quote:

ORIGINAL: Icarys

I'm not suggesting we can "break the laws of physics" here but what I am suggesting is that we are extremely inefficient in how we use and produce our power. I just think in the future they'll be "re-written" to accommodate what we've learned.

There was a farmer in Florida I believe that invented a motor that used 80 times less power than it took in. Last i heard he was trying his best to get a patent but was of course running into big opposition. This was on the local news. They had over 20 electrical engineers/government officials looking this over and couldn't knock it..About a year later he was back on STILL trying to get his patent which hadn't moved ahead despite his constant push for it(along with the news running a wtf story on it) That was 15 years ago.

I'm also "suggesting" that we have to move away from oil and coal dependencies as soon as possible...We might fix a lot of our problems if we did..much like what happened just recently with the oil spill and this story here.

quote:

ORIGINAL: samboct

Well, OT- Aneiren- check out this link on Ven's thread. Seems to me that the missing oil from BP has been found. It's a little surprising that it's on the sea floor, but it may have been the reaction of the dispersant. Maybe the Gulf oil has gone that way too...

Icarys-

Ran some numbers on the costs of supercaps- check JSR Micro (IIRC)- nice supercaps developed in Japan. But compared to the newest lipoly batteries which have C discharge rates of over 50C (50 times capacity)- along with an ability to be charged at over 5C, it's going to be hard to justify the cost of supercaps at this point. The lipolys are cheaper for a given watt application, easier to use (lipoly voltage stays constant as a function of charge- supercap voltage decays linearly making the power electronics more complex and probably even have better power density. The only advantage to the supercaps is the very long cycle life- measured in the millions.

In terms of wheel based alternators- it's called regenerative braking these days and was really a good app for a supercap. Doesn't seem to have caught on yet, but I could be wrong here. If you're using direct drive motors for the drivetrain, then it's really pretty easy to brake the wheel and get some charge back out-assuming that your battery can take that rate of charge. Some hybrid systems using both supercaps for this charging/braking were to be coupled with batteries to match the charge rates.


Sam