TL=8 Batteries

[mike wightman]

The best selling car on the planet (the Model Y) says otherwise.

It's selling so well and is so common I have never heard of it.

But at what price?
Internal combustion technology in automotive applications is "so mature" that at this point you can spend billions of dollars on research to squeeze out less than +1% in efficiency gains.

Fuel is a much more convenient way to power a vehicle. I agree that it only volume of production and the last few decades of alternative technology suppression by the oil industry that gives fossil fuels some of the advantage they have but:
the range of a fuel powered vehicle is further
the mass of electric vehicles and their batteries mean rebuilding roads, bridges, multistory car parks
fuel is faster to ... refuel.

The electricity also has to come from somewhere for the electric vehicles, which means several more orders of magnitude electricity production and massive cabling network construction, not to mention transformers etc.

The joined up thinking would be to use small nuclear reactors, solar, wind, geothermal and hydroelectric. Instead of batteries storing the excess electricity use it to make artificial hydrocarbon fuels - once the alternative infrastructure has reduced electricity costs to the point it is cheaper to make synthetic fuel rather than dig up and refine crude oil. Note our society will collapse if polymers and pharmaceuticals and a whole host of other chemicals can not be synthesised by cheap electricity rather than the chemical industry producing them from fossil fuels.

How are you going to insulate all that electric cabling without cheap polymers for the coatings? How about polymer lenses for spectacles etc etc.

By contrast, electric vehicle batteries and motors are "nowhere near as developed and mature" of a technology, so you're seeing MUCH more return on investment into research in these technologies. So unlike ICE powertrains, where the learning and manufacturing curves are more or less played out ... electric powertrains are just getting started and are only going to get (MUCH!) better from here.

That is simply not true. It is a convenient fiction from the electric vehicle industries but electric motors powering cars are well over a century old and the technology of electric motors is very well understood, I will accept that battery technology is making impressive improvements.

But then there are all those suppressed technologies that can vastly increase the performance of combustion engines - not all of it is the ranting of conspiracy theorists.

I'm sure they are telling their truth.

Still think hybrids are the "best of both" ...?
I don't.

And yes, hybrids are the most efficient, the risks can be mitigated with R&D, just ask Boeing

 

[Rupert]

But ... what is the carnot + mechanical cycle efficiency of converting that energy density into useful work?

For most (modern) internal combustion engines, it's in the 16-25% range (some are better, some are worse).
Oh and those wh/kg numbers you cite ... don't include the mass/weight of the internal combustion engine that does the energy extraction to useful work process. So the FUEL might be energy dense, but the entire POWERTRAIN is not ... when you add up everything that goes into that powertrain.

That depends a lot on the application - cars are terrible, whilst the massive diesels in large ships manage over 50%

Also, once batteries reach 400+wh/kg, things like electric aviation applications reach a tipping point that will start to outcompete internal combustion powered aviation in a wider variety of routes and applications ... so be careful with your presumptions.

Aircraft IC engines are surprisingly primitive by today's standards, because there's been little pressure to improve them and the costs of certification are prohibitive. As for turboprops and jets, well their stand out quality is not energy efficiency.

 

[whartung]

Batteries have a long way to go before they catch up to fossil fuels as energy storage devices.

I guess the game is converting gasoline and the charging numbers into a common value (I dunno, kw, kw/h, I have no idea how electricity is billed at the charging stations). Nevertheless, assuming they can be converted, the next game is to compare "vehicle range" for the gas vehicle and the electric vehicle. it would certainly help if the cars are similar (Camry to a model Y or something like that).

That should give us "net value" out of the powerplant/drive train to see how close (or not) each is. Obviously this does not take into account second order effects of gasoline consumption and use and electricity consumption and use.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I guess the game is converting gasoline and the charging numbers into a common value

To make this extremely Traveller-esque ... let's just turn to CT Striker.

TL=6 Improved Internal Combustion Power Plant (Striker B4, p2 and Striker B3, p8)

• 1000 liters (minimum size)
• 0.25 MW output
• 1000 kg
• Cr2000
• Fuel consumption: 500 liters per MW per hour

So what this means is that 3 hours of endurance @ 0.25 MW of output for the power plant would require 375 liters of fuel.
375 liters of fuel has a mass of 375kg and will cost Cr93.75 for 375 liters of (petroleum) fuel.

Total cost: Cr2094 for power plant + 1 fill up
Total mass: 1375kg



If we then compare that with TL=8 batteries as a "power plant" instead, we're looking at a 0.25 MW load that lasts for 3 hours of endurance.
This basically computes out to being 2700 MW seconds.

TL=8 Batteries (Striker B4, p10)

• 2700 MW seconds = 2160 liters = 2160 kg
• Cr702,000

So ... not exactly impressive as a power plant replacement.
But that's with a 3 hour endurance rating.

