Parts of a car’s bodywork could one day double up as its battery, according to the scientists behind a new €3.4 million ($4,633,520 as per Feb 6, 2010) project announced on February 5, 2010.

Researchers from Imperial College London and their European partners, including Volvo Car Corporation, are developing a prototype material that can store and supply electricity. The material is also strong and lightweight enough to be used for car parts.

The researchers say that the composite material that they are developing is made of carbon fibers and a polymer resin. The material will be able to store and supply large amounts of energy much more quickly than conventional batteries. The material does not use chemical processes, making it quicker to recharge than conventional batteries. Furthermore, this recharging process causes little degradation in the composite material, because it does not involve a chemical reaction, whereas conventional batteries degrade over time.

Because the material could make vehicles lighter, more compact and more energy efficient, it could ultimately enable drivers to travel for longer distances before needing a recharge.

In addition, the researchers believe the material could potentially be used for the casings of many everyday objects such as mobile phones and computers, so that they would not need a separate battery. This would make such devices smaller, more lightweight and more portable.

The project co-ordinator, Dr Emile Greenhalgh, from the Department of Aeronautics at Imperial College London, says: “We are really excited about the potential of this new technology. We think the car of the future could be drawing power from its roof, its bonnet or even the door, thanks to our new composite material. Even the Sat Nav could be powered by its own casing. The future applications for this material don’t stop there – you might have a mobile phone that is as thin as a credit card because it no longer needs a bulky battery, or a laptop that can draw energy from its casing so it can run for a longer time without recharging. We’re at the first stage of this project and there is a long way to go, but we think our composite material shows real promise.”

In the new project, the scientists are planning to develop the composite material so that it can be used to replace the metal flooring in the car boot, called the wheel well, which holds the spare wheel. Volvo is investigating the possibility of fitting this wheel well component into prototype cars for testing purposes.

The team says replacing a metal wheel well with a composite one could enable Volvo to reduce the number of batteries needed to power the electric motor. They believe this could lead to a 15% reduction in the car’s overall weight, which should significantly improve the range of future cars.

The material could be charged by plugging a car into household power supply. The researchers are also exploring regenerative charging when a car slows down. For the first stage of the project, the scientists are planning to further develop their composite material so that it can store more energy. The team will improve the material’s mechanical properties by growing carbon nanotubes on the surface of the carbon fibres, which should also increase the surface area of the material, which would improve its capacity to store more energy. They are also planning to investigate the most effective method for manufacturing the composite material at an industrial level.

Founded in 1907 - Imperial's work has included the discovery of penicillin, the development of holography and the foundations of fibre optics. Current focuses include tackling climate change and developing clean and sustainable sources of energy.

As I've been documenting, there are many climate denialist tactics employed to intentionally mischaracterize, misrepresent, and outright lie about the state of climate science.  One tactic is to throw all of these things in at once, or to hop from one to another, so that a refutation cannot be made on a timely basis.  It also can be called "lying ahead of the truth" (that is, keep lying faster than the truth can prove you wrong).

For example, many comments on Gather from climate denialists are a laundry list of talking points that go something like this (though the individual false points may change the key is the "everything plus the kitchen sink" strategy): [comments in italics are denialists, comments in [brackets] are the simple scientific rebuttal, along with links to supporting articles and videos]

The planet is cooling. [No, the planet is warming]

32,000 of the world's climate experts say it is a hoax [No, the survey is fake]

There is no consensus. [Yes, there is]

CRU emails prove there is a conspiracy [No, they don't (not even close)]

Phil Jones tried to "hide the decline" in temperature [No, he didn't]

Greenland used to be lush forest and farmland [No, it wasn't; and Erik wasn't red]

Many independent scientists disagree [No, they aren't independent; most aren't even scientists]

Now remember, all of these are often lumped together in one paragraph in which "everything and the kitchen sink" is tossed at you, and none of it is supported by any factual information.  Usually there is no information, just the laundry list of talking points.  All of which have been thoroughly debunked many times in the past, so there is no excuse for not knowing that these are false.

So why do denialists do this?  Well, there are three main reasons.

1) With this rapid firing of talking points it makes it look like there are many arguments favoring denialists and that scientists can't quickly respond to prove they are wrong.  This takes advantage of the trait of denialists saying things forcefully and definitively, even when they are absolutely false, and the scientist need to explain in much longer detail to make sure it is understood accurately.  Alas, the bumper sticker approach is easier for the public to understand.

2) The rapid firing also means that they have hopped to the next thing and therefore don't have to actually provide support for the first thing, or for that matter, for anything.  Which they know they can't because every single one of these things has already been thoroughly rebutted, so the denialists know they are false.

