Is this big news for Electric vehicles?

roundthebend

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/10/20/uk-man-invents-aluminum-air-battery-in-his-garage/

If they can get the network and logistics set up to swap out the fuel cells to meet demand, and the pricing isn't too prohibitive, it seems like an ideal solution.

crunchman

I'd be a bit careful about something that seems to have come from a Daily Mail report

They will have to get the price down significantly to make it viable.

Danny1969

mmm Austin Electric turns up feck all on Google ..... I smell a rat !

Mark1960

Danny1969 said:

mmm Austin Electric turns up feck all on Google ..... I smell a rat !

AUSTIN ELECTRICAL LTD

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Found this - not sure if it's the same company???

stickyfiddle

I'm willing to be that this single thing won't be the thing that changes the world, but between the thousands of people working on different technologies it's yet another step in the right direction. Energy Storage is the massive missing piece of the renewables puzzle, which I'm hoping will lead to a decentralisation of power generation across the world, which should be fantastic news for everyone who isn't a board member of an oil company.

m_c

On the surface, it appears positive news, but the details just don't stack up.
£3500 to convert a vehicle just does not seem realistic to me, and shouts more of trying to grab attention, than of something that will be commercially sustainable. 

My guess is somebody is trying to build interest in a new company to hook investors.

crunchman

Not directly vehicle related, but this looks like a useful idea:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/21/how-uks-disused-mine-shafts-plan-to-store-renewable-energy

Not sure how many old mineshaftes there are that would be suitable.  That would put limits on how many could built.

Haych

It's such a shame that as a species humans are more concerned with profit than progress or even survival.

Imagine what we could have done had big oil not bought and shelved all those good ideas over the last 40/50 years? 

Imagine what we could do if everyone working on alternative energy pooled knowledge and resource and shared progress rather than keeping it top secret and protected in order to have the competitive edge for when the technology comes to market.

thermionic

The problem with electric cars is... they are cars.

crunchman

thermionic said:

The problem with electric cars is... they are cars.

Wisdom.

Saw this in the Standard this morning:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/parent-slammed-for-driving-kid-to-school-despite-living-200m-away-a4266156.html

Unbelievable.

roundthebend

thermionic said:

The problem with electric cars is... they are cars.

As in, we should look at alternative means of transport? I agree. These fuel cells can work in buses and trams they reckon

breakstuff

crunchman said:

thermionic said:

The problem with electric cars is... they are cars.

Wisdom.

Saw this in the Standard this morning:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/parent-slammed-for-driving-kid-to-school-despite-living-200m-away-a4266156.html

Unbelievable.

Not saying it's the case, but maybe the driver was on his/her way somewhere, and dropped the sprog off on the way out.

That's what I would have told the rozzers I was doing. 

Still shouldn't have parked like a nesbit though. 

hywelg

crunchman said:

Not directly vehicle related, but this looks like a useful idea:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/21/how-uks-disused-mine-shafts-plan-to-store-renewable-energy

Not sure how many old mineshaftes there are that would be suitable.  That would put limits on how many could built.

None. They all get filled in or capped. Unless your talking about centuries old mineshafts which would likely be in a very dangerous state and quite small. All the decent sized shafts >5m dia will have been capped.

hywelg

crunchman said:

Not directly vehicle related, but this looks like a useful idea:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/21/how-uks-disused-mine-shafts-plan-to-store-renewable-energy

Not sure how many old mineshaftes there are that would be suitable.  That would put limits on how many could built.

Best of luck finding a winding rope capable of lifting 12000/24 = 500 tonnes. 

Found this research paper.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330997953_Gravity_energy_storage_with_suspended_weights_for_abandoned_mine_shafts#pf7

Where it mentions 3000t suspended mass. Cloud cuckoo land. 

crunchman

hywelg said:

crunchman said:

Not directly vehicle related, but this looks like a useful idea:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/21/how-uks-disused-mine-shafts-plan-to-store-renewable-energy

Not sure how many old mineshaftes there are that would be suitable.  That would put limits on how many could built.

Best of luck finding a winding rope capable of lifting 12000/24 = 500 tonnes. 

Found this research paper.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330997953_Gravity_energy_storage_with_suspended_weights_for_abandoned_mine_shafts#pf7

Where it mentions 3000t suspended mass. Cloud cuckoo land. 

This is talking about 14 tonnes breaking load on a 12mm rope.

https://www.steelwirerope.com/WireRopes/StainlessSteel/CompactedRopes.html

Even allowing a factor of 5 for safety, that's around 3 tonnes.

If you doubled that to 24mm thickness, you would have 4 times the area, so you would be looking at 12 tonnes.

That's a long way short of 500 tonnes, but that's still a lot of energy.

Gassage

Pass me my superglue and my hair shirt.

ICBM

What size of cables are used to hold up a suspension bridge?

OK, that's a different thing from being able to wind them around a drum for raising and lowering a weight... but those kinds of cables and weights are not beyond our current technology.

hywelg

ICBM said:

OK, that's a different thing from being able to wind them around a drum for raising and lowering a weight... but those kinds of cables and weights are   not beyond our current technology.

