Expert: Lithium requires “out-of-box” breakthroughs
The future, or forever a niche?
Are batteries really the future of the auto industry?
For the last couple of decades materials scientist Dr. Jean-Marie Tarascon of the Laboratoire réactivité et chimie des solides (LRCS) at Université de Picardie Jules Verne, and previously Bell Labs and Bellcore, has been working on energy storage solutions, most notably the plastic Li-ion battery (PLiON).
Recently Dr. Tarascon provided his take on the future of the battery industry and, in a nutshell, almost anything is still possible, but the potential of plug-in vehicles taking over the world any time soon is still many significant breakthroughs from reality.
Tarascon sums it up best, “…we should be aware that a colossal task is awaiting us if we really want to compete with gasoline, as an increase by a factor of 15 is needed for the energy delivered by a battery (180 Wh kg-1) to match the one of a litre of gasoline (3000 Wh l-1; taking into account corrections from Carnot’s principle). Knowing that the energy density of batteries has only increased by a factor of five over the last two centuries, our chances to have a 10-fold increase over the next few years are very slim, with the exception of unexpected research breakthroughs.
Nonetheless, Tarascon finds room for optimism, even though he points out that current lithium technologies are completely dependent upon “out-of-the-box” solutions to overcome well understood limitations. Even then, “complete out-of-the box solutions to electrochemically store electricity” could make all lithium technologies irrelevant.
Inevitably, Tarascon concludes that the battery industry must continue to pursue paradigm shifting approaches to energy storage based upon the collective efforts of multiple disciplines.
Perhaps, as Confuscious would say, ‘the wise battery researcher is the researcher whom realizes he/she knows nothing’. Thus, stay out-of-the-box as much as possible.
me too.. just a few years ago, we did not have water furnace heat pumps …
And although Marconi and many others messed around seriously with radio waves, who would have though that that technology would morph into cell phones.
Many today in their twenties were born before cell phone technology was readily recognized for how it would transform our world.
I always wonder if a poll was taken and people were asked what had the most impact on our world – computers or cellphones.. how the percentages would shake out.
At any rate.. technology will ultimately deal with the energy issue.. it’s only a question of whose lifetime it happens.
In the meantime.. we have to put up with te current realities.
Well, I still have fingers crossed that some dipstick teenager in Bumfuck, Kansas is gonna wake up some morning with an “AHA!” moment and change everything.
Baby-stepping the technology is necessary, but ya gotta have them leaps-and-bounds…
Great point though Larry. Even if we achieve the silver bullet, we’ll still probably find ways to use it ever more inefficiently
Sounds exactly like the kind of breakthrough that Tarascon was optimistic about… kind of a mix of technologies, such as materials science and chemistry intermingling in new ways.
Very interested to learn more, such as costs, scalability predictions. For example, it has been estimated that if lithium-air were ‘mastered’ it would take about a decade to scale into automotive applications.
How does this battery breakthrough compare to lithium-air, I wonder?
Nevertheless, I’m definitely interested in learning more about this technology. Great link.
Technology is moving so quickly today that you no sooner see something written and published by one group when another group comes along and leap frogs the first group. Here is a good example as it relates to battery technology.
http://www.technologyreview.com/video/?vid=585
Tom G.
Slowly repeat after me: t h e r e …. i s…. n o energy silver bullet….
and if there is.. it’s going cost us big…
The green weenies are correct.
In a country that uses twice as much energy per capita that the rest of the industrialized world – instead of asking ourselves why other countries use 1/2 of what we do …WITHOUT Hybrids …and WITHOUT PLUG-INS – why do we continue to use twice as much energy?
Why is our “solution” … buying our way to green energy instead of … at least… trying to use what the rest of the world uses …???