3) By moving ahead before the scientist can provide the rebuttal (yet again), the denialist can circle back around and claim that no one had rebutted his earlier charge.  Of course this is an absolute lie, as all of the claims have been rebutted in print and online now many times, as I've shown by linking just some of the rebuttals for each item above. [Needless to say, there are many more rebuttals in great detail by actual climate scientists.]

Ah, but there is one more item to throw at us all, we'll call it "the kitchen sink."

The IPCC is Just Politics - Not Science [No, it is the compendium of ALL of the science]

Yep, declare that somehow the international panel put together to evaluate more than 40 years of research, tens of thousands of peer-review papers, the work of thousands of scientists (including any real skeptic research) from every type of scientific organization around the world, is somehow part of a massive multigenerational, multinational, multi-ideological, plot to foist policy options on us all. [While somehow the non-science free market lobbying groups are altruistically interested only in the science?]

And if that fails, then just declare that it's just a plot by the United Nations to take over the world and destroy our self-government!! [Cue the diabolical laughter]

Now why would they be so transparently deceitful and paranoid?

Because it works.

Guess what?  Despite the fact that everything they have offered is absolutely false, they now have steered the comments into the asinine (and more than a little paranoid) idea that the UN has some world domination plot.  Somehow the fact that all of the "crap plus the kitchen sink" was absolutely false gets lost in the weeds.  The public is thoroughly confused.  The denialist politicians simply repeat the many times debunked garbage as if it is some new revelation.  The rest of the politicians sense that their constituents don't know what is going on and thus have cover for not taking any action.  And the denialists, that is, the non-science free market lobbying groups and their stable of front groups and hired non-science propagandists, accomplish their goal - delay, delay, delay.

This is the game the denialists play.  They know they can't defend anything they say, but the also know that if they say it often enough their like minded ideologues will believe it and ignore the fact that it was already debunked soundly and repeatedly.  Their goal is to take advantage of the old axiom "a lie goes half way around the world while the truth is still tying its shoes."  So they willfully and intentionally deceive the public.  Why "willfully and intentionally?"  Because every single one of their talking points has already been proven false, and there is no excuse for repeating them after they have been demonstrated to be lies.  And yet they do.

Why would denialists keep repeating known lies? Because they know the ideologues and the paranoiacs out there will not bother to check it.  And they know when someone debunks it yet again the commenter will simply spout something like "the IPCC/UN has a plot to force cap-and-trade on us all....and yeah...take over the United States and the world....yeah....and marry Morgan Fairchild...."  [old joke]

Just one more of the deceitful practices of the denialist industry.

The planet has NOT warmed for a decade now...that is the reality!

Yes, folks, that is the denialist talking point.  You hear it over and over again.

And it is absolutely and unequivocally FALSE!!

Not one shred of truth in it. 

The truth is that the climate has been warming for many decades.  Here is a graph showing reliable measurements of temperature from 1880 to today.

See it larger here.

Now, anyone NOT see the temperature warming?  In fact, the current decade has been the warmest in history, 9 of the last 11 years have been the warmest years on record, 2009 was the fifth warmest ever, and 2010 (because of the switch back from La Nina to El Nino) will likely be the hottest ever.

So how do denialists get away with repeating this lie over and over?  Two reasons.

1) They count on people not checking their lies against the facts. [If you say it with enough certainty and repeat it a thousand times, people tend to think it is true, even when it is absolutely false.]

2) They cherry pick (a form of lying).  In two ways.  The first is to get you to ignore 90% of the data (all those lines that show a steady increase) and just focus on the last decade.  The second is to cherry pick the start date of 1998 (an unusually warm year due to a record El Nino event) and then draw a line from that to 2008 (an unusually cold year due to a record La Nina event).

This is all explained quite well in this video.

Here is another video that explains it even more.  Note the well known "climate skeptic" Pat Michaels giving a presentation at the Heartland Institute's (a free market lobbying group) 2008 climate denialist conference.  This is a guy who the denialists tout as an expert, and yet here he is telling them all to STOP CLAIMING THAT THE PLANET HAS STOPPED WARMING!!  He says that it totally discredits the denialist for them to continue to insist something that is easily and totally refuted by the facts.

So the key is to check the facts on everything coming from climate denialists.  EVERYTHING.  As I have been showing, virtually nothing they say is true.  Virtually nothing.  Time after time they have been shown to have intentionally misrepresented the data and even what people say.

You have to ask yourself how much faith you can put in people, most of whom are not even scientists and not doing climate research, who intentionally and constantly attempt to deceive the public.