A home battery that is cheap, durable, safe and as big as you like that could store solar or wind power is closer to reality. Harvard University researchers report that they have tested a “flow battery” that uses cheap and abundant chemical elements, can be operated with plastic components, will not catch fire and can operate at 99 percent efficiency.
StoreDot, a three-year-old Israeli startup, is developing an electric car battery that will let electric cars travel hundreds of miles after only five minutes of charging.
Continue reading… “StoreDot is developing an electric car battery that charges in 5 minutes”
The UK is hoping to significantly boost the range of electric cars by introducing roads in an 18-month trial that can charge the vehicles as they drive along them.
Continue reading… “England is testing out roads that charge electric cars as you drive along them”
Nissan is following in the footsteps of Tesla and Mercedes-Benz. They are now set to become the latest automaker to offer battery packs for stationary energy storage. Although pricing information has yet to be provided, the Nissan product should be relatively affordable, as it will incorporate used batteries from Nissan Leaf electric cars.
Continue reading… “Nissan’s used Leaf batteries to be incorporated into home energy storage”
“I thought it was a student prank,” professor Donald Sadoway remembers chuckling at an e-mail in August 2009 from a woman claiming to represent Bill Gates. The world’s richest man wondered if he could meet the guy teaching popular MIT course, Introduction to Solid State Chemistry, that Gates had taken online. Continue reading… “Better batteries: A $5 billion race”
The latest breakthrough in the search for lighter, more potent batteries is small battery made up of a billion nanopores, or microscopic holes capable of producing electric current.
Nanosize batteries that are 80,000 times thinner than a human hair could revolutionize green energy. They could advance the use of electric vehicles, now limited by short driving ranges, and of renewable energy, which needs storage for times when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine.
Continue reading… “Nanosize batteries could revolutionize green energy”
Another immediate benefit of the supercapacitor film technology is in charging time.
Researchers at Rice University and the Queensland University of Technology have conducted a study that has resulted in the creation of a graphene-based supercapacitor film that could possibly replace the need for a conventional battery in electric cars.
Continue reading… “Graphene-based supercapacitors will make battery-free electric cars possible”
A battery module built at Aquion’s plant in Pennsylvania.
A new kind of battery that stores energy from solar and wind power cheaply and cleanly has hit the market. It is by far the cheapest of a new generation of large, long-lived batteries that could make it possible to rely heavily on intermittent, renewable energy sources.
Continue reading… “Aquion Energy’s battery helps solar and wind power operate in remote locations”
Researchers at Ohio State University have created a new hybrid device that can act both as a solar cell and as a battery storing that energy.
Scientists, entrepreneurs and government leaders are pushing to develop cheap, clean energy as the world seeks out alternatives to fossil fuels.
Continue reading… “New hybrid solar cell battery could solve solar power’s energy storage problem”
The battery is expected to be on the market in 2 years.
Are you tired of waiting an hour for your phone to charge before you leave the house? Researchers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have come up with the best solution yet – a lithium ion battery that charges to 70 percent in just two minutes.
Continue reading… “Groundbreaking new battery charges to 70% in 2 minutes, and lasts 20 years”
Qnovo bets it can improve the battery that’s already in your smartphone.
Smartphones can be frustrating and one of the most frustrating things about them is how long they take to recharge. But they could soon be one-third as frustrating. A startup called Qnovo, based in Newark, California, uses a technology that constantly checks and adjusts the flow of power during recharging to charge batteries faster and increase their lifespans.
Continue reading… “Qnovo develops smarter software that can speed up smartphone charging”
Tesla to create a 500-mile range electric car.
Tesla Electric cars have the highest energy density battery in the world. That’s twice of the Nissan Leaf. But their range is more than twice that of the Leaf so we come into other factors: what’s the drag co-efficient of the car, how much does it weigh, what’s the efficiency of the motor and gearbox, what’s the rolling resistance? All those factors affect the range.
Continue reading… “500-mile range electric car will soon be possible, says Elon Musk”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.