For all you cordless tool users out there....new battery tech

[bangerjim]

A new battery has been developed by researchers at Stanford that even beats LiION charge technology! But more work needs to be done.

Aluminum and graphite! Discovered accidentally.........as most great innovations are!

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/new-battery-can-charge-a-smartphone-in-a-minute-2015-04-07

bangerjim

[dragon813gt]

This goes well beyond cordless tools. If they get the voltage up this will have almost unlimited applications.

[kweidner]

wow! This is very interesting

[bangerjim]

This tech, if they can develop it, will be as revolutionary as the light bulb!

[Superfly]

It could be shocking [smilie=s:

[SeabeeMan]

This goes well beyond cordless tools. If they get the voltage up this will have almost unlimited applications.

Absolutely. Decentralizing the power grid to allow efficient storage of excess energy at the home or neighborhood level, cleaner vehicles capable of actually replacing gas for most people, etc, could all be possibilities if only we had the battery technology. The energy density compared to fossil fuels, as well as the ease of recharge/discharge, just can't compare at this point.

[MtGun44]

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but battery technology is a very mature field and most
advancements are in packaging and similar small improvements. Specific energy or
energy density is the real issue, along with such things as charge stability over time,
efficiency, and thermal stability.

Many billions of $ and many millions of man hours by some really fine minds have
been spent on this field since about the 1880s. Edison spent huge effort on it as have
many other smart, well-funded teams. Sad to say but for electric vehicles, as a primary
example, chemical batteries have 40-100 times lower energy density - meaning short
range will always be there and lightening the entire vehicle ($$$!) is mandatory because
your batteries are heavy and don't hold much power.

Same for tools and portable computer stuff (phones, etc). I find it suspicious that
it was published in Nature rather than a normal chemical journal. It smells like
the guy is fishing for fame and more research money rather than announcing
something that he has ready to sell.

Unfortunately, the laws of physics and chemistry only allow certain things to be
done and in mature fields like this, unless entirely new materials are developed
progress is usually slow. Conductive polymers were the key breakthrough for lithium
polymer batteries which were well known in principle, but with heavy plates and the fact
that they were really dangerous to charge with "dumb chargers" - they often went thermally
unstable and blew up, meant they were impractical. Smart electronically controlled
chargers and lighter polymer plates made them somewhat practical, although they
still occasionally catch fire and are prohibited in bulk on aircraft for that reason.

No free lunches, small, incremental improvements, except when we get entirely
new materials. Carbon fiber, polymer electrodes, LEDs, large scale integrated
circuits, these are really big deals and roll out into other areas.

I do hope this works out, but I am pretty skeptical of new battery breakthroughs.

[MaryB]

Key to electric vehicles is get away from the concept of a normal car. 3 wheels, 2 seats, ultraight would extend range greatly making them more practicable out in the boonies where I live. My shortest trips are 60 miles for example, longest 300 or so. Typically solo too so I do not need the sace of a standard car except for my once a month main shopping trip...

[Artful]

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but battery technology is a very mature field and most advancements are in packaging and similar small improvements. Specific energy or energy density is the real issue, along with such things as charge stability over time, efficiency, and thermal stability.

Many billions of $ and many millions of man hours by some really fine minds have been spent on this field since about the 1880s. Edison spent huge effort on it as have many other smart, well-funded teams. Sad to say but for electric vehicles, as a primary example, chemical batteries have 40-100 times lower energy density - meaning short range will always be there and lightening the entire vehicle ($$$!) is mandatory because your batteries are heavy and don't hold much power.

Same for tools and portable computer stuff (phones, etc). I find it suspicious that it was published in Nature rather than a normal chemical journal. It smells like the guy is fishing for fame and more research money rather than announcing something that he has ready to sell.

Actually it was announced April 6th by Stanford
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/march/aluminum-ion-battery-033115.html
And seems to have lots of big bucks for development


Principal support for the research was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy (http://energy.gov/), the Taiwan Industrial Technology Research Institute (https://www.itri.org.tw/eng/), the Stanford Global Climate and Energy Project (http://web.stanford.edu/group/gcep/cgi-bin/gcep-research/all/ultra-fast-rechargeable-nickelzinc-batteries/), the Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy (https://energy.stanford.edu/seedgrants/novel-hybrid-materials-carbon-lithium-air-batteries) and the Taiwan Ministry of Education (http://english.moe.gov.tw/mp.asp?mp=1)

But I understand your feeling, I'm still waiting for the fuel cells they said that would wear on your hip like a walky talky and run any any burnable liquid fuel.

[Three44s]

A substitute for Lion and Nicads that is not onerous to dispose would be the berries if they can overcome the current short comings! One would expect a much lower price for such a battery as well.

I realize it sounds far fetched but if their prediction of power grid storage comes even half true ....... it would really help with grid capacity issues. A decentralized storage option scattered around the grid would act like a big shock absorber .... ie. even out load fluctuations.

Best regards

Three 44s

[bangerjim]

Funny....this. Edison tried to wire the country with DC. We now are contemplating backing up our AC grid with DC (batteries)! And run everything from cars to phones on DC.

Too bad Tesla's "free" electricity never took off.

banger-j

[Artful]

You mean Wardenclyffe Tower
http://e.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/imagecache/1280/poster/2014/07/3033185-poster-p-tower.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Original_Tesla_Coil.png


Tesla's design used a concept of a charged conductive upper layer in the atmosphere,[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower#cite_note-W._Bernard_Carlson_2013.2C_page_210-3) a theory dating back to an 1872 idea for a proposed wireless power system by Mahlon Loomis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahlon_Loomis).[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower#cite_note-earlyradiohistory.us-4) Tesla not only believed that he could use this layer as his return path in his electrical conduction system, but that the power flowing through it would make it glow, providing night time lighting for cities and shipping lanes.[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower#cite_note-earlyradiohistory.us-4)
In a February 1901 Collier's Weekly article titled Talking With Planets Tesla described his "system of energy transmission and of telegraphy without the use of wires" as:
"(using) the Earth itself as the medium for conducting the currents, thus dispensing with wires and all other artificial conductors... a machine which, to explain its operation in plain language, resembled a pump in its action, drawing electricity from the Earth and driving it back into the same at an enormous rate, thus creating ripples or disturbances which, spreading through the Earth as through a wire, could be detected at great distances by carefully attuned receiving circuits. In this manner I was able to transmit to a distance, not only feeble effects for the purposes of signaling, but considerable amounts of energy, and later discoveries I made convinced me that I shall ultimately succeed in conveying power without wires, for industrial purposes, with high economy, and to any distance, however great."[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower#cite_note-5)Although Tesla demonstrated wireless power transmission at Colorado Springs, lighting electric lights mounted outside the building where he had his large experimental coil,[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower#cite_note-6) he did not scientifically test his theories. He believed he had achieved Earth resonance which, according to his theory, would work at any distance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0xh14WCVX4

[bangerjim]

Tesla was an amazing man. He worked on numerrous AC devices during hs career. Not only the above "free" wireless electricity, but an "earthquake" machine that reportedly could topple a skyscraper building with sonic harmonic vibrations. And it was relatively small in size.

