Caps for Short Term Mobil Energy Storage

[Bret Cahill]

Some dreamer once wanted to use "super" capacitors to power a road EV
but the energy density is still too low. By one calculation a 100 ton
cap would be necessary to store the energy in a 15 gallon (100 lb) gas
tank.

For electric farm tractors energy density is much less an issue than
the lifetime cost of the energy storage device. With enough trolly
wiring caps would work better than batteries.

A spread sheet would determine the economic advantage.

It would be interesting to know if capacitors have _ever_ been used in
any machinery where the cap is mechanically disconnected and
reconnected every few seconds or minutes.


Bret Cahill

 

[Bret Cahill]

Some dreamer once wanted to use "super" capacitors to power a road EV
but the energy density is still too low. �By one calculation a 100 ton cap
would be necessary to store the energy in a 15 gallon (100 lb) gas tank..
For electric farm tractors energy density is much less an
issue than the lifetime cost of the energy storage device.
With enough trolly wiring caps would work better than batteries.

Yes, but biodiesel would be much better again, requiring
no change to the tractors at all and no 'trolly wiring' either.

Where are they selling this biodiesel?

A spread sheet would determine the economic advantage.
It would be interesting to know if capacitors have _ever_
been used in any machinery where the cap is mechanically
disconnected and reconnected every few seconds or minutes.

Nope, because the power density is still much too low.

By how much?

What does make sense in that situation is rechargeable batterys.

What is the lifetime cycling?

But not for big power users like tractors.

Show your calculations.

It does make sense for forklifts etc, but they dont use anything like the
power that tractors need to be able to provide for real world farming.

Who cares?

Which might just be why you do see electric forklifts used but not tractors.

Well that's gonna change.


Bret Cahill

 

[m II]

Bill Reif wrote:

Where would flywheels fall in this calculation? They can store a fair
amount of energy, and can be resupplied quite quickly.

Why not use the energy to power the tractor directly? The more times you
make it change form, the more you lose. Add to that the gearing losses,
which would be considerable. A few hundred thousand rpm needs to be
greatly reduced. Getting the flywheel up to speed isn't that easy
either. Will you be using an electric motor to do this? Where is this
motor located? How will it be wired? Does the tractor go back to the
'refill' site? It may be interesting to find out just how long it does
take to get the flywheel back up to speed. Also, are there any weird
effects from the gyroscopic action?


mike

--
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
/ /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /
/ /\ \/ /\ \/This space for rent/\ \/ /\ \/ /
/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/

Densa InternationalŠ
'Think tanks cleaned cheap'

Due to the insane amount of spam and garbage,
I block all postings with a Gmail, Google Mail,
Google Groups or HOTMAIL address.
I also filter everything from a .cn server.

http://improve-usenet.org/

 

[Don Bowey]

On 8/8/08 1:06 AM, in article 489c79aa$0$19663$ecde5a14@news.coretel.net,
"Paul E. Schoen" <pstech@smart.net> wrote:

"Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:6g2719FdqdbbU1@mid.individual.net...
Bret Cahill <BretCahill@aol.com> wrote

Some dreamer once wanted to use "super" capacitors to power a
road EV but the energy density is still too low. ?By one calculation
a 100 ton cap would be necessary to store the energy in a 15 gallon
(100 lb) gas tank. For electric farm tractors energy density is much
less an issue than the lifetime cost of the energy storage device.
With enough trolly wiring caps would work better than batteries.

Yes, but biodiesel would be much better again, requiring
no change to the tractors at all and no 'trolly wiring' either.

Where are they selling this biodiesel?

The farmer grows it himself, stupid.

A spread sheet would determine the economic advantage.
It would be interesting to know if capacitors have _ever_
been used in any machinery where the cap is mechanically
disconnected and reconnected every few seconds or minutes.

Nope, because the power density is still much too low.

By how much?

By quite a few orders of magnitude.

What does make sense in that situation is rechargeable batterys.

What is the lifetime cycling?

Try that again in english.

But not for big power users like tractors.

Show your calculations.

