Why is battery technology so behind the times?

[trog100]

That's true of Lithium batteries as well.

This!


That is an aspect we should care less about.

We don't need new elements. We need creative thinking to formulate better chemistries from the existing lot.


While that is correct, the problem is volume. In small amounts, yes LiFePo is safer by far. But in large battery packs like the type that go into vehicles, cascade and runaway effects apply dramatically. The danger is reduced, sure, but not by nearly enough.

The solution is NOT Lithium based.

so far lithium is doing me okay.. but then again i aint daft enough to own an electric car.. for anything more than short local trips i think they are a waste of space.. more so when governments start charging a mileage tax in an attempt to get the lost gas tax back.. i do own a couple of electric bikes though..

trog

 

[Athlonite]

Give me an EV that uses Molten Metal Batteries

 

[lexluthermiester]

As long as those batteries have to move, I don't see how weight can be ignored.

We're not talking about lead-acid kinds of weight. NiMH batteries are only 15% to 20% heavier depending on formulation and packaging. That's not a lot when considering weight in the context of a battery pack being compared to the rest of the mass of the vehicle in question.

There aren't any, so yeah...

That's not true, but that's a completely different topic altogether.

Maybe. Or maybe we need some outside-the-box thinking and another way to harness electricity. Both easier said than done

True. We need a breakthrough somewhere because the status-quo is not acceptable.

so far lithium is doing me okay.. but then again i aint daft enough to own an electric car..

And there we are. Small amounts of it are ok. Still risky as a phone or tablet battery catching fire can still burn a house down, but the risk is much smaller than packing several hundred kilograms of the stuff into a car...

i do own a couple of electric bikes though..

That's something I can get behind as well. Smaller battery packs and if they catch fire, it's a very easy task to get off of a bike. I actually want one. 29" wide wheel version.

 

[R-T-B]

That's not true, but that's a completely different topic altogether.

The rare earth lab world says hello.

 

[seth1911]

I think its the pricepoint.

On the CPU with Silicon its the same, there are new techniques but no one will use it. (Graphene, Gallium et all.)

In 2010 i read an article about the future CPU in the comming 10 years, it will use Graphene and Gallium et all, now 12 years later nothing happens still Silicon but now with 5 GHz stock boost Clocks.
If we compare one core of a I7 860 on the same clock with a I7 12700 core, we get maybe about 93% performance gain in 13 years.

 

[lexluthermiester]

The rare earth lab world says hello.

What I meant was that the periodic table is far from complete.

 

[trog100]

i aint gonna knock lithium batteries.. they have pretty much change the world as we know it.. the power they can produce is remarkable..

i have a small-ish jump start pack.. it can easily fit in one hand or a large pocket.. it has the power to jump start a large diesel engine.. i would not have believed it if there wasnt youtube videos showing them in action..

there is one video of a guy who owns a large shovel truck.. its lead acid batteries died years ago.. he used this pissy little lithium jump start device to start the bloody thing.. remarkable..

trog

 

[bug]

What I meant was that the periodic table is far from complete.

Oh, it's absolutely complete. Everything after actinides is only made in the lab and unstable. There can't be anything stable with a nucleus that big, weak interaction says.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Oh, it's absolutely complete. Everything after actinides is only made in the lab and unstable.

That statement is deeply flawed as it contradicts itself. It is also incorrect. All of the elements we have made occur in nature under extreme situations. Our star system does not facilitate conditions for those elements to occur naturally and as such we can only create & study them through artificial means.

There can't be anything stable with a nucleus that big, weak interaction says.

Rubbish. We just haven't progressed far enough to have discovered both the isotopes of heavy elements that can and will be stable and discovered how to make them. Remember, atomic/nuclear science is still very young. We have A LOT left to learn!

 

[bug]

That statement is deeply flawed as it contradicts itself.

Rubbish. We just haven't progressed far enough to have discovered both the isotopes of heavy elements that can and will be stable and discovered how to make them. Remember, atomic/nuclear science is still very young. We have A LOT left to learn!

There is nothing to learn here though. Protons are positively charged, the force holding them together is only ~100x stronger than the electric force pushing them apart. When the nucleus has 250 particles or more, protons start to be far enough from each other the weak interaction won't hold them together anymore (it has a short range). That's why fission happens naturally. That's why you can't put more protons together than the nature already has.

