Reply To: FOCUS FUSION REACTOR

[Brian H]

jjohnson wrote: Rome wasn’t built in a day. Americans rush too much, and demand things too cheaply and right now. Like our politicians, who operate on binary time. Phase1 – Right Now. Phase 2 – Next Election.

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I REALLY hope the C&T thing is made irrelevant by FF long before then. It will start causing horrible economic damage the instant it begins to take effect. Time is short to defang it. Even proof-of-principle might do it. If it becomes known that carbon is going to be a non-issue, no one will put up with that draconian nonsense. I’d love to see the wind taken out of the sails of those who’d like to “see electricity bills soar” in order to stop coal plants.

As for lithium batteries, TeslaMotors’ sealed ESS units have been crash-tested and don’t break up or short in water.
Given cheap power, lithium or boron can be taken from sea-water as a routine part of desalination at easily affordable cost. But there are lots of new models of higher-energy batteries coming down the pike. Even with LiIon. MIT has found a quick ‘n’ easy trick with internal channels (“bands”) to funnel ion movement that slashes internal heating and vastly speeds up charge/discharge, plus multiplies energy density. Combined with nanowire/nanoparticle anodes and cathodes, they’ll probably be able to handle 10X the current charge levels before the current electric car systems need replacing in 5 years or so. As it is, the Roadster gets up to 250 miles with reasonable driving (not spending too much time having fun with the huge electric motor torque stuff). Their Model S 5+2 passenger sports sedan is promising 300 miles with the premium battery pack, with fast-charge and quick-swap capability (due in late 2011). The lithium is 100% recycled, and even the “used” (capacity degraded to 80% after 5 years of steady use) batteries will have a strong aftermarket for other uses.

Batteries have broken thru, finally, after decades of stagnation. ESS may have missed its window. Oh, btw, capacitors are BIG. They’re lightweight, but very large. Not so good for cars, I’d think.