Dont need any, thats clearly been done by those who design stuff like
that.

It does make sense for forklifts etc, but they dont use anything like
the
power that tractors need to be able to provide for real world farming.

Who cares?

Anyone stupid enough to propose the use of batterys in tractors.

Which might just be why you do see electric forklifts used but not
tractors.

Well that's gonna change.

Nope. They'll just use biodiesel instead.

I doubt that a farm, where most of the land is already used for food crops,
could produce enough extra crops to supply its own biodiesel.

My view is that the farmers may well produce crops for their own fuel,
individually or through a co-op, where they already work to achieve common
goals.

With surging
population, we will need most of our cropland to feed people, not tractors,
cars, and trucks.

But the farmers have to weigh their cost of buying fuel, regardless of type,
against the costs of "growing their own." It's the farmer who will make the
decisions about THEIR farm economics.

We need to reduce consumption, increase efficiency, and
live cooperatively. Perhaps enough electrical energy can be provided for
our needs with nuclear power, but I'm not sure I want to trust the design,
operation, maintenance, and security of these potentially dangerous
installations to the latest crop of poorly educated, illiterate, and
morally bankrupt people who will be filling positions of responsibility.

Right on. Scary, at best.

Paul

 

[Bret Cahill]

Some dreamer once wanted to use "super" capacitors to power a road EV
but the energy density is still too low. By one calculation a 100 ton
cap would be necessary to store the energy in a 15 gallon (100 lb) gas
tank.

I understand there's promising research on using capacitors constructed
using nanotubes.

Supposedly you can store energy at the same density as liquid fuel
simply by stretching the material like a long rubberband. Maybe
that's an indication that it'll make a high energy density cap.

But that's far too expensive and I wouldn't want to be around either
when it "failed."

For electric farm tractors energy density is much less an issue than
the lifetime cost of the energy storage device. With enough trolly
wiring caps would work better than batteries.

Where would flywheels fall in this calculation? They can store a fair
amount of energy, and can be resupplied quite quickly.

Compressed air as well as flywheels may have higher energy density
than caps. They present bigger coupling or transfer problems than a
wire, however.

Have there have ever been any applications for short term [< few
seconds] _completely_ disconnected caps? Up until now a switch,
mechanical or electronic, always seems to be permanently connected to
a "stationary" power source.

For example, small [low terminal velocity] cap - LED circuits can be
designed to be recharged "on the bounce." Each assembly has fins on
top to fall down upright into a two layer wire mesh. A short wire on
the bottom is insulated except for the bottom tip which contacts the
lower mesh. The other contact is the bottom of the assembly itself
for the top mesh.

Air pulses upward through the mesh for safe indoor "fireworks."

A lot of easy money has been made where the only design point is
whatever will do something visually new. The cost of small circuits
is incredibly low with the high copy volume production runs unique to
the Christmas light industry.

Bret Cahill


"The world revolves, not around the inventors of new noises, but
around the inventors of new values. It revolves _inaudibly_."

-- Nietzsche

 

[Bret Cahill]

Nope. They'll just use biodiesel instead.

I doubt that a farm, where most of the land is already used for food crops,
could produce enough extra crops to supply its own biodiesel.

The tech illiterate media have been running shows and articles on
some sparsely populated Danish farm island in the N. Sea that is
completely sustainable. They do indeed run their tractors off of
biodiesel they recover from their farms.

Each farmer's carbon footprint is small but his _land_ foot print is
massive -- off shore wind turbines, etc. -- that just isn't available
to most Europeans, or, for that matter, most Americans or anyone else
except maybe the Australians as a nation.

See the economist Henry George on land which will monkey wrench a lot
of sustainability notions.

With surging
population, we will need most of our cropland to feed people, not tractors,
cars, and trucks. We need to reduce consumption, increase efficiency, and
live cooperatively. Perhaps enough electrical energy can be provided for
our needs with nuclear power, but I'm not sure I want to trust the design,
operation, maintenance, and security of these potentially dangerous
installations to the latest crop of poorly educated, illiterate, and
morally bankrupt people who will be filling positions of responsibility.

