Whizzes' lithium-iron-oxide battery 'octuples' capacity on the cheap A band of boffins from Illinois have published a paper detailing a new battery design for mobile devices and electric vehicles that could increase capacity up to eight times while reducing costs. One half of the team, based at Northwestern University, focused on making digital models, while their partners at Argonne National …
@Flakk, why are you getting downvoted for this? It's not like it's not public knowledge that he has HUUUGE public money subsidies - calculated to nearly $5 BEEEEEELION. Billion, not Million. Billions are very very big numbers. A million seconds is 11 days, a billion seconds is 31 years. Billions are BIG.
<<Tesla Motors Inc., SolarCity Corp. and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX, together have benefited from an estimated $4.9 billion in government support, according to data compiled by The (LA) Times.>> http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/economy-budget/345338-can-we-wean-elon-musk-off-government-support-already
Cry me a river. I would rather have Musk get free money to do something useful for society than have it pissed away on illegal immoral wars making the planet less secure not more. Why don't you go cry about the oil company subsidies. When those are gone you can complain about Musk.
I take it you don't like musk then, based on you picking out him specifically. Shall we break down what this money he 'received'.
1.29billion tax incentives to build the gigafactory in nevada, which will be only be seen over the next 20 year period if he employs 6500 people by 2020. So didnt receive any money there, just will be paying less tax, like all other large companies that different states want, and now all companies will be getting - MAGA hey?
45 million in discounts on a loan of 465m, which the state made money from, by the way ford got a discount on a loan of 5.9billion - MAGA
90m tax break on manufacturing equipment to reopen the NUMMI plant in Fermont, hiring back the workers that lost their jobs at GM and toyota. - MAGA
517m selling zev tax credits, not payed by the tax payers but by car manufatures so that they dont get fined for not meeting emissions requirements - MAGA
284m tax credit on car purchases, this is seen by the buyer, not tesla and applies to all electric vehicles and 38m more from california.
126m for deploying batteies to help in stablisation of the power grid in california
750m building solar city, which the state owns on the condition that over 10 years 5 billion is spent on employing 3450 workers.
1.5b estimated value for 30% subsidy on solar installations, which includes they only grant here of 497m
5.6m from newyork also in tax incentives for the same thing
260m in property taxes for solar city, as the state owned it.
20m to building a spacex launch facility near brownsville
got tired of putting MAGA at the end, that stupid word, hey how about MEGA, that an actual word, Make Europe Great Again.
So only 1 grant in there worth 497m, all the others havent been paid to him, the companies, like many other companies get tax breaks for doing things.
"If only all US citizens got such tax breaks."
When each US citizens start to create 1000s of jobs and are unable to get additional tax breaks for their effort and when they are trying to advance humanity, come back and complain.
Yes hes a business man, wanting to make money. The areas he has chosen to have gone into are high risk sectors, but with the potential for high return but also providing advancements for all.
If you want to complain about wasted taxes, look at the tax breaks for the companies that get them for doing nothing, look at the trillions wasted on wars. Imagine what a fraction of that funding could do for some research.
not just Elon's money, but EVERY! LAPTOP! COMPUTER! MAKER! and EVERY! PHONE! MAKER!
This is the best news in battery tech since the announcement of Aluminum in lieu of Lithium a couple of years ago [I remember reading about it on El Reg].
But if the batter is MORE STABLE (particularly with respect to gassing, a problem I've had to deal with in hardware I've been working on), then it's even MORE awesome!
yeah, nothing good happens when your aging LiPo batteries look like pillows...
[the other day I accidentally shorted one and it swelled up like a balloon in about 5 seconds, got hot enough to melt plastic - I put it under running water and it shrank down flat almost as quickly, but couldn't hold a charge any more]
not just Elon's money, but EVERY! LAPTOP! COMPUTER! MAKER! and EVERY! PHONE! MAKER!
Look here, kid.
I will tell you about hype and vaporeware and how this works and on how engineering is actually hard to do and most ideas fall by the wayside out of various reasons (generally NOT conspiracies).
Now, take a seat.
Who best to apportion technology development grants?
The government who need a weeks training on how to turn on a computer or a man who has proven himself time and again to be a forward thinking innovator?
Many of the projects Elon has picked up and run with, would otherwise still be getting kicked around by nervous investors, more interested in limiting their potential losses than in trying to save the world.
In my mind, a world with just one Elon Musk can balance out the nightmare of several Trumps.
The problem is not publishing the research. Publishing research is a great way to spread knowledge, gain funding, promote one's skills etc.
The problem is the mass media* picking it up and running with it when they have no idea what they are talking about. They misrepresent things through their lack of understanding**.
