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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend

Sweden
9687 Posts

Posted - 09/22/2006 :  06:58:07   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Dr. Mabuse an ICQ Message Send Dr. Mabuse a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Original_Intent

quote:
Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse

Nuclear Powerplants...



Egads----- Please not in the US....... Nuclear power is one of those things that we have proven incapable of handleing with the completely uncorrupt, no limit for costs-for-safety that it demands.

That's unfortunate. Once upon a time, Sweden was in the front of nuclear power research, but since the mid-eighties it's been illegal(!) to research.

Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3

"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse

Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder.
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HalfMooner
Dingaling

Philippines
15831 Posts

Posted - 09/22/2006 :  15:45:47   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send HalfMooner a Private Message
Personally, I have long been an opponent of nuclear fission power plants, and more so after Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. But global warming, in my opinion, now trumps my safety concerns. I now support the rapid deployment, under the most stringent safety precautions, of nuclear fission power plants, as the best and most sustainable practical energy solution for the next several decades. Coal-burning and other fossil fuel plants must be replaced as quickly as possible.

Perhaps the best safety standards for nuclear plants are those used by the US Navy in its fleet of submarines, and in some of its other vessels. At any rate, the best design, enclosure, procedures, and training should be selected from around the world, and these plants should be built.


Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive.
Edited by - HalfMooner on 09/22/2006 15:47:19
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Original_Intent
SFN Regular

USA
609 Posts

Posted - 09/22/2006 :  18:37:30   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Original_Intent a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by HalfMooner

Personally, I have long been an opponent of nuclear fission power plants, and more so after Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. But global warming, in my opinion, now trumps my safety concerns. I now support the rapid deployment, under the most stringent safety precautions, of nuclear fission power plants, as the best and most sustainable practical energy solution for the next several decades. Coal-burning and other fossil fuel plants must be replaced as quickly as possible.

Perhaps the best safety standards for nuclear plants are those used by the US Navy in its fleet of submarines, and in some of its other vessels. At any rate, the best design, enclosure, procedures, and training should be selected from around the world, and these plants should be built.



I have long been a proponent of nuclear power itself. With the proper precautions, it could be a panacea. Not enough humans are responsible enough to put safety first.

It has to be built and run by the brightest, with the most dedicated and vigilent people. There is absolutly no room in any part of the process for politics or political correctness. That rules out the US.

When the oceans rise, and take the coastal cities with them, there is going to be enough of a polution problem for mankind then to worry about lands that might have been usable being contaminated by radiation.

I have long thought the navy was the only people I would trust, but as they are open to politics and funding whims...... They could always pass a constitutional amendment to guarantee the safety...... No one would go against the constitution..........

Maybe we ought to take Washington D.C. and turn it into a nuke farm. Require all members of Congress to live their 11 months out of the year. All emergency vent pipes from the plants would vent into the Capitol building.........

I don't know. I think I would take my chances with global warming......

Peace
Joe
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R.Wreck
SFN Regular

USA
1191 Posts

Posted - 09/23/2006 :  08:11:34   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send R.Wreck a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Original_Intent:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse

Nuclear Powerplants...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Egads----- Please not in the US....... Nuclear power is one of those things that we have proven incapable of handleing with the completely uncorrupt, no limit for costs-for-safety that it demands.



What evidence doyou have that we are incapable of handling this technology?


edited to credit OI.

The foundation of morality is to . . . give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibliities of knowledge.
T. H. Huxley

The Cattle Prod of Enlightened Compassion
Edited by - R.Wreck on 09/23/2006 08:12:58
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R.Wreck
SFN Regular

USA
1191 Posts

Posted - 09/23/2006 :  08:30:02   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send R.Wreck a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Halfmooner:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by R.Wreck

Yes and no. Although you would not be burning gas or diesel directly, you still need a fuel to produce electric power. And the one we have in greatest abundance is coal.