Rumor mill says the US gubmint still has many of his designs locked away.......s weapons!

There are several excellent documentary videos on Tesla, his life, and his discoveries. Even the movie "The Prestige" covers his wireless electricity experiments in good detail.

I had fun building my little Tesla Coil in HS!


Tesla died a pauper.

banger-j

[MtGun44]

The harmonic vibration building toppler is no big "invention", just drives the structure
at it's natural frequency. Depending on the damping built in to the structure, it could
be amplified many times, may even collapse a building, but not exactly a novel concept.
Exactly the same effect as pushing a child in a swing, the principle is taught in high
school physics, just taught it a couple weeks ago.

As to high frequency power traveling through the air - 1) it works 2) it is horrendously
inefficient and short ranged. In short, useless except in the kind of parlor games that
seem to be his stock in trade. Tesla was smartish, but highly impractical. He died a
pauper because all his ideas were entirely useless parlor tricks - real science, real
effects but no practical application. He was not a con artist, his stuff is real, just
not useful for anything. Put his "secret weapons" in the same crate with the
mythical "200 MPG carburetor", another technological Bigfoot, much heard of
but never seen.

As to the battery - don't hold your breath and don't think that because the fools a the DOE
(worked for them for 35 years) are dumping money into it means anything. They dumped
half a billion into Solyndra - which paid huge salaries to a few and folded in a couple years
when the money was exhausted. Scam or incompetents? You decide, but DOE backed it
with YOUR money.

I, too, am waiting for the pocket fuel cell that Los Alamos had "just a few months from production"
about 3-4 years ago, IIRC.

This old engineer has worked on and seen a lot of really interesting technology and designed, built
and installed my solar electric system for a vacation home in the mountains of Colorado. It has
worked for just short of 20 years now, never had a connection to power or an electric bill. BUT
there is a WHOLE lot of BS out there, and most of it is scams - like windmills and central solar
power. If they continue to FORCE power companies to buy power from these white elephants,
your power bills will continue to skyrocket, while the cheap coal lays in the ground like it has
for millions of years.

I truly hope they develop a neat new, cheap, wonderful battery. But I know what I am betting
on - another scam.

[Three44s]

Our turning our backs on Coal is a national crime!

And we are going to pay a terrible price for it!!

Three 44s

[popper]

One farad super cap voltage is limited to 3.5 volts, in production now, indefinitely rechargeable and works. Rechargeable in about a millisecond if you have a big enough charger (50-60 amp). 4.5 Joules in a coke can - used for auto starter battery for 10 years. Lots of 'new' battery tech being tried but many are not feasible. Kind of like 'cold fusion'. We'll see. Remember the 'plastic' LEDs? Or amorphous silicon solar cells?

[Artful]

We'll see. Remember the 'plastic' LEDs? Or amorphous silicon solar cells?
http://www.zdnet.com/article/goodbye-leds-hello-plastic-bulbs/


http://zdnet2.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2013/10/18/08137ae4-37cf-11e3-90a0-0291187ef9b6/resize/620x/e9db7b40e841c90afe17c45c29b4ec4c/wakeforest-carrollfipel.pngProf David Carroll, at top, could be saying just one word to his colleague (unidentified) regarding the future of lighting: "Plastics."--
Just when LED light bulbs seemed to be gaining traction, along comes a technology that researchers insinuate could trump them: Plastic.
Meet the Fipel - the field-induced polymer electroluminescent light source. According to physicists at Wake Forest University in North Carolina and Trinity College, Dublin, a Fipel requires less energy than a fluorescent bulb does, the BBC reports (http://http//www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20553143).
Thus, a Fipel would also be more energy efficient than an LED bulb, since LEDs and fluorescents require about the same amount of electricity. As I wrote last week, LED vendors are struggling in the vast market for commercial office lighting (http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-myth-of-led-energy-savings/) , where buyers are not willing to pay the higher price that manufacturers charge for LEDs, even though LEDs last longer and have other advantages.
The BBC story does not mention any prices for Fipels. But if Fipels represent a significant energy saving over fluorescents, that might induce buyers to spring for them.
Inventor David Carroll, a professor at Wake Forest, says a corporate partner will start producing them next year. Fipels use "three layers of white-emitting polymer that contain a small volume of nanomaterials that glow when electric current is passed through them," according to the BBC.
The Wake Forest team originally wrote about its developments in the journal Organic Lighting (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1566119912004831).
WARMING
The BBC explains that Fipel light is warmer than fluorescents. The story does not compare the light quality to LEDs' quality, which many people regard as superior to fluorescent and inferior to the warm but inefficient incandescent bulbs still common in homes.
Carroll notes that whereas "curly cue" fluorescent bulbs emit a harsh bluish light that can cause headaches, the light from his bulb accommodates the human eye because it "can match the solar spectrum perfectly."
That sounds potentially better than LED light quality.
Carroll claims at least four other advantages for Fipels over fluorescents:




they're brighter
it's easy to adjust their tint
they do not contain environmentally hazardous mercury
they are malleable into different shapes


Their bendiness would threaten another emerging light technology: OLEDs, or organic light emitting diodes, which are natural materials that emit light in response to an electric current. They are supposed to transform lighting by allowing designers to build them into things like building fabric, support structures, furniture and fashion. Electronics makers also want to use them to create foldable phones, gadgets and TVs.
A DECADE AND COUNTING
But OLEDs "don't last very long and they're not very bright," Carroll claims. "There's a limit to how much brightness you can get out of them. If you run too much current through them they melt."
What about longevity compared to LEDs? Light emitting diodes are supposed to last for 25 years or longer (although LED bulb makers provide warranties of only about 7 years). There seems to be no hard figure for the life expectancy of a Fipel, but Carroll says he's had one working in his lab for about 10 years.
Of course, as LED bulb makers know, it's a long way from lab triumphs to market success. It's too early to tell whether people will flip for Fipels. At the least, Prof Carroll is putting pressure on LED companies to continue to improve and lower prices. That should help light the way to a more energy efficient future, regardless of which technology wins.
and
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140213122404.htm


Light-induced degradation in amorphous silicon thin film solar cells
Date:
February 13, 2014


Source:
Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie


Summary:

Researchers have taken a leap forward towards a deeper understanding of an undesired effect in thin film solar cells based on amorphous silicon -- one that has puzzled the scientific community for the last 40 years. The researchers were able to demonstrate that tiny voids within the silicon network are partly responsible for reducing solar cell efficiency by some 10 to 15 percent as soon as you start using them.

