New batteries charge 70 percent in 2 minutes (http://www.cnet.com/news/new-batteries-charge-70-percent-in-2-minutes/)

From CNET (http://www.cnet.com/news/new-batteries-charge-70-percent-in-2-minutes/): by Michael Franco
@writermfranco October 13, 2014 3:00 PM PDT

Using a titanium dioxide gel, researchers make a battery that could one day allow electric cars to fuel up as fast as their gas-guzzling cousins.

The freedom to hold computers in our hands, pop wireless headphones in our ears and pilot drones through our backyards is all brought to us by batteries -- especially rechargeable lithium ion batteries. The portable powerhouses are a critical component of our march toward tech mobility, yet most require hours of being plugged in to wall outlets to achieve a full charge.

A brand-new kind of battery to come out of the labs of scientists at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU) is set to change that. They've created a lithium ion battery that can get up to a 70 percent charge in just 2 minutes and can allegedly last up to 20 years.

The difference between their battery and the standard lithium ion type has to do with the substance used for the anode -- the negative terminal.

Current lithium ion batteries have graphite anodes. Instead of graphite, the team at NTU used a titanium dioxide gel they developed that dramatically speeds up the chemical reaction that takes place in the battery, meaning it can charge much faster.

To achieve this effect, they found a way of forming the titanium dioxide, which is normally spherical in shape, into tiny nanotubes -- small rods thousands of times smaller than a human hair. Unlike in typical lithium ion batteries, additives aren't needed to bind the electrodes to the anode, so reactions take place faster.

The researchers see the technology as especially valuable in improving the use of electric cars. "This next generation of lithium ion batteries will enable electric vehicles to charge 20 times faster than the current technology," said a Science Daily report about the research. "With it, electric vehicles will also be able to do away with frequent battery replacements. The new battery will be able to endure more than 10,000 charging cycles -- 20 times more than the current 500 cycles of today's batteries."

"With our nanotechnology, electric cars would be able to increase their range dramatically with just 5 minutes of charging, which is on par with the time needed to pump petrol for current cars," added the inventor of the titanium dioxide gel, NTU Singapore Associate Professor Chen Xiaodong.

The researchers, whose work was just published in the journal Advanced Materials, are now seeking a grant that will allow them to build a larger-scale prototype and figure out just how much power they can pack into their new ultra-fast-charging battery.

This may change everything we know about the practicality of electric cars. It'd likely make electric cars, buses, trucks, streetcars & trains more affordable than gasoline or diesel vehicles. I'm crossing my fingers & hope this tech becomes successful.

If this is successful, it could be the biggest thing to happen since the internal combustion engine itself. It also may be what we need to reign in global warming before its too late.

My question is if all automobiles were electric, what effect would that have on the power grid and how would we generate the electricity needed?

It probably wouldn't have as much effect as you think. Electric cars simply transfer the location where carbon is dumped into the atmosphere. They still require about the same amount of energy to go the same distance. In most parts of the U.S., someone exchanging their gas car for an electric car is effectively exchanging a gas-burner for a coal-burner. It just makes people FEEL like they are doing something green. Increased fuel efficiency is largely fool's gold too. Studies show when people get more fuel efficient vehicles it usually just emboldens them to add more miles to their regimen.

You want to make a real, lasting impact on greenhouse emissions? Find ways to get people physically closer to their jobs and daily errands, and ESPECIALLY if that location allows for them to substitute another mode of transportation; walking, cycling, public transit.

All of that said, this new technology could be good news for OKC, since Tronox still maintains a presence here. They are the largest producer of titanium dioxide in the world.

Storage is the silver bullet of green energy. Nothing works REALLY well without it.

Solar panels and wind farms are fantastic...But you really need to use it as it's generated or the infrastructure becomes problematic/expensive.

Storage can change that. Cheap electrical storage will change the world dramatically.

