Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumEngineer Develops Fuel Cell With 1,500 Miles Range - Only 3500 ($5,000) As Conversion Kit For Petro
Engineer Develops Fuel Cell With 1,500 Miles Range Only 3500£ ($5,000) As Conversion Kit For Petrol & Diesel
"I drank it when I showed it to the investors so I could prove it was harmless,"
By Captain Planet -October 25, 201901105
Just imagine the satisfaction in driving over 1,500 miles (about 2,400 kilometers) with your eco-friendly electric car without having to stop to charge the battery. After all, thats more than four times the length of the best and most expensive model on the market today.
Under the hood hides a revolutionary new type of battery that, unlike the batteries of conventional electric cars, can also power buses, large trucks and even planes. In addition, manufacturing is much simpler and cheaper than the batteries currently used in millions of electric vehicles around the world and unlike them, recycling is also easy.
That sounds like a science fiction fantasy? But it is already a reality. Last Friday, the inventor of this ingenious energy cell, British engineer Trevor Jackson, signed a contract to start manufacturing soon.
Trevor Jackson, 58, of Tavistock, Devon, a former Royal Navy officer and father of 8 children, has secured a multi-million pound contract to manufacture the device in the UK on a grand scale.
Austin Electric, an engineering firm based in Essex that now owns the rights to the old logo of the Austin Motor Company, will install thousands of them in electric vehicles next year. According to Austin CEO Danny Corcoran, the new technology is a game changer and will change everything.
More:
https://www.captain-planet.net/engineer-develops-fuel-cell-with-1500-miles-range-only-3500-5000-as-conversion-kit-for-petrol-diesel/
klook
(12,155 posts)VMA131Marine
(4,139 posts)The main advancement described here appears to be a non-toxic electrolyte. However, Al-air cells are primary batteries and cannot be recharged. So, after 1500 miles of driving, the entire battery, weighing a couple of hundred pounds, would have to be swapped out. The aluminium anode, which is consumed in the discharge reaction, could be regenerated using renewable power, but this would all require an infrastructure that does not currently exist, though it could be created. This advance may help with certain applications, but I'm not sure that Al-air batteries are ready for widespread adoption in electric cars over Li-ion. The big question is going to be how costly the battery change is.
eppur_se_muova
(36,266 posts)Every 1500 miles ?
He calls it a fuel cell, but since the fuel is a *solid*, it's better described as a recyclable battery. Users can't refill it, or recharge it, themselves, so it's less convenient than either a liquid fuel cell or a rechargeable battery.
You'd have to carry a spare with you all the time, to be safe. And if your battery didn't deliver the minimum energy promised, how could you prove it and get a refund ?
Game changer ? I'm betting not really. Could be useful for institutions, say Post Office, bus lines, etc. that could afford the plant to refill their own batteries and run up mileage on a predictable schedule so batteries could be exchanged at optimum times. But the price of all that would be overhead. The batteries consume aluminum, so could only be mfgd. cheaply where electricity was cheap, then distributed by rail, ship, etc. I'd bet that's more costly than delivering liquid fuel in tanker trucks.
I've critiqued the idea of using aluminum, or other metals, as fuels several times in this forum. I don't see this as surmounting those problems -- just cleaning up the packaging a little.
But it was a nice press release.