Amorphous silicon thin film solar cells are considered a promising alternative to solar cells based on highly purified silicon wafers, which have been dominating photovoltaic power generation. A major advantage of amorphous silicon thin film photovoltaics, where a glass substrate is coated with a light active material less than a thousandth of a millimeter thick, is that the cell fabrication is considerably simpler and much less costly than in the case of conventional crystalline silicon solar cells. On the other hand, a potential disadvantage is the low conversion efficiency from solar energy to electricity. Because of the disordered nature of amorphous silicon, solar cells are subject to the Staebler-Wronski effect, which reduces the solar cell efficiency by up to 15 percent within the first 1000 hours.
This undesired effect is triggered by internal annihilation -- known in physics as recombination -- of charge that has not been extracted from the solar cell. The released recombination energy induces defects in the amorphous network -- which is why this effect is not observed in crystalline wafer solar cells. "However, where defects are produced in the material and whether voids of nanoscale size play a role in all this has not been understood -- until now, that is," says HZB's own Matthias Fehr of the Institute for Silicon Photovoltaics. Fehr together with his HZB colleagues, scientists from Jülich Research Center and the Free University of Berlin have now made major strides towards unraveling this mystery.
Since the defects that form exhibit paramagnetic properties, they have a characteristic magnetic fingerprint, which depends on their microscopic environment. The Berlin researchers were able to identify this fingerprint using electron-paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy and electron-spin echo (ESE) experiments. With the help of these highly sensitive techniques, they determined that defects in amorphous silicon actually come in two types: those that are uniformly distributed and those that are concentrated in clusters on internal surfaces of small voids -- known in scientific circles as microvoids -- which form within the material during the solar cell manufacturing process. "Our guess is that clusters of defects are generated on the internal walls of microvoids, which have a diameter of a mere one to two nanometers," explains HZB physicist Fehr. "Our findings seem to suggest that microvoids most likely contribute to light-induced degradation of amorphous silicon thin film solar cells. For us, it's been a leap forward towards a better understanding of the microscopic mechanism of light-induced degradation," says Fehr who, in 2013, spent a year conducting research in the US as a Feodor Lynen Scholar of the Alexander Humboldt Foundation. A new series of experiments has been designed to allow the Berlin researchers to glean further insights into the atomic and electronic processes of the Staebler-Wronski effect, named for the two scientists who first discovered it.
The work is part of the EPR-Solar network funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research and the HZB's and FUB's Berlin Joint EPR Lab. According to the head of the project, Prof. Dr. Klaus Lips, "this is one of the major projects of one of the HZB's newest research departments, which is currently in the founding stage and whose mission is the fundamental physical characterization of energy materials with the goal of making an important contribution to the energy transition."

[snowwolfe]

Our turning our backs on Coal is a national crime!

And we are going to pay a terrible price for it!!

Three 44s

If it can be burned clean I am all for it. But I grew up in the coal belt in PA where just about everyone had coal furnace's. Plus all the companies making coke.
It was a mess, dirty air, mountains of ashes everyone, acid rain.

[Artful]

The harmonic vibration building toppler is no big "invention", just drives the structure at it's natural frequency. Depending on the damping built in to the structure, it could be amplified many times, may even collapse a building, but not exactly a novel concept.

It's novel if your the first to demonstrate the principal



Exactly the same effect as pushing a child in a swing,
the principle is taught in high school physics,
just taught it a couple weeks ago.

As to high frequency power traveling through the air - 1) it works 2) it is horrendously inefficient and short ranged. In short, useless except in the kind of parlor games that seem to be his stock in trade. Tesla was smartish, but highly impractical. He died a pauper because all his ideas were entirely useless parlor tricks - real science, real effects but no practical application. He was not a con artist, his stuff is real, just not useful for anything.
Put his "secret weapons" in the same crate with the mythical "200 MPG carburetor", another technological Bigfoot, much heard of but never seen.

well I grant you not much seen
but never is not the correct word
they have been around for a long time
http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2007/052607_files/image003.gif
http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2007/052607_files/image009.gif


As to the battery - don't hold your breath and don't think that because the fools a the DOE (worked for them for 35 years) are dumping money into it means anything. They dumped half a billion into Solyndra - which paid huge salaries to a few and folded in a couple years when the money was exhausted. Scam or incompetents? You decide, but DOE backed it with YOUR money.

I, too, am waiting for the pocket fuel cell that Los Alamos had "just a few months from production"
about 3-4 years ago, IIRC.

This old engineer has worked on and seen a lot of really interesting technology and designed, built and installed my solar electric system for a vacation home in the mountains of Colorado. It has worked for just short of 20 years now, never had a connection to power or an electric bill. BUT there is a WHOLE lot of BS out there, and most of it is scams
- like windmills and central solar power.
Ah - don't look now but
http://www.aboutsmallcap.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/windmills.jpg
http://www.atlantissolar.com/wind-farm.jpg
and solar central power stations
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/PS20andPS10.jpg
http://blog.world-mysteries.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/spain-solar-panel.jpg
http://www.torresolenergy.com/TORRESOL/gemasolar-plant/en



If they continue to FORCE power companies to buy power from these white elephants, your power bills will continue to skyrocket, while the cheap coal lays in the ground like it has for millions of years.

I truly hope they develop a neat new, cheap, wonderful battery.
But I know what I am betting on - another scam.

time will tell - I for one am crossing my fingers.

[MtGun44]

Yep, lots of windmills and central solar making power for 3-5 times what nuke or coal
can make it for. And mostly at night, and only makes it some of the time. W
hat a bargain. NOT. Why are we doing this? It is stupid.

As the the 375 mpg Opel, I call baloney - it is not possible to get that mileage with
that car, aerodrag and rolling resistance and the power to accelerate that huge mass
up to any realistic speeds. I have "gotten" over 150 mpg in my 2013 Accord - but
I admit that it was because I had a huge amount of downhill on the particular route
used. And patents expire in 20 years, so by 1955 anybody could have used that
carb patent and would have if it would have worked.

