Electric cars are a pipe dream

Yes, and it smacks of proprietary process, which is why Skeptical is left bewildered on the specifics. I am very optimistic that such solutions will get us out of this mess.

 

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The thing is, that contrary to adoucette's statement, the final hardening cannot be chemical. It must be a physical process involving the CaCO3 particles coalescing. However, there has been nothing to say how and why this happens.

 

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Huh?

The strength of Portland cement is a chemical process.

Arthur

 

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been vacant from the boards lately, and i'm not going to read 59 pages of posts
not sure if this has been mentioned, although it probably has:

my problem with electric cars is that it's not solving the issue of relying on burning fossil fuels for energy. if we're running out of oil, electric cars are not the solution. electricity is generated by burning of fossil fuels.

in my opinion, i have more hope in other forms of research, such as oil generated from algae. this company Solazyme is doing just that and has already inked a major deal with the US Navy, check it out: Solazyme's Algae Fuel

 

Arthur

As I have said repeatedly, cement is not CaCO3, so it does not behave like CaCO3.

Anyway, it is clear that the people responding in this thread are no better as chemists than I am, and that is not particularly good. So I am not likely to get a good answer to my query.

MS

Don't worry about popping in late and repeating stuff. This thread has been going so long that all sorts of stuff is being discussed for the second or third time, anyway.

 

What you are missing is that CaCO3 can be the basis of cement, just ask the corals.

Which is why I posted the link to Marine Cement. Clearly they would add the required other chemicals so that when mixed with water the resulting reaction would end up with the required binding properties, the same as happens when you add water to Portland Cement (it is most definately a chemical process, like it is with Portland cement and NOT just particles coalescing), I'm not surprised that they don't publish the exact details as they named the process after their company.

Arthur

 

Arthur

The chemistry of cement setting is not by any means secret. After all, it has existed since ancient Rome. Chemists have published the process in dozens of sources, both in books and on the net.

I am aware fully that CaCO3 can form a solid and hard substance such as coral, sea shells, limestone, and even calcite. The process of doing that is either biological, or due to lots of geological time and lots of pressure. Neither applies in this case.

What I was interested in finding out is how the CaCO3 powder could be made to act like cement when it is not cement, and set into a hard solid quite rapidly. Don't worry though. This is clearly one of those questions that is not about to be answered.

 

>I wish to educate the dreamers, that electric vehicles (EVs from now on)
>can replace combustion engine cars for mass transportation in the future.

Sure they can. They will be a big part of our transportation infrastructure over the next few decades.

>Their range hasn't really improved in 100 years!

??? Lead acid EV's of the 70's had a range of 40-50 miles. The Tesla has a range of about 200 miles.

>Sure, they can be used for small range city dwelling, but if green people are
>dreaming that in the future millions will be buzzing around in EVs, well, they
>have a rude awakenings coming.

That statement doesn't make much sense. "Small range city driving" is what 90% of people in the US do; 90% of US car trips are under 10 miles, and the average commute is 32 miles. Today's EV's will cover both those local trips and a round trip commute.

If you have a car that will cover both your commute and your local shopping/kids to soccer/doctor's appointment - you have a market for hundreds of millions of vehicles.

>Not to mention that battery power will not drive heavy trucks or machinery.

Airplane tugs that move 767's are often battery powered. Buses are often now driven by battery or hybrid systems. Delivery trucks in Europe are often EV's because they drive regular, predictable daily routes.

>I will also mention that since the electricity does come
>from coal burning power stations, the enviromental footprint
>is also very high for EVs, so there is no overall saving for Mother Earth.

Many people (myself included) generate their power from solar. A solar power system + EV is almost zero emissions. Only emissions come from the energy needed to make them, and for solar panels that means a 3-5 year breakeven.

>Don't get me wrong, I would love to speed down the highway by 100 MPH
> quietly in my cool electric car, but I also live in reality, and a reality check is
> long time due for dreamers....

You can do that right now. Buy a Tesla; it will hit 125mph. (Might end up costing you quite a bit in court costs if you drive it at 100mph though.)

In the future we'll start to see three kinds of EV's being sold:

1) The pure electric, like the Leaf, the Tesla and the Focus. These will be used for commuting and local trips.

2) The boosted electric car. These cars have "range extenders" you can add in the form of additional battery capability, fuel cells or series-connected generators.

3) Pluggable hybrids, like the Volt and the Prius PHEV. These combine the best of both worlds, albeit with additional cost.

 

Actually it is not completely understood; from Wiki: "Cement sets when mixed with water by way of a complex series of chemical reactions still only partly understood"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_cement

And no, Corals make shells real time, they don't have to wait to do so, and everything biological is still chemical in nature, so one can do it outside of a cell.

Arthur

 

..and - since noone has verified my sloppy chemical equation back there, it could well be that the end product is Ca(OH) or CaCO2 rather than CaCO3.

