(Stockbyte)
The more time you spend talking with smart people about the energy future, the more you hear about the holy grail: great batteries. To that end, a couple of recent developments in BatteryLand are encouraging news. The first battery of interest comes from MIT:
A radically new approach to the design of batteries, developed by researchers at MIT, could provide a lightweight and inexpensive alternative to existing batteries for electric vehicles and the power grid. The technology could even make “refueling” such batteries as quick and easy as pumping gas into a conventional car. The new battery relies on an innovative architecture called a semi-solid flow cell, in which solid particles are suspended in a carrier liquid and pumped through the system. In this design, the battery’s active components — the positive and negative electrodes, or cathodes and anodes — are composed of particles suspended in a liquid electrolyte. These two different suspensions are pumped through systems separated by a filter, such as a thin porous membrane.
The second, courtesy of GeekWire, is from Clarian Labs in Seattle:
Bill Gates and inventors connected to Nathan Myhrvold’s Intellectual Ventures made headlines two years ago with a patent application for an electromagnetic engine.
Now a Seattle-based company, Clarian Labs, says it has developed a compact, electromagnetic hybrid battery based on a rotary piston that can generate twice as much power as the one proposed by the former Microsoft executives. It runs on carbon-neutral fuels including hydrogen, and could power equipment including robots, electric vehicles and home generators.
Clarian says it has been developing the technology in stealth mode for the the past two years. Its own patent application was made public last week (PDF). The battery was originally developed as a power source for the Department of Defense Humanoid Robot Program.
I have no idea whether either of these batteries will be game-changers, but it is hard to imagine that with so many smart and motivated people working on the battery problem, we won’t make huge progress in the long run.
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I hope battery technology evolves in another way – diminished toxicity. It seems that electric cars are such the rage these days. But UNlike gas combustion cars, they are not as recycleable (?sp). And what becomes of all those lithium ion (& other) batteries, which don’t get re-used. WIll we need more Yucca Mountains to store these “spent” batteries.
One final note: do electrics car really help us. Most electricy is generated from coal burning electric plants today.
Wrong three times. Neither lithium-ion nor NiMH batteries are particularly toxic. They can easily be recycled: if there’s little actual recycling going on yet, it’s because most of the batteries are still working perfectly well, and will be for years yet.
For many of us (depending on where we live), a significant fraction of our grid power is non-fossil sourced. The fact that some fraction is coming from coal at present is something that can easily be changed: just build more nuclear/solar/wind/whatever, and all electric cars stop using coal-generated electricity, without having to do anything else. And of course it’s more efficient to use electricity, even from coal, than to use a gas or diesel engine.
If it still bothers you that some of your electricity comes from coal, you’re perfectly free to add solar panels to your roof, or put a wind turbine in your back yard, and eliminate your fossil fuel use entirely. Try that with an IC engine.
Great! On a related point, I’m always baffled by the endlessly expanding options for mobile phone technology. What I really want is a battery that lasts for ages! Get the simple things right.
Alta Devices has also made some kind of verified big efficiency breakthrough in solar cells as well: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20072541-54/alta-devices-lifts-curtain-on-high-efficiency-solar-cell/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
“Department of Defense Humanoid Robot Program”???
Phillip K Dick and I both think we should back off this one. Can we just create innovations for their intrinsic value rather than their application to War?
Nope, cause that’s where the money is. If there seems to be a viable defense application for a technology, it will get funded. The good news is that the general population can eventually benefit from the innovations as well.
Then they can be reasonably happy when the robots take over : )
I am not familiar with the Mazda motor , but the clarian “motor” does not have a shaft. It is not designed to convert chemical energy to mechanical per se. At least not to transfer mechanical energy. It is a lighweight, supposedly more efficient generator. Why all the hate or downplaying? If it gives you the same electrical energy as 300 poounds of batteries for say 100 pounds it seems like a good break through to me…especially since it is NOT a battery, it can be refueled quickly