Lithium extraction involves lining salt pools with PVC plastics
which are a source of pollution.

There’s no way to speed up the evaporation of salt water to
increase Lithium production, no practical way.

Lithium is only the 33rd most abundant element on the Earth
and deposits are mostly limited to China and Bolivia.

We won’t make it more than 10 years before the Lithium shortage
hits.

Hern, there is no certainty of a 10 fold improvement in Lithium ION
battery technology.

Again Hern, study hydrogen as an energy carrier more closely before you dismiss the concept of reforming ethanol and methane.

Salt water can be desalinized and some of it converted to hydrogen
very efficiently using magnets and membranes. There are projects
to reform the manure from Tennessee thoroughbreds into hydrogen.
There are a number of feed lots that produce a fair amount of manure that can be used as a methane source. Check out the
hydrogencarsnow site before you dismiss hydrogen as being
unproduceable in significant quantities.

http://www.hydrogencarsnow.com

http://hydrogendiscoveries.wordpress.com/2009/02/19/fallacy-of-energy-efficiency-argument-against-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicles-by-plug-in-battery-advocates/

That battery developments mentioned in this particular blog won’t
extend the range of the Volt is discouraging. There is no
guarantee that an advancement will match a need. What are needed are light batteries that can hold killowatts of power in
a rough environment over a large temperature scale in a
small odd shaped space. I place my bet on fuel cell cars
being the most practical in the long run with PHEV’s and BEV’s sinking back into the obscurity that has characterized them for
100 years. With the elimination of platinum and the replacement
of it by nitrogen doped vertical carbon nanotubes, fuel cells that
are currently 10x what people will pay for them are going to drop
significantly in price.

This is the reason GM is not fully charging or discharging the battery, most of the heating occurs when the battery is nearly empty or nearly full.. so perhaps we can use more of the cells capacity with a fast charging cell. The lithium manganese cell GM is using is not the best now, just what is in high production now… and apparently good enough.

………………………………………

Correct me if I’m wrong, but fast charging and battery lifetime
are in opposite directions of each other. What I’m saying is,
you can’t optimize a battery for maximum lifetime and quick
charging.

Here are breakthroughs, ones that are not likely to happen,
which I would like to see:

1) High quality solar panels drop substantially in price and
GM announces that the roof of the Volt will be a solar
collector (not a big deal in Oregon with our liquid sunshine).

2) A replacement is found for Lithium that is available within
U.S. borders in large quantity. This replacement is
better than Lithium and it’s source is not environmentally
sensitive.

3) A fusion reactor is built that produces more energy than
it’s operators put into it and this fusion reactor has a
20 year operational life span.

4) The public accepts pebble bed nuclear reactors and nuclear to
hydrogen materializes. The problem with fission is that it is
only a 100 year solution, but carbon wise and heavy metals
wise it is cleaner than burning coal. There is the problem that
you have to mine for uranium, but it is necessary to mine for
a lot of resources including Lithium.

5) The price of oil spikes up again forcing a more aggressive
move to alternative fuels such as: hydrogen, biodiesel,
cellulosic ethanol, etcetera. Of all of these options,
hydrogen gets the most attention.

6) The Chevy Volt hydrogen is redesigned to reform hydranol
extending it’s range and it is mass produced.

7) GM abandons the use of platinum in it’s fuel cell prototypes.

Very unlikely, there is a tenfold improvement in energy density
for Lithium ION batteries and the size of the Volt’s battery is
substantially reduced.

9) Hydrogen cooled high voltage power lines become common
making both hydrogen and electricity more widely available.

10) Fuel cells continue to output more and more power for the
same amount of hydrogen that today’s fuel cells use. The
talk of fuel cell cars gives way to fuel cell trucks and sport
utility vehicles. The penetration of fuel cell vehicles passes
25% of all driven vehicles.

Some of these 10 things should have happened already, 6,7, and
9 for example. The first four, 1-4, are unrealistic and will probably
never happen. Number 10 on the list is likely to happen judging
from the history of fuel cell cars. They have been getting more and
more powerful where the fuel cell stack has been taking up less and
less space. Number 8, if it happens, could change whether hydrogen fuel cell cars or chemical battery cars dominate in the future. Number 8 is extremely unlikely as there has been a LOT
of development on the Lithium ION battery chemistry. Aside from
these 10 things, platinum in fuel cells can be replaced now with
nitrogen doped vertical carbon nanotubes. Compressed hydrogen
tanks and liquid hydrogen tanks can be replaced with hydranol
reformation systems. Number 5 is interesting, it is going to happen.
It is a question of when for number 5, not if.

The problem with this trip if your vehicle is a 40 mile to 200 mile
AER one that uses a small range extender should be obvious.
If the all electric range is 40 miles, that isn’t much out of 371.76
miles. A fuel cell vehicle that reforms hydrnol with a 300 mile
range if there are 3 fueling stations evenly spaced along
I-84 plus 1 at each end might make more sense than a Chevy
Volt gasoline/electric hybrid. Let’s say you have a reliable
AER of 200 miles from a chemical battery that takes 8 hours
to charge on a standard 110 outlet. Unless there is a battery
exchange and the proper equipment at the exchange site to
swap batteries, making the trip in this vehicle isn’t very practical.

Stopping for 8 hours to charge the battery isn’t acceptable if
you intend to make the trip in a single day really. Let’s say it’s
a 6 hour trip. Well, adding 8 hours to that figure is problematic.
That means out of 24 hours that you spend 8 hours stopped to
charge the battery up and 6 hours driving. So if the AER is 200
miles, you are going to be stopping halfway down for 8 hours to
recharge the battery.

Google for Assemblon, a Washington based company that has plans to produce hydrnol, an organic hydrogen carrier that can
easily be reformed on board an autmobile to produce a 99.9999%
pure stream of hydrogen gas.

Please note that by March 2 years from now there will be hydrnol
installations along Interstate 5 between California and Canada.