Our battery tech BLOWS. When is the next breakthrough?

[Eli]

And I KNOW that you're not getting it. You can find electronic devices like cameras that work on ordinary AA disposable and also on AA rechargeable. It's the EXACT same device drawing the EXACT same amount of power no matter which power source is used. Head-to-head, tested in the same device under identical conditions the AA rechargeable will last 5-10 times longer than the same size AA disposable. What part of that is so tough to get? The new rechargeable batteries last significantly longer than disposable IN THE SAME DEVICE. Electric motor draw has nothing to do with anything.

Sorry, I missed the point of your post.

I'm not disagreeing with you here, but I don't know what it has to do with anything. Obviously a 2500mAh battery that is designed for high drain rates is going to outperform a lesser capacity battery in the same device?

Are you hinting at the advancement of NiMH and LiIon batteries?

They're still weak sauce in the energy world. Advancing from 1,000mAh to 2,000mAh is significant in and of itself, but when you realize how little power 2,000mAh is.. it's more or less meaningless.

Let me know when we can store 100,000Ah in a device the size of a car battery.

 

[Rubycon]

100kAh in a 27F package is not going to be practical without actually needing D/10 rates. (that's 10,000 amperes if you're not following along!)

The activity that would be required means a very high self discharge would be likely. Also if such a package would be physically damaged the fault current would be catastrophic (can you say lightning in a can?) due to nominally low sub mico-ohm internal impedance. (not to mention the requirement for superconductors just to supply the juice but that's a topic for another discussion altogether! )

 

[LegendKiller]

I get a kick out of people saying that the power usage for devices has gone down. Sure, for certain ones with certain functions, but add in everything else we add to devices, power usage has skyrocketed while battery tech has largely kept up with it.

Think about it. What did your average Pentium consume in power? Take an equivalent clocked i7XX and the i7XX will consume a lot less power. However, since the speed has gone up the i7XX consumes more power.

Same thing with cell phones. A straight up cell phone from the 1980s probably consumed more power, but then you didn't have a full color high resolution screen on it. You had a monocrome small backlit, 5 line screen that just displayed text and a fixed image for reception bars. Now the screen is fully dynamic with images and full color with a bright backlight.

What about internet? Internet requires data processing, not just calling. Thus you need more specialized chips.

What about videos and music? More processing and displaying.

Why don't you try to watch an HD video, while playing an MP3, while surfing the internet, while playing a game, on a Zac Morris cell phone with a Zac Morris battery. Not only would the battery be 3x the size, it would still last a fraction of the time.

Face it, the demand we place on electronics has gone up and battery life is largely the same because battery capacity has gone up also.

Also, battery tech may be largely the same from that Iraqi "battery", but so what? Tons of stuff we still use is largely the same as technology invented thousands of years ago.

Should we recreate the wheel?

 

[Binarycow]

they need to come up with nucular-powered battery tech like the ones Terminators use. That way if you ever get into an argument and someone's coming at you just take the battery out of your cell phone and throw at them.

 

[sandorski]

It's in your basement. Now get down there and don't come back up until you have it in hand!