this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
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I've seen so many "this new battery technology" articles over the past decade, I can't bring myself to care until it enters production.
from the first paragraph of the article, it sounds like they share your feelings:
This is an ignorant opinion. My first cell phone (about 30 years ago) had a battery pack about as big as my current cell phone, and had a capacity of 500 mAh. My current phone has a bigger screen, the rest of the phone, and a 4000 mAh battery. How do you suppose that happened if none of those new battery technologies ever panned out?
Of course battery technology improved, but the amount of news articles claiming XYZ will change technology forever outnumbers the actual number of innovations 100 to 1
Your standerd science article is written by someone with a half remembered high school science education rephrasing another person with the same background who has on rare occasion actually talked to the people who wrote the study. Both of these people don’t understand what’s actually happened but need to make it sound like it’s as big a deal as possible to get clicks.
We’ve found a incremental improvement in sodium ion that may do something becomes sodium ion is going to take over the world in very short order.
It's about scalability and all the options on the table. We've got self-recharging diamond batteries that contain plutonium from refined nuclear waste estimated to last a minimum of 20,000 years. Theoretically this could entirely replace batteries needed for pacemakers and any small cell battery. There could be ways to scale it up even further, we'll just have to figure out a way how.
That's just as promising as sodium power because it gives us another opportunity. It's a way to reduce waste (nuclear waste is tricky to get rid of). It's just about ability to deliver. Diamond batteries have been in production and were supposed to be available this year - chances are slim that will still be the case though lol.
almost like new technologies need to compete to get funding
Except it’s rarely the actual scientists who are hyping this sort of thing like that. At least in the media. It happens occasionally, but typically the hype and sensationalism comes from the article writers, especially the ones who haven’t even talked to the paper’s original authors, much less actually read the thing.
I agree that the technologies did pan out, but I don't think it's an ignorant opinion.
I also feel blasé about the new battery articles because they tend to promise orders of magnitude changes rather than incremental change. Batteries did get much better, but it doesn't really feel that way I suppose. Our experience of battery power hasn't changed much.
It's really about getting excited about the article or the tech, it takes so long to see its mild effects that there's no real cashing out on the excitement, so it's not very satisfying.
Our experience about internal combustion engines are the same. We get lower emissions, better mileage, more horsepower in a given form factor, and vehicles get bigger, have more features, and maybe a smaller gas tank and they feel like they have the same capacity as 60 years ago.
Likewise with phones. The phone I described had a 24-hour capacity, just like the one I have now. But the old one could only do phone calls and SMS, and had an amber LED display. Now my phone has more power, capacity, and connectivity than my first home computer...and needs to be charged daily.
People become accustomed to new things, and manufacturers design their products to utilize new capabilities in the way they think is most marketable. My phone could have a 10000 mAh battery, but then people would complain about weight and thickness.
Sounds to me like those new battery technologies entered production.
That’s just how media works. Sexy titles about revolutionary new technologies attract clicks, whereas titles about tiny incremental improvements don’t.
Most likely, the incremental and practical improvements have also been documented in special magazines and journals written for battery experts. It’s just that those articles tend to stay in the bubble of the battery experts.
Many of them are also like these announcements, just 5 or 10 years before they show up in batteries.
Until then take it with a grain of salt.
I see what you did there.
Well then, good news! Sodium ion is in production.
Factories are being built for sodium-ion batteries right now.
Every battery breakthrough you've heard of in the last 30 years contributed something. It might have shown a method of what not to do, or it might have contributed a 1% boost. Stack several of those 1% boosts on top of each other, and you get a workable EV.
Molten salt reactor vibes