Still no free lunch.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Correct, but in turn, also incorrect in essential implications. No free lunch, but a much, much cheaper one. First, quite a lot of electrical power on the grid comes from hydro power, some from fission, and with more and more each year coming from wind and other renewable sources, such as solar. Even the burning of fossil fuels for conversion to electricity can be done much more efficiently employing the economies of scale available in huge, centralized power plants, than it can be done for conversion to work through the internal combustion engine ICE). And for what people need and expect from their cars, no other technology presently comes close in terms of enough of these practical factors: Initial capital investment in the vehicle, range on one charge/fill-up, speed, cost and availability of charge/fill-up.

In effect, both hydrogen-burning ICEs and fuel-cell technologies are simply forms of batteries, since the power they deliver is created elsewhere. The cheapest batteries for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are still lead acid. They are also the heaviest, which is a major problem in a vehicle. The best present batteries are probably lithium-based. These come close to the storage needs of long-range BEV's, but they are extremely expensive.

For e-bikes, one of which I intend to get, the efficiencies and economies are already so great, even with lead-acid technology, that one can make a five-mile round-trip on a flat tarmac (just what I need for grocery shopping) for less than 5 cents of electricity bought over the grid. Of course, I will sacrifice comfort and some safety in doing so, and I will not be able to venture over the San Mateo hills to make longer trips on my e-bike. It would also be miserable to ride in bad weather. On the other hand, since it is legally a bicycle, it requires no license, and no insurance, only a helmet. (One writer even showed, breaking down the inefficiency of fueling a human beast of burden, how it is more "green" to propel a bike by electricity than by human power!)

Clearly, the development of a practical BEV will make CO2 and other pollution primarily a matter for power plants. By removing the necessity of fossil fuel burning in vehicles, it would allow focus on electrical generation as the one big remaining greenhouse pollution problem to solve.

In addressing the holistic "lifecycle" environmental costs of BEVs vs. ICE vehicles, Wiki says:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Production and conversion BEVs typically use 0.3 to 0.5 kilowatt-hours per mile (0.2–0.3 kWh/km). Nearly half of this power consumption is due to inefficiencies in charging the batteries. The US fleet average of 23 miles per gallon of gasoline is equivalent to 1.58 kilowatt-hours per mile and the 70 MPG Honda Insight gets 0.52 kWh/mi (assuming 36.4 kWh per US gallon of gasoline), so battery electric vehicles are relatively energy efficient.

When comparisons of the total, well-to-wheel energy cycle are made, the relative efficiency of BEVs drops, but such calculations are usually not provided for internal combustion vehicles. Generally well-to-station efficiency is left unstated (e.g. the energy used to extract & transport petroleum, produce specialized fuels such as gasoline or electricity, and then transport finished products to market). Normally only the station-to-wheel efficiencies are provided.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are useful for comparison of electricity and gasoline consumption. [9] Such comparisons include energy production, transmission, charging, and vehicle losses. CO2 emissions improve in BEVs with sustainable electricity production but are fixed for gasoline vehicles. (Unfortunately, such figures for the EV1, Ford Ranger EV, EVPlus, and other production vehicles are unavailable.)

. . .

Many factors must be considered when comparing vehicles' total environmental impact. The most comprehensive comparison is a "cradle-to-grave" or lifecycle analysis. Such an analysis considers all inputs including original production and fuel sources and all outputs and end products including emissions and disposal. The varying amounts and types of inputs and outputs vary in their environmental effects and are difficult to directly compare. For example, whether the environmental effects of nickel and cadmium pollution from a NiCd battery production facility are less than those of hydrocarbon emissions and petroleum refining is unknown. Similar comparisons would need to be addressed for each input and output in order to make fair judgement of relative total environmental impact.

