23rd March 2011, 12:05 AM
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011...inutes.ars
Neat, and best of all, it's easily scalable so we could actually see these new batteries pretty soon.
On the small scale, this means that my mom's strange inability to keep any phone in her house charged won't be nearly as big a deal since any dead phones will be up and running quick enough to call someone back in good time.
On the large scale, this is one of the big problems with battery powered cars, but as the article notes dumping much larger amounts of current really fast into a car battery would probably take more than a standard wall outlet. I'd imagine a special outlet with it's own circuit in the garage designed to discharge massive amounts, similar to the special outlets for washers and dryers.
Now there's the issue of battery wear and tear to solve. No one's going to want to replace a battery as expensive as a car powering battery is likely to be very often. The last issue is the eternal one, capacity.
Neat, and best of all, it's easily scalable so we could actually see these new batteries pretty soon.
On the small scale, this means that my mom's strange inability to keep any phone in her house charged won't be nearly as big a deal since any dead phones will be up and running quick enough to call someone back in good time.
On the large scale, this is one of the big problems with battery powered cars, but as the article notes dumping much larger amounts of current really fast into a car battery would probably take more than a standard wall outlet. I'd imagine a special outlet with it's own circuit in the garage designed to discharge massive amounts, similar to the special outlets for washers and dryers.
Now there's the issue of battery wear and tear to solve. No one's going to want to replace a battery as expensive as a car powering battery is likely to be very often. The last issue is the eternal one, capacity.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)