Geologists are fairly certain there will be a big earth quake in
California in 30 years, less than the life time of a nuke. In fact,
some of the nukes that are operating in CA today will probably be
still operating when they get hit.

A cost-benefit risk analysis would be difficult enough without the
politics of where to locate new nukes.

It's a lot easier in CA to just go geothermal, and solar, wind, PV,
solar thermal or algae.

And hope for a better battery.


Bret Cahill

 

[hhc314@yahoo.com]

On Aug 8, 2:22 pm, "Paul E. Schoen" <pst...@smart.net> wrote:

"Bill Reif" <billr...@ameritech.net> wrote in message

news:60Xmk.20892$N87.4026@nlpi068.nbdc.sbc.com...







"Bret Cahill" <BretCah...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:328e6158-7cfe-4418-82d4-8535ee091b9c@y19g2000prn.googlegroups.com....
Some dreamer once wanted to use "super" capacitors to power a road EV
but the energy density is still too low.  By one calculation a 100 ton
cap would be necessary to store the energy in a 15 gallon (100 lb) gas
tank.

I understand there's promising research on using capacitors constructed
using nanotubes.

For electric farm tractors energy density is much less an issue than
the lifetime cost of the energy storage device.  With enough trolly
wiring caps would work better than batteries.

Where would flywheels fall in this calculation?  They can store a fair
amount of energy, and can be resupplied quite quickly.

Flywheels can be quite dangerous when they are very massive and spinning at
high RPMs. Also, I think there are problems with efficiency in the storage
and retrieval of energy over a wide range of speeds. There is also the
problem of angular inertia causing difficulties with movement of a mobile
machine in certain directions. Small flywheels, and fairly small
capacitors, are useful for providing short term storage and retrieval of
energy.

I wonder how much energy can be stored and retrieved, and what efficiency
could be obtained, by pumping water to a higher elevation (either a water
tower or a lake on a hill), and then releasing it through hydroelectric
generators when needed. This uses simple, inexpensive, and proven
technology, and is certainly quite safe. It would not be practical for
portable storage, but could possibly be used instead of storage batteries
in permanent installations. And stored water is always a good thing to have
in case of drought.

Paul- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Pumped energy storage, as you say, is proven technology and is
currently in use by number of major electric utilities. Unfortunately,
this practically requires rather large resoluces, and I seriously
doubt that it can easily be scaled down. Most of the white water
rafters that run the Kennebec river are familiar with this drill. The
Kenneback is fed by Moosehead lake Maine. At a place called "The
Forks" it merges with the "Dead River" where a hyrdroelectric dam is
located. White water rafters put in right beneath the base of the dam
and wait for what is called a "turbine release" (it's a pretty scarey
wait for first timers, some of whom actually expect to see water
flowing over the top of the dam. These releases take place at the
time of maximum electric power demand, and last for an hour or more.
Actually, all that you see from your raft is the river level slowly
rising, but when it hits its maximum, the rafts take off down river.
What follow is the really scarey part, because in the sping this often
results in Class 5 white water, something that seriously has to be
experienced to grasp the magnitude, and it's definitely not for the
faint hearted!

Now most of the turbine releases take place at night, but by agreement
the power company reserves a few for daytime. The really big events
are on special dates where the power generated turbines are stressed
to their maximum capacity. This happens roughly 4 times each year,
and the rafting companys charge higher rates for these dates, which
attract only the the most serious of the experienced rafters, because
during these events it is not uncommon for a raft to flip, and it
occupants end up swimming the Kennebec at full flow...which is an
experience you may want to skip. At any rate, here is the schedule and
this years rates. For what it's worth, I prefer an outfit called
Northern White Water, which operated out of The Forks, and has a
campground that for their clients is (or was) free.

http://www.mainewhitewater.com/kennebec-river-rafting-trips.htm?gclid=CM_g4qTz_pQCFQpzHgodBC4aqw

Just to warn eastern city dwellers, the remote parts of Maine are not
quite like Boston, or New York City. Moosehead Lake and The Forks are
typical of this region. To get there, you will have to travel
lumbering roads, not highways, most of which are paved, but only
barely. You will have to compete for road space with giant lumbering
truck, which if you have a collision with, you will loose big time,
which is to say you definitely don't have the right of way, and
remember your defensive driving practices. This is where your SUV or
4x4 may become useful.