FTFY

Most mine skip winding  is of the order of 20-30 tonnes per skip, usually two skips per winder, one up one down. There is a diminishing return on rope diameter, the weight of the rope itself is a limiting factor. Thats why in the deepest mines theres usually a second shaft (called a staple shaft) starting at 1000m or so below ground. Output capacity is usually improved by faster winding speeds and automated operation.

This was on PM just now, I do wonder why no-one has taken the company to task about the stupidity of the basic assessment. Aparently HM Inspectorate of Mines and Quarries (I have a mate who's a Mines Inspector, both of us worked in British Coal up to 1993) were approached about it last year and they dismissed it as implausible based on the maintenance costs alone ( new winding ropes every three years, capel renewed every six months, daily inspections of winding ropes by qualified staff, weekly inspections of shaft hardware etc.etc.) And if theres going to be a significant store of energy theres going to need to be a method of automatically detaching the weights and storing them above ground and in the shaft bottom.  We're talking multi-million pound investments, probably into the 100's of millions.

ICBM

hywelg said:

FTFY

Most mine skip winding  is of the order of 20-30 tonnes per skip, usually two skips per winder, one up one down. There is a diminishing return on rope diameter, the weight of the rope itself is a limiting factor. Thats why in the deepest mines theres usually a second shaft (called a staple shaft) starting at 1000m or so below ground. Output capacity is usually improved by faster winding speeds and automated operation.

This was on PM just now, I do wonder why no-one has taken the company to task about the stupidity of the basic assessment. Aparently HM Inspectorate of Mines and Quarries (I have a mate who's a Mines Inspector, both of us worked in British Coal up to 1993) were approached about it last year and they dismissed it as implausible based on the maintenance costs alone ( new winding ropes every three years, capel renewed every six months, daily inspections of winding ropes by qualified staff, weekly inspections of shaft hardware etc.etc.) And if theres going to be a significant store of energy theres going to need to be a method of automatically detaching the weights and storing them above ground and in the shaft bottom.  We're talking multi-million pound investments, probably into the 100's of millions.

I don't doubt any of that... except the bit where you corrected me incorrectly .

Cables capable of supporting those kinds of loads *do* exist already - for example the Forth bridge has main cables each carrying a load of 13,800 tonnes. Whether the technology exists to use cables that size to lift and lower weights isn't the same question, and that may well be an assumption that the proponents have made without working it out properly.

hywelg

ICBM said:

hywelg said:

FTFY

Most mine skip winding  is of the order of 20-30 tonnes per skip, usually two skips per winder, one up one down. There is a diminishing return on rope diameter, the weight of the rope itself is a limiting factor. Thats why in the deepest mines theres usually a second shaft (called a staple shaft) starting at 1000m or so below ground. Output capacity is usually improved by faster winding speeds and automated operation.

This was on PM just now, I do wonder why no-one has taken the company to task about the stupidity of the basic assessment. Aparently HM Inspectorate of Mines and Quarries (I have a mate who's a Mines Inspector, both of us worked in British Coal up to 1993) were approached about it last year and they dismissed it as implausible based on the maintenance costs alone ( new winding ropes every three years, capel renewed every six months, daily inspections of winding ropes by qualified staff, weekly inspections of shaft hardware etc.etc.) And if theres going to be a significant store of energy theres going to need to be a method of automatically detaching the weights and storing them above ground and in the shaft bottom.  We're talking multi-million pound investments, probably into the 100's of millions.

I don't doubt any of that... except the bit where you corrected me incorrectly .

Cables capable of supporting those kinds of loads *do* exist already - for example the Forth bridge has main cables each carrying a load of 13,800 tonnes. Whether the technology exists to use cables that size to lift and lower weights isn't the same question, and that may well be an assumption that the proponents have made without working it out properly.

No, I am correct. Those cables you cited are not vertical, for one, and they are short. A mine shaft thats going to be of any use will be 300-600m deep. Much less and the stored energy won't be worth the effort.  A cable you cite will break under its own weight well before it gets to the bottom, and its definitely not going to be possible to bend it around a 5m winder drum.

ICBM

hywelg said:

No, I am correct. Those cables you cited are not vertical, for one, and they are short. A mine shaft thats going to be of any use will be 300-600m deep. Much less and the stored energy won't be worth the effort.  A cable you cite will break under its own weight well before it gets to the bottom, and its definitely not going to be possible to bend it around a 5m winder drum. 

If you read what I posted in the first place, I said...

ICBM said:

What size of cables are used to hold up a suspension bridge?

OK, that's a different thing from being able to wind them around a drum for raising and lowering a weight... but those kinds of cables and weights are not beyond our current technology.

Which is correct. The fact is that cables capable of carrying loads of 12,000 tonnes and more do exist. I also never said anything about the size of a winder drum.

I don't doubt at all that the proposal is impractical/impossible as it stands currently, on the scale they're talking about.