China has the world's most aggressive electric car goals. Communist leaders are promoting them to clean up smog-choked cities and in hopes of taking the lead in an emerging technology.
At the auto show, the global industry's biggest marketing event of the year, almost every global and Chinese auto brand is showing at least one electric concept vehicle, if not a market-ready model.
Heizmann said VW, which vies with GM for the title of China's top-selling automaker, expects annual sales of at least 400,000 "new energy vehicles" – the government's term for electric or gasoline-electric hybrids – by 2020 and 1.5 million by 2025.
The vast majority of Chinese get around by smog-free vehicles already. They're called bicycles.
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Friday April 28 2017, @12:39AM (1 child)
"Hey boss! You know how lithium batteries need cooling, and pumped hydro has more capacity? I just decided to co-locate them to save on wiring, and asked the guys to lower the batteries into the storage pond! Genius, right? Why are you turning white, boss? We're not stupid, we covered all the contacts nice and tight to avoid shorts... The next train to Really Far Away? Sure, let me check for you boss... Are you giving me a bonus vacation?"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VanessaE on Friday April 28 2017, @02:00AM
You jest, of course, but it's really not such a crazy idea... imagine this:
Suppose you have a regular hydroelectric dam/reservoir, everything set up and operating normally as HE systems go. Now, cover part of that reservoir with solar panels, with the panels spaced say 1 meter apart and elevated say 20 meters up to keep them safely away from the water. Fill the space between the panels with some kind of minimal diffusing material e.g. etched glass, textured plexi, whatever's cheap. Add enough batteries somewhere to store several days' worth of power for the region served by the dam. They could even store whatever excess is coming off of the dam, if there's a reason to.
Now, suppose you kept the batteries in a properly-sealed container (as implied in your joke), but with clean coolant circulating through them (as in Tesla's cars). Then, you could keep them high and dry in a service building or something, and put the cold side of that cooling system of at the bottom of the reservoir, with a big-ass heat sink.
If you locate the heat sink near where the water's actually moving, i.e. the incoming river, with sufficient gratings and such to keep the heat sink clean, that's one less system you have to spend money on to get the heat out (i.e. no pumps/fans).
There, now you have base and peak load contained in one area, 100% renewable, clean energy, and with no more environmental impact than the creation of the reservoir had in the first place, and still enough light hitting the water to keep the fishermen and marine life happy.
We have the tech to do it right now, we just lack the political will.