Quote from gerold.s

in conjunction with this discovery,

From the abstract:

Quote

...achieving long-term stability exceeding 100 h...

I wouldn't call four days "long term" - but I guess it is a start.

There have been claims about water spliting catalysts for decades, and yet nobody has been able to make the jump from lab to an economical industrial process yet.

Remember this from 1998?

Catalysts for change - Could some cunning chemistry make hydrogen the fuel of the 21st century?

Tokyo & Barcelona THE prospect of a cheap supply of hydrogen has moved closer to reality now that researchers working independently in Japan and Spain have…

www.newscientist.com

There's nothing like a little bit of boasting, as Elon Musk knows only too well. He wrote this in 2006, still an interesting if superficial read..

The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (just between you and me

As you know, the initial product of Tesla Motors is a high performance electric sports car called the Tesla Roadster. However, some readers may not be aware of the fact that our long term plan is to build a wide range of models, including affordably priced family cars. This is because the overarching purpose of Tesla Motors (and the reason I am funding the company) is to help expedite the move from a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy towards a solar electric economy, which I believe to be the primary, but not exclusive, sustainable solution. ...continues.

The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (just between you and me) | Tesla

www.tesla.com

And this is what he is doing now...

Continuing Our Investment in Nevada | Tesla

In 2014, we made a commitment to invest $3.5 billion in Nevada with our first Gigafactory. Our goal was to build a facility capable of producing 35 GWh of…

www.tesla.com

NY Times:

Electric Vehicles Could Match Gasoline Cars on Price This Year

Competition, government incentives and falling raw material prices are making battery-powered cars more affordable sooner than expected.

Feb. 10, 2023 Updated 2:37 p.m. ET

More quickly than seemed possible a few months ago, sticker prices for electric vehicles are falling closer to the point where they could soon be on a par with gasoline cars.

Increased competition, government incentives and falling prices for lithium and other battery materials are making electric vehicles noticeably more affordable. The tipping point when electric vehicles become as cheap as or cheaper than cars with internal combustion engines could arrive this year for some mass market models and is already the case for some luxury vehicles.

Prices are likely to continue trending lower as Tesla, General Motors, Ford Motor and their battery suppliers ramp up new factories, reaping the cost savings that come from mass production. New electric vehicles from companies like Volkswagen, Nissan and Hyundai will add to competitive pressure. . . .

Gift link (avoids paywall):

Electric Vehicles Could Match Gasoline Cars on Price This Year

Competition, government incentives and falling raw material prices are making battery-powered cars more affordable sooner than expected.

www.nytimes.com

Electric vehicle makers have recently begun introducing bidirectional charging, also called vehicle-to-load (V2L). This means you can use an electric car as a generator. This would be handy in Atlanta where the power often fails. A Leaf, or Hyundai Ioniq 5 - V2L put out 3.6 kW, which is a lot. The Ford F-150 can power your whole house, according to this article. Another source says it is 9.6 kW. That would not be your whole house with air conditioning or a clothes dryer, but it is a lot.

https://www.cars.com/articles/whats-bidirectional-charging-and-which-evs-offer-it-457608/

Vehicle to Load (V2L) Archives

I use an inverter with a Prius during power failures. It is very convenient. The car ICE turns on occasionally for a few minutes and then stops. Unfortunately, this is limited to 1 kW because the starter battery is small and the manual says if I go up to 1.2 kW (1.5 kW?) a fuse will blow. Some people put large inverters on the Prius traction battery. That looks complicated and dangerous. I might have some local dealer do it for me. 1 kW is much better than nothing. It is enough to power the refrigerator, some lights, and the internet.

One advantage of this may show up in the future. It says that V2L can be used to recharge another electric car. If an electric car runs out of power and is stranded, you cannot bring a can of gasoline to get it moving again. You have to bring a generator on a tow truck. I think the AAA and others are already doing this. If V2L cars become common, anyone will be able to pull up ahead of a stranded car and recharge it for 10 minutes, enough to drive several miles to regular charger.

