7 ms·

No. Electrolysing water to make H2 and extracting CO2 from the environment, and then synthesizing hydrocarbons from them, is extremely energy inefficient. Sur

by ta12121 14y ago

No. Electrolysing water to make H2 and extracting CO2 from the environment, and then synthesizing hydrocarbons from them, is extremely energy inefficient. Sure, theoretically, it can be done, and maybe one day it could even be done efficiently. But Tesla is making battery-electric cars that work today. The military does not care about efficiency because they have nuclear reactors on their ships and their goal is to not to have to transport liquid fuel.

sien 14y ago
If they can hit $3 / gallon why does it matter? Tesla's cars are wildly price inefficient because they cost $100K. For 10K you can get a decent car that has 4 times the range. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Roadster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Roadster How many gallons of fuel can you get for 90K? They are nice toys for rich people. Perhaps there is a market for that. Good luck to them. But for mass transit unless you can get the price of the batteries to plummet it just does not work.
- rhizome 14y ago
  In non-currency terms, this sounds a lot like Unix-Windows arguments 15 years ago. If you can bundle Windows, why does it matter what computer you get? For 1/10 the price you can get a great Windows PC with 10 times more software. Tesla Roadster being like an SGI or Solaris box, Linux/FreeBSD is just for snobby nerds who like to tinker. Unless you can make it easier to use it just does not work.
- wisty 14y ago
  Telsa cars are expensive for the same reason Ferraris are - they target people who want bling. A mass-produced commuter could be much cheaper, but there's a huge risk. Tesla aims to reduce the risk by validating the market, solving technical problems, creating infrastructure (recharge stations) and solving social problems (convincing people that range doesn't always matter, and educating them on the strengths and weaknesses of electric cars). A low total-cost (including fuel and maintenance) electric car can probably be produced, but it's not the Tesla's top model.
- ta12121 14y ago
  $3 a gallon is what the fuel costs today when it comes straight out of the ground. Claiming to be able to build and run a nuclear reactor and then synthesize the fuel through multiple energy inefficient steps all for the same price is a pipe dream.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - danielharan 14y ago
    It's not competing against the price straight out of the ground; it's competing against fuel that's been refined and delivered to a moving ship somewhere potentially very far away. Instead of $3 a gallon, it could be up to 10X more.
    - antidoh 14y ago
      And, dollar cost of the fuel is not the only cost of maintaining a "long supply tail." There's also the dollar cost of all the ships and sailors on that tail, and there's the logistical opportunity costs: we have to protect that tail with military resources that might otherwise have gone to more directly military purposes, and the head of the tail (the military activity at the front) is held back and slowed down by a "heavier" supply tail. This doesn't eliminate the tail (we still have to deliver ammunition, lubricating oil, food etc. to the fleet) and it doesn't eliminate replenishment at sea (we still have to get that stuff from supply vehicles to ships), but it does lighten the supply load and create more military options.
      - danielharan 14y ago
        Exactly. Less replenishment means more flexibility. Lots of people killed by IEDs on long supply lines in Afghanistan is an extreme example of the human and military costs. Some of those died to fuel A/C for uninsulated tents... madness.
    - ta12121 14y ago
      The amount of energy needed to refine crude oil is much less than the energy it takes to synthesize it. Think about it: people refine the crude, transport it, and use the end product in an energy net positive manner. To synthesize hydrocarbon fuel, you need to put in at least the amount of energy you're going to store, and with current technology probably 2 times as much at least due to inefficiencies. Then you need to still account for building and running the nuclear reactor. Try to imagine the systems as a whole, the number of steps and losses at each step. The scheme does not make sense. 1) uranium -> nuclear power -> expensive synthesis -> local transport -> fuel 2) uranium -> nuclear power -> transmission lines -> charging batteries 3) crude oil -> refinement -> transport -> fuel EDIT: Found a reference from another comment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process#Process_Efficiency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process... It says that the input energy is 2-4 times the stored energy for synthesized hydrocarbon fuel.
- wpietri 14y ago
  You're cheating. Telsa, like many startups, is pursuing a low-volume, price-insensitive market first. That helps pay for all sorts of startup and R&D costs, and lets them work out issues before they scale. Their long-term goal is, per Wikipedia, "eventually mass producing fully electric cars at a price affordable to the average consumer". There are several fully electric vehicles in production that cost $35k. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_production_battery_electric_vehicles#Full-sized_cars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_production_battery_elec... They have a substantially lower cost of operation than gas-powered vehicles, so they are plausibly cheaper to operate over the lifetime of the car: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf#Operating_costs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf#Operating_costs And over the long term, expecting batteries to get better is a pretty good bet. Everybody from Apple to Toyota is eager for battery improvements.
- jnw2 14y ago
  Mass transit has some advantages with predictable trip lengths: no transit agency is going to insist that they need a bus that can go 200 miles on a charge if their average bus only travels 50 miles each morning. Meanwhile, the average consumer ``needs'' car with a battery that is several times what their 99th percentile trip length is.
ommunist 14y ago
I think you are right. Also that last mile Boosted Desk surfing transport is quite a thing. Batteries are forever.
iwwr 14y ago
It's energy inefficient, but you're thinking in terms of energy scarcity we have today. What if we had 10x more electric energy capacity (most likely due to nuclear resurgence)?
- ta12121 14y ago
  Energy scarcity is a fundamental property of technology and economics. Aside from a few countries like France, nuclear power serves a fraction of our electricity needs, and electricity is a fraction of our total energy needs. Where are all these nuclear power plants going to come from? The technology described in the article is a way to transform energy. Not to produce it.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]

by ta12121 14y ago

sien 14y ago

If they can hit $3 / gallon why does it matter? Tesla's cars are wildly price inefficient because they cost $100K. For 10K you can get a decent car that has 4 times the range. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Roadster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Roadster How many gallons of fuel can you get for 90K? They are nice toys for rich people. Perhaps there is a market for that. Good luck to them. But for mass transit unless you can get the price of the batteries to plummet it just does not work.

