Reply to post: Re: It's not just the storage

Re: It's not just the storage

"Yes, about 1/3 the efficiency overall ( 30% vs 90%). BUT: there are applications where batteries are not adequate - rail, shipping, and of course aviation. Horses for courses."

Rail is easy... overhead lines, a battery "tender" and a diesel backup (for now). In the US there are long lines with nothing around the tracks that could make adding solar farms adjacent to the corridors easy as cake. The train line is a huge advantage in building out renewables along the way since there is already an easy and cheap way to transport the components and machinery. A battery tender car can bridge the gap at shunting yards where overhead lines would be complicated and the diesel hybrid already in use can be employed for places where nothing else is currently feasible or the most expensive. Starting with the low hanging fruit is the best approach. While locos are hybrids already, they are direct hybrid rather than parallel so the engines aren't always run at the most fuel efficient setting. Adding a big battery pack means much more efficiency. The railroad industry is one of those monolithic things run by boards with absolutely no imagination (plus unions) so it will take an external kick in the fork to get them to change. GE would have to do some original design work. That would be something.

Shipping is pretty efficient. They use bottom of the barrel fuel and the engines are very efficient for burners of hydrocarbons. The pollution is an issue. I've never seen if anybody has done a study to find out if taking them to a hybrid power plant makes enough of a difference. it would have to be massive to make retrofitting ships worthwhile.

Forget aviation for now. The power density in batteries is far too low. If 75% of an A320 has to be battery (by weight) with top of the line 400Wh/Kg Li batteries, there is no way people could afford the ticket and cargo would have to be only the most valuable lightweight articles. There are a few small experimental general aviation aircraft with electric motors, but they don't have great range or much payload capacity. A long taxi at an airport might mean only 20 minutes of flight time. Batteries may never be good and safe enough for commercial passenger service. If the vast majority of personal cars and light trucks were able to be transitioned to electric, that would be huge. We could then stand on that spot and see where to go from there.