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Researchers Examine Emerging Market for Used Electric Vehicle Batteries
A new report from UCLA and UC Berkeley shows that used electric car batteries could help California achieve its renewable energy, greenhouse gas reduction and energy storage goals more efficiently — and could lower the cost of owning an electric car.
As California searches for cheap energy storage options, a new report by the Climate Change and Business Research Initiative at the UCLA and UC Berkeley law schools suggests that used electric vehicle batteries may be an ideal solution.
“Most batteries will retain much of their capacity and value after the use of the car,” said report author Ethan Elkind, associate director of the Climate Change and Business Program at UCLA and UC Berkeley law schools, which leads the initiative. “As a result, repurposing them can absorb excess renewable energy and dispatch it when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.”
According to the report, “Reuse and Repower: How to Save Money and Clean the Grid with Second-Life Electric Vehicle Batteries,” used electric car batteries could help California achieve its renewable energy, greenhouse gas reduction and energy storage goals more efficiently — and could lower the cost of owning an electric car.
“Electric cars and their batteries can benefit the electric grid in several ways,” said Steven Weissman, director of Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, and co-author of the report. “First, vehicle owners can be encouraged to charge at night to help smooth out the demand for power. Second, in-car batteries can provide active storage capacity that offers a modest amount of power back to the grid when needed. Finally, a large number of used batteries can be aggregated to become a storage bank managed by the grid operators. Each of these practices would help reduce the cost of buying an electric car.”
Although California is experiencing a surge in generating renewable energy from the sun and wind, the state will face long-term economic and environmental challenges if it relies on these intermittent resources without deploying more energy storage, the authors write.
During times of low demand, large-scale energy storage technologies can capture surplus renewable energy for later use, according to the report. Second-life batteries could provide businesses and homes with backup power while lowering electricity costs for owners.
“Utilities can stack reused batteries to store excess power during times of heavy demand, which would provide substantial savings and reduce the need for costly fossil fuel-burning power plants,” said Elkind, who also is associate director of the Climate Change and Business Research Initiative. “Large business entities such as a hospital or university can use the batteries as bulk energy storage when the power goes out and the grid is prone to fail, or to offset high-expense energy stretches.
“Property owners can use repackaged individual batteries for backup power or to go off the grid entirely,” he added.
California accounts for more than 40 percent of electric vehicle sales in the United States, and roughly half of the battery packs can be repurposed with 75 percent of their original capacity, according to the report.
The report’s authors also make several policy recommendations that would help establish a new market for used electric batteries.
They urge state leaders to aggressively support and partner with automakers, utilities and other private-sector entities to continue to develop more second-life battery demonstration projects in order to document the market potential for investors and the companies involved.
The report is the 13th in a series of policy papers by the Climate Change and Business Research Initiative, a partnership between UCLA School of Law’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and UC Berkeley School of Law’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment. Funded by Bank of America, the series focuses on how climate change will create opportunities for specific sectors of the business community and how policymakers can facilitate those opportunities.
Source: Lauri Gavel, UCLA Newsroom
Image: UCLA Newsroom
Source: http://scitechdaily.com/researchers-examine-emerging-market-used-electric-vehicle-batteries/
/ About us
Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.