Truemors
is reporting from
Member
NP Rank:
NP Rank:
Scientists say paper battery could be in the works
Share:
by Babel-Fish | December 8, 2009 at 01:03 am
300 views | 10 Recommendations | 2 comments
Photos
Electrifying news, you may be able to buy your batteries by the ream, of course I am joking. But this new technology has great potential. Just imagine a newspaper like seen in the Harry Potter films. be come a magical reality. Of course, I am still joking but maybe what I have just stated could be not far from the truth. You make up your mind after reading the article..
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Ordinary paper could one day be used as a lightweight battery to power the devices that are now enabling the printed word to be eclipsed by e-mail, e-books and online news.
Scientists at Stanford University in California reported on Monday they have successfully turned paper coated with ink made of silver and carbon nanomaterials into a "paper battery" that holds promise for new types of lightweight, high-performance energy storage.
The same feature that helps ink adhere to paper allows it to hold onto the single-walled carbon nanotubes and silver nanowire films. Earlier research found that silicon nanowires could be used to make batteries 10 times as powerful as lithium-ion batteries now used to power devices such as laplop computers.
"Taking advantage of the mature paper technology, low cost, light and high-performance energy-storage are realized by using conductive paper as current collectors and electrodes," the scientists said in research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
This type of battery could be useful in powering electric or hybrid vehicles, would make electronics lighter weight and longer lasting, and might even lead someday to paper electronics, the scientists said. Battery weight and life have been an obstacle to commercial viability of electric-powered cars and trucks.
Advertisement
NowPublic on Facebook
What is NowPublic?
NowPublic lets people work together to cover news events around the world.
Crowd Power
HFC
Midlothian, Virginia, United States
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (2)
at 16:16 on December 8th, 2009
I recently saw an interview with the CEO of Nissan, and he said he believed the new technology for energy efficiency will progress together with advanced battery technology. He felt the future is definitely the electric vehicle. He also explained that electric cars will be outfitted so the battery can be changed out as the batteries become more sophisticated.
DEARBORN, Mich. — Ford Motor Co. said Tuesday its future electric cars will “talk” to power grids across the country, allowing car owners to control when they charge vehicles and for how long.
The nation’s second-largest automaker released details of a two-year collaboration with 10 utility companies and the Department of Energy on the design of a system it hopes will drive greater interest in alternative energy vehicles.
Ford’s first battery electric vehicle, the Transit Connect commercial van, will be available next year. A battery electric Ford Focus compact car will go on sale in 2011.
at 07:59 on December 9th, 2009
It all looks great until you calculate the reality in real time terms. If you charge an electric car with a battery capacity of 25 kWh during 8 hours, it needs a power output of 3,125 watts. If you charge the same car in just 10 minutes, it needs a power output of 155,000 watts.
Electric cars, however, do not have the backup of a gasoline engine and an infrastructure of petrol stations for longer distances. If we can only charge them at night, the range of our vehicles would be limited to 100 miles (160km) per day, or only half of that when the cars are driven at high speed. There are some electric cars that have better mileage: 220 miles for the Tesla Roadster and 150 for the Mini E - but both have no back seat since that space is taken by the larger battery.
The standard answer to this drawback is that the average commute in the US is only 33 miles, so in most cases the limited mileage of electric cars will be sufficient.
One thousand more power plants are required, if we go indeed electric with our cars.
A study from Oak Ridge National Laboratory calculated what would happen if all plug-in vehicles would be charged at 5 pm instead of after 10 pm. In this worst-case scenario, the US would need to build 160 "large" power plants (and the related distribution infrastructure, of course). Note: this concerns plug-in hybrids, not fully electric cars, and this concerns a penetration of only 25 percent, not 100 percent.
Electric motors are more efficient than gasoline engines, but the problem is not total energy consumption, it is peak load. A complete conversion to plug-in hybrids would thus require 640 extra large power plants. The researchers do not specify what they consider to be a "large" power plant, but this must be around 1,000 megawatts, which boils down to the need for another 640 GW of power plants. That is almost a 65 percent increase of the existing US electricity generation capacity.