Quote from JedRothwell

If an electric car runs out of power and is stranded, you cannot bring a can of gasoline to get it moving again. You have to bring a generator on a tow truck. I think the AAA and others are already doing this. If V2L cars become common, anyone will be able to pull up ahead of a stranded car and recharge it for 10 minutes, enough to drive several miles to regular charger.

This leads to an interesting topic I have often thought about. I recently spent a week writing an involved program. I thought that one segment would be difficult, so I put it off until the end. It turned out to be a piece of cake. Maybe 10 lines long. With technology, it often turns out that things we thought would be difficult are easy, and vice versa. It may turn out that being stranded in an electric car will be no worse than running out of gasoline.

For that matter, many people nowadays have never run out of gas. I only did that once. It was with an old car, made long before cars had computers, so there was no warning light or audible signal. Nowadays, any car will warn you long before you run out of gas or electricity. So I doubt the problem will happen often.

Here is a related issue I have also often thought about. The first version of a new technology often includes things that we later learn are not needed. I have often written programs that were too elaborate, with too many features, in the first version. I trimmed down, simplified, and improved later versions. Things went from complex to simple, which is somewhat opposite of what we expect. Programs sometimes die from feature-itis.

Here is a classic example of a technology that started off too complicated. The Blenkinsop locomotive of 1812 solved a problem we did not have. Blenkinsop thought that friction alone would not keep the locomotive from slipping, so he designed a cog-railroad, with a third wheel with teeth that fits into a middle rail. It turned out that for most uses, the weight of the engine alone produces enough friction, and you do not need cogs. There are some exceptions. Cogged railroads are used on steep mountains in places like Switzerland. In some cases, friction is not enough. But there is a simple solution to that problem. The engineer pulls a lever to dump sand onto the rails around the driving wheels.

Written language is a good example of unnecessary complexity. Unnecessary difficulties, such as having no vowels in Hebrew, and strange spelling in English. Written Japanese, unfortunately, is modeled on Chinese, with individual characters instead of phonetic letters. The Japanese have phonetic kana alphabets (syllabaries). They can write everything with them. Children's books are all written in kana. Japanese people often think there would be a problem with homonyms if they wrote only in kana (or Romanized Japanese). They are wrong about that. The proof is that blind people use kana braille, and no characters, yet they understand perfectly. Their literacy rate is higher than the general population. Kana-only text would be easier to read if they put spaces between words.They only do that in children's books. We learned to put spaces in English in the 7th century.

NEW DELHI, Feb 9 (Reuters) - The Geological Survey of India (GSI) said on Thursday it has found lithium deposits for the first time in the country.

India has lately been looking to strengthen its supply of key minerals, including lithium, that will be critical for furthering its electric vehicle plans.

The 5.9 million tonnes of Lithium inferred resources have been established in the Reasi district of the northern union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, the GSI said in a statement.

Quote from Alan Smith

The Geological Survey of India (GSI) said on Thursday it has found lithium deposits for the first time in the country.

Actually found in the late 90s...

Lithium reserves in Reasi were actually found in 1999. Here’s the full report

JAMMU: In the era of fast, accessible news, the ‘discovery’ of lithium reserves in Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir has triggered a nationwide interest,…

www.thedispatch.in

Quote from Frogfall

Actually found in the late 90s...

Kashmir: Why India and Pakistan fight over it

They fought two wars over it and are now nuclear armed - but what's at the root of the dispute?

www.bbc.co.uk

My friend owns a mine in Pakistan that also has significant lithium resources.

Best description of a mine I ever heard was Mark Twain's. 'A hole in the ground with a liar at the top.'

Mine's yours and your's mine.

Mind's your business and business mines your minds.

Audi announced the 2023 Q4 e-tron model. It has a range of 576 km = 358 miles. It costs a ton of money, starting at $48,000.

https://www.kbb.com/audi/q4-e-tron/

In Japanese:

纏うのは、未来への美意識。アウディEVが叶えるサステナビリティー：アエラスタイルマガジン

デザインへの「美意識」、そして、この星の環境に対する「美意識」。アウディは、私たちが求めるものを理想的なかたちで提供してくれる。アウディのデザインに賛辞が多く聞かれるが、新たにデビューしたAudi Q4…

asm.asahi.com

January saw the collapse of Sun Cable, a pie-in-the-sky $35 billion plan by alternative energy enthusiasts, Andrew Forrest and Mike Cannon-Brookes, to generate solar energy

and transport it by cable 4,200 kilometres to Singapore.

