Battery electric has competition
Real world uses for battery electric is discussed. Why battery electric is unsuitable for high hour / long range needs is discussed. Mesmerized politicians discussed. Why the stampede? Real ...
Forum Discussion
Why pick a winner before the game is played? Look at the delivery cycle for electric/Hydrogen.
When demand is low, use the excess capacity at power plants to split water into hydrogen, replace natural gas with hydrogen, use it to cook, heat houses and fill up cars. At one point you could even buy a home compressor for your nat. gas car. Problems, hydrogen and carbon steel don't play well together. Big advantage, it can be stored like natural gas, electric's biggest problem is storage.
I'll give you one better. It can use either seawater or fresh, and you can draw in atmospheric carbon dioxide and make carbon monoxide from it. It is carbon neutral, while current electric and hydrogen not so much. The Nazi's fought a war with it and South Africa still runs an economy with it today. The Fischer–Tropsch process makes both gasoline and diesel fuel. You need air, water and electric. A very old process, and it can be added right into the fuels we use today. You don't have to build a billion new cars (the carbon dioxide payout on an EV is what 3 to 8 years depending on the electric source?), just run what you got. Replace the fuel, not the cars.
The US Navy will probably be first, since fire kills ships, not holes in the hull as most assume. From Wikipedia "the US Navy recently discovered a low-cost catalyst made of Molybdenum Carbide plus Potassium to enable synthesis of Jet Fuel/Diesel on board nuclear carriers, using seawater as the feed stock. If the price for solar energy continues to decline, in the near future it may actually become more economical to produce cleaner burning carbon neutral synthetic fuels than to pump and refine petroleum." With the nuclear teakettles on carriers they won't have to carry all that jet fuel, just make it as you need it.
Once again why pick a winner? Let carbon dioxide production, safety, cost with discounted cash flow rate of return be you guides.
I'll take thorium reactors with Fischer–Tropsch fuel production for those reasons. I'll swap over to fusion, if the physics boys and girls can ever get their act together.
When demand is low, use the excess capacity at power plants to split water into hydrogen, replace natural gas with hydrogen, use it to cook, heat houses and fill up cars. At one point you could even buy a home compressor for your nat. gas car. Problems, hydrogen and carbon steel don't play well together. Big advantage, it can be stored like natural gas, electric's biggest problem is storage.
I'll give you one better. It can use either seawater or fresh, and you can draw in atmospheric carbon dioxide and make carbon monoxide from it. It is carbon neutral, while current electric and hydrogen not so much. The Nazi's fought a war with it and South Africa still runs an economy with it today. The Fischer–Tropsch process makes both gasoline and diesel fuel. You need air, water and electric. A very old process, and it can be added right into the fuels we use today. You don't have to build a billion new cars (the carbon dioxide payout on an EV is what 3 to 8 years depending on the electric source?), just run what you got. Replace the fuel, not the cars.
The US Navy will probably be first, since fire kills ships, not holes in the hull as most assume. From Wikipedia "the US Navy recently discovered a low-cost catalyst made of Molybdenum Carbide plus Potassium to enable synthesis of Jet Fuel/Diesel on board nuclear carriers, using seawater as the feed stock. If the price for solar energy continues to decline, in the near future it may actually become more economical to produce cleaner burning carbon neutral synthetic fuels than to pump and refine petroleum." With the nuclear teakettles on carriers they won't have to carry all that jet fuel, just make it as you need it.
Once again why pick a winner? Let carbon dioxide production, safety, cost with discounted cash flow rate of return be you guides.
I'll take thorium reactors with Fischer–Tropsch fuel production for those reasons. I'll swap over to fusion, if the physics boys and girls can ever get their act together.