* I'll exclude el Reg from this, given that this article included comments from a real world expert.
** I am giving them the benefit of the doubt here, assuming that it's a lack of understanding rather than wilful lying for clickbait or that they have less than half a dozen brain cells to call to action.
The problem isn't even the mass media - they don't pickup these stories.
It's the University publicity dept that crawl the research labs looking for anything that is potentially commercial-able or even just newsworthy.
The announcement has put the university of wherever in the news, to potential students, to alumni, ro donors, to startup investors - with a bit more spin it could be known as "the" place fro battery research.
Even if this research goes nowhere the publicity is probably worth a few $M
"only gets accepted for publication or considered by journalists after a working prototype is available"
that wouldn't be scientific, that would be like "flat earth" thinking. Publishing 'unproven' ideas for peer review, PARTICULARLY before having a working prototype, is ALWAYS a good idea. It also helps you to establish ownership [they should get a provisional patent, too].
I can think of many things that have fallen into the 'unproven' category (at least at one point in time), like Evolution, the Big Bang, nuclear power, Einstein's theories, black holes, and television. In fact, I understand that someone had constructed a model of a color picture tube using sugar cubes, and used THAT to obtain a patent, which RCA allegedly had to license before they could produce color TV picture tubes with multiple electron guns... so yeah, theory shouldn't be restricted from publication until "after a working prototype is available". That's just ridiculous.
It's also a good strategy to publish FIRST (before you have a working prototype). In this case (as an example), battery makers should NOW 'want in' on their 'iron oxide' design. Some smart battery maker will likely invest some time+money into building prototypes, licensing the design with an really good contract, and maybe even having exclusive rights (for a little while, at least).
Publishing to inner circles is one things, especially if the intent is peer review. I'm talking about publishing to the world at large because by my reckoning that's a half-truth (which is in turn twice the lie). My thought is, "If you're gonna sing it, be sure to bring it." Perhaps Beyond 2000 jaded me a bit. I mean, how many of these hypegasms (like holographic crystal storage, which was demonstrated in a lab 20 years ago, IIRC) have gone nowhere (or, like CFCs, turned out to be counterproductive)?
On the contrary, what we need is MORE people publishing papers - far too often research that fails to produce anything with commercial potential is dumped unceremoniously, potentially resulting in other people repeating the same research.
The saying goes "we learn more from failure than from success"
Smells of a pathetic attempt to raise a grant to me.
Smells of proper scientific research to me. You, know, all that tedious business of examining the current facts, identifying a question, formulating a hypothesis, making predictions, testing those predictions, reviewing the theory......
All the tech things we buy and use today started off as an unproven idea, often without any obvious commercial application, and probably followed on from a whole series of research ideas that came to little or nothing. Admittedly this won't be appearing in a battery for a decade, but so what? Are we to abandon all R&D that doesn't look likely to produce bankable benefits in three years?
"All the tech things we buy and use today started off as an unproven idea, [...]"
IIRC the science of a MOSFET transistor was published in 1928. It took technology another 35 years to be able to produce them. The 1947 development of the point contact transistor was a relatively simple evolution of the crystal radio diode. It was quickly superseded by the junction transistor as the semiconductor processing technology improved.
In the early 1940s a book was published on the long history of clock technologies. The final chapter described the latest developments using quartz crystal vacuum tube oscillators. The author confidently predicted that such accurate devices would be forever confined to laboratory environments due to their complexity and size.
Firstly, not sure why the quoted analyst was saying that it was only based on computer modelling, the article mentions 2 teams, one doing modelling and one doing physical experimentation. So what gives>
Secondly, even if the analyst is right and it takes 10 years to production, and even if in the end the 'production' capacity improvement isn't 8X or even 2X or 3X but an eventual 1.5X, that's a 50% improvement which is not to be sniffed at.
Current 'touring-type' electric cars like Tesla can do 500-ish km on a single charge, 50% increase brings it to 750-ish which is the limit of most modern diesels. How long did it take ICE car industry to get to that level of range? Having electric cars be able to replicate that within about 15 years is pretty neat
@Lost all faith... I already do all that - except for the WiFi: I'm kinda using that, seeing as how mobile data is very far from free for me while WiFi is. I'm even using an extra-thick extended battery, and I run almost nothing in the background. Result: less than three days. Not even a full weekend. Hella annoying especially if I spend it in a tent, away from chargers, and I'd actually like to browse a little or just read a book during some lull / downtime. And before you suggest "power bank": you'd be surprised how little cargo space bikes tend to have, and how fully packed it already is with other useless stuff like, say, rain gear and said tent.
