Are we there yet?
We might be close.
Planar Energy, a spinoff from the US Department of Energy Renewable Technology lab has developed a 3D printable solid state lithium battery with three times the energy density at half the cost of current generation Li-Ion batteries.
The hard process engineering part was to scale up the size of the batteries which had previously been difficult to do. The breakthrough is their 3D "printing style" deposition process which allows precise deposition of solid state nanoscale electrodes, doing away with the need for liquid.
Half the cost and three times the energy density?
A nissan leaf with a three hundred fifty mile range optimal conditions and two hundred mile range sub-optimal conditions would probably meet in excess of 90% of North American driving scenarios and higher still in Europe.
So are we there yet? Nearly.
2 comments:
It's been a while since I've checked out your blog and I took interest in your Peak Oil doomer position post. This pretty much replicates my long-standing position. The damning IEA report which came out a while back (which lists depletion rates for worldwide oil fields at 6.5%) lists a double-digit depletion rate for non-OPEC fields; yet, if depletion rates are that high, why has production remained steadily flat for the past few years?
Statistics for continental production shows plateaus can last decades. There's yet to be a single continent to show a sharp drop in production.
Heh Brewskie,
How you doing man? Long time no see.
Yeah, looks like the consensus among those who know is that depletion will be about 6% but tempered by new projects coming on from existing undeveloped sources along with demand destruction and substitution. I reckon worst case some of us will have to take the bus while electric car production gets up to millions of units per year volume.
Anyways, good to hear from you man. I hope life is going well for you.
Post a Comment