Free Republic

SNIPPET: "BANGKOK – SNIPPET: "Police said a charred body recovered from the badly damaged building in Nonthaburi province, just north of Bangkok, probably is Samai Wongsuwan..." SNIPPET: ""There is a high probability that this is a bomb-making accident," said Nonthaburi police chief Maj. Gen. Supakit Srichantranon. He said police found bomb-making materials in the apartment, including fertilizer contained in fire extinguishers, electrical circuit boards and high-voltage batteries. Supakit said Samai was a suspect in the blast and in a bombing in the northern city of Chiang Mai. National police chief Gen. Wichean Potephosree told reporters the materials found at the...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama celebrated the opening of an advanced battery plant in Michigan on Monday as a critical boost for hybrid and electric cars — and a success for his administration's economic stimulus program. But even as mass-produced advanced batteries start rolling off assembly lines, costs are high for consumers, and hurdles remain. "This is about the birth of an entire new industry in America, an industry that's going to be central to the next generation of cars," Obama said Monday in a phone call broadcast at the opening of A123 Systems Inc.'s lithium ion battery plant in...

If optimized, this new technology could fully charge consumer electronic devices almost instantaneously.Drawing on the layered design of tear-inducing onions, scientists have created a new super capacitor that is powerful enough -- and cheap enough -- to replace the larger, heavier capacitors used in consumer electronics such as computers and cells phones. If commercialized, the new super capacitor could be fully charged in a second and, coupled to a normal battery, provide enough energy to power a cell phone for weeks or a laptop battery for days. "If you open any computer, you will see a lot of these...

After driving the new Scion tC in San Diego all day, I got back on the Amtrak Surfliner at 3 p.m. and headed north to Los Angeles, the laptop plugged in to a convenient 120-volt, three-pronged outlet and me typing the whole way. Again, I could look out the window and see, in addition to a one- to two-foot west swell at Trestles, traffic slowly crawling along on Interstate 5. I was glad not to be in a car. Is there anyone who loves driving in stop and go traffic for 128 miles? (One guy said that because I took...

Over the last two years I've patiently analyzed the evolving price and performance forecasts of electric vehicle advocates and lithium-ion battery developers. In the process I've shown them to be possible, but unlikely, and interdependent to the point where a single flawed assumption can level the entire house of cards. I've also puzzled over the broader question of why supposedly reasonable businessmen would encourage market expectations that are so aggressive that the probability of delays, cost overruns, performance shortfalls and other predictable failures approaches certainty. Everyone knows that the stock market reacts badly to disappointment, so I've never been able...

Heads up Michigan Freepers. Why President Obama is betting big on battery plants in Michigan, Updated: Wednesday, July 14, 2010, 11:57 AM Rick Haglund . HOLLAND -- Michigan might seem to be the last place a beleaguered president looking for a positive economic bounce would visit. After all, the state is known for having the worst-performing economy in the U.S. during the past decade. And although Michigan no longer is tagged with the highest unemployment rate in the nation -- Nevada now holds that distinction -- joblessness here still stands at an unacceptable 13.6 percent. But President Barack Obama will...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- U.S. authorities have charged a man with attempting to board a flight from Puerto Rico with weapons including a stun gun, a switchblade knife and four box cutters. ~ snip ~ Pol was scheduled to take a JetBlue flight to Boston when he was arrested on Monday. In addition to the knives agents found pepper spray and a flight simulator program in his luggage.

Note: Video and photos included at link. Photos reveal inside look at East Austin tunnel home by NOELLE NEWTON / KVUE News Posted on May 18, 2010 at 5:34 PM Updated today at 6:14 PM SNIPPET: "The City of Austin Tuesday released photos of the web of tunnels a man dug underneath his East Austin home. Under the yellow home are three stories of tunnels. For at least two years, neighbors suspected owner Jose Del Rio was up to something strange, but had no idea just how busy he'd been." SNIPPET: "On Tuesday, the city released pictures from below taken...

Pakistani officers arrested a man at Karachi airport after batteries and an electrical circuit were found in his shoes as he tried to board a plane for the Middle East, an official said. The 30-year-old civil engineer allegedly told interrogators he came from Pakistan's northwestern province Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where Taliban and Islamist militants have a presence, and had been scheduled to travel to Muscat by Thai Airways. Mohammad Munir, Airport Security Force spokesman, said the bearded man, whom he named as Faiz Mohammad, was arrested when a scanner sounded an alarm. The suspect was not found in possession of explosives,...

[...] PT Barnum would have been proud. While hype-masters loudly proclaim that plug in cars will save the planet by slashing oil consumption and CO2 emissions, the numbers tell a different story; that plug-ins are all sizzle and no steak. The result is the industrial equivalent of a snipe hunt, a wild goose chase based on flawed assumptions. Let me explain how I reached this conclusion. On December 31, 2009 Forbes published an opinion piece titled System Overload that questioned whether the battery industry was overbuilding global manufacturing capacity. The third paragraph noted: “By 2015 the new factories will have...

