Recently, AltairNano demonstrated their Lithium-Titanate batteries in a real world demo for Indianapolis Light and Power. They had two 1MW/250kWh units, and the batteries and equipment performed very well. The primary use for this specific equipment configuration of large shipping-container sized units is for backing up inconsistent power sources like solar or wind. So how can this technology be used in electric vehicles? They're working now on a 35kWh battery for vehicles.

(Note: This is one of many energy-related diaries I write, if you're interested in things like Solar & Renewables, EVs and EREVs, etc check my profile)

Call me an optimist.  Coal is king, tar sands oil is booming, the arctic is melting, tropical cyclones keep setting new records, and my own city is still flooded.  Yet, in these times, a revolution in both energy and electrified transportation is taking place right beneath our noses, and perhaps nowhere are we seeing the seeds of this being planted more than on the island of Oahu.

Read on to learn more about the world you may be leaving to your grandchildren and the role Hawaii's third largest island may play in bringing it about.

Sen. John McCain's recent proposal to establish a $300 Million prize competition to develop a new battery package for electric vehicles is actually a lot worse than it looks. This light bit of pandering to environmentalists and the high tech community would have much more sinister implications if he were to actually fund and launch such a competition as President.

This is not a question of stimulating the establishment of a new industry where there was none before. Its not about creating incentives for particularly risky and expensive Research & Development, where a market for the end product is uncertain or might fail to materialize. This is about capturing the future of transportation for the same people you're driving on right now.

Technology prizes have a rich and successful history (it was the Orteig Prize which drew Charles A. Lindbergh across the Atlantic), and the Ansari X-Prize has in fact birthed a new commercial space tourism industry. So, where's the problem with McCain's Assault on Batteries?

The first lie that I remember was "batteries not included". What made this lie pernicious is that it was not technically a lie. Certainly, my mother was prepared for it, with batteries at hand.

But it was the first lie they told me, and it was the start of a lifetime. They've lied to me persistently since then.

It's called "the fine print" and you're supposed to know to read it. You're taught to expect that anyone you buy something from will try to rip you off in the process.

They teach us to blame the victims. Parents hover nervously over children, trying to shield them from the consequences of fine print (with video games, and music with DRM, this is no longer possible).

The makers of the batteries for today's modern EVs have much to be proud of.  A little over a decade ago, the best EVs on the market ran on lead-acid batteries (a technology so primitive that Thomas Edison didn't find it suitable for the EVs of his era) and nickel-cadmium cells (toxic enough to make lead-acid look clean).  Today's battery upstarts like A123 (lithium phosphate) and AltairNano (lithium titanate) are already becoming superstars in the EV community with their long-life, high performance cells.

That said, their achievements pale in comparison to what's coming our way.  Read on to learn how over a dozen technologies in the lab today promise not only to have EVs match the range of gasoline cars, but completely blow it away.

The one thing I dislike about Keith Olbermann's "Worst Person in the World" segment is that he never takes on NBC News or MSNBC personalities.  From Tucker Carlson to Chris Matthews, there's a lot of stupidity at that network too, but whether because he's told not to or because he doesn't want to wage internal war, Olbermann never mentions it—the Imus battle a notable exception.

That's why you won't see NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams listed for tonight's Worst Person in the World, a spot he justly deserves for this report slipped in after a standard wank piece about MoveOn.org and news that Barry Bonds will do something else next year:

The constant counter-argument to the proliferation of electric and hybrid-electric vehicles has been the size and weight of the battery packs, the inadequate energy density of the available batteries, and the toxic ingredients and expensive manufacturing processes that go into making those batteries.

But what if we had high-energy batteries that used no toxic electrolytes and could be printed like the pages of a book?

Well, that's just what researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute announced today.

Prepare to get enthused...

When people ask me when did I start becoming interested in electric vehicles I honestly tell them I can't remember. Electric vehicles weren't an "aha!" moment in my life where I suddenly realized that I was seeing something revealed for the first time. Electric vehicles and many other forms of capturing and using alternative energy have always been in my psyche. I think it goes back the OPEC oil embargo of the 1970's.