I personally have tested at least one "miracle carburetor" when a engineering grad
student at Univ of Florida in their Mechanical Engineering Lab. We set the car up
on a rolling dyno and tried to get it up to an equivalent 55 mph to accurately measure
fuel flow. Then engine would peter out and quit after about 20 seconds of cruise
power. The inventor was there, fiddling for a few hours, adjusting this and fiddling
with that, special fuel pump and carb modified by him, and it never ran right, after
about 4 hours of waiting and 10-12 aborted runs, we gave up and sent him on his
way.

I have seen several other different well-funded impossibilities and reviewed a
number of perpetual motion machines for the DOE. Sadly, the laws of physics
are strictly enforced. Then the laws of economics have their say - and solar
and wind for most places is technically feasible but economically extremely
stupid.

Supercapacitors. Great idea, may work, I will keep an eye
on that one. AFAIK, now they only hold power for a relatively short
time, serious self discharge issues. Also, ANY energy storage system that can
give you back all the stored energy in a hurry is dangerous as heck. Drop
a wrench across the terminals of a lead acid battery and you get some sparks
and have time to knock it away. Do the same with a NiCad jet helo starting
battery and the wrench disappears in a blue flash. The difference is internal
resistance in the batteries. A supercapacitor would have near zero internal
resistance, too. "Lightning in a bottle" if the voltage is very high. This is
one of the many reasons that flywheel vehicles never got going.

Again - I really hope they have success, but will hold on to my wallet.

[bangerjim]

The harmonic vibration building toppler is no big "invention", just drives the structure
at it's natural frequency. Depending on the damping built in to the structure, it could
be amplified many times, may even collapse a building, but not exactly a novel concept.
Exactly the same effect as pushing a child in a swing, the principle is taught in high
school physics, just taught it a couple weeks ago.

As to high frequency power traveling through the air - 1) it works 2) it is horrendously
inefficient and short ranged. In short, useless except in the kind of parlor games that
seem to be his stock in trade. Tesla was smartish, but highly impractical. He died a
pauper because all his ideas were entirely useless parlor tricks - real science, real
effects but no practical application. He was not a con artist, his stuff is real, just
not useful for anything. Put his "secret weapons" in the same crate with the
mythical "200 MPG carburetor", another technological Bigfoot, much heard of
but never seen.

As to the battery - don't hold your breath and don't think that because the fools a the DOE
(worked for them for 35 years) are dumping money into it means anything. They dumped
half a billion into Solyndra - which paid huge salaries to a few and folded in a couple years
when the money was exhausted. Scam or incompetents? You decide, but DOE backed it
with YOUR money.

I, too, am waiting for the pocket fuel cell that Los Alamos had "just a few months from production"
about 3-4 years ago, IIRC.

This old engineer has worked on and seen a lot of really interesting technology and designed, built
and installed my solar electric system for a vacation home in the mountains of Colorado. It has
worked for just short of 20 years now, never had a connection to power or an electric bill. BUT
there is a WHOLE lot of BS out there, and most of it is scams - like windmills and central solar
power. If they continue to FORCE power companies to buy power from these white elephants,
your power bills will continue to skyrocket, while the cheap coal lays in the ground like it has
for millions of years.

I truly hope they develop a neat new, cheap, wonderful battery. But I know what I am betting
on - another scam.

Debbie Downer! [smilie=s:

[Artful]

Yep, lots of windmills and central solar making power for 3-5 times what nuke or coal can make it for. And mostly at night, and only makes it some of the time. What a bargain. NOT. Why are we doing this? It is stupid.
Well it is being used in California Mojave Desert (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojave_Desert),
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility
http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/Ivanpah_aerial_shot.jpg
with plans to build one in the Arizona Desert



As the the 375 mpg Opel, I call baloney
- it is not possible to get that mileage with that car, aerodrag and rolling resistance and the power to accelerate that huge mass up to any realistic speeds. I have "gotten" over 150 mpg in my 2013 Accord - but I admit that it was because I had a huge amount of downhill on the particular route used. And patents expire in 20 years, so by 1955 anybody could have used that carb patent and would have if it would have worked.

I personally have tested at least one "miracle carburetor" when a engineering gradstudent at Univ of Florida in their Mechanical Engineering Lab. We set the car up on a rolling dyno and tried to get it up to an equivalent 55 mph to accurately measure fuel flow. Then engine would peter out and quit after about 20 seconds of cruise power. The inventor was there, fiddling for a few hours, adjusting this and fiddling with that, special fuel pump and carb modified by him, and it never ran right, after about 4 hours of waiting and 10-12 aborted runs, we gave up and sent him on his way.

And no where was it said to be a viable family car - it's an economy race car
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_Eco-marathon

History[edit (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shell_Eco-marathon&action=edit&section=1)]In 1939, a group of Shell scientists based in a research laboratory in Wood River, Illinois, USA, had a friendly bet to see who could drive their own car furthest on one gallon of fuel.[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_Eco-marathon#cite_note-1) The winner managed a distance of 21.12 km/L (59.7 mpg-imp; 49.7 mpg-US). A repeat of the challenge yielded dramatically improved results over the years:


149.95 MPG with a 1947 Studebaker in 1949
244.35 MPG with a 1959 Fiat 600 in 1968
376.59 MPG with a 1959 Opel in 1973.

...
The vehicles are highly specialized and optimized for the event and are not intended for everyday use. The designs represent what can be achieved with current technology and offer a glimpse into the future of car design based on minimal environmental impact in a world with reduced oil reserves. The work of the participants can be used to show ways manufacturers could redesign their products.



Geez then your going to hate this next bit...
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2011/04/110418-shell-ecomarathon-houston-winners/

Breaking 2,500 mpg, Canadian Team Wins High-Efficiency Race
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/news/photos/000/347/34755.adapt.676.1.jpg
The prototype gasoline car built by students at Université Laval in Quebec turned in a winning 2,565 mpg run Saturday at the Shell Eco-marathon Americas in Houston, Texas. The school also plans to compete in the Europe Eco-marathon next month.
PHOTOGRAPH BY HARLEY SOLTES, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

This story is part of a special series (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy) that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge (http://www.greatenergychallenge.com/).







Gliding ten laps around downtown Houston in what looked more like a low-riding white rocket ship than a car, a team of students from Université Laval of Québec City marked a new achievement in fuel efficiency this weekend.