The Ministry of Railways gave the go-ahead on March 13 for a high-speed magnetic levitation railway project, or maglev for short, which would traverse a distance of nearly 200 kilometers between Shanghai and Hangzhou, including a branch line already in existence in Shanghai. Detailed research on the project is underway, said Zheng Jian, chief designer of the Ministry of Railways. As of now, this is the only maglev railway line in China's medium and long-term railway development plan. "As the extension of the maglev line connecting Pudong Airport with Shanghai's downtown area, the Shanghai-Hangzhou maglev line will promote the integration...

Cellular phone giant Nokia has filed for a patent for a self-regenerating phone battery, or in their own words, a “piezoelectric kinetic energy harvester”. The patent essentially involves a battery that’s “contained within a first frame that is coupled to a second frame by one or more piezoelectric elements.” Similar to the concept of kinetic powered watches, which use motion to charge their batteries, Nokia’s technology proposes generating energy by kinetic movement. Nokia plans to use this energy “to at least partially recharge the device battery”.

[...] In other words it is very likely that the $68 million in ARRA battery manufacturing grants that went to lead-carbon battery manufacturers will generate greater gasoline savings and C02 emission reductions than the $1.2 billion in ARRA grants that went to lithium-ion battery companies. This is not a question of faith. The numbers cannot lie and the magnitude of the differences is too big to ignore. If you really want to make a difference, you take the baby steps and harvest the low-hanging fruit first. Nobody with a spreadsheet and a rudimentary understanding of mathematics can honestly argue that...

Researchers have demonstrated a penny-sized "nuclear battery" that produces energy from the decay of radioisotopes.As radioactive substances decay, they release charged particles that when properly harvested can create an electrical current. Nuclear batteries have been in use for military and aerospace applications, but are typically far larger. The University of Missouri team says that the batteries hold a million times as much charge as standard batteries.

Algae, paper and salt-water are the key components of thin and flexible new batteries, report Swedish researchers. Cellulose obtained from the bright green Cladophora algae proved to be key to the project, as it boasts a unique nanostructure with a high surface area. Although the batteries have lower voltage and power density than conventional batteries, their low cost and flexibility hold great promise for applications where metal-based batteries are impractical. The research is the product of a collaboration between two teams at Uppsala University in Sweden: Maria Strømme's group, who identified the potential of the algal cellulose, and Leif Nyholm's group, who...

Enlarge ImageHybrid power. Carbon nanofibers (left) are coated with silicon (right) using a process known as chemical vapor deposition, making for light electrodes that store more energy. Credit: Li-Feng Cul et al., Nano Letters (2009) With $27 billion a year in sales, lithium-ion batteries already dominate the market for rechargeables. But there's always pressure to do better. Now researchers report that they've come up with a way to use nanotechnology to either significantly increase the energy storage capacity of lithium-ion batteries or reduce their weight while maintaining their current energy content. The new work could lead to everything from...

Conservation: The Chevy Volt is said to be able to get 230 miles per gallon. That's if it's continually plugged into a fragile and overburdened power grid. Where will you be when the lights go out? Since most U.S. electricity generation is not carbon-free, the Congressional Research Service agrees. The "widespread adoption of plug-in hybrid vehicles through 2030 may have only a small effect on, and might actually increase, carbon emissions," it observes. "If you are using coal-fired power plants and half the country's electricity comes from coal powered plants, are you just trading one greenhouse gas emitter for another?"...

The push for conversion to plug-in electric cars will do nothing to stop carbon emissions, a report by the GAO warns, throwing cold water on a push by Democrats to get more plug-ins on the road. In fact, the problem could be made worse as demand goes up at coal-fired electrical plants. Plus, the need for batteries may just have the US changing the dictators to which we’re chained, as IBD reports...

Alternative Energy: A government report says reliance on electric cars will do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and may merely shift our dependence on foreign sources from one set of dictators to another..."If you are using coal-fired power plants, and half the country's electricity comes from coal-powered plants, are you just trading one greenhouse gas emitter for another?" asks Mark Gaffigan, co-author of the GAO report. The report itself notes: "Reductions in CO2 emissions depend on generating electricity used to charge the vehicles from lower-emission sources of energy."

UYUNI, Bolivia: In the rush to build the next generation of hybrid or electric cars, a sobering fact confronts both automakers and governments seeking to lower their reliance on foreign oil: almost half of the world's lithium, the mineral needed to power the vehicles, is found here in Bolivia - a country that may not be willing to surrender it so easily. Japanese and European companies are busily trying to strike deals to tap the resource, but a nationalist sentiment is building quickly in the government of President Evo Morales, an ardent critic of the United States who has already...