Advances in batteries/energy thread

[flacaltenn]

Note how the 'Conservatives' immediatly find fault with anything that someone is trying, no matter what it is? If Grandpa didn't do it, they're agin' it!

Hey idiot.. Point is that GRANDPA DID DO IT.. It's just been picked up by a bunch of pinko squatters in COmmunist Berkeley and dubbed officially green..

As green as my ass...

 

[ScienceRocks]

Scientists make breakthrough solar technology

In the near future, solar panels will not only be more efficient but also a lot cheaper and affordable for everyone, thanks to research by Nanyang Technological University (NTU) scientists.

This next generation solar cell, made from organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite materials, is about five times cheaper than current thin-film solar cells, due to a simpler solution-based manufacturing process.

Perovskite is known to be a remarkable solar cell material as it can convert up to 15 per cent of sunlight to electricity, close to the efficiency of the current solar cells, but scientists did not know why or how, until now

Read more at: Scientists make breakthrough solar technology

 

[Old Rocks]

Note how the 'Conservatives' immediatly find fault with anything that someone is trying, no matter what it is? If Grandpa didn't do it, they're agin' it!

Hey idiot.. Point is that GRANDPA DID DO IT.. It's just been picked up by a bunch of pinko squatters in COmmunist Berkeley and dubbed officially green..

As green as my ass...

My, now aren't you the smart guy. No, your grandpa did not do this, and the method has been lost for a long time.

http://www.acresusa.com/toolbox/reprints/Feb07_TerraPreta.pdf

It’s like finding a lost chapter from Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird’s Secrets of the Soil — terra preta (literally “black earth”) is a manmade soil of prehistoric origin that is higher in nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and calcium than adjacent soils. It controls water and reduces leaching of nutrients from the rhizosphere. Rich in humus, pieces
of pre-Columbian unfired clay pottery, and black carbon, it’s like a “microbial reef” that promotes and sustains the growth of mycorrhizae and other beneficial microbes, and it has been shown to retain its fertility for thousands of years. In university trials, terra preta has increased crop yields by as much as 800 percent. It regrows itself when excavated. It is even possible to produce carbon-negative useable energy (such as diesel or hydrogen) while making the major input (bio-char) for terra preta on the farm.

 

[Old Rocks]

This next generation solar cell, made from organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite materials, is about five times cheaper than current thin-film solar cells, due to a simpler solution-based manufacturing process

Read more at: Scientists make breakthrough solar technology

Already you can buy thin film for under $1 a watt, five times cheaper is less than $0.25 a watt. That would be $2500, or less, for the panels for a 10 kw installation.

 

[flacaltenn]

Note how the 'Conservatives' immediatly find fault with anything that someone is trying, no matter what it is? If Grandpa didn't do it, they're agin' it!

Hey idiot.. Point is that GRANDPA DID DO IT.. It's just been picked up by a bunch of pinko squatters in COmmunist Berkeley and dubbed officially green..

As green as my ass...

My, now aren't you the smart guy. No, your grandpa did not do this, and the method has been lost for a long time.

http://www.acresusa.com/toolbox/reprints/Feb07_TerraPreta.pdf

It’s like finding a lost chapter from Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird’s Secrets of the Soil — terra preta (literally “black earth”) is a manmade soil of prehistoric origin that is higher in nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and calcium than adjacent soils. It controls water and reduces leaching of nutrients from the rhizosphere. Rich in humus, pieces
of pre-Columbian unfired clay pottery, and black carbon, it’s like a “microbial reef” that promotes and sustains the growth of mycorrhizae and other beneficial microbes, and it has been shown to retain its fertility for thousands of years. In university trials, terra preta has increased crop yields by as much as 800 percent. It regrows itself when excavated. It is even possible to produce carbon-negative useable energy (such as diesel or hydrogen) while making the major input (bio-char) for terra preta on the farm.

What the hell you babbling about Granpa? We're talking about ENERGY PRODUCTION FROM GASIFICATION.. For those hippies that couldn't pay their electric bills.. NOT the waste product from combusting the garbage.. BOTH SIDES used this during WW2.
Nothing new -- and CERTAINLY NOT a green process. PARTICULARLY when done by transient squatters..

 

[flacaltenn]

Want to see a picture of that battery GoldiRocks needs for each of his wind farms???

http://www.popsci.com/science/artic...lds-largest-battery-36-megawatt-hour-behemoth

China Builds the World's Largest Battery, a Building-Sized, 36-Megawatt-Hour Behemoth
By Clay Dillow
Posted 01.04.2012 at 12:05 pm

That's enough to power something like 12,000 homes for an hour during a total power failure, and enough for SGCC authorities to declare it the world's largest energy storage device. The $500 million facility is constructed of arrays of BYD batteries "larger than a football field," according to an SGCC press release, and they should increase the region's renewable energy efficiency by up to 10 percent.

