AutoblogGreen

1. Replace the "petroleum" component with the best renewable liquid energy storage methods which are Cellosic Butanol, Algae B100 and straight VegOil and the V2G PHEV-40 is the most logical, cheapest and safest way to go as in e-Flex without the idiotic Hydrogen fuel cells! Ultimately, after we have enhanced efficiency and produced better batteries we will end up with a pure renewable electron economy. And no, nuclear is not renewable.

Posted at 2:11PM on Jun 19th 2007 by Tim

2. Gee, I don't know. Given that the battery packs in Hybrid vehicles have a limited number of charge/deplete cycles, it seems like drawing from them onto the grid would speed the battery pack's demise. This, in turn, would drive the need for more expensive and toxic battery packs, adding to our waste problem, increasing the effective operating cost of the vehicle and doing little to add to the grid.

Unless the vehicles are utilizing long-life ultra-capacitors or flywheels that do not need to be replaced or until MDI perfects their Air Car, the toxic nature of these battery packs (like the toxic nature of the mercury in Compact Fluorescent lightbulbs) needs to be taken into account when looking at whether these technologies are truly a boon to the world as a whole.

Posted at 2:54PM on Jun 19th 2007 by J-man

3. J-man,
Thank you for pointing out the most critical part of V2G. Why would you use up your terribly expensive Hybrid or all-electric vehicle battery selling electricity back to the utility for very few bucks?

Enter, stage right, the Nanosafe battery from Altair Nanotechnologies. Do some research on it. They have independent verification that the battery can accept enough electricity in 10 minutes to power their Phoenix truck for over 2 hours at 60 mph. The best part? They've cycled it empty to full over 25,000(once/day for 68 years) times in their inhouse lab and are getting independent verification of that claim from Aerovironment and U Cal-Davis right now!!!

No other battery in the world can make claims any where near these. Stock symbol ALTI. Go to Yahoo Finance and check it out, or their website.

Posted at 3:05PM on Jun 19th 2007 by rick

4. The good thing about PHEVs is that they are a bridge to pure EVs. If a battery is good for a PHEV, then it would be perfect for an EV.

Posted at 5:30PM on Jun 19th 2007 by Joseph

5. I'd have to second Rick about Altair. Their technology is superior to A123. More cycles, faster charging ability, and the best in terms of safety. I encourage Art Vatsky, Google founders, and everyone out there to do your own research and compare Altair's Nanosafe battery versus A123's. It's a no-brainer.

Posted at 5:36PM on Jun 19th 2007 by bjd002004

6. I think this car-to-grid thing is brilliant. For the utility. If they announced they were installing massive gasoline engines to create gasoline-generated electricity, people might protest. But you have the local population foot the bill for the capital expense of the batteries, and let them create the gasoline-generated electricity FOR you, and suddenly it's GREEN.

Happily there's not a reporter out there who can put 2 and 2 together and realize that when your car battery is drained by the utility, and you then have run your evening commute and errands on gas instead of battery, then you have created gasoline-generated electricity without anyone even noticing! Yippee!

Posted at 5:53PM on Jun 19th 2007 by Supercat

7. And just how much does a Nanosafe 35kW pack cost?

I thought they were way more expensive than Tesla's approach (using several thousand common AA cells)

Posted at 8:19PM on Jun 19th 2007 by Bill

8. Supercat, you misunderstood how "V2G" works. It only utilizes a portion of the PHEV battery capacity, and the drivers can decide how much battery capacity to allocate to the grid, based on their driving plans. For example, a driver with a 60 mile "electric only" PHEV who plans a 20 mile commute home could dedicate half the battery capacity to V2G with 10 miles to spare.

If the driver miscalculates and ends up driving beyond the remaining "eletric" range, the car goes into "charge sustaining" mode. The gas engine does not recharge the battery completely, so no "gasoline generated energy" would end up going to the grid. The gasoline consumption would be no greater than an equivalent non-plugin hybrid.

Posted at 8:52PM on Jun 19th 2007 by Chris M

9. Actually what makes far more sense to me is Grid-2-Grid using worn down electric and hybrid car batteries.
http://blogs.business2.com/greenwombat/2007/06/photo_green_wom.html

When they have 80% of their lifecycle left on them they aren't suitable for transportation.

But with some parallel wiring of multiple battery packs you can boost that back up just like new.

The packs can then be dispersed to locations where they would be useful, like electric substations.

_

Sure makes a hell of a lot more sense to me than V2G

Posted at 2:53AM on Jun 20th 2007 by GreyFlcn

10. Is peak power demand a more important problem than the energy problem itself? I don't think so. I think Google foundation's resources would be better utilised by going after the energy problem. There are a bunch of renewable energy technologies that are viable or are on the verge of becoming viable but they need to be refined, packaged and distributed the right way.

Address the energy problem and you solve peak power demand problem automatically. Google has a history of going after big problems so I'm guessing that they're already doing some serious work in that area.

Posted at 2:34PM on Jun 20th 2007 by Manu Sharma

11. *** If the driver miscalculates and ends up driving beyond the remaining "eletric" range, the car goes into "charge sustaining" mode. The gas engine does not recharge the battery completely, so no "gasoline generated energy" would end up going to the grid. ***

You are wrong, Chris. As you acknowledge, a driver who has miscalculated (and who's going to guarantee that no one will ever miscalculate or have a change in evening plans?) will now burn some gasoline on the way home. So instead of a pure-electric commute, gasoline is thus being consumed that otherwise would not have been, as a direct result of the driver having sold electricity from his battery earlier in the day.

It does not matter that the car is in "charge sustaining mode" or that the battery is not fully recharged. Those details are distractors. The car is burning gasoline because and only because it had traded away battery power to the grid.

Yes this means gasoline is being burned in order to supply the grid with electricity: grid electricity is generated by gasoline. This is quite clear.

This is not a difficult concept. I don't understand why people have trouble grasping it.

Posted at 2:44PM on Jun 20th 2007 by Supercat