(Related: Photo Gallery From the Shell Eco-marathon Americas (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2011/04/pictures/110418-pictures-shell-ecomarathon-2011/))

For the third straight year, the Canadian team called Alerion Supermileage (http://alerionsupermileage.ca/blog4.php/news/)won the Shell Eco-marathon Americas (http://www.shell.com/home/content/ecomarathon/americas/) student design competition; its 2,564.8 mile-per-gallon (1,090 kilometer-per-liter) run beat its own previous year's performance by 77 mpg (33 km/l).

It may seem an unimaginable feat to U.S. drivers accustomed to eking out 22.6 mpg on average (http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_04_23.html), but the two-day Eco-marathon event is a chance for young mechanics and aspiring engineers to demonstrate that fuel consumption can be drastically reduced with lightweight, aerodynamic shape and creativity. In fact, students in the European edition of Shell's Eco-marathon regularly achieve far higher mileage—with the French technical school St. Joseph La Joliverie last year reaching 6,973.4 mpg (2,964.7 km/l).

Teams from 30 universities and 18 high schools from the United States and Canada converged on Houston for Eco-marathon Americas, bringing 69 homemade vehicles to the U.S. oil capital for a weekend of slow-speed, high mileage racing.

Of course, only the most adventure-seeking drivers would welcome a ride in some of the vehicles the students have devised—especially a few that are little more than surfboards on wheels with an engine in back and a Lexan polycarbonate plastic dome on top.

But beginning in 2009, Shell added a new category to the contest, challenging students to design "urban concept" vehicles that meet safety criteria for driving on city streets.

A dozen student teams this year entered urban concept cars in the contest.Louisiana Tech University (http://www.latechecocar.com/) won the category with a vehicle that had the retro look of a Plymouth Prowler in the front and the futuristic flourish of a Mazda concept car in the rear. Louisiana Tech also took home a separate award for design for its bright red roadster, which achieved an efficiency mark of 647 mpg (275 km/liter).








A Global Competition

The Eco-marathon is meant to echo an efficiency design contest that Shell research scientists waged against each other for a number of years beginning in 1939. The winner of that first contest hit 50 mpg (21 km/l).

In 1985, Shell kicked off the Eco-marathon as a design contest for high school and college students held each year in Europe. Now, the event is a three-continent series. The Europe run is set for May in Lausitz, Germany, and the Asia contest will be held in July in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Université Laval's team aims to compete in the Europe Eco-marathon next month, with an even more super-charged vehicle. The students had hoped to unveil it in Houston, but the aerospace materials they wanted to incorporate did not arrive in time, said team manager Anthony Bernier, a senior mechanical engineering student.

Following the race, he said he and his teammates immediately face final exams, then graduation from Laval, which is known as one of Canada's leading research institutions and the first francophone university in North America. Then it's back to work on the new car.

What's the secret to the team's success? Says Bernier: "It is basically the whole thing together—the car, the aerodynamics, the engine, electronics, all the components." The car's shell is completely made of carbon fiber—a lightweight super-strong material favored by many Eco-marathon competitors—and it fully conceals the wheels to cut down on wind resistance.

Laval's outing was not flawless; on the team's first run, the car made it only halfway before being sidelined with a broken chain. But near the end of the day on Saturday, driver Mathilde Jean-St-Laurent steered the prototype around the six-mile (9.7-km) course using only 9 milliliters of gasoline. Each car pulls up to a measuring station where technicians in lab coats use pipettes and thermometers to measure the amount of fuel used. (The thermometers account for fuel expansion in the sometimes-blistering engine heat.)



From Haves to Have-Nots

Even before the first Eco-marathon test runs began on Friday, crowds were gathering around the Louisiana Tech stall in the George R. Brown Convention Center to get a closer look at the two buffed urban concept machines—one blue and one red—that they had entered in the race. Junior Sam Ashley, the team manager, described a "grueling two- or three-month process" on bodywork, filling in gaps and sanding the carbon fiber down to a smooth finish.

Explained faculty adviser Heath Tims: "Our goal, even if we don't put up the best stats, is that people will look at it and say, ‘I want that.'" But by the end of the two-day competition on Sunday, Louisiana Tech had indeed put up the best stats among urban concept vehicles. Both the Université Laval and Louisiana Tech teams took home $5,000 prizes for winning their categories, with Tech taking home an extra $1,000 design prize.

Prizes ranging from $1,000 to $1,500 were also awarded for leaders in every category of alternative fuel—hydrogen, solar, "alternative gasoline" (the winners used ethanol), and for the first time in the Eco-marathon this year, plug-in electric vehicles.

There were no limits on how much money a team could spend on its vehicle, so given the ability of some teams to attract major corporate sponsors, differences among the entries were stark.







With the help of sponsors like Lockheed Martin, Exelon and GE Energy, Purdue University was able to pour an estimated $100,000 into a street-legal solar car, Celeritas (Latin for "speed of light," the "c" in the equation e = mc2). On the other end of the spectrum, the team from James B. Dudley High School in Greensboro, North Carolina, a school with many students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, spent no more than $150 cash on its vehicle, says faculty adviser Ricky Lewis. The team's electric car with a cardboard frame was put together with equipment donations from local businesses and recycled junk.



Competing Approaches on Comfort

The teams also had widely varying views on the best way to design for the race. Matt Migliorini, driver for Sullivan High School of Sullivan, Indiana, described his team's low-profile vehicle as "just big enough for a driver and an engine, basically."

On the other hand, the team from Loyola Marymount University of Los Angeles purposefully made its vehicle body wide to give the driver comfort and room. "You notice that some of the drivers are getting so crammed they're getting dizzy from the heat," said team member James Clements, a senior who is headed to Stanford to study for a doctorate in biomedical engineering. "It turns out driver skill and awareness contributes to about 30 percent of fuel efficiency, and so our driver's aware, our driver's comfortable and our driver is able to make good decisions on the road."

Indeed, in their low-slung vehicles with minimal suspension, drivers learned that staying alert was advisable when making the turns around Houston's urban park, Discovery Green. "It's rough," said Mike Reyerson, a senior at Alden-Conger High School of Alden, Minnesota. "You really try not to hit bumps; you pay more attention not to hit bumps than anything else." His team's Green Machine, running on 100 percent ethanol, took second place in its alternative fuel class, winning $1,000 for a 758.8 mpg (322 km/l) run. (First place went to another ethanol team from the heartland, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.)

On the track under the cloudless Texas sky, team members held cardboard or jackets aloft to try to shield the drivers from the sun. Many sweltered in their full racing gear—driving suits, helmets, goggles, gloves—as they waited, one at a time, for the green flag to start their laps.

