Even Low Efficiency Energy Storage Devices Become Competitive With Spiraling Fuel Costs

The batterys still need to be charged and that doesnt happen in half an hour.

You need to let go of your dick before you end up completely blind.

Just another of your pathetic little pig ignorant drug crazed fantasys.

Biodiesel will be used instead, you watch.

You havent established that there will be any more of that post peak oil.

The very first did in fact starve.

Lots of things CAN be done, but that doesn't mean anyone is going to do them in the real world.

Hell, I can make a motor out of a cow magnet, a magnifying glass, and 4 Zippo flints, but no one is going to run a real machine with one of them.

John Deere's latest stuff exceeds 500 hp.

What do you have Sparky?

--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

or so.

efficieny or so (if you are lucky).

so (simple replace the heavy ICE by battery mass).

with a gasoline driven car, and probably at par in many

to compare

Mmm. Is there a reason why the mass of the chassis and chairs and steering and other stuff not related to powering the car would be much different for an electric vehicle than for a ICE vehicle ?

Rob

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And even better, after.

What\'s your point?

JF

--- Swap out batteries which don't exist that are charged by chargers which don't exist which are plugged into an electrical infrastructure which doesn't exist either?

Way to go Cahill!

JF

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You need to stop pulling your pud.

JF

The author has no farming experience. How is he going to recharge those batteries? There isn't any power outlet in the middle of

1000 acres. Run power lines? Then a plow can't plow the soil and a combine can't harvest. Going around things is not a nice thing to have to do when farming fields.

/BAH

Even those who do have that size of tractor cannot wait even a minute if they're haying and trying to get it baled and inside before it rains.

/BAH

tractor.

Because they didn't know how to farm.

/BAH

Even if all existed, there wouldn't be enough time to finish the work before the storm hit. It's not just one tractor. There are vehicles that haul wagons back and forth (baling).

The last thing my farmer relatives want to do is waste their time refueling when doing the field work.

/BAH

battery should be less than a factor 2:1 off

I've mentioned this before on alt.origins. If they have a compromised reasoning ability it's pretty much a farce to try to discuss science or tech issues with them. For example, the creationists will say something like, "two hearts beating = two souls" and all these Carlinish jokes come to mind, "does a mechanical heart have a soul too?" etc.

Try as you will to be polite but there is no practical way you can avoid ridiculing them.

Bret Cahill

"Math is applied logic."

-- Nietzsche

Even if it is likely that biodiesel will predominate why risk even a

20% chance of bio diesel not being cost effective when that risk isn't necessary?

Ralph Nader made a career of safety technology and safety doesn't improve your chances of survival, let alone quality of life, nearly as much as having backup energy technology.

tractor.

You haven't established that bio diesel will cost less than $10/ gallon.

Has anyone _ever_ gotten more than 2,000 gallons / acre-year?

Much better than the Africans today.

They were English subjects, not U. S. citizens.

The difference is the early English settlers had funny ideas about personal hygiene. They thought bathing was unhealthy. They stunk so bad all the game fled before it could be hunted and killed.

Oysters can't run or swim and therefore would have the perfect food. There were thousands of tons of oysters in the James River but the settlers were too stupid to eat them.

You're making the exact same mistake right now.

Bret Cahill

Not really. My kid's Toyota Echo holds about 12 gallons of gas, which weighs around 32 KG. That's a practical amount of fuel for a usable car. 32 * 34 = 1088 KG, so the zinc-air fuel cell weighs over a metric ton. That's when it's "full"; it weighs more when it's "empty."

Even if the fuel cell is 2:1 net more efficient, that's still 1000 pounds.

Any idea of the overall electrical efficiency of a zinc-air battery, with the zinc oxide converted back to metallic zinc using electrical power?

John

or so (if you are lucky).

Some posters here have no education in thermodynamics which is why we must constantly explain that an electric motor is 3X - 4X more efficient than a diesel.

(simple replace the heavy ICE by battery mass).

gasoline driven car, and probably at par in many

Not worth worrying about.

replace and recycle the Zi-oxide.

Gotta spreadsheet it including the cost of oil quagmires and then convince the general public as well as Congress.

Bret Cahill

so.

or so (if you are lucky).

Only if you ignore the efficiency of whatever makes electricity. We cannot just pump electricity out of the ground, nor does it fall from the sky in a readily collectable form. It has to be converted from some other energy. Our best option, efficiency wise, is natural gas fired, combined cycle plants with thermal efficiencies advertised at

60% (GE H1), so the electric motor is limited to 57%, not counting transmission losses, and assuming a connection from the power station to the vehicle without having to store it in a battery.

Diesel engines for a tractor can feasibly hit 35%, even if it spends time idling between tasks. Really large diesels can hit 50% efficiency through nothing fancier than turning slowly enough to get an optimum burn. Turbocompounding can push the efficiency of a tractor's diesel to 50%, too.

With battery charging inefficiencies factored in, the overall efficiency of an electric tractor is not even twice as efficient as the diesels currently in use, and not as efficient as an improved diesel, so the only question is whether the electricity is cheaper than the energy in the diesel fuel and that the farmer can afford the investment.

This is why I think that producing synthetic oil from coal is probably a better short term bridge between oil and fuel cells than battery powered tractors.

I wonder how much energy is lost due to friction and slippage of tractor tires in mud and soft earth, and if it could be improved by propelling the farming implement (plough, disc, harrow, whatever) by means of a cable between two solidly fixed points. I can envision a sort of large scale x-y plotter arrangement that would have two solid rails in one direction, and a cable stretched between two trolleys, and the implement attached to the cable. I would think such an arrangement could easily cover a 25 acre field (1000 x 1000 ft), and it could be operated at any time of day or night, and in any weather, with minimal human interaction. I saw mention of this elsewhere, so I don't claim this as my idea, but IIRC it was implemented with rather old technology, and modern engineering might make it more practical.

Paul

That's 34:1.

row.

The costs are completely known right now because veg oils have been produced for centurys now.

Why spend heaps on trolley wires on farms and on batterys when they arent viable when you can use biodiesel in engines without any modification of that machinery ?

Dont need to do anything special, just use biodiesel when the price of diesel makes that viable.

tractor.

Wrong, as always. Veg oils have been produced for centurys now.

Yep, and that doesnt produce $10/gallon anyway.

Not really. The main problem the africans have is FAR more kids than their situation can support.

Irrelevant.

hygiene.

It had absolutely nothing to do with that.

Thanks for that completely superfluous proof that you have never ever had a clue about anything at all, ever.

It wasnt about the lack of game, stupid.

Nope, you'll die if you only eat that.

Thanks for that completely superfluous proof that you have never ever had a clue about anything at all, ever.

Nope, you are. Ignoring biodiesel when veg oils have been produced for centurys now.

Nope, biodiesel is. Veg oils have been produced for centurys now.