this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2024
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There may not be a revolutionary discovery, but we are nearing a tipping point where battery makes more sense for most disconnected power storage than anything else.
The cell phone I had 30 years ago had a battery pack that was about as big as my current cell phone and was 500 mAh. My current cell phone has a little battery tucked away in it that stores 4000 mAh, recharges about as fast, and can be recharged more before it loses a significant amount of its capacity. It also costs about 1% per mAh of the price of that battery from 30 years ago.
Just because you haven't bothered to investigate advances in battery technology doesn't mean significant advances haven't occurred.
Fossil fuels are currently the largest disconnected power storage by overall power used. You know, the thing cars use when they aren't EVs. You may have heard of diesel and gasoline generators, or oil-fueled ships.
As per the previous part of my comment that you quoted, my point was that incremental changes can accumulate to the point where at some point revolutionary changes can occur. We increased capacity and longevity by a factor of 10 over 30 years, have a new technology hitting mainstream, and another that could double power density in the next 5 to 10. Yet you seem skeptical that's possible, in spite of the decades of advances we already have made.
Now, if you're quibbling about the term power vs. energy, I can't really be bothered with it. If you aren't, what exactly do you think is the reason we use gasoline in vehicles than because it's a highly portable source of energy?