E-cat fueled cars, the future of innovation?

The Lightning GT  produced by The Lightning Car Company

The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is the largest public philanthropic organization in the world. At Wired Business conference Bill Gates said

“Over 90 percent of subsidies are on deploying technology and not on R&D. You can buy as much old technology as you want, but you won’t get breakthroughs which only come out of basic research,” Gates said. “If we don’t have innovation in energy, we don’t have much at all.”

He continued:

“The good news about nuclear is that there has hardly been any innovation. The room to do things differently is quite dramatic”

Gates interest about nuclear fusion inspired Defkalion GT to include his presentation from TED, “Innovating to Zero” as a part of their press conference in Athens on June 23th. With an endowment of over $36 Billion dollars, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation will surely invest in many great disruptive technologies coming years.

And according to a newly translated post on E-catworld.com there seems to be more companies willing to invest large money in future nuclear R&D, namely nuclear driven cars, or more specific, E-cat driven cars.

Originally reported by E-Catworld, and translated by a Greek reader, Defkalions GT President Alexandros Xanthoulis reveal some interesting expansion plans and R&D agreements in this video interview by Xanthi Press:

They have made deals with car companies in the R&D sector in order to research the application of the e-cat in cars, also the same applies for ships.

How about that folks! E-cat driven cars. As we reported in our previous post in June “Energy Catalyzer (E-Cat) 200,000 times more effective than oil” we made a comparison with a diesel fueled car and a hypothetical E-cat driven car. The numbers were quite remarkable and shows that an E-Cat gives us 200,000 times the energy density of Oil.

Read the full article for more information but here is a shorter version with a comparison of distance by the two cars :

Let the car consume 1l/10km and note that although the E-Cat produces heat a heat engine and a combustion engine have pretty much the same conversion efficiencies (around 20-30%).

This means (taken diesel as fuel with ED=46.2MJ/kg and density of 0.807kg/l) the car gets a distance of

CarOilDist=12.4km/kg,

while the E-Cat driven car would get

CarECatDist=2.5 million km.

Yes you saw right 2.5 million km, if we assume that the life expectancy of a car is about 500,000km then only 200grams of Ni62H is needed in order to do the full distance.

No wonder car companies has showed such an early interest. Could this be the disruptive change the automotive industry have been looking for? Even though Thomas Davenport and Scotsmen Robert Davidson in 1842 greatly improved the first introduced electric car from the 1830′s, it wasn’t until the years 1899 and 1900 that electric driven cars outsold all other types of cars in America (competing with steam and gasoline). But the fact remain:

A low estimate put electric driven cars just around 1% of total cars driven in the U.S by 2010 and 4 percent by 2030.

Today,July 19th, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) released a report on what likely impact electric vehicles will have on the electric grid and what steps utilities can take to deal with the impact. The report looks at the affect of plug-in electric cars, whether they are the all-electric variety such as the Nissan Leaf or the hybrid version like the Chevy Volt. In the report some key findings are reported by the GigaOm website:

1. How many electric vehicles will be on the roads, in what time frame? The electric car market has barely started, and key technology, including next-gen batteries, that can deliver the wide adoption of electric vehicles have yet to be developed. EPRI came up with three forecasts for the cumulative number of electric cars that will show up between 2010 and 2030. The low estimates are 3.1 million by 2020 and 15 million by 2030, based on historical sales from 2000 to 2008.

2. Electric vehicle’s share of the car market. The low estimates put electric cars at 1 percent of the total cars driven in the U.S. by 2010 and 4 percent by 2030.

3. How cheap is the fuel for electric cars? Electric cars can be fueled up at one-third, or a quarter, of the cost of a gasoline car, given the current pricing of both fuel types. Utilities are worried that because electricity is cheaper to start with, drivers might juice up their cars even in peak hours when electric rates are high (but not as high as comparable gasoline cost). But providing and educating drivers about the low rates they could get in off-peak hours will help to minimize the need to increase electricity supply during peak hours and any stress to the grid.

4. Charging at home is ideal. Although residential charging equipment will typically require 1.4 kW to 7.7 kW of power, peak electricity demand from electric cars will be far lower, at 700 watts. That’s because there is enough time from early evening to the next morning to accommodate charging. By providing incentives, such as low electric rates, utilities can nudge car owners to start charging after 9 p.m., when overall demand for electricity is much lower than earlier in the evening. The hours between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. are most ideal and cause the least impact to the grid. But the report cautions that if most people program their cars to start charging, say, right after 9 p.m., then the utilities will have to deal with a big spike in demand.

5. Equipment cost. A residential charging unit typically costs roughly $1,500 to install. Charging-station costs vary from $2,500 to $6,000, depending on the features of the equipment. Prices should fall as more equipment is installed.

6. Potential rate plans. To entice consumers to charge late at night, utilities could try several offers that are similar to cell phone plans. They can charge a fixed rate for an “anytime plan,” a discount rate between certain hours overnight, or a flat monthly fee for charging overnight. The last option could provide consumers with the most savings.

7. Utilities with the most initiatives. Five utilities already have done a lot of homework in figuring out current and potential future charging infrastructure costs in their service territories: Southern California Edison, Detroit Edison, Progress Energy, Georgia Power and Sacramento Municipal Utilities District.

8. Who will own the charging stations? Who will own and provide charging services outside the home will be a more complex question than in the case of gasoline stations. And the costs of these services to consumers can range from free to rates that provide a good profit for the equipment owners. Here are five major ownership types: government, utility, employers, retailers and strictly for-profit charging stations. Some of them might offer electricity at a discount to attract customers.

As you can see, there are many challenges to conquer before the world can fully enjoy electric driven cars. And without a doubt there will be a ton of challenges on the bumpy E-cat car road as well. But it is refreshing to read about how some forward thinking automotive manufacturers are taking this breakthrough technology serious. Just as NASA were doing last week when they had a meeting with Rossi and AmpEnergo.