Now it is not a popular subject, but it is said that Moosehead Lake is
used for pumped storage on a small scale. There are efforts to
increase to increase this though siphoning off and stroring the excess
energy capacity of Niagara-Mohawk in Moosehead Lake. Obviously this is
a very sensitive subject with Moosehead Lake property owners. 'Nuff
said.

Regardless of all the above, pumped storage of electrical energy is
the best method yet perfected.

On a smaller, more practical scale, take a close look at the mill pond
method that has been in practical use since even before the creation
of the United States. With a properly situated mill pond, you can
extract sufficent energy to power a small mill that can both grind
grain and generate kilowatts of electrical power throughout most of
the year, even here in New England where it gets cold in the winter.
In fact, although I don't want to come across as a New England tourism
promoter, you can actually visit a small scale system of this type
that is still in current operation.

With this type of system you impound water collected from rainwater or
small local streams, then release it as needed to supply your energy
requirements. If you are in the Boston Area, and are interested in
rather old technology like this, drive out to Sudbury and visit the
Longfellow Wayside Inn which is in a turnoff from Route 20, just West
of Sudbury. While the Wayside Inn is of historic significance, you
should walk across the street to an old, restored Mill that still
operates. Wade past the wedding partys that are having their photos
taken along side of the mill, and see how it operates. Notice that a
mere trickle of water is sufficient to spin the millstones. In fact,
all of the milled products sold to tourists at the Wayside Inn are
produced here, and the miller there can be very infomative if you
catch him between tourist presentations.

Next, go down to the lower floor beneath the milling floor, and in the
darkness there you can see 3 old dusty generators of some serious KW
capacity. These were installed during the early days of WWII, for use
in powering the entire Wayside Inn complex and nearby parts of
Sudbury.

When you exit the mill building, go up hill and follow the millstream,
and in less than 150-yards you will encounter the mill pond itself.
It's won't be as large as some people would have expected, my guess is
less than 2-acres, but it has provided sufficient energy to power the
mill for the past 200 or so years.

One final stop to make when visiting this historic property is to walk
to the extreme left side of the mill, go downhill, and follow the
millstream runoff for about another 100-yards, and there cut into the
side of the hill you will find the root cellars that have been in use
for centuries for storing certain type of produce through the winter,
and for all I know may be still in use today. Notice the modern
padlocks on their doors.

Now here is the catch. The Longfellow Wayside Inn was purchase by
Henry Ford in roughly the 1930s, just as he did Edisons Laboratory.
In turn, he carted Edison's lab to Michigan and "restored" it. The
old boy, being obsessed with American history, purchase the grounds
surrounding the Wayside Inn at about the same time, and "restored" it
as well. Perhaps because my wife worked for the National Archives, I
am suspect to accept as fact any claimed restoration for its
historical accuracy. Even our beloved Concord Bridge is a restoration,
and nobody even knows what the orginal looked like.

Just a note of caution to younger readers.

Harry C.

 

[Bret Cahill]

I wonder how much energy can be stored and retrieved, and what efficiency
could be obtained, by pumping water to a higher elevation (either a water
tower or a lake on a hill),

They do it in places where they have the land. A high head impulse
turbine like a Pelton wheel is 95% efficient.

Centrifugal pumps all seem to be less than 75% efficient but maybe a
dynamic compressor (95% efficient) in some air over water scheme would
be better.

Overall the efficiency could be higher than 70%.

and then releasing it through hydroelectric
generators when needed. This uses simple, inexpensive, and proven
technology, and is certainly quite safe. It would not be practical for
portable storage, but could possibly be used instead of storage batteries
in permanent installations. And stored water is always a good thing to have
in case of drought.

