Circumnavigating using Electric Propulsion

[SunDevil]

Originally Posted by smaarch

i'll admit this is all an interesting exercise and clearly a direction for the future but one of the things no one talks about when it comes to batteries is the pollution factor. the trend is to talk about how "green" electric power is. I'm not so sure. nor am i especially knowledgeable about this technology or a greenie
batteries are made out of nasty things...."do not dispose of.."
I also imagine they take lots of energy to produce....therefore their high cost

to my mind just because there are no exhaust fumes immediately in my wake.....doesn't mean there aren't environmental repercussions. at the moment they are just "invisible" to the user.
I'm not yet buying the environmental aspect.

Originally Posted by Gabrieln

I read an article comparing the new VW diesel engines and the hybrids. Bottom line, surprisingly enough, the new (at the time) Golf was more energy efficient than all the hybrids. If we sum up all the marginal financial and "environmental" costs like the PV panels manufacturing, proper disposal of batteries and etc., probably this conclusion may be even more obvious.
So, maybe the way to go is to use better/newer diesel engines.

Lithium mining does create some pollution, and I'm sure there are some emissions from the battery and solar power manufacturing process. But, those batteries can and do get recycled. Solar panels from the 70s and 80s are still working, but most of those materials could get recycled too (glass and aluminum, along with a little silicon)

But those one-time emissions pale in comparison to the machinery needed to drill for oil constantly, the ships used to transport the oil, the pipelines that have to be produced, the workers that have to be moved around to maintain, build, and repair all of this, the refineries that have to get built, the energy used to refine the oil into diesel, the chemicals that have to be produced for fracking or tar sand oil refining, the cleanup when oil spills happen, trucking gas and diesel to the gas stations, even the pumps and filling stations use energy, the production of the diesel motors and proper working emissions control parts. The list is far bigger and I probably missed some.

And not to mention the amount of security we provide and weapons we have to sell to certain countries to ensure that the oil keeps flowing.

[simonpickard]

Originally Posted by SunDevil

Winston Thunder Sky Lithium Battery LiFePO4 1000AH | eBay

Battery technology is improving. It is still pricey, but diesel over a 10 year period isn't cheap either. You would probably need 8 of those which will be ~600 lbs for a 24V, 1000Ah system, where 70% is easily usable, and 90% could be used. $11,000 today, might be less if a US company actually made them and sold them to the general public. It is good for at least 3,000 full cycles to 70% DoD. But, I'm not sure how many real world tests there have been.

With this battery you could travel for 35 hours at you 20 Ah amount without getting the battery too low, and with no regen.

Are Lithium batteries really this good? I'm just asking as I've seen figures on this thread saying you'd get about 1 hour of motoring with a normal battery bank. You're quoting 35 hours, which is more than enough I'd have thought?

Regards,
Simon

[SunDevil]

Originally Posted by simonpickard

Are Lithium batteries really this good? I'm just asking as I've seen figures on this thread saying you'd get about 1 hour of motoring with a normal battery bank. You're quoting 35 hours, which is more than enough I'd have thought?

Regards,
Simon

I'm not sure where they got the 20Ah number from. Maybe it is low speed or maybe for a dinghy. At 48V, that is 960W, which isn't much.

5000W would be small, 10,000W would be more reasonable I think for a 25-32ft boat.

So, 2-4 hours on pure battery power I think would be possible if the boat was designed around that.

[mcarling]

Originally Posted by SunDevil

Battery technology is improving. It is still pricey, but diesel over a 10 year period isn't cheap either. You would probably need 8 of those which will be ~600 lbs for a 24V, 1000Ah system, where 70% is easily usable, and 90% could be used. $11,000 today, might be less if a US company actually made them and sold them to the general public. It is good for at least 3,000 full cycles to 70% DoD. But, I'm not sure how many real world tests there have been.

With this battery you could travel for 35 hours at you 20 Ah amount without getting the battery too low, and with no regen.

These are now prices for clearance at $520 each, $4160 for a 24V 1000AH battery pack. While supplies last:
Balqon - Advanced Transportation Solution