Once on the track, many of the cars sounded like they were made for cutting grass rather than burning rubber, and least one driver actually started his vehicle by pulling a cord over his shoulder as if he were starting a lawnmower. But instead of the constantly revving engines of a speed race, the noise from the track was intermittent. That's because one of the key fuel-saving strategies is to coast as much as possible (while maintaining the minimum speed requirement.)

Mark Singer, Shell's global project manager for the Eco-marathon, noted, "There's not much rocket science" behind the strategies the student teams use to reduce consumption, such as building lightweight vehicles or becoming more aware of the impact that driving strategies have on fuel burning.

Shell's motive in sponsoring the competition is not only to foster technological innovation, but also to reinforce that mindfulness about conservation, he said. "It causes each of us to stop and think of our own carbon footprint," he says. "What you see the students doing is what you and I can do as consumers every day."




I have seen several other different well-funded impossibilities and reviewed a number of perpetual motion machines for the DOE. Sadly, the laws of physics are strictly enforced. Then the laws of economics have their say - and solar and wind for most places is technically feasible but economically extremely
stupid.

Supercapacitors. Great idea, may work, I will keep an eye on that one. AFAIK, now they only hold power for a relatively short time, serious self discharge issues. Also, ANY energy storage system that can give you back all the stored energy in a hurry is dangerous as heck. Drop a wrench across the terminals of a lead acid battery and you get some sparks and have time to knock it away. Do the same with a NiCad jet helo starting battery and the wrench disappears in a blue flash. The difference is internal resistance in the batteries. A supercapacitor would have near zero internal resistance, too. "Lightning in a bottle" if the voltage is very high. This is one of the many reasons that flywheel vehicles never got going.

Again - I really hope they have success, but will hold on to my wallet.

You really need to so some reading

[cajun shooter]

While it's true, coal is abundant and works as a fuel source but the investors, bankers, and coal company CEO's are not the ones who go underground and bring it up for everyone to use. I have seen coal miners laying in the bed, breathing with the aid of oxygen tanks and dying at a way too early age. How about the ones who are buried in the mines never to be seen again because of bad company safety operations.
They had the coal company in Kentucky that had the cave in just a year or so ago that killed a few dozen men. This same company had been cited well over 200 times for unsafe working conditions by safety inspectors but never paid one dime in fines nor were they shut down. They just kept doing the same things with out any punishment. What about the lives of those men?
Later David

[AggieEE]

I've read about some of the hypper milage compatitions. The driver accelerates to about 20mph then shouts off the engine and coasts until just moving engages the engine and does it again. It would take almost forever for me to get to work and home again.

[AggieEE]

And I can't spell or type :razz:

[MtGun44]

I need to do some reading. ... LOL! :bigsmyl2:

Perhaps spending too much time doing. I researched, designed and built hybrid cars and
buses and did it in the 70s, wrote the papers. Did solar research and built my own solar
home 20 years ago. Did design work on a solar car that finished high in the solar challenge
about 15 years ago. Lots more, no need to continue. I have really DONE it, not read about it.

Been there, done that, have the degrees, built the hardware and wrote the tech papers.

**Economically** it is wasteful. I wonder if folks actually LIKE paying 3-4 times too much
for electricity? Anybody want to buy some gasoline made by algae? Only $15 a
gallon, how neat! I don't want any of that, either.

Sure, a 300 lb all carbon fiber motorcycle with a super tight aeroshell can get huge
gas mileage numbers. Entirely irrelevant stunts. Anything beyond about 60-70 mpg is a
waste of effort regardless of the news coverage of silly gas mileage specials. You can buy
70 mpg cars now, so economically we are done until fuel costs get to about $25 a
gallon. No point. Quick calc. At 10,000 miles/yr @ 70 MPG you use 143 gallons per YEAR of
fuel. Total cost (I filled up today for $2.10) is about $300. OK, improve that to 80 mpg,
at significant added cost, no doubt, and you drop your fuel burn by 18 gallons per YEAR. So,
you could save a whopping - $37. OOPs, not economic to go much beyond about
60 or 70 mpg, no way to make back the costs in fuel savings because your fuel bill
is already too near zero. Tank average around town on my Accord is about 36 MPG, and
if I drive 10,000 miles per year, fuel cost is under $600 per YEAR, it will be pretty
difficult to make much of an economic case for spending say $10,000 more for a carbon
fiber fancier higher MPG car to knock that down by $150 or 200 per year - and at what
cost in safety, comfort and convenience? Over ten years if you cut it by 50% (72 MPG)
it is only $3000 savings. Can't buy much carbon fiber high tech for that.

Just because you CAN does NOT mean it makes any economic since to do it.
Most of the engineering problems on this 'alternate energy' stuff were solved 20-30-even 50
years ago. The problems are practicality, comfort, delivery when you want it, safety
and primarily economics. My very conventional Accord gets 42 mpg at 65 mph with
really quiet ride, very safe and great comfort, big trunk, reasonable price. After designing, building
and testing hybrids 40 years ago, I am not interested, and I know exactly how and why they
work and don't. They are still silly and non-economic. Same car without the hybrid is
typically $5-7000 cheaper, and 200-500 lbs lighter, better real fuel economy. All that hybrids
do is prepay for about 3000 gallons of gas, then pretend to be more fuel efficient. Would I
have enjoyed working on a modern hybrid design team? You bet, what a fun engineering
challenge. Would I buy one? Of course not, they are economic losers.

As to reading, current magazine subscriptions is around 30, lots of science, tech, engineering,
history, aircraft and of course, guns.

[Artful]

Well, I can't argue your cred's for doing
- I have not tried to make an electric but when I do I will hope for a Solar recharge in the design with maybe a backup generator to extend range.

I'm surprised you were not aware of all the alternate tech contests from the 70's.

[jcwit]

I need to do some reading. ... LOL! :bigsmyl2:

Perhaps spending too much time doing. I researched, designed and built hybrid cars and
buses and did it in the 70s, wrote the papers. Did solar research and built my own solar
home 20 years ago. Did design work on a solar car that finished high in the solar challenge
about 15 years ago. Lots more, no need to continue. I have really DONE it, not read about it.

Been there, done that, have the degrees, built the hardware and wrote the tech papers.

**Economically** it is wasteful. I wonder if folks actually LIKE paying 3-4 times too much
for electricity? Anybody want to buy some gasoline made by algae? Only $15 a
gallon, how neat! I don't want any of that, either.