Changing the charging mode is nice, but the real "internal combustion engine" type change will be when the fundamental notion of power generation itself changes. Charging faster is nice, but it's still a battery. The real change that will pique my interest will be something in the vein of fuel cell technology, Replenish a fuel cell with a natural substance that occurs in abundant quantity and *that* is a change worth exploring. Whole-home fuel cell technology is available, but not yet practical as the expense and limited longevity of the units don't yet provide the necessary value. But the concept is revolutionary.

If this is successful, it could be the biggest thing to happen since the internal combustion engine itself. It also may be what we need to reign in global warming before its too late.Well, Urbanized pretty much covered this, but aside from the energy that is needed to charge the batteries, it takes quite a bit of energy to make them. This is really not doing much at all to combat carbon emissions.

I heard Elon Musk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk) (founder/cofounder/primary investor/CEO of Paypal, Tesla, and SpaceX) recently on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54Q14cRsMs0) explaining that it is much more carbon efficient and energy efficient to operate electric cars than to run gasoline powered cars even considering the power generation needed for the electricity. I am pretty sure it was in a presentation at Oxford (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54Q14cRsMs0). He has a habit of calculating everything in which he has an interest.

Here's a written article to refute what many of you are thinking: The ‘electric cars aren’t green’ myth debunked (http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/electric-cars-green)

I do agree that fuel cell vehicles probably will be more carbon efficient than any other form of vehicle power -- providing how carbon efficient is the method of producing hydrogen in the fuel cells.

That article actually CONFIRMS that electric cars do little to reduce the carbon footprint as long as the electricity used is coal-sourced. The problem is that in the U.S. there is an excellent chance that's where your power comes from. The way it "debunks" the myth is to assume your electricity comes from natural gas, in which case it "crushes" the internal combustion engine.

The problem with that is that it doesn't compare gas-generated electric (and the related higher carbon impact from manufacturing) with an internal combustion engine BURNING CNG, which also dramatically reduces emissions of the internal combustion engine. Fair is fair; it should be an apples-to-apples comparison.

And again, this doesn't discount the fact that studies show that people who gain fuel economy...usually in turn add mileage to their regimen.

Listen, I'm all for natural gas. I think it should be the go-to in cars RIGHT NOW. I also think it should be THE OVERWHELMING SOURCE for electricity generation everywhere where it is readily available, at least until wind and solar grow up to the point that they can be significant factors. And I also totally agree with the point that more advanced batteries will hopefully help speed wind and solar to the forefront.

But the fact still remains that reduced demand is far and away the surest method to reduce consumption, and the best ways to make this happen involve better planning, retrofitting of our communities to make it possible to get more done in a more compact footprint, to get a larger percentage of the population living in efficient urban areas, and to make real strides in transit.

All great points. Don't forget about residual load as well. Electric cars do not necessarily mean a broader need for more electrical generation (depending on when they are charged). IE: coal burning plants generate fairly indiscriminitely, as do most boiling water generation plants. So even in the existing grid, there can be plenty of surplus depending on the grid. That is where smart metering and smart outlets become very important.

Electric cars can inherently provide lower carbon solutions and are simply not transferred emissions to smoke stacks if the "smart network" is managing the timing of when cars are powered in people's garages.

Back on subject, this new technology sounds promising though. It more or less would resolve the fear of being stranded and waiting for hours for a recharge. It would also resolve fear about extended range concerns. Pretty exciting stuff.

I haven't seriously looked at an electric car due to the occasional need to drive out of state and the high cost of Tesla cars. However, I guess one day we will be there though.

I haven't seriously looked at an electric car due to the occasional need to drive out of state and the high cost of Tesla cars. However, I guess one day we will be there though.

I've seriously looked at them. They're not quite there yet. The Tesla is a badass (especially the new one coming soon, the AWD "D" one), but the charge times and price of entry send me right back to wanting a small diesel pickup (C'MON 2016 COLORADO!!!) for a daily.

If I had a commute of more than a few miles, and was willing to drive a sedan every day (better be a nice one lol), I'd be on the Volt like stink on a monkey. That's the best of compromise going right meow. That's one slick setup.