Who would care if the lake was beneath a solar plant?


Bret Cahill

 

[m II]

Paul E. Schoen wrote:

According to the data given, 1 square meter of water pumped up to a
height of 30 meters weighs 1000 kg, and has a potential energy of 30
kJoules. This is enough energy to power a 30 watt lamp for
(correction) about a half hour.

The question becomes: "How much power did it take to pump it up there in
the first place?" If we can only get back 25 percent of what we had
originally, it wouldn't be worth it.

--


Densa InternationalŠ
'Think tanks cleaned cheap'

Due to the insane amount of spam and garbage,
I block all postings with a Gmail, Google Mail,
Google Groups or HOTMAIL address.
I also filter everything from a .cn server.

http://improve-usenet.org/

 

[Bret Cahill]

That brings the theoretical maximum storage capacity of Al2O3 capacitors to
about 88 MJ/m^3 or 88kJ/liter or about 24Wh/liter or about 6Wh/kg.
Incidentally, that is about the maximum storage capacity of the best
ultracapacitors of Maxwell Technologies (leading ultracap manufacturer).
This compares to 30Wh/kg for lead-acid batteries, and 180Wh/kg for
Li-polymer batteries.

30 - 60 W hr/kg is all that is necessary to get a tractor across a
field.

There is a company called EEstor that claims to have a capacitor that stores
1MJ/kg (277Wh/kg), using a ceramic (Barium titanate) dielectric with an
epsilon of 38,000 or so. However, there are strong indications that EEstor
is talking out of their a..s, since they seemed to have completely ignored
an effect called dielectric saturation in barium titanate that has long been
verified and known to be a limiting factor in such high-permittivity
dielectrics. Also they claim a much higher breakdown voltage than what was
previously found in barium titanate. When that is taken into consideration
for their dielectric, then the storage capacity goes down to the level of
Al2O3, around 5Wh/kg.
We'll see if EEstor can actually get even close to their claimed 277Wh/kg..
So far, they are a no-show.

Supposedly EEStor isn't a really good capacitor, but a hybrid between
a battery and a capacitor and ordinary cap calculations do not apply.
Supposedly the theory behind EEStor was well settled for decades but
only EEStor managed to get it to work.

None of the above means EEStor has anything that will work, just that
it cannot be summarily ruled out with cap calculations.

Long story short : Unless there is a real breakthrough, Ultracaps have a way
to go before they will replace batteries.

For electric farm tractors energy density is much less an issue than
the lifetime cost of the energy storage device. �With enough trolly
wiring caps would work better than batteries.

Where would flywheels fall in this calculation? �They can store a fair
amount of energy, and can be resupplied quite quickly.

I agree.

Especially for short-term storage (topic of this thread) flywheels might
actually be a pretty darn good competitor of ultracaps.
A flywheel with a motor-generator

So there's still a wire at the edge of the field. It just powers the
flywheel motor.

could actually get close to 50 Wh/kg,

That's all that's necessary.

which is comparable with lead-acid batteries, but has the advantage of huge
power density. Here is an example (which gets 27Wh/kg) :http://www.magma.ca/~fesi/

Then the flywheel tractor is the way to go.

In fact, I think that for regenerative braking (or battery peak unloaders in
electric vehicles), ultracapacitors and small flywheel systems (with a
motor-generator) will be competing with each other.
Flywheels are not bad at all, and as safe (or unsafe) as ultracapacitors.

New alternators are efficient over a broad rpm range.

Two counter rotating rotors will eliminate any undesirable external
torques on the tractor. The bearings between the two rotors may need
to be beefed up, however.


Bret Cahill

 

[hhc314@yahoo.com]

On Aug 9, 1:16 am, "Paul E. Schoen" <pst...@smart.net> wrote:

I'm still not a big fan of nukes, but I'm not totally opposed.

My great-grandfather was not a big fan of illuminating gas, but every
room in his home contained multiple gaslights.