Sure, a 300 lb all carbon fiber motorcycle with a super tight aeroshell can get huge
gas mileage numbers. Entirely irrelevant stunts. Anything beyond about 60-70 mpg is a
waste of effort regardless of the news coverage of silly gas mileage specials. You can buy
70 mpg cars now, so economically we are done until fuel costs get to about $25 a
gallon. No point. Quick calc. At 10,000 miles/yr @ 70 MPG you use 143 gallons per YEAR of
fuel. Total cost (I filled up today for $2.10) is about $300. OK, improve that to 80 mpg,
at significant added cost, no doubt, and you drop your fuel burn by 18 gallons per YEAR. So,
you could save a whopping - $37. OOPs, not economic to go much beyond about
60 or 70 mpg, no way to make back the costs in fuel savings because your fuel bill
is already too near zero. Tank average around town on my Accord is about 36 MPG, and
if I drive 10,000 miles per year, fuel cost is under $600 per YEAR, it will be pretty
difficult to make much of an economic case for spending say $10,000 more for a carbon
fiber fancier higher MPG car to knock that down by $150 or 200 per year - and at what
cost in safety, comfort and convenience? Over ten years if you cut it by 50% (72 MPG)
it is only $3000 savings. Can't buy much carbon fiber high tech for that.

Just because you CAN does NOT mean it makes any economic since to do it.
Most of the engineering problems on this 'alternate energy' stuff were solved 20-30-even 50
years ago. The problems are practicality, comfort, delivery when you want it, safety
and primarily economics. My very conventional Accord gets 42 mpg at 65 mph with
really quiet ride, very safe and great comfort, big trunk, reasonable price. After designing, building
and testing hybrids 40 years ago, I am not interested, and I know exactly how and why they
work and don't. They are still silly and non-economic. Same car without the hybrid is
typically $5-7000 cheaper, and 200-500 lbs lighter, better real fuel economy. All that hybrids
do is prepay for about 3000 gallons of gas, then pretend to be more fuel efficient. Would I
have enjoyed working on a modern hybrid design team? You bet, what a fun engineering
challenge. Would I buy one? Of course not, they are economic losers.

As to reading, current magazine subscriptions is around 30, lots of science, tech, engineering,
history, aircraft and of course, guns.

So because you did all this 40 some years ago back in the 70's, there can be no progress made today?

Mayhap we should all just stop and say everything that has been invented is invented and we are at the end!

[bangerjim]

I need to do some reading. ... LOL! :bigsmyl2:

Perhaps spending too much time doing. I researched, designed and built hybrid cars and
buses and did it in the 70s, wrote the papers. Did solar research and built my own solar
home 20 years ago. Did design work on a solar car that finished high in the solar challenge
about 15 years ago. Lots more, no need to continue. I have really DONE it, not read about it.

Been there, done that, have the degrees, built the hardware and wrote the tech papers.

**Economically** it is wasteful. I wonder if folks actually LIKE paying 3-4 times too much
for electricity? Anybody want to buy some gasoline made by algae? Only $15 a
gallon, how neat! I don't want any of that, either.

Sure, a 300 lb all carbon fiber motorcycle with a super tight aeroshell can get huge
gas mileage numbers. Entirely irrelevant stunts. Anything beyond about 60-70 mpg is a
waste of effort regardless of the news coverage of silly gas mileage specials. You can buy
70 mpg cars now, so economically we are done until fuel costs get to about $25 a
gallon. No point. Quick calc. At 10,000 miles/yr @ 70 MPG you use 143 gallons per YEAR of
fuel. Total cost (I filled up today for $2.10) is about $300. OK, improve that to 80 mpg,
at significant added cost, no doubt, and you drop your fuel burn by 18 gallons per YEAR. So,
you could save a whopping - $37. OOPs, not economic to go much beyond about
60 or 70 mpg, no way to make back the costs in fuel savings because your fuel bill
is already too near zero. Tank average around town on my Accord is about 36 MPG, and
if I drive 10,000 miles per year, fuel cost is under $600 per YEAR, it will be pretty
difficult to make much of an economic case for spending say $10,000 more for a carbon
fiber fancier higher MPG car to knock that down by $150 or 200 per year - and at what
cost in safety, comfort and convenience? Over ten years if you cut it by 50% (72 MPG)
it is only $3000 savings. Can't buy much carbon fiber high tech for that.

Just because you CAN does NOT mean it makes any economic since to do it.
Most of the engineering problems on this 'alternate energy' stuff were solved 20-30-even 50
years ago. The problems are practicality, comfort, delivery when you want it, safety
and primarily economics. My very conventional Accord gets 42 mpg at 65 mph with
really quiet ride, very safe and great comfort, big trunk, reasonable price. After designing, building
and testing hybrids 40 years ago, I am not interested, and I know exactly how and why they
work and don't. They are still silly and non-economic. Same car without the hybrid is
typically $5-7000 cheaper, and 200-500 lbs lighter, better real fuel economy. All that hybrids
do is prepay for about 3000 gallons of gas, then pretend to be more fuel efficient. Would I
have enjoyed working on a modern hybrid design team? You bet, what a fun engineering
challenge. Would I buy one? Of course not, they are economic losers.

As to reading, current magazine subscriptions is around 30, lots of science, tech, engineering,
history, aircraft and of course, guns.


I guess we might as well crawl in a hole because everything that can be invented has been back in the 70's. By you. :shock:

There are always improvements and new developments on the horizon.

I have owned two Lexus Hybrid SUV's and love them. Excellent mileage, performance, and longevity. The 1st one had 6 years on the HV battery and was still going strong. The new Lexus 450 has an even better battery, better performance, and get 35+ MPG and will actually burn rubber at a stop sign. Unbelievable performance and tons of power with it's big 6 cyl engine and the hybrid drive. I can outrun almost anything on the road.

I would recommend the Lexus SUV to anyone in the market for a hybrid these days. I have no experience with other hybrids and would not recommend them without trying them.

banger-j

[popper]

MtGun - i agree with your analysis completely. Supercaps don't have near the leakage rate of normal rechargeables, use nono-tech. for the insulator between the plates. The ones I used had 3/8" lugs for terminals, but shorting them didn't create much heat in the battery ( like LiIon does). Actually charged them by touching to the terminals of a 80A PS, took 1/2 sec for the PS to recover, cap charged in 1/4 sec. Used as 'stamp' batteries in the small hobby drone copters and RC racers. Motor and control tech. has improved greatly over the years, even my washer & vacuum cleaner have an AC multiphase torque motor. Did a lot of wind power studies in the 70's, the 3 blade prop has always been the most efficient 'normal' configuration - BUT - Europe has been selling off the Gov. owned farms for both solar & wind power - while we build them. Solar/elec is useful but controllers/converters are really expensive. Still better than the open cell batts used for Sage computers at Richards Gebaur AFB.
Plastic sheet LEDs and amorphous solar cells were invented here on Gov money but sold to Briton/Japan and never really were effective. Yea, keep your hand on your wallet.