I was a preteen and a teenager during that time, very much interested in cars and driving, as well as being interested in science's ability to solve our everyday problems. One of our neighbors purchased one of Bob Beaumont's tiny Sebring-Vanguard CitiCars and I was enthralled. I never got a chance to look at it up close. I just would see it driving on the street here and there every once and a while. The Apollo space missions were well on their way and on the moon was an electric car. I remember going to GM's Tomorrow Land in Disney World and becoming fascinated by what I saw.

In 1980 Stanford Ovshinsky patented a battery that was supposed to revolutionize the world. A battery that he knew could take almost unlimited charges and discharges, a battery that held far more energy at half the weight of lead acid batteries, a battery whose thermal properties were balanced with metals that combine endothermic and exothermic reactions to prevent thermal runaway, which is an explosive reaction common to the first iterations of lithium-ion batteries. Twenty seven years later those batteries are just beginning to have the impact they promised a quarter of a century ago.

About 6 years ago I picked up a pack of AA NIMH batteries. The pack contained two AA Nickel-Metal Hydride (NIMH) batteries rated at 1200 mAh. Think of mAh as the gasoline. The bigger the number in front of the mAh the more gasoline you have in the battery. I can’t remember exactly how much I paid for these batteries, but it wasn’t cheap. From what I remember they were about 10 to 11 dollars a battery or around 21 to 22 dollars for them. It was expensive but I justified the purchase by telling myself that I would be able to reuse the batteries over and over and over again, and eventually I would recoup the cost of the batteries. This was better than having to buy alkaline batteries over and over again, filling a landfill with them and adding toxins to our environment. What I didn’t realize was that at 1200 mAh the batteries had very little gasoline in them and so they tended to spend most of their time on the charger. Read on.

riving up to Junction on twenty miles of bad road, we stopped for directions at a gas station and picked up an older woman waiting for a ride who guided us the rest of the way.  A mile or two later, we turned a corner and saw a line of wind turbines on the slopes of Don Figeroa Mountain, the Wigton wind project (http://www.mct.gov.jm/...).  I turned in my seat and asked the woman on her way to Junction whether the wind machines had made any difference.

She said, "No, mon, we still have to pay for the electric and the gas."

A little farther down the road we passed a sign for DigiCel, the local cell phone company.  I turned to her again and said, "But the cell phone changed everything, didn't it?"

She smiled widely and nodded deeply.

http://money.cnn.com/...

In a mobile society, batteries seem to be a gift from the gods.  We have power wherever we go in order to play video games on our phones, or to take pictures with our gameboys.  We listen to news on our iPods and music on our laptops.  Our cars start with them (and could run on them); our clocks keep time with them (and sing when we want); and without them, people would die, for there would be no pace-makers, no mobile ventriculators, and no doctors' pagers (yes, they still use those).

Batteries come in many shapes, sizes, powers, and lifespans.  Some use designations that utilize the periodical table, and some use codes like those used for bra sizes.  However, all of them contain metals and/or chemicals that should not be simply thrown in the trash.  But that is precisely what most of the world does.  Especially in the Unites States, we have developed a disposable economy for our convenience.  Europe, however, has just agreed to create a recycling culture for battery disposal.  (News and some suggestions below the fold.)

The ideal would be to purpose build an EV from scratch (Photo from NCE Canada)

Planning for the venture requires us to ask serious questions. The question at this stage of the game is

Bob Beaumont's Seabring-Vanguard CitiCar

Ferdinand Porsche's First Vehicle was an Electric Car

When thinking of sports cars today, a person who knows something about cars would inevitably think of a Porsche. The compact beauty, the sleek lines, the power, control, not to mention that the car just looks like its moving even when it is sitting still. These have been truisms of Porsche from its very beginnings. What you may not have known is that Ferdinand Porsche, in order to get that Porsche feeling at the very beginning of his career, made electric cars. Yes. The Porsche of the 1890s was an electric vehicle.

Why electric? Most likely it was because...

Some very important hurdles in battery technological for electric vehicles have been overcome this year. Technological hurdles even greater than those overcome in the last few years. The technological hurdles that I am talking about here have been the same for quite some time. Efficient use of electrical energy has been at the forefront of EV development largely because of the limitations of battery technology.

The problems with battery technology IN THE PAST were:

http://www.thestar.com/...

more....