I agree, progress in this field can't be incremental. The main issue with
electrochemical batteries (lithium or whatever they might come up with in
the future) is cost in the long run due to limited life (in number of
recharges). A dry parallel plate type capacitor such as the EEstor device if
it really works would last for ages (millions of recharges vs hundreds).
We shouldn't get too excited though, people have been known to make
extraordinary claims only intended for investors, I am not saying this is
the case for EEstor and I certainly hope it isn't :)
Michel
----- Original Message -----
From: "Zell, Chris" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 3:34 PM
Subject: RE: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
I have feared that, perhaps, we have encountered fundamental problems
with trying to squeeze more energy density and low cost efficiency out
of an
electrochemical process such as batteries depend on. Where can we go
beyond lithium?
That's why the ultracap approach is so exciting - it's a whole new way
to fix the energy storage problem.
-----Original Message-----
From: Jed Rothwell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 6:07 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Simple comparison electric car versus gasoline
Zell, Chris wrote:
This lack of additional generating capacity need is partly why a Really
Good Battery would have such a dramatic effect on society. You create
electric cars that run much cheaper per mile without much need for
additional fossil fuel generator use. Indeed, I think that such a
device would encourage an explosion of alternative development that
would quickly challenge utilities fossil fuel use.
Don't forget, Chris: it works the other way too. Sometimes superior
technology creates the opportunity, and sometimes opportunity gives rise
to superior technology. This is what is happening now with batteries. We
do not have Really Good Batteries but we do have Considerably Improved
Batteries, such as the latest generation that are going into hybrid cars
and the upcoming plug-in hybrid cars.
Hundreds of thousands of hybrid cars have been manufactured and this has
created a large market for improved batteries, and a flood of R&D
funding. This, in turn, may eventually give rise to radically improved
versions and the Holy Grail you speak of: the Really Good Battery.
Batteries also improved over the last 20 years thanks to the demand for
cell phones and portable computers.
Persistent demand and a flood of R&D funding will not produce a radical
breakthrough such as cold fusion. That sort of thing only comes along
once every century or so, and it is the product of genius with no
connection to the quotidian world of money and business.
(Believe me, CF researchers live in a mental space light years away from
what usually passes for reality.) But R&D funding will produce
incremental improvements, and that may be enough to produce the Really
Good Battery. Incremental improvements brought us microprocessors with
100 million components and 20 GB hard disks that fit into your pocket.
Such things would have seemed utterly incredible 30 years ago -- to me,
anyway. Yet they did not require any fundamental or surprising
discoveries, just persistent slogging and one small improvement after
another.
- Jed