The array, located in Zhangbei, isn't just a stand-alone battery. It is hooked into 140 megawatts of wind and solar power generation projects as well as a smart grid transmission system. Together, these elements represent China's push toward a smart grid system that can generate renewable energy when conditions are ripe and store excess energy in its new battery array for use when energy generation troughs throughout the day.

Only a HUGE building and $500Mill.. That'll go over great in the wilderness where these clunkers are located.. And THAT doesn't get you thru Tues and part of Wednesday when the wind dont blow. This is a couple HOURS of storage...

 

[Old Rocks]

LOL. What a silly person you truly are. About six years ago I was on a trip to DC with another couple, good freinds, and they showed me this little TV that had a screen about 4" by 5". It was about 1/2 thick, with a total size of about 5" by 7". Now when I was young, I remember reading a Popular Mechanics magazine that I found in the attic of an old building, from 1923. It showed one of the first TV's, with a significantly smaller screen, and a cabinet the size of a desk.

Yes, this very large grid scale battery is large and clunky. And in a decade, one that size will store several orders of magnitude more energy than that does. Fellows like you were yapping how the batteries would never power a vehicle more than a few tens of miles between charges five years ago, now Tesla is doing 250, and will have a battery capable of 400 in their vehicles by 2015. Technology marches on in spite of the Luddites.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Solar Cell Efficiency Breakthrough Achieved By Channeling LEGO

Chalk up another score for aluminum. The humble — as in, cheap and abundant — metal has been popping up all over the sustainable tech field, and in the latest development, an international research team has demonstrated that nanoscale LEGO-style array of aluminum studs can improve solar cell efficiency by up to 22 percent. If the labwork translates into commercial development, that will help drive the rapidly sinking cost of solar power down even farther.

That’s a significant breakthrough, because until now gold and silver have been the focus of attention in the solar cell efficiency field due to their vigorous interaction with light.

Read more at Solar Cell Efficiency Boosted By LEGO Style Aluminum Studs

 

[flacaltenn]

LOL. What a silly person you truly are. About six years ago I was on a trip to DC with another couple, good freinds, and they showed me this little TV that had a screen about 4" by 5". It was about 1/2 thick, with a total size of about 5" by 7". Now when I was young, I remember reading a Popular Mechanics magazine that I found in the attic of an old building, from 1923. It showed one of the first TV's, with a significantly smaller screen, and a cabinet the size of a desk.

Yes, this very large grid scale battery is large and clunky. And in a decade, one that size will store several orders of magnitude more energy than that does. Fellows like you were yapping how the batteries would never power a vehicle more than a few tens of miles between charges five years ago, now Tesla is doing 250, and will have a battery capable of 400 in their vehicles by 2015. Technology marches on in spite of the Luddites.

I'm not yapping how the batteries would never power a vehicle more than 10s of miles BECAUSE I KNOW better...

Detroit Electric - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Detroit Electric (1907–1939 and 2008–present) was an electric car produced by the Anderson Electric Car Company in Detroit, Michigan. The company built 13,000 electric cars from 1907 to 1939.[1] The Detroit Electric brand was revived again in 2008 to produce modern all-electric cars by Detroit Electric Holding Ltd. of the Netherlands.[2][3]

Production of the electric automobile, powered by a rechargeable lead acid battery, began in 1907. For an additional US$600, an Edison nickel-iron battery was available from 1911 to 1916. The cars were advertised as reliably getting 80 miles (130 km) between battery recharging, although in one test a Detroit Electric ran 211.3 miles (340.1 km) on a single charge. Top speed was only about 20 mph (32 km/h), but this was considered adequate for driving within city or town limits at the time.

Was that you Gramps back in 1907 that was saying "some day, these EVs will get 250MILES between charges and they will go TWICE as fast???

As for your grid-scale storage plan --- there's this thing called energy density. And compressing a $500Mil multi-football size building down to realistic economics is gonna be a real challenge to both safety and reliability and cost. That China installation only improves 140MWatt renewable load by 10%... NONE of this is gonna happen in time to save the planet from CO2..

You need HOURS of storage for each installation.. Not one hour at one installation.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Record Breaking Solar Cell Efficiency From A “Perfect Crystal”

Gallium is already on its way to becoming the workhorse of the solar tech field, and now it looks like the soft metal is on track to become a thoroughbred. A team of US scientists has hit upon an improved method for growing indium gallium nitride (InGaN) crystals that could lead to record-breaking solar cell efficiency. So far the method has resulted in a film of InGaN that has “almost ideal characteristics.”

