We have come to a point in technology where it appears we are not progressing any further in rechargeable battery technology for Smartphones. It’s either pick one for battery life, and make it threw the day with so-so performance, or the high end quad core phone that should make it threw lunchtime.

Sure, you can just simply get a battery extender case, which almost doubles the weight and thickness of the phone, but why should we have to? Can’t we simply have a Smartphone that will just last all day and into the next?

As contemplated by The Independent regarding this balance of battery life vs performance:

“The Great Smartphone Conundrum. The time has come – we’re going to have to choose between performance and battery life. Smartphones keep getting faster. If you buy a new high-end phone this year, you’ll find it’s noticeably more powerful than last year’s best gadgets. It will let you run much more demanding apps, it will load up web pages more quickly, and it will deliver sharper, more advanced videos and games.”

The Independent continues to dissect the problem:

“One of the reasons phones have been getting faster is that they’re also getting bigger. A bigger phone allows for a bigger battery, which allows for a faster processor. But now we’ve hit a wall in phone size: Today’s biggest and fastest phones carry screens of around 5in, and they’re not going to get any bigger than that. (If they did, they wouldn’t fit in your hand.)”

Well, they actually have gotten bigger than 5”, the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 has proven that at 5.5” and they just seem to get closer and closer to the 7” tablet market size. But there needs to be a better solution than simply installing the largest battery that will fit and making phones that weight .22kg or more.

We need to see some changes at the rate the Smartphone market is growing as well, as that is the single biggest complaint, and limitation of the industry today.

By Michael Nace

The Chevy Volt is being questioned as to the reliability and cost of it’s rechargeable battery design. It appears that never ending funding has been poured into this, and similar vehicles by the government due to their policies concerning low emission vehicles.

Regardless of the billions the US government has spent toward development costs and tax credits to purchasers of the vehicles themselves – the electric rechargeable vehicle is still not a viable alternative to a gas or diesel powered engine for the large majority of the public.

As noted from National Legal and Policy Center:

“In addition to the efficiency limitations, we have an even more troubling question as to the safety of the Volt’s technology. GM keeps a team of Hazmat specialists on call to respond to any Onstar notifications of accidents involving a Volt. Firefighters, unless properly trained, must stay away from the complex, volatile power source which has more than 600 seals and cooling components to keep it safe. In fact, according to Josh Payne who worked on the first Volt battery and is now senior engineering manager at Energy Power Systems, “That’s 600 seals that all have to stay for the entirety of its life otherwise you have catastrophic failures.” That does not sound too reassuring!

The worst part of this mostly-untold story is the taxpayer money that continues to be wasted on the green pipe dream. The American people were lied to about the potential for the Chevy Volt, as well as for the technology behind it. Billions of dollars were spent on grants and failed loans for production of plug-in EVs, lithium-ion batteries and charging stations. Wealthy purchasers of $40,000 Chevy Volts and $100,000 Teslas receive federal tax credits for $7,500 each. Subsidized battery makers like A123 Systems are bankrupt and government-supported, green automaker Fisker is not far from it. How are middle-class or poor Americans benefiting from any of this?”

The answer simply is – they are not seeing any sort of benefit. Most middle-class purchasers are not spending $40,000 on a car to save a few mpg or to have to plug it in every $200 miles, they want a practical vehicle they can refill its ‘power’ in under 10 minutes – At the gas station.

By Michael Nace

Electric cars are starting to catch on, but quite slowly. Perhaps it’s the size and cost of the huge rechargeable battery that can cost up to a 3rd of the vehicle price that is deterring potential buyers. Along with the price comes a limited driving range as well – people are watching the power level while they are driving not unlike a smartphone user hoping their battery lasts the day until they can recharge again.

Photo credit: jurvetson / Foter.com / CC BY

Moore’s law is the observation that over the history of computer hardware, the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles roughly every two years. We take technology for granted – we expect the computer we buy 2 years from now to be twice as fast as our old one.