My grandfather was terrified by the lethal potential of alternating
current electricity, but his home was completely wired for it, and he
owned numerous electrical appliances.

My father believed that television sets radiatiated x-rays plus were
fire hazards, still he owned three of them.

People in general were afraid of the consequences of a leak in a live
steam line (death by scalding), but many buildings in large cities
have it piped in for heating.

Many people today fear the electrogmagnetic fields produced by cell
phone, but this does no appear to diminish the number that you see in
everyday use. (I'm personally more concerned with working in a
building with a multi-megawatt TV transmitter sitting two floor above
my office, but I'd still work in one anyway.)

No new technology is without some level of risk/benefit tradeoff, and
today the focus is on nuclear power generation. My guess is that when
people become more familiar with it, it will be fully accepted as just
another form of technology that provides great benefits, but requires
caution in both its use and the locations chosen for the reactors.
Spent fuel is not a problem, because that vast bulk of it is
reprocessed, The dark side is that the reprocessing concentrates the
plutonium content, so that requires careful monitoring to preclude any
possiblity of it becoming available to make nuclear weapons. Pure
profit motives on the part of nuclear fuel reprocessors would appear
to assure that this is unlikely to happen, because the peaceful
applications of plutonium make it more valuable than gold or platinum.

Just some of my thoughts on this subject.

Harry C.

 

[John Larkin]

On Thu, 7 Aug 2008 21:52:20 -0700 (PDT), Bret Cahill
<BretCahill@aol.com> wrote:

Some dreamer once wanted to use "super" capacitors to power a road EV
but the energy density is still too low. By one calculation a 100 ton
cap would be necessary to store the energy in a 15 gallon (100 lb) gas
tank.

For electric farm tractors energy density is much less an issue than
the lifetime cost of the energy storage device. With enough trolly
wiring caps would work better than batteries.

A spread sheet would determine the economic advantage.

Fine; show your calculations.

John

 

[Bret Cahill]

I'm still not a big fan of nukes, but I'm not totally opposed.

My great-grandfather was not a big fan of illuminating gas, but every
room in his home contained multiple gaslights.

My grandfather was terrified by the lethal potential of alternating
current electricity, but his home was completely wired for it, and he
owned numerous electrical appliances.

My father believed that television sets radiatiated x-rays plus were
fire hazards, still he owned three of them.

People in general were afraid of the consequences of a leak in a live
steam line (death by scalding), but many buildings in large cities
have it piped in for heating.

Many people today fear the electrogmagnetic fields produced by cell
phone, but this does no appear to diminish the number that you see in
everyday use. (I'm personally more concerned with working in a
building with a multi-megawatt TV transmitter sitting two floor above
my office, but I'd still work in one anyway.)

No new technology is without some level of risk/benefit tradeoff, and
today the focus is on nuclear power generation. ďż˝

The difference with nukes is the cost-benefit risk analysis is more
complicated than an individualist deciding to wire his own home.

A individual doesn't decide where to put the nukes.

_Society_ decides where to locate the nukes.

The French can go nuke for the exact same reason railroads are
straight in France.

If any French landowner or other rich induhvidualist objects to
enlightened egalitarian public policy out comes the guillotine.

That just ain't gonna happen in the U. S. with the current disparity
in wealth. If the rich try to locate a nuke in a poor area, everyone
will immediately understand the scam.

My guess is that when
people become more familiar with it, it will be fully accepted as just
another form of technology that provides great benefits, but requires
caution in both its use and the locations chosen for the reactors.
Spent fuel is not a problem, because that vast bulk of it is
reprocessed, The dark side is that the reprocessing concentrates the
plutonium content, so that requires careful monitoring to preclude any
possiblity of it becoming available to make nuclear weapons. Pure
profit motives on the part of nuclear fuel reprocessors would appear
to assure that this is unlikely to happen, because the peaceful
applications of plutonium make it more valuable than gold or platinum.

If the space elevator ever becomes reality, send the waste into the
sun.