rhizome 14y ago
In non-currency terms, this sounds a lot like Unix-Windows arguments 15 years ago. If you can bundle Windows, why does it matter what computer you get? For 1/10 the price you can get a great Windows PC with 10 times more software. Tesla Roadster being like an SGI or Solaris box, Linux/FreeBSD is just for snobby nerds who like to tinker. Unless you can make it easier to use it just does not work.
wisty 14y ago
Telsa cars are expensive for the same reason Ferraris are - they target people who want bling. A mass-produced commuter could be much cheaper, but there's a huge risk. Tesla aims to reduce the risk by validating the market, solving technical problems, creating infrastructure (recharge stations) and solving social problems (convincing people that range doesn't always matter, and educating them on the strengths and weaknesses of electric cars). A low total-cost (including fuel and maintenance) electric car can probably be produced, but it's not the Tesla's top model.
ta12121 14y ago
$3 a gallon is what the fuel costs today when it comes straight out of the ground. Claiming to be able to build and run a nuclear reactor and then synthesize the fuel through multiple energy inefficient steps all for the same price is a pipe dream.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- danielharan 14y ago
  It's not competing against the price straight out of the ground; it's competing against fuel that's been refined and delivered to a moving ship somewhere potentially very far away. Instead of $3 a gallon, it could be up to 10X more.
  - antidoh 14y ago
    And, dollar cost of the fuel is not the only cost of maintaining a "long supply tail." There's also the dollar cost of all the ships and sailors on that tail, and there's the logistical opportunity costs: we have to protect that tail with military resources that might otherwise have gone to more directly military purposes, and the head of the tail (the military activity at the front) is held back and slowed down by a "heavier" supply tail. This doesn't eliminate the tail (we still have to deliver ammunition, lubricating oil, food etc. to the fleet) and it doesn't eliminate replenishment at sea (we still have to get that stuff from supply vehicles to ships), but it does lighten the supply load and create more military options.
    - danielharan 14y ago
      Exactly. Less replenishment means more flexibility. Lots of people killed by IEDs on long supply lines in Afghanistan is an extreme example of the human and military costs. Some of those died to fuel A/C for uninsulated tents... madness.
  - ta12121 14y ago
    The amount of energy needed to refine crude oil is much less than the energy it takes to synthesize it. Think about it: people refine the crude, transport it, and use the end product in an energy net positive manner. To synthesize hydrocarbon fuel, you need to put in at least the amount of energy you're going to store, and with current technology probably 2 times as much at least due to inefficiencies. Then you need to still account for building and running the nuclear reactor. Try to imagine the systems as a whole, the number of steps and losses at each step. The scheme does not make sense. 1) uranium -> nuclear power -> expensive synthesis -> local transport -> fuel 2) uranium -> nuclear power -> transmission lines -> charging batteries 3) crude oil -> refinement -> transport -> fuel EDIT: Found a reference from another comment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process#Process_Efficiency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process... It says that the input energy is 2-4 times the stored energy for synthesized hydrocarbon fuel.
wpietri 14y ago
You're cheating. Telsa, like many startups, is pursuing a low-volume, price-insensitive market first. That helps pay for all sorts of startup and R&D costs, and lets them work out issues before they scale. Their long-term goal is, per Wikipedia, "eventually mass producing fully electric cars at a price affordable to the average consumer". There are several fully electric vehicles in production that cost $35k. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_production_battery_electric_vehicles#Full-sized_cars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_production_battery_elec... They have a substantially lower cost of operation than gas-powered vehicles, so they are plausibly cheaper to operate over the lifetime of the car: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf#Operating_costs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf#Operating_costs And over the long term, expecting batteries to get better is a pretty good bet. Everybody from Apple to Toyota is eager for battery improvements.
jnw2 14y ago
Mass transit has some advantages with predictable trip lengths: no transit agency is going to insist that they need a bus that can go 200 miles on a charge if their average bus only travels 50 miles each morning. Meanwhile, the average consumer ``needs'' car with a battery that is several times what their 99th percentile trip length is.

ommunist 14y ago

I think you are right. Also that last mile Boosted Desk surfing transport is quite a thing. Batteries are forever.

iwwr 14y ago

It's energy inefficient, but you're thinking in terms of energy scarcity we have today. What if we had 10x more electric energy capacity (most likely due to nuclear resurgence)?

ta12121 14y ago
Energy scarcity is a fundamental property of technology and economics. Aside from a few countries like France, nuclear power serves a fraction of our electricity needs, and electricity is a fraction of our total energy needs. Where are all these nuclear power plants going to come from? The technology described in the article is a way to transform energy. Not to produce it.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]