A January 3 article in Automotive Engineering International Online highlights the potential for ultracapacitors to take some of the battery market for vehicle power. The positive side of ultracapacitors would seem to demand their use over that of batteries. They can produce up to 10 times the power of batteries – important in acceleration. They handle temperatures down to -40°C (-40° F), something which drops battery power outputs to near uselessness in many cases. They last forever compared to batteries, can be charged in minutes as opposed to hours, and can even be recycled more fully than batteries – some of whose chemistries are toxic. Prices are dropping quickly. A 3,000-Farad ultracapacitor sold for $5,000 10 years ago. Today, it sells for $50. Battery prices have come down only 30 to 40 percent in the same time. Such a device can store 3,000 Amp-seconds of energy, meaning it could discharge 3,000 Amps at one Volt for one second. More logically, …
Hybrid Hopes or Hype?
Batteries are achieving increasingly high capacities and outputs, though at a frustratingly slow pace, especially for those of us who want that much hoped-for lightweight power pack that will make the electric backpack helicopter of our dreams a practical reality. For cars, a viable and attractive alternative to pure battery use in hybrid propulsion is described in an Earth2Tech entry supplied by Dr. Seeley. That entry describes a three-step approach to making ultracapacitors and batteries into friendly allies in propusion. First, ultracaps should not compete with batteries, but enhance them. “Second, get creative to bring costs down quickly. Third, embrace the niche.” The big problem with batteries is being able to take in or put out large amounts of power without reaching a thermal meltdown point. Batteries are good at storing energy, though. Capacitors can take on or release large power bursts, but have only about 5-percent of the energy storage capacity per weight of the best lithium batteries at …