Your grand-daddy's batteries are not todays batteries and I rather expect in 30 years, they will be even better yet.
Not fast enough. The present day batteries are only improvements on chemistries that have been known for decades. They are only getting built today because there is now a demand.
There are exceptions, of course. Lead acid gel cels and pastes are new; but the chemistry is over a century old. And Nickle Metal Hydride (NiMH) is a tweak on the old nickle iron batteries Edison developed. The only difference is in the "hydride": inventor Stanley Ovshinski (sp?) added mainly cobalt to the iron to reduce internal resistance. Lithium? Old hat with new brims.
There is one bright spot: Donald Sadoway's molten electrolyte batteries (http://www.ted.com/talks/donald_sadoway_the_missing_link_to_renewable_energy?language=en). These are new and quite promising. The downside? They won't work in mobile applications. Stand-alone grid capacity only.
Bottom line: even if someone discovered a new chemistry that worked well with cars (unlikely) and had cheap and available chemistries (even less likely), changing the entire mobile fleet over to electric would strain the grid and drain every last bit of manufacturing capacity, to the point where no one would be able to afford to drive.
Electric vehicles—and remember, I am speaking as someone who built one and bought another—have great advantages, but enough disadvantages that even the best of them will not be replacing gas overnight, perhaps ever. They can be a buffer technology, helping to weather the dips in petroleum supply we can expect. That will help, sure, but it won't replace.
Nothing will. We either go back to less automobile-centric living or perish in the attempt to not do so. The only question is how well we make the transition.
no subject
Not fast enough. The present day batteries are only improvements on chemistries that have been known for decades. They are only getting built today because there is now a demand.
There are exceptions, of course. Lead acid gel cels and pastes are new; but the chemistry is over a century old. And Nickle Metal Hydride (NiMH) is a tweak on the old nickle iron batteries Edison developed. The only difference is in the "hydride": inventor Stanley Ovshinski (sp?) added mainly cobalt to the iron to reduce internal resistance. Lithium? Old hat with new brims.
There is one bright spot: Donald Sadoway's molten electrolyte batteries (http://www.ted.com/talks/donald_sadoway_the_missing_link_to_renewable_energy?language=en). These are new and quite promising. The downside? They won't work in mobile applications. Stand-alone grid capacity only.
Bottom line: even if someone discovered a new chemistry that worked well with cars (unlikely) and had cheap and available chemistries (even less likely), changing the entire mobile fleet over to electric would strain the grid and drain every last bit of manufacturing capacity, to the point where no one would be able to afford to drive.
Electric vehicles—and remember, I am speaking as someone who built one and bought another—have great advantages, but enough disadvantages that even the best of them will not be replacing gas overnight, perhaps ever. They can be a buffer technology, helping to weather the dips in petroleum supply we can expect. That will help, sure, but it won't replace.
Nothing will. We either go back to less automobile-centric living or perish in the attempt to not do so. The only question is how well we make the transition.