Brainiacs’ Batteries Part 2
Okay, now these geniuses at MIT are starting to scare me. They’ve figured out how to increase the charging speed of batteries by 36 times: and this time there are no bacteria involved, the Friends of Bacteria Association will be please to note. The science is intricate, but basically by making nano grooves in batteries’ surfaces, the ions travel much faster, putting the possibility of electric cars’ acceleration matching petrol engines in the near future, and thereby attracting all those speed demons who won’t touch electric cars at the moment. My resistance to viewing electric cars as the answer to our woes continues, however, as the power still has to come from somewhere: while the recharging technology could be integrated into the existing battery infrastructure in two years, home rechargers for electric cars would have to be redesigned to handle the rapid transfer of energy. “For cars, the speed that they can recharge at home will be limited not by the battery but by how much power can be made available to homeowners through the [electric] grid,” said Byoungwoo Kang, an MIT doctoral candidate working under engineering professor Gerbrand Ceder. But it’s still no good having electric cars if everyone drives alone! I read today in The Lazy Girl’s Guide to Green Living that there are 10 million empty seats every day, and if everyone took just one passenger (or2.37 passengers, but who’s counting?), congestion would be reduced by a third: more than the sum of the parts, methinks!
Tags: Add new tag, batteries, breakthrough, electric cars, energy, science