A large lifecycle input difference of BEVs compared to ICE vehicles is that they require electricity instead of a liquid fuel. When the electricity is provided from renewable or nuclear energy, this is a considerable advantage. However, if the electricity is produced from fossil fuel sources — as most electricity is — the relative advantage of the electric vehicle is substantially reduced. So, developing additional non-CO2 emitting energy sources is necessary for electric vehicles to further reduce net emissions. Still, the environmental impact of electricity production (indirect emissions) depends on the electricity production mix, and are usually considerably lower than the direct emissions of ICE vehicles.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The key is, this kind of battery breakthrough would be what will make an overall solution to fossil fuel CO2 emissions possible.



Good post, Half. What concerns me is that our electric generation and distribution system is projected to need significant expansion just to keep up with the growth in demand. The huge financial commitments to new power plants (especially nuclear) and transmission lines, the difficulty in siting these facilities, and the deregulation of the industry (where the risks are borne by the shareholders and not automatically recovered from ratepayers) all conspire against expanding the system. Adding the energy requirements of the transportation sector just exacerbates the problem.

Wind and solar are minor players in the baseload generation game, and probably will always be so due to the fact that they produce only when the wind blows / sun shines. They also take up a lot of room per megawatt installed capacity, so siting wind farms in particular has become more difficult. Solar in particular has potential as distributed generation, e.g solar panels on rooftops which reduce a customer's draw on the utility system, if the technology can be developed to where the life cycle cost is economically attractive. Our hydro potential is fully used, is dependant on rain/snow amounts, and in some places is being dismantled to restore waterways and habitats.

So for now, coal and nuclear are your choices for large scale generation. Each has its disadvantages too. There's no simple answer here, but as oil will someday run out, we need to get thinking on what the long term solution may be. I'm hopeful that nuclear fusion can be practically de

The foundation of morality is to . . . give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibliities of knowledge.
T. H. Huxley

The Cattle Prod of Enlightened Compassion
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Dude
SFN Die Hard

USA
6891 Posts

Posted - 09/23/2006 :  11:34:10   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Dude a Private Message
R.Wreck said:
quote:
Wind and solar are minor players in the baseload generation game, and probably will always be so due to the fact that they produce only when the wind blows / sun shines.


There are plenty of innovative ideas out there to overcome the shortfalls of wind and solar power. They are only minor players because no one is interested in making them major players when they can just use the existing models (coal) to create plenty of power at the moment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_wind_turbine


Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson

"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin

Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth
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R.Wreck
SFN Regular

USA
1191 Posts

Posted - 09/23/2006 :  14:30:10   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send R.Wreck a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Dude:

R.Wreck said:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wind and solar are minor players in the baseload generation game, and probably will always be so due to the fact that they produce only when the wind blows / sun shines.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



There are plenty of innovative ideas out there to overcome the shortfalls of wind and solar power. They are only minor players because no one is interested in making them major players when they can just use the existing models (coal) to create plenty of power at the moment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_wind_turbine



Interesting concept. I wonder about it's pracicality though.

Maintaining a ground based transmission system is hard enough. The effects of weather and environment mean constant maintenance. How do you maintain a 6 mile long vertical cable?

Sky Wind Power talks about 240 KW and 1.5 MW turbines. Giving them the benefit of the doubt on their capacity factor calculations, which puts them in the same ballpark of a nuclear unit, then to equal the output of just one large (1200 MW) nuclear or coal fired unit would take 800 of the 1.5 MW turbines or 5000 of the 240 KW turbines. That's a lot of airborne windmills! The US installed capacity is about 1,000,000 MW. To account for even 1% of this number, you would need 6,666 of the 1.5 MW turbines. Where do we put all of these things?

The foundation of morality is to . . . give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibliities of knowledge.
T. H. Huxley

The Cattle Prod of Enlightened Compassion
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Original_Intent
SFN Regular

USA
609 Posts

Posted - 09/23/2006 :  19:11:58   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Original_Intent a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by R.Wreck

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Original_Intent:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse

Nuclear Powerplants...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Egads----- Please not in the US....... Nuclear power is one of those things that we have proven incapable of handleing with the completely uncorrupt, no limit for costs-for-safety that it demands.