@JeffyPoooh sure, as long as I never, ever, ever forget to religiously plug it in to charge whenever I'm home. Clue: that's not the real world I live in. Not to mention I have no socket near my bed, and my phone is what (barely) wakes me up each morning so I can't leave it across the room overnight. Also, see above.
"I already do all that - except for the WiFi: I'm kinda using that, seeing as how mobile data is very far from free for me while WiFi is"
"Hella annoying especially if I spend it in a tent, away from chargers"
you can get WiFi in your tent? Just where do you go camping? :P
If battery tech improves so that capacity is increased by 50%, you are not going to get phones that last 50% longer. Instead, you are going to get phones that consume 50% more, owing to more powerful CPUs that run more crap in the background, more powerful GPUs that run pretty animations, and more radios running for more time. Either that, or they'll just make them another fraction of millimeter slimmer. The actual duration of the battery seems to be a pretty low priority.
Yeah, not going to see that. They would probably make them thinner so that a folding phone becomes practical without being a half pound brick in your pocket.
I don't agree with Filippo that they'd use these batteries to make phones that draw more power - power draw is limited by the heat output already so we aren't going to get a bigger power budget than what we have today.
If you want a phone you charge once a week, get one of those 12000 mah battery cases...
A better battery, more charge for the volume and weight, could mean smaller and lighter devices. Extra processing power often comes with more efficiency. A bit longer life as part of the deal is something that could be easy to sell.
It may be that phones have become too thin, and that is forcing compromises on details such as the durability of the connector. Compare your mobile with the typical low-cost cordless phones on your landline. They're too bulky, but they don't feel fragile. A bit extra thickness might make a better data/power connector possible.
Stepping back from the thinness race might make all the difference, without new battery tech.
I'm highly interested in the return of phones that only need to be charged once a week.
My Asus phone typically goes 4 or 5 days on a charge, which isn't "once a week" but is much, much better than any other Android phone I've had.
If I shut down everything non-essential I could probably get it to last a week.
the article mentions 2 teams, one doing modelling and one doing physical experimentation. So what gives>
Maybe the team doing physical experimentation couldn't actually make a working battery using this predicted technology. So the only thing they can report on is the computer model, which says it will work just fine and be 8 times better than anything else we have today.
You miss the point with cars...
Adding a larger fuel tank adds less weight to a vehicle than a larger battery. The range of diesel vehicles is limited by the size of tank, and a full tank of diesel still weighs less than a battery of a similar size/range.
Electric cars have been around a LONG time, they've just only recently started to become popular again. The reason they fell out of favour was due to the weight and lack of range, milk floats were almost always electric because they were quiet and didnt require a long range or high speed etc.
There's also the consideration of how fast you can recharge, and the availability of charging stations. A diesel car can be filled in a couple of minutes, and diesel is available almost everywhere... A battery takes longer to charge, and in doing so it occupies a charging slot for much longer than a diesel car does. On the other hand, once the infrastructure is in place the power can be transported far more quickly than liquid fuels.
"Adding a larger fuel tank adds less weight to a vehicle than a larger battery. The range of diesel vehicles is limited by the size of tank, and a full tank of diesel still weighs less than a battery of a similar size/range."
Furthermore, it's possible to extend that range very easily. If it's for occasional use, a gerry can or two will easily tide you over should you drift away from civilization. If you frequently trek away from fuel stations, it may be worth it to get an additional fuel tank installed.
It's hard to see where the x8 comes from. The x4 seems unlikely. The x2 is theoretical. Have they modelled impurities etc? Even NiMH vary hugely on quality of materials and the best can equal LiPoly for volume (not weight) after 100 deep cycles. What effect on weight?
So 5 to 10 years or never sounds likely as does 1.5 to x2 capacity (weight or volume?).
How stable and flammable are these with Lithium and Oxygen in them? Note even iron filings burn rather hot in oxygen.
Search: burning iron filings oxygen
Hence icon.
Lithium burns nicely. Even the non-chargeable CR2032 will burn/explode if heated via self discharge in a confined space due to short circuit of a stack.
"Even the non-chargeable CR2032 will burn/explode if heated via self discharge in a confined space due to short circuit of a stack."
A solar powered garden light failed. On inspection there was a neat circular hole in the plastic container as the NiMh 300mah button cell burned its way through and disintegrated. Presumably an internal short circuit inside the battery - a replacement battery worked ok.
I don't see where 8x comes from, but 4x seems quite easy to explain if they're able to use 4x the lithium. Presumably there's something else that gets the remaining 2x - can't tell since the paper is paywalled.
Obviously that's theoretical and the real world has a nasty way of lowering theoretical limits, but a theoretical limit of 4x is at least quite believable.
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