Comments on: Hybrid cars are at the intersection of nanotechnology and battery technology research

By: nano technology » Blog Archive » Agriculture and food workers question nanotechnology

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 06:22:55 +0000

[...] Nanotechnology isn ta technology in and of itself so much as it s an enabling technology. What this means is that the science and technology of the very, very small (aka nanotechnology) enables radical changes across a massive number of … …more [...]

By: nano technology » Blog Archive » nanoweapon film shoot

nano technology » Blog Archive » nanoweapon film shoot — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 22:29:30 +0000

By: Sam Smith

Sam Smith — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 15:02:45 +0000

The Wake Forest/NMSU technology looks really promising, huh? Wow – that could mean that a decade from now the combination of nanosolar and nanobattery tech could be putting a serious dent in our coal addiction.

I’d like to have a few million laying around to invest….

By: Brian Angliss

Brian Angliss — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 13:13:01 +0000

Time to market and cost are a big question, but when it comes to batteries, if it costs 5x base but gives you 100x the storage, it’s still cheap. And the savings may not include the battery disposal savings either, since you’re disposing of significantly fewer heavy metals.

As Gavin said, the power still has to be generated, but grabbing charge overnight is a huge piece of Tesla Motor’s claims to cheap fuel. But ultimately, advanced battery technologies are a prerequisite to wide-spread solar and wind (and especially to massively decentralized solar). Until now batteries for such systems have usually been environmentally nasty (things like lead-acid car batteries, but bigger) because better batteries like lithium-ion didn’t have the nearly unlimited recharge cycles of lead-acid. If Mr. Gotcher is right and his batteries can handle 20,000+ recharge cycles with his new electrodes, then that’s a huge deal.

One recharge cycle per day when you can handle only 500-1000 recharge cycles gives you 1.5-3 years before you replace your batteries. But at 20,000 cycles, you get 55 years, which is WELL past the expected usable life of the solar panels you’re charging the batteries with.

As far as nanotech improving solar panels the same way, there’s actually been some research in this exact area recently. Check out http://www.physorg.com/news7076.html and http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/17025/

By: whythawk

whythawk — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 07:03:32 +0000

You’re exactly right – you still have to produce that electricity. But there is a large amount of production waste. Power stations running at night produce vast amounts of power that goes unused. So this could be stored in vast battery packs and make the overall energy supply more efficient.

Nanotech can also improve the efficiency of solar panels in pretty much the same way.

By: Sam Smith

Sam Smith — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 00:31:12 +0000

So – the obvious questions. Time to market penetration and cost?

Also – and tell me if this is a stupid question – but say I can store 100 times more energy. Makes owning an electrical car practical, but it exerts no impact on the ultimate energy cycle – it still takes X amount of coal to produce Y amount of electricity, regardless of how that electricity is stored and spent.

Or is this question better posed within the framework of, say, solar storage?

By: Thoughts in the Daedalnexus

Thoughts in the Daedalnexus — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 22:16:58 +0000

Hybrid cars are at the intersection of nanotechnology and battery technology research

Nanotechnology will transform nearly every field it touches, and it has the potential to touch literally every field. In this case, it could transform batteries by giving them 40x or more the capacity of current batteries.