What evidence doyou have that we are incapable of handling this technology?


edited to credit OI.
[/quote]

A nuke plant on a fault line
And onother

url="http://www.ieer.org/pubs/atomicmyths.html
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Ghost_Skeptic
SFN Regular

Canada
510 Posts

Posted - 09/23/2006 :  22:50:34   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Ghost_Skeptic a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Fripp

I have also been considering one of these (the C2 or the 959) for my 17-miles-one-way commute: http://www.worldclassexotics.com/Electriccarconv.htm



Or instead of driving a kluged conversion you could get one of these. - 0 to 60 in just over 4 seconds.


"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. / You can send a kid to college but you can't make him think." - B.B. King

History is made by stupid people - The Arrogant Worms

"The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism." - William Osler

"Religion is the natural home of the psychopath" - Pat Condell

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter" - Thomas Jefferson
Edited by - Ghost_Skeptic on 09/24/2006 07:33:15
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R.Wreck
SFN Regular

USA
1191 Posts

Posted - 09/24/2006 :  10:23:33   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send R.Wreck a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Original_Intent:



A nuke plant on a fault line
And onother

url="http://www.ieer.org/pubs/atomicmyths.html


Seismic qualification is part of the design basis of the plant. It is designed to be able to be safely shut down and cooled in the event of an earthquake.

From your source:


quote:
The spent fuel pools, if water is lost from them, will catch fire, and produce a cloud of smoke that will create a plume drifting downwind for many many miles.

I must continue to ask this question: What keeps the birds, dead leaves, and other stuff out of the pools? My cousin has a swimming pool behind his house, and he needs to keep a cover on it by law. Even with the cover, he's got to use this little robot that swims around and cleans the flotsam.

Where is the law covering these pools filled with deadly radioactive flammable metal? It seems incredibly careless to leave those pools storing nuclear waste exposed to the elements like this.




There is a picture of what appears to be two lagoons one might typically see at a water processing plant (which most nukes have one of on site).

One little oversight by the author though. Spent fuel pools are not outdoors. They are in steel / reinforced concrete buildings. There are multiple design features to prevent a loss of water.



quote:
Diablo Canyon has two reactors and each reactor has a spent fuel pool. Each reactor and each spent fuel pool contains very large amounts of radioactive material. Highly dangerous radioactive material. There is a proposal to develop a dry storage facility on the site. Similarly if constructed that would contain very large amounts of radioactive material.


Dry cask storage facilities are nothing like spent fuel pools. Dry storage involves taking the oldest fuel (that with the least deacy heat), and sealing it inside a steel container, which is then sealed inside a cask, which is then stored in a steel and/or concrete structure. A typical dry cask system.




The foundation of morality is to . . . give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibliities of knowledge.
T. H. Huxley

The Cattle Prod of Enlightened Compassion
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Original_Intent
SFN Regular

USA
609 Posts

Posted - 09/25/2006 :  04:53:25   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Original_Intent a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by R.Wreck

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Original_Intent:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse

Nuclear Powerplants...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Egads----- Please not in the US....... Nuclear power is one of those things that we have proven incapable of handleing with the completely uncorrupt, no limit for costs-for-safety that it demands.



What evidence doyou have that we are incapable of handling this technology?


edited to credit OI.



Faulty construction, lack of oversight
quote:

...Its long and sometimes tumultuous development has been marked by runaway costs, faulty construction, mismanagement by the utilities that own it, and inadequate supervision by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). ...
[/quote]

I'll take the most catastrophic form of global warming. This would probably leave much of the earth uninhabitable, but humanity would survive, and maybe learn something..... That is if what is left is not nuclear wasteland........

Only idiots think that man can overcome Mother Nature, or human nature. It only takes one moron in the mix, or one sabatour, or one airplane....... Sure, the emegency shut-offs should work, but that is a should........... And nuclear energy is far too dangerous to leave in the care of humans.........

