Ultracapacitors versus Oil

Just a quick news item on the energy front: a new development in ultracapacitor technology, thanks to research at MIT.  Will it turn out to be another small step towards oil independence day?  Maybe; in any case, I hope the pace of this kind of discovery accelerates; the more experimentation like this, the better.  The article is titled  The Charge of the Ultra - Capacitors, by MIT's Joel Schindall. 

When new technology enables us to migrate to electricity (from oil) for a sufficient portion of our personal transportation energy, North America would be able to supply all the remaining oil we'd need—as I noted in this article last year.  Currently, a little less than half of our oil is imported from other continents; here's a pie chart of the USA's oil sourcing, as of August-September 2007. 

[Source data from EIA and USCB.]

I look forward to the day we can "fill up" our cars directly or indirectly from the electric grid instead of the gasoline or diesel pump.  We'll need more electric generating capacity for that kind of shift, but we North Americans will have several options for meeting that challenge.  For now, the bottleneck is our inability to store enough electric potential affordably in a small enough volume for use in personal vehicles.  Ultracapacitor technology might help eliminate that bottleneck, and that's why news like this is encouraging. 

Comments

[Salvatorem]

"We'll need more electric generating capacity for that kind of shift...."

And more fuel to power that capacity. Are you thinking that American coal will power the generators for these capacitors?

[Bob]

This is encouraging news. We don't know when or if our cars will be 100% powered with this but I'll wager a tidy sum that, as development proceeds, many other uses will be found that will benefit us.

A miniature windmill on my roof or a solar collector connected to a storage device for lighting my home with CFL's sounds like something I'd be interested in.

[Gil]

I hear there are also increasing gains in solar panel technology too. In a few decades new homes might have of solar panels. :o

P.S. 'Tis nice to hear about optimistic news about the future and how everything might get better for a change. :P

[Steve]

Salvatorem:
We'll generate the extra power with whatever technology our political and economic systems will allow. I'm guessing new, cookie-cutter nuclear plants will be a big part of the mix (see http://www.nustartenergy.com/ ), or maybe clean coal plants. I can't see much tolerance for new coal plants using only old technology, but I've been wrong before; that might happen if the electorate gives oil independence a slightly higher priority than co2 control, as I do. What do you think?

[Salvatorem]

Steve,
Whether coal, nuclear, or oil, the preferred source of energy production has to always be the cheapest. Wars are being fought over oil at this time, so I have to assume that is the cheapest form of producing btu's for the moment. When oil is depleted, the next cheapest will come up to the plate. I do hope, though, that the cost of war is factored into the total cost of energy by the beancounters. And then we will see that clean coal and safe nuclear are cheaper than oil.

[Bob]

"I do hope, though, that the cost of war is factored into the total cost of energy by the beancounters. And then we will see that clean coal and safe nuclear are cheaper than oil."

That, sir, is an extremely astute and intelligent observation. And a great suggestion as well; apply cost accounting to this thing!

Salvatorem, I think you just nailed one of the best comments I have ever seen here. Congrats!

[AlfaCentavra]

From Washington Post (www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/09/AR2007110902573.html): "Yet Japan has been weaning itself off oil for years. It now imports 16 percent less oil than it did in 1973, although the economy has more than doubled. Billions of dollars were invested to convert oil-reliant electricity-generation systems into ones powered by natural gas, coal, nuclear energy or alternative fuels. Japan accounts for 48 percent of the globe's solar-power generation -- compared with 15 percent in the United States. The adoption rate for fluorescent light bulbs is 80 percent, compared with 6 percent in the United States."

[Kevin]

AlfaCentavra, though your link is broken and I can't read that article, doesn't sound terribly impressive. From your passage, all Japan has actually done to economize on oil is to evolve away from using it for electricity-generation: exactly the same as the US and every other advanced nation.

Since we're all of us done using oil for electricity, none of those other things mentioned in the passage pertain to oil at all. Equally, all economies have gotten much more efficient with oil-per-dollar of GDP.

Japan certainly has a lot more cars on the road than they did in 1973, and their cars probably do not get any better gas mileage than the little underpowered machines they drove back in the day.

The key to Japan's "efficiency" is that their economy virtually stopped growing about 16 years ago, and their population flatlined many years ago, and is now shrinking.

[AlfaCentavra]

AlfaCentavra, though your link is broken and I can't read that article,,,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/09/AR2007110902573.html