To ice the cake, an analysis of the film revealed the precise reason why the results of the new InGaN growing method were so good, which could lead to further improvements in LED technology as well as solar cells.

A Perfect InGaN Crystal

Nitride refers to a compound of nitrogen, in this case in conjunction with indium, a soft silvery-white, zinc-like metal, as well as gallium.

Read more at Solar Cell Efficiency Could Break New Records With Improved InGaN.

 

[ScienceRocks]

A123 Partners With SolidEnergy To Achieve 4X Energy Density In Lithium-Ion Batteries

A123 Venture Technologies has teamed up with SolidEnergy to develop lithium-ion batteries with four times the energy density of conventional lithium-ion batteries. The technology is called a Solid Polymer Ionic Liquid (SPIL) electrolyte.

A123′s standard 18650 batteries only achieve 95 Wh/kg, which is still much better than lead-acid and NiMH batteries, but energy density was the weakness of A123 battery technology.

Conventional lithium-ion batteries are currently in the low 100 Wh/kg range. About 110. Multiply that by four, and you have a whopping 440 Wh/kg, which would reduce the weight of a battery the size of the Nissan Leaf’s from 218 pounds to a measly 54 pounds. That is so lightweight, you could lift it with one of your bare hands! (Well, if you are fairly strong.) That would make the Leaf light enough that it could travel much further on a charge, or would allow for more batteries to be put in the Leaf, also allowing for much longer range.

Read more at A123 Partners With SolidEnergy To Achieve 4X Energy Density

 

[ScienceRocks]

Lithium-sulfur battery breakthroughs for holding good charges for up to 200 recharges

Cornell researchers’ improvement of the performance of lithium-sulfur batteries, a promising alternative to today’s lithium-ion batteries.

Two recently published papers, both originating from the lab of Hector Abruña, the Emile M. Chamot Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, describe breakthroughs in the durability and performance of lithium-sulfur battery cathodes, one by using a component of corn starch, and the other, by modeling a nanocomposite material after the yolk-shell structure of eggs.

“Lithium-sulfur batteries could potentially offer about five times the energy density of today’s typically used lithium-ion batteries,” said Yingchao Yu, Ph.D. student with Abruña, and co-first author on the JACS publication. “But a lithium-sulfur battery is not a stable system, as its capacity tends to fade over a short period of time.”

After about 50 charge cycles, the energy density of a lithium-sulfur battery decreases rapidly due to a phenomenon called the polysulfide shuttling effect, which is when the polysulfide chains in the battery’s cathode (positive end) dissolve in the electrolyte, the ionizing liquid that allows electrons to flow.

To combat this problem and stabilize the sulfur, the researchers used amylopectin, a polysaccharide that’s a main component of corn starch.

Lithium-sulfur battery breakthroughs for holding good charges for up to 200 recharges

 

[ScienceRocks]

Thin-Film Solar Cell Efficiency Record Set By Centre For Solar Energy & Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg

The Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW) has announced that it has set a new copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) thin-film solar cell efficiency record.

The 20.8% record beats ZSW’s own previous record of 20.3% as well as the 20.4% multicrystalline PV cell record — the first time that thin-film solar cell efficiency has surpass multicrystalline PV cell efficiency.

“Our new record shows that CIGS thin-film technology still has untapped technological and economic potential,” says Michael Powalla, head of the photovoltaics division at ZSW.

Read more at Thin-Film Solar Cell Efficiency Record Set By Centre For Solar Energy & Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg | CleanTechnica

 

[ScienceRocks]

Lasers point to the future of uranium enrichment

With the world’s first laser enrichment plant having received a construction and operating license from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2012, the stage has been set for a radical change in the industry. So how does laser enrichment work, and what commercial benefits, along with proliferation concerns, does this new process present compared to current methods?

Nuclear power plants generally benefit from uranium enrichment. By increasing the abundance of U-235 in uranium fuel rods from the natural abundance of 0.71 percent to 3 percent or greater, fewer compromises need be made to reach gigawatt power levels. A few reactors use uranium enriched to about 20 percent U-235, and at the extreme, some nuclear submarines use fuel enriched to about 93 percent.

Lasers point to the future of uranium enrichment

 

[ScienceRocks]

Volume of nuclear waste could be reduced by 90 per cent says new research

Engineers from the University of Sheffield have developed a way to significantly reduce the volume of some higher activity wastes, which will reduce the cost of interim storage and final disposal.

