Well, again, batteries have issues vs. combustion engines. They don't deliver high torque as well, they don't function as well at temperature extremes, they require downtime for recharging, they're less impact-survivable, they have a lower energy/mass ratio, and they wear out faster than a combustion engine.kttopdad wrote:In order for biofuels to compete with petro fuels for the dwindling non-electrified transportation sector needs in a BFR-enabled world.
Even with electricity at 1/10th today's prices and gas at twice today's prices, I think most people will still prefer to at least have a combustion engine available in the car.
That means there will be a large market for liquid fuel. One advantage of Polywell is it could be used to produce cheap liquid fuel via gasification or similar tech, as Bussard proposed.
As with fusion, there's still a question of fundamental limits, and no one really knows for sure what they are. Some problems with batteries may simply be unsolvable; there may not be a chemical combination that can deliver a real competitor to the combustion engine.However, I suspect that plentiful, cheap electricity provided by BFRs will spur investment in battery growth like we've never seen before.
Hehe. I'll bet it's still 90% liquid fuel.I dunno, TallDave. Let's get together in a decade and see who guessed this one correctly.