 

[lexluthermiester]

There is nothing to learn here though. Protons are positively charged, the force holding them together is only ~100x stronger than the electric force pushing them apart. When the nucleus has 250 particles or more, protons start to be far enough from each other the weak interaction won't hold them together anymore (it has a short range). That's why fission happens naturally. That's why you can't put more protons together than the nature already has.

While I could address these points and explain why they are both correct and incorrect, this is not the place for that discussion and I'm not spending that kind of time here. I'm just going to end off by saying there is more involved that you seem aware of.

 

[bug]

While I could address these points and explain why they are both correct and incorrect, this is not the place for that discussion and I'm not spending that kind of time here. I'm just going to end off by saying there is more involved that you seem aware of.

Maybe send me a PM if you find the time? I'm always looking to learn more about these things (full disclosure: I am not an expert in nuclear physics ).

 

[lexluthermiester]

Maybe send me a PM if you find the time? I'm always looking to learn more about these things (full disclosure: I am not an expert in nuclear physics ).

I of course meant no offense to you. To explain why stable super heavy element isotopes are possible in certain conditions would take days of typing and even then I would only scratch the surface and not enough to help you fully understand. I will grant you that WE, here on Earth, might never discover a way to create them, but such is a far cry from saying they are impossible to discover.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

I of course meant no offense to you. To explain why stable super heavy element isotopes are possible in certain conditions would take days of typing and even then I would only scratch the surface and not enough to help you fully understand. I will grant you that WE, here on Earth, might never discover a way to create them, but such is a far cry from saying they are impossible to discover.

I was explaining to my GF the other day that the silver her chain is made from is only made when a star explodes.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I was explaining to my GF the other day that the silver her chain is made from is only made when a star explodes.

True.

 

[bug]

I of course meant no offense to you.

None taken.

To explain why stable super heavy element isotopes are possible in certain conditions would take days of typing and even then I would only scratch the surface and not enough to help you fully understand. I will grant you that WE, here on Earth, might never discover a way to create them, but such is a far cry from saying they are impossible to discover.

I'm still not sure that would qualify as a new element any more than the rest of the synthetic elements do. And I certainly wouldn't hold my breath for that to fix my phone battery problem

 

[Mescalamba]

IMHO, space could be good source of energy and experimenting with materials that don't work on Earth. Low to no gravity, extreme heat and cold. And ofc vacuum.

Question is, how to get it back to Earth.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

IMHO, space could be good source of energy and experimenting with materials that don't work on Earth. Low to no gravity, extreme heat and cold. And ofc vacuum.

Question is, how to get it back to Earth.

Laser? convert the heat back into electricity, also cooling the high powered laser would be no problem.

 

[Mescalamba]

Laser? convert the heat back into electricity, also cooling the high powered laser would be no problem.

Hm, wonder if that could work. Problem would be probably possibility of weaponization. Golden Eye stuff.

 

[bug]

Hm, wonder if that could work. Problem would be probably possibility of weaponization. Golden Eye stuff.

It's not that easy to weaponize laser. It requires maintaining the beam on the target for (tens of) seconds, which is not so easy when targeting moving stuff.
That said, I have read about a project back in 2000s about capturing sunlight in orbit, converting it (UV? can't remember exactly) and sending it down to Earth. The aim back then was to light up a bulb. I haven't heard anything about that since.

 

[lexluthermiester]

It's not that easy to weaponize laser.

That depends on the kind of harm you want to inflict and the type of laser you use to do it.

 

[bug]

That depends on the kind of harm you want to inflict and the type of laser you use to do it.

The problem I see is that you can't gather too much power in orbit. The best you can do is accumulate energy somehow and then release it. That would be a pulse laser, which I think is pretty effective. The alternative would be a rather anemic, continuous beam. You could use that to set a building (fuel depot?) on fire.
So yes, possible, but rather inefficient. Or maybe my imagination isn't vivid enough.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Can you not "fire" plasma?

 

[lexluthermiester]

The problem I see is that you can't gather too much power in orbit.

Wait, what? Orbit? What did I miss? Nevermind, we're off-topic here. Let's rope it in folks...

 

[bug]

Can you not "fire" plasma?

Through the atmosphere? Probably not.
I mean, you can, but it would cool off long before it would reach its target.