Bret Cahill

 

[Don Bowey]

On 8/10/08 11:18 AM, in article
0aa05f31-8cb4-4f63-b58c-fdcb4c791e8d@a3g2000prm.googlegroups.com, "Bret
Cahill" <BretCahill@aol.com> wrote:

Some dreamer once wanted to use "super" capacitors to power a road EV
but the energy density is still too low. ?By one calculation a 100 ton
cap would be necessary to store the energy in a 15 gallon (100 lb) gas
tank.

For electric farm tractors energy density is much less an issue than
the lifetime cost of the energy storage device. ?With enough trolly
wiring caps would work better than batteries.

A spread sheet would determine the economic advantage.

Fine; show your calculations.

Only an idiot such as yourself would do all those calculations when
excel is available.


Bret Cahill

Only an idiot such as yourself would not know Excel does "calculations"
among other things.

So post the spreadsheet(s).

 

[Bret Cahill]

Some dreamer once wanted to use "super" capacitors to power a road EV
but the energy density is still too low. �By one calculation a 100 ton
cap would be necessary to store the energy in a 15 gallon (100 lb) gas
tank.

For electric farm tractors energy density is much less an issue than
the lifetime cost of the energy storage device. �With enough trolly
wiring caps would work better than batteries.

A spread sheet would determine the economic advantage.

Fine; show your calculations.

Only an idiot such as yourself would do all those calculations when
excel is available.


Bret Cahill

 

[John Fields]

On Thu, 7 Aug 2008 21:52:20 -0700 (PDT), Bret Cahill
<BretCahill@aol.com> wrote:

Some dreamer once wanted to use "super" capacitors to power a road EV
but the energy density is still too low. By one calculation a 100 ton
cap would be necessary to store the energy in a 15 gallon (100 lb) gas
tank.

For electric farm tractors energy density is much less an issue than
the lifetime cost of the energy storage device. With enough trolly
wiring caps would work better than batteries.

A spread sheet would determine the economic advantage.

It would be interesting to know if capacitors have _ever_ been used in
any machinery where the cap is mechanically disconnected and
reconnected every few seconds or minutes.

---
If you're _that_ interested, do your own legwork.

JF

 

[John Fields]

On Fri, 8 Aug 2008 10:52:04 -0700 (PDT), Bret Cahill
<BretCahill@aol.com> wrote:

And hope for a better battery.

---
Hope?

Instead of helping in the quest, technically, it seems that all you
want to do is sit on the sidelines, puff yourself up as being an
authority, and poo-poo everyone else's work even though you haven't
the technical acumen to do so.

To what end?

JF

 

[Bret Cahill]

Some puppies need to get their noses rubbed into their own poop
several times:

Some dreamer once wanted to use "super" capacitors to power a road EV
but the energy density is still too low. �By one calculation a 100 ton
cap would be necessary to store the energy in a 15 gallon (100 lb) gas
tank.

For electric farm tractors energy density is much less an issue than
the lifetime cost of the energy storage device. �With enough trolly
wiring caps would work better than batteries.

A spread sheet would determine the economic advantage.

It would be interesting to know if capacitors have _ever_ been used in
any machinery where the cap is mechanically disconnected and
reconnected every few seconds or minutes.

---
If you're _that_ interested, do your own legwork.

If you are _not_ interested, why are you clicking on this thread?

You don't need to do anything more to convince us you are irrational.

Everyone has known you were a fraud and a rather stupid one at that
ever since you tried to bluff some patents.


Bret Cahill

 

[hhc314@yahoo.com]

On Aug 10, 12:04 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@aol.com> wrote:

The difference with nukes is the cost-benefit risk analysis is more
complicated than an individualist deciding to wire his own home.

No, it's not different at all. Back shortly after the turn of the
19th century, most people did no understand even the basics of
electricity, and thus feared it could and would kill them. The general
publics today is equally afraid of nuclear generated electricity, and
are equally ignorant of how it can be safely handled. The anti-nuclear
media hype, generated by people whose education is primarily limited
to the liberal arts did not help, because they fear anything new that
they cannot understand.

A individual doesn't decide where to put the nukes.