The researchers, from the University’s Faculty of Engineering, have shown that mixing plutonium-contaminated waste with blast furnace slag and turning it into glass reduces its volume by 85-95 per cent. It also effectively locks in the radioactive plutonium, creating a stable end product.

Volume of nuclear waste could be reduced by 90 per cent says new research - News releases - News - The University of Sheffield

I hope to see this put into use and a tripling of our use of nuclear power

 

[ScienceRocks]

Ambri liquid metal battery: Prototype deployment set for 2014

16 minutes ago by Nancy Owano weblog

Phys.org) —November is a milestone month for Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) spinoff company Ambri, where a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Marlborough, Massachusetts, on November 7 marked its new production facility. Ambri is targeting its liquid metal battery technology for use in the electricity grid. The company believes they have an electricity storage solution that will change the way electric grids are operated worldwide. Ambri's liquid metal battery technology breaks away from other storage options; each cell consists of three self-separating liquid layers, two metals and a salt, that float on top of each other based on density differences and immiscibility, said Ambri. The system operates at elevated temperature maintained by self-heating during charging and discharging.

Read more at: Ambri liquid metal battery: Prototype deployment set for 2014

 

[ScienceRocks]

Fusion reactor achieves tenfold increase in plasma confinement time

The promise of fusion is immense. Its fuel is hydrogen plasma, made from the most abundant atom in the Universe, and the major byproduct is helium, an inert gas. In this era with the threat of climate change, clean alternative sources of energy are more necessary than ever. However, even after decades of research and enormous investments of money, scientists haven't succeeded in producing a working nuclear fusion plant. Nevertheless, many feel the potential payoff is worth continued investment.

For that reason, work is proceeding apace on the next generation of fusion reactors. Researchers at the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) in Hefei, China, achieved a significant improvement in its confinement time and the density of the plasma it held. This step is necessary to maintain the appropriate conditions for fusion as well as to reduce the damage the hot plasma causes to the reactor walls. As described by J. Li and colleagues, the latest run at EAST achieved a plasma pulse lasting over 30 seconds, a record achievement that simultaneously demonstrated improvements in heat dispersal.

Fusion reactor achieves tenfold increase in plasma confinement time | Ars Technica

 

[Old Rocks]

Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI) :: Towards sodium ion batteries ? understanding sodium dynamics on a microscopic level

Lithium ion batteries are highly efficient and provide electrical energy for laptops, mobile phones and lately also for the growing electric car market. But there are drawbacks to this technology: lithium is expensive and its extraction rather harmful to the environment. One possible alternative might be to substitute lithium with sodium – an element with similar chemical properties but much more abundant. Charging and discharging these batteries occurs via ion migration in and out of the battery electrodes. Therefore, to be able to develop the necessary sodium-based batteries, it is crucial to understand how sodium ions move in the relevant materials. Now, for the first time, scientists at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have determined the paths along which sodium ions move in a prospective battery material. They prepared the compound Na0.7CoO2 and investigated it using neutron-scattering at SINQ, the PSI’s Swiss neutron source. It turns out that the paths along which the ions move inside the electrode change with temperature and are directly connected to very small changes in the atomic structure of the material. With these results, one can now start to think of new and specific ways to manipulate the materials through slight changes to their structure or composition, for example – and thereby achieve the optimized material properties necessary for use in future batteries. The results have now been published in the journal Physical Review Letters

 

[ScienceRocks]

EVA electric taxi can travel 200 km on a 15-minute charge

Given how many miles taxis put in per day, the concept of electric taxis is certainly appealing. That said, one problem is the amount of time that their batteries can take to recharge – most cabbies won't want to shorten their work day or do a split shift, in order to juice up their cars. With the EVA taxi, however, they wouldn't have to. The prototype vehicle can reportedly get enough of a charge in 15 minutes to travel 200 km (124 mi).

EVA was created via the TUM Create project, a collaboration between Germany's Technische Universität München and Singapore's Nanyang Technological University. The 200-km figure is based on typical Singapore taxi-driving patterns, with the air conditioning turned on.

EVA electric taxi can travel 200 km on a 15-minute charge

 

[ScienceRocks]

Staggering Turbines Improves Performance 33%

Oct. 30, 2013 — Research into the best ways to arrange wind turbines has produced staggering results -- quite literally.

The University of Delaware's Cristina Archer and her Atmosphere and Energy Research Group found that staggering and spacing out turbines in an offshore wind farm can improve performance by as much as 33 percent. "Staggering every other row was amazingly efficient," said Archer, associate professor of physical ocean science and engineering and geography in UD's College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment.

The findings, which appeared last month in Geophysical Research Letters, could help engineers plan improved offshore wind farms.

Staggering turbines improves performance 33%