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John McCIain's 300 million dollar battery.

NickD on Tue June 24, 2008 8:00 AM User is offline

That's only a buck per each person living in the USA, and John wants to spend this money, didn't quite gather for research or as a prize to develop a battery that is small, light weight, has a very high energy capacity, and cheap to manufacture to solve our transportation high energy cost problem.

I assumed what he means by a battery is one of those contraptions that uses chemical compounds that are pulled apart into basic elements by an electric current, but they want to get back together again, but will stay apart forever, until a load current is permitted to flow. Wonder if he knows that Volta discovered the lead acid battery in 1699, and even though Ford and Edison spent 10 million bucks between 1900 and 1910 or there abouts to come up with a more efficient battery, and we still find lead acid batteries in our cars some 209 years later.

Wonder if he ever read that 4" thick battery engineering handbook, where just about every element known to man was tested with the results. Yeah the most active materials do generate the highest energy densities, but you can also have a battery that will corrode even before you can get a current out of it. And no matter how you cut the mustard, putting high energy density in a small box is dangerous, and exotic elements ain't cheap. Then he forgot to mention his battery has to be approved by the EPA, while mercury showed signs of being stable, outlawed due to hazardous waste problems. GM is going crazy with the Chevy Volt, easy enough to design a very high efficient electric motor, but finding a long term reliable cheap battery appears to be a major problem.

Lot's of work has been done to improve the efficiency and emissions of the internal combustion engine, really not much better than it was 80 years ago. 80 years ago, the price of gasoline was very expensive. It was only a brief time after WW II that the price of gas was cheap for about 20 short years.

A better short term solution would be to use an extension cord, such as a monorail system with small light vehicles capable of speed in excess of 300 mph powered by that rail with a simple shroud covering that rail so slat and road plowing will be no longer necessary, and the farmers can grow corn underneath it. Maybe not a good idea for driving around the block, but great for carrying cargo over long distances and passengers, and certainly faster than the airlines. Thing is, we have that technology to day.

Another short term solution would be to use CNG that we have a 4,000 know supply of. Heard another guy call that in, that PBS expert said, true, but we don't have the infrastructure to supply it. Well get started AH! In the 70's in a matter of a couple of years, every full service station was torn down with these self serving convenience stores put up. Surely they can add just a tank.

Thing is, stuff can be done, and it can be started right now, create many US jobs, and keep our bucks here so the IRS can tax it, once a buck leaves this country, it cannot be taxed so they have to increase the rates to keep the government going.

All it takes is a leader that has a tad of scientific knowledge to get the ball rolling, and fooling around with a fuel cell or a battery is not the answer or is a solar cell. But that is all they talk about. SOS.

bohica2xo on Tue June 24, 2008 9:26 AM User is offline

Nick:

My wife was pretty sure my head was going to explode last night when McStain's 300 million buck battery hit the TV. Complete garbage.

The concept of rewarding achievement in a specfic area is good, but letting our government weasels administrate it is very bad. Things like the Kremer Prize work. But Kremer offered the prize in 1959, but it went unclaimed until Paul MacCready got it in 1977 with the Gossamer Condor. It was June 12th, 1979 when we finally got the Albatross across the channel - a full 20 years later.

The american public is hooked on "instant gratification". They howl when a drive thru meal takes more than a minute. The government will just shovel the 300m to the usual suspects as soon as one of them announces a "breakthrough battery". Nobody is willing to wait 20 years for a real solution. Just like your CNG question, if we had started building the CNG infrastructure right after the 1973~1975 oil BS, we would have it now. Same goes for oil exploration. The hand wringers all cry about the ten (or more) years it will take to develop ANWR, but they still won't start...

I sure wish we actually had the government described in my high school textbooks.

B.

-------------------------
"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."
~ Mahatma Gandhi, Gandhi, An Autobiography, M. K. Gandhi, page 446.

NickD on Tue June 24, 2008 9:47 AM User is offline

Wife takes her US citizenship civics test in three weeks, we are studying the US Constitution together, what a great country this can be if our leaders also had to take that test.

Give me liberty or give me death. - Patrick Henry

I regret that I have but one life to give for my country. -- Nathan Hale

Ha, liked that one in the military, but with modification, when the commander would ask, what's troubling you, would respond, I am really pissed off I only have one life to give to my country.

So much for balance of power with a congress that licks the president's butt and he appoints the supreme court justices that his butt licking congress approves that shifts to a 5-4 infamous decision that changes the entire course of this country. Wonder if your forefathers thought about that? Or manipulating the electoral system to plant your guy. We use to have over a half a dozen parties, now just have two and they are not there to serve the people, but to cream them.

But we don't think about that when studying for the test. Is the right to bare arms really a part of our constitution? What about a guard sticking a rubber gloved hand up your butt just because you have to travel by airlines? Don't have the right to search or seize your home unless you are five minutes late in paying your taxes you don't get any benefit from anyway, or very little. If goes on and on, and our congress in the 70's outlawed just about any kind of alternative energy that wasn't based on crude oil. So who exactly are they working for?

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