be needed (per car). I should point out, though, that if I recall, hydrogen engines aren't combustion devices either and (at least theoretically) aren't limited by Carnot, either. So don't count them out just yet!

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3/26/2009, 6:54 pm

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QS2
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Re: Major ultra capacitor advance

Well hydrogen has a major disadvantage, due to extra steps you have to add in to the overall cycle. This means their overall efficiency compared to a pure electric variant is a good deal lower. I think it works out to about a factor 1.5 to 2. This obviously means that the most power efficient solution at this moment is to go all electric, a second advantage to this is that an all electric doesn't need extra equipment to do regenerative breaking, which allows you to recapture some of your kinetic energy at stops.

What this all means thus is, is that if your range is sufficient, that you'll obviously take the most energy efficient solution... (of course construction costs have to be taken in to account in this) So the real question is if they can make such ultra-capacitors or alternately batteries at a low enough cost. (Admittedly capacitors oftenly barely wear out though, so I guess they could be a bit more expensive with little real consequence) Assuming they can though, the equation outcome is obvious though.

As for the electric production, that is imperfect for now I guess. But it's been calculated you can cut overall CO2 emissions from automotive vehicles in half or more if they got moved to pure electric. Basically this difference is in large part thanks to the much higher efficiency power plant turbines can develop in comparison to ICUs. Which really have no chance to operate in such idealized perfect environments and thus have no chance at all to reach that kind of efficiencies.

3/26/2009, 7:57 pm

Reythia
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Re: Major ultra capacitor advance

quote:
QS2 wrote:
Well hydrogen has a major disadvantage, due to extra steps you have to add in to the overall cycle. This means their overall efficiency compared to a pure electric variant is a good deal lower. I think it works out to about a factor 1.5 to 2. This obviously means that the most power efficient solution at this moment is to go all electric...

But it's been calculated you can cut overall CO2 emissions from automotive vehicles in half or more if they got moved to pure electric.

Exactly. Which means that, since 1/2 * 2 = 1, the TOTAL efficiency of a hydrogen-powered car and an electric-powered car is about the same. Now, time may change either of those ratios you gave, thus giving one or the other a clear advantage, but my point was that (as far as I know) we're not there yet.

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3/27/2009, 6:29 pm

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QS2
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Re: Major ultra capacitor advance

Uhmm, you misunderstood, I'm saying that hydrogen is less power efficient by 1.5 to 2 times. This is due to things like hydrogen fuel cells being far less efficient then batteries, which commonly can achieve 90-95% efficiency ratings. Basically electrical systems efficiency steps all tend to rate at something like 90% or better, so losses are rather minimal and total amount of gains still to be made fairly tiny.

Compared to this, all the other techs are massive energy wasters, with hydrogen running in at a distant second and the others even further behind. Now I can imagine hydrogen systems getting a lot more efficient, but it's still a long way off and I have my doubts if it can ever close the gap entirely. Also pure electric systems can be almost entirely moving parts free (except the wheels themselves, if you attach 1 electro motor to each) , while hydrogen still needs a way to move around a fluid or gas and other such things, which adds to complexity.