Remember, I'm not one of the doom-n-gloomers predicting the
end of civilization. I *do* think that the era of cheap
energy is over (until we develop fusion). Unfortunately that
also means that the era of ever-cheaper transport is over.


Wayne.B wrote:
Not necessarily in my opinion. Two things need to happen:

1. New/better/cheaper ways of making electricity, e.g., fusion,
solar, tidal, wind, whatever.

2. New/better battery technology with lighter weight, faster recharge
and longer cycle life.


Primarily lighter.


These guys appear to be really on to something new with batteries:

http://www.altairnano.com/markets_amps.html


Impressive. I don't know half of what their talking about
though. Must be pretty cool!

Since I've become a significant stockholder recently, let's hope it
works out. I was on a conference call with senior management a week
ago and was impressed with their expertise and business plan.

I'd love to beta test some of those batteries on the boat but fat
chance. :-)



Looks pretty good BUT if their graph is accurate, their
batteries pack almost 1/6 as much energy per pound as
gasoline. That means you'd have to settle for 1/6the range
or about 1/12 the speed or about 1/144 the acceleration of a
normal car, if powered by one of these batteries.

Therein lies the grim tale of non-fossil fuel vehicles. For
stationary power (or very slow moving power), no prob. If
you want speed & accelration, you gotta have lightness.
Shucks, *coal* still packs about 3x the power per pound as
these new nanotech batteries!

Now let's talk about dollars per watt per kilogram, and
you'll see that petro fuels will have to climb a long way
before these things become viable as a commercial power
source for vehicles. But hey, I can think of a gazillion
other uses for them!

DSK