To Wrap Around That New Battery Technology, Cheaper Lighter Cars From Carbon Fiber

November 27th, 2009 by Susan Kraemer

Tennessee’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory is getting $34.7 million to find ways to make cars lighter by improving carbon fiber manufacturing and processing. Though used in race cars and high-performance “supercars,” current carbon fiber composites cost too much for mass market vehicles.

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Lightweight, strong carbon fiber will raise fuel efficiency, whether that fuel of the future is the natural biogas that you’ll surely one day tap from the compost in your backyard; or biodiesel (made from drought-resistant weeds of course), or the electrons off your shiny new solar roof.

The new Carbon Fiber Technology Center will try new feedstocks and new ways to create them, with the idea of reducing the cost of carbon fiber to under $5 a pound. Currently it is between $10 and $20 per pound.

We must develop a cheap way to make carbon fiber to reduce the weight of vehicles. The Department of Energy even considers the development and improvement of energy efficiency technologies a strategic national interest.

Technologies like cheap carbon fiber will help transform the economy and create jobs, while decreasing carbon emissions. The timing is great. Nanotech holds promise in the field of nano-carbon fiber development making it ever stronger and lighter than steel.

For example a nano-Graphene is already being produced by the ton for researchers to work with. Materials like this would surely be one of the nanotech advances to be tested at Oak Ridge.

And what better to wrap around the great advances in the new battery technologies that will surely come from the historic levels of R&D investment seen from this administration into battery development for electric vehicles.

Image: TailspinT

Source: EERE

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Tags: $34.7 million, ARRA, Carbon Fiber Technology Center, DOE funding, green FDR, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Obama administration funding, Recovery Act, Renewable Energy Investment, Tennessee

About the Author

Susan Kraemer writes at CleanTechnica, CSP-Today, PV-Insider , SmartGridUpdate, and GreenProphet. She has also been published at Ecoseed, NRDC OnEarth, MatterNetwork, Celsius, EnergyNow, and Scientific American. As a former serial entrepreneur in product design, Susan brings an innovator's perspective on inventing a carbon-constrained civilization: If necessity is the mother of invention, solving climate change is the mother of all necessities! As a lover of history and sci-fi, she enjoys chronicling the strange future we are creating in these interesting times. Follow Susan on Twitter @dotcommodity.

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Graphene and CNTs (of which products are beginnning to be fabricated — see nanocomp tech) hold almost unimaginable promise, wow yes they hold a very dear place but for the mainstream, it could be a while to see this used for production.
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Graphene and CNTs (of which products are beginnning to be fabricated — see nanocomp tech) hold almost unimaginable promise, wow yes they hold a very dear place but for the mainstream, it could be a while to see this used for production.
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Graphene and CNTs (of which products are beginnning to be fabricated — see nanocomp tech) hold almost unimaginable promise, wow yes they hold a very dear place but for the mainstream, it could be a while to see this used for production.
Chris Johnson

Good article, Susan.

The more one investigates graphene the more optimistic one becomes. Graphene and CNTs (of which products are beginnning to be fabricated — see nanocomp tech) hold almost unimaginable promise. Indeed, for those old enough to hare enjoyed (and can still remember) Arthur C. Clarke’s visions of the future, these ‘high carbon’ technologies are the critical prerequisites.

Most of the research focus to date has been on electronic properties, especially for IT applications. And that is probably appropriate, given the resources available and financial stakes associated with replacing silicon. Yet the emphasis of applications will likely change, and more than once, as new products emerge to serve more markets.

For example: your article addresses automobiles, which could be several times as strong and safe, yet weight less than half of current vehicles. Those same qualities apply to aircraft, ships, trains, etc., and, yes, spacecraft.

And then there are the broad, less spectacular applications, such as windows that double both as lights (with graphene luminescence) and power generators (with graphene solar PV receptors), etc. ad infinitum.

It’s going to be interesting.

Cheers, Chris
Chris Johnson

Good article, Susan.

The more one investigates graphene the more optimistic one becomes. Graphene and CNTs (of which products are beginnning to be fabricated — see nanocomp tech) hold almost unimaginable promise. Indeed, for those old enough to hare enjoyed (and can still remember) Arthur C. Clarke’s visions of the future, these ‘high carbon’ technologies are the critical prerequisites.

Most of the research focus to date has been on electronic properties, especially for IT applications. And that is probably appropriate, given the resources available and financial stakes associated with replacing silicon. Yet the emphasis of applications will likely change, and more than once, as new products emerge to serve more markets.

For example: your article addresses automobiles, which could be several times as strong and safe, yet weight less than half of current vehicles. Those same qualities apply to aircraft, ships, trains, etc., and, yes, spacecraft.

And then there are the broad, less spectacular applications, such as windows that double both as lights (with graphene luminescence) and power generators (with graphene solar PV receptors), etc. ad infinitum.

It’s going to be interesting.

Cheers, Chris
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