DOE wants 5X battery power boost in 5 years

[ScienceRocks]

DOE wants 5X battery power boost in 5 years

Establishes center for battery research at Argonne National Laboratory

By Patrick Thibodeau

November 30, 2012 04:02 PM ET

DOE wants 5X battery power boost in 5 years - Computerworld

Computerworld - The U.S. Dept. of Energy has set a goal to develop battery and energy storage technologies that are five times more powerful and five times cheaper than today's within five years.

To accomplish this, U.S. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu is taking some lesson from U.S. history.

The DOE is creating a new Joint Center for Energy Storage Research, at a cost of $120 million over five years, that's intended to reproduce development environments that were successfully used by Bell Laboratories in the World War II Manhattan Project that produced an atomic bomb.

"When you had to deliver the goods very, very quickly, you needed to put the best scientists next to the best engineers across disciplines to get very focused," said Chu at a press conference Friday that was streamed live from Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. The center will be located there.

It's good to push towards goals. I have no problem with us trying!

 

[Politico]

Grat more of my tax dollars down the drain. That's what happens when you put politicians in charge of science. Why are you trying so hard to piss everyone off.

 

[Old Rocks]

Ah yes, the swan song of any nation, why spend money for basic R and D. Bet you would have turned thumbs down on the idea of someone spendng time and money investigating the properties of some weird materials called semiconductors.

 

[Katzndogz]

Why not mandate 5X the battery power. After all, the government mandated a biofuel that has never been developed. Now that the mandate time limit has come and gone without development of the biofuel, the government just fines companies by the day for not using a fuel that doesn't exist. They can fine them for not using batteries that don't exist just as well.

 

[Old Rocks]

From throwing a railroad across an untamed continent to the Manhatten Project, this nation has done many things that most considered impossible at the time. One of the premier fighter planes of WW2 was created in 157 days, from idea to flying aircraft. It was called the P-51.

A young President said that we would go to the moon in a decade. At the time, our rockets were notable for their failures. Yet, in 1969, the Eagle landed. Just 12 years after Sputnik, man walked on the moon.

Yet we have here people mocking the idea that we can build a better battery. The figures they are shooting for are well within reason. It is simply a matter of materials science. I find the idea of a Manhatten type project to be entirely reasonable.

 

[Mad Scientist]

Ah yes, the swan song of any nation, why spend money for basic R and D. Bet you would have turned thumbs down on the idea of someone spendng time and money investigating the properties of some weird materials called semiconductors.

Why should US Taxpayers spend all this money for R&D when the results are going to be given to Private Corporations who will then send those jobs over seas?

Hadn't thought of that had ya'?

Also, the P-51 was designed and flown in 102 days.

 

[Old Rocks]

Well then, it seems to me that the answer to that is to punish such corperations as Bain. And, if the government owns the patents, they can demand that any using the patents manufacture here in the US. Of course that would violate the 'Conservative' principles, taking care of the average US Citizen before the very wealthy.

I find it interesting that right on cue, one of our 'Conservatives' finds a way to say that R and D should not be done by government. It is exactly what I expected.

 

[Katzndogz]

The whole problem is the idea that the government needs to take care of the average citizen. Sure have US patents, someone will commit corporate espionage and steal them, or reverse engineer them and those products will be made in China just like everything else.

 

[ScienceRocks]

This is national security as we can't keep relying on the middle east. I think we should develop such a battery as much as we needed the nuclear bomb.

 

[freedombecki]

DOE wants 5X battery power boost in 5 years

Establishes center for battery research at Argonne National Laboratory

By Patrick Thibodeau

November 30, 2012 04:02 PM ET

DOE wants 5X battery power boost in 5 years - Computerworld

Computerworld - The U.S. Dept. of Energy has set a goal to develop battery and energy storage technologies that are five times more powerful and five times cheaper than today's within five years.

To accomplish this, U.S. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu is taking some lesson from U.S. history.

The DOE is creating a new Joint Center for Energy Storage Research, at a cost of $120 million over five years, that's intended to reproduce development environments that were successfully used by Bell Laboratories in the World War II Manhattan Project that produced an atomic bomb.

"When you had to deliver the goods very, very quickly, you needed to put the best scientists next to the best engineers across disciplines to get very focused," said Chu at a press conference Friday that was streamed live from Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. The center will be located there.

It's good to push towards goals. I have no problem with us trying!

5 times cheaper? Knowing the fuzzy math of Washington, is that spin for "Sell it to the people in a way they can't fail to agree to it. Then stick 'em."

Pardon my sardonic attitude, but Solyndra really got under my nails because it was the Congressional speaker's family who benefitted with the 100% guaranteed loan on their already-failed business complete with doctored books and Obama spurring the U.S. Treasury to release funds to the company immediately, which it turned around and spent it on bankruptcy costs and proceedings. 15 months later 1100 Americans lost their jobs at Solyndra plant in Freemont, California, and they lost them without notice of any kind that something was wrong with the company they worked fro. It was snake oil to get at $535 in the US Treasury for a Congresscritter's family members, so they'd get free money out of the imminent bankruptcy.

 

[Old Rocks]

The whole problem is the idea that the government needs to take care of the average citizen. Sure have US patents, someone will commit corporate espionage and steal them, or reverse engineer them and those products will be made in China just like everything else.

No, that is not what you are saying. What you are saying is that the government should not do anything that would benefit the average citizen. Doing things that benefit the 1% is just fine with you 'Conservatives', but not things that benefit the working poor or middle class.

You don't 'steal' patents. You use them without permission or puchasing the right to use them, and you are open for lawsuit. That is how Texaco and GM shut down the very successful RAV4 EV in the 1990's. A small clause in the original licensing agreement with Ovshinsky allowed Texaco and GM to shut Toyota's building of Auto sized batteries.