Open Thread WE 14 SEP 22 ~ Batteries
“Invention is the most important product of man's creative brain. The ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of human nature to human needs.”
― Nikola Tesla, My Inventions
One of the challenges in developing a future energy structure with renewables is how to
maintain carry-over capacity with variable supply sources. I ran across some new
developments in battery technology which may have some potential. (Ha-ha)
The picture above are the 3 main ingredients in a Aluminum-Sulfur-Rock Salt
prototype being developed at MIT. Unlike Lithium and Cadmium, these components
are easily extracted, plentiful and inexpensive.
The new battery architecture, which uses aluminum and sulfur as its two electrode materials, with a molten salt electrolyte in between
In their experiments, the team showed that the battery cells could endure hundreds of cycles at exceptionally high charging rates, with a projected cost per cell of about one-sixth that of comparable lithium-ion cells.
We will see where this leads. Ions, phonons, electrons, photons ...
Some other associated research ..
A new heat engine with no moving parts is as efficient as a steam turbine
https://news.mit.edu/2022/thermal-heat-engine-0413
Ultrathin fuel cell uses the body’s own sugar to generate electricity
https://news.mit.edu/2022/glucose-fuel-cell-electricity-0512
An energy-storage solution that flows like soft-serve ice cream
https://news.mit.edu/2021/energy-storage-solution-soft-serve-ice-cream-1130
“Electricity is really just organized lightning”
― George Carlin
-Amazing coincidences are in fact unconsciously engineered sychcronities,
and we are the engineers.
-On the quantum level, reality is spookily fragile and can be manipulated.
By whom? By us.
-Incredible coincidences without apparent cause are called synchonicities.
They might better be called the stuff of life.
-- character Ganesh Patel
Credits~
https://news.mit.edu/2022/aluminum-sulfur-battery-0824
Randoms from Dean Koontz, The Big Dark Sky
Comments
SCO2022
Another consortium evolving without the 'help' of Wall Street and WEF.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-09-14/Chart-of-the-Day-SCO-s-share-of-gl...
~
https://www.rt.com/russia/562701-sco-agenda-expansion-uzbekistan/
This is, of course, huge, with far reaching
...potential for positive change.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Many technologies are suppressed
Salt water batteries have been use for decades, but no one in the states is pushing them...to cheap and long lived I suspect. They are non-toxic and safe.
Austria is planning new construction of some. They are too heavy for cars, but would be an excellent alternative as a whole house battery.
Here's another being made in Turkey.
I suspect the objective is to maintain the status quo, and avoid inexpensive, nontoxic, long lived energy storage.
Thanks for the energetic OT this morning. Hope you and yours are doing well!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Good morning
@Lookout
Your Salty link provided this description:
Sounds a lot safer than Li-Ion.
A beautiful fall-like start of the day here.
Glad you can catch up some with drier skies.
Enjoy your day!
An interesting theory
Lifted from commenter Sam Smith in reaction to a Pepe Escobar essay named
Germany’s Energy Suicide: An Autopsy
https://www.unz.com/pescobar/germanys-energy-suicide-an-autopsy/
Good morning QMS, thanks for the OT
and the info on the new tech under development. As promising as it all sounds, there are so many roadblocks to all such developments that I've learned not to get my hopes up for any near-term significant impacts except, perhaps, on the stock markets. In the meantime, I'll just keep plugging away at day-to-day issues like "why did i enter this room?: and "where the hell are my car keys?"
I spent a chunk of yesterday in a trance trying to get shit done in the kitchen while an invading horde of bushtits teamed up with the home flock of chickadees to turn the backyard right outside the window into comedic chaos. So, that slowed progress on the pre-trip ritual for anything more than a day trip: without depleting or draining the batteries built into the tablet, cell phone, watch and wireless headphones, there is the need to charge batteries including spares for wired headphones, camera, flashlights and some of those portable emergency chargers and that's just my crap, my wife has the same and more (tablet plus dedicated reader, for example). Speaking of the devil, as you were. Gadget dependency makes one really energy and battery aware. I just acquired a 6 port USB charger strictly for travel because of outlet scarcity on the road, an octopus, a six port and two two ports and hopefully one doesn't have to uplug the reading lamp at the day's domicile in order to keep one's gear topped up. First world trials and tribulations for sure.