_Society_ decides where to locate the nukes.

This a a major part of the problem. If we were were to allow the
competent engineering people to choose the generation sites, and not
put it up to a popular vote by uneducated member of society, mistakes
of the past would be avoided in the future.

The French can go nuke for the exact same reason railroads are
straight in France.

Actually, they are anything but. Don't ask me how I know this, but
from past employment, have some knowledge of the French transit
systems and railways. Their civil designs have the identical problems
of anywhere else.

If any French landowner or other rich induhvidualist objects to
enlightened egalitarian public policy out comes the guillotine.

Sounds more like China in your words.

That just ain't gonna happen in the U. S. with the current disparity
in wealth.  If the rich try to locate a nuke in a poor area, everyone
will immediately understand the scam.

What scam? I'm a physicist, and when I lived in the Rochester, NY
area, I welcomed the Ginna nuclear plant as a neighbor. It in my
opinion was situated on an ideal site, close to cooling water from
lake Ontario, in a region relatively free of major faults.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9800E6DA163AF935A15752C1A9659C8B63

The problem today is not the placement of the nuclear facilities, but
legislative involvement on that subject, rather than leaving it up to
competent, engineering professionals.

Today's resistance to nuclear is identical to earlier resistance to
gas, and then electricity, because of public ignorance on the
subjects.

Again, any technology advance is a trade-off between risks and
benefits. 50 years of operation have statistically generated that
nuclear power generation is the safest of all of the existing power
technologies, and the most environmentally clean.

Then consider how many members of the consuming public have modern
nuclear power plants ever injured on killed during over 50 years of
operation. The answer is not one. During that time, how many deaths
have coal, oil, and natural gas fueled resulted in as a result of the
pollution they create? Likely the count is measured in the thousands.

Now if you are an open minded person, think about the many deaths you
have seen documented on CNN from coal mining alone, and compare that
with the deaths resulting from the production of nuclear fuels. Then
too, how many people die on oil or gas rigs? That subject doesn't get
much press attention, but is significant. How about when a trans-
continental gas line running though an urban area bursts and destroys
half the neighborhood?

So if you truly believe that nuclear is dangerous, consider the annual
death rates resulting from the alternatives.

Harry C.

p.s. Just for the record, I have no holdings in any energy company,
but I occasionaly do a few weeks of consulting a year for some of
them I trust that you do know why major firms like Humble Oil and
others changed their names to "energy". It's wasn't just for PR
purposes; it accompanied a change in their corporate charters to allow
them to purchase and invest in nuclear and other energy sources. But,
Dhuh, I suppose you knew that already.

 

[John Fields]

On Sun, 10 Aug 2008 18:14:18 -0700 (PDT), Bret Cahill
<BretCahill@aol.com> wrote:

Some puppies need to get their noses rubbed into their own poop
several times:

---
Aww... poor widdle baby has to hide who she's posting to.
---

Some dreamer once wanted to use "super" capacitors to power a road EV
but the energy density is still too low. ?By one calculation a 100 ton
cap would be necessary to store the energy in a 15 gallon (100 lb) gas
tank.

For electric farm tractors energy density is much less an issue than
the lifetime cost of the energy storage device. ?With enough trolly
wiring caps would work better than batteries.

A spread sheet would determine the economic advantage.

It would be interesting to know if capacitors have _ever_ been used in
any machinery where the cap is mechanically disconnected and
reconnected every few seconds or minutes.

---
If you're _that_ interested, do your own legwork.

If you are _not_ interested, why are you clicking on this thread?

---
Oh, but I _am_ interested, especially when you say stupid things that
are easily contested.
---

You don't need to do anything more to convince us you are irrational.

---
LOL, I'm not the one who's been professing that electric tractors are
practicable in the face of incontrovertible proof that they aren't.
---

Everyone has known you were a fraud and a rather stupid one at that
ever since you tried to bluff some patents.

---
Aww... poor baby's got her little knickers in a bunch because I
wouldn't cough up a number in accordance with her demands???

Makes me happy.

JF