Peace
Joe

The Circus of Carnage... because you should be able to deal with politicians like you do pissant noobs.
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Franklin
New Member

1 Post

Posted - 09/27/2006 :  05:19:00   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Franklin a Private Message
It has been noted in some other forums regarding eestor that a vehicle that can go 500+ miles without recharging doesn't need a quick charge, since most people never drive more than 500 miles in a day. Slower, overnight charging will work for almost everyone.

I also think that being able to make your own automotive energy source (most people can't drill for and refine oil or gas on their half-acre lot) through solar would be an important added incentive for residential solar (and small wind) power.

That said, Eestor needs to show a working prototype before I waste too much thought on what might be.
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JohnOAS
SFN Regular

Australia
800 Posts

Posted - 09/27/2006 :  15:11:13   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit JohnOAS's Homepage Send JohnOAS a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Franklin

It has been noted in some other forums regarding eestor that a vehicle that can go 500+ miles without recharging doesn't need a quick charge, since most people never drive more than 500 miles in a day. Slower, overnight charging will work for almost everyone.

That's true, although such a temporal concentration of re-charging could cause even more problems for power grids that are already struggling in many locations. Not that this should be a reason for abandoning the electric vehicle concept, but it may increase the requirement to fix the electrical power infrastructure in order to be practical.

quote:
Originally posted by Franklin

I also think that being able to make your own automotive energy source (most people can't drill for and refine oil or gas on their half-acre lot) through solar would be an important added incentive for residential solar (and small wind) power.

Conceptually OK, but the scaled down versions of sources like solar and wind are not very appropriate for such use. Three reasons spring to mind:
1. Small, domestic versions are nowhere near as cost effective and efficient as their larger counterparts. (Similarly, we don't try to generate hydro-electric power from our waste water)
2. They don't provide enough power to make much of a dent in a vehicle's power budget.
3. They don't necessarily provide the power during the times of the day when you want to be recharging. I guess you could use solar/wind to charge batteries when available, and then charge your car batteries from these intermediate batteries, but it gets more expensive and complex very quickly.

Smaller, distributed versions of renewable power generation devices may make sense for some applications, but I don't see vehicle re-charging being one of them.

John's just this guy, you know.
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend

Sweden
9687 Posts

Posted - 09/27/2006 :  18:26:48   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Dr. Mabuse an ICQ Message Send Dr. Mabuse a Private Message
If it's just a capacitor, then it will behave very differently from a battery.

A fully charged battery starts out with its nominal voltage. When it is slowly getting drained, it maintains a voltage slightly below nominal during most of it's discharge time.

A capacitor, no matter the size, there is a direct relationship between charge and voltage. A fully charged capacitor that has 1000v will have 500v when half the energy is used up.

Energy of a capacitor: W = QU / 2
Charge: Q = It

In order to have a super capacitor to power a car, you'll also need some heavy electronics to handle the very wide range of voltage that comes out of the capacitor. If the lowest operating voltage for electric motor is 250V and the Cap is 1000V, then we would only be able to use 75% of the Cap's storage capacity. And to have voltage-step-up regulation in 25-50KW range is just insane.
The up-side though, is that measuring the voltage will give you an exact measure of how much energy there's left, pretty much (but more exact) like today's fuel-gauge. That's where batteries are at a disadvantage.

Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3

"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse

Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder.
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rbh
New Member

USA
1 Post

Posted - 09/28/2006 :  14:14:15   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send rbh a Private Message
I have read the various reactions and comments on this forum with a mixture of respect and amusement. Some have been especially thought provoking.

Some comments:

1. There will likely be no instantaneous "one shot" solution to moving personal transportation from ICE power to something more efficient and less polluting. I am thinking more along the lines of "evolution" vs "revolution." However, there will be periodic announcements of technological advancements that will, in reality, be the culmination of years of research and incremental improvement and development prior to the announcement of a "breakhrough." Many breakthroughs are not really breakthroughs at all. They are an announcement that years of incremental improvement has made something viable that was not previously viable.

