Fun Stuff > CHATTER
the Chevy Volt (and other "plug-in" cars)
pwhodges:
Battery technology is one of the slowest developing there is. I shouldn't plan for a dramatic improvement in the foreseeable future.
Llewellian:
Hm... there is always the difference between batteries and capacitors. The first stores high amounts of energy, but cannot emit that very fast, same for charging. Capacitors on the other side - cannot take in much energy, but charge and emit is on an extreme high level.
But both systems rely on big surface areas. And thats where the science for development can kick in. I expect a good progress in that with the nano-technology kicking in. Especially with the rise in surface modelling technologies. I mean, hey, in the meantime "printing" micrometer structures like electric connections is getting more and more "everyday business". If material technology keeps up with its pace and we get selfhealing extreme high Ohm resistor foils in sub-micrometer scales and more and more better electrolytes... then we will be able to narrow that gap between batteries and capacitors. And from then on... oh boy.
Especially i expect - based on the current development speed - room temperature supraconductors in the next 20 years. Metal-ion / Graphene structures give a good hint here on what to expect.
THEN, everytime you hit the brakes or just roll downhill, the power gained from induction brakes can be forcefed back into your powerblock. Sure, this technology is used already now, but most of what you get back dissipates unused as heat and you cannot charge accumulators that fast to use it within good proportions.
Seen from that, we live in interesting times. And if anybody wants to take a look, this picture shows the difference:
http://binrock.net/permanent/2008/0803_lhc/cern_superconductor.jpg
In the back: The old cable used at the old CERN Collider magnets. In front - the new supraconductor cables doing the same job.
Radical AC:
My car gets upwards of 40mpg and was built in 1973. WHAT NOW *snapsnapsnap*
pwhodges:
--- Quote from: Llewellian on 07 Jun 2009, 12:19 ---room temperature supraconductors in the next 20 years.
--- End quote ---
Maybe, maybe not. My father-in-law ran Zeta, the UK's first attempt at nuclear fusion in the 1950s. He was pictured in the papers under the headline "Free electricity within ten years" - even allowing for press hyperbole, it didn't quite work out like that, did it.
Llewellian:
Cool. Thats one man i`d like to meet and sponsor a drink :-D.
Yep. In this special case, you are absolutely right. The more about fusion we know, the more we know that it is in the far, far future for that. Every serious scientist will say now - based on all what we have learned through the previous fusion experiments in our "scientific virginity".... that selfsustaining, reliable fusion power plants are 50, if not 100 years in our future. We may light the candle now... but we cant keep the stellar fire burning.
Supraconductors, on the other hand... and supracapacitors... well, from what i have seen in some labs i visited... there is a whole 'nother pace. Compared with all the obstacles we run into while checking out what is possible with fusion power... there is a difference like Usain Bolt vs. my Grandma on the Dash Course. 20 years vs. 80-100 years.
It took us nearly 100 years from Crookes Tube to the CERN Collider. But only 20 years to get superconductors from 4 Kelvin to 200 K and going. Meissner and Ochsenfeld would be proud ^^.
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