Ah well, time t get back to my in-process bread.
be well and have a good one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Decided my solar battery charger
For the AA & AAA rechargeables was not up to the task. Bought one that plugs into house
current and it does much better. Now, if they could make rechargeable button batteries,
that would be better.
Good luck with your bread and trip preps!
Thanks for checking in.
I've gone through a couple of inexpensive solar chargers
but do have a really good one, a portalbe panel that charges a dedicated deep cycle sealed lead acid unit which has a usb port, a 9 to 12 v cig lighter style port and an inverter driven light duty ac socket. I can charge a device with the usb and use a plug in charger on the ac. I originally got it as just a little "fuck you PG&E", before we went "full solar" (ample panels but grid tied). I still use it when i'm outside for a while or on road trips, all the same.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Yes, those are good
with a fold-up solar panel.
I've found several similar units at the local transfer station. Bring them back to life with a
new fuse, or battery or switch. They are house current recharge though. Made as a jump start,
with lights, USB, 12 volt DC socket, inverter and mini air compressor in some models.
It is amazing how that works, isn't it?
I had a former employer that just downright refused to replace the batteries in UPSs. Once they started to fail their selftests and their beepers started beeping, they'd replace them outright, and pitch the ones with the weak batteries. "Too much trouble", they said. I had a nice little cottage industry of replacing the batteries and reselling the ones I pulled out of the dumpster... Thanks for the free money!
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Like a termite mound.
This guy says he designed a building that saves 90% on energy costs by using the technology of termites. No batteries required
There are so many cool ideas out there. It would be fun to see them implemented.
Thanks for the OT!
Biomimicy
That's a good idea. Mimic the successes of natures' critters and apply it to human scale.
While there are still wild habitats to mimic!
Thanks for posting
I once left a battery charger in the outlet in my hotel room.
It was in the country of Georgia. Not an easy place to replace electronics. Well, the tour routed us to stay one more night at the same hotel a couple of days later. I asked for the same room, with fingers crossed. Well, it was right where I left it!
I am getting pretty casual with packing for US trips. Anything I forget is easily purchased at the destinations. That includes clothing and shoes.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
That's funny
Now, if you can figure out how to recharge your memory blanks ..
perhaps with a solar hat?
cheers!
or, depending on your outfit ..
I am a cowgirl at heart.
I think that cowboy/girl hat would not be left behind!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
We somewhat do that with consumables, but not most
other stuff because we're picky and somewhat serious pre-purchase researchers, Don't wanna be stuck with limited options.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Picky picky!
Since our electronics are very basic, they are inexpensively replaced. So far, my mouse battery went dead, and we got a AA battery at a Dollar General.
Recently, we ran into a surprise heat wave. I bought a package of 100% cotton tee shirts at a Dollar General. I got them in my husband's size, but I wore one for the drive home. Everything I had packed was just not appropriate for that extreme heat. Oh, I did wear a pair of jeans on that ride home. Don't want you to get the wrong impression. lol!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Heh, anything long enough to protect one from hot
seat covers is arguably acceptable, ain't it.
Tools made me picky - you really can't do decent work with a lot of the crap on the market, so I got picky about tools, and clothes,... in my younger days I was 32 waist and 34 inseam six foot four with a size 40 coat, pants that fit right were often hard to find and suits were right out of the question, and I have both high arches and high insteps, so footwear has always been an issue. So, why go half-way somewhat became my motto. You can ask your hubby about my taste in electronics.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Long and lanky, huh?
Yeah, a suit would be impossible unless you had a tailor handy.
I am the same way with shoes, post-snake bite. My feet are different sizes in arch now. What I have grabbed while traveling is sandals. I broke some sandals while at a beach, replaced them at a beach gear shop.
But when my most comfortable casual pumps crumbled and fell apart in China, I just wore the spare shoes I had. I bought a cigarette lighter. It fell apart the first time I used it. Good times!
Hubby and I may have an electronics discussion later...
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
It's a never-ending stream of BS
and a good critique of said BS by Russel Brand. Prices for medication in this country are ridiculous and the democrat party trying to take credit for bringing those prices down is laughable.
Here's Russel Brand on the newest effort by TPTB to bamboozle us into thinking we are getting a good deal;
Naw, the feds don't want to negotiate
affordable drug prices for the masses. Most of them work for the Pharma industry.
Whatever comes out of Brandon's pie hole is an automatic, unqualified untruth anyway.
And congress will slip something in, via the lobbyists, to make enactment 5 or 10 years
down the road.
Sheesh