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Thread: Aluminum Air Battery - claims over 1000 mile range for your car

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    Thumbs down Aluminum Air Battery - claims over 1000 mile range for your car

    NEW ELECTRIC battery for Cars makes its debut.

    Israeli Company Phinergy and Canadian company Alco (aluminum) have teamed up to make some good money while keeping the environment clean from zero emission automobiles.

    Of course, the amount of energy required to "make the aluminum", the Carbon footprint to do that isn't discussed.. hmm

    These are called Aluminum Air "primary batteries".

    Alcoa is more than happy to sell the Aluminum metal.

    Phinergy claims to have solved the electrode issue by utilizing a new type of catalyst added to the electrode material to facilitate high energy output in a very light weight package.

    These batteries use AIR (and water) and ALUMINUM as the active ingredients with some proprietary chemistry added to maintain efficiency and actually start the reaction that makes the electricity.

    The problem with these batteries, is the aluminum is consumed, turned into a gel that has to be removed, and gotten back to the "metals recycler". They are ONE USE ONLY. USE and RECYCLE.

    Meaning one has to get the old consumed electrodes out of the battery and get a new one in.

    The cost is not yet fully determined what this will cost, or how to logistically handle the continual maintenance for such batteries in a car.

    The two companies are backpedaling a bit not pushing too hard about using these batteries in automobiles, even though they had run a demonstration car on these batteries to hype the debut.

    They do claim the batteries will be great where there are stationary needs such as using these batteries as backup emergency batteries.

    The aluminum-air is a bit of a misnomer though, in-so-much that WATER is required to be added.. What about freezing then? (Well no problem in Israel, it's warm all the time.. hmmm).

    We wonder then where the weight savings really comes in, and will this ever be practical.

    This other "small" problem.. can't you just see Grandma going to the battery store to get some batteries to "fuel up" her car?

    These batteries are ONE way - not rechargeable.

    So that means buying a replacement "electrode reload stack", removing the old battery electrode, getting it safely to the recycler, and then getting the new electrode pack and inserting it into the battery, testing to make sure everything is working properly. And off you go. 1 hour per refuel cycle.. hmm

    Note: Wrench, gloves and goggles sold extra. Gift certificates at your local body building store available.

    Maybe this idea although unique, is not so practical just yet..

    references:
    http://www.phinergy.com/default.asp
    and
    http://www.alcoa.com/global/en/news/...ergy_batteries

    Energy requirement - to make one ton of aluminum it takes 211 billion joules of energy. 6 GJ is about the amount of potential chemical energy in a barrel of oil, when combusted. 42 gallons of crude oil exists in a barrel of oil. I wonder what this battery will cost to make, refuel both in $ and carbon burned to "make it".

    Are we really saving anything, or just trading $$ from the oil industry to the aluminum industry?
    Last edited by Bob; 9th October 2015 at 08:20.

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    United States Avalon Member Chanlo23's Avatar
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    Default Re: Aluminum Air Battery - claims over 1000 mile range for your car

    I DO like the giant green and orange batteries…

    but, about that zero carbon emissions claim … what is the amount of aluminum vapor coming off alcoa refining plants plus CO and CO2, as well as all the other metals which are boiled off? Is all that stuff really better to breathe than carbon emission?

    And, wouldn't those "batteries" release aluminum hydroxide and potassium hydroxide into the air?

    Geeez.. so it looks like it would take thousands of gallons of gasoline (that someone pays for and passes the cost on to the public in 'some' way) to make one of those batteries for 1000 miles.

    I wonder how many $Billions those guys will make before someone does the math on how much it costs to make, how much it costs to get out and trade back in, and how much it will cost folks in both refitting the special death batteries AND the health costs of all the aluminum byproduct emissions they are not even mentioning… I wonder how many years will go by before folks start to hear about a 'weird' new strain of aluminum poisoning.

    Those battery folks are going to be rich, rich, rich…. the world's population will drop.. win win for them!

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    Canada Avalon Member DeDukshyn's Avatar
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    Default Re: Aluminum Air Battery - claims over 1000 mile range for your car

    Batteries in cars need to go -- they aren't the answer as far as I can tell. Solar and piezoelectric roadways to harness the sun and pressure / inertia from driving vehicles to turn into electricity (think of the surface area of major roadways for collecting solar energy, and when the roads get saturated, the sheer number of moving vehicles over piezoelectric pads makes up the electrical loss caused by the cars blocking the sunlight. The system itself would need batteries, or potentially, excess power can be shared with the standard public grid, or some taken in times of lower power output.

    If the cars have no batteries, they can be small and light, making them much more efficient, so they could run on far less electricity - they could be powered via induction from the roadway itself.

    Who could possibly pay for all this? It wouldn't be cheap to implement and sustain, but if we think that people could pay into the system what they are paying for oil and gas for their vehicles now, it would be about $450,000,000,000 annually in just the US alone. Add in what taxes already go for ongoing road maintenance, and I think such a grand project could be implemented and sustained. Of course I haven't done all the math or studied the technology all that well, but I see some potential here in the idea ... we probably need simpler and cheaper solar energy conversion methods first ...

    The main problem is that big oil would much rather have the $450 billion+ for themselves and they have the billions extra to spend to keep it that way. The greatest things to stifle innovation and technology have been big energy, big chemical, and big agra. They are obsessed with maintaining their paradigms at all costs. In the last 30 years of my life I have seen the great technological rise of ... fancy phones and an internet - big friggin' whoop.
    Last edited by DeDukshyn; 5th June 2014 at 19:01.
    When you are one step ahead of the crowd, you are a genius.
    Two steps ahead, and you are deemed a crackpot.

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