[Pinsnscrews]

I love how someone complains how much solar costs, yet forgets that it continues to make power after the day you install it...a friend of mine built her new home to be solar efficient. It is equipped with properly specced deep cycle batteries to operate the entire house on a 115 degree day from the time the sun goes down to the time the sun comes up, with every tv, appliance, light, and gadget the home has. Since that is not how someone actually lives, her home back feeds into the grid. Yup, she gets a check every month in triple digits from a very stingy power company. The only maintenance she has done in the 5 years now the home has been finished is replace one of the deep cycle batteries that was determined as having a cracked cell within the first month. The check she gets back from the power company has paid for the entire solar system.

[bangerjim]

That would be great over a campfire, but heating a 220V stove element to make 3W of 5vdc power? Sounds like a system Obummer will give millions of our tax $$ to!!!!

banger-j

[Schrag4]

The short video I saw said that this new storage is not as dense as current battery tech. In some applications that might not matter, but that might be a deal-breaker for things like phones and cars which cannot just grow to accommodate bigger batteries.

[GaryN]

http://www.bigislandvideonews.com/2012/04/02/video-last-windmill-standing-at-south-points-kamaoa-farm/

I have read that wind power is more of an investment scheme than a reliable source of power. They continue to produce until they break. I wonder if they ever recover the initial investment. I see new windmills being built all over. It makes me wonder if they are economically feasible or if they are just being driven by government mandates. Hawaii is a good place to test such things. They have a somewhat constant breeze and their power is quite expensive. It is about four times what I pay for the same amount of power. Most of their power is produced in plants burning petroleum products. They are also one of the most socialist states in the union.

[MaryB]

Wind power is only feasible because of government subsidies. Currently they have ended so I don't expect many new systems to be put on the drawing boards until the cost per megawatt drops closer to coal.

Home solar is cost effective if you can grid tie, expect an 8-12 year payback on a system(no batteries/simpler inverter without battey charge management, faster payback). But before you go solar it pays to start cutting use. What can be turned off? What is being left on that doesn't need to be? How many small wall transformers for cell phones etc are plugged in doing nothing all day long? All those phantom draws add up fast. I have power strips on just about everything and if I am not using it it gets turned off.

LED lighting is getting better, cheaper, and more eye friendly too. And LED's can draw half the wattage of a CFL for the equivalent output using the new state of the art modules coming out.

[leadman]

pisnscrews, it would be interesting to see her house and especially the a/c system. I will probably need to replace our a/c soon and would like to get unit that could be run off solar.

I hate running the generator in my old motorhome when camping so investigated solar. First kit I bought was from Harbor Freight. Not a very good producer of power but it helped me evaluate what I needed to power my rig. I did change all of my lights to leds which proved to be a very good thing.
I bought a second HF kit as I got it very cheap. That gave me 90w which still was not enough to run the controls for the propane fridge, lights, heater if needed, water heater, etc. I bought 2 100w panels from Renogy on Ebay and I now have enough power to run everything except the A/C and microwave. We have camped for over a week with no need to run the generator.
I have the panels set up with 2 controllers and switches so I can isolate the HF panels to charge the battery for the boat trolling motor.
I have been thinking of installing a seperate led lighting system in my garage and just hook it to my motorhome.My charging port for the outside charging of the boat battery is a Minnkota trolling motor plug so it would be very easy to do.
I think solar is very practical here in Az. It is a shame that the power companies have placed a surcharge on homes with new solar systems. It is also a shame how much the companies are charging to install solar on homes.
My son got a quote to put solar on his home of $30,000. The cost to buy the system is about $5,000 to $8,000 on E-bay. Installation is not complicated and the only real need for a skilled worker is when hooking the solar system to the home circuit box. Codes are involved as well as inspections.
I am impressed with the solar system that the Phoenix VA has installed. I have studied the panel installation and wiring going to large transfer boxes. Can't see inside those but the wiring that can be seen is pretty basic.

[ohland]

her home back feeds into the grid. Yup, she gets a check every month in triple digits from a very stingy power company.

Praytell, how much reserve storage capacity does the power company maintain? About the only place that comes to mind right now is a big fuel cell installation in New York on the Hudson (IIRC). Or... let's consider pumping water back into impoundments... So... let's "stick it to the man" and get a check for feeding small amounts of power to the grid... this backfeed goes off at night... or during coudy days, or snow, or rain...

So the power company is responsible for providing enough capacity to power all electric use on their grid AND also accept variable amounts of power from sources spread all over. How much reserve generating capacity needs to be maintained to cover solar power generation in case it declines?

Nothing against a personal installation that powers a home or something that is designed to work off the solar energy it produces.

When "the grid" can handle energy fed back into it, can reliably (and economically) store excess energy, and can transfer energy long distances to account for local weather or sunrise / sunset, then you have a winner. But until then, solar and wind are just sucking tax subsidies out of our pockets.

:popcorn:

[project]

I would love to be able to go solar but the initial investment would be huge and I have too many trees facing south. The best option for me is wind power and I have built a few decent size wind turbines for off grid cabins but it's just too unreliable to be an only power source in a permanent residence.

[A pause for the COZ]

Our turning our backs on Coal is a national crime!

And we are going to pay a terrible price for it!!

Three 44s

Boy you got that right.
There is no way wind or solar can replace a base load. ( at least not yet)
So right now all it does does is shave from a cheaper demand generation system.

It may after some super duper money has been spent and all the renewable systems all hooked into the same system.
Figure out a usable average from the entire network and use the amount that is always there as a small replacement of a very small amount of base load.
The cost per Kw hour for that stuff would be cheaper to buy your own generator and fuel it.

So unless they come up with a cheap way to convert excess Kw into some store able media.
That then can be converted back to Electricity for the grid.

As of right now its just a boondoggle waiting to suck up your hard earned coinage.

Now if they do come up with a cheap way to store and convert electricity.
Ok now lets talk.

But not only that, they are replacing base load coal with base load Nat Gas.
Ok right now because gas is cheap. They key to that is OK RIGHT NOW.
Latter on its not going to be cheap and no coal to keep the prices stable.

What the Government is hoping is that necessity will be the mother of invention.
By cutting out coal they feel they are creating the necessity and some one will invent the cure.
Because nothing out there can compete with coal on its own. Coal is too cheap and available.
I would have liked to see more investment in making coal a better fuel.