---

What happens with a 2 hour endurance rating?

TL=6 Improved Internal Combustion Power Plant (Striker B4, p2 and Striker B3, p8)

• 1000 liters (minimum size)
• 0.25 MW output
• 1000 kg
• Cr2000
• Fuel consumption: 500 liters per MW per hour

So what this means is that 2 hours of endurance @ 0.25 MW (335hp) of output for the power plant would require 250 liters of fuel.
250 liters of fuel has a mass of 250kg and will cost Cr62.5 for 250 liters of (petroleum) fuel.

Total cost: Cr2063 for power plant + 1 fill up
Total mass: 1250kg

If we then compare that with TL=8 batteries as a "power plant" instead, we're looking at a 0.25 MW load that lasts for 2 hours of endurance (not 3 this time).
This basically computes out to being 1800 MW seconds.

TL=8 Batteries (Striker B4, p10)

• 1800 MW seconds = 1,440 liters = 1,440 kg
• Cr468,000

And just for shizzle ...

TL=9 Batteries (Striker B4, p10)

• 1800 MW seconds = 800 liters = 800 kg
• Cr300,000

---

Clearly, under Striker, there is going to be a "cheap up front, but expensive in the long run" set of economics favoring the Internal Combustion Power Plant (according to Striker). But look at that refuel cost. If electricity is cheap (say, Cr1 per MW for convenience of illustration purposes) ... that means a 100% refuel/refill is going to cost Cr62.5 for the ICE power plant compared to the Cr1.8 for the Battery power plant.

So as a "fill up" cost differential of Cr60.7 per 100% refueling/refilling at what point does the life cycle cost between the two options break even (under Striker)?

• 2 hours endurance, TL=8 Batteries: 7677.1 refuel/refill cycles
• 2 hours endurance, TL=9 Batteries: 4909.4 refuel/refill cycles

---

The hilarious thing is that in the Real World™ ... Telsa Models 3 and Y are both retailing BELOW the average price of ICE powered vehicles in quite a few world markets, meaning that battery electric vehicles are TODAY cheaper to manufacture and sell (at a decent profit margin!) than the average ICE powered vehicles on the market produced by other companies (on razor thin profit margins).

So, suffice it to say that CT Striker got the "price of batteries in the future" pretty dramatically wrong.
Why do I say that?

Because here is what real world battery prices have been doing in the past decade or so:

If you're assuming the 2023 dollars has a conversion rate of $5 per Cr1 (because of inflation since 1977) ... in 2020, the price of battery packs was Cr40 per kWh.

1000 Watts * 3600 seconds = 3.6 MW seconds = Cr40

Therefore, the "correct" ... Real World™ ... price for TL=8 Batteries in CT Striker (with the benefit of hindsight) ought to have been ... Cr11.11 per MW second, not Cr325 as shown (CT B4, p10) ... and they've only gotten CHEAPER (and more energy dense!) since 2020!



Which is kind of a long winded way of saying that CT Striker "missed the mark" on the development of this particular future technology path.

Although as a mildly famous philosopher once said, "Predictions are hard, especially about the future."

 

[atpollard]

1/3 of the cost of Gasoline is the TAX that pays for the roads that both ICE and ELECTRIC cars drive on. When/If the shift is really made to ALL ELECTRIC vehicles, that tax will need to be shifted to ELECTRIC cars or people will need to go back to driving on unpaved roads.

Railroads and Airlines suffer from similar "invisible costs" that tend to make comparisons a bit "apples to oranges" between them. (Trains drive on Government subsidized Tracks and Airplanes use FREE airports, while only ICE cars pay for their own roads).

 

[atpollard]

FYI: The cost to FAST CHARGE an electric car to 80% charge is about the same as the cost to fill the tank with Gasoline (about $50 or Cr 10 in both cases) with both providing about 300 mile range. The inexpensive charge is only OVERNIGHT and AT HOME. That doesn't make ELECTRIC a bad deal, it just blunts the "recharge for $1.50" hype with a cold dose of reality for anyone that commutes an hour to work or takes trips.

 

[Rupert]

1/3 of the cost of Gasoline is the TAX that pays for the roads that both ICE and ELECTRIC cars drive on. When/If the shift is really made to ALL ELECTRIC vehicles, that tax will need to be shifted to ELECTRIC cars or people will need to go back to driving on unpaved roads.

Railroads and Airlines suffer from similar "invisible costs" that tend to make comparisons a bit "apples to oranges" between them. (Trains drive on Government subsidized Tracks and Airplanes use FREE airports, while only ICE cars pay for their own roads).

