Nuclear power and the environment.

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By the same token, higher fuel costs in europe might potentially (paradoxically) make adoption in the US faster, instead. Europeans, as a generalization, tend to rely much less on cars & other fuel-draining things then americans (consider the refrigerated transit we use for fresh milk over here, compared to the room-temperature sealed milk common in europe), and further tend to have smaller cars & use diesel.

Another interesting thing to watch is that LiFePO4 batteries are sold under patent protection (within the US, at least) and that increases the cost. LiFePO4 was invented in 1996, so expect prices to fall quite a bit by ~2016/2017, as patent protection expires, and further increased volumes, mature technology, and world lithium production all improve.

One last wrinkle is that, based on the recent international collapse of oil on the free market (~$50 US/barrel), it is painfully clear that the OPEC nations are as addicted to oil revenue as developed nations to oil.

If international oil usage falls even as little as 2-3% (due to conservation/electric cars), the prices may collapse similarly - and OPEC cannot solve it by cutting production. Less dependence on oil makes production cuts less impactful, and OPEC cannot cut production so much as to destroy (in many cases) their only source of income. China and India will probably make up oil usage as US & Europe wean off, but the possibility does exist that it could collapse like that.

Where shall we get the free hydrogen. Most of the hydrogen on the planet is bound in molecules.

By the way, hydrogen is generally not an energy source, but a way of storing energy. Hydrogen is an energy source only in fusion reactions. To get a lot of free hydrogen one must break down compounds in which hydrogen is bound. The this requires a greater amount of energy than is recovered from hydrogen combining with oxygen in a fuel cell. It is a losing proposition. The only practical way of utilizing hydrogen in fuel cells or in metallic hydrides is to be able to generate a lot of electrical energy. This means using other primary sources to make the electricity.

ruveyn

IIRC the difference in consumption versus price is much smaller than that. For instance over the past ~year during oil's price drop, consumption only lagged production by ~.1mbpd, but it was enough to send prices from ~$145/bbl to ~$50/bbl, so even small programs like CA's old ZEV mandate could have taken a big chunk out of oil's run-up in price by lowering consumption a very small amount.

Like you mentioned, LiFePO4 chem has a ton of patent ish in the U.S. and other places, just like large format NiMH did, but looking at prices in China gives a great idea as to where the price is now w/o patent ish, and where it will probably go eventually. Right now we're at ~$350/kWh in bulk, and will probably drop down into the ~$200+/kWh region if that battery chemistry becomes sufficiently commoditized once the patents expire, not to mention that the number of cycles given some capacity will probably continue to increase as production methods advance.

I would think that adoption of it would happen in Europe first provided patents didn't get in the way due to much higher fuel taxation, especially in places like France and the U.K. but even then things still change slowly. France, for instance, has one car for every two people, which is certainly less than the five cars for every six people in the U.S. but w/ fuel prices I imagine there's plenty of room for EVs, especially since most of the electricity comes from nuclear reactors and EVs could displace a lot of Carbon in a city car type of role, so they certainly have the "green" angle. The question then IMO is, how long will adoption/testing take?

Going back to the nuclear angle, another issue is cost. The initial cost of building new nuclear is enormous, to an extent that it is barely even competitive with wind.

The only way nuclear is financially practical is with government subsidies - even in France, doubtless the world leader in nuclear electricity with high fossil fuel costs, needs government subsidies to make nuclear work.

Instead if you're going to invest government subsidies anyway, might as well invest in modern, "smart" transmission line infrastructure that would make wind practical. By far the biggest knock on wind is that you don't get power when the wind's not blowing - but it's almost always blowing somewhere and if you can get it from where it's blowing to where it's not, success.

A combination of nuclear and natural gas, about the same capacity as they currently supply, should suffice well to supplement wind, along with additional solar and hydro investments.