The taxpayer provided $14 million for the project’s solar system, Australian-developed 5B. But major spending, which amounted to $210 million before Andrew Forrest pulled the plug, came from the two entrepreneurs.

Maybe they should have spent $210 million on LENR?

Collapse of the $35 billion Sun Cable | The Spectator Australia

Last week saw the collapse of Sun Cable, a pie-in-the-sky $35 billion plan by alternative energy enthusiasts, Andrew Forrest and Mike Cannon-Brookes, to…

www.spectator.com.au

5B Maverick and Ecosystem

5B Maverick™ is an Australian-designed ground mount solar solution that is transforming and accelerating the adoption of terawatt-scale renewable energy by…

5b.co

Unique commercial grade electricity generator that works on the same principle of "conversion of chemical bond energy into useful work", but more efficiently, and more green say the inventors:

This New Breed of Generator Can Run on Almost Any Fuel - IEEE Spectrum

Quote from Shane D.

Unique commercial grade electricity generator that works on the same principle of "conversion of chemical bond energy into useful work", but more efficiently, and more green say the inventors:

This New Breed of Generator Can Run on Almost Any Fuel - IEEE Spectrum

I like the way they are trying to pretend it isn't a comprssion ignition internal combustion engine - which is just what it is (just without the crank and conrod).

As usual, lots of people have been working on ammonia combustion engines for many, many years.

Ammonia-Powered Internal Combustion Engines – Ammonia Energy Association

There are problems, of course. Ammonia combustion isn't anywhere as "clean" as the diagram implies. There are issues with unburnt ammonia in the exhaust, and it also creates nitrogen oxides, and even nitric acid. But it is still worth looking at, I guess, in case the problems can be solved. Putting hydrogen in the mix does seem to help.

Ammonia Internal Combustion Engine – Ammonia Energy Association

Almost any fuel,,green uranium?

Moteur à pistons opposés — Wikipédia

fr.wikipedia.org

Quote from Shane D.

Unique commercial grade electricity generator that works on the same principle of "conversion of chemical bond energy into useful work", but more efficiently, and more green say the inventors:

This New Breed of Generator Can Run on Almost Any Fuel - IEEE Spectrum

Quote from Frogfall

I like the way they are trying to pretend it isn't a comprssion ignition internal combustion engine - which is just what it is (just without the crank and conrod).

It's what is technically known as a 'free piston' IC engine. The Luftwaffe and others worked on these in WW2 hoping to use the exhaust gases to drive a turbine and/or for direct jet thrust. Their chosen type was a double-ended tube with a single reciprocating piston firing at each end in turn. Apparently they never worked out a good way of starting it .

Quote from Alan Smith

Apparently they never worked out a good way of starting it

I guess compressed air, sequentially injected into the combustion spaces might have worked (like they do with large marine diesels). But if they wanted to start and stop it during flight, then it would have been a lot of dead-weight to carry around. I guess they might have had a go with various types of pyrotechnic starter too.

At least Stirling free-piston engines - such as the Beale type, and the old Ted Cooke-Yarborough TMG - are self starting.

Yes, ammonia is a theoretically good way to store hydrogen. It is a powerful fuel. I remember the fastest spaceplane ever flown was powered by ammonia and liquid oxygen. He took Neil Armstrong to Mach 5.7 and he lifted several astronauts above the Karman line.

But we would have to find a way to combine nitrogen with hydrogen at low temperature, by enzymatic catalysis. It's possible, bacteria do it in the roots of clover and alfalfa.

To burn ammonia in heat engines without producing too many nitrogen oxides, it is necessary to work at relatively low pressure, and it is therefore necessary that the oxygen and the ammonia remain in contact for a long time, and that the combustion either catalyzed by the re-injection of part of the burnt gases, and that the air is pre-heated before admission.

It is possible to do all of this at the same time.