2. While I haven't kept up with the latest numbers, I believe it is still reasonably accurate to assume, for rough calculations, that large utility type power plants are roughly twice as thermally efficient as an ICE in automotive usage. I recall using roughly 40% vs about 20% some years ago. Over the last decade, both technologies have become somewhat more efficient.

3. As one writer on this forum pointed out, highly centralized production of CO2 and other by-products of power generation are much easier and cheaper to treat than if the production is greatly disbursed.

4. There is no way that a large capacitor can be charged on the home electrical circuitry in minutes or hours. No sense in even worrying about it. The capacitors can handle such a charge, but the utility system cannot. This is especially true if you and several neighbors all want to charge your capacitors at about the same time. The infrastructure simply will not support power delivery of that magnitude to a neighborhood in such a short time. In many areas the utility system will not even handle air conditioning loads during hot weather. I would have no problem topping off a capacitor in my car from a home charger and doing a large "fill-up" at a central charging facility. I already go to the gas station several times a week now.

5. It is not necessary to charge a capacitor within moments or seconds. A system where there is a stationary capacitor charging slowly when neighborhood demand is low would allow the charge to be transferred to the mobil capacitor almost instantaneously. Over a period of hours to days, enough of a charge could be accumulated that I could replensh a significant part of a car's stored energy (i.e., fill up the tank).

6. Since I was a youngster in the 1960s, capacitor technology has improved dramatically. Smaller capacitors can hold hugely larger charges than the best technology would allow 10-15 years ago. Only a few years ago, there was no such thing as an "ultracapacitor." Now several firms around the world sell them daily for commercial use. Yet, as of this moment, the technology is still not ready to power an automobile or even a golf cart on a commercial basis on the highway because there are no commercial capacitors available with the appropriate power storage density. I believe there will be commercially available capacitors in our future for automitive use. They may or may not come from EEStor and they may or may not come within the next year or two, but I believe the regular advancement in capacitor technology will allow them to come within the next decade. Really, what we are looking for is a "better battery."

7. The reason why gasoline and/or diesel still power the vast majority of vehicles on the road is that petroleum offers a very good way to store and carry along great amounts of energy in a relatively small volume and at a reasonable weight with relative safety. The ICE is one price we pay for being able to extract this energy where and when it is needed. But the costs of this convenience are rising as more vehicles produce more pollution and undesirable by-products. The political and monetary costs are also rising and it is not possible to accurate predict future costs.

8. Somehow, I have trouble seeing hydrogen as the solution to our energy problems. Most hydrogen is either produced from petroleum products (usually nat gas) or, as an alternative, by electrolysis of water. Either way, there are real reasons why we would be fooling ourselves. Are we trying to free ourselves from petroleum usage? Are we willing to pay for the inefficiencies of running a plant to make the hydrogen? The hydrogen itself is only an energy storage medium. It still has to be made in a plant of some sort and then transported and stored. If viable capacitors were available, who in their right mind would run a power plant to produce hydrogen, transport and store the hydrogen and then use it in a small fuel cell to produce electricity to power the car. Why not make electricity at the plant, transport it over wires, charge a capacitor and drive off?

9. Hydrogen is notoriously difficult to store. In its gaseous state, it is the smallest molecule on the periodic table and it tends to leak thru everything which makes storage and transportation problematic. As a hydrate, it is easier to handle, but not without its problems and costs.

10. I personally hope the people at EEStor can make a capacitor that will allow electric vehicles to be viable and not just for use on the golf course or in gated communities. I would prefer to have state of the art utility plants producing our transport power than having millions upon millions of cars using ICEs.

11. Remember that Edison tried thousands upon thousands of materials and processes to make the incandescent light bulb. Finally it worked.

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