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New nickel-iron battery charges in seconds, survives 12,000 cycles (interestingengineering.com)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 80 points 8 months ago (27 children)

We've been seeing claims like this for years and every time it's been total bullshit. 99.9% chance it is this time as well, but enjoy the thought experiment.

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  • [–] 31 points 8 months ago* (6 children)

    Sometimes it's not pure bullshit, but instead intentionally misses details

    Like articles going "new battery lasts 1000 years in one charge!" - which is true of Nuclear Batteries, because they give basically a maximum of 1 watt of energy per hour. (Which is useful for very specific purposes like a pacemaker)

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Nitpick perhaps, but watts are not a unit of energy.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    Y'know, I had a feeling I put the wrong unit and then was like "nah... Sounds right", I should have went with my first instinct

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    you can think of the units of measure as multiplying and dividing sort of like the numbers themselves.

    So if the nuclear battery continuously delivers 1 watt...

    In one hour it would have delivered 1 Wh or watt-hour, because 1W * 1h = 1Wh.

    And it works in reverse. If it takes 2 hours to deliver that 1 Wh? That's 1Wh per 2 hours or 1Wh/2h=0.5W!

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  • [–] 45 points 8 months ago* (15 children)

    And yet we have somehow gone from rechargeable phone batteries that were about 3 times bigger than the phone I'm typing this on and had a capacity of about 500 mAh to where we are now with the battery that powers my phone being some small part of it and having a capacity of 3000 mAh, with only two major technology changes on the way. Meanwhile, we've been using the same technology for over a decade and the capability keeps getting better. I wonder why that is?

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  • [–] -1 points 8 months ago (14 children)

    Those while are great are just pushing the tech in tiny increments. It's still the same tech. Kinda like how ICE vehicles got better and better, but they still use non-renewable energy.

    This tech we need, is the leap from ICE to electric vehicles...vs an old model T to a modern Corolla.

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  • [–] 14 points 8 months ago (9 children)

    An order of magnitude more power in the same form factor in 30 years isn't a tiny increment. It was certainly a number of tiny increments to get there. And for those big leaps you're so desperately looking for, it isn't one little group sitting down together thinking how they're going to do something. There are decades of research building out a number of tiny discoveries, combined by a group at an opportune time to put it all together so everyone can talk about this momentous leap that they, from the outside perceived as something new that sprung out of nothing.

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  • [+] -6 points 8 months ago (8 children)

    Yea that again, doesn't negate what I've stated. Tiny increments throughout a technologies life is great, just like ICE vehicles, but it's tech from the 70s and we need the next leap forward.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago (7 children)

    Fusion power is based on the aeolipile and work by Marie Curie. Just because you don't see the all the incremental steps connecting those devices doesn't mean they aren't there.

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  • [–] 0 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    Fusion power ain't there yet though, bad example?

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

    Fusion power isn't commercially practical. We could make a working fusion plant right now. It would suck and provide almost no power, but we could make one. And the difference between the one we can make today that barely works and isn't useful and one that would be useful will be some number of additional incremental steps between where we are today and when that would work. Which is exactly the point. And your the attitude of, well we aren't using it today, so nothing has actually been done, is what I'm criticizing, so thanks for making the point even more obvious.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Wow, that's not my attitude at all, I said 'not there yet', I'm sorry you can't read bro

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    Well if you want to read about the many battery chemistries currently in use in EVs, there's this article:

    https://insideevs.com/news/782685/all-ev-battery-chemistries-explained/

    As the article explains, there are several chemistries that have already come and gone, and the current models being sold use a few competing chemistries with their tradeoffs. Some of the up and coming chemistries are also already being mass produced.

    So whatever it is you mean by "leap," it sounds like it's already been happening in the last 15-20 years.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago* (3 children)

    yep.

    SHould be a blanket ban on miraculous battery technology stories until they are actually in production and proven.

    Cause lets face it, if one of these miracle batteries using cheap, common materials with amazing capacity and longevity was real, it wouldnt take long for companies to jump on them.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Research into the lithium ion battery started in the 1970s and they only became common in EVs in the 2010s.

    So yes, it would "take long" for companies to "jump on them".

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  • [–] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 child)

    Electric cars existed long before the 2010s.

    Late 19th/Early 20th century had about 1/3rd of all cars on the road be electric.

    Long before lithium batteries were ever a thing.

    Also, Theres a much higher demand thanks to the modern resurgence of electric cars, for better, cheaper batteries.

    Which means that current car and battery makers have a much bigger incentive to jump on large scale miracle battery technology, than they did in the 1970s. Just like computers have much increased demand for ram today than they did in the 1970s. 🙄

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  • [–] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

    Late 19th/Early 20th century had about 1/3rd of all cars on the road be electric.

    Long before lithium batteries were ever a thing.

    You want to tell me what the top speed and range of those cars were?

    Also, Theres a much higher demand thanks to the modern resurgence of electric cars, for better, cheaper batteries.

    I think you'll find that the first modern resurgence in EV interest came in the 1970s, with the 1973 oil crisis.

    If you research the history of battery technology I think you'll also find that it hasn't been static since 1900 with lithium ion popping up out of nowhere in 2008. In between we had things like nickel metal hydride cells, and for a few years before Li-ion became practical there were even some EVs that came with the option of molten salt batteries (called "ZEBRA" batteries) for extra range. Those things needed to be heated to 572° F in order to function. Nobody would have done that if they could've just instantly pulled a better battery technology out of their ass like you seem to think they can. By the way, the name "ZEBRA" comes from "Zeolite Battery Research Africa", the scientific project that invented them, which was started in 1985.

    Just like computers have much increased demand for ram today than they did in the 1970s.

    I promise you that people wanted more computer memory in the 1970s.

    While we're on the topic of computers though, do you know what the current state of the art is in chip fabrication? It is extreme ultraviolet photolithography, or EUV.

    The first commercial product made with EUV was released in 2019 (the Samsung Galaxy Note 10) but the first EUV demonstration took place in 1986 at the Japan Society of Applied Physics. Originally they thought EUV would be ready by 2006, but it took an extra 13 years to develop.

    Notably a number of other technologies, like contact lithography, electron beam projection, ion beam projection, and proximity x-ray were being developed simultaneously, in competition with EUV. EUV won out in the end but for a long time people were not sure which would be the most practical to implement.

    So yes, the pop-sci articles written about stuff like this are stupid, but the idea that things are fake unless they can move from the lab to the factory floor within a year is just not how the world works.

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