Fred Schlacter has an essay on why batteries are basically different from computers, or other electronic gadgets such as tablets:

“The reason there is a Moore’s Law for computer processors is that electrons are small and they do not take up space on a chip. Chip performance is limited by the lithography technology used to fabricate the chips; as lithography improves ever smaller features can be made on processors.
Batteries are not like this. Ions, which transfer charge in batteries, are large, and they take up space, as do anodes, cathodes, and electrolytes. A D-cell battery stores more energy than an AA-cell. Potentials in a battery are dictated by the relevant chemical reactions, thus limiting eventual battery performance. Significant improvement in battery capacity can only be made by changing to a different chemistry.
Scientists and battery experts, who have been optimistic in the recent past about improving lithium-ion batteries and about developing new battery chemistries—lithium/air and lithium/sulfur are the leading candidates—are considerably less optimistic now.”

So to be realistic, we cannot expect to continue to utilize the same technology and demand to have smaller, lighter, and more powerful rechargeable battery technology. Changes will have to be made, and new research heavily funded to make sufficient progress. We are still utilizing technology developed in the late 1850’s to start our cars every day.

Have you ever thought how different your life would be if all your electronic devices had to be plugged in to work? Not very convenient or portable now, are they? You would have to get up to change the channel on the TV, there would not be such a thing as a portable phone, or laptop that could be unplugged. We would have wires running everywhere!

Forget starting your car without being near an outlet, if the engine was shut off, there would not be a way to restart it. Regardless of the technology, there is typically some sort of battery inside that keeps the device going that we are not even aware of.

As detailed by Ovo Energy:

“Modern life as we know it owes a lot to the humble battery, the first incarnation of which came about in 1800. From the cumbersome monsters used in cars to the tiny lithium dots in watches, batteries are an integral part of our lives and have three main components: two electrodes (the positive anode and the negative cathode) and a medium called an electrolyte, which allows positively charged ions to move between the electrodes in balance with the flow of negatively charged electrons – this is the ‘useful current’, or the battery’s ‘zap’, for want of a better term.
The batteries we know and love are usually little cylindrical AA types – the kind that power TV remotes and cameras. Alas, as crucial as they’ve been to technological evolution, they’re not so great for the environment; they’re difficult and dangerous to get rid of, and their disposable nature means they’re pretty wasteful, too. But like all things in these techy times, plans are afoot to make batteries slimmer, cheaper, more efficient and better for the environment.”

We have some fascinating new technology coming soon that will only improve our interdependence upon the rechargeable battery. New discoveries such as Graphene, Flexible lithium-ion, as well as lithium-air batteries, where even oxygen is used as a catalyst.
By Michael Nace

Australian Renewable Energy Agency is being provided funding from the government to further research renewable energy storage solutions.

The company Ecoult would be developing upon the fundamentals of the Deka UltraBattery technology platform, which should produce a efficient model for future storage uses of residential and commercial locations.

A Deka UltraBattery is the combination of an enhanced power negative electrode in a lead-acid rechargeable battery. This design gives the battery a extremely low level of electrical resistance similar to a super-capacitor. By developing this type of battery, this eliminates the need for a separate bank of batteries and capacitors, along with the wiring requirements of combining the 2 grids together.

As observed by Energy and Capital:

“In its early stages, the program aims at developing a battery storage system prototype for three main types of deficit charge or distributed energy needs. These include off-grid renewable power, distributed connected storage to support power and voltage fluctuations (especially in areas with a high concentration of rooftop solar installments), and hybrid generation of power to gain efficiencies.”

Ecoult has make progress with the Deka platform in the past, with other installations around the globe. Currently, Ecoult is working on executing its installation at the King Island Renewable Energy Integration Project, thus could reduce its reliance on older less environmentally friendly diesel power systems. Australia is making great strides in environmental advances toward reducing the number of fossil fuel power sources it is currently employing, and that something that we all can benefit from.
 
By Michael Nace