That depends on jurisdiction, and in most places roads are subsidised by more than gas taxes.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Fast charging is costly because demand for the service is not price-sensitive (when you need it, you need it), and suppliers are maximizing their revenue. Turn it into a public good (with either co-ops or cities selling recharging at minimal profit, possibly with on-site storage to time-shift the demand) and it'd be less expensive. Still, depending on the location, real-estate costs (parking space) add to the price.

Fuel taxes haven't covered road maintenance for a while now. In California, for example, they only cover about 80% of that part of the budget. It's worth noting that the biggest beneficiaries of this (in-effect) subsidy are big rigs, as pavement wear goes up as the fourth power of per-axle load. BEVs don't even get near the axle-loading of heavy trucks.

 

[atpollard]

As interesting as this has been, the temperature is a little too warm and this has nothing to do with TRAVELLER.

... so let's close it down at almost 150 posts.

 

[aramis]

In human time scales, capacitors will hold the charge unless there is a path for the charge to move through, be that moist humid air or the hand of a careless technician (RIP). Dry non-ionized air, not so much, vaccuum, never. Spoken as an Electrical Engineering Technician of nearly 50 years of experiance. I never shorted a capacitor through my body, but I have had parts of screwdrivers vaporized as I checked that the capacitor was discharged before touching it. Unplugging the device does not discharge the capacitors.

There are several devices that are functionally capacitors even tho' that's not their primary use... Cathode Ray Tubes come to mind. (A CRT can retain a major charge - always ground the anode before removal of the anode connector. Use a sscrewdriver wired to ground... so that you don't become the ground path.)

Cars can function as a capacitor in the right weather conditions. Not normally a hazard...
But every so often the stoichiometry gets just right, and a zap creates a bang from FAE mode of diesel or gasoline. I've only seen it once - fairbanks in the winter. At the gas station.

To be fair, Striker was written in the late 70s/early 80s when computers were still mostly room sized installations, rather than desktop machines.

by 1977, the home computer market was a real thing. And not just the unfriendly beasts like the 1975 SWTPC 6800, Altair 8800, nor the Imsai 8080... we're talking Sol20, Apple II, TRS-80 Model 1, and Commodore PET. 1977, when Apple had the best graphics in the home computing industry at 280×192, or 280×160 with 4 lines text beneath. Quite literally, the tech mags of early 1977 were all excited about micros with keyboards and monitors as standard (PET, TRS-80 Mod/1), or keyboards standard and TV output (Apple II, TV Typewriter terminal), And the tV typewriter could be expanded to a full up computer. I don't recall the Sol20's visual device, but it was a keyboard wedge computer from 1976, and Tech Time Traveller on youtube is working on getting his working.

The local star illuminates everything nearby.

Not directly if sufficiently far north (or far south)... if the day is the right kind of cloudy, none of the sunlight reaches you when you're > 60°N (or South, for that matter) in the (local) winter. If you're north of the mountain, the light is atmospheric backscatter. And far enough north (Nome, Utqiagvik), the sun sets for over a month. The only light is artificial or from distant stars, not the local one. Due to working in rooms without windows, I've had entire workweeks where I never saw the sun in Anchorage AK (61.2°N)... In to work before sunrise, (1200) leave 30 minutes after sunset (1600)... and that's with Anchorage being 2 hours off sidereal time! I've spent time in Fairbanks (64.8°N), too. In the summer, solar's merely good; the density is low, even tho the coverage time is high.
Also, even in Oregon, current location 44.4°N, I'm on the north side of a mountain. And on the south side of the valley. My local sunrise is 30 min or so later than the highway 100m further north - and so I also don't qualify for free solar installations paid for by the state (won't get direct sunlight for the expected period)...

 

[Grav_Moped]

Railroads and Airlines suffer from similar "invisible costs" that tend to make comparisons a bit "apples to oranges" between them. (Trains drive on Government subsidized Tracks and Airplanes use FREE airports,

Rail companies (in the US) mostly own their trackage (to Amtrak's scheduling detriment!) and pay for its upkeep. Much of the original ROW acquisition was indeed subsidized, and aided by use of eminent domain power.

Airports charge landing fees to partially defray operating costs. That said, the initial infrastructure buildout was usually a government project. This includes many airports that began as military airfields...

 

[Grav_Moped]

Not directly if sufficiently far north (or far south)...

No idea about how it affected solar power, but yeah, Fairbanks AK stayed pretty dark in midwinter (I was there for a few years in the late '90s). A few hours of twilight in mid-day was all you got.
Summer, on the other hand... Go into a bar before sunset, party for a few hours, and stumble back out again into broad daylight! (At the time, bars didn't close -- nowadays, last call is at 0200 like anywhere else.)

Good times.

Ok, back to the topic at hand...