Again - this is a proprietary process that someone has come up with to 1) solve a problem and 2) to make money. If they tell you how to do it too, than they will stand to make less money from what they have figured out. Thus, I am not surprised that they have not told you how to do what they did.

Don't forget that the stack temps have gotta be at least 3500 deg F and could well be high enough (4500 F) to produce the same reaction that is done in the cement plants with the same end product.

 

Shouldn't this cement debate have it's own thread, rather that ('scuse the pun) riding on the back of the Electric car thread?

.....
So, the 1908 Fritchle was mentioned earlier as having a 90mile range - so batteries haven't improved....
It also was rated at Ten horsepower! [Cars of the time were formalised, by was it the RAC, to HP being linked simplistically to bore, so here 10HP might be guesswork on their part also].... Anyway, I think I can assume that if the batteries from the Teslar were mounted on the Fritchle chassis - it would do <somewhat> more than 90miles!

 

Not exactly. The point was that so many other things (including weight) was added to the car that the mile range hasn't improved because those other things are sucking away the power...

 

Yeah, sorry - What I wrote reads the wrong way round - I meant it as the question: So [you're claiming that] batteries haven't improved?

Put in the 1908 chassis a bank of batteries from a Leaf or a Teslar would take you on (at 20 mph max) for days....

 

To determine if batteries have improved you can't use that kind of indirect measurment, you need to see watt hours per kg of battery weight and battery density.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_VyTCyizqr...0kOOReJV0/s1600/zinc-air-battery-chart-01.png

Lead Acid aren't that much different today than then.


The issue I see with All Electric is that until there is a robust/rapid recharging network, the users will probably find a lot of limitations they hadn't expected.

Like how drastically the milege will vary from a day time trip in nice weather to a trip on a hot rainy night where the trip naturally takes longer and one runs the air conditioner, lights, wipers and radio.

Which is why I think cars like the volt will be a good transition vehicle to a more electric only future.

Arthur

 

I think you've missed the point of what I was trying to say there. My post was a simple reaction to those claiming that a similar range now proved battery tech. hadn't got substantially better.
And as you say, "Lead Acid aren't that much different today than then" purely because the technology is not the most suited once the battery was any more than an ancillary device.

True. But what are the alternatives to BEVs long-term? Hydrogen fuel-cells, I don;t think so!

Yes. Having ineffective batteries on a cold day is going to come as a shock to many, no doubt. Might be nice to add a catalytic gas heater for the cabin/batteries as well

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Well that's why I think the Volt type techonology is going to be more palatable to more drivers because of lack of range anxiety. Of course, the cost has to come down a bit (or cost of gas go way up) for it to be widely accepted. Cars like that could help ease the transition to the time when recharging stations are common in most places one parks for a while, which is essentially what all Electric cars need to be practical.

Yeah, when I wrote that I wasn't sure if using a cold day with heater, lights and wipers going was a better example, but it might be, if you are commuting to the city in early January in the dark of morning when its 10 degrees outside, with light snow, and stuck in traffic but still need to run the heater to be able to defrost your window......

Do you think you could you do a catalytic gas heater and avoid condensation problems on the inside of the cold windows?

Arthur

 

Well, if you're going to be burning gas, might as well burn it in an engine. You still get all that heat - and you extend your range at the same time.

 

Well the Volt is using an electrical HVAC system for both heat and cooling, not waste heat from the ICE. If you need power to run it and the battery is low, the ICE cuts in.

It also allows for pre-heating/cooling the car while plugged in.

As for an EV, considering that you don't really need that much fuel to just heat the passenger cabin and you only need to heat the cabin some of the time, it still might be better from a range standpont to use a small gas heater then to reduce the vehicle range by pulling that much additional energy from the batteries.

 

Apart from ... The gas' in the engine is only converting about a quarter (at best) into mechanical work at the wheel. By that logic incandescent bulbs are on a par with CFLs or leds.

My point is use the electricity for the job it's most suited - moving the car + running onboard electrics. Use a small amount of natural gas (a substance that requires no chemical cracking to use) to make heat where and when necessary.

I suggested the catalytic heater, could warm the batteries (for the times that the vehicle is not near a charger) as well as heat the cabin - I agree that the heater would need to be via a heat exchanger, or on a condensing flue... To me it comes down to value of 'fuel' - Stored electricity can be compared in value to (and is better than) gasoline due to it's suitability to high value work. NG is quite a good fuel also, but is hard ship around and, (I don't think) can be used directly in fuel cells.

 

Well, no, if your objective is light without heat, then they're a bad idea. My point is that incandescent bulbs are effectively heaters that happen to generate some light. So if you want a heater, and the light is a nice side effect - incandescents are a great option.

Likewise, if you want a heater for your car, an IC engine burns fuel and generates lots of heat. It also generates a bit of mechanical power, which is useful in an electric vehicle. It's a way to get two needed outputs out of a single device.

Alternatively use a thermophotovoltaic converter. It's much simpler than an IC engine, runs on almost any fuel and gives you heat and electrical power.