I’m not sure the energy to weight ratio of 80,000 pounds of batteries to 80,000 pounds of fuel is.
Fuel is about 25 times more energy dense compared to batteries. Of course depending on the fuel and depending on the batteries. 25 times is most diesel fuels compared to most modern li-ion batteries. Large LiFePO4 would probably be used for transport, which do worse than high performance LiCoO2 batteries, so then you are talking about somewhere around 30 times worse.
Transporting batteries simply isn’t worth doing, it’s super inefficient.
Same with stuff like microwave transmission of power, you lose so much in the transfer, it’s a total non starter.
Oh yeah, it’s inefficient as hell. But energy from the sun is coming to us whether we harvest it or not. It’s unlimited. The limitation is solar cells.
We’re at the point where we’ve basically run out of easy oil to access, and we’re coming up with bigger and deeper drilling methods. We spend billions on a single offshore rig that will function for 10-20 years at most.
Fuel is about 25 times more energy dense compared to batteries. Of course depending on the fuel and depending on the batteries. 25 times is most diesel fuels compared to most modern li-ion batteries. Large LiFePO4 would probably be used for transport, which do worse than high performance LiCoO2 batteries, so then you are talking about somewhere around 30 times worse. Transporting batteries simply isn’t worth doing, it’s super inefficient.
Same with stuff like microwave transmission of power, you lose so much in the transfer, it’s a total non starter.
Oh yeah, it’s inefficient as hell. But energy from the sun is coming to us whether we harvest it or not. It’s unlimited. The limitation is solar cells.
We’re at the point where we’ve basically run out of easy oil to access, and we’re coming up with bigger and deeper drilling methods. We spend billions on a single offshore rig that will function for 10-20 years at most.
The issue isn’t efficiency, it’s profit motive.