Electric Drives to Eco-dreams-Science Saturday.

For this Science Saturday we take a look at the science behind electric vehicles. Charlie Keeble may be a big fan of hydrogenfuel ecocars but to show balance and fairness he has decided to cover the science and technology of electric vehicles (EVs). He believes as well as we do, that there should be a diversity of intelligence and creativity in science and technology. 

Electric cars are indeed clever machines in their own right and they can be clean and quiet for a noise and pollution free society of drivers. What makes them unique is how they harness the power of electricity to make the current drive the car in a clean and efficient way. There are many different forms of electric drive motors for cars. Some use batteries and are plugged into the mains to charge them, some are hybrid petrol/diesel cars that use kinetic energy to charge thebatteries, and some use traction motors that convert kinetic energy into stored energy that goes into a battery.

The engineering of the batteries is based on the same principles of a conventional electrochemical storage battery. The battery is built as a liquid rechargeable cell with an anode and cathode made of two different metals, and an electrolyte. In the case of a lithium-ion battery the anode is a negativeelectrode made of graphite, and the cathode is a positiveelectrode made of a metal oxide composed of lithium, nickel, manganese and cobalt. The electrolyte is composed of lithium salts that create a conductive pathway between the anode and electrode which creates a chemical reaction to generate electro motive force (EMF).

This EMF drives an electric motor at the front or rear of the car. Since the batteries are the car’s power source it’s direct current (DC) power that is used here to supply power to an alternating current (AC) synchronous electric motor. This type of motor uses electromagnets as a non-moving part called a stator that generates an electromagnetic field that rotates in sync with the oscillations of the current. The rotating part of the engine is also made of electromagnets which turns in step with the stator’s electromagnetic field, which provides a second synchronised rotating magnetic field. This results in aconversion of electric power into mechanical power that drives the wheels.

This is the basic engineering principles of a functioning electric car but there are other varieties of electric car. One of the most famous is in the Toyota Prius, which popularised hybrid electric engines to the masses in 1997. The Prius has a combined petrol engine and traction motor that allows it to drive with petrol at high speeds and electricity at low speeds. The electric traction motor works when the engine is turned on and drives the car first as an EV. It uses the motion of the car to generate kinetic energy that is transferred to a battery by a process called regenerative braking. Some battery drivencars use regenerative breaking to gain more energy as they drive so they can increase the range of the car.

The range and battery capacity of electric vehicles is questionable and their capacity to hold a significant amount of charge depends on their energy density. Energy density refersto how much energy a power source or fuel has per unit of weight. Lithium-ion batteries have a much lower energy density than gasoline, hence why they need to recharge more often than a petrol car needs to be refuelled. The Tesla Roadster’s lithium-ion cells weigh 1100 lb and hold 53 kWh of electricity. When fully charged the Roadster has a range of 350 km (220 miles).

The way electric cars can cover the transport network requires a network of electric power charging stations, which is reliant on a high capacity electricity grid. Although electric cars produce zero emissions the production process needed to make them is not environmentally friendly. The batteries are made using rare Earth metals like cobalt, nickel, lithium, and other metals like graphite, manganese, copper and vanadium. Being that these are rare Earth metals they will eventually become so rare that producing a car will become more expensive as it costly to produce it. 

Lithium is a very soft and light metal that is a widely used element in material products. As well as being used in batteries it’s also used as lithium carbonate in pills to control mood swings. It’s softness makes it easy to shape into batteries of any size or shape where it’s highly reactive to generate charge. This precious metal can be found in brine deposits due it’s ability to float in ocean water as a solution. The biggest deposits of lithium are located in Bolivia (21 million tonnes), Argentina (17 million tonnes) and Chile (9 million tonnes). It is a rare material and can be found in many rocks and brines, but only in small concentrations.

Cobalt is another rare Earth metal that is essential for batteries. It’s intercalated with the lithium to discharge lithium ions and increase oxidation of nickel to generate the electrical current. It’s used primarily as an alloy and it’s mined only in a compound form with iron, nickel and copper. To produce it requires refining by smelting the iron ore to separate it, which is a messy and toxic process that involves leaching it with chemicals that releases poisonous arsenic and sulphuric fumes. Geologically the world’s biggest deposits of cobalt are in the Democratic Republic of Congo (7 million tonnes), which accounts for 63% of the world’s cobalt. Human rights groups have pointed out that the Congo does not extract the cobalt from it’s mines in a safe, humane and sustainable way. As well as using child labour to mine the cobalt some of the workers are not properly equipped with personal protective equipment to keep them from breathing in the fumes.

The infrastructure for the electricity network to supply power to the electric car users requires a high capacity energy grid of demanding proportions that can stretch the grid to breaking point. The National Grid needs to have an output of tens of gigawatts more power to meet the needs of a country where electric cars make up the bulk of personal transport for the common people. According to the EV Energy Taskforce it takes up to 661,000 chargers needed to meet the needs of the electric car market assuming that by 2035 every petrol and diesel car is phased out. This is to meet the target of the government’s plans to ban fossil fuel vehicles by 2030. 

I don’t believe that technological innovations should be directed by state legislation because it produces monopolistic privileges for industrialists to dominate the free market like an authoritarian capitalist economy. Such action is like the government holding a gun at the people and controlling people’s consumer choices with no mutual benefit between fellow humans. For the eco-cars to succeed they need to be in the form of a wide variety of fuel sources. When inventors have freedom to innovate and build they can make improvements to society that produce affluence that can also be helpful to the environment. 

The ecocar as an industry has yet to achieve mainstream status. Apart from the early stage experimental stages that electric batteries and hydrogen fuel cells have there two major sets of actors who are hindering it’s potential. One is the oil industry and the other is the political structure that protects theinterests of politicians and lobbyists who are seeking to undermine and control creative industries. Both in the form of individuals and new companies. 

One inventor who I discovered in a newspaper article has great potential to shake up the electric car industry. He has invented a new type of battery that can go further than the lithium-ion batteries of today. Former Royal Navy engineer Trevor Jackson invented a power source that doesn’t perform as an electric battery, but as an electric fuel cell. This one uses aluminium in an electrolyte to trigger a reaction between the metal and air to produce electricity. It’s based on a technology experiment from the 1960s that needed an improvement that Jackson developed by his company Metalectrique to make it practical for commercial batteries.

This aluminium-air fuel cell is much more cleaner and has a very limited carbon footprint unlike the rare Earth metals that lithium and cobalt cause. After all aluminium is abundant and it can be mined and bought anywhere so the costs of thebatteries and the cars will be brought down to peanuts. The most significant improvement to this design is the range of the cars that it’s fitted to. A Tesla Model 3 with it’s lithium-ion battery has a standard range of 370 miles on one charge. But with an aluminium-air fuel cell it will be 2,700 miles and it takes up less space under the bonnet, which makes the car lighter than currently is.

I may be biased in support of hydrogen-cells over electric batteries but I am fascinated by innovative ideas that make advancements to the technology available. It is very important that there is diversity of creativity and ideas in this field otherwise the green movement will create a new monopoly that defeats their own purpose. Electric car batteries are only as good as they can go as long as they don’t run out of range in their own innovation cycle.

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