CNET (http://www.cnet.com/news/lockheed-figures-out-fusion-maybe/) today (Thurs. 10-16-14) posted another possible energy game changer that the scientific community has been searching for since the early 1950's which affects this thread:

Lockheed figures out fusion (maybe) (http://www.cnet.com/news/lockheed-figures-out-fusion-maybe/)

Lockheed Martin claims to have had a breakthrough in fusion technology, promising clean energy to power a small city, from something that could fit on the back of a truck. So that might be cool...

by Geoffrey Morrison, CNET
@TechWriterGeoff October 16, 2014 6:39 AM PDT

Lockheed Martin's Compact Fusion technology has the potential to revolutionize life as we know it. Maybe. If it works.

After years of development at the company's legendary Skunkworks facility, Lockheed is coming forward now to find partners in the public and private sector. The main breakthrough is having shrunk the size of the reactor into something about the size of a shipping container.

Here's the deal, and why it could be really cool.

Unlike nuclear fission (the splitting of atoms, like current nuclear reactors), fusion does as its name suggests, it fuses atoms together. This is what our sun does to create sunburns and life and stuff.

Fission is messy, and leaves all sorts of nastiness behind (that is, radioactive waste that's untouchable for, well let's just say effectively forever). Fusion power, on the other hand, is much cleaner. In the case of the current version of Lockheed's Compact Fusion tech, they're using deuterium (found in seawater), and tritium (found in lithium, found in the ground). This fuel mix can result in "10 million times more energy than the same amount of fossil fuels." Future versions could use different fuel.

Tom McGuire, who heads the program, explains their method like this, "Our compact fusion concept combines several alternative magnetic confinement approaches, taking the best parts of each, and offers a 90 percent size reduction over previous concepts."
Perhaps the most interesting part of Lockheed's announcement is how small the reactor is. They're saying their reactor could be built in a factory, then shipped anywhere in the world, since it's the size of a "large truck."

The idea, in the short term, is to connect fusion reactors to existing power plants. So instead of burning gas, the power plant will use the heat from the fusion reactor.

Lockheed's saying they expect to get to a prototype within five years. They're discussing this now in the hopes of attracting more partners to speed up the process.

What if...

Of course we should all be skeptical, since this isn't the first time promises of fusion have been made. But since Lockheed Martin is a publicly traded company, it's unlikely they'd be talking about something like this if they didn't think it was feasible.

So let's daydream for a second. What if this is the breakthrough that leads us to the fusion age? Clean, eventually cheap, power for everyone. Let's think about that.

Lockheed, being a defense contractor, is first talking about powering military vessels. Yeah, sure, whatever...boring.

Most of the world's most serious issues are solvable with cheap power.

Lack of water is a power issue. The Earth is over 70 percent water, almost all of that undrinkable seawater. Converting seawater into potable water is easy...with enough electricity. Cheap power = plenty of water.

Food? How about being able to farm anywhere there's sunshine and access to the ocean? Could the American Southwest be the new farm belt? How about the Sahara?

Transportation and infrastructure? How about airplanes and cargo ships that never need refueling. Add in some self-driving drone tech...

And, of course, the big one. Getting humanity off fossil fuels. Cleaner energy means fewer greenhouse gasses, potentially halting climate change (at however bad it is at that point), and giving us an alternative energy source before we run out of dino carcasses.

Then there's the world's beyond. Compact fusion reactors mean space travel can be faster. Anyone want to help terraform Mars for their retirement years?

Bottom line

The potential of fusion can't really be overstated. Nearly unlimited clean energy is the stuff of sci-fi. But like many things in science fiction, it often becomes science fact. However, nowhere in its announcement did Lockheed discuss how much power its reactor is producing, only how much it could produce. In fact, the company even said it expects to "design, build and test the [Compact Fusion Reactor]" within the year. So we're not there yet.

But is this size breakthrough the long-awaited first step towards the fusion age? I really want to believe it is.

We shall see...

lol...I read that yesterday and immediately thought of this thread.

For all the Greenies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXQf0JG8Uj8